Occupy Wall Street, London and Evereywhere Else

Wall Street occupiers evicted from Zuccotti Park. Occupiers looking likely to be evicted from St Pauls. There seems to be a significant drop in Occupy related media coverage.What and where next for the Occupy movement?
Is it dying out, regathering or as strong as ever?A thread for Occupy related discussion.

Media coverage is indisputably part of it. No political or social campaign of any sort is likely to gain traction without media coverage these days is it?But does that alone explain the global phenomenon of the Occupy movement?I mean if I started a campaign about the evils of electric blankets I doubt I would inspire that sort of participation even with all the media coverage in the world. So what has inspired so many people in so many places on this issue?In my recent month off of EvC (did anyone notice - Nah thought not) I spent quite a bit of time down at the Occupy site at St Pauls. It was interesting to say the least.

If this is anything to go by you are being overly cynical. List of Occupy Locations

Expecting? Well that ranges from the desperately naive to the insanely cynical. With everything in-between.The hope, aim I guess, is to instigate change of a sort that seems impossible in the present political context. OK. What results would you like to see? Unless you think things are hunky-dory as they are I suspect that you and the Occupy protesters have more in common than you might suspect.

Broadly (for starters) - Less unaccountable corporate influence and more genuine representation of the electorate. In short taking back democratic power and accountability where it has been eroded.How exactly this is achieved varies from country to country. In the US the role of lobbyists and political financing must be high on the agenda. In London the role of the Corporation of London is a major issue.Even more generally - Making the financial system something that works to the benefit of all rather than society subservient to the needs of a financial system that benefits only a very few.How to achieve this - Well that is a subject of much (at times fascinating and - I have to admit - at other times shambolic) debate.But even without answers I would suggest that the Occupy movement is in many cases at least asking the right questions. Meanwhile our politicians bury their heads in the sand and hope that things will blow over and carry on pretty much as before.

Almost certainly gotta be part of it. That. Is. Insane. Wll that is the billion dollar question. Transparency of political funding would be the first step in reforming political funding. At the moment it seems (both here in the UK and even more so in the US) to be a very murky business. Once we know who is paying how much the answers to that question might well be rather more obvious. I agree.But why does a political campiagn require billions in contributions? Should the amount that can be spent on a campiagn be capped? How should political campaigns be funded? Are there any examples around the world of systems that seem to have got it right?I don't know the answers to these questions. Just throwing them out there as the sort of thing the Occupy movement is asking.

I haven't personally been to the Occupy Wall Street camp. But I have been to the Occupy London camp. And I can say pretty definitively that your description of the protesters as "parasites and criminals" isn't really accurate. I would almost regard myself as one of them. And I don't think I am a "parasite" or "criminal".The camp has certainly attracted it's share of the homeless. I don't think that should surprise anyone given that London has a large homeless population, that the Occupiers don't turn people away and that they provide food, company and shelter (of sorts). But most of the occupiers I know are educated, articulate, motivated and have busy lives including, in many cases, jobs. Many (again unsurprisingly) are young and without many of the complications that plague the rest of us (e.g dependent children). Many are students - That is true. But many do have commitments to all manner of things from family, to jobs via volunteer organisations and charitable activities. There are some permanent stalwarts. But many necessarily come and go as required.I didn't camp there. But I have spent a fair amount of time down there over the last month or so. On days off, after work and even during work lunch breaks. I did take my kids down to the informal creche that was going on a couple of times (they loved it). I have taken part in debates. I have despaired at the sometimes shambolic nature of debate. I have been inspired by the determined effort to show that things can be done differently. I have (occasionally) been impressed by the quality and nature of debate. I don't see Occupy as the final answer to anything in and of itself. But you have to start somewhere. And this seems more effective and less violent than many of the feasible alternatives to make the same kind of point. Whatever coverage CS is talking about the fact is that the Occupiers are purposefully looking for alternatives and asking questions that nobody else seems to be adequately addressing. Maybe it will all blow over and come to nothing. Maybe it will historically be viewed as nothing more than a bunch of smelly campers making a futile point.But I hope not.I'm really not sure what it is you are so against?

Given the nature of the protest I think it is fair to say that the protesters are pretty dissatisfied with politicians full stop. I doubt many OWSers are rampant advocates of Obama. If they ever were. But you will know better than me - Surely the protesters you know are critical of the present government and president? I find it almost unbelievable that they wouldn't be.As for bank bailouts - What do you think should have been done? These are people's savings, pensions, college funds, trust funds etc. There is a strong case for rescuing the banking sector from collapse. But to do so without major reform, without making the public stake in the banks work to the benefit of society rather than bankers, is negligent and contemptible.

