Occupy Wall Street

Let's get away from the reoccurring topics of morality issue here, religion opinion there, in SD and talk about something that actually matters for once.

To be frank, i'm very surprised this topic hasn't been discussed or even brought up much considering that Fakku's main demographic is Americans.

They're still doing that?

It's been "discussed" on IB a little but as you'd expect from IB it's not very productive.

Actually both me and other posters have made threads about the income inequality and the super rich in the past, though it seems we couldn't grasp the community's attenion.

Thank you for taking up the cause, and that video is a superb demonstration. Here's another from the same source:

#1 Correct. I have no idea why people thought it'd "trickle down

#2 Partially true. The term "Rich" is rarely defined in definite terms. According to the U.S Government "Rich" is anyone who makes more than 250,000/yr. This is complicated by the tax code that effectively pushes sole proprietorships and other small businesses to file taxes as personal income rather than as a company. which The Chipotle restaurant down the road from my apartment makes 4,000 per day.

In order for your business to not be considered "rich" you'd have to make less than $700 a day in total sales. You Tax those smaller businesses more and you'll see them close shop since they can't soak the extra costs like a corporation can.



At least he was standing up when he pulled that "statistic" out of his ass. Small business can't absorb higher costs like a large corporation.

Considering how little he spoke on the topic. He ignores a lot of facts about why our economy was so strong from the 40's to the 70's. One example was our strong manufacturing sector.

#3. Immediately runs to the teachers, firefights and police as if they are the only people employed by the federal Government. It is infuriating the way people like him treat the government.

People who want smaller government want to cut bureaucrats, reduce waste, reduce redundancy, reduce overhead, privatize some industries, reduce corporate welfare, etc. No more $16 muffins!

#4 True. We need the economy to rebound but, spending ourselves further into debt isn't the answer. Keynesian economics are more voodoo than Reaganomics

#5 Debatable. Depending on whose models you believe, medicare and social security can grow to be 20% of the Federal budget in 2050 to as much as 60% of the Federal Budget in 2050. Social security is already spending more than it is taking in revenue which wouldn't be bad if politicians hadn't spent the money that was supposed to be saved in the "lock box" for social security.

#6 True. Ponzi schemes like the ones run by Charles Ponzi and Bernard Madoff can work only if their operators keep investors in the dark about the source of their alleged magical returns. The Social Security Administration is scrupulously honest. Not only does the administration mail citizens reports detailing their expected contributions and receipts from Social Security, but it also publishes annual reports indicating future shortfalls.

#7 "Fairness" is a subjective term and isn't a valid subject for a debate. I think it's "unfair' that I pay more taxes than most people and yet, I receive fewer if no benefits for my higher taxes when things go bad. Not like I could have used that four grand the feds wanted, to possibly replace my work vehicle that was wrecked in 2010.

I believe no man should pay anymore than another man by simply being alive. If that person uses more resources than another man, then they should pay more for using those resources. I'd prefer to move away from the progressive income tax system and focus on a consumption tax.

Use more, pay more.

In both videos, Reich's points are accurate and not really particularly controversial, other than, as Fpod points on, fairness being something that is a debatable concept.

One point on small businesses: most small businesses do not contribute significantly to job creation. Most of them start small and stay small. The few that do expand and larger corporations create many more jobs. Rather than worrying about taxes on small businesses so much, time and money would be better spend on incentives for expansion and hiring if job creation is the goal.




Everyone wants to reduce corruption and waste. The $16 muffins are stupid and we should eliminate such wasteful expenditures. But that kind of thing isn't going to put much of a dent in the deficit.

Privatizing stuff has other social costs.



On the topic of the actual protests....

The movement doesn't have a coherent goal or mission statement or set of ideals. But people are mad.

And income equality could be a big reason why. Whatever you think is fair, socioeconomic status is one of the best predictors for how successful people become. It predicts school performance much better than factors like teacher quality.

Being rich is a huge advantage. Being poor is a huge disadvantage. And it's not something you earn as a child. You are born into it.

