Congrats to Occupy Wall Street
 

Today OWS is celebrating it's two year anniversary today. Oh joy.

What exactly have they accomplished?

Other than fucking up our local parks and costing our local governments millions (Oakland just settled a million dollar lawsuit), doesn't seem to have accomplished much. Today they are promoting "Fast Food worker solidarity" and a "Robin Hood Tax". The rich are still rich, and the poor are too busy bitching about it to notice the opportunities they have to becoming rich.

At least the Tea Party got into Congress and threw a monkey wrench in the system.

Just think, if OWS would have used that energy to create, build, and contribute, we would have been left with a positive movement that created a better world. But hey, that takes work!

I'm all for capitalism and being free to make as much money as you can.

But those Wall Streeters don't really do anything. They speculate and shave a dollar here and there from the people who actually create, produce and build things. I have more respect for a roofer than any guy making millions for moving numbers around. The system they've set up for themselves is borderline criminal.

I've seen you say this over and over again, and although there are most certainly flaws and issues here and there with almost every system in existence, those "number movers" that don't do anything are the same people that allow us to get 30 year mortgages, home equity loans, five-year car loans, credit cards with decent (and obscene) APR rates, student loans, and on and on and on. Those loans that we all depend on so much to fuel our economy come from somewhere, and it's not all China.

borderline? considering LIBOR and the scandal Rolling Stones just released, we have gone far beyond criminal.

work smart not hard

Mick Jagger is now working for TMZ? Or is it Keith Richards? Who is the MOLE!!!??? Or is this the name of a new tour or album? :1orglaugh

..but then you realize the average educational levels, and come to the conclusion there isn't much point explaining in the first place

Pretty much
https://gfy.com/image.php?u=81543&dateline=1353543450
:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

So are you going to explain how things REALLY work to the people that have been making their own money for years now are you?

You ever stop and wonder that you may not know as much as you think you do? I'm not even attempting to say I have it all figured out, but I can at least admit that much.

good thread

could use the same logic for many businesses? what do affiliates create? what does ebay or google? etc They all create value without actually producing anything, as do the professionals in the finance industry...

hey Glen :) what's up man

so, about that whole 'oil didn't come from dinosaurs'

can you expand on that? i keep asking..

I's like to hear this hilarity as well... never read the OP. Please link.

They sat there on their iPhones and iPads (made by the one percenters) and "occupied" space from banks on Wall Street who allowed them to use their lobbies for meetings (again, space provided by the one percenterages) then crapped all over our parks which their partners (the 99% percenters, the garbage men) had to clean up, while kicking out homeless people (the 0% percenters) out of their camps.

All OWS did was spend valuable tax dollars. The city of Oakland just shelled out a million bucks, which is above what it's already spent in police over time, clean up, and legal fees. OWS did exactly the opposite of what it promised - instead of improving society, it sucked up our tax dollars and waste them.

While rochard is government ass kisser i have to agree with him on this one.
It's like you are mad to some company have a 99% market share,instead trying to compete with them normally you start to protest and ask them to give you market share just like that.But alteast they inspired movie Elysium,so atleast someone will make money thanks to it.

yep. it went from Americans protesting against 'the powers that be', university women being attacked with gas, and brutal handed police tactics against constitutionally protected protesting grandmas.. then,

throw a little media in there, throw a little satellite maps of protestor camps, seed some media with rape and 'lazy' stories

and you have just successfully torpedo'd a global movement against bankers, utilizing paramilitary forces, and alienating millions of a younger generation.

But the powers that be are the same exact people that OWS cannot possibly get by without! The owners of Apple and M$ are clearly in the 1%, yet no one at OWS said "Throw away your iPhone". They never said "Don't drink Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts".

OWS has it backwards. The 1% should be everyone's goal, not the enemy.

I am sitting here on a Dell computer in front of three Dell monitors. Should I not use Dell computers anymore because I helped make Michael Dell a billionaire? Should I use a Macbook instead, or are they part of the 1% club too? What about my ISP - I think I use AT&T or some form of AT&T. How much does the CEO of AT&T make? Same with my cell phone company, because their CEO is in the 1% too!

We can't live without the 1% because they are the ones that make the products we need the most.

How many NFL players are in the one percent?

The problem OWS had, was they didn't stick to specific things they wanted to see get done. They had a whole list of stupid demands that were never going to happen. There was no real organization and no single voice, it was never going to work from the start.

At least they got off their asses and protested. This country could use a bit more protesting and hell perhaps a riot or two. The govt needs to fear the people, something that hasn't rang true in this country for a very long time.

interesting

Ok, lets use Steve Jobs as an example

is he apart of this '1%'?

