Occupy Wall Street - Police Officer parks his motorbike on the leg of a protester (Breaking his leg)

[Aprilgold]

Well, theres another bloody lawsuit for the police to handle.

Why are people still shocked at police being heavy handed at protests or disturbances, it happens all the time. I'm not saying it should happen, but the news always plays it up like every incident is the very first incident.

Plus, what on earth is he doing on the floor anyway?

No, I'm shocked that people who wear the badge won't uphold. Looking at any cop in the USA now is like looking at either a glorious savor, when in dire need of one, or looking at a power hungry mongrel. The badge is bloody something that should uphold citzens rights and force should be a last measure, not now in days.
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Spoiler

Guy's making a right fucking meal of it, like footballers do when they dive and roll around screaming. He saw the cameras and went for it, and came out looking like a bit of a melodramatic pussy.

Both of my legs were run over by 11 tonnes of 54 seater coach....I never made all that noise. That bike weighs probably 140kg, maybe 150. I've dropped heavier things on my foot at work!!

Not saying what the cop did was right, but the protester.....twat.

Sorry to say, but that guy probably hasn't experienced punches or so. If my leg was run over, then I would make crying sounds, because I purely haven't felt that tough of a blow. When punched or whatever, I will probably just shove it off. Didn't he also park on the leg, if anything, having 140K on your leg for a couple of minutes would bloody hurt.

People react differently to different things, I for one have never FELT 140K for several minutes on my leg, he also was probably moving a lot, so the injury is just worse then it should have been. Bloody look, 140K, strictly on something, flat, will hurt more then something hitting your foot at a angle.

That looked incredibly fake.

You never see him 'run over' his leg, you see him yelling while moving both feet back and forth under the bike between the wheels.

Explain the broken leg then, do you think he broke it BEFORE hand or what? Exactly explain how he got there to petition, while standing on it, while having said broken leg before hand?

... Is it so hard for people to believe that cops would do this? Maybe you guys have nicer cops than Colorado or something (which would blow my mind as our everything is generally friendlier than other states according to my experiences) and I have no problem imagine them doing this.

Cops, rather regularly, kill people and injure people (at the very least once a day I'd imagine). My theory is this sevearly damages their emotional connection to the citizens, as well as their concept of of how serious it is to hurt someone else.

If I ever broke someone's bone, or honestly just injured them in any way I'd feel terribly upset about it because it NEVER happens. By contrast think of any time you have seen cops hurting someone, usually they don't react at all, it's just a part of the job, like taking out the trash or locking up a store if you work retail.

It's just something you do every day, and so every day it means a little less to you, and when violence becomes internally inconsequential you really open a whole new terrifying world of possibilities.

One way or another, everyone should be careful out there because I'm observing a growing Us vs. Them mentality between the cops and lower class citizens, and they always seem to be looking for an excuse to get violent to show us our place in the modern caste.

I agree with this post and the post you made quoting someone else. A good cop would not keep going, and ask that they move, but as far as I'm aware, this guy just kept on riding.

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I love how people are trying to make this out as police brutality and not just some retard sleeping in the road no I take that back people with mental illnesses would have better sense to lie down in the road that combined with the fact people decided to crowed the guy on the bike when he was trying to get through (go on look at the video and how they close in) and I have no sympathy for these people

Could you describe how he got to the ground, do you think he was resting, that he slipped. I think calling this guy for having a mental illness is a little far without considering the possibility of how he got to the ground.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/video-of-protesters-leg-beneath-scooter-spurs-conflicting-accounts/?scp=1&sq=ari%20douglas&st=cse

Already been posted as being staged.

What I find weird is that he is on the ground in pain and people around him are just standing there taking photographs. Just a bit odd if you ask me.

I think it was something a long the lines of "OH MY GOD, THIS GUY JUST GOT RAN OVER, LETS CATCH THIS BASTARD AND THE GUY UNDER THE VECHILES FACES SO THEY CAN BE NAILED LATER!" type of thing. Probably one guy was calling paramedics or so.

VERY much doubt it, its one of those things to where people will claim its fake, even though it was real, simply because the thought of a police officer being anything other then a saint is SCARY, so they'll lie to themselves and the public and say it didn't happen, it was staged, so people could move along.

 

[Firia]

That is RIOT material. People FIGHT back against brutality of that measure.

