I’m happy this is happening: I rejoice when people learn new things and concepts. As much as I would like to be a snob I don’t have a pedigree for it. A long time ago, when I just arrived to the US and was so short of funds that the only living arrangements I could afford was “low income housing” area in Phoenix Arizona, I made friends with a bunch of poor white folks. Back then, as I was in my early 20s and wild-eyed and excited about new “scene” and new people and new things, I absorbed my new experiences like a sponge. I was also inclined to award the trailer park occupants the same traits as I myself possessed and I did not think of calibrating my message to the audience, as I tried to engage them into conversations about Carlos Castaneda, whose books I was devouring at the time. I’m sorry to say that my enthusiasm did not stir equal interest in my acquaintances – they had other ideas about mind-expansion. But I, in turn, still carry a hint of white-trashiness in me, like fondness for Lynyrd Skynyrd. And I never learn: many years later, while traveling up Mekong River in Cambodia, equally enthusiastic and seeking to play a clever back-and-forth with references, I attempted to quote “Apocalypse Now” to locals only to be met with empty stares.  

For this reason I enjoy how Newt Gingrich speaks whenever given a microphone: he does not fit his words to the audience. He’s like an out of order jukebox – you never know what it is going to play next, but you know you’ll be entertained. His monologues are a “raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.”  He metes out ideas (Moon colony) and names (Saul Alinsky) without fear to be considered crazy (too late for that) or bumptious. Newt Gingrich and various Tea Party leaders like Dick Armey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey and his FreedomWorks are vanguard instigators of this development. Both of them use Saul Alinsky’s name to advance their agenda http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-moyers/saul-alinsky-who_b_1257479.html, albeit one as an example of what to fear, the other – as an inspiration. They are like Pygmalions, carving new enlightening concepts onto the rock of conservative orthodoxy. Copies of Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” as well as copies of Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and Thomas Paine were widely popular at the zenith of Tea Party activism. That’s quite some reading list. I even heard that the suggested reading list of Tea Partiers included Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian anarchist and atheist.  To be fair, Bakunin has been equally quoted by OWS as well. Bakunin in his ideology is not far from Noam Chomsky.  I do not blame that an average Midwestern Bible-Belt citizen, while having expanded his vocabulary, can’t quite put it all together. The insane brew that is being concocted by the modern conservative leaders includes leftist anarchists, community organizers and conservative economists and at the same time has to be somehow reconciled with the Divine and the US Constitution. Clearly, there’s some serious soul-searching going on. How much simpler the times were for conservatives when the required reading just included the Scripture.

I think everyone has to go through Ayn Rand phase. Some will stop there thinking they found answers for everything, some will move on, accepting some of her ideas (atheism) and rejecting others (aggressive self-interest) or visa-versa. What matters is learning and thinking process in itself. Republicans used to be a monolith party who dared not speak ill of each other. They used to routinely fall in line. Now various factions are ready to tear each other into pieces. The three pillars on which Republican Party has stood for more than 4 decades are beginning to reject each other like foreign tissue: Evangelicals, Wall Street and neo-cons. Evangelicals no longer want to be in bed with Wall Street; Libertarian wing via Ron Paul no longer want to be involved with foreign entanglements; and national security buffs, given recent successes by Obama Administration and if they’re honest with themselves, should really vote Democrat. The unlikely coalition that somehow was maintained for decades by various maestros and tricks is cracking at the seams. Is it, perhaps, because folks have been exposed to ideas and think of concepts they haven’t before? It’s a fascinating process, regardless of where it leads them. It’s like we’re witnessing the birth of the new party, a Big Republican Bang. If economically disadvantaged who habitually vote Republican finally see that corporate interests are not aligned with their own interests, why should we, liberals, care where this sudden epiphany comes from: us or Rick Santorum? When conservatives quote leftist radicals, imagine the journey that a few curious minds can embark on!

Oh, what times.

Understanding Wall Street mentality is a bit like understanding military mentality. There’s something utterly profound when brothers in arms pull together in the heat of battle and persevere. Wall Street fancies itself to be like the military. The place is rich soil for military quotes and references and “war stories”. Making money in adverse conditions is viewed as an act of valor, a display of incredible courage. Many in a decision-making position have “killed” or “been killed” at least once.