John Stewart did a piece a little while back that was pretty eye opening. Many of the big investment/Wall Street banks can borrow money directly from the fed at an interest rate that is so tiny it is almost non-existent. They then take that money and buy government bonds and t-bills with it. The interest rate paid by those things is higher than the rate of the loan they took out. So eventually they sell the bonds/bills repay the loan and pocket the difference. It is free money. The only risk involved is if the government collapsed otherwise the interest rate on those things is guaranteed.

Of course you and I can't do that.

well that's why it's funny

a bunch of lazy, entitled, and uninvolved kids organized a global protest?

:1orglaugh

message at the beginning was clear.. by the end? who knows

It depends on how you look at it and what part of the financial industry we are talking about.

What does Google or Ebay create? They provide a service to you. They are no different than the garbage man or the water company or the guy that mows your law. You could take care of your own trash, mow your own lawn and find your own water, but it is easier to pay someone to do it.

A financial person may or may not be the same. If you get a mortgage for a house they are providing you a service. You can't afford to pay cash for the house so the loan you the money to buy it and in return you pay them back with interest. Fair enough.

Where things get sticky is when you start to get in hedging and things like that. I made another post in this thread about banks using government money to basically get free cash. The way the laws are many of these banks are allowed to have control of larger positions in companies/commodities etc than they actually have cash to cover. For example an investor might have 1 million dollars to invest.With that he could buy 5 million dollars worth of positions in some funds. If the fund loses, he has to pay for the losses and it could be huge. If it wins he reaps the rewards of a 5 million dollar position even though he never had the 5 million to begin with.

That doesn't exist elsewhere. I can't go to a casino and tell them I have 1,000 in chips, but I want to make a $5,000 bet on the roulette table. They might give me credit, but they don't just let me take my chances.

Back when all the protests where happening I found myself saying the same thing. They didn't seem to have any real agenda other than they were pissed off and had a laundry list of reasons why and they didn't want to have any specific leadership which caused more chaos.

Had they had a few specific things they wanted to address they could have gotten some things done because they got plenty of media attention, but in the end it was just a big camping trip.

There will be more. As the separation of wealth in this country continues to grow and the middle class continues to get crushed there will be more and more anger. Whether it manifests itself into something positive remains to be seen.

Depending on your source, anyone making above $343,927 or $593,000 is in the top 1%.

Of course he is. In fact, Jobs is in the .01%. But what's the point? We are going to vilify Steve Jobs because he helped bring a great line of products to market? Is he bad or evil? Is Steve Jobs part of an evil empire, who create... Products that we cannot live without?

Why don't we vilify the top 19%, who control 51% of the country's wealth?

Why vilify anyone at all? Go to college, work hard for forty years, you should be rewarded. The top 1% includes doctors and scientists, actors and football players.

Damn - that explains the cheese wrapper left on my burger today! :1orglaugh

my point is he's dead. so his '1% time' has simply made a few people a lot of money, and will continue doing so

i guess he got his time in the sun? that's not the 1% to me.

anyways, back to your thread

Their only agenda was "take down the man" without understanding that without "the man" we don't have cell phones, cable tv, laptops, ISPs....

Is the American dream dead? Hardly. I went to college, worked hard, 10-12 hour days, six or seven days a week, and in return I am rewarded with a nice house, nice cars, a vacation property on the beach, and lots of electronics gear. The guy across the street is a highway patrol officer; He just bought a nice Mercedes SUV. The guy on the other side of me has his own airplane. The American dream is alive and well.

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/967/7jxo.jpg

These are the idiots that crack me up. They are smart enough to be accepted to college but to fucking stupid to know they will have to repay the money they BORROWED thru LOANS.


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He did in fact have his time in the sun - He lived large. Don't tell me when he died he died in a 1200 sq ft apartment.

And someone else is running Apple, and they are in the 1% too.

:1orglaugh pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

I have a cousin who is about to get married.

He went to school, came out with an accounting degree, makes six figures working for Intel (first job out of college). His school loans should have cost him $125k. He worked while he was in college, at a department store (selling shoes), but also at the student bookstore and also the admissions office. At the very same time, he was the dorm supervisor and got free room and board (but very little sleep). He walked out of college owing less than $10k.

His fiance went to the same school, got the same degree, but in child psychology. The entire time she was in school she did nothing but go to school. She makes $50k a year, but owes $120k in school loans.

Big difference between the two.

Yea that's pretty much what I thought about it when it was happening. The one good thing that happened with OWS is that the govt was scared at least at the start. We need more of that, because I don't think the govt had any idea what to do when OWS first started getting big.

The draw back to that is you can be 100% certain that te NSA and FBI are spying on pretty much most activist groups now days.

Tea party was just republicans playing dress up..

Did the government get scared? Did I miss that?

All of this seems to have been handled by local police departments just like any other protest. They didn't call in the FBI, or the National Guard... It was all rather dull really.