Brutality of that...

I'm sorry, WHAT?

Just...I don't even know where to start with you. Try reading a page or two of this thread.

Also, try thinking about the consequences of a riot. Really, think long and hard about it. Look at the London Riots. Look back here. Do you want that here?

I will tell you where you can start. With some objective thinking;

For starters, accepting that not everyone shares your viewpoint, and allowing them to have a differing opinion than your own.

A nice follow up would be to respect that difference of opinion.

And lastly, and this is all I really ask, don't start acting all mouthy just because you disagree. If you have points you want to refute in a form of discussion, then please, refute them with intelligent discussion. Do not cast a wide net over the forums and say, "read that" and expect your attitude to therefore be justified for our difference of opinion.

Now, I said brutality because that's just what it was. The assault of an officer macing harmless girls boarders, but I personally would not call it brutal- unnecessary force is about as far as I'd go. Mace sucks, but it's no show stopper. This poor man, no matter what lead him to lay across the road, warrants being run over. It wasn't just one wheel either. It was one wheel, then the other, followed by the whole lot of them ganging up on him. His lawyer claims he was bloodied all around the face- the region furthest from the bike that broke his leg, leading me to believe that it was when he was dragged in to be arrested that he was beatten into submission.

The original poster of this thread has a long to an interview. Whether or not you believe the discussion, they do broadcast the different angles viewable to see the beat down. You get to see exactly what happens. It's better than the initial link the OP provided.

That's how I came to my opinion- there is nothing to justify what the police did to that man, no matter how much harms way he may have put himself in. The police could arrest him for obstruction, but by absolutely no means flatten his legs.

And lastly, I did not say, "we should riot." I said this brutality is HOW riots begin. I suggest you read carefully, and slowly.

 

[Firia]

Just to help make that image more popular...

(Censored Language in Spoiler)

Spoiler

Yes, the photographers in that picture do indeed seem to be saying 'Fuck the civilians.'

"Should we help him?" asks the naive newcomer.

"No." says his senior. "It's our job to stand over him and take pictures documenting his pain. If you want to kick him once or twice to help him really sell it, go ahead."

I've gone back into the thread as you suggested. I hadn't read many of the later pages, and I'm finding that you're being passive aggressive and flat out demeaning. I'm also beginning to believe that you have formed an opinion based on a lose collection of information and that goofy conspiracy video I saw posted in this thread.

But just in case you have an open mind, and an opinion that can change, I will post a video for you to watch- the one I suggested earlier with the many angles of the incident. Don't listen to the interview, just watch it for the collection of different perspectives. While you do so, watch what the police do to the civilians that try to rush in to help the man. Watch how they hold the crowd back. That man laid there helpless not because the crowd wouldn't help. He laid there helpless because his protectors held people back and then beat him bloody.

http://current.com/shows/countdown/...to-nypds-defense-after-injuring-man-at-occupy

 

[Bradeck]

Here you Go I will let this documentary tell you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw .

Thank you for this meaningless sensationalist journalism from 20/20, a program that has produced nothing but reactionary sensationalism for the past ever since it has ever existed, ever.

Here's a tip for you, next time you want to make a point, you need to show that you have actually researched that point.

You cannot just link to something you watched once and sit back with your arms crosse,d pretending you've actually done anything more than cut and paste.

The system as in the way the economy is run

You have not demonstrated any understanding of the economy or the way it is run.

as for the demonstrations they are more geared towards this:
Quote:

Perceptions vary as to the specific goals of the movement.According to Adbusters, a primary protest organizer, the central demand of the protest is that President Obama "ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington". Liberal commentator Michael Moore had suggested that this is not like any other protest but this protest represents a variety of demands with a common statement about government corruption and the excessive influence of big business and the wealthiest 1% of Americans on U.S. laws and policies.The belief is held by some protesters that the President has become irrelevant, stressing the importance for the 99% to lead and inspire change.[/b]

You really just ran to google and looked up "why are the protests", didn't you?

Listen, neither Adbusters nor Michael Moore, no matter how badly they want to pretend they have any say or sway over these children, are in fact remotely in control of these protests.

These protests, contrary to your cut-and-pasted quote, which, mind you, does not show you have any understanding of this situation, do not have leaders or organization.

