Grassroots without fruits
11/8/13 00:40![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsO, hail, indifferent armchair popcorn-munchers curious inquiring folks who care so much about justice! So here's a story. "The police, clad in heavy armor, pushed the crowd beyond the boundaries of the square and towards the side streets in order to secure the perimeter. There were heavy clashes all over the place, the protesters were building barricades while the police were tearing them down".
Sounds like an excerpt from report about any protest event, say, of the OWS. Right?
On its next page, the very same news outlet may've also reported about the boom of complaints against the ceaseless noise of drums coming from the protest camps. A noise so unbearable that the people living in the vicinity, even if they generally support the Movement, can't stand for a minute longer. The quieter protesters may've tried to make the louder drummers stop it, but they've refused. And the noise tsunamis keep piling on and on.
But what could be done about it? That's the charm of these sort of protests, isn't it? They're leaderless, decentralized, truly free. You can't tell me to stop beating my drum. Right?
Surely, dealing with some loud guys beating their drums must be a piece of cake, much easier than toppling the greedy capitalist bankster system? Well, turns out it's a near impossible task actually. Because OWS and the likes have no visible leader that you could address your complaints to. And that's the charm of it. Or so we're being told.
Surely there must be some other way, a more effective way of conducting the struggle against The System(TM). I'm picturing something like a boxing ring - one on one, an analogous confrontation. Their champion vs our champion. You could use all sorts of computer simulations, play videogames even, and develop various strategies, hire a dozen trainers... but once you're on the boxing ring, you're alone vs the other guy. The leader of one team against the leader of the other team.
Or why not two football teams clashing. They still have their captains, specific positions, trainer, strategy... i.e., organization.
Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and all the rest of those grassroots movements, unlike the civil rights movements of the 60s, the feminist movements, the anti-nukes protests and a number of other democratic mass movements, have shown a new way of demonstration against the status quo. Because they're happening in another era, and using different methods.
They're technology-orientated, innovative, instantaneous, and quite efficient in their organization. But these new type of protests are creating the false impression that speed means effectiveness of the message. True, regrouping tends to happen within minutes in Twitter-land. Gathering huge groups of people at a certain place at a certain time happens via Facebook. Videos are being shared in real time on Youtube. And images, on Instagram. Flying high on the wings of enthusiasm from their initial success, intoxicated by the quick sharing of information and the visible effects, the participants in such protests boldly press forward. Both you guys in America and around the world, and we here in the backward Balkans, believe that Internet-based protest could be a viable platform for discussion, a medium for crafting smart and concrete demands, for planning our actions and whatnot.
But we're forgetting that the Internet is just another white pigeon, or a postman on a bicycle, only more modern. If 5 centuries ago the gathering of lots of people at the same place and coordinating their actions into one direction would take days, now it's happening within minutes. And so what? What matters is if a regime falls or it doesn't. And more importantly, what happens thereafter. In principle there's no fundamental difference if the protesters are gathered on the square in 5 minutes or 5 days.
Martin Luther's Reformation also resonated widely and involved large masses, and it resulted in Protestantism splitting out. It achieved its goals eventually. It started like most other successful revolutions: Martin Luther was struck by the scope of corruption and he decided to act. Without a mobile phone or a tablet or a Twitter account, he nailed his 95 ideas for change onto the wooden gate of a church. From mouth to mouth, these ideas became public knowledge. Yes, it happened slowly. But thousands of people learned about them in the end. The mechanic printing press that had been invented shortly before that, gave an opportunity to Luther the leader to spread the word to more people, granted. It's what Twitter and Facebook are doing these days. Only, the tweets and posts were called pamphlets back then, and they were printed on a machine.