Unlike in real battle, however, where you have brothers in arms watch your back, no one watches your back on the trading floor. The goal is not just to receive a bonus, but to receive a bonus bigger than your neighbor’s. This quest demands your complete focus, immersion even, and all matters and people outside this realm do not exist or are not worthy of attention. It’s all irrelevant, it’s all sacrificed for the hunt. Ever met a suit who has the patience to listen to what you have to say for more than a minute, unless you’re in the same industry? Everything and everybody outside is a subject of indifference, of contempt, or of pity because they (outsiders) have no idea or the chops to engage in the daily Wall Street battles and rewards. The pursuits of others seem trivial compared to what you’re up to. “We eat what we kill” – the saying goes. It’s only partially true. You become what you kill: it becomes your entire identity. You are your bonus. You pursue it with Moby Dick-like obsession. That’s the only thing that matters when all is said and done, and is the only source of your self-worth.

To quote one famous David Mamet character:

 “How much you make? You see pal, that’s who I am, and you’re nothing. Nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids.”

That pretty much sums up the thinking. No one cares if you’re a nice guy, a family man. The interminable quest for “the number” consumes you whole. Like a junkie, you’re constantly in search of the next fix.

Hobbies, if they exist, are chosen and structured to promote your next kill. I came to loathe two-week mandatory vacations because they forcefully kept me away from the action, and not being able to check my Bloomberg every minute became torture. To this day I’m ambivalent about beach retreats. You have nightmares of some big news coming out when you’re away, that you’re going to miss some huge trade or worse – your desk nemesis will take advantage of it. Your social skills outside this circle completely atrophy. “How can they live on salary?” – I thought on the occasional subway ride, looking at the oblivious to their misfortune commuters. During random Thursday night bar-hopping downtown you can’t engage in conversation with anybody who occupies other areas of human expertise. You’re just not interested, because it does not bring you closer to your next trade. Why waste time? Why talk to people who have not seen the battles that you’ve seen, who can’t appreciate the maneuvers that you’ve done? They would not understand the beauty! Even those meaningless chats became rarer, because, according to some of my acquaintances, I have developed a “menacing stare,” a “Wall Street smugness”. “Katya, sweetheart, you have to hide the Kalashnikov when talking to other people” – one of my associates wisely counseled me.

But you don’t have to be a sociopath to take advantage of the situation. The possibility of making some spectacular trade corrupts you like a ring of power. It envelops the way you think, the way you talk, your entire perspective. Imagine – the music is right and you got your dancing shoes on and with a few phone calls, with a few good trades, you can set yourself for years or maybe – for life. You can be a nice girl, a hippie, a liberal seeking universal fairness – but picture yourself in those dancing shoes and the chance of a close retirement!  Wouldn’t you pull the trigger? And who cares what happens later, who cares if later the world falls apart? Later you’ll go to Bangladesh, feed the hungry, save the world! Later you’ll become a good person.

If the crisis of 2008 had not come to pass, I doubt I would have ever gotten out of this vicious circle. It’s as if I lifted my head out of the water in which I’d been immersed for the past 10 years and took a breath, catching a glimpse of the outside world. Like the character Brooks from the Shawshank Redemption, you come out of jail where you spent your entire life and you have no identity in the new realm. There used to be things I liked to do before Wall Street, but I forgot what they are. The need for the hunt, for competition, has displaced all other interests. I indulge my competitive side in Atlantic City these days – amazingly the excitement does not correspond to the size of the reward: I celebrate wins or grieve and kick myself over losses with the same intensity as I would over the win or loss with many more zeroes. And, as a bonus, I don’t get up at 6 am anymore.

The other day, scanning through the headlines this has caught my attention: “Bankers vs. Capitalism” at the Weekly Standard, a conservative, well, weekly.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/bankers-versus-capitalism_616148.html?page=1

This uncharacteristic for conservative setting headline intrigued me, although not without suspicion. Nonetheless, right after dispensing with mandatory, or shall we say credibility-building jab at “disease-infested occupy-something-or-other encampment” the author, Irwin M. Stelzer states: “(America) is not even under threat of socialism, the hysterical charges of some anti-Obama extremists notwithstanding”. Wow! Quite a statement for a right-wing magazine. It got better the further I went:

“And the failure of Republican politicians to ask themselves just why they support banks’ opposition to allowing bankruptcy judges to include mortgage obligations when they restructure the debts of those seeking bankruptcy protection, as many Democrats propose. Executives of American Airlines are applauded by the financial community for their shrewd use of the bankruptcy laws to get out from under their contractual obligations. Homeowners who do the same thing are considered immoral.” 

