

Tim O'Reilly on OccupyWallStreet - BrentRitterbeck
https://plus.google.com/107033731246200681024/posts/Sy8Z2uWy655?hl=en

======
neilk
I don't know if these protests are going anywhere, but it's good to remember
that movements can start very small.

In Egypt, half a year before Tahrir Square January-February 2011, they had the
"silent stand"[1] -- which consisted of just showing up in public places en
masse and saying nothing, in memory of a young man who'd been tortured to
death by security services. I'm pretty sure I heard Wael Ghonim say that even
he thought it was a slightly daft idea until it actually happened, and then it
seemed that they'd found a catalyst for average people to join in a protest.

I too hope for some sort of movement that can bridge the artificial divide
between Tea Partiers and scruffy leftist kids. Fundamentally, nobody is asking
for particularly radical reforms here; so it should be possible to have
widespread support.

[1] [http://www.demotix.com/news/394309/khaled-said-silent-
stand-...](http://www.demotix.com/news/394309/khaled-said-silent-stand-cairo)

------
chrismealy
Financial capital has always been at war with productive capital. Because it's
more concentrated in power (and even geographically) it's easier for financial
capital to be aware of its interests and work together towards them.
Productive capital is dispersed and varied. Tim O'Reilly is the rare CEO who's
smart enough to know what's going on and what side he's on. Good for him.

~~~
Kroem3r
Is he the only multi-million CEO willing to speak out about this?

Or is the protest somehow in his realm that we're hearing about it?

Either way, there's little doubt that one $100 million CEO outweighs a lot of
scruffy students. And in this case, amounts to something sadly futile. Even if
he'd just got one friend CEO ... "and this is my friend Liz: she's a $150
million CEO, listen to what she thinks."

~~~
rbanffy
How hard would it be to organize a protest with a hundred $100M CEOs? I don't
think it would be that hard to find 100 CEOs willing to do it.

------
chernevik
"Occupy Wall Street", and their buddies "We are the 99" and "Days of Rage",
dislike Wall Street because they dislike wealth. The Tea Party dislikes Wall
Street because the wealth comes from implied government guarantees and
regulatory barriers to competition. They could agree on cutting the Washington
/ New York interconnections.

But that's not actually in the interests the smart money actually funding the
"Occupy Wall Street" types. The last Congress gave us "finance reform" that
left us Too Big Too Fail and a bunch more regulatory levers. The pols got more
scope for favors and campaign donations, the bankers got more regulatory
barriers to competitive entry.

The chief author of that "reform"? Progressive Barney Frank.

The Tea Party is the GOP's reckoning for failing their principles. The
Democrats has yet to come.

~~~
derrida
I think you misunderstand the left position. The left does not dislike wealth
or the wealthy. Karl Marx himself acknowledges the importance of capitalism
generating wealth like no system before it. The left has an issue with the
unjust creation of wealth. In the case of _financial capital_ , the right and
the left have a great deal in common - both right and left agree these
financial methods by which people became wealthy during the housing bubble at
the cost of others was unjust. The left would go a step further and say that
there are some forms of _productive capital_ that result in the unjust
creation of wealth, such as businesses that are heavily reliant on manual
labor for ultra low wages.

For this reason, I think #OccupyWallStreet as a movement against unjust
investment of financial capital really does have the capacity to unite
elements of the left and right.

~~~
chernevik
Marx recognizes the _material_ productivity of capitalism, while claiming that
its _human_ consequences are so destructive of spirit and values that the
material productivity is besides the point. That's what the "alienation of
labor" is all about. Any form of bourgeois wealth, no matter how benign it may
seem, necessarily dehumanizes and is thus unjust. And that's before we get
into its perpetuation of a system that will lead necessarily to more openly
malelovent wealth. His vision of "productive capital" occurs in a set of
social arrangements lacking any feature which we might recognize as economic
wealth.

