Thursday, October 13, 2011

"Occupy Wall Street" Anti-Semitic?

Goldman Sachs is often used as the poster child for some of the most egregious practices on Wall Street that are believed to have set off the current economic crisis now sweeping much of America and Europe. This sentiment was summarized in an article Matt Taibi wrote for Rolling Stone Magazine as follows: "The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."



Taibi's criticism of Goldman Sachs immediately drew charges of antisemitism from some American Jewish leaders. And as the "Occupy Wall Street" movement gathers momentum, similar charges are now flying against the protesters who are joining this movement. Some of the Jewish media outlets, like Yeshiva World News, are using video footage of individual protesters to editorialize the claim that “many Jews” are feeling a bit uncomfortable with the growing protests.

“The reasons for these ‘uncomfortable feelings’ don’t need to be elaborated on this page,” the editorial reads. “Suffice to say that Jews have been blamed for the world’s troubles for thousands of years, and many are nervous that this finger-pointing will soon start — or , maybe it already has.”

I, for one, do not believe that the protests are motivated by antisemitism, and such charges are a great disservice to ordinary middle class Americans who have been forced to take to the streets.

From what I can tell, "Occupy Wall Street" appears to be a genuine grass roots movement that stems from a sense of deep dissatisfaction with the way the majority of American politicians of both parties have aided and abetted in the misdeeds committed by the big Wall Street firms. Some of these misdeeds have been laid bare by a number of authors, including Michael Lewis most recently in his two books on the subject. The actions of Goldman Sachs and other big Wall Street firms have led to massive job losses, growing homelessness, and deep concerns among middle class Americans about their own future and the future of this country. A similar situation is now gripping Europe as well.

I think President Obama should seize this opportunity to tap into this anger and use it to push new legislation to bail out the middle class and put an end to the excesses committed by the big business including the Wall Street banks and their highly-paid executives.

Related Links:

Are Jews Culprits of Collapse on Wall Street?

Financial Crisis Brings Out Anti-Semites

Wall Street's WMDs

Jewish Power Growing in US Congress

Schumer's Phony Outrage

Buffet Warns of Financial weapons of Mass Destruction

Who Rules America?

Will American Capitalism Survive?

China's Nuclear Option

Senator Schumer: The Champion of Wall Street on the Hill

Pay to Play is the Name of the Game in Washington

Are Jews Culprits of Collapse on Wall Street?

Keynes on Jews

Democrats and Republicans Share Blame for Financial Collapse

Jewish Network in US Congress

Jewish Power Dominates at Vanity Fair

Jewish Power Grows in US Congress

Did Schumer and Emanuel Sink Freeman?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Riaz,

it is wrong to say that all rich people in USA are Jews. And many among the protesters are also Jews. Jews have suffered enough for the last 1700 years. We should let them live a decent life. Every conspiracy theory has a Jewish angle these days.

Mayraj said...

You could also mention how Bill Black who helped clean up the S&L crisis has lambasted the failure to do anything in this crisis.
He has done a slew of articles and done interviews. Just google his name and see.
Here a recent one I saw:
http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/10/lenders-put-lies-in-liars-loans-and.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EconomicPerspectivesFromKansasCity+%28Economic+Perspectives+from+Kansas+City%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Lenders Put the Lies in Liar’s Loans and Bear the Principal Moral Culpability

Mayraj said...

http://www.philstockworld.com/2011/10/13/charts-heres-what-the-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PhilsStockWorld-PhilsFavorites+%28Phil%E2%80%99s+Stock+World+%C2%BB+Phil%E2%80%99s+Favorites%29
CHARTS: Here’s What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About…

Imran said...

Who never heard of Religion to the rescue 8-) They’ll do anything to distract the attention, lets wait and see if it sticks, if it does ? it’ll be a pretty low blow..

Anonymous said...

Well, the Jews have higher IQs (mean roughly 115). Specifically the Ashkenazi Jews.
This is very well documented.
A visit to jinfo.org reveals that they have 37% of US Physics Nobels, 29% of US Chemistry Nobels, 53% of US Economics Nobels, 40% of US Physiology/Medicine Nobels, etc.

They are that smart, so they are well-represented in all the elite professions too.

Nothing much to see here, really.

Riaz Haq said...

Here's an excerpt from a piece by Steve Sailor of VDare:

Lynn digs up 32 IQ studies of American Jews and seven of British Jews. He concludes that Ashkenazi Jews (ones with Yiddish-speaking ancestors) average about ten points higher than non-Hispanic white gentiles, or 110 on a scale where white Americans and Brits average 100. That would put the median Ashkenazi Jew at about the 75th percentile among whites.

IQ testing in Israel suggests that the other Jewish communities trail the Ashkenazi. Lynn estimates that Sephardim score about two points less than white gentiles, or 98. The Mizrahim (Jews from the Arab world) average around 91.

That ten-point gap between Ashkenazi and gentile whites is substantial, but not enormous. The proportion of individuals with IQs of 115 or above is about twice as great among Jews as among white gentiles. But the absolute number of gentiles is much larger.

