That is partly the case as "cumulative" is not the fact -- which is why I puzzled over it.

The part that remains the case is that the rich get richer during good times, and the graph starts in the bad times and ends in the good times. We patiently wait for a graph update, as the next few years will show a hefty decrease for the 1%.

(Also, these numbers are for households instead of per-capita, which is misleading, as the household income may be a household of one, or an extended family.)

The numbers seem to have not been developed, except for the IRS figures for the top 5%. And here's where figures lie and liars figure: going from upturn to downturn, the numbers for the top 5% are about the same in 2000 as they are in 2009.

There's another aspect to this: wealth is not like a big pie, where if the people at the top eat a bigger piece, that means people like you and me are left with a smaller piece.

The graph shows us how this is not the case. Where the top 1% lines are moving up, all the other lines are moving up too! WTF?

That means if you want to improve your own muddy situation, you should root for the 1%. If the 1% do well, in no time at all, it'll feel like it's 2007 again.

Sometimes true, sometimes not. There's the rub.

Some rich folks did get rich by making the pie bigger, and getting a nice big slice for themselves, which is fine so long as those with small slices don't actually go backwards, and it is good if those with small slices find their slices growing, however slightly. (In philosophy-speak: an inequality is acceptable if those who are worst off under the inequality would be even worse of if the inequality were to be removed.)

However, quite a few rich folks get rich not by enlarging the pie, but by getting a bigger % of the pie for themselves. In fact, some even make the pie smaller in doing so (remember the plot of Wall Street, even though it is fiction?) This is what pisses people off.

I've seen the difference first hand. I used to work for a multinational pizza chain.
They introduced a new super-big pizza, spent money on new equipment and advertising. Sales went up, the company made a little more money, and the staff got maybe a few more hours per week. The pie had got bigger. Good capitalism.

Later, they pushed all the drivers from hourly rates to contract per delivery. We did the same work for less money. The pie was no bigger, but the slices were cut differently. We, the workers, got screwed. Bad capitalism.

It happens both ways, and to pretend it doesn't is simply incorrect, whichever side you support.

Different kind of wealth sir; the wealth of a nation is measured in how it maximizes its workforce's output, and additional wealth is generated through innovation (tw is right all along about this), in which it creates more or new things while consuming fewer materials.

Whereas in 1979, listening to new music required me to drive to a merchant, purchase a layer of vinyl made out of oil, produced by large pressing plants and distributed by truck, right now a friend suggested a new band and listening to them required me to make a search and two clicks.

Whereas in 1979, the lung cancer survival* rate was ~15%, by 2007 it's ~30%. This is another measure of wealth.

Generating new wealth in the pizza game would be found in getting food to the people using less raw materials. Shifting the price around between dough and labor doesn't improve a nation's wealth. But if one created a 20% more efficient oven with the same cost, that would create wealth out of nothing.




*Cancer survival rate is a complicated thing to measure and so any single number given for it is probably an simplification, but you get my drift.

Well that still is no reason for my tax payer dollars to go to a single penny of paying off some fools debt.

And yet, that is precisely what your tax dollars did with TARP. Pay off some fool's debt...some "too big to fail" fools.

Bailout Status

I can't agree more. They should have allowed them to go bankrupt.

I respect these people 1 million times more... I know these people.

Life is rarely that simple. Life is rarely black and white.

Everything is just fine until something unimaginable happens - like a catastrophic illness or the breadwinner loses the job (after doing everything "right" like in the above posters sign)


Life isn't like following a recipe: Do A and B and C will happen. I mean, you can try - you should try - to do the right thing but life has a way of making its own way. You can't blame people when cosmic shit happens to them.


eta - I am wondering. Do you think everyone should follow your example and live like you do? should everyone take direction from you? can you, will you explain the meaning of life to everyone? You certainly make out like you have all the answers and if people would just do as you say, it would all work out for them. If they don't do as you say, or do as you did, they are
god damn fools, right?

