Please read Matt Taibbi's excellent articles in Rolling Stone about the Occupy movement.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/owss-beef-wall-street-isnt-winning-its-cheating-20111025
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/mike-bloombergs-marie-antoinette-moment-20111103
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/one-last-note-on-michael-bloomberg-20111105

You understand that these too-big-to-fail banks now have unlimited credit with the American taxpayer, right? And when they f*ck up, YOU get to pay for it. Why does that not outrage you? Don't believe Fox when they describe the protesters as dirty (liberal) hippies or trustafarians. This is a non-partisan issue. The Democrats AND Republicans are both in bed with the banks.

People on this board like to rant about personal responsibility. Too-big-to-fail is the exact opposite of that. If you f*ck up, you should be allowed to fail. Bail-out of the banks means your higher taxes are going to the bonuses of the people who tanked the economy. Can anyone who's not in banking explain why this doesn't bother them?

NOTE FROM AMY: Please post only one link per comment, or I have to go get your comment in my spam folder...as I did with this one. Post a second comment to post a second link, and so on, but please wait about 20 seconds.

My niece has been active in the occupy Portland movement. She has also not been successful getting a job. Could be.. maybe... possibly... the facial piercings are somewhat limiting?

"People on this board like to rant about personal responsibility. Too-big-to-fail is the exact opposite of that."

No kidding. I did not know that.

oh, but every person is their own unique snowflake, and how could we deprive them of that.

Son if you don't wanna work for the man, then don't. You still have to figure out how to feed your belly, and the ONLY person that cares about that is you.

And? Franko, yeah, I'm not sure I recall where any personal responsibilitarian that posts here advocated that anything was too big to fail, care to point out an example?

Otherwise, what is it you are trying to say?

Actually, the guy in the second video had one good point. We are allowing too many actual jobs to leave this country. We can only sustain so many call centers. The conditions need to change so that manufacturing jobs can be brought back here.

Jobs are not being allowed to leave the country, they are being forced out of the country by oppressive regulations, run away tort lawyers, voracious unions and labyrinthine tax laws. The EPA, NLRB and FDA are laws unto themselves and are run by dedicated anti-capitalists who despise businesses. Then when some company begs and pleads and bribes to be spared from some aspect of the oppressive federal government we call it corporate welfare.

NLRB won't let Boeing relocate to south carolina. Interior won't grant permission to drill for oil in the gulf except for a token exploratory well. They move to Brazil, where making a profit is not treated as a crime, and OWS whines about jobs they weren't willing to do anyhow.

We aren't ALLOWING them to leave, sheepmommy, but most people don't take a moment to wonder how modern life works. Are you willing to pay higher prices for your goods to keep those jobs in the US? Products made by workers who get higher wages, COST MORE. Because our standard of living is higher, our workers get paid more in wages. Not to mention all the other things added on top, like regs.

We don't let jobs go overseas, necessarily, as much as we won't pay the price to keep them here.

Suppose a bunch of new factories do open up all over the country. What percentage of the OWS folks do you think will be applying for jobs on those shop floors?

The problem isn't a lack of government regulation, control and taxes on the rich. The problem is corporatism: the collusion between the corrupt bastards that run many corporations and the corrupt bastards that run the government... to loot the wealth and take away the freedom of working class Americans.

Politicians and bureaucrats have the power to write legislation and regulations that favor their greedy, rich benefactors. As long as they have that power they will always have plenty of greedy, rich benefactors.

Big billionaires, big corporations, big bankers, big unions, lobbyists, special interests pay $$big money to politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, in exchange for even bigger $$paybacks and $$favors from the government, at the expense of American workers. They've been doing it for 200 years in the U.S., and even longer in Europe. They're greedy and selfish, but they're not stupid. They wouldn't keep paying if they weren't getting what they’re paying for. And they'll keep getting it as long as the corrupt bastards in government have the power to sell it.

Concentrating more power in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats is the surest way to concentrate even more wealth in the hands of the favored few. We need to take away that power from the government, so the politicians have nothing to sell, and let the rich stand or fall on their own.