Thousands turn up for a peaceful street protest. Police turn up in full force. Eventually the police starts arresting random protestors. Other protestors try unsuccessfully to grab onto their colleagues from being dragged away. They lock arms and chant slogans "let them go, let them go" and "the people united, will never be defeated".
Another street protest in Malaysia? Nope, this happened and is still happening in America, "land of the free". I was surprised to learn that the protest had been going on since September 17th. Surprised because I have hardly read about it in our main stream media. I found it out when browsing on the WWW.
It is not clear immediately what they were protesting about. But my personal guess is many are not happy with how their government is sleeping in the same bed with big money (Wall Street) and making decisions that mostly favors the rich and well-to-do while penalizing the ordinary American. There is a Michael Moore film titled "Capitalism: A Love Story" which you might want to view to understand what the Americans have been through the past two years. The U.S government used billions of taxpayers money to bail out Wall Street. That will make anyone angry enough to join a protest. (The latest statistics say that the U.S poverty rate is now 15.1% which is approximately 43.6 million.)
The protest even have a website which proclaims
"Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants. "
Here is a video on the police arrests posted Youtube. You can search for more by entering "Wall Street protest" in the search box.
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2 comments:
It is a delicate situation for government, a choice between two evils...
a)not rescuing this big banks, meaning it will go bankrupts and thousands will be losing jobs and millions will be losing their deposit...and under settlement risk (Herstatt Risk), it could make the other relatively healthy bank go bust also
or
b)Rescue the banks means 'lending short term money to the banks at higher interest rate for banks to weather the storm'...for records now most banks have already settled their loan plus higher interest to government....
Chose!
For record govt not only saved banks, they also saved automobile company if i am not mistaken...and on many occasion 'help' large aerospace company but then again banker is the clear, easy punch bag...
Today...bankers are being blame for losing tons of money...as well as being blame for making tons of money in profits.
Banks are expected to 'contribute to society' as well as to 'be prudent with spending'
To help the poor but expected to keep NPL low...
But frankly bankers are like naughty son, :)
If they got into mess,and they always did, naturally they will asked for 'bailout' from parents. Relatives or publics will scoff at the poor parents.."they should teach their son a lesson..let the son learn"...but poor parent will eventually help their son coz they know the effect not only to the son, but the son;s family etc...and they believe the son will eventually turns ok.
Parent is referring to the govt
That's all guys, sorry for wasting 3 minutes of your life.
(Already saw Ninja sharpen his fearful Katana's of logic to shred my long story above to pieces or Jimmy smiling and said..ah, capitalistic banker!)
:)
Smiling ...yes...ur right.
I do agree with what you say. The "parents" thought they had no choice and probably they are right.
My problem (and I believe a lot of people are the same opinion) , the banks are not responsible for their actions.
When they make money, they reward themselves amply. But when they lose, they did not "bite the bullet" and penalize themselves. Instead , they continue to reward themselves and their own with large bonuses - from the bailout money given to them. Eventually they did recover (and probably pay themselves another big bonus for their "success").
No accountability.
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