We preach equal opportunity, but we don't know what it means. In many ways, many people have early life experiences that, through no control of their own, set them up for failure. Some of them manage to overcome this and succeed anyways, but most of them don't. Others are born into circumstances that give them every advantage and set them up for success. A few fail anyways, but most don't. These circumstances are heavily influenced by wealth.

Does equal opportunity mean that the regulators should just get out of the way and not impede anyone? Or does it mean that we recognize that inequality of opportunity is inherent in our society but also try to address it in some way to give the disadvantaged a better fighting chance? Or does it mean we force everyone to be literally equal?

The answer to this question is always in flux, and I think the Occupy Wall Street protests are largely people expressing their displeasure about the way our policy current addresses the question.

One of the potential consequences of extreme inequality of wealth is social unrest. And with the significant growth this inequality has seen and our bad economic times, we may be starting to see some of that.

I support the movement in terms of supporting their rights to express their frustration in a peaceful way and I hope they are able to transform from an amorphous expression of economic frustration into a political faction that works for change by coming together and exchanging and sharing beliefs.

I think the tea party starting in somewhat of a similar way. A bunch of people were mad at the government, but they didn't necessarily agree on why or what should be done. However, the movement became a successful political faction rather than just causing violence or engaging in destructive behaviors because people came together and exchanged ideas.

I like the way the guy explains his position in about 2 minutes, not that I agree with him.

Does he have a video that explains how government spending money will reduce the national debt? I never understood how that works, nor have I seen any evidence that this is true.

So what do you guys think of the Occupy Wall Street leaders calling most of the protesters bored rich kids.
Or the calls for violent socialist revolution from L. A (go to about 32 seconds in)

Up until your last comment, I was with you... but man, do you have any idea what the Tea Party really is? It's a goddamn astroturf by the Koch brothers. No wonder that the mainstream media was all but rimming them on prime time... compare that to the coverage Occupy Wall Street gets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/25/tea-party-koch-brothers

...this (and many other pieces) were in fact investigated by the exile, it took the rest of the media *months* (sometimes *years*) to catch up:

http://exiledonline.com/washington-post-links-freedomworks-tea-party-koch-family-only-5-months-after-ames-levine/

This time it took 5 months for someone else to run the story.

Back on topic, OWS is pretty homogeneous in what they want, it's only that the corporate masters of the press don't want these ideas to take on:

http://boingboing.net/2011/10/08/polling-the-occupation-what-occupywallstreet-really-wants.html

Since I failed to actually answer the topic with my original post.

I'm sympathetic to the protestors but, some of their demands are absurd.

Cell phones being a right? That's utter bullshit. Someone else has to mine the materials, process the raw materials, transport said materials, manufacture the cell phone, transport the cell phones. Then others have to mine the material for the cell towers, process that material, transport that material, build the cell towers, maintain the cell towers, repair the cell towers.

Other people are working so you can have a cell phone. If a cell phone becomes a right, what happens to the people who put in all that work to support the manufacturing of cell phones? Do they stop getting paid? If not, where does the money come to pay those workers? I believe in public access to internet through Libraries and other methods but Christ, making it free? You don't have the right to force another person to work to maintain your right.

What's the next demand? A right to a laptop with wi-fi capabilities and a 360gb hard drive?

I'm honestly scared of what is occurring in this country. The ruling elite have orchestrated the largest shift of wealth in this country's history and in order to "counter" that shifting of wealth. The victims of the ruling elite's crimes are handing more control, power and overall influence to the very people who screwed them in the first place.



Do you even watch or read American news? The T.E.A party are labeled as terrorists, racists, homophobic bigots and every other slur the Democrat party can think of. Media does not openly support the T.E.A party. Occupy Wall Street gets the victim treatment in the news of innocent protestors being harassed by overzealous police and politicians.

You are right though, the current T.E.A party is manipulated by the Koch brothers. Not all T.E.A party activists are "Astroturf" but, some are. There are a few legitimate believers who simply are not privy to the knowledge the more politically aware have.

