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Post by Sock on Oct 8, 2011 2:04:16 GMT -5
They actually seem to have pretty concise goals to me - of making the pay gap less large between the wealthy and the poor, and having better distribution of wealth. To me, that's a good goal. Maybe they aren't united in how to go about it, but the fact that they're even getting people talking about this and noticing it is, to me, great. And I don't think the point here is that the people of the Occupy Wall Street protest can afford to have nice things. I mean, I'm against the pay for the 1% being so high too, but that doesn't mean I can't afford nice things. Even some rich people are agreeing with the Occupy Wall Street protest. So I don't think that image really has a point. Yes, they have nice, corporation-made things. So what? Who in America doesn't, when we have such a capitalistic culture? I saw this frightening statistic today: With those kinds of huge separations from the wealthy to the average worker, it's easy to see what they're protesting and why.
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Post by Yoyti on Oct 8, 2011 10:05:12 GMT -5
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Post by Stal on Oct 8, 2011 12:32:56 GMT -5
Frankly, I find their aims quite ridiculous. I'm part of the 99%, too, and have no problems with the gap or the corporations.
If it weren't for the "corporate greed" these people deride so much, the world would be a lot worse off. Unemployment would be higher, most people would be in poverty, and the comfort level we enjoy today would be pretty much non-existent.
I especially laugh everytime the comments about the burdens of student loan debt and how those need to be forgiven are brought up. Yes, because banks just giving way multiple thousands of dollars to thousands of people would in no way have an impact on their ability to 1) stay in business, 2) employ people, 3) loan more money to people to go to college (thus making higher education actually possible for many).
All I see in these protests are a bunch of people whining about corporations because that's the fad. And those stupid CEOs have more money than they do and aren't giving it away to people who did nothing to deserve it. The protests show pretty much a lack of understanding basic economics, and the lazy entitlement mentality that is pervasive in culture today.
Maybe if these people put as much effort into doing something and contributing to society as they are to sitting around doing nothing, they might accomplish something.
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Post by Herdy on Oct 8, 2011 16:33:16 GMT -5
I find a certain irony in people protesting against greed despite their essential aim being themselves having more money - either in a physical sense or in relation to others.
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Post by Cow-winkle on Oct 10, 2011 19:38:31 GMT -5
One of the arguments of the people against this movement seems to be along the lines of "They depend on corporations for survival; therefore, anyone who suggests that something a corporation does is wrong is a hypocrite". Protesting Wall Street is not necessarily anti-business any more than protesting near a government building is necessarily anti-government. If corporations, on average, make a habit of treating their employees with less and less respect, with lower wages and fewer benefits as the decades go by, with no signs of getting better, occupying Wall Street is probably not the stupidest thing protesters can do.
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Post by Yoyti on Oct 10, 2011 19:55:26 GMT -5
One of the arguments of the people against this movement seems to be along the lines of "They depend on corporations for survival; therefore, anyone who suggests that something a corporation does is wrong is a hypocrite". Protesting Wall Street is not necessarily anti-business any more than protesting near a government building is necessarily anti-government. If corporations, on average, make a habit of treating their employees with less and less respect, with lower wages and fewer benefits as the decades go by, with no signs of getting better, occupying Wall Street is probably not the stupidest thing protesters can do. Agreed. The concept of corporations is not inherently evil, but it's how corporations treat their employees, and how the government treats corporations which is wrong. What Occupy Wall Street is saying is not "destroy corporations," but rather "redesign the way corporations work in relation to its workers, as well as the government."
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Post by Komori on Oct 11, 2011 8:01:28 GMT -5
Sure, but who has the right to redesign these corporations? They're private groups, founded many years ago by a handful of people. At what point can you tell a company, "Sorry, you're too large now, and now we're going to redesign how you work." And who is this "we?" The government? Oh yeah, because politicians have never been corrupt before.
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Post by Cow-winkle on Oct 11, 2011 9:21:17 GMT -5
Sure, but who has the right to redesign these corporations? They're private groups, founded many years ago by a handful of people. At what point can you tell a company, "Sorry, you're too large now, and now we're going to redesign how you work." And who is this "we?" The government? Oh yeah, because politicians have never been corrupt before. ... Which is a good reason to occupy Wall Street, not Washington.
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Post by Stal on Oct 11, 2011 12:07:08 GMT -5
That's just ridiculous, though. A corporation is a corporation. It solely exists to make money--not to give people jobs or whatever they want. That is the entire point and purpose of a corporation. I do agree that government needs to change it's relationship with business and stay out of it when not necessary. And no, most government involvement in business is not necessary and only compounds and creates all the problems therein.
Corporate greed is the profit motive. Without that motive, there is no point in doing any business. And then everyone suffers.
