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Who are the OWS protestors?

Who are the OWS protestors?


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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.

I think you're over simplifying the situation. Yes, these protesters have alot of grievences, but to assume they are ignorant as to what's behind their anger and frustration is foolishness in and of itself. True, not everyone who has gotten involved with the Occupy movement are participating for the same reason(s), but that by and large is why so many people are showing up at these Occupy protest events: their distain for how capitalism has overwhelmingly influenced our national politic is at the forefront of their outrage. They know that government is no longer "for the people" and it certainly is no longer comprised "of the people" as evidenced by Congress being made up of so many career politicians and/or millionaire politicians.

Don't sell this movement short. The People are keenly aware of what's happening in Congress these days and have known for years. It's just that they've finally decided to take a stand and start speaking out about it. Why do you think their favorability numbers are so low?
 
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.
The fundamental problem is that incomes for the majority have gone down about 10 percent in real terms. If getting by is what you consider largesse is people trying to make ends meet.
 
The fundamental problem is that incomes for the majority have gone down about 10 percent in real terms. If getting by is what you consider largesse is people trying to make ends meet.

Its what we call a Recession. But our problem is not a recession. We have recovered from such before, but struggle to this time. Clearly you did not take the time to understand 'largesse". Largesse is the use of political power to take money earned by one and give it to another. It can be such as under-funded Social Security and Medicare, where we stole from our children, to such as 3 years of UI. Or money down the Solyndra rabbit hole. Or having 47% of American wage earners pay no income tax.

All brought to you by politicians. OBTW, if bailouts have these folks upset, 3 years after the fact, then are they aware that while the vote in the Senate was bipartisan, that a larger percentage of Democrats voted for bail-outs than Republicans ? That Obama and Hillary and Kerry got big money from the corrupt mortgage lenders ?

Mmmmmmmm.
 
Its what we call a Recession. But our problem is not a recession. We have recovered from such before, but struggle to this time. Clearly you did not take the time to understand 'largesse". Largesse is the use of political power to take money earned by one and give it to another. It can be such as under-funded Social Security and Medicare, where we stole from our children, to such as 3 years of UI. Or money down the Solyndra rabbit hole. Or having 47% of American wage earners pay no income tax.All brought to you by politicians. OBTW, if bailouts have these folks upset, 3 years after the fact, then are they aware that while the vote in the Senate was bipartisan, that a larger percentage of Democrats voted for bail-outs than Republicans ? That Obama and Hillary and Kerry got big money from the corrupt mortgage lenders ?Mmmmmmmm.
Incomes has been stagnant or going down since reagan and I have already covered the necessity of social spending with you.Personally I think the bailouts were needed but since we failed to reregulate banking, we will end up having to do it again.
 
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".

From what I know about the "consensus" process being used, and the repeated appearance of a meme that consists of references to "some kind of 'general assembly' thing, whatever that is, with all that silly repeating everything and jazz fingers nonsense'", I'm beginning to suspect that what everybody thinks thwy should do about the problem that brought them there is what they are actually doing at the general assemblies.

Attempting to arrive at a consensus as to what should be done.

In other words, getting a bunch of people who are pissed off about what is happening getting together and staying together until they figure out what to do about it.

If this IS what is happening, there's no way of knowing WHAT they may come up with.

We may all be surprised.
 
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

The middle class ain't what it used to be, in many ways. And most of it has been the result of choices that WE are making. There are many, many more single-parent households now than there used to be, and that has dramatically changed the way the middle class looks and the income that the middle class has.

Some good reading material on this: The Tax Foundation - Is Anyone Left in the Middle Class?
 
Don't sell this movement short. The People are keenly aware of what's happening in Congress these days and have known for years. It's just that they've finally decided to take a stand and start speaking out about it. Why do you think their favorability numbers are so low?

Ok, but they're not exactly speaking out against Congress and the Government are they? Who are they speaking out against? Who are they picketing against?

The Federal government wanted to make it easier for people to get loans on their houses. They created a program to do that and propped it up with tax dollars. They used banks as their agents to get it done. When it falls apart, people blame the banks?

The Federal government uses tax money to "bailout" (make loans to) certain companies hoping to protect the citizenry. The companies take the money, most pay it back per the terms of their agreement. People don't benefit as much as hoped, and people blame the companies?

The Federal government dumps huge amounts of tax money into building roads, bridges, and infrastructure hoping to "produce jobs" (in a time where most privately run companies would cut back on their investment into capital improvements) - benefitting some very large construction companies - no blame, yet. Why?

The Executive Branch and Congress have made some very ineffective decisions with tax dollars. Why blame the people who were given our money? They didn't steal it - the government acted as a poor agent of our trust, the companies/banks weren't the ones in which we put our trust.

I put my house up for sale. 2 of my neighbor's yards didn't look so good, so I loaned them some money for landscaping to improve the value of my home. They did the landscaping (looks better than most) and paid me back, but it's been 2 years and I still can't sell my house for what I want. My wife now hates my neighbors. Does that make sense?
 
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 ?



You are going to has such a sad when you realizes we wants da moneys out.

All da moneys.

All da moneys de Democrats gets.

All da moneys de Republicans gets.

All da moneys dat's creatin' all da curruptions you just says.
 
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.



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.

The "they'll take their ball and go home" meme needs to go too.

"They'll take their ball of imaginary money that only exists because OUR govt says it does as far as we say they can until they piss us off enough to erase it" meme makes PRECISELY as much sense.
 
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.

And where did the practise of outsourcing and downsizing originate...?

Where are profits from outsourcing and downsizing determined and distributed...?

Where did all the money to elect all those politicians who changed all those laws and policies come from (symbolically, anyway)...?

Hell, I bet you could find some guys down at OWS that YOU agree with on that subject.
 