However you measure it, I think my point still holds. Some people get rich and drag others up with them; some get rich at the expense of others.

(interesting aside....)
A few months ago I saw a graph on TV, but was unable to find it on the net to post. It was global GDP over time, done in columns per century.
All of history up until 1900 - the Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Indians, Arabs, European colonial era, British industrialism etc etc - add up to 25% of all human economic activity ever.
The 20th century had 50%! In just 100 years we did twice as much business as in the last 10,000.
The other 25% has taken place in the last ten years!!! And it is still accelerating!

Even allowing for the huge increase in population, this is staggering. Mostly, it's bloody awesome. There are more people further from poverty than ever before.
It is also deeply worrying, because every bit of economic activity has some cost on the planet. This cannot continue for ever.

At least they're only singing about it. The people and organisations being protested against have taken a much more active approach to fucking the USA.

Even merc said that the world needs "ditch diggers" (I use that phrase only because it's fairly recognized as a 'lump-all' for less 'skilled' professions.) Yet merc seems to think that those ditch diggers should become better than ditch diggers if they want to make a living wage. How is the inequity even remotely defensible? We need the people who clean and who make widgets and who run the grocery etc and so on. Should they be denied something even close to a comfortable existence? Is the gap between the poor and the rich, and the subsequent squeezing out of the middle class, sustainable? No, it is not. Something, eventually, has to give.

I also wonder about merc's college students. Only because of the constant reminder that his kids get everything they could ever possibly want (crash a car, get a car, for example) am I quite wary that merc's kids are anything remotely close to the young person depicted in the sign in terms of sacrificing some of the finer things in life. This is not an insult. MOre power to merc and his family, good that you can help them start their lives. I'm sure they're wonderful people. But as Brianna pointed out, life is rarely simple, and I don't think the slots merc thinks we should fit in are one size fits all, after all.



Amen. Patriotism is working to make things better, for the good of the country. Patriotism is not hoping everyone falls on their face just so the supposed 'patriot' can say I told you so. That's a dangerous need, to have to be 'right' over being beneficial, over sustaining a country, over the needs of most and in favor of the wants of some.

We had a nice run as a superpower, though. All good things don't have to end, but greed and power-hunger and tyranny will surely take us right to that edge.

There are times when the pie gets bigger, but the 1% keeps the entire increase.


UT, Are you just playing devil's advocate? Regardless of the clarity of the graph, do you believe that the middle class is in the same position, compared to the top 1%, as it was in 1979 or 1955, or 1996?

Thank you Merc. It's important to show the ugliness about these OWS events.
Our biased PDX news media missed that one.
I'm glad you spent your own time searching for that video to document it.
Even if it is just one or two young people among the 5000 - 7000
people in Occupy Portland, it deserves being reported.
Like you, concerned citizens need to stay informed.

Here's one you missed, unfortunately it's the only one I could find.

By Anita Kissee, KATU News
Published: Oct 16, 2011 at 5:28 PM PDT Last Updated: Oct 16, 2011 at 6:46 PM PDT
Sex offender registers Occupy Portland camp as address
But then... maybe there's a cover up going on

I'm a broad skeptic, I tend to try to work out the problem with everything. Also I took Econ 101 and loved it and learned a great deal.

There are no times when the pie gets bigger but the 1% keeps the entire increase.

You can't find those times on the chart. Please look for them and point them out if you find them. This is the economic principle I pointed out earlier: in the good times, the rich get richer faster; in the bad times, the rich get poorer faster.

Economic growth is a tide that lifts all boats, including both the big yacht and the little rowboat.

I do not care what other people make, as long as there is sufficient dynamism in the system that the money can regularly turn over and the 1% can regularly turn over. If the 1% have a lot of it now, that's fine, as long as they continue to want more of it. The only way they can do that is to invest it or spend it to try to make more of it in a risky environment. That creates growth and jobs. And that is the real reason the 1% are not being taxed harder right now: their spending creates more jobs than if the government takes it and spends it.