Then that is different here. I would say that in the UK a large part of the protest is at the political system and politicians generally and in a way that transcends party politics to a large degree. I'm surprised that the NY protest is not directly critical of the government given the stance being taken. This to me suggests that the protesters are disenchanted with politicians and the way politics is done rather than just with bankers alone. But I haven't been to the NY protest so you will know better than me. OK. But governments of various leanings supported bailouts around the world. Bailouts were arguably necessary. It is the lack of reform and ongoing support of a corrupt and failed system that is the ongoing crime here.

It sounds simple. But when for decades we have been employing many of our most educated people to (rather than do anything socially useful) conceive of ever more ingenious methods of selling intertwined debt to each other things get more complicated. Simply letting failed banks go to the wall is an option. But if the result of letting a huge bank with billions of interbank liabilities fail is a domino effect of banking collapses, a complete collapse of the short-term money market and the eventual collapse of the global financial system then that isn't really a good thing for anyone.People with money in accounts would not have been able to access it and might never have seen it again. Companies with accounts there would not have been able to pay salaries or suppliers. Conceivably a point where cash machines just stopped working would come about. Imagine the social consequences of all of this.Complete economic paralysis and an almost overnight contraction of the entire economy would have made what actually has happened look like a walk in the park.Now - Frankly - I am not knowledgeable enough about economics to know whether the above would have occurred or not. But the "oh just let them fail" approach seems rather simplistic.If it were bankers citing the horror scenario above I would be more cynical on the basis that they were simply justifying the huge amounts of money used to save their asses. But left wing economists and advocates of deepseated banking (and wider political and economic) reform also paint this picture.It seems the bailouts might well have been necessary. The failure was (and continues to be) the lack of any action to fundamentally change what caused the problem in the first place.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

They might well vote for Obama over any vaguely likely alternative. But that isn't really the same thing. I have had a look at the links Mod provided. The following doesn't sound like an endorsement of any current politician or the existing political process. The exact opposite in fact. But judge for yourself: LinkWhatever you think of the stated aims it certainly doesn't come across as supportive of anyone at all currently in office.

If it were as simple as that - Maybe.But how do you go about doing that in practise? I certainly don't know.

"and they give you the money".....? Just like that? Simple.I have a great deal of sympathy for the sentiment you are expressing about bailing out people rather than corrupt banks. But your statement seems incredibly naive. The banking system is the system by which money gets distributed. If it collapses how does the government "give you the money"? Does the government setup cash dispensing booths on every street corner and just give it to people who seem worthy or who claim to have money in the bank they can't access? What about company payrolls, supplier payments and all the other behind the scenes transactional goings on?Governments could arguably just take over failed banks, nationalise them rather than bail them out. Then at least the banks in question could continue to function without requiring the government to setup whole new methods of money distribution.Is nationalisation effectively what you are advocating as an alternative to bailout?

Yes. I agree. Again - Agreement. I certainly don't think that "business as usual" should even be considered a viable option. That road has already proven itself to be a road to disaster. I think the existing building has foundations that are wobbling alarmingly even as we stand here surrounded by rubble from the last tremor. Bailing the banks out was arguably necessary. But defending bank bailouts as possibly necessary isn't the same as advocating that things carry on in the disastrous manner that caused things to go so wrong in the first place.Bailing out the banks should have been followed immediately by reform of the banking system. At the very least immediate action should have been taken to separate the sort of banking we all depend on from the "casino banking" (as it has become known here) activities. Furthermore those who acted negligently or unlawfully should have been prosecuted, those who failed miserably should have been sacked and longer term reform of the entire system begun. OK. But how long does all this take? If there really is a complete banking system collapse of the sort I described previously the entire economy will grind disastrously to a halt rather rapidly. Having some assets eventually sold and some money forthcoming at some point down the line has little bearing on the sort of complete liquidity seizure under consideration.

Rightly or wrongly that is exactly what many of those who acted to bailout the banks around the world did think was about to happen. The entire global banking system was believed to be on the verge of collapse. Large banks "too big to fail" going under and taking others down with them in a domino effect. A panic of confidence where savers all start withdrawing their funds simultaneously because they don't believe their money is safe in any bank at all. Etc. Complete paralysis of the financial system. That is exactly what we are talking about. Which you just take down to the bank to cash. Oh......