Occupy Wall Street

[Dutchcedar]

After the annual Winter hibernation, the Occupy Wall Street folks are going to return and hold a "general strike". I'm not sure if they're going to strike against the hibernation or against the jobs they don't have... but that's the plan.

May 1. I think that day is known for something else.

Take a break, strike later.

[Phopojijo]

May 1. I think that day is known for something else.

(nsfw btw)

[Windrunner]

It is wild reading this thread in a bad way. A lot of it reads as an incestuous circle jerk of upper middle class Christian white male opinion with very little in the way of examining issues from multiple perspectives, demonstrating exactly what is wrong with this country - a lack of critical thinking.

Granted I'm not too bright for expecting back and forth on Internet forums either. Reading the first few pages of this thread, anyone that was in here with a dissenting voice was pretty quickly smothered.



The median income for my degree at the level it's paid for through is $75,000/year. I could make straight Cs and it would still be paid for. There's a great chance that I can and will end up in "the 1%" post-graduation. I'm good at what I do. I keep straight As because I am damn proud of what I do.

That being said, I see some serious valid concerns raised by the Occupy movement. Even in their polarizing "We are the 99%" chant. The last time our distribution of wealth was split as it is today was right before the Great Depression, when 5% of the population held 33% of the wealth and the middle class was vanishing. If you're not looking at history, you're making certain you repeat it.

It took World War II and the deaths of quite a few hundred thousand Americans to pull us out of the great depression.

There is a maldistribution of wealth in the United States. This needs to be fixed. Businesses are not paying their fair share of taxes. This needs to be fixed. Our post-high-school education system is lagging behind other countries' and putting us at a global disadvantage. This needs to be fixed. Our health care industry is hugely warped. This needs to be fixed. What will happen if these issues continue to rot away at America's middle class?


As far as the nutjobs go, you all are a blink away from Google. You can put "X Y" with X being the subject you want dirt on and Y being the crime and find nutjobs doing it.

https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=Tea+party+rape
https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=Tea+party+murder
https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=Green+party+rape
https://encrypted.google.com/search?...n+party+murder
https://encrypted.google.com/search?...t+party+murder

Etc. Personally, the Pro-OWS sources I read aren't any better. They point toward Tea Party rallies where everyone brings their guns out, then to the fringe Republicans (don't laugh, I've had these in my house talking to my face) who believe armed rebellion is their only recourse. (The ones I talked to immediately talked about how patriotic they were, too, when I said treason goes beyond what I'm willing to accept as reasonable discussion.)

Straw man attacks on forums dedicated to PC technology? Come on. Half of you guys can troubleshoot a win 9x system that gives one error message but means another. I would have had a blast reading if everyone had kept their pants on and put their brains in to their posts here.


Granted, some of you did, but I'm not going to point fingers.


Peace, I'm out.

[jimzinsocal]

^^^You know what the 2010 Census discovered? Around the wealth issue? It was far more about level of education than tax policy.
So far as the tax angle I dont understnd how taxing one group more improves things for other groups other than satisfy some emotional want. If some rich guy pays an extra 5K in taxes it surely wont get me more $.

Census Data

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_b...nsus-data.html

[Keven]

It is wild reading this thread in a bad way. A lot of it reads as an incestuous circle jerk of upper middle class Christian white male opinion with very little in the way of examining issues from multiple perspectives, demonstrating exactly what is wrong with this country - a lack of critical thinking.

Great, another PCPER liberal, decides he wants to talk about politics, decides to drop into TLR, thinks its the barber shop where everybody jaws about politics and has a good time, and ends up getting all hot and bothered with the type of discorse we have here. Go figure.

Granted I'm not too bright for expecting back and forth on Internet forums either. Reading the first few pages of this thread, anyone that was in here with a dissenting voice was pretty quickly smothered.

It's not our fault that the lefties don't want to participate. I don't know how they were "smothered" when they're always welcome to share their opinion. I like debating politics, it's why I post here so much, and I like reading dissenting opinions from my own and analyzing them and, if nessicary, responding to them. Nobody here is ever "smothered" or discouraged from posting and if lefties think that, they're just babies. And we have several lefties here (BD, otoc) who can lay down the hard-hitting posts just as much as they take them, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

The median income for my degree at the level it's paid for through is $75,000/year. I could make straight Cs and it would still be paid for. There's a great chance that I can and will end up in "the 1%" post-graduation. I'm good at what I do. I keep straight As because I am damn proud of what I do.