The viability of those economic arrangements is hard to assess, as he himself
couldn't actually specify them. (They would emerge, he claimed, upon
destruction of the bourgeois framework that limits our imagination of other
possibilities.) But whatever his merits as an economist (he cribbed heavily
from Adam Smith) or a social theorist (cribbed from Rousseau), he was a lousy
historian and completely missed the inevitable distortion of high-sounding
ideals in service of the accumulation of power.

#OccupyWallStreet likely aren't Marxist, if only because they don't strike me
as the sort to buckle down to "The German Ideology" never mind "Das Kapital".
(And I don't conflate them with "the left", which comprises great variety,
some of it considerably more thoughtful.) But phrases like "unjust creation of
wealth" show an uncomfortable similarity to the Marxist technique. Such
phrases are written to be undeniable -- geez, who is in favor of unjust
creation of anything? But the power lies in adopting the vocabulary beneath
them, the definitions of justice which turn out to reflect a particular agenda
that is considerably more controversial than our common disgust at the unjust.
It turns out that these organizational procedures create considerable power
for those determining the language by which "just" and "unjust" shall be
determined. The organized, having accepted the adoption of language as an
organizational tool necessary for the correction of "injustice", lose the use
of language for independent analysis -- and perhaps so deeply they don't even
notice the loss. At that point, it becomes impossible for the organized to
challenge the determinations of justice made by those controlling the
organizational language.

The Tea Party types are necessarily unsophisticated. But they've noticed that
they've gone along with a lot of fine-sounding language, only to find
themselves with the short end of the stick. It's hardly to be wondered that
they prefer to keep it simple, or that they find the #OccupyWallStreet types
all too recognizable.

------
OstiaAntica
O'Reilly is wrong about the Tea Party-- the entire movement got started during
the crisis in 2008. The Tea Party and conservative Republicans initially
defeated the TARP bailout in the U.S. House. And the Tea Party and Ron Paul
are the main reason that the Federal Reserve -- the kingpin of America's
corrupt banking regime -- is under political fire.

The Tea Party doesn't have much presence in NYC and its leaders weren't
involved in this particular protest, and "Occupying" is a sixties lefty word
that's not going to turn out the Tea Party rank and file.

~~~
jberryman
eh?... TARP was passed under bush, before the Tea Party was a thing. And has
turned out to be a pretty solid investment.

~~~
protomyth
There are a fair number of people who hated the Bush part too. They might not
have had the name, but the split was there. I get the feeling if McCain had
won the Tea Party would still be here. It's not like the policy would have
changed.

I would really like to know what you would cite from TARP as a solid
investment.

~~~
anamax
> I would really like to know what you would cite from TARP as a solid
> investment.

TARP's purpose was to buy off various groups, which it did.

What? You thought that it was supposed to help the economy? What evidence is
there for that proposition?

~~~
protomyth
Well, sometimes reading the purpose / preamble in the bill that they voted on
gives some insight to the purpose. So, the answer is no, it was not a solid
investment.

~~~
anamax
> Well, sometimes reading the purpose / preamble in the bill that they voted
> on gives some insight to the purpose.

Let me guess - you also think that the title also has something to do with the
purpose.

I think that both are marketing fluff. I think that because neither one has
any substantive effect. Given that, it's unclear why you'd think that they
have meaning.

Instead, I think that the purpose is what the substantive provisions would be
reasonably expected to accomplish.

The alternative is that comgress-critters are incompetent, and I'm pretty sure
that they're not. They're just trying to do something other than what you and
I might like, hence the preambles and the titles.

Note that "they're incompetent" isn't doesn't excuse what they do.

~~~
protomyth
> Let me guess - you also think that the title also has something to do with
> the purpose.

No, I don't believe that, and am kind of insulted you would suggest it. I do
believe that some proposed purpose can be gotten from the introductory text in
a bill. In some legislation they are incompetent, particularly when finance is
concerned. Marketing it is, but even marketing gives an intent.