This last sentence, I must say, is my favorite point to make in order to display a double standard employed by conservative hacks blaming homeowners who defaulted, but not the banks or corporations who have done the same. I have never heard a conservative make it until now! If contractual obligations are not sacred for American Airlines why should they be sacred for the underwater homeowner?

Further, he begins to sound like Matt Taibbi, the Rolling Stone brilliant and ruthless journalist, who wrote extensively on Wall Street crisis and who coined the term “vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity” in reference to Goldman Sachs.

“Most surprising are the objections of leaders of the banking community to quite sensible reforms, their willingness to sacrifice long-term support for the market system to the desire for short-term profits. It is true, for example, that higher capital requirements for banks, requirements that “don’t go nearly far enough” according to John Cochrane, finance professor at the University of Chicago, will reduce their profits. That is so—but only because requiring banks to hold more capital reduces the risk of failure or the need for bailouts, risks that have until now been borne by taxpayers.

Bankers are not alone in their failure to understand that something must be done to prevent the opposition to many features of the current system from creating an atmosphere that will support “reforms” so draconian that the resulting system will retain few of the virtues of the existing one. The corpocracy at times seems equally obtuse, as when its leaders call for repeal of the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley law that make it easier for shareholders to rid themselves of underperforming directors, and require that directors be truly independent, rather than chums of the CEO, especially when serving on compensation committees. The breaking of the link between performance and reward that results from friends-of-the-CEO boards of directors does as much to undermine capitalism’s claim to legitimacy as financiers’ obtuseness about their responsibility to act as if they are members of a society that extends beyond executive dining rooms and country clubs.”

I couldn’t help but put the entire paragraph – it is so honest, so pointed and so rare to hear from anybody on the Right! These arguments have been made repeatedly on the Left and in my own blog; are they really becoming so hard to deny and ignore that they finally trickle down (pun intended) into the right blogosphere? Has someone out there had let the guard down or, gasp, saw the facts and connected the dots? The opposition on Wall Street to moderate regulatory measures is like opposition to a bitter medicine – it doesn’t taste good now, but there will be benefits down the road. Has trading so atrophied their reasoning that the only stimuli they recognize is “must feel good NOW”? I always found it astonishing that supposedly smart guys on Wall Street do not understand it. Their choice is not between no pill and bitter pill – it’s between bitter pill and chemotherapy.

To read this sort of article at the conservative site brings me hope that not everyone on the other side has gone completely insane. If there are authors who think like Mr. Stelzer, perhaps there’s a chance that we can agree at least on facts and take it from there. It makes dialog possible. I quite forgive him for a stab at the unions and occupiers – it comes with the territory. When I meet a conservative like this, a dying breed, I make sure to put them in my “endangered species” book.

As a rule, New Year’s resolutions are not directed at others but projected onto ourselves in an attempt to become better in the coming year.  Thus, I will indulge myself in some inward-looking (in a collective sense) narrative.

Perhaps you are already familiar with the idea that the Left in general, while having the best argument, is weak to defend it. In an attempt to find a cure to this ailment, I first had to identify the source of the disease, and I can’t find a better explanation than the desire of liberals to “be nice”. This image of the Left, as going to great lengths to “be nice” and not to offend anybody, morphs into justifiable belief that liberals can’t fight for their values.  “Being nice” manifests itself in many ways, including using reason when a show of force would be more effective, fighting for minor issues, like bike lane rights, when voting rights are being undermined in broad daylight, and taking offense at being called names while democracy is being undercut by unfair redistricting.

While Democrats are celebrating a recent victory over payroll tax cuts, I think that the fortunate outcome is not of their making: the Republicans have simply overreached and shot themselves in the foot. All Democrats did was stand aside and watch the Tea Party’s self-carnage. Just because we won this fight doesn’t mean we grew balls.

