Report: Occupy LA Costs Taxpayers $4.7 Million; Entire Movement Close to $30 Million

Whenever you have a group of filthy people getting together things can get very messy, and cleanup is not cheap.

reply to post by Carseller4


Yep, them bankers definetly made a mess didn't they?

LOL I wonder why no-one evaluates how much a corrupt government costs?

30 million over a few dozen protests!? Quickly call the presses! (I'm sure Fox news and Rupert Murdoch already have)



An investment banker can wipe out that much wealth in less than 30 seconds by clicking the wrong button.

The U.S. government spends that much money in 11 minutes. (source : US budget for 2011)

The much wealth, in gdp, generated about every 2 minutes (rounding up). (Source : US gdp 2010)

Somebody else can check my math on those figures, but they are in the correct ballpark range of what message I'm trying to convey.

The occupy protests were and are cheap as dirt relative to the power of the message it has and continues to generate.

And to answer your question :

Yes if it even got a few thousand people to begin questioning the bailout of massive banks, then its worth that cost. The time it took me to post this message and do the math/research involved cost the United States that much money in government spending, and the US as a whole generated nearly 6 times that figure in total gdp.

wonder how much civil war and the revolution cost

Originally posted by onequestion
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

Weather their intentions represent my beliefs or not i don't care. What i do care about is although they do not represent what the average American family wants for their children and themselves, the average American family cannot afford and is not willing to sacrifice what it takes to get what we deserve.

Offer us a better solution and i will support that. Untill then OWS it is....

The absence of a better solution doesn't make a bad one somehow better. So many have been out saying since last Fall that anything is better than nothing. Doing something is necessary.

Well, that's about the worst logic I've ever heard. I said it then and I say it now. Why? Occupy didn't get where they wanted to really causing a critical mass of numbers and participation. It has further polarized a public that needs to come together, not be driven further apart.

Far worse though, this approach of doing anything just because we all feel the need to do something has put us ALL in a position far worse than we were in September of last year when this began. Last year, the police and federal Government were newbie cherries when it came to the nuts and bolts of hard core counter-protest action. Outside of New York and D.C., where such things have always happened, what departments had extensive first hand experience? Few to none. Now? We have experienced and seasoned police and more from coast to coast and our side, the public, is still no more organized or effective than ever.

So all this has really done is train the opposition how to best put us down if we ever DO get our acts together to move toward serious change as a whole. Doing SOMETHING can sometimes be WORSE than doing noting. In this case, I believe this explains why.

Sorry.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

The absence of a better solution doesn't make a bad one somehow better. So many have been out saying since last Fall that anything is better than nothing. Doing something is necessary.

Your right but thats not what im saying. I am saying that OWS is better then our current situation. I am not advocating anarchy, i am advocating that there is a change and as long as people are focusing on a a change then i dont care what cause initiates the change.

Let me put it clearly and plainly. I am a man of god and of faith and i don't believe anything is more powerful then faith. Now having faith means to me that i trust the OWS movement is shining light because they are going to create a space with their energy that once they are gone or the movement changes, god is going to step in with his plans and help the good people of this earth overcome this evil.

That is how i feel.

reply to post by onequestion


That was very beautifully said.
Faith is a powerful thing, thank-you for giving yours.

The freedom to protest cost millions of gallons of BLOOD.

And you care about fiat $? Since protesting cost 30million $ we should eliminate that right?

Don't think so. This totalitarian viewpoint needs to be shot down.

Also isn't it funny that the anti-Obama Republican crowd is the main group against the people protesting the government ? It's irony! I would have expected the anti-Obama Republican crowd would have spearheaded the protests?

Oh I forgot, no matter how bad or corrupt govt is, these hacks believe that there is NO acceptable reason for protest obviously. Because if you don't have a reason now, after all that has happened, you will never have a reason.

Originally posted by onequestion
I am not advocating anarchy

Compared to totalitarianism and oppression, anarchy is just fine.

What does anarchy mean anyway?

An = Against
Archy = Rule

Are you "Against being Ruled" by others? If so, you are an anarchist.

Thugs who riot and destroy property are criminals as true anarchists respect the liberty and property rights of other individuals. A real anarchist is pragmatic and pacifist.

If you were a true "anarchist" and were against allowing others to rule you, than you would also reject the proposition that you would rule over others (ie: trampling their liberty like destroying their property).

I can pretty much assure you that less than 1% of the population is knowingly and accurately considered an "anarchist".

On the media when they say "anarchist" it's a misused term, what they really mean is "criminal thugs".

Henry David Thoreau was a real Anarchist. Please use this figure as a basis as he is one of the most influential figures in the history of the authoritarian resistance movements in this nation.

reply to post by onequestion

That's perfectly reasonable and I respect your opinion. I just got done making a thread about my own time and photos from living with Occupy last year, so I can sure understand the basis of your feelings. I disagree at this point in time, but we've gone about as far as that goes. I'll just say we sincerely hope for the same end results in changes to come. You are sure correct in saying the current system simply cannot go on.

reply to post by xuenchen

This is just silly.