The actual provisions in a bill are just that, provisions. They don't tell
actual intent or purpose for the most part unless they include funding for a
study to prove results.

~~~
anamax
> I do believe that some proposed purpose can be gotten from the introductory
> text in a bill.

How about some evidence supporting that belief?

Note that said evidence must somehow distinguish the preamble, which you think
goes to purpose, from the title, which you think doesn't.

How about public statements by the authors?

> In some legislation they are incompetent, particularly when finance is
> concerned.

How do you know? More to the point, why does it matter? What will you do
differently if they're incompetent vs they're trying to do something other
than what the fluff says?

Surely you're not going with "if they knew better, they'd behave differently"?
After all, they keep doing the same things, so they've had ample opportunity
to learn (and you wouldn't be the first to point out their "mistakes").

> Marketing it is, but even marketing gives an intent.

Marketing is nothing more than an attempt to send a message. Attempting to
send the message "I want to cure cancer" does not imply that I actually want
to cure cancer.

~~~
protomyth
It is one thing to think everyone has an agenda, but expecting everyone to
deceive with every word is really wrong. I knew some of the staffers in the
90's who wrote the bills for a certain senator and they always wrote the intro
text to explain what they intended the bill to do. The titles were mush (they
would admit that) and sometimes very funky so they could get a good acronym.
They believed what they wrote.

I believe the incompetence comes from not actually having run a small business
and pulling the levers of the economy in an attempt to fix things. Chaos will
damage an economy in pretty short order.

~~~
anamax
> It is one thing to think everyone has an agenda, but expecting everyone to
> deceive with every word is really wrong.

That's nice, but irrelevant because I'm not claiming that anyone is trying to
"deceive with every word". I'm claiming that they're trying to accomplish what
the substantive provisions would reasonably be expected to do and the other
stuff is just marketing to get it passed.

> I believe the incompetence comes from not actually having run a small
> business and pulling the levers of the economy in an attempt to fix things.

I'm not convinced that "having run a small business" is relevant because
they're not just hosing small biz. However, it is sort of absurd to expect
them to be experts in any of the fields in which they make decisions, let
alone all of them.

------
tmsh
I don't know if anyone here watches Suits. But basically the reason the Harvey
character wins is the reason Wall Street has not been held accountable. A lot
of people pay a lot of money and there is enough ingenious strategizing to
protect assets for large Wall Street firms (and enough tangential interests
among any large American investor), that it makes complete sense that Wall
Street has not and will probably not be held accountable.

However, if you truly want to fix a problem like that, you have to out-
strategize back. Which doesn't necessarily mean legal measures. E.g., no need
to occupy Wall Street, as long as the lessons are learned and it's replaced by
something better.

~~~
Tsagadai
I haven't watched the Film you suggested.

What you seem to be saying is that somehow this will resolve itself. I
honestly doubt that is even remotely possible. Investment banks and hedge
funds are making huge amounts of money, why would they change their business
model? If the investment bank model stops working smart money will move. Smart
money already has moved, look at Goldman Sachs. Goldman has since the crash
been playing new tricks and old games that worked to make money. Why would
someone stop playing when the game they know is still helping them to win?
There is no incentive to change. Devious practices continue in multiple
institutions, the market is more volatile than ever and the profits are still
increasing.

Change only comes from within because of some internal conflict or
contradiction. There is no conflict of ideas in the banking industry, their
goal is still making money with money. Their goals and methods are still
closely aligned. That means that the change must come from outside. Either
reform (legislation and government force), revolution (social force) or
depression (economic force through a market collapse). Doing nothing just
delays the inevitable.

