Occupy Wall Street Protests

http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/occupy-boston-protesters-spit-on-coast-guard-member-20111013

I don't doubt there are non-violent people in the OWS movement, but until the group purges itself of all the crazy people that want to tag along, most of society isn't going to take it seriously.

The media bias however is appalling. Had even one Tea Party rally resulted in 140 arrests, defecation on police cars, speakers calling for a violent French Revolution-style change in society, or members of the military getting attacked with spit and epithets, would the national media have offered such a balanced report — or would the media have used any of these incidents to warn America about the latent hate and violence in the movement?

All right, there is some actual meat here in this post. First let me reiterate that I am not repub or dem, not lib or con. I support no party and depending on the issue I support different sides of the spectrum. I want to challenge some of your ideas, but please don't just label me an Obama supporter out to get you or something.

I believe the gov is corrupt completely. Not because every candidate is individually corrupt, but because the system is corrupt and broken.
So even if one or several individuals have good intentions they must operate in a system that does not allow for good intentions to become anything.

Our gov is controlled by the dollars of the lobbyists that infest DC and by the favors that politicians owe to the corps that fill their campaign coffers.

We must see that the establishment of both the parties simply will not allow a person to achieve a position that has any real chance of changing this. Why would they? They are not going to kill the Goose, so in the end we will be forced to do it ourselves.


While it is true that I do not currently own a business, I don't believe our interests are so far apart. You and I both wish for the opportunity to succeed and to better our lives through our ideas and efforts. That is simply not a reality for the vast majority of America today. Yes there are a few exceptions made by exceptional people with exceptional ideas but most people will never be one of those.

Small business is not favorable for the huge corps.
Huge corps own the politicians.
Small business is then not favorable for the politicians. (Of either pt)


Yep, off topic, but one that would be fun to get into sometime.


As if Congress wouldn't stone wall something like that right away.
Easy excuse for candidate who proposes big plans to get elected no?
Propose idea people like > use congress to clog it up > nothing changes and the top stays happy > people are sad and angry at other pt for stopping change > business and gov profit!


You know, the actual tea party itself wasn't exactly a peaceful event right?

A question for you. At what point does a people have the right to fight against the gov, by whatever means necessary, if they believe the gov has become tyrannical?

You're older than I thought you were.

I mean w/e it means. Huge protest, violent overthrow etc.

You didn't really answer the question though. At what point does it become acceptable? At what point do we as citizens have to say to ourselves, that this isn't right, and it's not going to get better with the leaders and system in place.

Are we required to wait until it gets as bad as Egypt or Syria, or should we be able to read the writing on the wall and try to be proactive in our approach.

If a GOP is elected and nothing changes, is that the point when "by whatever means necessary" becomes an option?

You lost me there.

The rich will pay less on their actual income (dropping the maximum from 35% to around 25% for the top brackets), with the elimination of the estate, gift, and capital gains taxes further decreasing overall taxation. $100 billion in taxes are currently collected on capital gains alone, 75% of that is from people who make more than 1 million a year, and pretty much all of the rest is from the top 10% of earners.

The middle class will pay more, both in income tax and sales tax. Lower middle class households currently spend around 11% of their income on sales tax, and that rate will increase by 50% in most states. As an example using http://interactive.taxfoundation.org/taxgraph/:

A family of 4 making $50,000 would today have a total tax bill of $3,515 ($690 in federal income taxes and $2,825 in payroll taxes). The family gets a big income-tax savings from the child tax credit, which Cain would eliminate. Under 9-9-9, they'd be charged a flat $4,500. That's an additional $1,015 higher under Cain's plan, along with $2500-$3000 more in sales tax than they were paying before. That hypothetical middle class family isn't paying less, they're effectively doubling their contribution.

As far as small businesses go, it will be more expensive for small and mid sized businesses to hire because the wage deductions will be removed. Most of the benefits under this plan are for larger businesses, though small business owners will get the benefit of paying themselves with dividends which wouldn't be taxed.

This doesn't even take into account the effect on the economy, since people are likely to buy less due to the higher tax rate, and the 38% (47%? Depends on who's numbers you use) of consumers who didn't pay taxes before will jump from 0 to 27%, significantly reducing their buying power.

Simple isn't always good, especially when it's ramifications are fully considered like in Cain's plan. Luckily for his poll numbers, most people will take the simplicity at face value and miss the fact that it effectively raises taxes on the majority of Americans to the benefit a few, and has uncertain economic ramifications in the long run.

Already post on pg 9

Damascus Steelit! I didn't know!
ARG!
I'm sadly one of those people that didn't want to read the rest of the thread. I feel bad about it. I'll change it.

Worldwide "Occupy" protest.


Edit:

Occupy Berlin removal last night......

