Who are the OWS protestors?

Sensibility said:

Most Americans do not think most corporations are evil and that the capitalist system should be scrapped.

Click to expand...

I don't get the impression that most the occupiers think this way either.

megaprogram said:

Its one link up. Its the corporations that are bribing the politicians through campaign contributions to do their bidding. Electing new politicians does not seem to stop this process (plus the supreme court made it far worse last year), so a change in focus is needed.

Click to expand...

Wait, so corporations are legally participating in government (you demonize as bribing), and this somehow made all those people buy homes they couldn't afford, and made all those lenders loosen their standards? What!?

Confused individuals indeed.

Redress said:

You simply cannot describe a group of hundreds of people in a single sentence. No answer is right. They share a common bond in being angry and willing to demonstrate that anger, but beyond that, not much in common. It's funny listening to people downplay the group, when some in the OWS probably have a lot more knowledge than they do. They are probably better educated on average, but with less life experience on average, than the tea party, but even that varied widely.

Click to expand...

How can we downplay it more than you just did?
They share a common bond in being angry and willing to demonstrate that anger

A mob of angry people. Yeah, inspiriational. Revolutionary. When they realize they are mad at themselves, maybe they will do some work?

Mach said:

How can we downplay it more than you just did?
They share a common bond in being angry and willing to demonstrate that anger

A mob of angry people. Yeah, inspiriational. Revolutionary. When they realize they are mad at themselves, maybe they will do some work?

Click to expand...

Worked for the Tea Party, didn't it?

Redress said:

You simply cannot describe a group of hundreds of people in a single sentence. No answer is right. They share a common bond in being angry and willing to demonstrate that anger, but beyond that, not much in common. It's funny listening to people downplay the group, when some in the OWS probably have a lot more knowledge than they do. They are probably better educated on average, but with less life experience on average, than the tea party, but even that varied widely.

Click to expand...

I have largely the same problem with these folks that I do with the Tea Party.... All TALK and No ACTION. The Tea Party had what, supposely more than 10,000 people in DC for a rally a year or two ago? Occupy DC supposedly had a high number of people. Where was the "storm the Bastille" action by either of these groups? Show me a group that's willing to put themselves in danger to actually CHANGE something and I'll have a lot more respect than a bunch of people who are all talk, on either end of the political spectrum.

Redress said:

Worked for the Tea Party, didn't it?

Click to expand...

No. The Tea Party was not a misdirected group of moochers as we see here. If anything, these OWS folks are much more like the anti-war protesters circa 1968, although at least those in '68 had a well-defined agenda.

Reprint from an earlier post. Ed Rendell speaking:

Probably a good analogy, Laura, is 1968, when someone finally channeled college kids' energies into electoral politics. And they went up to New Hampshire and they put on ties and jackets and they went door to door and they talked about the war and Gene McCarthy got 43% of the vote and brought down Lyndon Johnson. So yeah, I think that's Rich Trumka is trying to do. And again, look, I don't agree with their message. I mean the guys in Philadelphia said they're going to be here all winter. Well that's silly. You've made your point, you've gotten about all the publicity you're going to get. Now get on with your lives and if you really care about this stuff, organize at the ballot box. You know, we can yell and--our side, we can yell and scream about the tea party, but the tea party folks understood how to make change in 2010. They got out and voted.


..... There's no question. What happened--the protests--the anti-war movement in 1968 was doing well electorally until the convention in Chicago. And everything blew up at the convention in Chicago. Poor Hubert Humphrey had absolutely zero chance coming out of that convention because the protests turned ugly, it was violent, it wasn't productive, it wasn't peaceful anymore and it turned people off dramatically. And I think there is a risk here. There's a real risk here if it goes that way. And that's why the Rich Trumkas and all those people should be talking to the protesters and saying 'look, you made your point. You don't think by sitting here you're going to bring about change in law by just sitting here. No legislative body is going to be blackmailed. But you've made your point, you've gotten publicity for the things you've wanted to say. Now let's get out there and organize. Go home, clean up, organize, and go.'

