UC Berkeley student take over of Wheeler Hall - 11/20/09

Students took over Wheeler Hall at 6:15 am on 11/20/09 to protest the 32% hike in fees. This means that tuition to go to a public university in California is now $10,000 plus living expenses. For a student in the residence halls, that is around $23,000 plus many other little fees and books. Good luck middle class students, maybe you can find a nice community college.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• berkeley
• student
• wheeler
• fee
• hike
• protest
• takeover

[SummerDAmbra]

@datamata You say its a liberal school where no one gets an education? Well, yeah they are protesting because a 32% fee hike truly means that no one can get an education.

[markus310773]

People are stupid. I know what kind of nonsense has been sold in to retail investors in Germany, but this would go too far...

The problem is that people are not that reliable if they do not have significant amounts of money invested. If it goes good they win, if it goes bad the investors lose...

[BlueSkies360]

ok, I read the 1st part. I honestly don't know what are we fighting about. I too believe that there should not have been too big to fails. But I think people are not stupid, they know whom they give theor money. If they are lazy to research, hey should pay the price. Not everybody can be rich.

[BlueSkies360]

so what are you saying?..... somebody else knows better how to spend your money?

[markus310773]

2nd part...

Financial markets are too critical for our economy. Many on Wall Street know this and can thus blackmail the rest of us.

I do work in the financial market. Trust me there was also a lot of shit sold to privat investors in Germany for example. I'm from Germany. I am sure it was not different in the US.

Many years ago you risked your own money. So you did not take crazy risks...

[markus310773]

That is incorrect. Unfortunately many governments (such as the American one) believed that many companies were too big to fail and thus threw many billion dollars at them.

With other people's money I meant that managers take care of money of other people. Via the incentive systems they can easily (rationally) be tempted to take too big risks. If it goes good they might earn a fortune if it goes bad they won't get a bonus (or maybe lose their job).

[BlueSkies360]

How is it taxpayers business what is happening on WST? People take their risks and suffer consequences or reap the rewards. The gov should not interfere. Nobody can use "other peoples" money without an agreement to do so. The problem with socialists is that they think that these "other people" are idiots and should be taken care of.

[markus310773]

Of course we need efficient capital markets. We do, however, not need 90% of what is happening on Wall Street.

[markus310773]

You are right up to a point. Many of the current problems came up by guys on Wall Street. For example many derivatives (such as Credit Default Swaps) were simply duplicated in order to sell them to investors.

I am for a free market economy. However, nowadays we have the problem that most important transactions are done with "other people's money".

It used to be (and still is for entrepreneurs) that you risk and profit from the OWN money...

[BlueSkies360]

The financial fallout has plenty to do with socialism. The trouble started with the Community Reinvestment Act that made it MANDTORY for banks to give mortgages to risky groups. Loans were/are backed by the taxpayer. Also the current money printing/low rates that take us further into the financial trouble abyss supports wealth redistribution. Savers are forced into speculation by the FED to sustain their buying power, whereas debtors enjoy the benefits of lower rates on their loans.