The media sell an image here is a nice documentary explaining to you that what you hear locally in the US is not the same as what is heard outside of your sphere of media control.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3ETBtR6HeE
I mean its no secret that the US government has its fingers deep in its media releases.

Okay. Right now you have just left the realm of reality or rationality.

You are repeating things that you have heard on the internet, by rote.

You are demonstrating zero understanding of what is happening or why it is happening, all you have are quotes ripped off the internet with zero comprehension pasted in massive blocks that defy rational discussion.

Your sole input to this debate are your little broken lines introducing these quotes, such as this:

I posted their goal up top. Revolutions start with the youth not with the old.

You read that on the internet.

And the person who said it first was also stupid.

They are making people rise in solidarity the beginnings of any movement is just the beginning and this movement doesn't look like its going to go away anytime soon.

What, like you, right?

Tell me something.

How much have you risked in 'solidarity' right now?

You used that word and you are all in favor of these children screaming "THE WORLD ISN'T RIGHT", so you clearly feel a strong sense of solidarity with them.

So why aren't you risking anything yourself?

Why aren't you living in a public park and literally relying on the kindness of strangers for the food and basic hygiene needs that the protests utter lack of organization have caused a massive shortage of?

Why aren't you risking anything of yourself, instead of just sitting in a forum, finding quotes off the internet instead of actually arguing your own points?

The Fema factilities are going to have a good workout soon.

Yeah, hey, you know, because 'the cause' could use some martyrs, huh?

It'll be great, when these children get curbstomped by the National Guard for something something something beliefs, right?

It is so easy for you to cheer this on, from a hemisphere away and zero real understanding of any of it.

After all, its not your family who run the risk of getting hurt, right?

So we are clear, when you said this, I lost any trace of respect I could have had for you.

This quoted comment, right here, made me sick to my stomach.

I am glad you are a world away from me.

I have nothing more to say to you or about you.

Great post. I am really disgustingly offended by the lack of logical thought in a great deal of these posts, only vitriolic uninformed hatred, followed by web forum posting. I actually haven't heard from a single "protester" yet. Goes to show ya what this all is worth. :/

 

[Cookiegerard]

Well lets be fair here...

When you see a moving lump of metal, do you :-

A) Stand in it's way, you are in a protest it's your right to halt the movement of a rapidly moving metal bike of death.

B) Lie on the floor right where the bike is going.

Thats not police brutality thats pedestrian stupidity.

If someone is mind numbingly thick enough to get in the way of a moving vehicle then they deserve it.

Also, check out the cameramen....

"Don't bother helping him lads, get a close up of that look of pain"

Did you even watch the video? Dont bother answering I'll answer for you. NO YOU DIDNT. The video shows no one lying in the road nor the motorcycle moving very fast. The cop did however ride his cycle into someone just enough to move him out of the way but instead it knocked the guy over where the cop then continued to go which pinned the guy's leg under the first tire. Then the cop moved forward again which then pinned the guys leg under the back tire probably on accident but I'm sure you dont have that issue over in england eh? since every time i see a protest over there is gets violent so theres no reason for a cop to ride a motorcycle when their in full roit gear. I hate it when people who have no idea what their talking about feel the need to say something stupid.

Good. Maybe we can get these god damned people back to work where they should be. I'm sick of all the protestors, the riots, the EVERYTHING.

People. Please. For god's sake. Shut up and go back to your work. Your lives. Your families. Quit complaining and do your job.

kinda hard when you don't have a job and have to live off of top ramin which used to be 10 cents a package but now its about 50cents a package. Then knowing that while you umployed the people who failed the business you were working in, you know making it go under, get millions and have no issuses feeding their families and living the good life while millions of others suffer. Hell there was just an article that China which has so many more people can keep more of its people fed then the people in the US. Its just pittiful.

Yeah, firstly, the protesters should not of gotten in the way of the motorbikes, and secondly the real kicker is the half dozen people, the "protesters" who are taking photos and not helping their so called "brother". At this point, I am actually on the laws side.

EDIT1: seriously! Look at the upper right hand corner! And the police officer is the villain in this piece?