Ed Rendell To Operation Wall Street Protesters: Go Home | RealClearPolitics

Click to expand...

Eighty Deuce said:

No. The Tea Party was not a misdirected group of moochers as we see here. If anything, these OWS folks are much more like the anti-war protesters circa 1968, although at least those in '68 had a well-defined agenda.

Reprint from an earlier post. Ed Rendell speaking:

Click to expand...

This is a good example of what I have been talking about lately. Can't challenge the premise behind OWS, then dismiss the protesters.

Mach said:

Wait, so corporations are legally participating in government (you demonize as bribing), and this somehow made all those people buy homes they couldn't afford, and made all those lenders loosen their standards? What!?

Confused individuals indeed.

Click to expand...

While I agree that many Americans had a part in their own financial demise, I think it incredibly dishonest to imply that corporations and banks who gave them ridiculous loans and took such large risks do not share responsibility in the current economic mess.

Corporations and banks took dangerous risks, many citizens lived above their means and the government nurtured all of it. The main problem I see with people's analysis of our economic breakdown is the willingness to demonize one side while excusing the others of their responsibility. Corporations/Banks, citizens and government all share responsibility. Not all corporations, not all citizens and not all members of the government - but many in each group have a share of the blame.

I also find it funny how you excuse corporate behavior because it was legal, but then you mock and criticize the behavior of citizens even though it was also legal. Your bias is showing.

Eighty Deuce said:

The Tea Party was not a misdirected group of moochers as we see here. :

Click to expand...

Do you have the personal profiles of all the OWS protestors or are you just projecting your own preconceptions because you are unable to work with facts?

cpwill said:

they are people who have been told that 'the system' is bad, and that 'they system' is responsible for bad things. so now, their lives have a high occurence of bad things, so naturally, they blame 'the system'...... the problem being, nobody ever actually explained to them specifically what that 'system', precisely, was or how it actually harmed them. they just know that life's not fair, they're not happy about it, and they're gonna blame somebody.

Click to expand...

As a much younger man I often questioned my elders as to the "program" I was supposed to "get with".

Whose program?

What exactly IS the program?

When did I agree to this program?

What's in it for me?

Nobody had any real answer beyond some variation on "that's the way the world is".

Nobody could ever satisfactorily address why they believe its some "natural" thing, this program.

This made-up-by-man game we're all playing, whether we want to or not.

Whether it SERVES us or not.

Redress said:

This is a good example of what I have been talking about lately. Can't challenge the premise behind OWS, then dismiss the protesters.

Click to expand...

Au contraire. The "premise" has been challenged numerous times in all the OWS threads. For that matter, it also seems that all sides agree it is much like jello as well, in that it is hard to pin down. I have said from the beginning that it is all about wealth redistribution and more free stuff. And I have supported that with analysis and links. You may not agree, but how about some analysis and links instead of the tripe and snipe at other posters ?

Thanks in advance.

What if...? said:

Nobody had any real answer beyond some variation on "that's the way the world is".

Click to expand...

The amount of times I have heard and seen that phrase uttered by "older" people has taken all validity out the idea that wisdom comes with age for me. To me, that idea is the height of complacency whether it's in regards to the economy, government corruption, bullying, the education system and host of other realities. What's funny about it in regards to OWS is that it seems to be a foundation for many conservatives criticism of OWS.

For example, many of those who attempt to explain the ideas that occupiers have expressed are met by those who say some variation of "well that's life, they should stop whining and suck it up". It's such a pathetic idea - the idea that one should just "suck up" what they perceive as inequality and abuse of power, keep their heads down and get on their way.

While I'm not yet in full support of OWS because I haven't seen them offer up effective solutions to the problems they highlight, I appreciate the fact that they don't simply respond to institutional inequality and abuse of power by "sucking it up" and accepting that "that's just the way it is".

Eighty Deuce said:

Such as what then ? What changes are they going to get private America and corporate America to make to "get things in balance" ? You sound as absurd as these flakes in OWS !!