Lastly... like most of the Wall Street protesters, you have spent the majority of your life in the 1%... worldwide. If income inequality is a problem, you are part of it. Do you feel like you are raping and pillaging the hopes and dreams of billions of people? Well, why not?

Some people have a sense of humor; some don't.

Posted in Out & About blog
by Jake Malooley on Oct 5, 2011 at 7:42pm

Chicago Mercantile Exchange protects identity of "WE ARE THE 1%" sign maker

Chicago is arresting people... not a police riot,
but here's a sign that's really scary for older Chicagans...
/

Companies making more money (profits) does not necessarily translate to more jobs. Corporations, particularly the BIG ones, are recording record-breaking profits. But there are a ways to make profits, besides selling more of your product. You can cut costs - employ less people, work them harder, pay them less, give them fewer benefits, export jobs overseas, take advantage of overseas tax havens, raise prices and get laws created in your favor (such as environmental deregulation). The simple fact remains that jobs will not be created in sufficient quantities until consumers have adequate funds to buy the products/services, thereby creating a demand for expansion, resulting in jobs.

The argument that if the 1% get richer, then so do the 99% is not exactly accurate, particularly in the last decade. The top 20% do (not by much!), but the other 80% are flat-lined or declining. Check the graphs in the attached, "Winners Take All" really demonstrates the situation. Inequality

That's an awesome sign.

Been watching the coverage of the occupations going on around the world. The one at St Paul's Cathedral in London looks great. There's a little (ok not so little) part of me really wishes i was down there. There's a much bigger part of me is grateful I am in fact at home, cosy and warm in my little cottage with readily accessible bathroom facilities :p

I wish them the best. Because they're doing this for me and us, not just themselves. They are engaged in a worthy struggle. They are exercising agency. Good on them.

The relatively low levels of violence and disorder associated with these occupation demos is staggering really. Demonstrations in London almost *always* descend into riot. Certainly from my own experience, I've never been on one that didnt.

The scenes from the occupation look fun. They remind me of Glastonbury. There was a time I'd have been there like a shot :p

Wait, so the ones you go to always descend into riot, and haven't gone to this one, and it hasn't descended into riot?

Time for an experiment...

*grins*

Oh yeah...

For well over a decade, defined was this major problem that has only became worse when Cheney said, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." I could not understand why so many did not see what is finally obvious to many. For the last decade, an average American worker has seen his incoming falling. That only happened twice in the history of America. Warnings of this problem, a pending economic calamity, and the history that predicted it were defined even in The Cellar. And still so many remained silent. Even when Enron, LTCM, the California Energy crisis, etc all proved who are some of America’s greatest enemies.

Both times in history, welfare for the rich resulted in America’s worst recessions. In part, because the rich do not create jobs, innovation, new products, new markets, and economic advancement. Only those who aspire to be rich do that. Both times in history, 1% reaped massive wealth while Americans saw their incomes diminish. Finally, some have complained. It was long overdue.

At what point does history prove the obvious. 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. Especially those who are paid the most money, bonuses, stock options, and other 'rewards'. Why do more successful companies pay their top people less money? Because the real source of that success reaps increased incomes. Many are finally learning that business school concepts and their student have created massive income disparity and economic stagnation.

Not like this was new to a Cellar dweller. And still some remain in denial by blaming the rest of us.

Just a quick note.

On the news last night I saw that people are starting to protest in Melbourne in a similar although possibly more aggressive manner in that they're holding up traffic and stuff, but basically, they're protesting about the big banks and industry.

A view of Occupy London:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/comment/tal...090450453.html



Let's just dismiss them as fools and we needn't give their constructive anger another thought.

God damn fools.

:D

Ha!

Excellent post Stormie. worth a reread.

