Would Bernie supporters be so kind as to define "Wall Street" for us?

[Darb]

You use it over and over as some sort of boogey man, but it begs the question: What are you talking about?

Do you mean banks? Investment houses? Publicly traded companies? Or anything located near to the former wall of New Amsterdam?

Just so we know exactly what it is you are denigrating all day, every day.

[JRLeft]

1. The financial services industry.

Do you need a broader explanation?

[Darb]

31. What about public companies that raise capital

via "Wall Street" investment banks. And then in turn, sometimes even hire peopel?

[JRLeft]

35. When people criticize Wall Street it's about Goldman Sachs, JPMORGAN

Chase, Citigroup, etc. Bernie supporters also criticize the fossil fuels industry. Hillary is pro fracking.

[Depaysement]

75. More accurately the people who control it

There are financial industry "serfs" who know what Bernie is talking about all too well.

[onehandle]

2. Anyone who has supported in the past, supports now, or supports in the future, Hillary Clinton.

Probably.

[wyldwolf]

3. Not a Sanders supporter here, but easy answer

I have a 401K worth X number of dollars. I am Wall Street. My participation in it make me an Oligarch.

Sanders supporters stuff their money under their mattresses. Evil Wall Street doesn't play any role. They're clean.

[noretreatnosurrender]

5. You're Really Reaching With That Spin

[wyldwolf]

7. So what are you saying? You hate Wall Street but take advantage of it?

[noretreatnosurrender]

17. LOL

Does it also mean I'm a health insurance company because I have health insurance? Or maybe I'm a pharmaceutical company because I take prescription drugs?

[wyldwolf]

18. no, it means if you OPPOSE something yet still USE it...

... well, you know what that's called.

[noretreatnosurrender]

19. No wonder

you support Hillary. This has to be THE most ridiculous spin I've seen yet.

[marew]

101. You nailed it! n/t

[kristopher]

122. Do you think that reining in WS will stop 401K performance?

If you do believe that, in my opinion you really don't understand anything that is going on. How much does automated high speed trading contribute to the growth you've seen in the past 10 years (if any)?

And on the values front, is your 401K more important than decent wages for workers or instituting single payer to lower the cost of health care while providing it to everyone?

[wyldwolf]

123. so everyone agrees what "reining in WS" means?

[kristopher]

124. Sanders is pretty explicit. Learn what he says and then rant if you need to.

Shouldn't you be interested in the actual policies that are on the table? Or would it help your retirement more if you focus on stirring up baseless fears and promoting misunderstanding?

https://berniesanders.com/issues/reforming-wall-street/
Let us know what specific policies you think should not be put in place.

KEY ACTIONS
Introduced the “Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act,” which would break up the big banks and prohibit any too-big-to-fail institutions from accessing the Federal Reserve’s discount facilities or using insured deposits for risky activities.

Led the fight in 1999 defending Glass-Steagall provisions which prevented banks (especially “too big to fail” ones) from gambling with customers’ money, and currently is a co-sponsor of the Elizabeth Warren/John McCain bill to reinstate those provisions.

Has proposed a financial transaction tax which will reduce risky and unproductive high-speed trading and other forms of Wall Street speculation; proceeds would be used to provide debt-free public college education.

Is co-sponsoring Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s bill to end Wall Street’s practice of paying big bonuses to bank executives who take senior-level government jobs.

Introduced a tax on Wall Street speculation to make public colleges and universities tuition-free

Supports capping credit card interest rates at 15%.

Sponsored an amendment calling for an audit the Federal Reserve. The audit found that far more had been spent in the Wall Street bailout than previously disclosed, and that considerable funds had been spent to bail out foreign corporations.

Warned about the risks of deregulation eight years before the fiscal crisis of 2008.

Has proposed limiting the ability of bankers to get rich from taxpayer bailouts of their institutions

[pdsimdars]

15. Give 'em a break, spin and lies are all they have, the can't win on the issues or her record

[livetohike]

8. +1000 . I'm retired. My 401ks helped make it possible.

[wyldwolf]

14. If I am against something, I have NO part of it.

I mean, if Bernie followers want to leave it all up to Social Security and handouts from family and friends, please, let them pull their money from the evil Wall Street-run retirement accounts.

[RiverLover]

32. We aren't against Wall Street, we're against how Wall Street has infiltrated the govt

And writes its own legislation.

And is able to gamble with us tax dollars as a get out of jail free card and screws the little guy. Like with Bankruptcy & home mortgage foreclosure laws that benefit banks and not people.

All the while risking our economy with derivatives. Nothing has changed really, since our 08 crash. Its going to happen again & the banks are bigger NOW than they were when we had to bail them out because they were "too big too fail."

So we'll do it again. The market will crash & there will be more layoffs & foreclosures & we'll bail them out & no one will be in trouble with the law because they rewrote all the laws so they could carry on with criminally negligent activity, legally.

[cherokeeprogressive]

86. How do you get from Point A to Point B?

[Cobalt Violet]

21. glad you got yours!

You must be one of the beautiful people!

[livetohike]

27. What a rude statement. Hope you "get yours" one day.

I really do.

[Warren Stupidity]

102. Nearly have of american families have no retirement savings at all.

Nearly half of families have no retirement account savings at all. That makes median (50th percentile) values low for all age groups, ranging from $480 for families in their mid-30s to $17,000 for families approaching retirement in 2013. For most age groups, median account balances in 2013 were less than half their pre-recession peak and lower than at the start of the new millennium.

http://www.epi.org/publication/retirement-in-america/

401k's work - but they primarily work for the upper income brackets and are an abysmal failure for the vast majority of the population.

Nearly half of working-age families have nothing saved in retirement accounts, and the median working-age family had only $5,000 saved in 2013. Meanwhile, the 90th percentile family had $274,000, and the top 1 percent of families had $1,080,000 or more (not shown on chart). These huge disparities reflect a growing gap between haves and have-nots since the Great Recession as accounts with smaller balances have stagnated while larger ones rebounded.

http://www.epi.org/publication/retirement-in-america/

This is not a system that works for the majority. It is a system that enriches Wall Street and benefits the few who have enough income to put aside significant amounts for retirement.