Here, in the words of Ed Rendell, ex-Governor of PA:



Which gets us back to the problem that the Democrat politicians were the biggest recipients of money from the bailout money recipients. Except that if the real goal is even greater redistribution than we now have, then all you see fits like a glove. Demonize the rich even more, then get government to take their money and give it to you. Now all is in focus. All makes sense.

Click to expand...

What knob did you turn on your elaborate gadget again?

I cant seem to get it to come into focus.

Is there some special filter I'm supposed to use?

Eighty Deuce said:

Au contraire. The "premise" has been challenged numerous times in all the OWS threads. For that matter, it also seems that all sides agree it is much like jello as well, in that it is hard to pin down. I have said from the beginning that it is all about wealth redistribution and more free stuff. And I have supported that with analysis and links. You may not agree, but how about some analysis and links instead of the tripe and snipe at other posters ?

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

I linked to the post of yours I took exception to with reasons. Thank you for playing though.

theplaydrive said:

While I agree that many Americans had a part in their own financial demise, I think it incredibly dishonest to imply that corporations and banks who gave them ridiculous loans and took such large risks do not share responsibility in the current economic mess.

Corporations and banks took dangerous risks, many citizens lived above their means and the government nurtured all of it. The main problem I see with people's analysis of our economic breakdown is the willingness to demonize one side while excusing the others of their responsibility. Corporations/Banks, citizens and government all share responsibility. Not all corporations, not all citizens and not all members of the government - but many in each group have a share of the blame.

I also find it funny how you excuse corporate behavior because it was legal, but then you mock and criticize the behavior of citizens even though it was also legal. Your bias is showing.

Click to expand...

Then maybe you can explain to the rest of us why this "spontaneous" movement is only now waking up to events that happened largely before the last Presidential election, and were apparently still sleep-walking duing the 2010 midterms ?

Maybe you can explain how we are seeing no targeting of those politicians who were the largest recipients of campaign contributions by the housing bubble culprits, starting with Fannie and Freddie, who not only were as reckless as the rest, but did it with taxpayer money, and who were also caught cooking the books. Those top recipients include Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Kerry.

Or, are they getting the mysterious and inexplicable pass on this ? :roll:

OBTW, do those who condemn Conservatives or the Tea Party have a dossier on every single participant ?

Thunder said:

I'll bet if the TP and the OWS folks sat down and discussed it, they would actually find some common ground. They are both pissed off at Wall St. and their never-ending abuses...paid for with tax-dollars, while the American people get screwed.

Click to expand...

And that's what the machine is afraid of.

What if...? said:

And that's what the machine is afraid of.

Click to expand...

once the Tea Partyiers understand that the filthy rich are paying a much lower tax-rate on their capital gains than regular folks are paying on income, the TP will be on our side.

Mach said:

Wait, so corporations are legally participating in government (you demonize as bribing), and this somehow made all those people buy homes they couldn't afford, and made all those lenders loosen their standards? What!?

Confused individuals indeed.

Click to expand...

I posted plenty of information in the other thread to make your continued use of this meme dishonest.

80% of mortgage fraud, identified as a significant issue in 2004 by the FBI, was on the part of LENDERS.

Did people buy more house than they could afford?

Some did, yes.

Were many convinced that they actually COULD afford it by mortgage companies?

Some clearly were.

Were some who COULD have been successful defeated by the collapse of the market itself?

Certainly. Had their homes continued to increse in value AND the mortgage market remained stable, then indeed some of those marginal customers could have worked and sacrificed to make those payments on time and pay all their other bills on time, then indeed they could have refinanced in a few years before the loan ballooned or adjusted. Didn't work out that way.

Use of the "its all those lazy irresponsible poor people who caused the housing crash" meme is assininely dishonest.

It was playing games with good and "bad" mortgages and the ratings of those mortgages that caused the meltdown.

Abuse of an abuseable system, yes indeed.

And who paid for all those politicians campaigns again?

