What Will Come of The Protests?

[Karoka]

Apparently, the U.S. protests on Wall Street have spread across the country to places like Texas and California. What do you think will become of this?

[Dantius]

Nuthin'.

[Goldengirl]

I answered that my reply was not listed on the poll.

 

Occupy Wall Street, and its counterparts across the country, have a simple goal. They've listed proposals, and I imagine they will continue to do so until hell or high water.

 

The main, overarching long goal that I see them working towards is opening a serious dialogue in political communities about the extent and influence of corporate American interests. It's tapping into populist discontent against Wall Street and the financial institutions... I could very easily see it expanding beyond that, though. I hope it does.

[MrRoivas]

Once of the only bonuses of having so many unemployed people is that they have a lot of time on their hands.

[Callie]

Media outlets are referring to the protests as the "TEA Party of the left." Yet, there is a big difference between the two: the TEA Party is mostly middle class and older, and they managed to get some really conservative candidates nominated. From what I've seen, the Occupy Wall Street movement is younger and poorer, which means they'll be less likely to vote and less familiar with the whole election process. I don't think the movement will make much of a difference a year from now (the presidential election especially).

[Alorael at Large]

No, probably not, but the Tea Party also seemed like a gimmicky fringe with no power just a few years ago.

 

I think you're getting your causality wrong. Young people generally turn out at lower than the general average rate for elections, but young people are also less likely to be politically engaged at all. Activists of any age and leaning are overwhelmingly likely to vote. The question is whether the occupiers can get enough outside enthusiasm to have clout at the ballot box.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think it's an unreasonable possibility that the Occupy Wall Street protest won't get any immediate traction but will garner enough attention and sympathy among underemployed, embittered people that they'll vote at greater rates. The question is whether the protesters can unify enough to put themselves behind a platform that translates into or creates specific candidates like the Tea Party did.

[Randomizer]

We've had protest movements before with high unemployment. Unless it disrupts the country it will fade away even if it lasts past the election.

[Enraged Slith]

It looks like a good opportunity to meet college girls. If we had a protest like that down here, I'd be over there every day.

[Necris Omega]

I'd be inclined to agree with Randomizer, and yet, the generation protesting is facing employment adversity unlike anything anyone has experienced since the Second World War. I think the extent of this economic cataclysm may push these protests far beyond what anyone alive has ever seen in this country.

[Alorael at Large]

And protests are often about organization. The internet means this is the era of the organized. How much social media affected (effected?) the Arab Spring is debatable; its role on Wall Street will be interesting to watch.

 

—Alorael, who also sees a difference with this. Yes, it's motivated by the broken economy, but that's not actually the point. A substantial amount of the rage is the fact that the banks not only caused the collapse but got away with it without even being slightly apologetic or paying back any of what they should owe. Many protesters would be happy to get regulations, not jobs.

[Necris Omega]

Originally Posted By: Lampheads

And protests are often about organization. The internet means this is the era of the organized. How much social media affected (effected?) the Arab Spring is debatable; its role on Wall Street will be interesting to watch.

—Alorael, who also sees a difference with this. Yes, it's motivated by the broken economy, but that's not actually the point. A substantial amount of the rage is the fact that the banks not only caused the collapse but got away with it without even being slightly apologetic or paying back any of what they should owe. Many protesters would be happy to get regulations, not jobs.

Agreed. I think the notion that there hasn't been enough done to prevent this from happening again is a major selling point behind these protests. The idea that one industry's bad gambling habits can bring this entire country, some would say world if you consider the global impact, to its economic knees is good reason to be upset I think.

[*i]

I suspect some of this is general loss of opportunity over the decades. Americans, generally speaking, are quite tolerant of wide disparities in income and even high unemployment at times, so long as there is ample opportunity available for class mobility.

 

In the 1950s, it was hard work and financial discipline could support a family and even put kids through college. Nowadays, you need two working parents just to support a family, and it is unlikely that will be enough for college. Success almost requires levels of debt that generations ago would have been seen as irresponsible.