Ha, so I guess you'd go up to the cop and push him off? Easy to call bs on something you'd never do. The protest needs to be a roit so people can understand people are done with unjust laws and politcal bs. A man can steal 100-1000 bucks worth of stuff from a store and get 20 years while some prick does a ponzi scheme for 400 MILLION and gets 25 years. I'll be on the laws side onces it starts doing what is right

No, actually I wouldn't, because I'm not an idiot. I notice you complained about someone(see above) commenting on the video link, and then accusing them of not actually watching it. Did you? Because in the video, it looks pretty clear that the officer is moving people away from the injured idiot so medical help can be brought in. This is happening while the protesters don't offer any help to the man, in a crowd that big someone must have medical training.

And about the people getting getting put in jail for money stolen, you completey destroyed your own point. People who steal a lot more money then others do spend more time in prison."A man can steal 100-1000 bucks worth of stuff from a store and get 20 years while some prick does a ponzi scheme for 400 MILLION and gets 25 years."

 

[The_Emperor]

this thread=
"fuck the hippies" "NO fuck the fascists!" "NO FUCK THEM HIPPIES YOU KNOW NOTHING" "NO FUCK THE FASCISTS YOU KNOW NOTHING!"

OT:yeah it could be faked, it might not, either way it has nothing to do with the actual protests it's either a cop or a dude being a douche. Either way it makes no difference.

Whether the protests are good or not doesn't matter they are there to draw attention to the fact people are pissed and the reasons those people are pissed and they want their leaders to do something about it.

Who are the protestors are, their moral standing, their political inclination all irrelevant.

Who started it, what started it, all irrelevant.

People are pissed, there are problems, they need to be solved, people need to be informed that there are problems, some people need to admit that their are problems that need dealing with more urgently.

Protest is a valid way of making people think about said problems and it's obviously worked hence you are all flinging shit around this thread. So no the protest it self wont do anything except make people think. Who did what and who is a douche is not important. The protest has already been successful as is any protest that has been given a certain level of publicity, because it makes people think.

Maybe people will start thinking about a way out of this shit instead of writing lengthy narcissistic rants about why their opinion is right and other opinions are wrong.

A lot of people in this thread should have a long hard think about what it means to have a civil discussion without trying to deliberately patronise your fellow posters.

The only answer I can think of, to these problems, is science. Unless we can discover a way to curb scarcity, then recurrence of economic woes will continue under the current system of creating money from debt.

 

[M-E-D The Poet]

Well, theres another bloody lawsuit for the police to handle.

Why are people still shocked at police being heavy handed at protests or disturbances, it happens all the time. I'm not saying it should happen, but the news always plays it up like every incident is the very first incident.

Plus, what on earth is he doing on the floor anyway?

he was not a protester but a legal observer

 

[Thyunda]

I just want to point out that a gold/precious metal standard is somewhat reliable in general, but with a fluctuating value of gold nowadays it wouldn't be the best idea. Also, there is the problem of money shortages (there is only so much gold, so you can only have about as much money as you have gold to back it up with, which nowadays would fall dreadfully short of how much is actually needed) on the gold/silver standards, which was part of the reason behind many of the panics in American history. So a gold standard would be a very bad thing, really. That's the only thing I wanted to quibble with in your post.

I believe gold is only fluctuating because of how much money we've been printing lately. I think the only time gold lost a lot of it's value was back when the Spanish discovered the new world and suddenly started taking ship loads of it back to Europe.
But anything is better than what we got, even if we got to do gold/silver/copper, as long as we can get some substance behind our cash, lol. What if we just totally got rid of the dollar and made a new currency, much like how Europe scraped their old coinage for the Euro, but made the new currency refelct our precious metal supply, start from scratch. The government can burn all the old dollars, print the new money themselves, and give everyone the correct exchange for the amount of dollars they previously had.

And almost ironically, the Euro has started to fail...whereas our own, British currency that we rejected the Euro in favour of is still doing better than our European counterparts. You could replace the US dollar with bottlecaps and it'd still be worth about as much. You have to completely rewrite the way the economy is working right now, otherwise any new currency will just crash and burn the moment it tries to take off.

 

[Maclennan]

I'm actually amused now.

At first I was pretty tolerant of them expressing their right to protest but its just been going on so long that I think they should be given exactly what they are asking for in a different country. Maybe we could put them on some uninhabited atolls somewhere so they can start their own society, that always works out well right?

 

[Something Amyss]

vote for dis guy

If you're pining for the issues of the 30s, that is.