And where did all Bush's (and in some cases now,Obama's) finance gurus work before (and after) they worked for him again?

You actually write well and make many good points, but you're losing credibility with me.

Other:
Not quite "a confused group of people who don't know what they want". More like "a confused group of people who don't know how to get what they want".

It's interesting to me that people are being encouraged to picket producers in our economy. I mean, picketing the government for not governing the way you think it should makes sense. Picketing a company for producing something harmful makes sense. But, picketing capitalism sounds like the middle east reversed. Instead of saying "we want freedom from the government" the occupiers are saying "we want our government to take your money and give it to us". That's bizarre.

The government has restricted economical growth. They can loosen the restrictions and growth will occur. Yes, it will require work and time, and yes, your mom and dad probably had it easier. But their mom and dad worked their butts off.

Eighty Deuce said:

I beg to differ. What you are calling 'responsible capitalism" was actually a system that operated with very little outside competitive pressures. Our economy ruled the roost, and our dog still wagged its own tail. In business, this is known as "sales fixes everything". But we have lost our competitive edge for a variety of reasons, none of which are remedied by redistribution and more taxes, btw, and also are running out of borrowed money by which we could pretend we had no problem ! We can no longer "prop it up", which is a good part of the current mess ! We must mend the foundation ! "Balance of incomes ..... so that money is able to properly flow" ... please explain this babble !We are where we are because government interjected itself too much is trying to balance results, rather than increase opportunity and enable reward. Our two biggest drains are the semi-ponzi schemes of Social Security and Medicare, and now Obamacare. Liberal nanny-state "balance", underfunded-from-the-beginning-wealth-redistribution from tomorrow's generation back to todays ! They dwarf all wars in cost. All bailouts. All everything. Show us "winner take all" economics ! What we have is liberal-take-all-your-money politics ! Please, no more of the useless platitudes. Roadmap out at least half an explanation of what and how. Thanks.

Click to expand...

Ok, on my phone so my response won't be great, but I have a moment to spare while waiting for a doctors appointmrnt. In the middle of the last century we were a prosperous nation, primarily because the middle class could stand on its own two feet. However since the late 70s, middle class incomes have been shrinking and people have become poorer, for a few decades, we propped up their way of life with deb(, but that was an illusion that has now burst. So as a nation we are losing ourselves financially, unless the upper classes can keep up the same consumption rates, but that isn't happening. Thus we lose demand and jobs as a result.In the this will hurt everyone, rich or poor. I am sorry if common sense and simple fact is somerthing you see as confusing babble, but here it is, take it or leave it.

theplaydrive said:

I don't get the impression that most the occupiers think this way either.

Click to expand...

When I see signs like "Jump! You ****ers!" and "Hungry? Eat a Banker" and "Be nervous. Be very nervous. Marie Antoinette wasn't." that leads me to believe there is a great deal of hostility toward corporations and the rich capitalists that have profited most from the system.

I have heard rhetoric from protesters who decry capitalism and profits and corporations in general. I hope you're right. I hope this isn't a majority of the Occupiers who are anti-capitalist. I fear that it is a majority, and that they're trying very hard to keep their anti-capitalism to themselves, for fear of alienating the rest of America they hope to win over to their side. Time will tell.

Thunder said:

once the Tea Partyiers understand that the filthy rich are paying a much lower tax-rate on their capital gains than regular folks are paying on income, the TP will be on our side.

Click to expand...

Is this some secret ? Only the most uninformed do not know that we have seperate tax rates for wage income, capital gains, inheritence, etc. Everyone who has ever owned a home will have some knowledge of taxes other-than-wages. I find your assumption therefore to be without merit.

The top 1% of wage earners already pay an exhorbitantly higher progressive rate on their wage income. In fact, when looking at things, in income taxes paid, all the top pays a much higher portion of income taxes than they earn as a portion of all total income earned.

How Much Money Do The Top Income Earners Make By Percentage? | Financial Samurai

Click to expand...

For instance, the top 1% makes 20% of all wages, and pays 38% of all wage taxes.
The top 5% earn less than 35% of all wages, but pay over 57% of all the wage taxes !