 

With the financial collapse, much of this easy access to credit is gone and people lost a good portion of their invested income because of the irresponsibility of others. Average people lost homes, retirement/college savings, businesses, etc. Meanwhile, those people responsible, the wealthiest, continue to grow their earnings while the avenues to success become steeper at an alarming rate.

 

"Can't get a small business loan from our bank now because your credit is bad because we were irresponsible with your money, well that's just too bad, isn't it? Pardon me while I head off to the country club in my new sports car that I bought with my bonus that we voted for ourselves."

 

It does seem that we're going back to the days where if you were born poor, you're almost guaranteed to die poor regardless of your work ethic. The same can be said if you are rich. Mess up as bad as you want, you can use your wealth to project influence to not only protect you, but to keep the gravy flowing.

[Micawber]

In the long run, the protests will make no difference. In fifty years' time, China will be calling the shots. Think we have no influence now? Just wait.

[Alorael at Large]

China will be calling the shots? Well, China will probably have the largest economy, for what that's worth, but the US and China aren't playing a zero-sum game. America will still have a huge economy. America's economy is the size of numbers three through six. It's almost as large as the economy of Europe. America will have plenty of economic clout even if China's economic problems never catch up with it.

 

—Alorael, who thinks the bigger question is whether, in fifty years' time, unforeseen events (or foreseen global warming) won't have wrecked enough havoc that economies don't really look like they do now at all. And he also wonders how what happens in 50 years' time is relevant. The economy is in trouble now, and it could be fixed now if there were political will for it.

[*i]

Paul Krugman's take on the protests.

 

Quote:

In the long run, the protests will make no difference. In fifty years' time, China will be calling the shots. Think we have no influence now? Just wait.

 

Possible, I suppose, but any projections based on fifty years are rarely accurate. The primary assumption people make is that trends of today will continue forever. Just read any science fiction from the immediate postwar period to see a plethora of examples.

[Micawber]

I consider myself cautioned by your PDN, and I have no interest in flamewars any way. But let's just point out who exactly it is that has been financing the US deficit lately. And that essentially is a zero sum game: China lends the money, the US spends it. China is playing the long game, deliberately neglecting its domestic populace (as you allude) in order to buy global economic & political influence.

[Alorael at Large]

China's buying, but they're not the only ones. The US budget could be, if not balanced, then not so far in the red. All these things can change.

 

And there are many things that could go wrong for China. Eventually being forced to stop fixing the exchange rate. Runaway inflation. Stagnation from lack of intellectual freedom. Complete collapse from uprising. Alien invasion.

 

—Alorael, who took a look at graphs of the economic performance of the USA over the last century and notes that it goes up and down a lot. He'll bet that it'll go up and down in the future, too. It's all about who goes up and who goes down and when.

[Randomizer]

China will take over the world like Japan did after it became an economic powerhouse in the 1980s and started buying up the US.

 

Projections are rarely right.

[Micawber]

Guys, I hope you are right.

 

Edit: Playing too much Avernum 6 must have given me an unduly pessimistic world view

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Micawber

In the long run, the protests will make no difference. In fifty years' time, China will be calling the shots. Think we have no influence now? Just wait.

It always annoys me when people voice this opinion. China owns a small segment (~15% IIRC) of the US debt. The US debt is in dollars. Not coincidentally, the US also prints dollars. Do people who think that China will "own" the US also think that, in fifty years, the people running the US will be so stupid they will literally forget how to print money to pay off our debts?

If China somehow tries to use debt as a serious leverage point to the level where they would "own us", the Fed could literally just print (well, not print, but you get the idea) a special run of $2.5 trillion and send it to China with a note attached reading "Enjoy your massively devalued US currency holdings, suckers!" Sure, it would cause hyperinflation, but then we'd be out of debt!