From Germany, the movement gradually gained momentum and spread to Switzerland and other countries, and everywhere it had its recognizable leaders to formulate its ideas. There's a debate among historians whether the printing press was the reason for the success of Reformation. It's an useless debate, of course. What ultimately matters is the messages and the one who's uttering them. The leader is what matters, the one who stands in front of everybody and defends the ideas, whatever they are. In the case of the Reformation, it was Martin Luther. Nowadays? Who is it? Who are people to converge around, and point at as a source of inspiration? Themselves?
Spreading the word is just a matter of time. But who has the idea, who stands behind it, who could explain it loudly and clearly, and who could make people listen and inspire them to act? That's what's important. The final idea could be formed by a group of people, or one or two people, doesn't matter so much. At the end, there must be someone to stand on the ring and fight for it. That's how it has always worked.
You could remove guys like Mubarak from power by putting thousands of people on the street after organizing them through the social networks - but can you uproot the whole system by merely gathering in large spaces and yelling without end? The ultimate victory of any cause won't happen until people choose leaders among themselves to replace the oppressor, roll up the sleeves and start working to sort things out after that. Someone you could then hold accountable in case of failure. So the struggle for justice and the eventual victory are more like an analogous occupation, i.e. one or several persons taking responsibility, rather than a matter of technological innovation that undoubtedly facilitates the dispensing of information throughout the populace.
But how are we supposed to have a leader, when most protesters seem to be absolutely convinced that it's exactly the facelessness of their protest that would bring it to victory? That the lack of leaders is its most advantageous feature? That it's what makes the protest pure and difficult to pinpoint and attack? That this protest is different from any other? A cool, romantic notion, but very wrong. That, right there, is the end of every revolution, seeded in its very inception - its inner belief of superiority to all preceding revolutions. And this is no new phenomenon. When I was way younger, I remember the feeling of uniqueness, freedom and almost invincibility at the time we were protesting against the neo-commie now-turned-socialist thugs who were ruling our country in the mid 90s (and who are ruling now too). We were on the streets and squares, listening to cool rock music, then protesting and jumping and yelling in front of the Parliament. And then in the evening rebuilding the barricades that the police had torn down during the day, and so on. Back then, our history teacher at school used to tell us stories of some other protests that happened at another time in another land, but we were so carried away by our feeling of supremacy that we were just looking down at those events dismissively. We're different and unique, you know, modern and smart, and our protest is the best ever!
Every society tends to think that way. Today, the technological innovations are creating the impression that we're participating in the best protest ever done upon the face of planet Earth. And in some years there'll be some other sort of protest and it'll be even more awesome. Whether it's Guttenberg or Zuckerberg, the printing press or Facebook, the false sensation that the past can't teach us anything useful has always been a detriment to our learning.
Even if our government resigns tomorrow after 50+ straight days of entirely peaceful but very insistent protests at the beautiful building of our Parliament, how would anyone be able to convince those who didn't vote on the last election, to go to the ballots this time? And what would make those who've firmly supported either of our current mainstream parties, go and vote for a new "grassroots" party this time (one that hasn't even been formed yet)? What if that party remains faceless, leaderless? Isn't a leader supposed to stand up, address the voters, formulate the ideas they're supposed to be approving/rejecting, and convince the majority that he or she would be the better option than our current politicians? But who's that leader, where are they now?
Those who insist on having a leaderless protest are arguing with nice words such as "decentralization", "grassroots democracy" and "consensus". And that's how it is all around the world. They're citing examples from protest movements of the last century that presumably happened in that same manner, and which in their mind had succeeded because they had no clear leaders. However, even their most favored example, the civil rights movement in America, did start leaderless, but at the end it did produce a lot of good leaders, and of course a leader icon. Today everyone knows who Martin Luther King Jr was. And nobody knows the name of the leader(s) of Occupy Wall Street, or of our local protests here. And we all know the results of the former movement, and then those of the latter ones.