Granted, that is only taxes on wage income, but it is already hugely progressive. The argument seems to be that it should be even more progressive, so as to be "more fair". :roll:

But, of course, we have capital gains "Investment income". Taxed at approximately 15%, or the rate at which wage income is already taxed for the top 25% of wage earners. So even this income can be seen as progressively taxed. in that it is taxed at a higher rate than over 70% (estimate from chart) of Americans pay on their regular wages ! Admittedly, capital gains are not taxed for FICA etc.

But according to some, this is not enough. They want investment income taxed more. They apparently want business income taxed more as well, even though we already have the second highest corporate tax rates in the developed world.

That corporate money and investment money can go other places with ease folks. Its one great way to lose even more jobs to other countries. You want to raise taxes on investment even more (note that money paid on investments has usually been taxed as corporate profits already), then you will get less investment. It will go elsewhere.

There is no future in mooching unless one is a politician who benefits from making folks wards of the state.

Tell us what is fair libs. And please tell us why. Thanks.

Sensibility said:

When I see signs like "Jump! You ****ers!" and "Hungry? Eat a Banker" and "Be nervous. Be very nervous. Marie Antoinette wasn't." that leads me to believe there is a great deal of hostility toward corporations and the rich capitalists that have profited most from the system.

I have heard rhetoric from protesters who decry capitalism and profits and corporations in general. I hope you're right. I hope this isn't a majority of the Occupiers who are anti-capitalist. I fear that it is a majority, and that they're trying very hard to keep their anti-capitalism to themselves, for fear of alienating the rest of America they hope to win over to their side. Time will tell.

Click to expand...

I think anti-greed is being interpreted as anti-capitalism. I don't think anyone would deny that there are anti-capitalists in the mix. Any movement critical of the symbols of capitalism will undoubtedly attract them. However, most the grievances expressed by the more organized aspects of OWS including the offshoots around the country are very clearly anti-what they perceive as abuse of corporate power, rather than anti-capitalism.

megaprogman said:

Ok, on my phone so my response won't be great, but I have a moment to spare while waiting for a doctors appointmrnt. In the middle of the last century we were a prosperous nation, primarily because the middle class could stand on its own two feet. However since the late 70s, middle class incomes have been shrinking and people have become poorer, for a few decades, we propped up their way of life with deb(, but that was an illusion that has now burst. So as a nation we are losing ourselves financially, unless the upper classes can keep up the same consumption rates, but that isn't happening. Thus we lose demand and jobs as a result.In the this will hurt everyone, rich or poor. I am sorry if common sense and simple fact is somerthing you see as confusing babble, but here it is, take it or leave it.

Click to expand...

I appreciate the phone effort, but your analysis is fundamentally flawed, while my common sense and appreciation for simple fact is steller, thank you

It is not the decreasing consumption rates of the upper earners that has done us in. Not in the least. That is also not what has changed with regard to consumption. Its that what is being bought is paying wages of folks not in America. From energy to cars to toys. That is what has changed from the times you site. We can add the debt issues to that, or more importantly, that we have subsidized largesse to the point where we are overburdened with both largesse and debt now. We cannot tax-away or redistribute-away these fundamental problems. To attempt so would be to just keep kicking the can. And the cliff truly is right there.

Other: They are disenfranchised citizens who believe that the tax structure needs to be changed and the level of oversight / transparency in both financial institutions / transactions and corporations needs to be raised.

Some also believe that the healthcare system needs to be overhauled to prevent the pharmaceutical, health insurance and health product and services industries from making excessive profits. Most of these favor a public option for healthcare insurance as well as keeping Medicare public rather than privatizing - understandable since Medicare - Part D was such a huge mistake.

Some also believe that the US's spending on defense is far too high and that the US needs to stop being the world's nanny and take care of the needs at home. Some of the programs they cite as being underfunded are education, infrastructure maintenance, infrastructure development, mass transit and improvements to data information delivery.