 

[Kopikatsu]

-Snip-

So, I watched the video. Educational.

However, the most important part of it, that I felt, was the 'People taking loans they didn't need.' is what started the entire cycle.

Basically, people were greedy and that greed ended up crashing the economy on a global scale. Kind of reminds me of the Bernie Madoff thing. People heard 'Low risk high reward' and drowned him in money because all they could think about was getting more money.

So! I don't blame the Federal Reserve or the Government. I blame the greedy ass middle class. (It rhymes!)

yes, many people who were victims of the housing crisis has only themselves to blame, but I can't let the Fed or the government go in this, mainly because of the inflation. Inflation steals the value of what we already have, everyone gets poorer but since we eventually owe all the money back to the Fed, they get richer. It's thievery and I don't like people stealing from me. And since it's the government who tells the Fed how much to print, they're to blame as well. These bailouts and stimuluses, they do nothing but steal the value of the money we already have.
Also, as an American I don't feel very comfortable knowing a foriegn private power controls our money supply...

Then it will make you happy to learn that a foreign private power doesn't control the money supply.

The video was wrong in that one aspect. The Federal Reserve isn't a private bank. It was created by the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.

The board of directors of the Federal Reserve are selected by the President and confirmed by Congress. The Federal Reserve acts independently from the Executive and Judiciary branches of Government, yes, but they take orders from Congress.

Essentially, the Federal Reserve is run by Congress. It's a government institution.

 

[Davey Woo]

The thing that bugs me is that quite clearly, NONE of those photographers are trying to help the guy, I know it's just their job to take photos for the newspapers and whatever, but seriously someone could show some humanity for once.

(inb4 paparazzi are not human)

 

[Naeo]

I just want to point out that a gold/precious metal standard is somewhat reliable in general, but with a fluctuating value of gold nowadays it wouldn't be the best idea. Also, there is the problem of money shortages (there is only so much gold, so you can only have about as much money as you have gold to back it up with, which nowadays would fall dreadfully short of how much is actually needed) on the gold/silver standards, which was part of the reason behind many of the panics in American history. So a gold standard would be a very bad thing, really. That's the only thing I wanted to quibble with in your post.

I believe gold is only fluctuating because of how much money we've been printing lately. I think the only time gold lost a lot of it's value was back when the Spanish discovered the new world and suddenly started taking ship loads of it back to Europe.
But anything is better than what we got, even if we got to do gold/silver/copper, as long as we can get some substance behind our cash, lol. What if we just totally got rid of the dollar and made a new currency, much like how Europe scraped their old coinage for the Euro, but made the new currency refelct our precious metal supply, start from scratch. The government can burn all the old dollars, print the new money themselves, and give everyone the correct exchange for the amount of dollars they previously had.

I'll admit the price of gold fluctuating may have to do with the printing of new money, but likely only in small part. That's why I was careful to say that the value of gold is fluctuating, rather than the price.

Not to sound like an asshole here, but it sounds like you missed the point of my opposition to a gold/silver standard. There is only so much gold/silver in the world, and it has a finite value (value is not the same thing as price). The US does not have nearly all the gold/silver in the world. So, if we went to a gold/silver standard, the total value/purchasing power of all of our money in circulation would be limited to the value of the gold/silver owned by the government. Considering that the GDP of America is around $13 trillion, which I believe is either the highest of one of the few highest in the world, the value (again, not the price) of all goods and services we produce is enormous. There simply is not enough gold/silver to back a sufficient quantity of currency for the country to do business any more. If we went to a gold/silver standard--I grant a dual standard wouldn't be as bad as just a gold standard, but it would still suffer immensely from this problem--we would not be able to put enough money into the economy to do business. It's a kind of hard idea to explain, but I'll give it a shot and see if I can do it concisely.

The value of something is, as I've said a few times, totally separate from its monetary cost. The value is how much something is worth to you as an individual (or whatever entity is in question--a state, a country, etc). You can think of it as "how badly you want/need something," which is close, but not quite the same thing. Now, the US's GDP, as mentioned, is around $13 trillion last I checked. Let's assume that the value represented by that price is 20 trillion doohickeys (where "doohickey" is just a unit of value because I don't remember what the actual unit of value is). Now, all the gold and silver that the US has does not have a value of anywhere near 20 trillion doohickeys. Maybe it has, I'm gonna take a stab in the dark here, a value of 5 trillion doohickeys. If we go to a gold standard, then we can only ever have the total value of all the U.S. dollars in existence be about 5 trillion doohickeys. This means that either all of our prices will have to plummet--which would disastrously wreck the economy beyond repair at that scale--or the total value of what we make has to decrease. Now, if there weren't that pesky "international trade" to worry about, then we could just arbitrarily up the value of gold and everything would be fine, but it doesn't work that way in the real world.