While leaderless protests do have their advantages, in the long run they tend to get exhausted pretty soon because they reach a point in their evolution where stagnation ensues, largely due to the lack of smart leaders who could press forward on behalf of the plentitude of groups and ideas that constitute the movement. They tend to win battles but then lose the broader war. The lack of leaders may initially be a magnet for a broad array of people with different background, professions, education and political views, and unite them in their fight against a common evil. But the fact that the new forms of protest organization bring them all together at the same place, and quickly, does not necessarily mean that it's the decisive factor for the victory of their ideas. Speed- and number-enhancing technology is not what brings down the status quo. It does work to a certain extent, yes. But ultimately, it takes bold visionaries with the balls to stick out and stake their reputations, their personal peace, even their lives, for the greater good.
Sounds like an excerpt from report about any protest event, say, of the OWS. Right?
On its next page, the very same news outlet may've also reported about the boom of complaints against the ceaseless noise of drums coming from the protest camps. A noise so unbearable that the people living in the vicinity, even if they generally support the Movement, can't stand for a minute longer. The quieter protesters may've tried to make the louder drummers stop it, but they've refused. And the noise tsunamis keep piling on and on.
But what could be done about it? That's the charm of these sort of protests, isn't it? They're leaderless, decentralized, truly free. You can't tell me to stop beating my drum. Right?
Surely, dealing with some loud guys beating their drums must be a piece of cake, much easier than toppling the greedy capitalist bankster system? Well, turns out it's a near impossible task actually. Because OWS and the likes have no visible leader that you could address your complaints to. And that's the charm of it. Or so we're being told.
Surely there must be some other way, a more effective way of conducting the struggle against The System(TM). I'm picturing something like a boxing ring - one on one, an analogous confrontation. Their champion vs our champion. You could use all sorts of computer simulations, play videogames even, and develop various strategies, hire a dozen trainers... but once you're on the boxing ring, you're alone vs the other guy. The leader of one team against the leader of the other team.
Or why not two football teams clashing. They still have their captains, specific positions, trainer, strategy... i.e., organization.
Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and all the rest of those grassroots movements, unlike the civil rights movements of the 60s, the feminist movements, the anti-nukes protests and a number of other democratic mass movements, have shown a new way of demonstration against the status quo. Because they're happening in another era, and using different methods.
They're technology-orientated, innovative, instantaneous, and quite efficient in their organization. But these new type of protests are creating the false impression that speed means effectiveness of the message. True, regrouping tends to happen within minutes in Twitter-land. Gathering huge groups of people at a certain place at a certain time happens via Facebook. Videos are being shared in real time on Youtube. And images, on Instagram. Flying high on the wings of enthusiasm from their initial success, intoxicated by the quick sharing of information and the visible effects, the participants in such protests boldly press forward. Both you guys in America and around the world, and we here in the backward Balkans, believe that Internet-based protest could be a viable platform for discussion, a medium for crafting smart and concrete demands, for planning our actions and whatnot.
But we're forgetting that the Internet is just another white pigeon, or a postman on a bicycle, only more modern. If 5 centuries ago the gathering of lots of people at the same place and coordinating their actions into one direction would take days, now it's happening within minutes. And so what? What matters is if a regime falls or it doesn't. And more importantly, what happens thereafter. In principle there's no fundamental difference if the protesters are gathered on the square in 5 minutes or 5 days.
Martin Luther's Reformation also resonated widely and involved large masses, and it resulted in Protestantism splitting out. It achieved its goals eventually. It started like most other successful revolutions: Martin Luther was struck by the scope of corruption and he decided to act. Without a mobile phone or a tablet or a Twitter account, he nailed his 95 ideas for change onto the wooden gate of a church. From mouth to mouth, these ideas became public knowledge. Yes, it happened slowly. But thousands of people learned about them in the end. The mechanic printing press that had been invented shortly before that, gave an opportunity to Luther the leader to spread the word to more people, granted. It's what Twitter and Facebook are doing these days. Only, the tweets and posts were called pamphlets back then, and they were printed on a machine.