------
wisty
Since 1967, real median household income in the USA has risen from ~$40k to
~$49k, a growth of about 0.5% a year.
([http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/US_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/US_real_median_household_income_1967_-_2010.png/400px-
US_real_median_household_income_1967_-_2010.png))

Since 1967, real GDP of the USA rose from 4T to 13T, a 320% increase (2005
dollars), or a growth of about 2.8% a year.
(<http://www.data360.org/dataset.aspx?Data_Set_Id=354>)

This would be my sign:

US household income growth: 0.5% a year since the 60s.

US GDP growth: 2.8% a year since the 60s.

Who is stealing our growth?

~~~
notahacker
Extra people being born "steal" a lot of the growth, but they create a lot of
it too. The GDP _per capita_ figure, according to the Wikipedia article linked
to your graphic, grew by only 1.35% per year over the same period.

Typical household sizes have shrunk too, so your median household income might
well be feeding 2 people rather than 3.
<http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/hh4.csv>

~~~
wisty
Doh, you're right. I really didn't compare apples to apples ther.

Still:

1967 - 59,236k households, GDP 3.9T ~= 65k / household (2005 dollars).

2010 - 117,538k households, GDP 13T ~= 111k / household (2005 dollars).

That's something like 1.2% GDP growth per household, while median household
income is going up at 0.5%.

On one hand, there might be less dependents per household, but on the other
hand, there's a lot more women working. Despite all the housewives burning
their bras, forgoing large families, putting their kids in childcare and
getting a job, household income _still_ hasn't risen.

Maybe there's a lot of low-payed single women, dragging the median down. That
doesn't convince me that everything is OK though.

Let's look at incomes of income-earning over 15s:

Between 1960 and 2004, the salaries of white males went up 0.068% a year.
White women's salaries grew at 2%, probably because they were working much
greater hours. Black men did well, and black women did even better. But
overall, it was a 0.74% per year increase.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_S...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#Over_time_-
_by_Race_.26_Sex)

People are better off, but mostly because the women are working longer hours,
they don't have kids. Soon, they will also be working more years, as the
boomer realize they can't retire. It's a lot better if you're black, but not
because of productivity growth trickling down to median workers.

I could track down the numbers, to find how many workers over 15 there are (or
maybe how many people there are over 15, or between 15 and 65), but I just
don't think productivity growth is <1%, like median income growth. If
productivity growth is <1%, then we have another problem altogether.

OK, here we go, real growth by percentile (1960 to 2007):

95th: 1.86% / year. 80th: 1.58% / year. 60th: 1.4% / year. 40th: 1.1% / year.
20th: 1.05% / year.

 _Arguably_ (as pg says), this is a good thing, because risk-takers and
innovators are being rewarded, driving growth. But it's not as simple as high
inequality = high growth, and that doesn't explain why inequality is growing.
pg says it's because corporate structures are becoming more efficient, cutting
out deadwood managers. Whatever. If this is the case, why isn't GDP growing at
a higher rate than the 60s? Has our society simply reached the point where
technology no longer drives growth? That's scarier than greedy executives,
compliant governments, self-serving boards of directors looting society; but I
don't think it's happened yet.

China had huge inequality in the from 1750 to 1950, and stagnent growth, low
inequality and moderate growth from 1950 to 1990 (with a few hiccups, notably
the Great Leap Forward, and Cultural Revolution, but communism worked a lot
better than their previous system of capitalism + corrupt feudalism), then
high inequality and high growth from 1990. While inequality might be a
requirement for high growth, it's not always a good sign. It can just mean
that the rich and powerful are screwing the poor, which makes it harder for a
poor innovator to take their idea from rags to riches.

------
nhangen
Why does every political argument resort to "tea party this" or "liberal
that." Drives me nuts we can't have conversations without sweeping
generalizations and broad attacks.

~~~
ctdonath
Problem is people have differing and conflicting axioms. "Hands off what's not
yours" does not converse well with "spread the wealth, by force if necessary".

------
ddw
Ironic isn't it that the people that are most effected by financial polices -
the working class and poor - usually don't come out to these kind of things.

But I wouldn't give up on it yet, a core seems to be prepared for long-term
occupation and it could grow.