The initial T.E.A. party was founded on the rage people felt over the bailouts and government incompetence but, it was soon hijacked by the Koch brothers. Initially, I supported the T.E.A party, I was outraged by the bailouts. I hated the concept of the people who fucked over the American people were now getting more of our money from the Government. I hated the blatant corruption between the banks and the political elite. Then the Koch brothers and the religious wing-nuts got on board. Afterwards I abandoned ship and watched the train wreck in slow motion. Now, that the T.E.A party is in Koch brothers hands. I can only imagine the havoc Koch and the ruling elite can cause to the middle class when we sign over everything to them through the O.W.S protests.

About the "cell phone" issue, way to misinterpret the message FPOD:

"93% believe that communications like cell phone and internet access be a right and not just reserved for the rich and we should have free internet and cell phone service as a national goal."

You once again fail to grasp, that a "free service", doesn't mean no one is paying for it... or you actually do grasp it perfectly well, except as a libertarian you're unwilling to accept any system where you "pay by default".

You focus on the hardware, citing manufacturing and operational costs.
These people focus on what the system brings to the people and how technology has transformed communication. Without Internet access, without having a phone that you can use to reach out to the net, to broadcast and disseminate up to date information, freedom of speech and expressions are not possible.

System owners and operators are in the process of undermining those rights, by claiming overt power over the system they oversee. The whole net neutrality issue is around these concepts. To what degree can operators claim ownership over networks? Can a company literally own the radio bands, if a company is in a monopolistic position, does that grant it the rights to monitor and police thoughts?

Your post hasn't addressed any of these issues, merely citing that the costs have to be paid. (As they're being paid right now by consumers in the end).

I can accept your stance, however calling people names or stupid for demanding a free service - like how we have free roads and free radio broadcasts - is foul play, for instead arguing why such a setup is harmful you make base attacks on the character of the speaker(s).

I support the idea of the protest, but there method is no valid. Think that enough people(hippies) with a message is going to stop corporate greed and deregulation of easy, pain-free money grabing and the eventual meltdown of the american and first world nations economy who pay the free capitalist market game and.. our money owners. The people have no plan or ideas on how to enforce and change the rules of wall street. saying ' DOWN WITH CORPORATE GREED AND THE 1%' isn't going to change that way the new wall street and the players play the game.. strengthening the regulations and the SEC will but no enough. We need a change on the way wall street thinks and a new plan on it workings.. their nothing bad about making money but off the backs of common folks pensions, stock options and the basic global economy isn't a way to be stable in the market.

This is probably a more accurate statement, although some might use organized instead of hijacked. We can wax poetic all we want about grassroots and decentralization, but the fact of the matter is that movements like the Tea Party and OWS are able to gain staying power and accomplish coherent political objectives once they establish leadership and organization. The American Revolution, which the Tea Party likes to talk about, was similar. An organized minority of leaders "hijacked" the anger some colonists had towards Britain to start a war, even though most colonists, even many of those who were angry, had no interest in doing so.

If OWS is going to stay around and accomplish anything other than some media sensationalism, leaders are going to eventually emerge, consolidate some power, and organize the movement's goals into a more coherent form. Already there are reports that union bosses are trying to get in on the action. To some, this will be "hijacking" the movement, it's part of the way things go.

Even though the Tea Party was "hijacked" by leaders, it still maintains many goals and policies that address many of reasons people were angry in the first place: anti-tax, anti-welfare programs, anti-bailouts, etc.

Where did I call anybody a name? Where did I even insult someone? Was it when I said some demands are bullshit or is it when I used the word absurd?



Their property paid for the infrastructure you use to communicate. Their money, their infrastructure, their towers, their property. Property owners maintain sole control over their property.



Same question can be applied to Government. I believe we'll both agree that monopolies are bad but, I can't understand why you want to form a monopoly where the "company" has the guns.