From Germany, the movement gradually gained momentum and spread to Switzerland and other countries, and everywhere it had its recognizable leaders to formulate its ideas. There's a debate among historians whether the printing press was the reason for the success of Reformation. It's an useless debate, of course. What ultimately matters is the messages and the one who's uttering them. The leader is what matters, the one who stands in front of everybody and defends the ideas, whatever they are. In the case of the Reformation, it was Martin Luther. Nowadays? Who is it? Who are people to converge around, and point at as a source of inspiration? Themselves?
Spreading the word is just a matter of time. But who has the idea, who stands behind it, who could explain it loudly and clearly, and who could make people listen and inspire them to act? That's what's important. The final idea could be formed by a group of people, or one or two people, doesn't matter so much. At the end, there must be someone to stand on the ring and fight for it. That's how it has always worked.
You could remove guys like Mubarak from power by putting thousands of people on the street after organizing them through the social networks - but can you uproot the whole system by merely gathering in large spaces and yelling without end? The ultimate victory of any cause won't happen until people choose leaders among themselves to replace the oppressor, roll up the sleeves and start working to sort things out after that. Someone you could then hold accountable in case of failure. So the struggle for justice and the eventual victory are more like an analogous occupation, i.e. one or several persons taking responsibility, rather than a matter of technological innovation that undoubtedly facilitates the dispensing of information throughout the populace.
But how are we supposed to have a leader, when most protesters seem to be absolutely convinced that it's exactly the facelessness of their protest that would bring it to victory? That the lack of leaders is its most advantageous feature? That it's what makes the protest pure and difficult to pinpoint and attack? That this protest is different from any other? A cool, romantic notion, but very wrong. That, right there, is the end of every revolution, seeded in its very inception - its inner belief of superiority to all preceding revolutions. And this is no new phenomenon. When I was way younger, I remember the feeling of uniqueness, freedom and almost invincibility at the time we were protesting against the neo-commie now-turned-socialist thugs who were ruling our country in the mid 90s (and who are ruling now too). We were on the streets and squares, listening to cool rock music, then protesting and jumping and yelling in front of the Parliament. And then in the evening rebuilding the barricades that the police had torn down during the day, and so on. Back then, our history teacher at school used to tell us stories of some other protests that happened at another time in another land, but we were so carried away by our feeling of supremacy that we were just looking down at those events dismissively. We're different and unique, you know, modern and smart, and our protest is the best ever!
Every society tends to think that way. Today, the technological innovations are creating the impression that we're participating in the best protest ever done upon the face of planet Earth. And in some years there'll be some other sort of protest and it'll be even more awesome. Whether it's Guttenberg or Zuckerberg, the printing press or Facebook, the false sensation that the past can't teach us anything useful has always been a detriment to our learning.
Even if our government resigns tomorrow after 50+ straight days of entirely peaceful but very insistent protests at the beautiful building of our Parliament, how would anyone be able to convince those who didn't vote on the last election, to go to the ballots this time? And what would make those who've firmly supported either of our current mainstream parties, go and vote for a new "grassroots" party this time (one that hasn't even been formed yet)? What if that party remains faceless, leaderless? Isn't a leader supposed to stand up, address the voters, formulate the ideas they're supposed to be approving/rejecting, and convince the majority that he or she would be the better option than our current politicians? But who's that leader, where are they now?
Those who insist on having a leaderless protest are arguing with nice words such as "decentralization", "grassroots democracy" and "consensus". And that's how it is all around the world. They're citing examples from protest movements of the last century that presumably happened in that same manner, and which in their mind had succeeded because they had no clear leaders. However, even their most favored example, the civil rights movement in America, did start leaderless, but at the end it did produce a lot of good leaders, and of course a leader icon. Today everyone knows who Martin Luther King Jr was. And nobody knows the name of the leader(s) of Occupy Wall Street, or of our local protests here. And we all know the results of the former movement, and then those of the latter ones.