That's why it's disingenuous to talk about government debt like it's personal debt. While I can't just write up a sheet of paper saying "THIS IS WORTH MY MORTGAGE" and send it to my bank and expect it to be paid in full, the government totally can do that with the public debt. It's just that that would have so many more repercussions that it's not worth it- and that, in the long run, debt really doesn't matter as much as things like inflation and unemployment and interest rates, so it's really just a red-herring issue tossed out to distract from important economic issues.

[Dintiradan]

Why bring up the example of devaluing currency if you yourself admit that it's a horrible thing to do and no one should ever do it? Why not jump straight to "inflation and unemployment and interest rates"?

[*i]

Furthermore, the US and China have each other in an economical mutually assured destruction game. Sure, China could call back its debt. In which case, the US has a few options. First, the US could, as Dantius says, print more US dollars to satisfy the debt. Secondly, the US could ignore the request, essentially saying "Come and take it, if you dare." Also, the US could embargo China, essentially killing off one of their major buying outlets.

 

In all cases, global economies would tank, which would be an ultimate economic negative sum game. As such, both sides know there is sufficient reason to avoid such a thing from occurring.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Why bring up the example of devaluing currency if you yourself admit that it's a horrible thing to do and no one should ever do it? Why not jump straight to "inflation and unemployment and interest rates"?

Because I like providing hypothetical examples to illustrate my point, because I didn't want to trawl through CEPR and/or Brookings Institute archives to find multiple citations to support all my points like I did last time this topic came up, and because it's funny to picture the US doing that to China?

And BTW, I don't think it's horrible and no one should ever do it. There are definitively some things to be said for slightly devaluing the dollar:yuan ration to something closer to 1:5 or 1:6 from 1:7. It would go a long way towards fixing trade imbalances and increasing US competitiveness in China- it's just devaluing it to something more along the lines of 1:1 in order to pay off our debt owed to China that's stupid and should never be done.

EDIT:

Originally Posted By: *i

Secondly, the US could ignore the request, essentially saying "Come and take it, if you dare."

I am now an advocate of *i's "Come at me, bro" theory of economics.

[Necris Omega]

One thing China faces that could potentially capsize it is that the sheer size of its population could devour the country from within as it ages.

 

Every country faces the problem of a "baby bust" where you end up with polarized ratios of working age citizens vs. non. China's problem is that they've so many people that when the dependency slides too far over, it could well be too much for the country to support.

 

Granted, it won't destroy China by any means, but it will definitely throw the breaks on their economy when they're staring down 280 million people 65+ or older, and the percent of their workforce in the 15-29 range is less than 26%.

[Harehunter]

Originally Posted By: *i

Furthermore, the US and China have each other in an economical mutually assured destruction game...

I find your phrasing highly intriguing. I would say that while it makes sense, on the surface, that raising tariffs on chinese imports in order to try to encourage domestic job growth, there are probably hidden consequences there. The theory goes that by raising the cost of goods imported from China, it would make the cost of domestic labor competitive.

I doubt it would have any effect in that direction, because it is not just the cost of hiring people, that motivates off-shoring of jobs, but the cost of complying with the regulations of the various agencies, as well as the liability of being sued for practically anything. Sarbanes-Oxley essentially doubled the cost of company audits in manpower costs alone. I don't say Sarb-Ox wasn't necessary in the eve of Enron, but it does have its cost.

A manufacturing company I had worked for got sued because someone had stood on the top rung of a ladder, fell and was injured. Never mind that there were warning stickers galore on that ladder telling people not to do that, the plaintive still won!

Tort law is important and serves an extremely valuable service to our country, but like so many other things, it has been horridly abused.

[*i]

Harehunter, I'm not really talking about offshoring, tariffs, or any other normal economic policy game here. What I'm saying is that China really cannot destroy the US economically without facing devastating consequences of their own.

[Harehunter]

I understood that. I was trying to say that the US is just as constrained with trying to effect any changes with regard to the trade imbalance. Then a couple of side thoughts hit me. I need to better filter those out, at least on these forums. It serves me well as a DBA to think in parallel threads, but it only seems to cause me trouble here.