The only way you can stop the rampant corruption is to strip the politicians of their power. Take away their power to make tax loopholes and favorable laws for big business and you stop big business from wanting to own politicians.

If only there was a political party that wanted to scale back the government completely and strip away the power of the politicians to do anything but defend the rights and the lives of it's citizens.

Oh wait, there is.

I've completely given up on the dems and repubs to do anything to curb big government because it's just not in their favor to do so. So I do the only thing I can, I just vote libertarian.

They may not be perfect, but they are the only party calling for a complete dismantling of the governments gross amount of power. This seems a lot more productive than sitting in the streets waiting for the dems and repubs to give up their power, so that's what I do.

get rid of the currency system and you will drain their power ;)

http://anonops.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-protesters-arrested.html

people have been arrested, because they tried to close their bank account.

People were arrested for not following protocol and making a scene while trying to close their bank accounts.

what protocol?

bankier: "you want close your bank account?"
customer: "yes"
bankier hands out all money the customer owns and deletes his data.

why is a protocal necessary for such a simple thing?

it's a simplified way of bartering, that assertion is utopia nonsense that's not reality.

Just have to do all your dealings in cash to drain their power. Without any deposits, they can't make loans. Without loans, the money starts to gain value due to deflation. The dollar is just "faith". Faith that this dollar actually represents buying power. If that faith is destroyed then a new currency will arise out of necessity.

In the 1970's, Irish banks went on a 6-month strike as to say: "You can't exist without us!" This is what happened.

That's such a tough question!

But I think that everything would have to get significantly worse before the "whatever means" becomes any kind of a choice. The federal government for 300million plus people is necessarily huge (maybe it's too huge atm, but whatever) and replacing it would be a nightmare.

I tried to list some questions that would have to be answered in such a case, but each one just led me to more (and equally pressing) ones. I think the risk would be too huge, and the period of adjustment too painful for most people to ever really consider it... unless things became very much worse.

If you think about the situations in Syria and Egypt - yes, the quality of those governments was much lower than ours, but also, didn't provide as much as ours. They had more "bad," but also less "good" to lose than we do.

On the other hand, the US started with a revolution that was based on pretty insignificant greivances compared to those we're looking at now. And, it's tough to predict what people will do. The tipping point could be right around the corner for all I know, lol.

As far as replacing a government, we'd just default to working on a more local level. Local governments tend to work better anyway. People within your town limits are immediately accountable for their faults. You see him/her at the local diner, or buying your goods/services. The community can directly influence what they want to be done within their own community.

Haha, you're over simplifying this massively.

How about limits on withdrawing more than, what, $3000 per day per bank in cash like these people were trying?

I'm not on the sides of the banks, but you can't sign up for a legally binding contract and decide to ignore the rules you agreed to. It's not the bank's fault that those people decided not to read their own damn paperwork.

And don't you blame the tellers for the rules that they're bound by.

Maybe if they were smart enough to get a bank check, or was it a teller/cashier check I forget, they wouldn't have had a problem.

What's interesting is that they don't seem to be making any real demands. I.e. they're not asking for handouts, or welfare, necessarily.

They seem to just be complaining. And they do have a lot to complain about:

- Corporate profits are at record highs
- Corporate taxes (effective after tax breaks) are in many cases low or non-existent
- Effective tax rates on the rich are in many cases lower than for the middle class
- The income of the richest 1-5% has tripled
- The income of the middle and lower classes has fallen dramatically
- The financial sector has completely recovered on the backs of taxpayers

And yet nobody's hiring. In other words, the claim that giving more money to the rich and large companies necessarily ends up trickling down to create more jobs and wealth for everyone is (at least for the last decade or two) completely untrue. That doesn't mean the argument itself doesn't work -- socialism isn't the answer either -- but it does mean that right now, we tried that, and it hasn't worked. This recession is different.

Even the posts on Facebook, etc about "I am not the 99%" seem to miss the point. Folks post about how they work three jobs and live in a tiny apartment to barely scrape by at a low-tuition public school, and how they don't expect any handouts. Which is great. Good work ethic. They should be praised.

What they miss is that this isn't how it's supposed to be. You're not supposed to have to work three jobs to barely scrape by. It used to be that one salary at a middle-class range could easily pay for a house and a family and tuition for your kids. Those days are gone, and while we can argue all we want about the reasons why and/or how to fix it -- it's hard to fault the protests for at least pointing it out.

my point is,that it is made unnecessarly complicated.

/clap

You know, the reason its over complicated is due to the way uncle sam oversees and regulates the industry, not because the banks want it to be that way.

I think I may go down this week and show some support myself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_%22Occupy%22_protest_locations

Plenty of locations. Maybe one near to you if you decide to join in too. My initial goal: Get the media to address this as a serious event.

LOL! What? They're protesting in Marfa, Texas? Are they hoping aliens give them intergalactic jobs?