While leaderless protests do have their advantages, in the long run they tend to get exhausted pretty soon because they reach a point in their evolution where stagnation ensues, largely due to the lack of smart leaders who could press forward on behalf of the plentitude of groups and ideas that constitute the movement. They tend to win battles but then lose the broader war. The lack of leaders may initially be a magnet for a broad array of people with different background, professions, education and political views, and unite them in their fight against a common evil. But the fact that the new forms of protest organization bring them all together at the same place, and quickly, does not necessarily mean that it's the decisive factor for the victory of their ideas. Speed- and number-enhancing technology is not what brings down the status quo. It does work to a certain extent, yes. But ultimately, it takes bold visionaries with the balls to stick out and stake their reputations, their personal peace, even their lives, for the greater good.
(no subject)
Date: 10/8/13 19:13 (UTC)I agree with most what has been said here. Protests tend to serve an important purpose, up to a certain point. Beyond that, what's needed is to fight those thugs up there in their own game, by their rules - unless you want to return to square one in the end. And for that, you need a clear agenda, a plan and someone to implement it,
(no subject)
Date: 10/8/13 19:18 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 11/8/13 01:37 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 11/8/13 20:50 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/8/13 19:21 (UTC)heterogeneouscomplicated.True, I still fail to see how a model that works for a 0.3 million country wouldn't work for, say, 0.5 million Wyoming, 0.6 million Vermont, 0.7 million North Dakota or 0.7 million Alaska - and then see if those combined could actually make a political system work. But that could just be me and my European ignorance on the intricacies of US politics.
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/13 19:07 (UTC)No mere coincidence that the only Socialist in Congress hails from that fair state.
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/13 21:23 (UTC)I was really excited at their crowd sourced Constitution, but it seems their efforts were completely ignored. Feh.
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/13 21:25 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/8/13 19:47 (UTC)...Of course, the one who masters the greater number of dirty tricks of the art of fighting would still prevail in the end over the noble but naive white knight. Because... BOILED LEATHER!
(no subject)
Date: 10/8/13 19:48 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/8/13 19:49 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 15:42 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/8/13 20:01 (UTC)Dailyquote nomination if you don't mind. Same about the post.
(no subject)
Date: 10/8/13 20:21 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/8/13 22:34 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/8/13 20:39 (UTC)Really.
There need to be defined goals and a specific means of achieving them.
Else its like trying to count sheep without math and it all goes tits up.
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/13 19:09 (UTC)Huh?
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/13 19:15 (UTC)http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/385050.html
(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 04:25 (UTC)I was just commenting on your use of multiple idioms. Came out a tad confusing.
(no subject)
Date: 10/8/13 22:33 (UTC)Ideas and words alone are like a bunch of electrons: they hide energy within themselves, but they're yet unchannelled so they can't be used for anything meaningful. It's not just the essence of the ideas that matters; it's not even just that there's been a visionary or a genius to articulate them. The circumstances do matter. And the medium is part of that.
The examples are many: from the ideas of Antiquity that only remained stuck within certain circles of ancient societies (like Greece) and were then forgotten, only to be reviewed millenia later and find a new life (the existence of the atom, the properties of light, space-time and the universe, and most of biology and anatomy), to scientific insights and inventions like those of Leonardo, most of which accompanied him to the grave, only to be reborn centuries later when society was "ready" for them, and when there already was a proper medium to spread the news about them.
As for the Internet, it could be a useful tool, but, as we've already found out, it could also be a dangerous one. And not just in the sense that the huge flood of information could be poisoned with all sorts of manipulation and propaganda without the users even noticing it, but also in the sense that, by allowing the Internet to become such an inseparable part of our life, we're already relinquishing part of ourselves - including our privacy. And doing it voluntarily. And anyone with access to that could use it for their purposes which are not always benevolent.
It's true that leaders are needed to make things happen, though. Hiding behind the collective irresponsibility may look tempting, but it doesn't bring good results in the long run.