[RiverLover]

20. BS

THIS is WALL STREET

How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform
It's bad enough that the banks strangled the Dodd-Frank law. Even worse is the way they did it - with a big assist from Congress and the White House.
By Matt Taibbi May 10, 2012



Two years ago, when he signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, President Barack Obama bragged that he'd dealt a crushing blow to the extravagant financial corruption that had caused the global economic crash in 2008. "These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history," the president told an adoring crowd in downtown D.C. on July 21st, 2010. "In history."

This was supposed to be the big one. At 2,300 pages, the new law ostensibly rewrote the rules for Wall Street. It was going to put an end to predatory lending in the mortgage markets, crack down on hidden fees and penalties in credit contracts, and create a powerful new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to safeguard ordinary consumers. Big banks would be banned from gambling with taxpayer money, and a new set of rules would limit speculators from making the kind of crazy-ass bets that cause wild spikes in the price of food and energy. There would be no more AIGs, and the world would never again face a financial apocalypse when a bank like Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

Most importantly, even if any of that fiendish crap ever did happen again, Dodd-Frank guaranteed we wouldn't be expected to pay for it. "The American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street's mistakes," Obama promised. "There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period."

Two years later, Dodd-Frank is groaning on its deathbed. The giant reform bill turned out to be like the fish reeled in by Hemingway's Old Man – no sooner caught than set upon by sharks that strip it to nothing long before it ever reaches the shore. In a furious below-the-radar effort at gutting the law – roundly despised by Washington's Wall Street paymasters – a troop of water-carrying Eric Cantor Republicans are speeding nine separate bills through the House, all designed to roll back the few genuinely toothy portions left in Dodd-Frank. With the Quislingian covert assistance of Democrats, both in Congress and in the White House, those bills could pass through the House and the Senate with little or no debate, with simple floor votes – by a process usually reserved for things like the renaming of post offices or a nonbinding resolution celebrating Amelia Earhart's birthday.

The fate of Dodd-Frank over the past two years is an object lesson in the government's inability to institute even the simplest and most obvious reforms, especially if those reforms happen to clash with powerful financial interests. From the moment it was signed into law, lobbyists and lawyers have fought regulators over every line in the rulemaking process......snippp....

Upon entering office, FDR was in exactly the same position Obama found himself in after his inauguration in 2009. Then, as now, the American economy was in tatters after the bursting of a massive financial bubble, brought on when speculators borrowed huge sums and gambled on unregistered securities in largely unregulated exchanges. This mania for instant riches led to an explosion of Wall Street fraud and manipulation, creating a mountain of illusory growth divorced from the real-world economy: Of the $50 billion in securities sold in America in the 1920s, half turned out to be worthless.

Roosevelt's response to all of this was to pass a number of sweeping new laws that focused on a single theme: protecting consumers by forcing the business of Wall Street into the light. The Securities Act of 1933 required all publicly traded companies to register themselves and offer prospectuses to investors; the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 forced publicly traded companies to make regular financial disclosures; and the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936 required all commodities and futures to be traded on organized exchanges. FDR also created the FDIC to protect bank depositors (through an insurance fund paid for by the banks themselves) and passed the Glass-Steagall Act to separate insurance companies, investment banks and commercial banks. Post-New Deal, if you put money in a bank, you knew it was safe, and if you bought stock, you knew what you were buying.

This reform strategy worked for more than half a century – and it offered Obama a clear outline of how to respond to the crash he faced. What made 2008 possible was that Wall Street had moved its speculative frenzy away from the regulated exchange system created by FDR, and into darker, less-regulated markets that had coalesced around brand-new financial innovations like credit default swaps and collateralized-debt obligations. It wasn't that the old system had broken down; Wall Street had just moved the playground.

All Obama needed to do to rescue the economy and protect consumers was to make sure that the new playground had some rules. That meant moving swaps and other derivatives onto open exchanges, making sure that federally insured banks that dabbled in those dangerous markets retained more capital, and coming up with some kind of plan to prevent the next AIG or Lehman Brothers disaster – i.e., a plan for unwinding failing companies that wouldn't require federal bailouts.....

........Then, behind the closed doors of Congress, Wall Street lobbyists and their allies got to work. Though many of the new regulatory concepts survived in the final bill, most of them wound up whittled down to such an extreme degree that they were barely recognizable in the end. Over the course of a ferocious year of negotiations in the House and the Senate, the rules on swaps were riddled with loopholes: One initially promising rule preventing federally insured banks from trading in risky derivatives ultimately ended up exempting a huge chunk of the swaps market from the new law. The Volcker Rule banning proprietary gambling survived, but not before getting its brains beaten out in last-minute conference negotiations; Wall Street first won broad exemptions for mutual funds, insurers and trusts, and then, with the aid of both Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, managed to secure a lunatic and arbitrary numerical exemption that allows banks to gamble up to three percent of their "Tier 1" capital, a number that for big banks stretches to the billions.

Then there was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which went from being a powerful, independent agency run by Elizabeth Warren to a smaller bureau within the Federal Reserve System run by - well, anyone but Elizabeth Warren. With Geithner and Republicans in Congress blocking her once-inevitable appointment, we no longer had Warren playing watchdog to Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke - instead we had new CFPB head Richard Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general who enjoys far less of a popular mandate than Warren, forced to operate within the bureaucracy of Bernanke's Fed.

But the best example of how the watering-down process helped make Dodd-Frank ripe for a later killing was the question of Too Big to Fail. Obama, Geithner and the Democratic leadership in Congress never seriously entertained enacting the most obvious and necessary reform at all – breaking up the so-called "systemically important financial institutions" (the congressional term for "banks so huge we'll have to bail them out if they collapse&quot . Rather than simply stopping these firms from getting so big that they'd blow up the universe in a collapse, the Democrats opted for a half-clever semantic trick, claiming they had solved the future bailout question with Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act, known as the "Orderly Liquidation Authority" or "OLA" section of the bill.


.......BIG interesting sad SNIP.............

Under normal circumstances, seeing the Republicans send a bunch of evil bills like the derivatives exemption to the Democrat-controlled Senate wouldn't scare reform advocates too much. But in March and April, something happened that sent progressives into a veritable panic – the passage of the so-called JOBS Act, a sweeping, bank-fellating deregulatory law that rolled back a smorgasbord of regulations designed to protect investors from fraud in the IPO markets. The White House, eager to greenlight "crowdfunding" investments and a handful of other sensible reforms contained in the bill, leaned on the Senate leadership to send the measure straight to the floor for a vote. That meant this monster deregulatory bill went directly into the books with minimal testimony, no committee hearings and no real debate of any kind.