[Alorael at Large]

The US could embargo China, but if it did it for essentially no reason, the world community would have a fit. (China gets to pull illegal trade maneuvers like that; the US doesn't.) On the other hand, China has no desire to call in the US debt. They don't want to crush the US economy or the world falls apart, and they like getting their slow and steady payments.

 

The US could try to fix the currency imbalance, but since it's the renmibi that's artificially kept low, that would just be shooting itself in the foot to spite China. Ultimately, China's currency shenanigans are an economic irritation, but they're not catastrophic, and we're on the wrong side to fix the problems.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't even think it's mutually assured destruction. China wants the USA to buy its stuff. The USA wants to be Chinese stuff and, honestly, has no complaints about having someone buy up all its debt. One day the US will happily be exporting its widgets and ideas to China. It's mutually assured destruction the way two sane guys with knives who kind of dislike each other are mutually assured. Yes, there could be a lot of blood, but nobody wants to go through that mess to everyone's detriment.

[*i]

Quote:

It's mutually assured destruction the way two sane guys with knives who kind of dislike each other are mutually assured. Yes, there could be a lot of blood, but nobody wants to go through that mess to everyone's detriment.

Yes, same as the US and the USSR during the Cold War, except this is economic rather than military. Hence my use of the term.

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: Necris Omega

One thing China faces that could potentially capsize it is that the sheer size of its population could devour the country from within as it ages.

Every country faces the problem of a "baby bust" where you end up with polarized ratios of working age citizens vs. non. China's problem is that they've so many people that when the dependency slides too far over, it could well be too much for the country to support.

Granted, it won't destroy China by any means, but it will definitely throw the breaks on their economy when they're staring down 280 million people 65+ or older, and the percent of their workforce in the 15-29 range is less than 26%.

Someone read Cracked today.

[Alorael at Large]

Rightly or wrongly, the USA and USSR saw each other as the two superpowers with fundamentally incompatible ideologies like in world-wide battle for dominance. Either side would gladly have damaged the other if it could have done so without risking destruction itself (and, realistically, if the method of choice weren't horrific overkill).

 

The USA and China have disagreements, but their most cherished principles aren't at odds. When they don't get along, they are usually happy enough to ignore each other, diplomatically chide.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think China or the US would choose to impose economic sanctions even if they could somehow pull it off without suffering any harm. There's not any interest in vindictiveness.

[keira]

Originally Posted By: Necris Omega

One thing China faces that could potentially capsize it is that the sheer size of its population

Guam had the same problem.

[*i]

On the US and China, perhaps my work experiences have given me a different perspective. That same thinking about two mutually incompatible ideologies still exists today on both sides. Unlike with the US and the USSR, the US and China are economically coupled in that there are mutual benefits for both sides to cooperate. I suspect if this economic coupling were not present, we would see a lot stronger rhetoric.

[Aoslare]

Originally Posted By: Tatters and Tears

The USA and China have disagreements, but their most cherished principles aren't at odds. When they don't get along, they are usually happy enough to ignore each other, diplomatically chide.

This isn't actually true. It's just that nobody has politicized differences between the US and China, because nobody has seen that as politically beneficial. China embraces pieces (though not all pieces) of totalitarian ideology and rejects democracy; the U.S. has enshrined freedom of expression, while China censors everything. Ironically, it's economics where the two countries have fewer differences, despite continuing to profess capitalism and communism.

[Alorael at Large]

I could have phrased that better. They haven't set their most cherished principles at odds with each other. There are plenty of complaints about China's repression, censorship, corruption, and rights abuses, but they aren't an American cause. Politicians aren't worked up about it and most people aren't worked up about it.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think communism was ever really what the USA feared about the USSR and Maoist China. The totalitarianism in the name of Marxism, yes. The Marxism itself? Kind of buried under all that totalitarianism. The two got conflated to the point where socialism was seen as subversive, evil, and necessarily foreign, but there were some other pretty big issues in there.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

A manufacturing company I had worked for got sued because someone had stood on the top rung of a ladder, fell and was injured. Never mind that there were warning stickers galore on that ladder telling people not to do that, the plaintive still won!

whose fault was the existence of the set of working conditions that drove that employee to need to use the top rung of the ladder in the first place? do you think they wanted to be injured? if your boss tells you to do something and you're one paycheque away from being homeless, you do it, warning stickers be damned.