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/13 01:01 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 11/8/13 19:28 (UTC)But who has the idea, who stands behind it, who could explain it loudly and clearly, and who could make people listen and inspire them to act? That's what's important. . . .
But ultimately, it takes bold visionaries with the balls to stick out and stake their reputations, their personal peace, even their lives, for the greater good.
There's another issue here, one I've been reading about in Generations. In it, the authors present the theory that every 90 years or so people go through a process that roughly cycles every 22 years. Each generational age cohort behaves differently than the one prior or after. Without going into the meat of the argument, the authors propose that it takes more than a person/group with an idea to spawn a historic movement dedicated to change. You also need the right type of generation in each generational place to take an idea and make it a reality.
For example, the Boomers (born about 1948 to 1960) were the right type of activists to take radical ideas and get them turned into policy. From the Boomer activity of the 1960s, the generations before (called "Civic" for the elders and "Adaptive" for the group born just before the Boomers) were able to enact the policies changes MLK and others promoted. Sadly, the Idealism of the Boomers tends to burn out in later life, so the changes they start don't quite stick forever.
Later, the influence of Generation X (born 1961 to 1983, called "13ers" by the authors, who wrote Generations before reading Douglass Coupland's 1992 classic) became ascendant. Gen X tends to be less excitable about reform and way more cynical. The authors point out that no movements get done when my X generation is ascendant. In fact, Gen X is called a Reactive generation, in that we react negatively to what came before (in this case the civil rights movement). Which is why Reagan was able to ride into power on the coattails of the Moral Majority and the backlash against rights of all types newly won in the 1960s started in earnest.
I'm sure I've butchered their rendition of events, but my point stands, that more than a leader is required. You also need people willing to be led.
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/13 20:03 (UTC)> You also need people willing to be led.
Now that's an issue in its own worth that ought to be investigated (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1686495.html).
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/13 21:21 (UTC)Especially in instances where many predicted the united states economic meltdown of 2008 - but were not taken seriously as the opinion was not paralleled by corporate owned media.
There may be a large number of individuals who might have been leaders in previous eras, who might have achieved something notable in history if people would only listen to what they had to say.
But, unfortunately for us, our strong reliance on only following official channels of information and ignoring independent analysts could be a growing trend guaranteeing we'll continue to support the wrong things and crisis which might have been averted will continue to occur.
(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 01:29 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 02:18 (UTC)Independent analysis could be a better alternative being less prone towards ownership based conflicts of interest.
(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 03:04 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 03:15 (UTC)They never make a legitimate effort.
Banks do get a pass, even if appearances may seem to the contrary.
(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 05:56 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 06:39 (UTC)They never mention bank bailouts are still occurring.
There isn't much coverage over derivatives exposure being the main reason the tarp bill was necessary. They refer to it as the "housing crisis" even though subprime mortgages only accounted for something like 15% of the bailout.
There isn't much coverage over how the repeal of glass steagall led to it all.
I wouldn't compare the above to esoteric topics like higgs boson -- because bank bailouts and monetary policy affect everyone directly whereas higgs boson does not.
But considering how ill equipped the average person who relies on the news to inform them on current events is to accurately comprehend many of the key topics of the day.
And considering what a slipshod and revisionist job mainstream journalists conduct in their "attack" on banks - it may not be farfetched to say there is a bias present.
(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 07:31 (UTC)"There isn't much coverage over how the repeal of glass steagall led to it all."
That's because this would be wrong. First, Glass Steagall was not repealed, it was modified. It did not allow insured banks to underwrite securities but allowed them to be affiliated with investment banks who did. It's worth noting that Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Merrill Lynch, the investment banks which were associated with the biggest losses, were not affiliated with any of the insured banks that had major losses.