Forgive me for being jumpy at the concept of the Feds controlling our communications. It's not like we had the fairness doctrine imposed on us in the past or that the Feds want to control the internet. The Government also wants a license to use the internet.

The U.S government is corrupt and filled to bursting with greedy politicians and special interest groups only concerned with obtaining ever more power and control over the American people. Handing over our communication infrastructure is a sure way to hand over our society to these criminals.

I would much prefer the right to not have my access blocked arbitrarily such as the Syrian and Iranian Governments did during the Arab spring but, the concept of handing over more money for corporate bought politicians to control our ability to communicate is insanity.

As far as having a Government monopoly. Visit a U.S Department of Motor Vehicles and you'll get an idea of how poor our government actually runs things. The last time I was at the DMV was to update the address on my license, it took me two hours to change 2 lines of text on my license.

The last time we had a monopoly in Communications was the Government backed monopoly of AT&T. Back then,

1: Prices were high
2: Plans were limited
3: Customer service was terrible
4: Overall service was terrible
5: You only had a few options for phone designs of color
6: Innovation was stagnant.
7: Put a book cover on your phone book without being fined or sentenced to jail

Then when the Government backed monopoly was broken up we suddenly had a treasure trove of innovations including new home phones, the cell phone, and prices came down, a lot.

I could also reference record of the billions of dollars in waste the U.S government has because it has no incentive to lower prices. Why? because you don't have any other options. If you are dissatisfied with the way the government system works you can "protest" which will do nothing but drop another coin in the political circus machine. It'll light up, the little plastic representations of politicians will stiffen and go about dancing to their mechanical tunes. The Democrats will attack the Republicans for not caring about the middle class. The Republicans will complain about taxes, government waste and abuse. The whole event is merely a show. A show to convince you that more taxes on the American people are needed. After it's all said and done, more power and wealth is transferred to the U.S government and the politicians pocket the extra tax money because they honestly don't care about you

You're not from American and I can certainly understand how difficult it is for you to understand all of this but, it is a fact that the American people have no real control over the Federal Government. Our protests are impotent, our elections are rigged by the media, our government spies on us and treats us like criminals in our own country. The American Government does not fear the people because the American people pose no real threat to the sovereignty of the ruling elite.

I oppose any proposition that hands more of my beloved country over to the banksters and their puppets in Washington.

tl:dr

The U.S government is corrupt, and can not be trusted.

The Government still stands as the lesser of the two evils. Wall street, bankers and the "free market" capitalism is what really is the problem here.

I'm not trying to shift all the blame from the government here, but i feel like the politicians are just helplessly caught in a catch-22 situation.

1. You called the protesters demand for free net and communication idiotic.

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2. Your argument that corporations paid for the infrastucture therefore they own it lock stock and barrel is not exactly honest:

The corporations didn't pay for all the infrastructure they're using.
The consumers did. Whether as part of the price tag, or as subsidies by the government... or as it actually happened a combination of the two.

I know all of this is like Marxism to a libertarian, but we'll just have to agree to disagree, since as a social democrat I can't agree to raising the right of ownership above the common good, for the need of the many outweighs the need of the few.

Even as an entrepreneur you have to be accountable in some form to the public at large, since your property has such a massive impact on their life... hence why government regulation and intervention is a must. Trickle down economics and lassie fair capitalism have been proven to be inviable, as you've had massive monopolies rising up and exploiting both consumers and employees, union busting and setting the price unfairly.

Finally, you once again pulled out the AT&T parable, which is a false analogue, since you've had a private corporation fighting tooth and nail to remain a monopoly and government finally breaking it up. Anti-trust regulation was already in place, it was just not getting enforced thanks to massive lobbying by AT&T.

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3. My prime problem with handing the keys over to corporations is that they're not accountable to the public in any form whatsoever. The government is... except its already overrun by corporations.

It's like the Augean stables, except not only is it filled to the brim with shit, but stable boys (officials) are bribed not to clean the shit up and the stable is overrun with vampire pigs (corporations) who're feasting on the horses blood (the national assets).