Now, in the wake of the JOBS Act fiasco, many reform advocates expect the same scenario to repeat itself with the nine bills to roll back Dodd-Frank.

...........big huge fascinating sad SNIP......


That's the underlying problem with cracking down on Wall Street: Our political-economic system has grown too knotted and unmanageable for democratic rule.

While it's incredibly difficult to get a regulatory reform passed, it's far easier – and more profitable to politicians – to kill it. Creating legislation is a tough process. But watering down legislation? Strangling it with lawsuits and comment letters and blue-ribbon committees? Not so tough, it turns out.

You can't buy votes in a democracy, at least not directly, but our democracy is run through a bureaucracy. Human beings can cast a vote, or rally together during protests and elections, but real people – even committed professionals – get tired of running through mazes of motions and countermotions, or reading thousands of pages about swaps-execution facilities and NRSROs. They will fight through it for five days, or maybe even six, but on the seventh they will watch a baseball game, or Tanked, instead of diving into that morass of hellish acronyms one more time.

But money never gets tired. It never gets frustrated. And it thinks that drilling holes in Dodd-Frank is every bit as interesting as The Book of Mormon or Kate Upton naked. The system has become too complex for flesh-and-blood people, who make the mistake of thinking that passing a new law means the end of the discussion, when it's really just the beginning of a war.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-wall-street-killed-financial-reform-20120510#ixzz428jPYw6m
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[wyldwolf]

23. So participating in Wall Street doesn't EMPOWER Wall Street?

[RiverLover]

26. You sound like a republican. A small stock holder has no say in what goes on in DC

and you know it.

People bought & sold stocks, and profited just fine before Clinton1 came along & wiped out some critical rules which had previously protected the US economy. For 50 years.

[vintx]

42. It's seriously shocking to see people on this kind of a site acting confused about this.

Is this a democratic site or not?

WTF?

[RiverLover]

54. Yes, it is shocking. And no it doesn't seem Democratic. But then neither does Hillary.

I'm done here.

[Kall]

63. Yes.

You certainly are.

[RiverLover]

78. Gee thanks, Kali!

Bless your heart.

[Glamrock]

58. Not

It's become rompers room.

[Cobalt Violet]

155. no kidding the poor bashing on this sight and on this thread is ugly.

[marew]

99. +1!

Exactly! The taxpayers bailed out Wall Street but Wall Street never returned the favor. Being debt averse, this never happened to me, but I know multiple people who had foreclosures and bankruptcies due to Wall Street malfeasance.

[Cobalt Violet]

158. +1000

[CoffeeCat]

82. Hillary being in bed with Wall Street damages her; so your answer is, Wall Street ain't that bad!

Look, we get it. Hillary's million-dollar Wall Street speaking fees have damaged her campaign. So has her refusal to release her transcripts. Poor dear...she can't even bear to show us her own words. And that constant tin cup she's got in her hand--begging for Wall Street dollars as they hold high-dollar fundraisers that fuel her campaign.

Meanwhile, Bernie's campaign is fueled by "We The People."

Her untrustworthy numbers sit at 69 percent and I'm sure that can be attributed, in part, to her Wall Street dalliances.

We get that her campaign is trying to do some damage control as the states that heavily favor Clinton fade in the rear-view mirror and Sanders continues to break fundraising records (including out raising Hillary in February).

However, I NEVER thought I'd see the day when our Democratic party would hit on the note that Wall Street really isn't that bad. Hell, if you have a 401k, you participate in Wall Street! Come on everybody--Wall Street really is Main Street.

It's you and me!

[cherokeeprogressive]

84. "Sanders supporters stuff their money under their mattresses." Wow. Fuck me every which way...

I've read nonsensical shit. I've read imbecilic shit. I've read shit. I've read idiotic shit. I've read shit written by four year olds.

And then I read post #3. Beats all that other shit straight to hell.

[wyldwolf]

85. you liked that, did you?

[cherokeeprogressive]

87. More than I like diarrhea.

[wyldwolf]

90. And we know how much you like THAT!

[cherokeeprogressive]

91. Sanders supporters stuff their money under their mattresses.

[Lizzie Poppet]

93. I'm not saying some Hillary supporters are pricks...

...but rumor has it they wear turtlenecks to hide the circumcision scars.

No worries...only have one hide right now.

[cherokeeprogressive]

96. LOL turtlenecks.

Can't say as I disagree with that!

I guarantee some are offended by your last sentence. Reminds me of an old Benneton commercial... "When my parents hate my clothes, they're perfect."

[Lizzie Poppet]

97. Not sure I ever saw that commercial...

...but that's perfect!

[Cobalt Violet]

157. It was disgustingly classist of you.

[Cobalt Violet]

156. I can't believe what DU is now.

Really ugly poor bashing shit there. Not something I would expect to have seen here a few years back.

[Lizzie Poppet]

88. "Easy" has multiple connotations.

That "answer" certainly applies to at least one of them...

[Warren Stupidity]

98. Well you know who really loves your 401k and the millions

Of other individual retirement accounts of all flavors? Yes indeed it is the investment houses like jpmorgan, goldman Sachs,fidelity et al, who pull in vast sums managing those accounts regardless of how well or poorly they perform, they love them and they spend millions on political contributions to make sure they never go away, and they would very much like to do the same thing to social security that they've done to private pensions.

But you're not an idiot and you know that you and your pathetic little 401k are not "Wall Street", you are part of what Wall Street feeds off of. The real question here, since we all do in fact know what is meant by "Wall Street" is why are people posting rightwing talking points on DU?

[Kang Colby]

127. False. My index funds

charge around 2-5 basis points per year as the ER. Bernie would like to tax transactions at 50 basis points every time someone contributes to their 401k. This is what he means by punishing Wall Street - to him it means taxing the bejesus out of retirement savers.

Luckily, this is such goof troop idea it will never come to fruition. Sweden repealed their Tobin tax once it tanked their markets and caused companies to list on foreign exchanges. If this were to come to fruition, the big boys of Wall Street would trade synthetics off the major exchanges to avoid the tax and middle class savers would be stuck paying for Sanders' folly.

Sanders may be the worst candidate in U.S. history on economic matters. I wonder if he ever bothered to read a book on the topic?