Second, the housing bubble wasn't caused by the changes to Glass Steagall. The bubble was caused by a bunch of money that needed somewhere to go and housing looked like the place. Overseas money flooded into the US and sub prime loans were given ratings of AAA just because a bunch of them were put together in ways they could never be taken apart. The rating industry was giving very risky investments AAA ratings, which they didn't deserve. As long as these were seen as low risk and paid a much better rate than T-Bills, the big piles of money that were caused by our trade imbalances and by baby boomer's retirement accounts were going to find a way to them, providing the air for the housing bubble. This would have happened regardless of the changes to Glass Steagall.
(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 23:33 (UTC)Glass steagall, banks, the economy -- these topics have a direct bearing on the livelihood, standard of living and financial future of people. They are therefore important and relevent, whereas higgs boson is not.
The thing you have to understand with glass steagall is allowing banks to take greater risks leaks to a less stable economic environment. One of the key things Glass steagall accomplished is separating commercial banking from investment banking. Limiting Glass steagall created a far more high risk and unstable banking sector, which led to a less stable economy. This eventually culminated in the TARP bill being necessary to bail out banks on their over-extended investments. Investments that would never have been legal, had glass steagall not been limited near to 10 years earlier.
Like I said, its called the "housing crisis" which leads to many erroneously assuming a housing bubble was the main cause.
IIRC, the housing bubble and subprime mortgages only amonted to near 15% of the TARP bill.
Investment banking and other woes consumed the other 85%.
Hence, it wasn't a housing bubble or subprime mortgage crisis that was the main cause of the economic meltdown of 2008 -- it was the repeal of glass steagall and investment banking sector.
Yet, our perhaps biased media sources mislead the public into believing other forces were the main cause by labeling it a "subprime mortgage crisis".
And, many don't seem to catch on to the fact that aspect of things played a small and insignificant role in major events.
.
(no subject)
Date: 13/8/13 04:19 (UTC)The housing crisis was the main cause. You seem to think that the losses that the banks suffered were the main cause, well, the losses were from MBSs which lost value as the housing bubble deflated. These were AAA securities and were held by those kinds of organizations which buy investment grade securities such as banks and pension funds. If things were working like they did 20 years before, the banks would have suffered even bigger losses as they would have been holding the bonds rather than selling them. You can argue that they'd be more careful about the mortgages they wrote, but nobody really knew the risk.
I also never talked about a subprime mortgage crisis. If you want to argue it was a small factor, please feel free to do so but this doesn't refute some point that I never made.
All in all, you're not making a good case for non-traditional news sources here.
(no subject)
Date: 13/8/13 07:38 (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall:_Aftermath_of_repeal
I never disagreed on the point of investment banks copping biggest losses, only suggested limited glass steagall increased risk leading to a less stable economy.
Anyways, I wouldn't be surprised if you worked for a bank considering your consistent adherance to pro bank apologetics 101 & stubborn refusal to consider the widely acknowledged counterpoints.
Likewise, I never claimed you made a point on subprime mortgage.
What I said is the media misleads the public into thinking a housing crisis -- and not investment banking, was responsible for the majority of the economic crisis of 2008.
I hope you can read and comprehend that the 2nd time I type it.
But, then again, I shouldn't have to type it twice.
(no subject)
Date: 13/8/13 13:47 (UTC)1) There was a change in attitudes at banks where they adopted more risk
2) There was an environment of deregulation that encouraged investment banks to compete with insured banks
It also lays out some counter claims:
Blinder argued that “disgraceful” mortgage underwriting standards “did not rely on any new GLB powers,”
“free-standing investment banks” not the “banking-securities conglomerates” permitted by the GLBA were the major producers of “dodgy MBS,”
“GLBA did not authorize any securities activities that were the cause of the financial crisis.
investment banks and other “shadow banking” firms that experienced “runs” precipitating the financial crisis (i.e., AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch) never became “financial holding companies” under the GLBA and, therefore, never exercised any new powers available through Glass–Steagall “repeal.”
And, to sum it up:
Alan Blinder wrote in 2009 that he had “yet to hear a good answer” to the question “what bad practices would have been prevented if Glass–Steagall was still on the books?”