That 'cost' is the overtime for a bunch of cops standing around.

And the 'cleanup' is to clean-up the camps the cops destroyed and prevented people from cleaning up.

Look at what a typical football game costs a city.

The question is, can the U.S. still afford to be the "home of the free" or is it time to cut back to "russian-style" democracy?

Rigorous crack-downs are definitely cheaper then allowing freedom of speech... just saying.

reply to post by muzzleflash


I can agree with everything you just post.

Originally posted by XPLodER
reply to post by xuenchen

 

oh the irony,
THE BILL FOR "PROCESSING" THAT 7 TRILLION TO THE TBTF BANKS IS IN THE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS.

you are so disingenuous trying to make out like "how dare they use their rights" look how much it cost us
really?

what about the 7 trillion given to the banks for them to get bigger?
i dont here you hating on the banks

you dont talk about the legislators of states investigating how if this money was given to state banks instead of federal banks people would not be suffering.

how about the fact that 18 states are looking at state banks, that HELP their state,
that pay devidends to the people instead of to private interests.

with 4.7 MILLION dollars of wall street prosecutions, there would be alot of the bailout money coming back.

with 30 million dollars we could thousands of investigators who prosicute wall street criminals,
NOT PROTECT THEM

i have been trying to be patient with you but you are simply either distorting facts for your own ajenda,
or need to get over your stockholm syndrome.

what has OCCUPY done?
it has educated many many many people to how the scam works,
it has inspired states to investigate "state banks" to protect people from the TBTF banks

what have you done but disinfo?

xploder

Actually, I agree with much of what you say, despite your constant attacks.

Some examples might help the cause.

Some people put the criminal bank assistance higher than $7 trillion.

The fact is, they have stolen so much and hidden so much, you may never find out the true amounts.

This old article from Sept 2010 is a start.

We all know about TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which spent $700 billion in taxpayers’ money to bail out banks after the financial crisis. That money was scrutinized by Congress and the media.

But it turns out that that $700 billion is just a small part of a much larger pool of money that has gone into propping up our nation’s financial system. And most of that taxpayer money hasn’t had much public scrutiny at all.

According to a team at Bloomberg News, at one point last year the U.S. had lent, spent or guaranteed as much as $12.8 trillion to rescue the economy. The Bloomberg reporters have been following that money. Alison Stewart spoke with one, Bob Ivry, to talk about the true cost to the taxpayer of the Wall Street bailout.

The true cost of the bank bailout

and maybe this one from july 2009

The federal government’s bailout of Wall Street may cost $23.7 trillion, according to a statement given to Congress Monday by the lead overseer of the Treasury's bailout program. Neil Barofsky, special inspector-general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), said that the US Treasury’s bailout program was fraught with “conflicts of interest,” “collusion vulnerabilities” and deliberate obfuscation of what banks are doing with the money they received from the government. He noted that there are 35 major fraud investigations related to the bailout, and that a substantial section of banks did not use their bailout funds to make new loans.

The Treasury immediately denounced Barofsky's findings, claiming the figure of $23 trillion failed to adequately account for repayments on the government loans, which it claimed might actually earn the government money.

US bank bailout could cost $23.7 trillion

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Now, back to you.

you are so disingenuous trying to make out like "how dare they use their rights" look how much it cost us
really?

where did you get that twisted idea ?

i have been trying to be patient with you but you are simply either distorting facts for your own ajenda,
or need to get over your stockholm syndrome.

Get real ......

By your own account, it was the excessive deployment of police officers that were the drain on the taxpayers. Get them out of there, and back to their real jobs: driving around, eating donuts, and handing out traffic violations. That's really all they're good for.

Actually this is GOOD thing for taxpayers in REALITY!! And VERY clever...

In the REAL WORLD, a good amount of our taxes is POCKETED by fat-cat scumbags, sad but TRUE. SO, instead of their pockets getting BIGGER, this tax money went into OUR POCKETS via our police officers among others, which resulted in the money going back into OUR ECONOMY.

Back into our ECONOMY instead of into the POCKETS and overseas bank accounts of the FAT-CAT dirt-bags. LESS for them to STEAL, and the tax money will still go to where it was intended to go. Just that NOW, they wont get to STEAL their CUT from our TAXES!!

WIN, WIN.

Very clever indeed Occupy!!

reply to post by xuenchen


Was it worth it?
All of those people on both sides and they were still not enough protesting WORLDWIDE to equal what just one bank recieved on a bailout, that is quite a statement.

How's about we as taxpayers ask congress to send the bill for this to George Soros and his Pal Andy Stern. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and good old' Barry Soreto also supported these useful idiots, they can pay the bill. They ALL are multi millionaires, they can afford it. But Soros and Stern bear the most responsibility for this farcical nonsense perpetrated on the American people.