*
 

What the **'occupants' don't get: the 'rich' don't care.

Even if Jehovah Himself schlepped down from Heaven Above and singled out each and every billionaire and -- with His Booming God Voice -- designated these billionaires and bankers and whatnot as 'EVIL' and deserving of Hellfire and Eternal Torment: these folks would not care.

If I were one of these folks, one of these awful bankers, billionaires, etc., already, I woulda done everything (legal AND illegal) to preserve my wealth.

Are these folks (the billionaires, the bankers, the magnates, the unscrupulous 'rich') wrong (for making the money the way each did, in such vast quantities, to be used in such idiosyncratic ways)?

Does it matter?

To paraphrase a line from 'Army of Darkness': 'Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the money (read 'power')'.

Oh, yeah: there are the pussies like Warren Buffet who make a big show of how much he or she ***'cares', but most billionaires, by definition, are mercenary sorts who will not oblige citizen or government.

And, if by some wild chance, the 'occupants' get their way and the 'rich' are restricted to, say, ****100 million (with every dollar above that going to those in government) then those rich folks will downsize. They will close plants, terminate divisions, fire the asses of huge numbers of folks, and make damned sure they never rise above 99 million in accumulated wealth.

My point: the 'occupants' will not 'win' 'cause the rich 'won' a long, long, time ago.






*entirely possible all this was covered up-thread...11 pages is a lot to read through...*shrug*

**even if these folks are coherent in message, agenda, and organization (and they aren't!), they're cannon fodder...front-liners meant solely for bloodletting and sacrifice...they are NOT revolutionaries or game-changers...just pieces on someone else's chess board.

***such horseshit...all this sympathy for the '99%' is transparent self-interest, as in: 'If I give some (sympathy, money, etc.) today, maybe I'll get to keep the rest for myself tomorrow'.

****in accumulated wealth or income or in whatever it is they're gonna be penalized in.

We treat all sorts of illness in this society. Physical illnesses, addictions, mental illnesses. The obvious reasoning is that illness and addiction is bad for society.

There's only so much money you can spend. At some point, the WHOLE point is having more money and making more money.

That's addiction. It's bad for society as a whole. We can dress it up as ambition, but what we're seeing is so far from ambition you can't even see ambition anymore. It's a sickness. Get ALL the money. As MUCH money as we can. At the expense of ANYONE or ANYTHING.

Why, if we care so much about smokers and overeaters and sex addicts and alcoholics and gambling addicts and shoplifters and shopaholics, do we not try to make these sick fuckers better?

Billboards! Betty Afford Money Addiction Clinic! A patch! Pills! Densensitization Therapy! Aversion Therapy!

Because even this extreme unhealthy greed is dressed up like so much pretty ambition, and because it carries so much power, it will never be recognized as such. They just keep saying "I got mine you get YOURS" without knowing they've left very little to "get."

Even normal folks with a normal like of money and a decent life won't have any left to get...not at this rate.

So I'm in favor of involuntary commitment. ;)

"So I'm in favor of involuntary commitment."
 

HA!

The trick: forcing someone with a worth (power) exceeding that of a small nation to 'do' anything at all.

If he or she can't buy you, then he or she will have you ended and buried deep.

It would be nice if 'right makes/is might' but the reality is 'might makes/is right'.

*shrug*

There is no proposal from the 'occupants' or elsewhere that would limit accumulated wealth. There's not even any proposal that would limit income. Even if the top tax bracket was 99%, a $100 raise would give you another dollar.

The sad part is the wealthy-wanabees who don't realize they too are in 99%.

Then too, the wealthy need to keep in mind the line from the old westerns:
"There's always a faster gun"
.

.

Is there a definition of the 1%/99%? I need to know which side I'm on.

There is no proposal from the 'occupants'…that would limit accumulated wealth.
 

I could probably find evidence to dispute this, but, it would be moot.