Jews are, per capita, twice as common relative to American gentile whites over the 115 IQ level that Lynn sees as the bottom threshold for the professions, but are about 5 times more common per capita among doctors and lawyers. And in many other developed countries, these ratios are even higher.

Lynn significant (and subtle) conclusion: superior Jewish IQ isn't everything. He writes:

"This suggests that the success of the Ashkenazim is attributable to more than just their high IQs and that they also possess strong motivational and work-ethic qualities."

This profound subject has only just begun to be explored.


http://www.vdare.com/articles/lynn-on-the-jews-yes-it-s-intelligence-but-there-s-something-else-too

Riaz Haq said...

Here's an excerpt from a piece by Pankaj Mishra published in Businessweek:

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- During the worldwide depression of the mid-1930s, the poet and Islamic modernist Muhammad Iqbal, often called Pakistan’s spiritual founder, wrote a poem dramatizing the inadequacies of Western political and economic systems.

Democracy and capitalism had empowered a privileged elite in the name of the people, Iqbal felt. But he was not much fonder of Marxism, which was then coming into vogue among anti- colonial activists across South Asia and the Middle East:

But what’s the answer to the mischief of that wise Jew That Moses without light, that cross-less Jesus Not a prophet, but with a book under his arm For what could be more dangerous than this That the serfs uproot the tents of their masters

(Rooh-e-Sultani Rahe Baqi To Phir Kya Iztarab
Hai Magar Kya Uss Yahoodi Ki Shararat Ka Jawab?

Woh Kaleem Be-Tajalli, Woh Maseeh Be-Saleeb
Neest Peghambar Wa Lekin Dar Baghal Darad Kitab

Iss Se Barh Kar Aur Kya Ho Ga Tabiat Ka Fasad
Torh Di Bandon Ne Aaqaon Ke Khaimon Ki Tanab!)
------------
In any case, Tunisians voting for Ghannouchi and Pakistanis flocking to Khan’s rallies are not the radical revolutionaries or closet theocrats they are often made out to be by a paranoid local elite and a global liberal intelligentsia. Rather, these are people who have simply failed to develop the habit of seeing Islam as a purely religious phenomenon, separate from economics, politics, law and other aspects of collective life.

Whether liberal and secular elites like it or not, there are a large number of socially conservative Muslims who wish to see the ethical principles of Islam play a more active role in public life. The mind-numbing division between “moderates” and “extremists” that often passes for profound understanding of Islamic societies in the West simply fails to account for this invisible majority of Muslims, who are unlikely to plump for secular liberalism either now or in the near future.

For many nationalist and reflexively conservative Pakistanis, Imran Khan’s belief that “if we follow Iqbal’s teaching, we can reverse the growing gap between Westernized rich and traditional poor that helps fuel fundamentalism” is not the empty rhetoric it may sound to a Westernized Pakistani.

Indeed, the history of South Asia and the Middle East has repeatedly shown that the failure of modernizing endeavors, and the widespread suffering it unleashes, has always enhanced the moral prestige of Islam. In the eyes of its victims, the debacle of modernization and secularization has also diminished the credibility and authority of local elites as well as their Western sponsors.

The classic example, of course, was Iran. Visiting the Islamic Revolution after the fall of the secularizing Shah, the French philosopher Michel Foucault claimed that “Islam -- which is not simply a religion, but an entire way of life, an adherence to a history and a civilization -- has a good chance to become a gigantic powder keg, at the level of hundreds of millions of men.”

The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran that Foucault rashly cheered on has, in another generational shift, run its course. And revolution per se may be far from the minds of young Pakistanis and Tunisians trying to regain control of their national destiny. But the powder keg of political Islam that Foucault spoke of remains dry elsewhere in the Muslim world; and its potency is only likely to increase as Western political and economic systems and ideologies seem, to many Muslims, feeble, and yet so malign.


http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-17/islam-offers-a-third-way-in-pakistan-and-tunisia-pankaj-mishra.html

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a NY Times story on global protests showing rising disillusionment with democracies:

Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.

Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.

They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box.

“Our parents are grateful because they’re voting,” said Marta Solanas, 27, referring to older Spaniards’ decades spent under the Franco dictatorship. “We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless.”

Economics have been one driving force, with growing income inequality, high unemployment and recession-driven cuts in social spending breeding widespread malaise. Alienation runs especially deep in Europe, with boycotts and strikes that, in London and Athens, erupted into violence.

But even in India and Israel, where growth remains robust, protesters say they so distrust their country’s political class and its pandering to established interest groups that they feel only an assault on the system itself can bring about real change.

Young Israeli organizers repeatedly turned out gigantic crowds insisting that their political leaders, regardless of party, had been so thoroughly captured by security concerns, ultra-Orthodox groups and other special interests that they could no longer respond to the country’s middle class.

