Occupy Ports

The Occupy movement has recently moved into a new phase, and I have been watching to see what comes out of it.  

Although I have approved of many of the actions and goal of the movement I’m ambivalent about yesterday’s move to close down West Coast ports.

The OWS to this point has raised awareness and changed the debate in this country from “how much should we cut from poor people?” to “how much should we tax the rich”.  It’s a move in the right direction. Finally, someone with the courage to tell the emperor he has no clothes!

Yes, there are fringe elements of OWS that I truly despise (as there is with almost every truly grassroots protest movement).

But worse than the OWS fringe are the folks who oppose the movement by pretending not to understand why they are there or craft a strawman version of OWS that is an anti-capitalist movement bent on installing socialism in America.

I’m not familiar with that movement and would be no part of it.

That said, closing the ports may not be the best way to “put it to the man”.

Andrew Leonard at Salon.com apparently agrees:

The costs of a port shutdown

The problem however, with attempting to target the 1 percent with a port shutdown is that the 1 percent are the best situated to ride out any extended shutdown. There’s no way to avoid it. Shutting down “Wall Street on the Waterfront” would have some serious collateral damage. The immediate impact of any port stoppage would be felt by the workers who transport the goods from ports to their final destinations, the retail outlets where those goods are sold, the workers at those outlets, and of course, anyone involved directly in the export trade. California, a state that still sports an unemployment rate above 11 percent would be particularly devastated by a port shutdown that lasted any meaningful amount of time. Goldman Sachs would hardly notice.

Laura Conaway at the Maddow Blog also reports that the move has bought bad press:

Judging from the local paper in Portland, Oregon, I’d say the Occupy movement lost a PR round yesterday. The Oregonian reports that Occupiers made a “target” of a relatively small family-owned company when it jammed the Port of Portland. One trucker told the paper, “Everybody’s got their right to protest — I just won’t get paid if I can’t pick up the load. I’m just a guy trying to make a living.”

You could kind of see this coming. The local alt-weekly, the mighty Willamette Week, previewed the occupation with this from the Longshore and Warehouse local.

“If I wanted to shut down the port, I could do it without Occupy. I don’t need ’em,” says Jeff Smith, president of ILWU‘s Columbia River District Council. “This is a question for the Occupy movement: Why would I want to send my people home? Why would I take a job away from somebody?

“I don’t get what they’re thinking. It’s my job to put people to work. I’ve got jobs for ’em, so I’m going to put ’em to work. And I’m going to take some of Wall Street’s money.”

I understand the point of the attempted shutdown, but I think the Occupy movement should focus their energies on crafting policy proposals and occupation of foreclosed homes.

In order to gain wider acceptance, protesters need to concentrate on actions that help rebuild and stabilize the economy, and bring attention to and rail against the injustices that have been part of the system for far too long.

-Chris

Related articles

• Longview port shuts down after Occupy protest (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Occupy protesters block West Coast ports (latimes.com)
• Occupy aims to shut down West Coast ports – live coverage (guardian.co.uk)
• Occupy Portland protesters block work at three Port of Portland terminals (oregonlive.com)

The selling of America

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Dylan Ratigan and The Huffington Post have embarked on a project to bring to light a troubling issue that I first learned about in Matt Taibbi‘s excellent book, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America (buy it here or here).

The project is called America For Sale, and starts with America for Sale: Is Goldman Sachs Buying Your City?

Goldman Sachs, through “sovereign wealth funds” is helping foreigners purchase public property from states and municipalities.

These sales are often done for pennies on the dollar to satisfy immediate cashflow problems, and provide the mostly anonymous investors with monopolies such as parking meters, toll roads, etc.

The scope of this financial takeover of public assets, facilitated by an all too eager banking industry is staggering:

Says Quadrant Real Estate Advisors: “Most assets are monopolistic in nature and have limited competitors, creating the opportunity for stable, long-term investment returns. Investment choices include economic assets and social assets.” Quadrant notes that the market size is between $12-20 trillion, roughly the size of the American mortgage market.

The implications of these arrangements are legion, and it’s hard to see anything good resulting from them.

-Chris

Related articles

• Harrisburg’s ‘Bad Deal’: City Forced To Pursue Parking Privatization (huffingtonpost.com)
• For States Pondering Toll Road Privatization, Indiana Is A Cautionary Tale (huffingtonpost.com)
• New parking meters among changes to fix collection woes, Transportation Department says (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

Bonuses for What?

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Time has an article in posted on January 22, 2011 by Zachary Karabell titled The Big Bad Bankers, and Their Bonuses, Are Back.

The money quote:

“There was a period of remorse and apology for banks. I think that period needs to be over.”

This is from Barclay’s head Bob Diamond. He is expected to take home a $13 million bonus this year. Because he deserves it.

His shareholders have received meager dividends (if any) since 2008.

Goldman Sachs employees won’t go hungry either. The bank’s fourth-quarter earnings may have been hurt by weak trading results, but it is still hugely profitable. Like many other Wall Street firms, Goldman responded to public outrage over its billions in profits by adopting a lower profile when it comes to bonuses, instructing its executives to take more of their pay in deferred stock grants rather than cash and conducting internal reviews (the result of one such 63-page tome can be abbreviated to “We didn’t really do anything wrong”).

This is the kind of thing I reflect on when I get the talking point from the right that most rich people worked hard and deserve the amount of money they make.

Most is incorrect.

The blatant examples of compensation with no accountability and no ties to actual performance are the rule, rather than rare aberrations.

They are making money by holding tightly on to their capital and lending almost nothing to anyone. They deserve multi-million dollar bonuses for that?

Huge banks have their fingers in every aspect of our diverse economy. Unfortunately, their failure would inevitably lead to economic collapse. They are, indeed, too big to fail.

Three firms alone — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank — now control as much as 30% of all deposits in the U.S.

But the arrogance and swaggering irresponsibility exhibited by these asshats makes me wonder if letting the big bankers fail might not be a blessing — a clearing of the slate to rebuild on a stronger, better-regulated foundation.

It’s apparent these giants of finance haven’t learned a damn thing, so it’s likely we’ll get a chance to test this out.

I agree with Karabell’s proposed solutions to this mess:

The bottom line is that the financial reforms of the past year need to be revisited. One solution would be to break up large banks into discrete parts, creating a new Wall Street of boutique banks without as many conflicts of interest. If we aren’t prepared to do that (and there’s a good chance we aren’t, given the likely cuts in pay and staff that would impede regulators and other public-sector workers), we need to create incentives and mandates to lend. Period. It would have been easy to make those part of the bailouts of 2008 and 2009; now it will require carrots like allowing banks more latitude in accounting for bad loans. That will be seen as extending another hand to already flush banks. Unfortunately, it may be a price we need to pay.

-Chris

Related Articles

• Barclays boss Bob Diamond to overhaul bonuses (dailymail.co.uk)