[JonLeibowitz]

131. Most money is not indexed, it is actively managed.

[Kang Colby]

135. That's right, Jon. Then why doesn't Bernie propose legislation capping ERs/loads

paid by ordinary investors? Something like that would make sense and help protect people. But sadly, it doesn't make for a good sound bite and Bernie apparently despises sensible policy.

The "Wall Street" that Bernie supporters would theoretically want to punish are the companies out there charging 5.75% on loads and 1%+ on ERs. The businesses out there selling whole life insurance to people that don't need it, the hucksters and scam artists that steal from retirees and veterans. I say theoretically because I've never seen a Sanders supporter or Bernie articulate that so who knows what they are talking about. I just find it hard to believe that ordinary folks have so much issue with financial services companies that put together IPOs, finance M&A activity, or act as market liquidity providers.

Otherwise, the only people Bernie supporters would be punishing are just common folk trying to save for retirement.

[JonLeibowitz]

137. I don't agree with such legislation, actually.

You are essentially saying that two people cannot enter into a contract. Maybe a particular fund has high costs due to expensive research teams but make up the difference in outstanding returns. It's difficult to know in advance (and is why I index), of course, but we should not, in my view, remove people's agency in the market. That would be a bad law and a bad policy, in my opinion.

What I would support, and notice that neither of our candidates have spoken about is clarity on the rules of fiduciary responsibility. Simply requiring that financial advisors give advice that is bound by a fiduciary duty (i.e. acting in their best opinions of your best interest, not theirs through kickbacks from high ER/loads) would be an enormous improvement.

I am actually surprised Liz Warren hasn't pushed much here. I suspect the institutional pressure on this front is very difficult to overcome, however.

[Kang Colby]

138. I think you make fair points.

With respect to stopping people from getting burned by high ERs/loads, I would at least suggest that there is already some degree of precedent set with various regulatory exemptions for accredited investors. I do realize those rules are being relaxed some to allow people to invest via crowdfunding now though.

I agree with you entirely on the fiduciary standard.

[JonLeibowitz]

141. Good point, I had not thought of it that way.

Pushing further on the fiduciary standard point, here is a case where to my mind it is clear Bernie would get further. Due to Clinton's deep ties with the financial industry (she is heavily rumored to be considering Larry Fink of Blackrock as Sec Tres), will such a proposal ever reach her desk or be seriously considered? I have my doubts. Those with influence and who have her ear will never back this. Counterpoint is, blackrock is better than most when it comes to low fees through their quasi-indexed asset management. I still highly doubt such a regulation comes out of a Clinton white house.

This is why I hope Warren does not endorse Sanders -- the level of influence she has with a likely Clinton presidency would affect an issue just such as this.

[Kang Colby]

143. That's interesting.

It's hard to say what will happen over the course of the next 4-8 years. I don't see a fiduciary standard coming out of a Republican controlled legislature, that's for sure.

I think Hillary could get some meaningful reforms accomplished that *should be* bi-partisan in nature, and could be championed by people like Elizabeth Warren. Hillary alludes to these reforms on her campaign site in nuanced but unspecific language. Unfortunately, I don't see anyone getting into the weeds regarding HFT strategies like layering and differentiating that from beneficial activity like providing liquidity during the course of a primary or GE contest. LOL

I also think Hillary would be less likely to go after IRA to Roth conversions for upper middle class families in the Roth phase out range. Obama has offered stopping these several years in a row in his annual budget proposal. Then again, Obama signed these into law in 2010. I think the conversions should be kept in place to encourage retirement saving.

[JonLeibowitz]

148. I am conflicted about that (post-tax Roth conversions)

Ultimately, I would personally stand to benefit from the loophole so I hope it doesn't get axed (after finishing school). But I still support Bernie because it isn't all about my checkbook.

However, can we really say that the conversions encourage retirement saving? Aren't the people who are savvy enough to recognize and take advantage of this loophole going to fund their retirement anyway? It was never the original intent (apologies to Scalia) of the Roth program to have this backdoor.

The nuanced and unspecific language is endemic of many of her policy proposals unfortunately. I could be biased due to partisanship, but I can't find many concrete campaign pledges nor tell where she definitively stands on major issues like fracking (borne out in tonight's debate) and trade and financial sector regulation. I have seen and heard a lot of work to, try to, address. It seems really easy to accomplish something mediocre and declare victory while the real problem is left untouched. That is, if you accept that the "game is rigged", to borrow Warren's language, this is exactly where the lobbyists come in and carve it up to meet their needs.

Anyway, that's me.

[Kang Colby]

151. Regardless of who wins...

you can spend your time making the world a better place for other people. That's the important thing. The fact that you know what a Boglehead is and your still in school is a great thing. I wish I knew about St. Jack when I was in school.

I don't look at post tax IRA to Roth conversions as a loophole. That conversion was discussed on the floor of congress and signed into law by President Obama long after Roth IRAs came into being. Having that extra $5500 or $11000 (married filing jointly) stored away in retirement gives people some additional comfort in that they will have a stable retirement. We are talking about $11000 for a working married couple, not the 1% boogeyman. Otherwise, and this is just my opinion, it's yet another effort to shrink the middle class from the top of the range rather than the bottom. Actually performing the conversion is very easy, the IRS form 8086 doesn't require special CPA skills. Long story short, truly rich people aren't worried about socking 11 grand in earned income away. Some of us need it.

As far as Hillary goes, I just think she is the better candidate. Now, that's just my opinion. But when someone like Bernie comes out and starts talking about Tobin taxes, I have to question whether or not he even cares about good policy solutions. Horrible idea. It's not that I disagree with Bernie's goals, his path to get there just comes across as looney.

Best of luck to you, Jon. Hopefully I will see you around DU.

[JonLeibowitz]

152. Know what a boglehead is? I am on the moderation team over there!

Cheers. See you around, there and here.

[dflprincess]

125. I'm a Bernie supporter and I have a 401K

the company I work for used to offer pensions - but it bought into the Wall Street scam that is 401Ks (this happened before I started working there.) I just hope the market is up and stays up if and when I decide I can retire. As it is, I don't see how that can happen before I turn 70. If I'd had a pension, I might have been able to stop several years earlier.

I also have a better than average savings account; large enough that I would have made a decent amount of interest on it before deregulation - last year it paid $15 in interest. When I cleaned out my mother's I found a savings passbook from an account I had as a child - I made nearly as much interest in the early 1960s on a $400 savings account as I did on what I have in the bank now.