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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 to me why the Civil Rights, women's rights and gay rights movements "woke up" to events that happened largely before the start of their movements. What does time passed have to do with the legitimacy and earnestness of a movement?

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.
Maybe you should take that up with the occupiers as I have the same grievance with their movement thus far. As I have said in many posts, I would like to see a focus on both corporations/banks and the government. Many members of the government should not be immune to our criticism as they have both enabled and welcomed an relationship between corporations and government that is inappropriate and harmful. (Did you miss the part of my post where I specifically assigned blame to the government?)

Or, are they getting the mysterious and inexplicable pass on this ? :roll:
See above. Perhaps you should check yourself before you make rash judgments about other posters.

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

Your entire post did two things: First, it failed to address any of my points in the post you responded to. Second, it was filled with misdirected frustrations, questions and judgments that you clearly have with people other than me, but that you felt obliged to project onto my words.

I'll repeat myself: "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."

Corporations, the government and regular citizens all share blame. Maybe you can address that instead of making up an imaginary person to argue against.
 
The "they'll take their ball and go home" meme needs to go too.

"They'll take their ball of imaginary money that only exists because OUR govt says it does as far as we say they can until they piss us off enough to erase it" meme makes PRECISELY as much sense.

If my money is only imaginary, then I'm sure the government won't mind if I only pay imaginary taxes on it.
 
A group of people that are upset about our financial, and/or economic system.
 
If my money is only imaginary, then I'm sure the government won't mind if I only pay imaginary taxes on it.

Its as real as the good faith and credit of the US says it is. It does not, in fact, "exist".

When did taxes become imaginary again?
 
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.

Where have I heard this before..............................? Oh yeah, replace "system" in your quote above with government and it becomes clear where I've heard this before, from the Tea party.

"they are people who have been told that 'the government' is bad, and that 'the government' is responsible for bad things. so now, their lives have a high occurence of bad things, so naturally, they blame 'the government'...... the problem being, nobody ever actually explained to them specifically what that 'government', 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".


Edit: my apologies to Helix, I just saw you pointed out the same thing I did. Easy to spot wasn't it?
 
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I didn't know there was an occupation. Figured it was New York and that it typically has throngs of confused and ignorant people.
 
Maybe you can explain to me why the Civil Rights, women's rights and gay rights movements "woke up" to events that happened largely before the start of their movements. What does time passed have to do with the legitimacy and earnestness of a movement?

Let's see if I have this proportionally correct. We got the Civil Rights movement. And the Women's Rights movement. And the Gay Rights movement. And now the Anti Greed movement ? Tell me whatchoo gonna call it if I got that wrong. ;)

Maybe you should take that up with the occupiers as I have the same grievance with their movement thus far. As I have said in many posts, I would like to see a focus on both corporations/banks and the government. Many members of the government should not be immune to our criticism as they have both enabled and welcomed an relationship between corporations and government that is inappropriate and harmful. (Did you miss the part of my post where I specifically assigned blame to the government?)

Focus ? And then what, after we "focus" ? No campaign money from business, or unions, or other exempted groups ? Then what, higher taxes ? Such as ? What ?


See above. Perhaps you should check yourself before you make rash judgments about other posters.

The judgement was about where is the criticism of Obama by the OWS folks ? Or any of the politicians who gave a bail-out. Which posters here are in that OWS crowd, btw ?

Your entire post did two things: First, it failed to address any of my points in the post you responded to. Second, it was filled with misdirected frustrations, questions and judgments that you clearly have with people other than me, but that you felt obliged to project onto my words.

I have asked from the beginning for someone to tell us what the problem is, and then the solution. So far .... crickets.

I'll repeat myself: "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."

So what ? Businesses take risks. Many fail. We all take risks. The question is if we obey the law. And if businesses, such as banks, should be allowed to fail ? Politicians changed the rules, and bailed out banks. The Tea Party is against bailouts. Like for 3 years now !! Are you essentially saying "no more bailouts" ?

Corporations, the government and regular citizens all share blame. Maybe you can address that instead of making up an imaginary person to argue against.

OK. Again, so what ? Whatchoo gonna do ? What I see and here and read from the OWS folks is that they want free stuff. Just heard a bunch on the radio again. They want more money for them from government. This is no longer a select couple of folks saying this. They want guaranteed jobs. Free college (paid for by someone else), much higher minimum wage for everybody. What they want is an expanded nanny state, paid for by anyone but them. Free medical. Free stuff !
 
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How are they going to get free stuff when we're terribly in debt?
 
Right now, I see two themes, either they are nafarious anticapitalists bent on the destruction of western society or they are a confused group of people who all want something different and have no unified voice.

I voted "Other."

They're people.
 
Incomes has been stagnant or going down since reagan and I have already covered the necessity of social spending with you.Personally I think the bailouts were needed but since we failed to reregulate banking, we will end up having to do it again.

OK. Why are they going down ? And once that is identified, what then is the solution ?

I posted all the tax rate info. If its higher taxes, then where, and by how much ?

FYI, we are stagnant because we produce less and less to sell to ourselves, or anyone else, IMMHO. And we have consequently put more folks on the gubmit teat. Can't get rich there.
 
If they're "people" then the Tea Party are "people".

They're people with an agenda.
 
How are they going to get free stuff when we're terribly in debt?

It appears that they want us to take more from the greedy rich people and greedy corporations. But otherwise, we are running out of OPM, and it scares the crap outta them.
 
...irony.

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I think we've all seen the picture with the Tea Party protestors and the captions pointing to the government funded things around them. That, like this picture, is just a stupid strawman that doesn't really go against the views of most of the people there.
 
If they're "people" then the Tea Party are "people".

They're people with an agenda.

I never said the Tea Party weren't people either.
 
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