Anybody have an opinion on all the protests or the emergence of Anonymous as a political advocacy group?

They seem to be all over this and don't seem to be willing to go down easily. Anonymous released the personal information about a cop at the scene who I believe they said sprayed mace at people already in enclosures.

Their twitter feed and blog seem to indicate they are dug in pretty good with this.

https://twitter.com/#!/YourAnonNews
http://youranonnews.tumblr.com/

To say nothing of their issues with BART, and a few other causes they've adopted.

What do you think?

I think it's disgusting that people at the top of financial institutions are still riding high, let alone going unprosecuted, after causing the damage they caused leading up to the world economic collapse and its aftermath that we still haven't shaken.

In that sense, I'm happy to see someone shine a light on companies that ruined people's lives and are resisting all attempts to curb their reckless behavior.

However, I'm always skeptical of groups like Anonymous or individuals like Michael Moore, who victimize "little people" (who they claim to speak for), to advance their own agenda.

By that, I mean Anonymous posting private personal information on people whose only "sin" was to be on e-mail lists or site memberships maintained by BART (which, as a mass transit system, is more likely to be used by working people than by those who can afford their own cars, or even limousines)

In the case of Moore, he's spent his entire career filming people like doormen and security guards (jobs that are about as working class as you can get) as props in his dramatized attempts to meet with corporate leaders, going all the way back to GM in "Roger and Me". And I write that as someone who watches most of Moore's films.

kinda curious about those folks, but its not my crowd. i'm a free market libertarian and I wouldnt be caught dead around those folks. I find it quite ironic that unionists would be protesting something that is basically put on life support by the very government they favor - big government. Under a free market, those Wall Street pirates would rot in their own failure and would never be bailed out.

The "free market" is a libertarian fantasy with no basis in reality. Claiming to know what would happen under a free market is like speculating what the world would be like if wizards existed.

I love the idea of the Occupy Wall Street movement, but I don't know what the end-game is. In other words, they are staying until exactly what happens?

I don't know, but this was really amusing:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yrT-0Xbrn4&feature=player_embedded

This.

Also some fundamental facts>
1. Businesses pay no taxes, so the De-regulation folks are high; all tax increases are passed on to the consumer in price increases; all tax decreases are used as extra profits invested in a largely unregulated stock market.

2. The de-regulation of markets allowed banks to loan haphazardly, and received consumer bail-outs, thus lost nothing in a high risk venture that had profited them for years.

3. Gas companies are largely un-regulated and subsidized over and above. During the barrels crisis (prices above $100), consumers were told gas price increases were due to the increase in prices; conveniently, gas prices increased faster than costs, and oil companies' profits accelerated, then when the prices of oil decreased, the sticky price of gasoline remained higher than the cost would have seemingly corresponded to (increased profits). All the while, gas company subsidies remain in effect.

4. Reaganomics was not wholly responsible for the bounce-back of the economy in the 80s, it was the sharp increase in spending on defense, and tax cuts for the lower income classes that created the largest number of jobs and a trickle down was largely a myth. Thus the component of Reaganomics most effective in stabilizing the economy was largely Keynesian. Plus the economy tends to cycle up and down.

5. Like any other political philosophy, political libertarians are largely hypocritical regarding tax cuts vs spending. Take a look at what most have done in previous positions of authority.