Nonetheless, Democrats are noticing that becoming “bad” pays off. Exposing the Republicans as the party of 1%, while attracting cries of “class warfare” and “populist rhetoric” from the other side, has been translating into rising approval numbers for Obama since September. Were Obama’s sagging poll numbers throughout the summer and the debt-ceiling fiasco the result, not of his supposedly unpopular policies, but of people’s disappointment with his inability to stand for his beliefs? Another, more illustrative, example that supports this hypothesis is Obama’s gutsy call to go forth with the raid into the sovereign state to eliminate Bin Laden. People appreciated this tour-de-force to such an extent that his approval numbers shot up 10 points. Where did this new support come from? Certainly not from the “defeat Obama by any means” camp – they would not change their minds even if Obama were to resurrect Reagan on national TV! So, speaking in rough numbers, there’s an extra 10 percent of electorate within Obama’s reach, in addition to his mid-40s approval ratings, if only he shows he can stand up to bullies. And that’s more than he needs to win a second term next year.

Not that they need my amateur speculation.

Getting back to us, mortals: “Being nice” is ceremonial and makes us focus on trivial matters and ties our hands. It makes us focus on procedure rather than the outcome. “Well” – we say after another loss to bullies – “at least we played by the rules, at least we didn’t debase ourselves by lowering the bar of political discourse.” I will sound Machiavellian going further, so stop reading if you want to maintain your innocence. Politics is a game and, as in any game, you do not question the motives of your opponents. The motives are clear – to defeat you, to win. This is the game we cannot excuse ourselves from. If we do not anticipate that the opponent will throw feces at us and fail to develop a defense against it, it’s our own fault when they throw feces at us. Publicly decrying such tactics as abominable is to make things even worse: it exposes our unpreparedness or, worse, naiveté. What matters here is the effect, the result. If crap-throwing works, then this is what we shall receive. If you win, people don’t care how you won. In a hunt for Bin Laden Obama violated the borders of a sovereign country, an ally, to avenge the death of thousands of innocent civilians! So what?! Look at the result!

Since I’m on subject let me outline the significance of this foray: Obama, in an unusual display of chutzpah, risked his entire presidency on this (think of the ramifications for him personally if something went wrong!), while the risk for the country was minimal (a diplomatic scandal). Now juxtapose this with supposedly ballsy Bush who risked hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars with no risk to his presidency. (Being a war time president practically assured Bush second term along with ability to paint dissent as unpatriotic, and other useful tools, like warrantless wiretaps and indefinite detentions. It’s almost like receiving huge bonus now for the deal that can deteriorate later, if at all, and if it does, there are ample escape clauses like moveable goalposts and revised reasons). Bush certainly understood risk-reward for himself, but Obama understands risk-reward for the country. To put it another way: Bush risked with someone else’s money, Obama risked with his own. Obama broke the rules, accepted the risk of being a one-term President, and won! He broke the rules and we cheered, because we liked the result. That’s why I was very disappointed when during the debt-ceiling debate Obama didn’t use the 14^th Amendment of the Constitution to raise it. He can be astonishingly bold one moment and puzzlingly procedural the next. John Wayne one day and Woody Allen the next.

The political opponents that the Left faces have long took off the mask of civility and showed what they’re ready to do to defeat Obama – nothing short of pushing the country off a cliff. They are down and dirty, fighting tooth and nail – and here we’re thinking how not to appear rude, demanding adherence to archaic, gentlemanly, collegial rules! If we praise ourselves for being a reality-based community, then let’s be one for real in the coming year and beyond. Me? I’ll be cultivating my inner Joe Pesci.

Happy New Year!

Col. Kurtz: “I remember when I was with Special Forces… seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember… I… I… I cried, I wept like some grandmother. … And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men… trained cadres. … If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral… and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling… without passion… without judgment… without judgment! Because it’s judgment that defeats us.”

John Milius & Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now.

I remember how in the run up to a debt ceiling debate last summer I wrote on my wall: “In the battle between the Tea Party and Wall Street I’m betting on Wall Street.” How naïve I was back then. How much faith I put, wishfully, into Republicans’ supposed concerns for other people’s hard earned money. How much weight I gave to the notion that Republicans will put business interests, money and fiscal responsibility first. How much significance I assigned to the bond between Wall Street and Republicans. In my head I had pictures of Wall Street moguls frantically dialing their buddies in Congress, saying: dude, look, I understand you hate Obama and stuff, but I have a huge position in this and that, you have to pass this, I don’t care about politics – just pass the damn thing! That was my bet. I lost, of course. I underestimated the will of the Republicans to cut off the arms of little children if it meant victory.

