Occupy Wall Street Thread Reposted

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Gary

climber

From the City That Dreams

Oct 26, 2011 - 03:56pm PT

OK let's see what you can produce if you don't use any products created by capitalists.

That's the point, Crack, they produce nothing, only consume what we produce.

Let's say you picked 80 apples, and some guy who'd been sitting around all day came and collected 79 of them. And then he claimed you couldn't get along without him, because he was the apple job creator.

What would you say?

John Moosie

climber

Beautiful California

Oct 26, 2011 - 04:09pm PT

Let’s say you had two apples and another person -- let’s call him “Rich” -- also had two apples. If you then got one more apple and Rich got 80 more apples, would you now have more apples? No, you’d have fewer apples -- fewer than that other guy who has an unfair number of apples!

Then the guy with 80 apples uses them to buy up all the apple tree orchards and starts cutting them down because the price of apple tree wood is high. You get a job for 10 years cutting up apple trees, but then with all the apple trees cut up, there is no more work.

think it doens't happen? well, it does. Talk to the lumberjacks in humboldt.

During the boom of extra work cutting down the apple trees, prices of houses went up. People moved there to teach school, or to be a fireman, or policeman, bought homes, but then the market collapsed and they were out of a job because the town couldn't afford to keep them and didn't need them because all the appletree cutters and apple harvesters moved away, and they try to sell their house so they can move to a new town, but their loan is upside down, so they can't. Ta dah..

Oh, and part of the reason applewood sold for so much is because the rich guy bought the politicians and got them to write a law which didn't allow any foreign applewood, which jacked up the price in America, so that he could make a huge profit on all the applewood he bought.

So whoop te doo.. I have 3 apples now, but also have a home that I owe 6 apples on, but is only worth 1 apple. And now I have no way to get anymore apples.

And you think the system isn't rigged, and you hate the apple picker because he just wasn't smart enough to see it coming.

nature

climber

back in Tuscon Aridzona....

Oct 26, 2011 - 04:47pm PT

You see, we have a strong tradition in believing that higher education is good for the country as a whole.

a novel concept. one the republican'ts don't seem to either care about or grasp (or both)

Gary

climber

From the City That Dreams

Oct 26, 2011 - 04:47pm PT

Without the building, machinery, computers and supplies, the workers produce nothing.

Wrong, who do you think built and managed the building, the computers and the supplies? It wasn't the fatcat clipping coupons in his private compound in Barbados.

JEleazarian

Trad climber

Fresno CA

Oct 26, 2011 - 04:57pm PT

And Gary, who paid those workers? Not someone with no savings. The economy needs labor, capital, natural resources and entrepreneurial actions to produce. You can't single one out and say that it is the only essential ingredient.

John

JEleazarian

Trad climber

Fresno CA

Oct 26, 2011 - 05:14pm PT

I served as a trustee of a private university (quite highly ranked as first a regional liberal arts college, and then as a regional university by US News & World Reports) for 11 years. I was the chair of the budget & finance commission and on the executive committee for five of those years. The Board set tuition at the university, and we raised it at a clip greater than the inflation rate in every year in which I served. Most other non-profit institutes of higher education did the same.

We could not have done that without federal student financial assistance. In essence, the colleges and universities sucked up all the increased federal student financial assistance in raised tuition and fees. It didn't cost the students more unless they came from high-income families, but that's another little secret of private colleges and universities. The nominal tuition rate is simply what they charge the rich kids. They adjust this to pay for the financial aid of the other kids. In reality, it's plain, old-fashioned price discrimination.

I'm all for encouraging higher education, and for making sure that it is not limited to the most wealthy. Not only is it becoming a necessity for individual prosperity, but a good education (in contrast to what some institutions and majors provide) enriches all of us by creating more productive, informed and contributing citizens. Nonetheless, the unintended consequence of steeply rising tuition is a direct result of federal student financial assistance. If you have a way to stop it, I'm all ears.

John

Gary

climber

From the City That Dreams

Oct 26, 2011 - 05:34pm PT

...The economy needs labor, capital, natural resources and entrepreneurial actions to produce. You can't single one out and say that it is the only essential ingredient.

John, I am in total agreement with you.

What we don't need is a class of people whose only job is to collect capital. They serve no purpose.

CrackAddict

Trad climber

Canoga Park, CA

Oct 26, 2011 - 06:00pm PT

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45031100/

$40 Billion down the tubes, Government cannot even tell us where it went. That is $120 per man, woman, baby in the U.S. - think of what a homeless person could have done with $120.

Sickening- and Nobody went to jail for this.

Norton

Social climber

the Wastelands

Oct 26, 2011 - 06:07pm PT

My goodness!

Not very fiscally responsible handling of tax payers money under the Bush Administration there was it?

But then, what's tens of billions when trillions were pissed away in the Iraq nation building experiment?

But let's concentrate on important stuff now, like defunding National Public Radio and Planned Parenthood. Gotta throw red meat to the Repub "Base" ya know.

Oh, and make sure those gays don't go having abortions.