BTW, if you have enough money in a Health Savings Account you can "invest" that in 401k type funds. Again, hope the market is up if you have any large medical expenses. because there is no guarantee you won't lose every dollar you put into that scam.

Wall Street is made up of crooks like the people running Goldman Sachs who will stop at nothing to screw the middle class.

[Kang Colby]

140. 401k plans aren't a scam.

It sounds like your asset allocation doesn't align with your risk tolerance. The markets go up and down all the time, stock funds are long term investments. If you need the money anytime soon, then that money should not be in stocks. Most of us have some set balance between stocks and bonds and re-balance to keep the allocation aligned with our risk appetite.

I would suggest reading any number of books by Jack Bogle. Having said that, it's possible that your 401k only has access to expensive funds. I suggest checking the expense ratio for the funds you own and do some research.

Keep in mind, pension funds don't contain magic beans...the majority of assets in the pension funds tend to be....stocks.

[JonLeibowitz]

142. Always great to see a fellow Boglehead on DU.

[Kang Colby]

144. Likewise.

It's great to see a fellow Boglehead on DU. From what I can tell, there doesn't seem to be very many of us.

[Old Crow]

134. Ridiculous post. And I worked in the financial services industry for nearly 20 years.

You're equating the Average Joe who has a 401(k) with the those at the top of the financial services industry?

Whatever.

[tazkcmo]

4. If you have to ask

Then you probably don't really care. Hope you have gloves on while stirring the shit.

[pandr32]

36. What????????

[Kalidurga]

128. And I hope they are white and permeable...

[Gregorian]

6. It's the WALL in Wall Street.

Wall street is a street in lower Manhattan that is the original home of the New York Stock Exchange. The street is the historic headquarters of the largest U.S. brokerages and investment banks. Many have since relocated to other areas of Manhattan and the United States. Wall Street was named after the wooden wall Dutch colonists built in this area in 1653 to defend themselves from the British and Native Americans.

2. The collective name for the financial and investment community, which includes stock exchanges and large banks, brokerages, securities and underwriting firms, and big businesses. Some people believe that the interests of these big firms contrast those of smaller businesses, or "Main Street."


So to answer your question, it's the wall. That part which keeps everyone in the country from participating.

[livetohike]

24. Anyone who works and has a 401k, or savings in a mutual fund

is participating. Anyone who works for a publicly traded company is participating because their paychecks and benefits are supported by earnings.

Everyone else participates indirectly.

[Gregorian]

39. That's interesting. What is participation?

The reality is that there are people who have retirement accounts that have been raided. Many have lost their retirement accounts due to malfeasance on the part of those running the companies. The decision to use retirement accounts was not one that included those who are recipients of those accounts. That's the participation which most people do not have, which is crucially important in determining the wellbeing of the worker.

We may be able to be a part of what is happening in our workplace, but in general it is so small as to be ineffective.

Imagine that you have complete control of the company with the remainder of the employees. That, no doubt, is a far more healthy environment. One where the employee has control over their life and livelihood. That's the kind of participation that we are fighting for.

The bottom line is that having choice beats having less or no choice.

[krispos42]

9. Cross-reference the list of places that paid Clinton 8 figures to speak.

You know, the 200 years of my wages she got in a year for giving a handful of talks.

[Darb]

37. Jealous? Or what exactly?

Sounds like envy, but not sure.

[krispos42]

74. How about disgust?

Does that work for you?

Rich people that can't say "I have enough".

And it's also what the people/corporations on that list were buying.

It's disgusting when a CEO makes 400x median annual wage, but not when Clinton does it?

At least a CEO works most of the year. At least a baseball player plays 162 games a year. At least a movie star spends weeks preparing and practicing as well as several weeks on set.

[Darb]

106. I agree with all that but...

what does that have to do with Hillary, a private citizen, accepting fees to make speeches to groups of people?

[appalachiablue]

105. No envy at all. Righteous contempt, disgust and demand for reform. Now.

[Darb]

108. Define the reform then,

and stay in the realm of reality. And don't forget the realm of the possible.

[appalachiablue]

116. The Sanders plan is online, and so is much of the work of economists like Reich.

[Armstead]

10. Isn't that a movie starring Michael Douglas?

[pdsimdars]

11. saw this in another thread

A picture is worth a thousand words (thanks to the person who first posted it)

[vintx]

45. Must have been too complicated for the person who posted the OP to figure out.

They're just feigning confusion anyway.

This is fucking ridiculous.

Also thank you for posting that - it needs to be shared.

[Recursion]

49. Wait... you're calling Pepsico and Monsanto "Wall Street"?

[Matariki]

118. To the extent that any publically traded company has to make decisions

based on their investors, and therefore consequently ever mindful of their stock's share price, they can certainly be considered part of 'wall street'.

I worked at a large company that would manipulate their year-end earnings, for the sole purpose of the company's stock price, by laying off a good chunk of the work force. Then rehire after the first of the year because they certainly needed all those people they laid off.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Capitalism. .

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

13. Probably not your average eatery

http://www.wallstreetdeli.com/

[ZX86]

16. Classic Clinton logic.

"It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is.

[Darb]

38. Typical of Bernies,

sounding a great deal like the other side in bringing up ridiculous bullshit that is completely off topic. The point is that you Bernies don't know what Wall Street is and are tilting at windmills.

[ZX86]

68. You don't need to be a weatherman

to know which way the wind blows.

[Lizzie Poppet]

89. That's actually a legit (and critical) question in linguistic philosophy!

But I digress... Hey, it's what my post-grad education was all about!

[PowerToThePeople]

22. All the people and institutions

who work to separate the profits of industry from those who make those profits possible.

Would Bernie supporters be so kind as to define "Wall Street" for us?

[Armstead]

25. Perfect and succinct

[Gregorian]

41. There we go. Perfect.

[Darb]

46. What about raising capital for an business endeavor or entity?

Did you just happen to forget that?

[Hiraeth]

81. ^^^^ indeed ^^^^

[mmonk]

28. Really?

[RiverLover]

29. We're witnessing Democrats morph into republicans before our very eyes.

[ibegurpard]

34. no

They've been worming their way into the party for 40 years. The dynamics of this election are just such that they're having to be up-front about their views for a change.

[RiverLover]

47. True. I hadn't looked at it like that

Good point.

And maybe that is the good in all of this. A light is being shone clearly on the muck that's been hiding in the dark.

Yet the media has the NERVE to say people support Sanders because we want "free stuff."

