Lalo Alcaraz for October 11, 2011

Nice image, but the call is really just for a leash, not toppling the whole thing.

Too big to fail is TOO BIG!!!

Take the first, and necessary step. Go to your mega bank. Ask for your money and tell them to close your account. Take your money to a friendly local credit union that has all the perks of the mega bank, but none of the sleaze and slime.

I went Credit Union in 1982 and never went back. I get much better interest rates for both borrowing and saving. Somewhere there is a Credit Union YOU can join!

And I not only have all my accounts on one website, I can pay most of my bills by just doing a transfer. CU’s are often way ahead on tech development.

And their customer service is always top notch. Even escrow account department is knowledgeable and helpful. Oh, and they won’t sell my mortgage!

And what will you Marxists do when you topple capitalism and destroy the corporations? You’ll run around looking for jobs that corporation USED to provide.

If you are anti-capitalist, fine, but look at every country that has tried to let the government run the private sector. None of them are as successful as the USA. None have the standard of living we have. Yet, you’d destroy the most successful country on the planet. Maybe somebody’s playing you . . .

Anyone who says OWS is “without any demands” is going to a lot of effort to avoid knowing what we in the 99% are demanding. Which is pretty stupid, considering almost all of them ARE in the 99%, and mostly want the same things the rest of us do.

Karl Marx said that it would fall on it’s own , for those of you who are always spewing about socialism. The struggle is not between Capitalism and Socialism ; it is between oligarchy and democracy. Capitalism ,in its pure form, ceased to exist in the XXth Century.

Woo-hoo!

Patriotic, America-loving citizens are occupying Wall Street and the Wall Streets of other cities, trying to wrest our country back from the plutocrats.The Republicans in the Senate prefer protecting multi-millionaires’ luxuries to helping the hungry & unemployed get work. The Teapublicans in the House also prefer protecting the 1% over the needs of the hungry & unemployed within the 99%. VOTE THESE PLUTOCRATS’ PAWNS OUT.

Bruce, why protect the income of multi-millionaires at the expense of creating more jobs for working-class Americans? Why wait for someone to “give” you a job? Create an America with more equality, more fairness, guaranteed health-care, guaranteed education, guaranteed food & housing for all.I have yet to see the Teapublicans help any working-class Americans get work. Those running state-houses have increased unemployment and are trying to impoverish the retired. Those running the House of Representatives are doing the bidding of the wealthy and have done nothing so far but try to create a federal government that won’t pay its debts.

Bruce, you wrote about loving the wealthy because they “give” people jobs (see above). I support those who work for themselves. I also support a government that works for us; levels the playing field; ensures that all our food, water, cars, toys, & drugs will be safe; guarantees that no one will suffer from lack of food, water, housing, or health-care; and provides a good education for all.I weary of those who want to keep such basics only for those who can pay, and I weary of those who don’t realize that they couldn’t live without this government. Look at some of our fellow opiners who complain about “Big Government” while scooping up Medicare.Look: We are just coming out of the worst economic crisis of the last eighty years. The previous one, the Republican-caused Great Depression (why do these economic failures consistently have Republican fingerprints?), required government spending for the millions who were suffering. This one does, too, and when the government must spend, then the wealthy, those who have benefited the most from everyone’s contributions to this great society, must pay more.

“Government can’t create jobs”. Well, anyone ever heard of land grant colleges? Any idea how much “domestic” oil comes from under GOVERNMENT land? How much gold/silver and hard rock minerals come from mining claims on public “government” land? Who funds what is becoming the largest industry next to “defense”- what we call “homeland security”. Who funded most of the medical research in the U.S., oh, right, government grants. Who profited from all this government investment? Oh, right, the corporations, bankers, and markets that cashed in where by law, “government” can’t benefit by the sweat of it’s own brow, or the taxpayers.

GOTP delenda est…

Republicans, remember that Americans were just about ready to eat the rich in 1936 and that it was FDR that saved your worthless skins.

