Thread: Does the Occupy Wall Street movement represent the 99%?

Originally Posted by Hare

The Polls section usually entails some sort of Poll.

And you are unaware these forum polls have hacked into regularly to skew the results???

Originally Posted by Catawba

And you are unaware these forum polls have hacked into regularly to skew the results???

Actually yes.

Originally Posted by Hare

Actually yes.

Then you know they have zero credibility. That was the point made to the person that said, what about the poll.

Originally Posted by Catawba

1) That is why the OWS represents your interest.




2) The OWS is not proposing to do away with corporations, just taxing them closer to the rates under our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.



3) OWS is not proposing to do away with capitalism, just re-regulating it as it was under our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.




4) Fighting back against a rigged game is hardly class warfare.



5) Like I said, you don't understand what the OWS is about. They are not a political party splinter group like the tea party, they are organized simply to inject economic justice into the public debate to build the public will to re-regulate wall street and eliminate the tax breaks for the super rich that are hurting the the economy.

1) Pardon? How does any of that equate to the OWS representing my interests. You're going to have to explain yourself, rather than taking a chunk of my post and saying "this is why they represent your interests."

2) How do you mean? Inflaion is much different now than back in the days of our grandparents and beyond? Are you trying to destroy them by taxing them presently as they were so long ago? Not once did I say the OWS would do away with corporations. Merely cripple them.

3) Oh please. They all rallied there because they view capitalism as the enemy. They hate capitalism. Why do you think their collection of beliefs has drawn out so many communist and socialist groups? Hey, I dunno. What anathema to capitalism? Hm, let's think. Oh! socialism and capitalism.

3.A) WHAT do you mean by "re-regulating it as it was under our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents." Something tells me that would cripple capitalism and corporations.


4) Rigged according to who? Explain yourself.

5) Bull. I used TIME magazine as a source to explain the OWS. Instead of using a left source to define the OWS, you want me to use a right source?

"they are organized simply to inject economic justice into the public debate to build the public will to re-regulate wall street."

Yeah, that won't fly here. Rolling s*** in powdered sugar doesn't make it a donut. The OWS is just as much a political/propaganda group as the TP.

Here is a good article to show the situation wake

This document focuses on the "Top 1%" as a whole because that's been the traditional cut-off point for "the top" in academic studies, and because it's easy for us to keep in mind that we are talking about one in a hundred. But it is also important to realize that the lower half of that top 1% has far less than those in the top half; in fact, both wealth and income are super-concentrated in the top 0.1%, which is just one in a thousand. (To get an idea of the differences, take a look at an insider account by a long-time investment manager who works for the well-to-do and very rich. It nicely explains what the different levels have -- and how they got it. Also, David Cay Johnston (2011) has written a column about the differences among the top 1%, based on 2009 IRS information.)

-snip-

So far there are only tentative projections -- based on the price of housing and stock in July 2009 -- on the effects of the Great Recession on the wealth distribution. They suggest that average Americans have been hit much harder than wealthy Americans. Edward Wolff, the economist we draw upon the most in this document, concludes that there has been an "astounding" 36.1% drop in the wealth (marketable assets) of the median household since the peak of the housing bubble in 2007. By contrast, the wealth of the top 1% of households dropped by far less: just 11.1%. So as of April 2010, it looks like the wealth distribution is even more unequal than it was in 2007. (See Wolff, 2010 for more details.)

Figure 8: CEOs' pay as a multiple of the average worker's pay, 1960-2007



This does not come out well but it shows the difference in CEO's pay to workers beginning in 1960 when it was about 40 times that of the worker going up and down roughly that till the 80's. Then it sprang up at it's highest reaching over 500 times that of the worker. You can see it and plenty of graphs if you use the link

There's a much deeper power story that underlies the self-dealing and mutual back-scratching by CEOs now carried out through interlocking directorates and seemingly independent outside consultants. It probably involves several factors. At the least, on the workers' side, it reflects their loss of power following the all-out attack on unions in the 1960s and 1970s, which is explained in detail in an excellent book by James Gross (1995), a labor and industrial relations professor at Cornell. That decline in union power made possible and was increased by both outsourcing at home and the movement of production to developing countries, which were facilitated by the break-up of the New Deal coalition and the rise of the New Right (Domhoff, 1990, Chapter 10). It signals the shift of the United States from a high-wage to a low-wage economy, with professionals protected by the fact that foreign-trained doctors and lawyers aren't allowed to compete with their American counterparts in the direct way that low-wage foreign-born workers are.

Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power

Originally Posted by Catawba

I never claimed you supported the 99%, I said they represent your interests, unless you are the 1%. BTW, the OWS also does not believe the 1% is evil, they just understand that unfettered greed by the 1% has not worked well for the 99%.

Okay, then we are back to broad assumptions. They believe they represent my interests. I fully believe they are wrong. There is a big question of what my best interests are and even if we knew that, there is an even bigger question of whether they are actually furthering those.

Originally Posted by alexa

Here is a good article to show the situation wake




Figure 8: CEOs' pay as a multiple of the average worker's pay, 1960-2007



This does not come out well but it shows the difference in CEO's pay to workers beginning in 1960 when it was about 40 times that of the worker going up and down roughly that till the 80's. Then it sprang up at it's highest reaching over 500 times that of the worker. You can see it and plenty of graphs if you use the link





Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power

Thanks Alexa for explaining to Wake how the OWS protesters represent him!

Originally Posted by Keridan

Okay, then we are back to broad assumptions. They believe they represent my interests. I fully believe they are wrong. There is a big question of what my best interests are and even if we knew that, there is an even bigger question of whether they are actually furthering those.

Is your interest served by banks too big to fail, that require bailout with public tax dollars?

Is you interest served by the outsourcing of American jobs?

Is you interest served by high unemployment/large welfare roles?

Is your interest served by having politicians sold to the highest anonymous bidder?

If your answer is no to any of these questions, the OWS represents your interests.

Originally Posted by Catawba

OWS is not proposing to do away with capitalism, just re-regulating it as it was under our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.

OWS is ran by the NYC General Assembly.

The NYC General Assembly is composed of dozens of groups working together to organize and set the vision for the #occupywallstreet movement. This is our official website.About | NYC General Assembly # Occupy Wall Street

If OWS does not want to get rid of Capitalism one must ask then, why do they have a work group on alternative economics? Alternative Economy | Forum | Before we start suggesting alternate economies | NYC General Assembly # Occupy Wall Street

Mike: The public budgets play a big role in the alt econ including what they own and manage, so this is a wedge and they could fund an aquaponics project—again this is capital budget. Capitalism cant function without capital, so just taking money out of developers pockets and instead putting it into social and decommodified spaces can be used to build the alt economy.

Think Tank | Forum | EVENT: #Occupy movement political roundtable discussion at NYU tonight (Friday 7pm / October 28, 201 | NYC General Assembly # Occupy Wall Street

Friday 7pm | October 28, 2011
Kimmel, room 406 NYU
60 Washington Square S., NYC

The recent #Occupy protests are driven by discontent with the present state of affairs: glaring economic inequality, dead-end Democratic Party politics, and, for some, the suspicion that capitalism could never produce an equitable society. These concerns are coupled with aspirations for social transformation at an international level. For many, the protests at Wall St. and elsewhere provide an avenue to raise questions the Left has long fallen silent on:
1. How could we begin to overcome social conditions that adversely affect every part of life?

2. What would it mean to challenge capitalism on a global scale?

3. And, how could a new international radical movement address these concerns in practice?

- Google Search

Read some of the results from this search. There are many many conversations that OWS is having about how to end Capitalism.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

Originally Posted by Catawba

Is your interest served by banks too big to fail, that require bailout with public tax dollars?

Is you interest served by the outsourcing of American jobs?

Is you interest served by high unemployment/large welfare roles?

Is your interest served by having politicians sold to the highest anonymous bidder?

If your answer is no to any of these questions, the OWS represents your interests.

This is all based on the assumption that they are going the correct route to fix these issues. If I said I wanted to protect your safety by locking you in a prison cell, do I get to say I'm serving your best interest? My intention is good...

It also assumes they are right about the causes of these problems. I don't grant that, obviously. Look at my lean.

I say that the premise is false for your final conclusion.