I still haven't heard such an argument. On one hand, you have a large amount of money looking for investments, T-Bills paying very low rates, causing that money to look elsewhere. Firms who were writing "dodgy MBS" which had nothing to do with GLBA, folks who weren't affected by the changes to Glass Steagall rating those MBS as AAA, and AIG, another company not affected to the changes to Glass Steagall insuring them. All of this was creating a housing bubble whose collapse was going to bring down companies like Freddie, Fannie, AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch, none of whom reorganized to take advantage of those changes.
I find this more compelling as a cause and effect than some changes in attitude. To ask the question brought up by Alan Blinder, what parts of Glass Steagall which were repealed in 1999 would have prevented this? It certainly does fit the narrative about excessive deregulation causing a crisis, however the specific mechanisms that brought about the crisis, specifically AAA rated MBS that were really risky, derivatives based on those securities, and inflated housing prices, simply can't be traced back to 1999.
(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 04:32 (UTC)Maybe not Goldman, but others, certainly. Question: How does corporate media pay for the service they provide?
Answer: Advertisers. Last I checked, most of the TBTF banks were running a crap load of commercials during the news.
The brand asset you mention is important, yes; but few businesses would risk losing millions in ad revenue to report on even something important. Understanding Glass-Steagall and other esoteric minutia therefore falls to the "often wrong and sometimes completely nutty". Weirdly enough, they get it right.
Podcasts, baby. Podcasts. Cheap to produce and distribute, cheap enough to avoid the Sugar Daddy trap the mainstream guys are in. Their reporters have been in that trap so long they've stopped gnawing on their ankles, and instead treat their shackles as jewelry.
(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 08:57 (UTC)"Weirdly enough, they get it right."
Some do, hence the "often wrong" part rather than always wrong. I'd still list them as less reliable than the news. Cheap to distribute is a double edged sword, it applies to flat earthers as well.
(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 19:22 (UTC)Discounting the flat-earthers, I'd disagree. The trouble is wading through the pile and finding those that get it right more often than not.
For a downtown shooting (which happened just this morning, of course), yes, the broadcast news is the better source. Same goes for traffic updates.
For an explanation of how banking regulations might impact society in general, broadcast has proven completely unable to deliver even the most basic salient points one needs to understand to fully appraise the situation.
They're never going to take the place of the news or news magazines.
No. For the discerning, they already have. For economics, I'll pick on The Economist here. Yes, they do have good pieces. They did a piece on farming in South America a few years ago that I have yet to see replicated anywhere.
Trouble is, these good pieces are balanced with crap that completely distorts any rational picture of the economy one might try to glean. This then becomes counter-productive; people have to sort the mis-info out of their head before they can appreciate the magnitude of the problem we face. It's worse than no reporting at all.
(no subject)
Date: 13/8/13 04:25 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 00:19 (UTC)I would suggest that the aging of the Boomers, the dominant voting block, may be a better explanation for political changes. When they were young, the country embraced idealism. When they started working and paying taxes, the country embraced a more pragmatic approach. Now that they are old, their revolutionary zeal is much diminished. And, the country does what the Boomers want.
(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 04:38 (UTC)Reagan, for example, came from the Civic generation; the Boomer Idealists had to age to their next phase (a kind of cultural confusion), allowing the Civic and Adaptive generations to reassert the cultural tradition thought lost in the Boomer booming. Gen X's cynicism was largely pointed to as a reason to return to values thought lost in the upheaval wrought by Boomers, causing a cultural backlash.
The best thing about the approach this book is taking is that they are looking not just at the 60s-90s, but at the cycle as it manifests itself throughout history. The book itself traces the cycle back to 1580. So far, I've also learned quite a bit about why growing up when I did sucked.
(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 22:35 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/8/13 15:36 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/8/13 07:36 (UTC)http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/201381452017193693.html