Back in the day when Republicans were reasonable people with whom I just disagreed on issues I always thought: Well, if Republicans run things in Washington at least I’m gonna make some money. At least my portfolio will increase in value and I’m gonna get some tax cuts. At least I will receive some monetary compensation for inconveniences such as Jesus, compulsory parenthood and wars. It’s a crude description but that’s how I view the effect of either party in power. I always look at the bright side, at the benefits rather than focus on the negative.

While I have freed myself, back in the Bush years, from the belief of Republicans being fiscally responsible, I have considered “tax cuts” to be a sacred Republican cow that will never be sacrificed. They had to stand for something and since there was nothing left that they were for, “tax cuts”, I thought, was their last stand, their family jewels. No more! I got the first taste of what’s to come last summer (2010) when they filibustered the bill that would give tax cuts to small businesses. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/us/politics/30cong.html?_r=1&hpw

This bill had the backing of US Chamber of Commerce (!) – a right-wing business lobbying group, but Republicans still blocked it because even though they got the ice cream, they didn’t get the topping that they liked. So screw it – no ice cream then.

This year, and putting the debt ceiling hostage taking aside http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_debt-ceiling_crisis , they again had an ample opportunity to demonstrate how much they cared for the regular working folks by reducing the payroll tax. What’s not to like? 2% tax cut for all 100% of us! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-29/all-americans-lose-if-payroll-tax-cut-isn-t-renewed-ron-klain.html But the Republicans rejected that too. To any observer, left and right, it should be clear at this point that, to use Bill Maher’s quote, it’s not the dish they don’t like, it’s the waiter.

Dealmaking with Republicans these days is like “playing not to lose” (I know, I bombard you with poker terms in my posts, but it gets my point across). Playing “not to lose” means your upside is you get to keep what you have, your downside is – you lose it. On top of that we’re playing against opponent who does not play to his own benefit, the one who plays without sound judgment. But we have time on our side. If Democrats do nothing, Bush’s tax cuts will expire next year, thus making the Republican Congress preside over the tax increase! Which puts Republicans in the position of having to do something about it, although somehow I don’t see them coming to talk to Democrats, hat in hand. I expect dirty politics, especially in the election year, to continue.

Republican Party is not a political party anymore. They are not even on a Wall Street’s retainer anymore. They have disobeyed the orders, gone totally, completely insane and, like Colonel Kurtz, have receded deep into the ideological jungle.  They got off the boat and split from the entire fucking program!

I say it’s time to send a messenger into the jungle. It’s time for Democrats to:

 1. Learn to play dirty when necessary;

2. Claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility;

3. Circle the wagons around Obama.

When I sit down at the table I appreciate the plethora of characters from all walks of life. I appreciate the fact that there are winners and losers, luck and grind, spectacular twists of fate, rivalries but also universal fairness: In the long run, if you play correctly, you win. Very American Dream, isn’t it? There are quiet types you have to watch out for, business travelers, retirees, smelly hobos, students and “just passing by” types. There are also administrators of the entire establishment including dealers, floor managers, security that derive their sustenance from players; and an element of game – a deck of cards that is changed every few hours. You get my drift – just like a democracy. Except that we’ve been playing with the same stacked deck for the last few decades. Some people at the table will never get dealt two kings or two aces and it is not chance related. Others, who consistently win at the table make me wonder – have they really become so much smarter, savvier and better at math to beat the odds in such a remarkable manner? Am I to believe that some players are now so much sharper and more productive than they were 30 years ago, thus deserving not 20 times but 300 times the payouts of an average Joe Schmo?

