Frank Miller on the OWS movement

[Brian]

I'm not a big fan of Frank Miller. I think some of the things he's done well (Batman: TDKR; 300), while other stuff not so much (Batman: TDKA; All-Star Batman). I always thought he was a bit overrated.

But here's an interesting blog post by him.

http://frankmillerink.com/

[Iron YoJimBo]

Not sure how to take that. I am a poor person. I don't have too much & am grateful for what I do have. & the thought that the rich just keep getting richer & forget the rest of us with our "cost of living" problems makes me sick. My income would need a raise to see the poverty line. AND My lovely fiancee and I are raising two kids. Not easy, because the kids come first, which means a lot less of everything for us. We don't complain because that's that lot of parents, to make better for their kids than they had. I don't even have an Iphone, or Ipad, or Tablet, my PC is 8 years old, & I have to repair/maintain it myself, & yep Mrs YoJimBo's PC is second hand, & my second source of headaches. About the coolest thing we own is the PS3, & that was backtaxes that paid for that. I mention all of this so that you guys understand a little bit better, that what F.M had to say was insulting. And I did serve in the Royal Canadian Air Force, from the age of 18 to 20. It's not for everybody, military life, you know.

[IMJ]

Some vapid comments follow Miller's posting on that page.

In a capitalistic society, it's we, the people's job to come up with a method of livelihood using our ingenuity and ideas.  There's a sense of self-entitlement that's been sweeping the country for years, and it's crippling the U.S.  I work with more college students that I can shake a stick at who make comments every day about their funding (and I don't even work in an admissions department).  "Well there's no way I'm paying for this..." as if higher education at a University is something that they should be given to them for free, just because.

There's a world of misunderstanding and crooked logic out there, folks.  It's the "everybody gets a trophy" mentality and it's boiling over, in real time, right in front of our eyes.

[Brian]

I didn't notice the comments below. They were hard to read because they seems to be compressed.

As far as the OWS movement, they have a point but they are going the wrong way. Most of the problems exist because government interference. The housing crisis occurred because the government told the banks they would "guarantee" the loans, so the banks started lending money to anyone with a heartbeat. Then, when the borrower defaults on the loan, the bank gets bailed out by the government and the borrower loses their home. That borrower shouldn't have gotten the loan in the first place.

I could go on and on about this.

[Iron Guy]

I didn't want to get into this because political discussions quickly get incendiary. But government didn't make this mess, the investment banks did. Government didn't promise to guarentee mortgages, outfits like A.I.G. did. And when it came to borrowing to buy too much house, or more than it was worth, people were of the belief that if they couldn't afford it the bank wouldn't give it to them. What they didn't know was that the system had been gamed to where alot of the people at the banks were making huge commissions on handing out loans left & right & then having their investment bank partners sell bundles of these mortgages on wall street to make even more money. What everyone forgot is that the value of these homes were going up on a bubble. And bubbles eventually burst. The values drop to below the amount owed & the teaser rate on the loan expires to a much higher rate. So no surprise defaults happen left & right & now the insurance companies are in trouble as are the investment firms. Their CDO's are practically worthless & they're facing margin calls that threaten to wipe them out, hence now pressure on outfits like AIG because CitiGroup needs it's insurance money. Yes the government asked banks to work with lower income people to help them get home loans. But they didn't ask them to loan more than they could pay back! The banks own greed took care of that! I recommend reading "Too Big To Fail" for a fuller explanation for why people are angry at wall street. Or, you can watch the HBO movie of same for the compressed version of the story.   

[IMJ]

I didn't notice the comments below. They were hard to read because they seems to be compressed.

As far as the OWS movement, they have a point but they are going the wrong way. Most of the problems exist because government interference. The housing crisis occurred because the government told the banks they would "guarantee" the loans, so the banks started lending money to anyone with a heartbeat. Then, when the borrower defaults on the loan, the bank gets bailed out by the government and the borrower loses their home. That borrower shouldn't have gotten the loan in the first place.

I could go on and on about this.

I definitely agree with the framework that you've outlined here. I'm just concerned that we've created an outlet in society (an outlet that has been developing for years now) for the amoral blame passer who is failing miserably at their lives and passes the reasons on to others - and be taken seriously about it.