Your "solution" would mean getting the stable boys out and handing the keys over to the vampire pigs.
I say we go with a good 'ol Herculean cleanup: get the horses out, and let a flood wash away all the filth (...and let the pigs drown).

In real world terms:
-Stop subsidies, take the rich off wealthfare. (Read the book with the same name).
-Fire all government officials who had any connection to corps they're meant to regulate. Hooray! You've just made SEC an effective regulatory body.
-Reform election funding so lobbying can't be done. No more corporate funding for representatives.
-Take away personhood from corporations.

Your grasping for straws. I did not calling anyone an idiot nor did I use the word idiotic. Stop being so sensitive.





Infrastructure had to be up before the first cell phone was sold. Same way the road has to be paved before a toll can be charged to use the road.



Government backed the monopoly. The Government protected AT&T as it was considered a "public utility". Same way the Electric or water companies operate nowadays. They are government backed monopolies.




Please explain how a government is even remotely accountable. You mean, elections? Yeah, really accountable. We can't even prove that the people winning elections actually won the damned things. I.E George Bush vs Al Gore. At least with a corporation I can spend my money somewhere else and they can be held in check with regulation. Government doesn't have to obey the laws it creates. I can cite thousands of cases where the Government broke it's own laws or simply ignored the centerpiece of our Republic simply because there was nobody there to hold the government accountable. Sure, we can protest, if the rule elite grant us permission but, as soon as the permit time runs up we better scurry back to our holes otherwise face the brutality of overzealous police.



You're assuming I'm with the Libertarians. I don't know how many times I have to say it but, I'm not a Libertarian I'm a goddamned libertarian there is a difference. I personally want to shift power to the hands of the states and local communities and leaving the Feds to deal with anything that deals with multiple states (Corporations, National Defense, etc). I want the feds to

Protect consumers (FDA) but reform the human trials language
Protect workers (OSHA) but, don't guarantee employment
Protect citizens from National threats without infringing on liberties. (I.E. Fuck off patriot act and pat downs)

Shift power to the states. The ruling elite are corrupt and disconnected with the average citizen.



Why are we arguing here?!? That's exactly how I feel! The only difference is where we want the power concentrated.

Im well aware over Wallstreet and the whole stuff thats happening....'
Trust me this IS of of the BIGGEST topic yet......
I dont wanna mention any knowledge about this stuff since it could cause an uproar.

In the beginning, it was actually decent, but now it's turned into a Woodstock-like sit-in with drums and marching around in Gaga-esque apparel.

I'm not attacking the idea of more regulation, in the least, in fact I support it 100%. I'm angry at the protesters for not delivering a clear and reasonably spoken message in mass unison.

These people are not the poorest of the poor. They're not the lowest of the low. Many of them are college students who didn't pay too much attention to their own finances. They simply blame nearly all of the current financial situation on the banks because they received bailouts from the government initially using tax payer money.

Now, let me point a few things out;

~The banks only received the bailouts because they asked for it and the government was already in preparation to do so. There was no begging or arguing about who should get the money. Only how much.

~You can see a currently updated list, of companies to receive bailouts, here: http://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list

~The financial collapse was not the banks' or the companies' faults.


This entire mess can almost be fully blamed on the government for the following reasons;

1. Not auditing businesses or completing audits, already in process, to the greatest political extent.
2. Due diligence neglected by all parties involved. (key phrase)
3. Removal or misinterpretation of regulations previously set/passed by congress.
4. Grey/blurry lines involving work ethic and morals.
5. Leaving stock holders or those working in the housing and banking sectors of possible/rising risk.

And the list goes on...


Now, my question is, do you get mad at the man for stealing your car or do you get mad at the police who are ignoring it?

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The above are my views and interpretation of events. I could be entirely wrong, but this is what I've heard and seen in recent years.

Hmm... so is this the core problem of American economy?

I think it leads to this:

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/figures-nazi-party-throws-support-behind-occupy-wall-street-movement/