[*i]

Quote:

There are plenty of complaints about China's repression, censorship, corruption, and rights abuses, but they aren't an American cause. Politicians aren't worked up about it and most people aren't worked up about it.

The reason politicians haven't largely been worked up about it is that there would be only be political or material downsides to being vocally anti-China. Doing so would is disadvantageous because we are so economically coupled. Cynically speaking, corporate donors would be none too pleased with such stances because it could end up hurting their market shares and their willingness to fund the campaigns of those politicians.

[Harehunter]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

whose fault was the existence of the set of working conditions that drove that employee to need to use the top rung of the ladder in the first place? do you think they wanted to be injured? if your boss tells you to do something and you're one paycheque away from being homeless, you do it, warning stickers be damned.

If it was the employer who required the man to do something that was dangerous, a danger made pointedly clear by the manufacturer, who was more at fault for the injury?

Here in the States, we have an agency called the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) whose job it is to ensure that safety procedures are trained and enforced. In your example, it is clearly the fault of the employer, and it is he that could not only be sued in civil tort law, but also fined and potentially tried in criminal court. The manufacturer did what it was required to do; required by that same agency OSHA. And having no presence on site, it had no control over the working conditions.

Even if the employer had made no demand on the employee to do an unsafe act (which would have been an act of gross negligence), he would still be liable of at least simple negligence for not properly training the employee, or not supervising him adequately.

Like I said, Tort law has its place to protect society.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

If it was the employer who required the man to do something that was dangerous, a danger made pointedly clear by the manufacturer, who was more at fault for the injury?

i misunderstood: i didn't realise that the manufacturing company was the one manufacturing the ladder that was used, i assumed they were just the plaintiff's place of work. in that case, i'm surprised the manufacturer didn't attempt to get the employer joined as a defendant in the suit, although of course i don't know the exact details of the case or the arguments presented. if you do, feel free to shed some light on the subject

[Harehunter]

In the case I was talking about, it was an individual, who on his own responsibility chose not to read the safety manual packaged and shipped with the ladder, nor did he read the safety stickers prominently displayed in both English and Spanish, as required by OSHA regulations. But when he chose to do what was plainly marked as unsafe, fell and became injured, he sought to sue the manufacturer for damages which he had suffered. And the jury found in his favor!

 

Had the ladder broken under his weight, or had failed in some other fashion, assuming that it was being used properly and safely, yes the manufacturer would have been at fault. Again, tort law set to good purpose. But to sue because of one's own bad choices? I don't know about anyone else here, but I was taught at an early age to accept responsibility for my own choices.

[Alorael at Large]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

A manufacturing company I had worked for got sued because someone had stood on the top rung of a ladder, fell and was injured. Never mind that there were warning stickers galore on that ladder telling people not to do that, the plaintive still won!

whose fault was the existence of the set of working conditions that drove that employee to need to use the top rung of the ladder in the first place? do you think they wanted to be injured? if your boss tells you to do something and you're one paycheque away from being homeless, you do it, warning stickers be damned.

As someone who's worked on ladders, I can tell you that sometimes, even when work is dangerous, when you do it long enough you get complacent and start ignoring safety procedures and little things like getting ladders that are actually tall enough. No one's forcing it, and sometimes it's a matter of just getting off the ladder, getting another ladder, and getting back up, all of two minutes. Laziness is a powerful force.

To an extent it's the company's responsibility to foster a "culture of safety," as I believe the buzzword would be, but you can't manage everything. Sometimes your workers are just lazy, or reckless, or not paying attention. And yes, they can sue, but then it's up to the court to determine whether the worker was endangered by the employer or by his own disregard for safety.