My point was clear, I think: 'the 'occupants' will not 'win' 'cause the rich 'won' a long, long, time ago.'

There will be no sweeping cultural reforms, no trials of the 'criminal rich', no redistribution of significant wealth.

Things are what they are and will remain exactly as they are 'till those in power (not the governments) decide otherwise.

Your options: divorce yourself as much as possible from the greater workings of things (self-reliance) up to and including taking a one-way *hike into 'the desert', or, settle in for the ride with someone else in your driver's seat.

#

"The sad part is the wealthy-wanabees who don't realize they too are in 99%."

If directed at me: I have no interest in being rich...too much work, too much baggage...I prefer what I have: solitary, anonymous, minimalistic, autonomy...I own little and am owned by little.

Your mistake, Lamp: assuming I admire the rich...I don't admire them or find them distasteful...they simply 'are' (and they're not going anywhere).

#

"There's always a faster gun"

Sure: but, faster is not always more accurate.





*even being prepared to do so sets you apart from the greater workings of things.

And, for the record: Elections DO NOT matter and words DO NOT matter: what matters is what YOU DO, FOR YOURSELF, BY YOURSELF.

#

"I need to know which side I'm on."

Pick the side that matters most: your own.

...

[quote=henry quirk;764830<snip>
"The sad part is the wealthy-wanabees who don't realize they too are in 99%."

If directed at me: I have no interest in being rich...too much work, too much baggage...
I prefer what I have: solitary, anonymous, minimalistic, autonomy...
I own little and am owned by little.

Your mistake, Lamp: assuming I admire the rich...
I don't admire them or find them distasteful...
they simply 'are' (and they're not going anywhere).
<snip>
[/QUOTE]

HQ, I don't think I assumed you "admire the rich", or even directed the comment at you, in particular.
But your assertions do, in fact, set up a fatalistic defense... (i.e., Be afraid, very afraid)
and so secures you to them, but still outside the 1% castle wall.

Advocating a solitary , anonymous, minimalistic, autonomy may be your preference... So be it.

But in a so-called real world, the other end of the distribution usually doesn't work out so well,
mainly because it's is not as "autonomous" as might be believed.

That's the whole problem in a nutshell.

"...your assertions...set up a fatalistic defense...and...secures you to them..."

Acknowledging a hurricane is coming up the mouth of the Miss. doesn't bind me to the hurricane...acknowledging the hurricane's existence and what the hurricane is capable of allows me to realistically prepare for it, and, to realistically respond to what it leaves behind: so, no, not really.

#

"the other end of the distribution usually doesn't work out so well"

Meaning, I guess, all those folks who chose something other than autonomy.

Hey, one gets what one deserves: Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

He was wrong. Hanging together usually means you get hanged together.

#

"real world"

I live in the real world...am up to my neck in it...I believe, however, (and the status of my life is all the evidence I need) I have an awful amount of control over what 'I do' in the world (my actions, responses, cultivating and avoid certain consequences, etc.)...I understand many, perhaps most, folks don't share my perspective...that's okay...each and every one will do exactly as he or she likes and is able.

I just may be 'more' capable (of autonomy).

This is not a crime any more than someone being 'less' capable is a crime.

But: the lesser ability of the other is not my problem to correct or pay for (I have no interest in living in Harrison Bergeron’s world...if you do: more power to you...I, however, will not be hobbled).

The 'occupants', I think, would be very happy to live in Bergeron’s world...other folks would not.

#

"That's the whole problem in a nutshell."

No. The problem, as exampled by the 'occupants', is believing the 'rich' can made to care.

HQ, I hope your interpretations of my post were not intentionally askewed .

By fatalistic assertions, I meant that if the "hurricane" is coming,
your assertions to others here are along the lines that closing
and boarding up the windows will do no good. etc., etc.

By "other end of the distribution" I meant the 1% of the 99%... the poorest of the poor.