In the world’s largest democracy, Anna Hazare, an activist, starved himself publicly for 12 days until the Indian Parliament capitulated to some of his central demands on a proposed anticorruption measure to hold public officials accountable. “We elect the people’s representatives so they can solve our problems,” said Sarita Singh, 25, among the thousands who gathered each day at Ramlila Maidan, where monsoon rains turned the grounds to mud but protesters waved Indian flags and sang patriotic songs.

“But that is not actually happening. Corruption is ruling our country.”

Increasingly, citizens of all ages, but particularly the young, are rejecting conventional structures like parties and trade unions in favor of a less hierarchical, more participatory system modeled in many ways on the culture of the Web.

In that sense, the protest movements in democracies are not altogether unlike those that have rocked authoritarian governments this year, toppling longtime leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Protesters have created their own political space online that is chilly, sometimes openly hostile, toward traditional institutions of the elite.

The critical mass of wiki and mapping tools, video and social networking sites, the communal news wire of Twitter and the ease of donations afforded by sites like PayPal makes coalitions of like-minded individuals instantly viable.

“You’re looking at a generation of 20- and 30-year-olds who are used to self-organizing,” said Yochai Benkler, a director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. “They believe life can be more participatory, more decentralized, less dependent on the traditional models of organization, either in the state or the big company. Those were the dominant ways of doing things in the industrial economy, and they aren’t anymore.”.......


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/world/as-scorn-for-vote-grows-protests-surge-around-globe.html?pagewanted=all

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a piece in The Atlantic on Davos WEF forum on the West emulating Chinese model of capitalism:

A Modest Proposal to Solve Global Economic Woes: The China Model

Scrambling to boost the economy before the 2012 presidential elections, Obama has failed to explore one potential response to a recession that Davos experts are saying may last for years--a China-style economic dictatorship with free market tendencies.

China has come out of the global economic recession with a slowed growth rate, but remains relatively unscathed. Why? Beijing's one party has no heavy-handed congress through which it must pass legislation to recover the Chinese economy.

When rampant informal lending left China's export hub city of Wenzhou in its own mini-debt crisis late last year, China quickly capped interest rates for informal loans and set up an emergency fund to help indebted small business people settle the score with loan sharks, according to this article from China Daily.

This article from the Associated Press quotes WEF participants saying that "leaders must work fast to overcome the current crisis or else different models of capitalism, such as the form practiced in China, may win the day."

Latin America Unscathed By Eurozone Crisis

Latin American economies continue to expand, even as Europe struggles with a sovereign debt crisis, according to this article from the AP. The Latin American participants at the WEF say that their continent's economy -- traditionally rocked by the ebb and flow of the E.U. -- is well poised to move past the global recession.

"This is really the decade for Latin America," Guillermo Ortiz, former governor of the Bank of Mexico told the AP, "We don't have to worry about inflation shooting up to 100 percent next year."

Merkel Asks for Time

German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked investors at the WEF to give European policymakers the time and space necessary to tackle the Union's sovereign debt crisis.

"Please take the long-drawn-out process with a degree of acceptance," Merkel was quoted as saying in this Bloomberg article.

Merkel also backed down from a demand that bondholders contribute to bailouts, Bloomberg reported.

Soros Knows it All--But He Won't Tell

81-year-old billionaire financier George Soros - what some may call the Davos Man incarnate - gave Barron's his impression of the Eurozone at Davos yesterday.

"With individual countries under strict fiscal constraints," Soros said, "the stimulus will have to come from the European Union and it will have to be guaranteed jointly and severally."

While Soros refused to give specific investment advice, he did say that stimulus plan "will require Eurobonds in one guise or another."....


http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/davos-takes-lessons-from-china-and-latin-america/252004/

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a NY Times report about allegations by a resigning executive of Goldman Sachs:

That question is now out in the open, exposed anew by an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Wednesday by Greg Smith of Goldman Sachs. It could reignite public suspicion that the culture of Wall Street has swung so sharply to the short-term side of the ledger that clients have not been coming in first, or even second, but dead last.

Even bankers who disagreed with Mr. Smith’s conclusions said the piece had struck a chord because it stirred up their own doubts, especially in the wake of the financial crisis. It is a sign of this anxiety that since then, one giant firm after another has publicly proclaimed it is putting clients first.

That much-advertised claim stands in sharp contrast to the world Mr. Smith depicted.

At meetings at Goldman, he wrote, “not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients,” Mr. Smith wrote. “It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.”

He warned, “People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/business/a-public-exit-from-goldman-sachs-hits-a-wounded-wall-street.html?_r=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html

Riaz Haq said...

''The Hollywood Jews created a powerful cluster of images and ideas - so powerful that, in a sense, they colonized the American imagination.'' Neil Gabler "An Empire of Their Own"
The 2014 Hollywood Diversity Report released this week by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA suggests that the media and entertainment industry is dominated by white men.

The UCLA report finds that only 16.7 percent of film leads, 17.8 percent of film directors, and 11.8 percent of movie writers between 2011 and 2013 were people of color. What the report fails to mention is the obvious fact that most white men dominating Hollywood are Jews.

http://www.riazhaq.com/2015/02/politically-correct-ucla-hollywood.html