Mostly I see three main protestor groups: 1) young people that pretty much don't know what they're talking about in the least (but think they do), 2) people going along with it for the fad of anti-corporation. 3) people that mismanaged their own finances and couldn't live within their means, refusing to take responsibility and believing they deserve to be given more.
There's a lot of misinformation, too. The richest 1%? you only need to pull in ~380k annually to be in that group. Which means that many small business owners (sole-proprietorships, etc) fall in this 1%. The way taxes work, all sole-proprietorship operations are included as -personal- income, even if it's only a business income and staying in the business.
That richest 1% only has about ~36% of the wealth, based on actual IRS data. Not over half.
And they already handle the Lion's share of all the taxes in the country. The very large majority of taxes.
Taxing them more is ridiculous. Especially when the people claiming they should pay their fair share probably aren't paying their fair share either.
The more I hear about the movement, the more in complete disdain I hold it in. All I can think of is the Occupiers are sounding an awful lot like the pigs from Animal Farm.
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Post by Sock on Oct 11, 2011 14:10:30 GMT -5
Sure, but who has the right to redesign these corporations? They're private groups, founded many years ago by a handful of people. At what point can you tell a company, "Sorry, you're too large now, and now we're going to redesign how you work." And who is this "we?" The government? Oh yeah, because politicians have never been corrupt before. Things need to be regulated. It's the whole reason laws exist - people (and corporations, also, by extension) need regulations, otherwise some will do things that are extremely corrupt. And a lot of these corporations are doing things that are extremely corrupt, and that hurt their employees and the average citizen. That isn't right, so there needs to be stronger laws in place.
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Post by Komori on Oct 11, 2011 14:13:54 GMT -5
Sure, but who has the right to redesign these corporations? They're private groups, founded many years ago by a handful of people. At what point can you tell a company, "Sorry, you're too large now, and now we're going to redesign how you work." And who is this "we?" The government? Oh yeah, because politicians have never been corrupt before. Things need to be regulated. It's the whole reason laws exist - people (and corporations, also, by extension) need regulations, otherwise some will do things that are extremely corrupt. And a lot of these corporations are doing things that are extremely corrupt, and that hurt their employees and the average citizen. That isn't right, so there needs to be stronger laws in place. What sort of laws are we talking about, here? We've got a national minimum wage, there are all sorts of safety laws and standards, and even tariffs/etc for regulating overseas business. What exactly are you proposing? (Which is still, what the heck is Occupy Wallstreet proposing?)
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Post by Sock on Oct 11, 2011 14:25:25 GMT -5
Things need to be regulated. It's the whole reason laws exist - people (and corporations, also, by extension) need regulations, otherwise some will do things that are extremely corrupt. And a lot of these corporations are doing things that are extremely corrupt, and that hurt their employees and the average citizen. That isn't right, so there needs to be stronger laws in place. What sort of laws are we talking about, here? We've got a national minimum wage, there are all sorts of safety laws and standards, and even tariffs/etc for regulating overseas business. What exactly are you proposing? (Which is still, what the heck is Occupy Wallstreet proposing?) Occupy Wall Street has a lot of different ideas but they seem to be united by one thing: they want to end the large wealth disparity in the country and help out the working class. How to go about it is debated amongst them, but that seems to be their ultimate goal. Here is a list of demands made by someone, and here is another. Personally, I agree with the second.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2011 14:32:05 GMT -5
Wait, what?
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Post by Sock on Oct 11, 2011 14:37:13 GMT -5
Oh yeah... I forgot about the "debt forgiveness" thing. Don't really agree with that.
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Post by Jo on Oct 11, 2011 14:42:32 GMT -5
What sort of laws are we talking about, here? We've got a national minimum wage, there are all sorts of safety laws and standards, and even tariffs/etc for regulating overseas business. What exactly are you proposing? (Which is still, what the heck is Occupy Wallstreet proposing?) Occupy Wall Street has a lot of different ideas but they seem to be united by one thing: they want to end the large wealth disparity in the country and help out the working class. How to go about it is debated amongst them, but that seems to be their ultimate goal. Here is a list of demands made by someone, and here is another. Personally, I agree with the second. I was going to stay out of this, since I know very little about economics/politics, especially in the US, but oh well XD A lot of those demands seem very spread-out and not united at all. For example, taking the second list, there's so many ideas there- free education, free healthcare, no fossil fuels and several environmental things, open borders... and the other list had different aims too- ending war, getting rid of the death penalty, corporate censorship, etc. Fair enough, everyone is going to protest for different reasons, but to me it seems pretty ridiculous for every single person to stand there with their long list of everything they'd like to change in their country, when the person standing next to them might have extremely different views about the things on that list.
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