That’s some impressive margin of error! So a hobo-looking character and a few students at the table complain about it and demand a new deck. And predictably, “good players” immediately jump in and attack them for being losers and comment on their personal hygiene. I wonder why – are they in on it? The sad truth is – correct play is no longer a guarantee against a long-term loss at this poker table of ours. And, if you don’t want to award any credibility to dirty hippies for voicing it, then who’s to know that better if not hundreds of thousands of people laid off from financial industry in the wake of the financial crisis. They played correct, solid game – they went to college, worked hard, got a mortgage, paid taxes and still got run over. Just look at the headlines from the last few days:

“Finance Job Losses Near 200,000 as BNP, Citigroup Cut Staff

Commerzbank sinks to first quarterly loss since ’09 and begins lending pull-back

UBS plans to cut 2,000 investment banking jobs

More heads roll in 2011 than in 2009

BNP Paribas to lay off 1,396 as crisis deepens” (Source: Options Group, Fins.com)

The first, and understandable, reaction of those laid off is to blame government regulation that encumbers the normal flow of business. If the government wasn’t pressuring banks to comply with strict rules those people would not have been laid off, the logic goes. While this can be somewhat true in the short term, are those people prepared to endure boom and bust business model in the future? And, more importantly, do they want to continue to play the game where the odds are against them, no matter how good their skills are? Guys, it’s been a juicy game at the table, no doubt, but not for you. Because to have a comfortable, middle-class life in Manhattan (not lavish, just comfortable!) you have to be a Managing Director at a Wall Street firm, but there’s simply not enough facility to accommodate everyone to become one. So what is the rest, the middle of the Bell curve with just college degree, strong work ethic and no delusions of grandeur supposed to do? Why is comfortable, middle-class life increasingly becoming a luxury available only to super achievers?

This juicy table is on the brink of breaking as more and more players are saying – we don’t want to play this game.

Those who think that OWS are anti-capitalists, iphone-using, Starbucks-drinking hypocrites and society leeches demanding handouts could not be further from the truth. “Get a Job” signs, while prompting self-satisfied chuckle in the Fox News crowd for being “clever”, fall flat. Those protesters would love to get a job but they can’t. Why is it that thousands upon thousands who lost jobs on Wall Street following the crisis deserve sympathy and the unemployed protesters don’t?

All they want is a new deck of cards. To clarify what I consider a new deck of cards is (just to start, in no particular order): reinstatement of Glass Steagall Act; effective government regulation (not necessarily more and not necessarily stricter – effective); enactment of Volcker Rule; a bailout fund sponsored by a tax on corporations to save themselves should shit hit the fan again; stricter regulation of credit-default swaps – you can buy protection only on the asset you own; executive compensation regulation. The latter is controversial and I would support a legislation that regulates the payouts of CEOs of deposit-taking institutions. If it’s a hedge fund that trades its’ own money – knock yourself out. But there’s no amount of stress and hard work that I can think of that would justify $68mln payout (Lloyd Blankfein compensation for 2007) for a bank CEO. Tough decisions to make, thousands of people to manage, sleepless nights, erectile dysfunction – fine – but unless you played with your own money and took your own risks and your downside is that you lose it all, move to the projects and dodge collectors – it’s not worth $68 bucks. Commanders in Iraq are under more stress and have to make decisions with lives, not money – for what a typical CEO considers change.

Americans love a good underdog story and often see Rocky or Billy Beane in themselves. That’s commendable, but under the current rules Rockys will be perpetually dragging that log and Billy Beanes will be perpetually tweaking those metrics with only a promise of a win in sight. I too love the element of competition and game in life, but to stay and play at that table would not make me a hero – it would make me a fool.

Have you seen this We are the 53 percent website yet? The hard-working 53% sticking it to the 47% “whiners”? Somehow, in this country, it’s considered a badge of honor to suffer, to work oneself to the bone, to work two jobs and call those who are not “ok” with such a state of affairs “whiners”. These 53% are completely missing the point. The point is: it’s ok to work hard and make sacrifices in order to succeed not in order to get by. From those pictures I can tell that they are just scraping by, barely holding their head above water, and proud of it. Look, they are good folks, no doubt, but just because they are ok with being abused doesn’t mean all others should do the same. What about the disabled, elderly, single mothers? How are they supposed to work two jobs without health insurance? The 53% percent are looking for the culprit in all the wrong places. Somehow they think that the 47% are lazy bums on welfare who refuse to work. The 53% are either blissfully or willfully unaware that what keeps them from joining the 47% is one injury, one pink slip, one accident. Adversity is no doubt good for building a character but not everybody is Napoleon. And what do they have to show for such hard work that they’re doing? Guys, you’re on a treadmill that keeps going faster and faster and one day you won’t be able to keep up. I appreciate your fighting spirit, but you’re fighting the wrong war! The source of your suffering is not the unemployed, they are merely a symptom, it’s the rigged game that you play against the house. The 47% or the 99% of the OWS are simply saying: we refuse to play that game.