—Alorael, who is reminded that he spent some of his time on ladders up there because he had faith in his own ability to not do stupid things. Some of the others? Likely to fall and die or, even worse, drop something expensive!

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

In the case I was talking about, it was an individual, who on his own responsibility chose not to read the safety manual packaged and shipped with the ladder, nor did he read the safety stickers prominently displayed in both English and Spanish, as required by OSHA regulations. But when he chose to do what was plainly marked as unsafe, fell and became injured, he sought to sue the manufacturer for damages which he had suffered. And the jury found in his favor!

okay, so why did the jury find in his favour? obviously at least one of the arguments they heard from the plaintiff was compelling to them. what makes you think you know better than they do?

[Kelandon]

This might be a case of "product liability = strict liability, so tough luck to the manufacturer." That sort of thing happens in torts. Hard to say without more details. (Also, uh, we haven't gotten to that unit yet. Give me a few weeks.)

[Harehunter]

Originally Posted By: Tatters and Tears

To an extent it's the company's responsibility to foster a "culture of safety," as I believe the buzzword would be, but you can't manage everything. Sometimes your workers are just lazy, or reckless, or not paying attention.

I could not agree with you more. The company I work for does engineering and construction work. For us, safety is a full time deal; not just while on the job, not just on the construction site, but everyone, every where, all the time. We are rated by OSHA and by the Houston Business Roundtable with the highest of safety awards. Our employees are trained from day one, that we will not tolerate any unsafe act. In the field, any one of our employees, from the project manager to the least skilled pipe-fitters helper can pull out his Stop-Work card and halt any operation he sees as unsafe. We have earned contracts because of our safety record, and our safety department has won jobs just to consult on safety. Even home office people, like me, are inculcated in this 24x7x365 safety culture.

[Harehunter]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

okay, so why did the jury find in his favour? obviously at least one of the arguments they heard from the plaintiff was compelling to them. what makes you think you know better than they do?

I don't know. Probably for the same reason they awarded 1 million dollars to the gal who put a cup of hot coffee between her legs and got burned when it spilled. A company goes through a great deal of expense doing everything it can too comply with regulations and to avert the liability of poor product quality, and it gains them nothing.

[keira]

Ugh, this is one of the big things that irritates me. Crap that's obvious (coffee is hot, don't stand on top of the ladder) shouldn't have to be spelled out. If you get hurt because you're too stupid to figure out that hot things may burn you, you deserve what you get.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

I don't know. Probably for the same reason they awarded 1 million dollars to the gal who put a cup of hot coffee between her legs and got burned when it spilled.

most people do not reasonably expect to suffer third-degree burns and permanent scarring from spilling a cup of coffee

i'm just sayin'

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: Alorael

As someone who's worked on ladders, I can tell you that sometimes, even when work is dangerous, when you do it long enough you get complacent and start ignoring safety procedures and little things like getting ladders that are actually tall enough. No one's forcing it, and sometimes it's a matter of just getting off the ladder, getting another ladder, and getting back up, all of two minutes. Laziness is a powerful force.

It really is just this. I've used the bucket of a Bobcat as a work platform, and I've driven a cherry picker while the boom was fully extended. Both are very unsafe, potentially, but they're also very convenient. Are you really going to build the scaffold when you can just bring the Bobcat over? And are you really going to lower the boom, move the cherry picker, and raise it again every time you finish the next six feet of work?

But just to stress: these were all things I chose to do myself, and not anything some boss told me. And while I'd like to think I know the limits of those machines, if I made a mistake, it would be my own bloody fault.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

But just to stress: these were all things I chose to do myself, and not anything some boss told me. And while I'd like to think I know the limits of those machines, if I made a mistake, it would be my own bloody fault.

sounds to me like your boss didn't tell you because your boss didn't need to tell you

[Dintiradan]

Aaactually, it was a case of my boss telling me to take all the usual safety precautions, and me ignoring him.

 

Yeah, I know.