The fact that RW policies enacted by "Democrats" have over-ridden our country & risk it everyday is buried. At least the light is shining for those of us who are paying attention.

[Darb]

48. Just admit it, you are chasing a white whale.

And you do not know what "Wall Street" is, much less how intertwined it is in our economy, for better or worse. That is why Bernie will not get the nomination, andif he did, he would get clobbered.

[vintx]

51. Exactly. Now that Bernie is in it and getting votes they're getting desperate.

The dirty tricks, the lies, the distortions...

[Darb]

40. No, intelligent people not tilting at windmills,

that is what you are seeing.

[RiverLover]

50. So do you think FDR was wrong?

Was he just tilting at windmills when he signed the Glass-Steagall Act, which protected US for 50 years?

Was he not intelligent?

And people still somehow made plenty of money on Wall Street?

[Darb]

57. No, smart guy.

Just quit whining about stuff of which you know jack shit is what I am saying.

Good grief.

[RiverLover]

77. Obviously, I know more than you.

So did FDR.

I guess we can always be grateful for the short time his DEMOCRATIC policies, which put rules on Wall Street in place, protected US.

And we'll probably never see that again thanks to enablers like you.

[FreakinDJ]

30. The Fuck-Heads who Foreclosed on your home while taking Tax Payer Handouts

Fuck your Boogieman scenario -

[Darb]

43. "Wall Street" is much more than that.

But you Bernies seem to just want a white whale.

[FreakinDJ]

44. No problem - I started this just for you

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511425251

[Darb]

52. I read it and commented, it has nothing to do with this thread.

Wall Street is much more than the parts that you hate.

But chase the white whale all you want.

[FreakinDJ]

55. Being in the top 5% income bracket

My honesty has nothing to do with my gender

Its called integrity - some thing Hillary is genuinely clueless about

[Darb]

59. Not following.

Any help?

[pandr32]

33. Good question!

We use banks and publicly traded companies and commodities each and every day. We need to hold them accountable, not demonize them as the big evil meanies in all things we don't like.

[Armstead]

53. Sorry but many have gone far beyond their legitimate roles and size to become Big Evil Meanies

[brooklynite]

56. I think some people here would be very unhappy with how "pro-Wall St" Elizabeth Warren is

I know her fundraising team.

[think]

61. How many crimes must Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, & JP Morgan commit before you consider them corrupt

Serious question...

[kennetha]

62. yeah

it's laughable to think that she is Bernie in a skirt

[Darb]

65. My point was that they do not know of what they attack.

Wall Street is all of us. It is intertwined and inter-connected into all of our lives and business EVERYWHERE.

Parts of it are fucked up, but "Wall Street" is a bogeyman that they do not understand.

That is why Bernie will not get the nom. Naivete of his followers, whining about "Wall Street" when that institution contributed to the creation of our economy and is a part of everything we do.

[think]

69. What part of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JP Morgan can't you comprehend?

[Darb]

109. That's not "Wall Street",

Those are commercial banks and investment banks. Or the hybrid of the two. What about the rest of "Wall Street"?

Get it? You guys no not of what you speak.

[think]

121. Wall Street Professionals Admit: Yes, Lots of Us Are Corrupt

Wall Street Professionals Admit: Yes, Lots of Us Are Corrupt

By Rich Smith - Jul 20th 2012 5:15PM

Is Wall Street corrupt? Responses vary depending on whom you ask. But ask the folks who work in the financial services industry and you'll get a surprisingly clear answer: "Yes."

A recent survey of 500 financial services professionals, conducted by market researcher Populus at the behest of law firm Labaton Sucharow, turned up some surprisingly candid results from the folks surveyed. For example:

39% of financial industry insiders surveyed "reported that their competitors are likely to have engaged in illegal or unethical activity in order to be successful."

And this was more than just suspicion. "26% of respondents indicated that they had observed or had firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace."

Nearly one in four "believed that financial services professionals may need to engage in unethical or illegal conduct in order to be successful.

Nearly one in three said they themselves felt "pressured by bonus or compensation plans to violate the law or engage in unethical conduct.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/07/20/stockbroker-corrupt-wall-street-cheats/

Bernie Sanders Calls Out 18 Corrupt CEOs For Stealing Trillions, Outsourcing Jobs, and Evading Taxes

ByColin TaylorPosted on August 08 2015

Last week, 80 CEOs jointly published a letter in the Wall Street Journal calling for austerity spending cuts to deal with the deficit, in a new effort to "starve the beast" and slice funds away from public programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid, reducing their effectiveness to make their calls for privatization more effective. It's the same old game that corporations and Republicans across the country have played time and time again, one that has the American people losing. Senator Bernie Sanders, champion of the middle class and economic justice, published his own response- a scathing condemnation of their hypocrisy and blatant opportunism:

"There really is no shame. The Wall Street leaders whose recklessness and illegal behavior caused this terrible recession are now lecturing the American people on the need for courage to deal with the nation’s finances and deficit crisis. Before telling us why we should cut Social Security, Medicare and other vitally important programs, these CEOs might want to take a hard look at their responsibility for causing the deficit and this terrible recession. Our Wall Street friends might also want to show some courage of their own by suggesting that the wealthiest people in this country, like them, start paying their fair share of taxes. They might work to end the outrageous corporate loopholes, tax havens and outsourcing provisions that their lobbyists have littered throughout the tax code – contributing greatly to our deficit. Many of the CEO’s who signed the deficit-reduction letter run corporations that evaded at least $34.5 billion in taxes by setting up more than 600 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens since 2008. As a result, at least a dozen of the companies avoided paying any federal income taxes in recent years, and even received more than $6.4 billion in tax refunds from the IRS since 2008. Several of the companies received a total taxpayer bailout of more than $2.5 trillion from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. Many of the companies also have outsourced hundreds of thousands of American jobs to China and other low wage countries, forcing their workers to receive unemployment insurance and other federal benefits. In other words, these are some of the same people who have significantly caused the deficit to explode over the last four years."

He then released a list of the eighteen CEOs who are responsible for triggering the recession, destroying the middle class, corrupting our politicians, underpaying their workers, and outsourcing jobs overseas. These are the names of traitors who have forsaken their people and nation to worship at the altar of greed:

1) Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $1.9 billion tax refund. Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? Over $1.3 trillion. Amount of federal income taxes Bank of America would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.6 billion.

2) Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $278 million tax refund. Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $824 billion. Amount of federal income taxes Goldman Sachs would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.7 billion

3) JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $416 billion. Amount of federal income taxes JP Morgan Chase would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.9 billion.

4) General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $3.3 billion tax refund. Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve? $16 billion. Jobs Shipped Overseas? At least 25,000 since 2001.

5) Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $705 million tax refund. American Jobs Cut in 2010? In 2010, Verizon announced 13,000 job cuts, the third highest corporate layoff total that year.

6) Boeing CEO James McNerney, Jr. Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? None. $124 million tax refund. American Jobs Shipped overseas? Over 57,000. Amount of Corporate Welfare? At least $58 billion.

7) Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Amount of federal income taxes Microsoft would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $19.4 billion.

8) Honeywell International CEO David Cote Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $34 million tax refund.

9) Corning CEO Wendell Weeks Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $4 million tax refund.

10) Time Warner CEO Glenn Britt Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $74 million tax refund.

11). Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $55 million tax refund.

12) Deere & Company CEO Samuel Allen Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $1 million tax refund.

13) Marsh & McLennan Companies CEO Brian Duperreault Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $90 million refund.

14) Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs Amount of federal income taxes Qualcomm would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.7 billion.

15) Tenneco CEO Gregg Sherill Amount of federal income taxes Tenneco would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $269 million.

16) Express Scripts CEO George Paz Amount of federal income taxes Express Scripts would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $20 million.

17) Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman Amount of federal income taxes Caesars Entertainment would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $9 million.

18). R.R. Donnelly & Sons CEO Thomas Quinlan III Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $49 million tax refund.

These are astonishing numbers. There are billions of dollars missing from the federal budget because huge multinational corporations don't pay any taxes while crying for spending cuts and austerity measures placed on the backs of the American people. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate really confronting these issues, and we must hear his message. We cannot allow the proud heritage of American democracy to slide into the dark pit of oligarchy, where the worker becomes a serf and the mega-rich rule like lords. Many thanks to True Activist.com for the story.

http://www.occupydemocrats.com/2015/08/08/bernie-sanders-calls-out-18-corrupt-ceos-for-stealing-trillions-outsourcing-jobs-and-evading-taxes/

And these banks are known as Wall Street banks are they not? Google Wall Street banks and see what comes up.
Here let me help you out:

https://www.google.com/search?q=wall+street+banks&rlz=1C1CHWA_enUS597US597&oq=wall+street+banks&aqs=chrome..69i57.4593j0j8&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8


Some more articles on Wall Street corruption:


http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2014/11/23/is-wall-street-corruption-endemic/19353115/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/untouchables/

Hell The Huffington Post has a section dedicated to Wall Street corruption:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/wall-street-corruption/

[PoliticAverse]

129. So when Clinton calls for new reforms on "Wall Street" she wants reforms on "all of us"? n/t

[Buzz Clik]

60. "Wall Street" is anyone who earns more than minimum wage.

[Hiraeth]

66. wow

one of the ugliest comments I have ever seen here.

[Buzz Clik]

70. You're new.

[Hiraeth]

73. fixed it. put OP on ignore. might be new but learning fast.

[Buzz Clik]

76. That's the spirit! Ignore people who say things contrary to your opinion. Life is so grand.

By the way, I'm didn't author the OP.

[Hiraeth]

80. I didn't say you did. I had interaction with OP previously. Got an alert from it. no hide but,

don't need the aggravation. should I also put you on ignore?

[Darb]

113. Of course you did you fantasy land dweller.

That's what is wrong with the Bernies, they are don't know what they are talking about.

[AgerolanAmerican]

64. What "Wall Street" means

The New York Stock Exchange is located at the corner of Wall Street and Exchange Place in lower Manhattan.

Wall Street itself is, well, wall-to-wall with finance corporations.

Thus it is a metaphor for financial interests in general as well as the financialization of the economy that has replaced the nation's wealth with debt, and appropriated the missing wealth to a tiny handful of individuals.

Something like half the wealth in this country is owned by the top few hundred families. It didn't happen because they excelled that much relative to everyone else, it happened because financial engineering was employed in combination with political corruption (they are the top source for campaign donations) to swindle and steal from everyone else for their benefit.

This is a problem.

[Hiraeth]

67. welcome to ignore.

[MrMickeysMom]

71. I can't believe you haven't been informed, but here goes...

Since the rise of U.S. commercial banking,which was supposed to have served under federal regulation and acting to compete with state banks, the laws the regulate how lending to the American business and home-buyer have drastically changed. Check out the cabinets of each Presidential administration, especially after Reagon's Ruling class appointees entered the ever-revolving door into Wall Street banking has allowed this industry to control who lends, and who pays. Since then, the power of lending essentially stems from 10 major Wall Street banks with almost no oversight from our Congress.

If you want to point fingers at those at the top, banking regulations are so relaxed, the incestuous relationship with the Federal Banking system is not federal, but these top privately owned banks, who can basically can print money and lend it out to OTHER banks for zero percent. We get to deal with those who can draw from this never ending well. As I see it, the Wall Streeters are (with their total assets after their name)

1. Bank of America Corp. Charlotte, N.C. $2,340,667,014
2. J. P. Morgan Chase & Company New York, N.Y. 2,135,796,000
3. Citigroup New York, N.Y 2,002,213,000
4. Wells Fargo & Company San Francisco, C.A. 1,223,630,000
5. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. New York, N.Y. 880,677,000
6. Morgan Stanley New York, N.Y. 819,719,000
7. Metlife, Inc. New York, N.Y. 565,566,452
8. Barclays Group US, Inc. Wilmington, Del. 427,837,000
9. Taunus Corporation New York, N.Y. 364,079,000
10. HSBC North America Inc. New York, N.Y 345,382,871

Unfair lending practices, which increases the risk of being able to pay back loans after aggressively marketing and giving a thumbs up to mortgages, brought the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression after 1929 market crash. Due to relaxation of laws to properly regulate how safe the lending market could become, the IOU's for paying the cost of the home off were allowed to be gambled. They simply BET and LOST because they were no longer able to be regulated as they once were after the depression. (Thank you, Bill Clinton). Since the bets against credit default swaps and rating systems (each big bank's compliance officers being paid off to rate "AAA" over the heaviest risks, the loss due to this irresponsible management fell on the American people. I would image you have some memory, unless you lived off planet that Wall Street bankers went directly to Washington for a bail out of $700 BILLION. We've been bailing them out while the economy's tanking affected millions of jobs. Many people, faced with the way the economy tanked were even less likely to survive the high interest rate they paid, and they lost their homes. Remember. Banks lend to themselves for ZERO percent.