Great. Are you trying to say that you're a 1%er? I hear this arguement all the time, either on Facebook or message boards or whatever. "I'm a moderate Republican but even I think they go too far on ..." "My dad/grandpa/friend/boyfriend/whoever is a registered Republican but even HE thinks they go too far on ..." and now you're telling us that you're a future 1%er and you think the OWS is right. Okay, that automatically vadilates your opinion. You know, Bill Gates, Carlos Slim and Warren Buffett are all liberal and the richest men in the world, literally the 0.0000001%, so just because they probably side with the OWS crowd doesn't mean that those of us on the right are automatically inclined to give the Occupy movement any more credence.

That being said, I see some serious valid concerns raised by the Occupy movement. Even in their polarizing "We are the 99%" chant. The last time our distribution of wealth was split as it is today was right before the Great Depression, when 5% of the population held 33% of the wealth and the middle class was vanishing. If you're not looking at history, you're making certain you repeat it.

So? There will always be rich people and there will always be poor people in any economic system. Even in Soviet Russia, everybody was poor while the generals and party leaders were rich. The majority of wealth in any socio-economic system will be concentrated at the top.

It took World War II and the deaths of quite a few hundred thousand Americans to pull us out of the great depression.

Another fallacy. Your buddy FDR prolonged the Great Depression in the United States. Europe and Asia recovered from the Great Depression about 10 years before we did.

There is a maldistribution of wealth in the United States. This needs to be fixed.

Says who?

Businesses are not paying their fair share of taxes. This needs to be fixed.

I went to an engineering university and I like numbers, so here's some numbers I just ran for you guys (sources at the bottom):

2007 US Federal personal income tax revenue by household income:
Households making over $400,000 - $757.9 billion
Households making between $150,000 and $400,000 - $181.5 billion
Households making between $90,000 and $150,000 - $101.2 billion
Households making between $55,000 and $90,000 - $48.4 billion
Households making under $55,000 - $8.8 billion

Now, the 2007 tax revenue from corporate taxes:
$370.2 billion.

Yeah, the rich don't pay their fair share. Mmmmkay. Yeah, "we" paid for all those roads and schools.

Sources:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0302-13.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Un...federal_budget
http://xkcd.com/980/
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfa...20&Topic3id=22

Our post-high-school education system is lagging behind other countries' and putting us at a global disadvantage. This needs to be fixed.

You are absolutely wrong on this. We have the best colleges in the world. They're expensive, yes, but while other countries have a better primary education system, we have the best post-secondary education in the world. Why do foreigners from Europe and Asia rush to go to Harvard, Yale and Standard? Find me a public university in Europe that's better than the "public ivy" schools like the University of Michigan, University of Tennessee, University of Wisconsin, Penn State University, Cal-Berkeley or Ohio State? You are full of shit. Why do memebers of royal families around the world come to America to go to college?

I could go on, but you just keep making up facts and repeating things you hear on reddit without any source or proof, so I don't really see the point in continuing to refute the facts of people who make stuff up.

[jimzinsocal]

At Windrunner post...the wealth issue. % held by this group V that group as somehow unfair.
First understand the distribution of "wealth" tables we see are simply a snapshot and dont account for movement from one group to another.
Some other thoughts: Something I notice in reading around is the faulty assumption that accumulation of wealth or as some term "fair share" is automatic or some sort of "right".
Another faulty assumption is that wealth creation is an absolute function of income.
Wealth creation is a result of conscious and careful effort/habits that unfortunately arent shared by the entire population.
How maNY times do we see student age folks just about go broke with wxcessive college debt and auto debt?
No matter how its sliced..those were choices. Ive yet to see the BMW or College Finance Office use shotguts to pressure students or car buyers.
Sure..an extreme example but the point remains. Often our curcumstances are a result of choices not basic problems within an economic system.
For those unhappy with the statistics and feel they deserve a bigger piece of the pie? Start by asking yourself ..how much do I save? Am I throwing $ away on depreciable assets? Its often about what we are doing wrong as opposed to an unfair economoc system. IMO

Edit: another point...I failed to mention.
Wed like to think taxing "the rich/other guy" will somehow even some imagined score or change things. It wont.
Oh sure..maybe for a year or two folks can tell themselves..that gee whiz...things look more fair.
Its ••••••••.
I look at changes in taxation that cripple the other guy about like I look at grading on a curve to make things fair.
With schemes like this..its no longer about fairness of opportunity but rather..forcing a result that becomes meaningless.
Weve spent basically Trillions of dollars on the great war on poverty and where are we today? Not much has changed % wise.