I did confirm your preferences for autonomy are yours to own.
Nothing was said about it being criminal,.
Only time will show if a competent, solitary life is sufficient.

It really isn't about making the rich care. Those protestors aren't talking to Wall Street. They're talking to Washington.

Politicians also probably don't care either (at least the ones who are powerful and successful enough politicians to be in a position to do anything) about the suffering or unhappiness of the protestors. But, if enough noise is made. If enough people stand up and shout. If a critical mass of discontent is reached, then politicians start looking at their majorities and asking questions about their next campaign.

@Henry: No individual can live entirely self-sufficiently and still be able to participate in and enjoy the advantages that technology and civil society have made possible.

My God what a cold world. Each to their own and nobody for the ones with noone. I do not understand why people persist in adhering to the notion of society as a jungle. It's the opposite of that. It's the sum total of our journey out of the jungle.

I was just walking past the Washington DC Occupy encampment. I'd estimate that about 20% of the visible participants were obviously veterans. That kind of surprised me, because I expected them to all be young folks. Not wheelchair bound Vietnam vets.

I'd guess there were about 50 people there, and about as many tents. 5 porta-potties, including a wheelchair accessible one, which was nice, since I saw two protesters in wheelchairs. Everyone was just sitting around, with signs leaning up against their tents. There was one fairly large group, huddled in a circle of folding chairs, talking quietly. No cops anywhere.

And some black teens off to the side, tapping drum sticks against a retaining wall.

There were only 50 people there? WTH?

Well, it is a weekday. I bet it swells in numbers a bit on the weekends. But I won't be able to confirm then, because I won't be downtown.

The DC government gave them a long term permit and isn't bugging them. I don't know who gave them the toilets. Maybe it's hard to protest when people are being nice to you?

It just surprises me because there are 5-10x that number in Philly.

I saw the Binghamton version today. I noted the big American flag and an anti-FED poster... Ron Paulists? A small cluster of tents in a downtown park.

For all the people complaining about the OWS protesters being vague, here's a sharper tongue:

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/d...treet/?refid=0

"HQ, I hope your interpretations of my post were not intentionally askewed."

Not intentionally, no. Just a poor reading on my part, I guess.

#

"I meant that if the "hurricane" is coming, your assertions to others here are along the lines that closing and boarding up the windows will do no good. etc., etc."

That depends entirely on the hurricane and the individual facing the hurricane.

I'm not fond of generalizing things out to 'we' (unavoidable as it is from time to time).

Joe may have such poor circumstances, a mild tropical storm endangers him (run, Joe! Run!).

Jack may be so secure a Cat 6 hurricane would cause him no undue worry.

The same singular-ness applies to folks in a dynamic (and naturally amoral) economy.

#

"the poorest of the poor"

And who judges the "poorest of the poor" as that?

I'm bettin' a number of those so-called 'poor' don't see themselves that way (hell, by some standards, I'm poor, but I don't think of myself in that way, or act as though I am).

Numbers (economic stats) are clean: interpretations of numbers (that leave out subjective, idiosyncratic, self-definition) are muddy and misleading.

#

"Only time will show if a competent, solitary life is sufficient."

Show 'who'?

My assessment (made for me, by me): my competence, my autonomy, is sufficient for me to get through, to survive, and even thrive.

That's the only evidence I need, the only permission I need: I do it, it works, so there.

Again: not every one is up to the rigors of DIY...that's okay.

If folks need to huddle together then, please, huddle away.

But: not every one needs to huddle (cuddling, however, is another issue entirely... ;) ).

##

"Those protestors aren't talking to Wall Street. They're talking to Washington."

Some are, but many are taking every opportunity to scream at the uber-rich for their uber-blood.

#

"No individual can live entirely self-sufficiently and still be able to participate in and enjoy the advantages that technology and civil society have made possible."

I don't know that 'self-reliance' and 'autonomy' are strictly synonymous with 'self-sufficiency', but, let's say they are.

