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I have been discussing the OCCUPY WALL STREET movement with
a number of people and even visited Zuccotti Park encampment and I still cannot
figure out what in the hell they really want.
Robert McGraw of Royal
Oak , MI
He also visited the park in New York City
He did say that in a different part of the city he noticed
young people and “ordinary” people carrying signs that had “specific” actions
written that needed to done to fix Wall Street.
I have maintained for a long time that Wall Street (banks,
investment houses, etc.) have been allowed by Congress, to basically gamble
with investors and saver’s money without regulation or oversight.
This is somewhat hard to understand if you don’t know the
games allowed on Wall Street. Basically the distinction between banking /investment
and gambling has blurred so much that now there is no distinction.
Here are some of what was on the protesters signs:
BAN SHORT SELLING: This is where an investor “borrows”
shares/stocks from a broker (for a fee); the investor is obligated to return
the borrowed shares to the broker.
The investor sells those shares in the stock market, betting
that the share price goes down. When the share price goes down, the
investor/gambler buys those shares at the lower price, returns them to the
broker and pockets the difference between what he sold them at and what he
bought them at.
Sold at $100, bought at $80 = $20 profit. Imagine this using
millions of dollars. This is gambling and not investing and many countries have
banned short-selling because these short sellers can hurt companies and
economies.
BAN DAY TRADING: Due
to advanced electronics, day traders can buy and sell shares at lightening
speed, making money on the change in a share’s price during a single day. This is not investing; it is gambling and
benefits no one except the trader. Some day traders trade with borrowed money
(margin trading) and is similar to short trading but the gambler bets that the
price of a share will go up.
NO FALSE PROFITS…MARK TO MARKET: Simply put, it is about “fair value
accounting” which mandates that assets be valued at current market prices. An
example is “mortgage backed securities” (MBS) also known as “toxic assets”.
Originally, these securities had a high price but when the housing market
collapsed, home values plummeted and so these MBS had to be valued accordingly.
Banks holding these MBS did not want to do that since their asset value would
also plummet, making them look unprofitable and in need of raising more capital
to match the federally mandated amount held in reserve.
BAN LEVERAGED TRADING: Basically investing with borrowed funds.
ENACT PUBLICITY FUNDED CAMPAIGNS: This is stating that
campaigns for elected office should be publicly funded so candidates do not
have to bow to private donors or special interest groups and do their bidding.
It frees candidates to be beholding to no one except the voters.
These are all great, positive suggestions on how to reform
Wall Street but protestors need to be protesting in Washington , D.C.
The problem is that Wall Street has the money and therefore
the clout in Congress and regular Americans that “bailed out” Wall Street, have
no clout except for their votes.
When the nation entered into our great recession, reform was
in the air and Congress rushed to enact regulations that would prohibit the
great Wall Street meltdown from happening again but slowly, step by step, Wall
Street money is diluting any and all pending regulatory efforts to where no
regulations will be enacted.
This is primarily fueled by the Republicans who love and
profit from Wall Street. We need to tell our senators and representatives that
we need meaningful reform of Wall Street and we need it NOW.
