Wall Street Protests

[Stormieweather]

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

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Stormieweather

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.

Excellent post Stormie. worth a reread.

[henry quirk]

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.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

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.

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.

[henry quirk]

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.

[henry quirk]

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.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

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

That's the whole problem in a nutshell.