A few words about the house. I think the most honest business nowadays is a casino. Let me elaborate. First of all, they do not hide under the false façade: you know how their business model works. They do not pretend that your well-being is important to them, they are there to assist you in having a good time. When you’re a client of the casino they hold their promise: you get free drinks, you get comped, sometimes you get a free room. If you’re elderly or disabled you get an oxygen mask and an electric cart. And they take your money. Yes, it’s a fleecing business, but 1. You’re fully aware of this 2. You’re  having a good time. Wall Street and corporations have thus violated the most important principle of the system they themselves built: keep the customer happy. And by customer I mean taxpayer. If they insist on running the country, if they insist on controlling government (read: taxpayers) resources then the first rule they should have upheld is keep the customer happy. Imagine if the casino gambled with your money, lost it and then had the chutzpah to call you a welfare bum. That would piss you off. But would you be pissed off at your fellow customers or at the casino? Wall Street fucked it up spectacularly! They would have never drawn so much attention to themselves and would continue to run this shop if only they adhere to some simple rules and knew when to stop. Everything was going in their favor. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision granting corporations a personhood, politicians in their pocket, oblivious populace immersed in Jersey Shore and the belief that hard work pays off. It is those customers, the golden goose, the sacred cow that should have been cared for, not slaughtered; it’s them that Wall Street needs, not the other way around. Nowhere in the world can you find such premium clients as American taxpayer. What more did they want? The conditions were ripe to once and for all to cement the corporate world domination (cue in Dr. Evil’s laugh here), but then they handed the reins to a few self-assured frat boys. Very imprudent! So, Wall Street really have no one to blame but themselves for the current predicament. Not the customers. Customers played by the rules.

You see “Wall Street” as a composite is about 99% guys like WSWS. They are the accountants, the compliance officers, the programmers, the analysts, the back office, the middle office and most of them wear suits to work. But the majority of them never had the imagination and the aptitude to come up with the stuff that brought this economy down. Those who did are long gone with nice packages. There are some still left but they don’t walk past the crowds downtown. They have limos waiting in the garage. But for the protesters every guy in a suit is a villain. They can’t tell a difference. I can. Only wannabes wear pinstripe suits and carry a briefcase. Whenever I see a guy like this I smell stiffness, platitudes and fear. The real rainmakers wear shirts with rolled-up sleeves and cheap shoes. And the “Wall Street” has long moved to midtown. Only the Fed and the Goldman is downtown now.

Now that I have defended, to the best of my abilities, Wall Street Working Stiffs I should say I support the protesters for finally channeling the anger of many to the right place. The “Wall Street” as an idea is still there and any attempts by politicians to rein it in so far have failed. Dodd-Frank, already toothless enough at the inception in order to be passed, has been made into a joke with amendments that favor the wrong guys. The bad guys will never go to jail as it’s almost impossible to indict them. Who? On what grounds? Creating mortgage-backed securities, while abominable, wasn’t illegal, selling them to “qualified” customers wasn’t either. Knowingly misleading the clients is such a weak case and everybody knows Goldman was doing it and yet Lloyd Blankfein still has his job.

The only thing clear now is that we’re all in this together. WSWS and hippie protesters are the 99%. Each group’s existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to the other, is a natural result of flawed policies. Both played by the rules and both feel, rightly, shortchanged. But instead of blaming each other they should turn their gaze and anger upwards. The kids occupying Wall Street seem to understand it. The WSWS – not yet.

I also have a few words on Rick Perry. In my view, he showed his human side when he called those who want to deny illegal immigrant’s children a chance at education “heartless” only to be quickly brought down from the pedestal by the same people who elevated him there just a few weeks ago. They certainly didn’t like to hear the truth about themselves even coming from a gun-toting, death-penalty loving Texan. I’m afraid that with so many requirements for a perfect candidate and unwilling to compromise on any of them the Tea Party will never get laid.

