by Erik Kain on January 3, 2012
Time’s 2011 ‘Person’ of the Year was ‘The Protester’ as embodied by the protesters fueling the Arab Spring and Occupy . Writing from his new perch at The Atlantic, Robert Wright takes issue with Time’s choice: I wish that three weeks ago Time magazine hadn’t named ‘The Protestor’ the person of the year for 2011. It [...]
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by Erik Kain on December 14, 2011
Occupy successfully disrupted operations at the Port of this week, but their actions further alienate the movement from average American workers. Occupy may be facing evictions and other trip-ups across the nation, but in the movement is taking matters into its own hands. For the second time in as many months, Occupy protesters have disrupted [...]
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by Erik Kain on November 21, 2011
I have written as a friendly critic – or a skeptical supporter? – of the Occupy movement many times now. Over the weekend I wrote several posts condemning the police violence at UC Davis and UC Berkeley that occurred this past week. Before that, I wrote several posts about the limits of the protest movement [...]
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by Erik Kain on November 19, 2011
When the first major evacuation of Occupy was ordered, and police responded in full riot gear, I wrote at the time: A little friendly advice for the police: if you want a protest or a rally to dissipate, ignore it. Until it turns into a violent riot, ignore it. Even if it goes on for [...]
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by Erik Kain on November 19, 2011
Events like the one in the above video have been far too common in the police response to Occupy protests across the country. I do believe that Occupy is at a tipping point, and that it must grow beyond and evolve away from the tent city occupations, but this police response is absurd and excessive. [...]
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by Erik Kain on November 18, 2011
Is Occupy suffering from its own success? Perhaps it’s time the movement evolved beyond angry protests and tent cities. I was glad when I first heard learned about Occupy . Economic inequality is a real issue, not so much because of the inequality itself but because of what that inequality says about opportunity in America, [...]
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by Erik Kain on November 2, 2011
Bank of America, cowed by customer outrage and bad press and by the quick retreat of its biggest competitors from charging similar fees, has ditched their $5 monthly debit card fees. “We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee,” said [...]
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by Erik Kain on October 23, 2011
Nearly every country in the developed world has some form of universal access to health insurance. The glaring exception to this rule is the United States. As a proponent of free markets, I find this to be a glaring failure on the part of American policy makers and business leaders. So we see Occupy Wall [...]
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by Erik Kain on October 21, 2011
A number of commenters pushed back against me when I argued that taxing the rich, without fixing other injustices within our political system, would not be enough. Darren G warned that I was arguing “a straw man.” The recent poll published in the WSJ showed that 30% of the OWS protesters were motivated by ” [...]
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by Erik Kain on October 20, 2011
I find most discussions of taxation mind-numbingly stupid. We have a terrible tax code. It’s full of bad incentives. It’s written by people in the thrall of public opinion or pledged to Grover Norquist’s silly no-new-taxes pledge. It’s an ad hoc disaster that makes many tax lawyers and tax software people very rich. Many people [...]
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