Karl Baba

Trad climber

Yosemite, Ca

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 26, 2011 - 06:33pm PT

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/numbers-income-top-one-percent-skyrocketed-over-last-153005722.html

So you already know that the gap between rich and poor has been widening lately. But some new numbers from the Congressional Budget Office put the issue into stark relief.
As the chart at right shows, between 1979 and 2007, the share of after-tax income going to each of the bottom four income quintiles--the bottom 80 percent--has dropped. The only quintile that has increased its share is the top 20 percent. And the top 1 percent has more than doubled its share.

That top 1 percent saw its income skyrocket by 275 percent. Those between the 80th and 99th percentile--that is, the top 20 percent, excluding the very top 1 percent--also did pretty well, seeing their income rise by 65 percent. Income for the bottom 20 percent, meanwhile, grew by just 18 percent.

One reason for the growing gap, the report said, is the impact of government transfer programs. Back in 1979, the poorest 20 percent of the population received 50 percent of all government transfers. By 2007, that had dropped to 35 percent, thanks largely to increases in spending on Social Security and unemployment benefits, which aren't focused exclusively on poor households.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has made inequality a key focus of its protests, and has used the slogan, "We are the 99 percent." After starting in lower Manhattan last month, the movement has spread across the country, and has succeeded at helping to put the inequality issue into the media and political spotlight.

Norton

Social climber

the Wastelands

Oct 26, 2011 - 06:51pm PT

Jeff, seriously just for one minute, consider that your party is on the wrong side of this.

Your party, by vigorously opposing what already a far higher percentage of the American people support than the tea party, is unknowingly promoting "class warfare" and is pitting Americans against each other.

It will take time, usually at least six months for the American consciousness to become mostly familiar with something, but by next spring the Republican Party could be very damaged by their opposition to what the majority of Americans will support by then.

TKingsbury

Trad climber

Oct 26, 2011 - 06:54pm PT

The GA(general assembly) is starting in ~5 minutes...getting pretty interesting the last couple evenings

watch live:
http://www.livestream.com/occupywallstnyc

philo

Trad climber

Somewhere halfway over the rainbow

Oct 26, 2011 - 07:09pm PT

Iraq War Veteran Scott Olsen Critically Injured at Occupy Oakland Raid
http://sfist.com/2011/10/26/critically-injured_person_in_occupy.php

the person who was hit in the head with a projectile during last night's beanbag assault by Oakland police has been identified as Iraq veteran Scott

who served two tours in Iraq. Olsen is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace, and was reportedly against the war before he even fought in it.

And the neo-religious repuglibags say "wrong side? what fence?".

CrackAddict

Trad climber

Canoga Park, CA

Oct 26, 2011 - 07:42pm PT

One reason for the growing gap, the report said, is the impact of government transfer programs. Back in 1979, the poorest 20 percent of the population received 50 percent of all government transfers. By 2007, that had dropped to 35 percent, thanks largely to increases in spending on Social Security and unemployment benefits, which aren't focused exclusively on poor households.

Welfare has gone from something for those in need to something to supplement falling middle class incomes. Now days, 40 million people (> 13%) get food stamps.

But this does not explain why the middle class is shrinking, the middle class is not (and should not be) dependent on welfare outlays for income. It is shrinking because we have lost jobs to overseas competition. I was not surprised that incomes shrank, I was surprised that they held up as long as they did.

CrackAddict

Trad climber

Canoga Park, CA

Oct 26, 2011 - 07:51pm PT

Nonetheless, the unintended consequence of steeply rising tuition is a direct result of federal student financial assistance. If you have a way to stop it, I'm all ears.

Education, Real estate, health care - everything the government aims its printers at experience double digit inflation.

The only real way to stop it is to pull the plug, get government out. Will some people fall through the cracks when it comes to buying a house, getting health care, getting an education? Sure, just like there are now people who fall through the cracks, although it may be different people. At least we won't have prices rising beyond what the degree/house/treatment is worth.

philo

Trad climber

Somewhere halfway over the rainbow

Oct 26, 2011 - 07:54pm PT

Fats the man peeacefully opposed the illegal war, went anyway, two tours, returned to the states, continued to peacefully protest, was critically wounded by the fat assed and jack booted Oakland Storm Troopers and all you can say is he is a fuk-up?
The belligerent hypocrisy of the noob-con capitalistniks is awe inspiring.
What happened to all that "support our troops" cheerleading when Spurious George was sending them to die for oil profits? Now that they are vets who disagree they are fuk-ups and drug dealers eh?

Toker Villain

Big Wall climber

Toquerville, Utah

Oct 26, 2011 - 07:54pm PT

I'm all for peaceful demonstrations, but lets remember the biggest most peaceful demonstration in US history, Woodstock, left a hell of a mess.

Who is going to clean up the Occupy messes?

Yeah, yeah, I know, democracy is messy. But it is a lot easier to take people seriously when they act responsibly.

philo

Trad climber

Somewhere halfway over the rainbow

Oct 26, 2011 - 08:10pm PT

Fats would you have told the "rebels" who have been transforming the Arab world (for themselves) to stand down when the "Man" showed up and said leave? Would you prefer Gadawful still be in power?