From my partisan standpoint I like what I see in the opposition camp. But from the broader and more significant perspective I weep together with and for moderate Republicans for what the party of Lincoln and Regan has become. That’s the best you’ve got? In the whole South and the Midwest, from the plethora of Republican governors and senators, you’re down to flip-flopping guy from Massachussetts and a black guy who has never held a public office (the last one is particularly ironic). You refuse to even give a good look to Jon Huntsman or Gary Johnson or even to Ron Paul, for Christ sake, who loves your Ayn Rand so much as to name his son after her. Btw, since I mentioned Jesus and Ayn Rand in the same sentence let me expand on it: if Jesus and Ayn Rand married and had a child together the Tea Partiers would still be unsatisfied: Atheist who loves the poor, what a nightmare!

The best thing for Romney, should he get the nomination, would be to pick Marco Rubio, a Florida senator, for VP spot. Tea Partiers love him, he can attract the Hispanic vote that went overwhelmingly for Obama last time and they will have groomed the next GOP presidential contender for 2018 or beyond.

The fact is that Obama is center, even center-right. But nothing can placate the right, even if Obama brings Reagan from the dead on national TV, cuts all the taxes and drowns the government in the tub. They see an untrustworthy black man, burdened, in their imagination, with centuries old generational grievances that he wants to redress at the expense of a white man, thus they look at him, watch his every move and find evidence that he is the man that they have drawn in their minds. It reminds me of deeply religious people seeing Jesus face or Virgin Mary in inanimate objects like toasts and rocks. They see it because they want to see it. Except in Obama they see a socialist dictator or a petty criminal depending on the depth of one’s imagination.

Many believe first and foremost that Obama is going to take their hard-earned money away from them by raising taxes. Jokes about being robbed by Obama as a thuggish black man are abound. Oh, how I wish sometimes that he was indeed from the ghetto! Here mine and the Right’s wishes converge at last. They would thus get confirmation of their theories and someone who fits their narrative; and I and the lefties would get someone who punches back at them.

He won as a liberal but governs as a moderate Republican, but to acknowledge that for the Conservatives is harder than to cut off their arm. Careers have been built on hating Obama. Even Reagan raised taxes at some point but Obama went out of his way not to, where does that put him – to the right of Reagan? It is offensive for conservative to even think such thoughts. He’s supposed to be tax and spend liberal, he has to be, otherwise the case that was carefully being built against him for the last 3 years should be tossed! So they pile on.

Obama is a human receptacle of some sorts, a blessing for conservatives on whom they can project their darkest human qualities. That’s why there’s no lack of conservatives rushing, elbowing each other to the microphone or the TV screen to insult Obama in the most innovative and creative ways and high-fiving each other for daring and originality. Bashing Obama has become a crowded trade, a bubble even, to use market terms. He is a gift, he’s that vagabond black man passing through the town on whom all the unsolved murders can be pinned by a local police chief. If only Obama’s coke dealer or an intern under the table were found to complete the picture – imagine such luck!

Republican Congressman Joe Wilson infamously cried “Liar” at Obama when the latter said that no illegal immigrants will be covered in the health bill. And the facts confirm it. But that would mean that Obama does not wantonly spend taxpayers’ dollars on illegal immigrants – a notion that belies the entire carefully built narrative around Obama’s personality. He stubbornly fails to be reckless and hasty with other people’s money. To once and for all quell the issue of what taxes Obama raised  here\’s Heritage foundation’s page (a right-wing enclave, so that there’s no accusations of liberal bias) with list of taxes that he did raise (the best they could find was cigarette tax and tanning salon tax, proceeds of which go to children’s health insurance programs. Clearly a path to socialism!). Obama never has raised any income taxes, which are the taxes conservatives have in mind every time they talk about them.

I fault Obama for not shifting the tax debate on our turf. We’re not demanding the conservatives to show how trickle-down economics and lower taxes benefit the economy. The income tax rate is the lowest in decades, but all this time it’s been a downhill for the middle class. The argument that lower taxes make businesses hire people doesn’t stand a simple test: the corporations are awash with cash right now and they continue to lay people off.

Having this discussion would be such a winning issue for the Democrats and yet they reduced themselves to placating the anti-tax Republicans and teapartiers by demonstrating that Obama is really a fiscal conservative. What do they expect conservatives faced with evidence to say – “Oh, ok then!”? We’re at the point where it is taboo to even talk about tax increases. Grover Norquist may not have succeeded yet in reducing the government to a bathtub size, but he succeeded in shaping the debate we’re having now. Obama is unable to govern as a Democrat. That’s his tragedy.