Addendum: I checked the US Treasury site [http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/IR-Position/Pages/10072011.aspx] and though it says nothing about silver, it claims that the US has about $11 billion worth of gold in reserves (yes, billion, with a b). That is nowhere near enough to keep really any section of our economy going. I imagine this problem would exist with any sort of standard that relies on the value of the dollar to be backed by a real-world substance. The value of the US economy has likely surpassed the value of any amount of actual substances that could be feasibly acquired.

The other problem is that with a fixed total value to your currency, as you'd have with a metal standard, you can't really have inflation, which someone else mentioned earlier is absolutely critical to an economy's survival.

 

[Jegsimmons]

could you give a more specific example and not a broad statement?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-14/wall-street-protesters-arrested-in-lower-manhattan-police-say.html

um....it looks like those arrest were in the right, everything that was described was disorderly conduct at the very least, and some look like vandalism. Which are actual crimes. So can you give an example of police ACTUALLY abusing power against these protesters?

 

[KingWeasel]

Good. Maybe we can get these god damned people back to work where they should be. I'm sick of all the protestors, the riots, the EVERYTHING.

People. Please. For god's sake. Shut up and go back to your work. Your lives. Your families. Quit complaining and do your job.

Its that sort of attitude that made civil rights for blacks and women so hard. "Shut up and, get back to picking cotten (insert racial slur here)." Or "You need to do womans work, now shut up and get back in the kitchen and let the men do the talking sweetie."

These people are mad about how the richest people and corperations buy our government and your answer is for them stop protesting and take it up the ass like a good little ***** because why? You dont like it, it annoys you?

Tough, I like to think this shows the corperations and our government that were getting sick of being shit on by the both of them and we arnt as lazy as they thought and some of us arnt going to take it laying down. Despite what you want them to do.

Its sad that in the face of coruption we have people saying this sort of stuff.

 

[Hammartroll]

I'm pretty sure the remark about the video's maker being president of the "Bat Shit Insane-O Super Fun Club" covered my reasons for why I believe he is wrong. You simply don't argue with crazy people and the guy that made that video is certainly just that if he actually believes what he's saying in that video.

Say you're walking down the street and see a man screaming he's covered in bugs, when anyone can plainly see he's not. You don't walk up to this raving lunatic and say "Excuse me good sir, your assertion that you are covered in bugs is one I believe to be false". Nope, you keep your head down, keep walking, and hope to god he doesn't fucking touch you. The fella that made that video may as well be screaming he's covered in bugs as he'd sound no more crazy than he does already.

"bat shit insane-o super fun club" is not disproving the video. Here's how to disprove the video: take some of the crucial evidence presented in it and prove it to be wrong. You havn't done that, so go away.

And you can go ahead and keep your head down like a good little tool, if someone has gone out of their way to explain what's going on in the world, I'll at least give them a chance and the guy in this video provides plenty of evidence to back up his claim. Pretty obvious once you think of it really.

 

[Hammartroll]

-Snip-

So, I watched the video. Educational.

However, the most important part of it, that I felt, was the 'People taking loans they didn't need.' is what started the entire cycle.

Basically, people were greedy and that greed ended up crashing the economy on a global scale. Kind of reminds me of the Bernie Madoff thing. People heard 'Low risk high reward' and drowned him in money because all they could think about was getting more money.

So! I don't blame the Federal Reserve or the Government. I blame the greedy ass middle class. (It rhymes!)

yes, many people who were victims of the housing crisis has only themselves to blame, but I can't let the Fed or the government go in this, mainly because of the inflation. Inflation steals the value of what we already have, everyone gets poorer but since we eventually owe all the money back to the Fed, they get richer. It's thievery and I don't like people stealing from me. And since it's the government who tells the Fed how much to print, they're to blame as well. These bailouts and stimuluses, they do nothing but steal the value of the money we already have.
Also, as an American I don't feel very comfortable knowing a foriegn private power controls our money supply...