Bruce, see above. Against Occupy Wall Street and defending the wealthy, you wrote, “So once that happens, once the evil bankers have been pulled from their luxury cars and stoned in the streets, how do these poor souls obtain their objectives? Who gives them jobs?”I pointed out that you shouldn’t wait for anyone to “give” you a job and that the wealthy are not the job-creators of our society. Most American jobs come from two places: a government (local, county, state, or federal) or the citizens themselves creating their own employment, as I have done.No one becomes wealthy without the help of the entire society. We are in a time of economic crisis caused by a mismanaged federal government, corrupt deregulation by same, and rampant avarice by a few, many of whom still reap huge salaries while paying extremely low taxes.In times of economic crisis, the federal government must pay more to employ, feed, & shelter people, and those who have benefited the most must pay more.The Teapublicans, however, see this situation in reverse: creating greater unemployment and greater poverty while protecting the wealth of the few. Vote them out, and vote it those who will help all Americans.I appreciate your analysis, but I question an analysis coming from someone who voted for Bushy-Cheney & McCain-Palin. At the polls, you haven’t demonstrated good judgment. Why should anyone think that you are rational now?

The purpose of Government is to Protect the opulent rich (our job creators) from the Masses (the Ignorant, Untrustworthy Workers). FDR (A Socialist) put in motion the false ideas that the masses could think for themselves and run nearly anything. Wrong! The worker, the masses simply are not capable, it is not in their genes. The rich are rich because they have been endowed my God with the ability to be the Masters. Simple enough. We must get away from the phony idea of Democracy and allow the rich to control and dictate (Other than the mundane vulgarity of the masses) all that takes place in this Country. If this Nation is to move forward and regain its status, as it was in America’s “Gilded Age,” it is clear that we need, no, we must have a ‘régime change’ from within this Country where those industrial intellects, endowed by God, are again in control. Then, and only then, can the masses be appropriately dealt with, as President Bashar al-Assad is so courageously doing in Syria, so that this Nation can be returned to its former Power and Glory. SatBLRL

Leweclectic, that remark had the creepiness of Swifts “modest Proposal” Good work.Bruce, I am glad that you voted for President Obama. You showed good judgment. I agree that he has not brought nearly the change to Washington, D.C., that he should have, but he faced a hugely recalcitrant group of Republican senators and a lily-livered group of Democratic senators.Obama inherited the worst situation of any president since Franklin Roosevelt—maybe worse, considering that he had two mismanaged foreign occupations to fix besides a huge recession with a ballooning federal debt—and he didn’t have the degree of co-operation that Roosevelt had. Yes, Obama should have written a bigger stimulus that helped the working-class more and the banks less. Yes, the Affordable Health Care Act doesn’t go far enough, but who has gotten anything like it passed?In addition, the stimulus, mis-aimed & insufficient, slowed unemployment until the media sent the Teapublicans into office. The majority of the acts that Obama has performed have been small steps in a progressive direction. Certainly, voting for any Teapublican will return us to a worse situation.As to occupy Wall Street: In any crowd, you can find people saying less intelligent things. Focus on the major, important messages, to wit, that the plutocrats have benefited too much while the people are suffering too much; the rich need to pay much higher taxes, and the government needs to spend more to help close the yawning chasm between rich & poor.There is more to say, but work calls.

Stupid image. We need Wall St. but under some control and not in charge of the US Supreme Court.

Pro-Main St.Tax ideasNo income tax on the first 30,000 of a person’s wages.Costs deductable to include transport to work (car, parking, etc.), all credit card interest all mortgage interest, all health benefit fees, etc.Sales tax of 0.01% of all financial trading (Wall St. etc.). (Those are hundredths of one percent.)Tariff of 0.09% on all imports. (Those are hundredths of one percent.)Corporate income tax rates to be that of the Eisenhower era.Personal income tax rates to be that of the Eisenhower era for the top 10% of income earners.

It is fitting that the “Children Of Israel” had a “Golden Calf” that they were worshiping when Moses came down off the mountain with the Ten Commandments. Wall Street has the “The Golden Bull” symbol in front of Merrill Lynch’s offices on Wall Street and “The Golden Venus” statue in Rockefeller Plaza.Money and Sex seem to be the “objects of worship” nowadays for Wall Street, instead of patriotism and sympathy and respect for the lower 99% who perform the work of America.