So what, Dana?

I live and work among you (cancer cell hidden among the healthy!) and I, at my discretion, participate and enjoy a great many things.

Operative words and concept: 'my discretion'.

Wants and needs are most definitely not synonymous.

As I said somewhere in-forum: being prepared (as I am) to take a one-way trip into the desert alone sets one apart from the greater workings of things.

"Well, bully for you, Quirk, but not everyone is like you!"

I get this, I really do. But because the many are incapable, I should act as though I am as well? Because so many 'must' huddle, I'm obligated to as well? Because so many have taken the bait (hook, line, sinker!) and now feel taken advantage of, I should join in their reindeer games? Because there are 'unfortunates' in the world, I'm obligated to care for them?

If my 'benefit' from the greater workings is small, then, it seems to me, the price I pay for the 'benefit' should be small too.

#

"Each to their own and nobody for the ones with noone"

I certainly never said or implied this!

I'm quite devoted, by choice, to several folks, each who I love dearly for reasons wholly idiosyncratic to each.

I, however, am a finite resource...I can't be all to all.

Since I had no hand in the unfortunate 'being' unfortunate: I can't see my obligation to raise them up (or advocate for them when, by their willing participation in 'the system', each got screwed royally...the occupants are prime examples of this, as is any one who takes the position governance and economy have moral dimensions).

If, however, folks (occupants, politicians, priests, activists, etc.) want to dedicate themselves to raising up the poor and tired and hungry, then, by all means, each should do exactly that.

They just need to quit pestering me (directly, indirectly, with force) to participate, cooperate, and pay.

#

"society as a jungle"

It's not a jungle: it's an anthill, fit only for ants.

I prefer civilization (which exists in pockets, but not as widespread or comprehensive...it may, in fact, be that civilization is impossible on the wide scale...*shrug*).

>"It's wrong," the sign said, "to create a mortgage-backed security filled with loans you know are going to fail so that you can sell it to a client who isn't aware that you sabotaged it by intentionally picking the misleadingly rated loans most likely to be defaulted upon."


The one who got taken: absolutely he or she believes it 'wrong'.

The one who perpetrated the scam and profited: absolutely he or she believes it 'right'.

Perspective: as I said elsewhere, 'competing values'.

Buyer/consumer/INDIVIDUAL beware!

Beware not only that the lion WILL eat you, but also beware of how YOU confuse 'need' and 'want' and how envy informs your (re)actions.

Simply put: do your own goddamned research, cover your own ass, don't lay yourself on the line via a contract you don't understand, only trust the ones who've personally earned it.

This all seems perfectly commonsensical...I, however, MUST be wrong, since so many do exactly the opposite of what I proscribe... ;)

So scams are fine? Making money is fine no matter how it is derived, whether it be through dishonesty, misleading advertising/statements, or outright cons? If anyone is stupid enough to fall for it, it's their own bloody fault? Really??

I think you're just spouting here, quirk. The client referred to above was not an individual but another institution. The people harmed by the transaction had no say.

"So scams are fine?...Really??"

I didn't say scams were 'fine'.

But scams happen all the time...and many (perhaps, most) are legal.

Buyer beware.

##

"I think you're just spouting here, quirk"

Probably.

#

"The people harmed by the transaction had no say."

I imagine each had the choice, from the beginning, of whether or not to transact with the particular institution.

Again: Buyer beware.

Just an update ...

A scary thing for the Mom, but otherwise ho-hummmm.

Unfortunately, the KGW headline on this story is:
"Police Crack Down on unruly element in 'Occupy Portland' camps."
.

Do you know all the institutions your 401K funds contain?

"Do you know all the institutions your 401K funds contain?"
 

I don't have one.

I self-employ: I'll never retire: I'll just die.

*shrug*

Am I mistaken in assuming that 401k programs are voluntary?

But they don't agree on the issues.