You do realize inflation is a very important component of the economy, and deflation is very bad for the economy, right? With deflation (or even zero inflation) no one has any incentive to invest or even spend money. Deflation is as bad if not worse than hyperinflation.

The fed tries to keep inflation at reasonable levels, and the last 20 years have had unprecedented low levels of inflation. Low levels of inflation are pretty much the perfect. Inflation is in no way the issue here.

I might agree that deflation is worse than inflation, but no way is it worse than hyperinflation, we'd be screwed if that happened.

Yes, the Fed's purpose is to control inflation, problem is they suck at it. Take a look at this graph, it's a very nice graph and shows clearly how our economy only started going to shit AFTER the creation of the Federal Reserve: http://silverdoctors.blogspot.com/2011/10/purchasing-power-vs-gdp-vsm2m3-vs.html

From 1776 to 1913, the dollar's purchasing power only decreased by 10 cents; from 1913 to 2011 it's purchasing power decreased by some 86 cents. A dollar today is only worth 4 cents compared to a 1776 dollar. It's been nothing but downhill since the Fed was established.
Yes they're creating inflation, but at dangerous levels. At this rate we very well may get that hyperinflation in a few years, High-Ho $1,000,000 loaf of bread!

End the Fed, people..

 

[scott91575]

-Snip-

So, I watched the video. Educational.

However, the most important part of it, that I felt, was the 'People taking loans they didn't need.' is what started the entire cycle.

Basically, people were greedy and that greed ended up crashing the economy on a global scale. Kind of reminds me of the Bernie Madoff thing. People heard 'Low risk high reward' and drowned him in money because all they could think about was getting more money.

So! I don't blame the Federal Reserve or the Government. I blame the greedy ass middle class. (It rhymes!)

yes, many people who were victims of the housing crisis has only themselves to blame, but I can't let the Fed or the government go in this, mainly because of the inflation. Inflation steals the value of what we already have, everyone gets poorer but since we eventually owe all the money back to the Fed, they get richer. It's thievery and I don't like people stealing from me. And since it's the government who tells the Fed how much to print, they're to blame as well. These bailouts and stimuluses, they do nothing but steal the value of the money we already have.
Also, as an American I don't feel very comfortable knowing a foriegn private power controls our money supply...

You do realize inflation is a very important component of the economy, and deflation is very bad for the economy, right? With deflation (or even zero inflation) no one has any incentive to invest or even spend money. Deflation is as bad if not worse than hyperinflation.

The fed tries to keep inflation at reasonable levels, and the last 20 years have had unprecedented low levels of inflation. Low levels of inflation are pretty much the perfect. Inflation is in no way the issue here.

I might agree that deflation is worse than inflation, but no way is it worse than hyperinflation, we'd be screwed if that happened.

Yes, the Fed's purpose is to control inflation, problem is they suck at it. Take a look at this graph, it's a very nice graph and shows clearly how our economy only started going to shit AFTER the creation of the Federal Reserve: http://silverdoctors.blogspot.com/2011/10/purchasing-power-vs-gdp-vsm2m3-vs.html

From 1776 to 1913, the dollar's purchasing power only decreased by 10 cents; from 1913 to 2011 it's purchasing power decreased by some 86 cents. A dollar today is only worth 4 cents compared to a 1776 dollar. It's been nothing but downhill since the Fed was established.
Yes they're creating inflation, but at dangerous levels. At this rate we very well may get that hyperinflation in a few years, High-Ho $1,000,000 loaf of bread!

End the Fed, people..

You want a return to the gold standard more than a removal of the federal reserve.

Besides, strength of the dollar is not a very good economic indicator. There are countries that purposely devalue their currency so they can export more.

BTW..unless you are buying your bread from overseas, your dollar value analysis is pretty laughable. There is simply no reason for this inflation hysteria you have. Just check an inflation graph over the last 20 years. I would have hated to see how upset you would have been in the 70's and 80's. Now that was inflation.

 

[Coffinshaker]

wow! and at about 20 seconds in, you can see a cop hitting him with a baton! that's not good...

also... I like how all the photographers stood around and took pictures and not a single one tried to help. sigh... put down your cameras guys and lend a hand! (btw, photographer myself)