[baghdad bob]

UC study criticizes, places blame in pepper spray use at Davis

“Our overriding conclusion can be stated briefly and explicitly. The pepper spraying incident that took place on Nov. 18, 2011 should and could have been prevented,” declared the lengthy report written by a university-appointed task force chaired by retired state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso.

The study strongly refutes campus police assertions the band of Occupy demonstrators posed a violent threat and it also says administrators wrongly assumed that many off-campus troublemakers were part of the tent-city protest that officials wanted evicted. It details a chain of miscommunication and poorly timed efforts to remove the protesters, leading to the incident that gripped the nation via an online video showing campus Police Lt. John Pike spraying a line of seated students at close range.

“On balance, there is little factual basis supporting Lt. Pike’s belief that he was trapped by the protesters or that his officers were prevented from leaving the quad. Further, there is little evidence that any protesters attempted to use violence against the police,” the report stated.

bb

[AMDScooter]

Will be fun to see the MSM spinning furiously to ignore the connection to the party that funded and embraced this "movement"....

Five Anarchist Terrorists Arrested For Plot to Blow Up Cleveland Bridge
Confirmed: At Least Two of the Bombers Are Occupy Organizers

[Keven]

Will be fun to see the MSM spinning furiously to ignore the connection to the party that funded and embraced this "movement"....

Five Anarchist Terrorists Arrested For Plot to Blow Up Cleveland Bridge
Confirmed: At Least Two of the Bombers Are Occupy Organizers

Looks like the only thing they'll be occupying now is a federal prison cell!

BTW, blowing up a bridge in Cleveland? That'll really show the socio-economic establishment! Yeah, •••• those bankers! Blow up some random bridge in Cleveland. Jesus, I know you guys can't afford bus tickets to New York and you just watched V for Vendetta and are ready to stick it to the man, but come on, try to think outside the box.

Their mug shots were on Fox News. I'm not convinced those brain surgeons could blow up anything.

[Dutchcedar]

The faces of Occupy Wall Street... taken after these fine political activists/organizers were arrested Monday evening by the FBI, associated with Occupy Cleveland, because they were gonna blow up a bridge.

Looks like a fun group.



http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/...a-of-the-deed/

[Keven]

1 - Linux nerd
2 - Linux nerd
3 - Kind of guy who knows just enough about computers to download UFC fights on BitTorrent and go on message boards and rant about Republicans in posts not using any capitalization or grammar.
4 - Mid-life loser who blames Republicans and the establishment for keeping him down his whole life.
5 - Somebody's crazy uncle.

That's my assessment of all of them.

[kbohip]

Looks like the only thing they'll be occupying now is a federal prison cell!

BTW, blowing up a bridge in Cleveland? That'll really show the socio-economic establishment! Yeah, •••• those bankers! Blow up some random bridge in Cleveland. Jesus, I know you guys can't afford bus tickets to New York and you just watched V for Vendetta and are ready to stick it to the man, but come on, try to think outside the box.

Their mug shots were on Fox News. I'm not convinced those brain surgeons could blow up anything.

Why bother blowing it up? It'll probably fall apart on it's own soon enough anyway!

[madhatter256]

Something good came out of the whole OWS movement...

DNA was found from the protests that matches DNA from an unsolved murder....

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...132043253.html

nevermind.... t urned out to be an error caused by a lab technician...

[Phopojijo]

Apparently they're back in the news again.

http://www.discourse.net/2012/11/ows...consumer-debt/

[Keven]

Apparently they're back in the news again.

http://www.discourse.net/2012/11/ows...consumer-debt/

lol, good on them, I guess. Still, I don't think they could raise enough money to forgive any considerable amount of private debt in this country.