If that's not enough, then I suggest you go to the library or book store and get your reading glasses on.

[noretreatnosurrender]

72. Lot of Fun Watching Hillary Supporters Defend Wall Street

[Mufaddal]

83. It has, by far, been one of the best parts of this election cycle. nt

[Lizzie Poppet]

95. Oh, but they're progressives! No, really!!

[Darb]

110. Don't be daft, we at least know what it is.

You Bernies are living in pony unicorn land where we can make a law and eliminate the big bad "Wall Street". Whatever the fuck you guys imagine that to be.

[noretreatnosurrender]

114. Sure You Do

Keep telling yourselves that.

[fourcents]

150. what country are you from? ever head of Glass–Steagall before the GOP & Clintons dismandeld it.

[boythayer]

79. The Financial Services Industry

That brought the US economy to its knees, millions of jobs lost, which dramatically increased the debt because of automatic spending, who spends millions in lobbying and campaign donations to keep their gravy train going.

[Darb]

111. What about publically traded companies? the bond market.

You know, how businesses acquire capital? What of all them?

You guys are in lalaland.

[marew]

92. Wall Street

Wall Street is a street running eight blocks, roughly northwest to southeast, from Broadway to South Street on the East River in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial sector (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or signifying New York-based financial interests. Anchored by Wall Street, New York City has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world,and the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.

Wall Street in a conceptual sense represents financial and economic power. To Americans, it can and does sometimes represent elitism and power politics, and its role has been a source of controversy throughout the nation's history. Wall Street has become synonymous with financial interests, often used negatively. The U.S. government with the Troubled Asset Relief Program bailed out the banks and financial backers with billions of taxpayer dollars, but the bailout was often criticized as politically motivated.

Whereas "Main Street" conjures up images of locally owned businesses and banks, the phrase "Wall Street" is commonly used interchangeably with the phrase "Corporate America".

According to the discipline of anthropology, the term culture represents the customs, values, morals, laws, and rituals which a group or society shares. In the public imagination, Wall Street represents economics and finance. However, although Wall Street
employees exhibit greedy and self-interested behaviors to the public, these behaviors are justified through their own value system and social practices.

[robbedvoter]

94. The Law firm Bernie uses to due the DNC is a Wall Street Law firm

It's located on Church street, few yards from the evil bankers, and the law suit is still active. Just wondering.

[aidbo]

100. This OP is reminiscent of the kind of posts I've seen anti-regulation-of-firearms apologists make.

'How can you call for gun regulation when you don't even know the difference between a clip and a magazine?'

As a Bernie supporter, I am not against the concept of financial markets and large financial institutions in and of themselves. It is obvious that they play an important roll in our economy. Nor am I against pharmaceutical companies nor insurance companies, etcetera. (Though I am morally opposed to the for-profit prison industry and believe it has no place in the USA.)

We have a problem when those types of industries have an enormously oversized influence by dint of their money and lobbying prowess on the elected officials that are supposed to represent us.


The two most likely candidates to be running for president are:

1) A politician that has taken large sums of money from these institutions and individuals. (but claims there will be no quid pro quo!)

and

2) An individual who has bragged about having had influence over politicians like the one he is liable to be running against. Including having given money to that very politician!

What kind of choice is it to have to choose between a corrupter and the one who has been corrupted?

[Darb]

112. No it's not, weak effort.

It points out that Bernies don't know shit about our economy. You guys sound like Trump.

[citizen snips]

103. If you have money in a retirment fund you are a part of Wall Street.

I would rather keep the current system and earn keep earning compound interest on a part of my savings. Bernie's fiscal plan is just based on fiction and emotion.

[JonLeibowitz]

132. No, Wall St. is the financial services industry.

[Motown_Johnny]

104. The same thing Hillary means when she uses the term n/t

[Chan790]

115. It's a street in the south end of Manhattan running between Broadway and the FDR. n/t

[phleshdef]

117. No Democrat/liberal/progressive should need to ask this.

[TransitJohn]

119. Fucking seriously?

[Matariki]

120. Are there any other basic concepts you need help with?

I'm sure the good folks in this thread will oblige.

I can name the capitals of all the states for you, would you like to know that?

[Cleita]

126. It's not something Bernie made up. It's commonly referred to by many in the context of

Wall Street (corporations whose stock is traded on the stock exchange) vs. Main Street or your average business that people patronize and whose ownership are single, partnership or closed corporation not traded on a stock exchange that is generally referred to as Wall Street.

[Kalidurga]

130. How awesome is it you can refuse to see people use Wall Street for short hand

the same way many people on DU use the word Republicons or CONservatives as short hand for people who don't give a rat's butt about social problems caused by the greed of the oligarchy and want to set up a theocracy.

[asuhornets]

133. Good questions..n/t

[TheProgressive]

136. If you don't know for yourself, you will never know...

[ecstatic]

139. NOT the gun manufacturers, apparently.

[fourcents]

145. What? Bernie is running on campaign finance reform, it's all related and it would take away the NRA-

-stranglehold in our political system too. Come on follow DU'er join the political revolution and lets get some big changes done.

[delrem]

146. You'll have to wait while I ask Markos what English vocabulary is acceptable.

Markos, being the supreme leader of the radical fighting force "The Netroots Nation", is compiling a list of unacceptable/acceptable English terminology. When he's done his compilation, which should be sometime after the GE, I'll get back to you with an answer, although I might be forced to use Chinese Mandarin or some other language.

In the meantime, be strong. I'm sure Wall Street has you covered.

[fourcents]

147. Answer=Bernie Sanders: 'Congress Doesn't Regulate Wall Street. Wall Street Regulates Congress.'

[Ken Burch]

149. Passive-aggressive OP's...always the most effective way to build party unity. n/t.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

153. A very large graven image

[Lint Head]

154. Maybe defining the people who were fleeced by "Wall Street" would suffice.

It's not a boogeyman hiding under your bed. It's the asshat criminals who directly stole 40% of what I had in my pension during the financial collapse. The movie, The Big Short, is well worth seeing. Michael Burry is the real boogeyman. If you think it's some esoteric fathom check out this crooks next venture. Privatizing water.