~~~
danssig
This isn't ironic, it's completely expected. The people most effected _can't
afford_ to come out to something like this. Their boss (or bosses for those
that work multiple jobs) aren't going to give them any more time off than they
must. If they even heard that an employee went to something like this they
would fire them for sure.

~~~
ddw
Oh I agree, probably should've stated as such in my post.

------
pkaler
Silicon Valley should look itself in the mirror if it wants to throw stones at
Wall Street.

Tim O'Reilly is posting to the site of a corporation that funnels money to
Bermuda so that it only has to pay a 2.4% tax rate.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_Arrangement>
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-
sho...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-
how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html)

And O'Reilly probably has Eric Schmidt and Larry Page's phone numbers.

~~~
CamperBob
You have a problem with the laws, write your Congressmen. Otherwise you're
just player-hating.

~~~
wnoise
Lobbying gets the laws passed for those that enjoy them. The players help
create the game, so it is perfectly appropriate to hate them.

~~~
CamperBob
A valid point, if Google or its founders had lobbied for the law that permits
those particular tax havens.

------
twoodfin
> There are a set of people who constructed a set of financial products with
> intent to defraud. They took our country to the brink of ruin, then got off
> scott free, even with multi-million dollar bonuses.

I have a feeling this movement would be much more effective if it could
actually name names and link to evidence. "Read Taibbi" isn't enough. I've
read all of Taibbi's pieces, and it's hard to see a real criminal case
succeeding out of what he presents. Some of it might seem outrageous, but
investors were aware of the risks in CDOs well before the bubble burst and
wanted them anyway. Claiming a little marketing spin from Goldman Sachs is a
criminal attempt to defraud doesn't pass the laugh test for me.

------
azulum
loved one of the posters about the student loan crisis being the next housing
crisis. i have a bachelors with three majors. i graduated in 2008. my
education has been worth (45000) plus (5 years) plus an ability to recognize
bullshit. yep, 45k. i thought i'd get a decent job. now i realize that i have
to manufacture my own job.

edit: shame sallie mae loans can't be bankrupted anymore.

------
mmphosis
Thanks Tim O'Reilly.

[http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/tahrir-
moment-...](http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/tahrir-moment-wall-
street.html)

------
S_A_P
The Tim O'Reilly Factor?

In my only semi informed opinion, it seems that this sort of crime is so
distributed and hard to prove that it likely is just too difficult to create a
convincing case to a jury of folks who may or may not really grasp what really
happened on wall street. I am not even sure that many of the fraudsters even
knew the full consequence of their actions. I am by no means defending anyone
here, I just think that the "crime" is too difficult to package up neatly.

~~~
jeffreymcmanus
Anytime there is money, there is always an extensive paper trail. Enforcing
financial laws is possible to do if you apply the requisite resources.
Unfortunately, we don't do that in this country.

But at the end of the day, if a financial product is so complicated that it
can't be regulated, that's a good sign that it never should have been created
in the first place.

------
maxogden
... in which the Radar rises to face the Factor

------
AndrewMoffat
> The smirk on the face of the Fox News reporter who was interviewing various
> participants said it all. "These people are easy to dismiss."

[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X-DagzpHhDU/TnevQadAJeI/A...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X-DagzpHhDU/TnevQadAJeI/AAAAAAABvkc/PF_J1aqzGQ0/s1024/IMG_20110919_135534.jpg)
[https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Che5TfKQre8/TnevQT7sqZI/A...](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Che5TfKQre8/TnevQT7sqZI/AAAAAAABvkc/e9w2vqyrLKE/s800/IMG_20110919_135551.jpg)

~~~
danssig
Why would someone even bother talking to a reporter from Fox News? If the SNL
fake news sent out an anchor would you participate in the mock interview or
wait for a real reporter?

~~~
Natsu
If those were my choices, I'd pick the SNL reporter.