That being said the housing crisis and the current political and economical climate are in a miserable state.  While reform is needed, I'd still argue that the first thing that this capitalistic society should have spawned in response to the need was a company called "Responsible Lending" led by a banking entrepreneur who recognized the need and filled it ethically. That company could be making a name for themselves right now, and plastered all over billboards as the response to poor lending practices, but I haven't seen anyone take up the torch.  This would be a moral, capitalistic opportunity taken by the people in response to the threat.

Inversely? A positive example of this kind of ownership was last month's paradigm shift away from big banks and towards credit unions.  Society in general responded to the growing fees of big banks who looked to pad their profits without adding a service.  Here, it's big bank's job to find an entreprenuerial way to respond to the legislation about debit card fees, but instead of being clever, they just raised prices.  This is an epic capitalistic fail on the part of banks, and moving to credit unions in bulk was an epic capitalistic victory for endeavoring people.

[Iron Guy]

Banks have a capitlistic responsibilty to generate profit for their owners so moves like this, while unpopular, aren't unexpected. The company you advocate no banker would undertake as it would interfere with profit making which is a sacred cow. Hell, they're having kittens over Dodd-Frank & it's not as strict as it really needs to be! That's why the Obama administration had Elizabeth Warren set up the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau to protect people from unethical financial practices. Pity she can't run it as the republicans in congress won't confirm her or the guy who was picked to succeed her as acting head. They won't confirm anyone for the job as they don't see a need for the Bureau in the 1st place. It's  stuff like this why I won't vote for a republican anymore!   

[Metal Head]

I won't get into my opinions on OWS (I'm sure some of you can guess, but I tend to keep my political opinions between those who agree with me, because I hate discusing politics and religion), but Miller tends to lean conservative, going way back to his early work. But I would've personally worded it better, if I were him.

heath

[Metal Head]

Btw, thanks for staying civil on this. I got dragged into a Facebook IM debate with someone I barely know, and it ended with her saying she's right about everything, that I'll see, she's right, and I replied, "You must be a hit with men." Yeah, devolved after that.

heath

[IMJ]

Banks have a capitlistic responsibilty to generate profit for their owners so moves like this, while unpopular, aren't unexpected. The company you advocate no banker would undertake as it would interfere with profit making which is a sacred cow.

I'd argue that you can lend money responsibly and still make a profit, man. All it takes is an endeavoring capitalist to go about doing it the right way, build a reputation and then have the client base.

[Metal Head]

Which most businesses do, esp. nowadays.

Heath

[Iron Guy]

True, you can do it that way. The problem is that the big banks got blinded by short sighted greed. Making money the ethical way can get you a good revenue stream, but, the unethical way gets it bigger & faster & when the stockholders are demanding constant & bigger dividend checks or you don't get your multi-million dollar bonus which way are you going to go? Especially if you only have a 3-5 year contract with the firm so you don't have to deal with the long term damage to the co. rep? This is why we need to re-instate all of the regulations that got repealed over the last 30 years. When they were in place this kind of thing didn't happen. Now these investment firms are just inveterate gamblers who do it with other peoples money! If I had any money to spare wall street is the last place I'd put it! Better to let earn 2% in a savings plan than let those clowns piss it away! Pardon my french.

[Metal Head]

I'm trying to think of a good example, other than robosigning. Besides, we should all be grateful to corporations doing well because our retirement funds do well.

[Iron Guy]

You're lucky your investment planner didn't convince you to put a lot of your money in derivatives or you'd have taken a bath. Many brokers did that knowing it was a bad investment but it kept the market, & their commissions, up. At their customers expense of course. Apart from robosigning they didn't do due diligence on the paperwork mudding the water on who owns what. And, of course, the predatory lending practices that start the whole process. In a perfect world these places would've been allowed to go under when their bad bets came home to roost. But because of de-regulation they had been allowed to become so big that if the government did that we'd be in a depression that'd make the '30's look like a cakewalk. So we bail them out & have the DOJ give them a pass when they should be nailing the senior execs to the wall for fraud. These people got the best justice that money could BUY!     

[Metal Head]

I didn't ask for them to get bailed out, and I only have a 401k and some CDs. I said let 'em fail, all the way back to 2008, and let the market sort it out. But they donated money to the right campaigns and got bailed out.