May 4, 2012
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What the Occupy Movement is About
It’s not about pretending to be righteous. It’s not about wanting something for nothing. It’s not about replacing Obama with Castro. It’s about this:
How can you look at a statistic and NOT get pissed?
Comments (80)
right. on.
since trickle down economics (Voodoo Economics as George Bush Sr. once called it) worker productivity (hours of work put in) in the U.S. has climbed consistently while worker compensation (pay) has not reflected productivity. in other words since the 1980s, the Reagan years, employees have worked harder and harder for relatively less pay while the top 2% have pocketed the money.
pissed is a calm reaction to this.
The first thought that come to mind for me is, so what? Since when do Americans demonize success and wealth? I thought those were a part of the American Dream?
No one is stopping you from starting your own business and becoming wealthy. Look at what Mark Zuckerberg did. What others have done. I honestly don’t give a crap if a CEO gets a million dollar bonus check, provided that his company didn’t get a bailout. Now if we’re talking about bailout money, then yeah I’m just as pissed off as the OWS people. If you were whining for a bailout, you obviously don’t know how to handle money or make wise business decisions. There is absolutely no reason for you to get a fat check for being parasitic to the American taxpayer.
Stats like this piss me off! In my eyes, the American dream is an honest day’s wage for an honest day’s worth. I have no problem with CEO’s making lots of money- after all. they use their smarts to make profits for their company. However, they make those profits using the labor force of the American worker. Stats like this show how devalued the American worker has become. No one would argue that a blue collar worker should make anywhere near as much as a CEO. However, companies that give their corporate CEO’s these ridiculous paychecks, yet cut benefits and pay raises for the workers that actually do the labor to make those profits DO piss me off.
@firetyger - i don’t think anyone is demonizing success, or even that we should all be billionaires. i think the general point is that if salaries for the super wealthy have increased by that much, something must be wrong if that type of prosperity is not the same across the board. considering how large the gap is, i think it’s reasonable to believe that the super wealthy who ARE in charge of wages for the rest of us would prefer to keep their labor force as cheap as possible, regardless of how the cost of living is rising. our current wealth gap is starting to resemble the type of gap between the serfs and lords in the medieval period.
as for starting a business, not everyone is interested in/can afford such an endeavor. i have many dreams for my career, and none of them involve being a CEO. i’m also not interested in risking what little money i DO have in a business that could fail. and there are different definitions for success. being dirt poor, i consider it a success when i can manage to put money into savings. i don’t mind not being a millionaire… i honestly don’t want to be, because i don’t believe in having more money than you need to be happy and i can be quite happy with $30k a year. but my economic status should reflect modern-day living expenses and other necessities. yachts and private jets are luxuries… not health care and education.
nor is every rich guy a business owner. my grandmother’s millions come from penny-pinching. and the only jobs she’s ever had were a sales girl and a SAHM. her prosperity doesn’t have a direct benefit on the economy, especially since she doesn’t actually spend any of her money.
@firetyger - no one is demonizing success, this isn’t a statistic based on success at all.
this is the people in charge choosing to hoard money and say they deserve it more but allowing the people DOING the work to starve.
not everyone can be the one percent, so yes people are stopping us from starting our own businesses and being successful, but that doesn’t mean the people owning the businesses should keep everything for themselves. it’s pure greed and corruption, not “success”
@firetyger - though i understand your sentiment there is often more than meets the eye behind “success”. it is first off importantto separate the success of small and mid-sized business from corporate success, something President Obama does btw. he’s cut taxes to small and mid-sized businesses but wants the wealthy who earn…bring home a paycheck of over a million dollars a year, not earn from nest egg investments…to pay an equal percentage in taxes. you have to see the hijinks of Wall Street executives who ran our economy into a ditch and nearly off a cliff. what happened when the economy crashed? Bernie Madoff who was once the chairman of NASDAQ was exposed. Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers was exposed. we became aware of the fact that United Healthcare CEO made $225 million not including perks in 2005 while his company made a practice of denying paying customers medical procedures whenever they could. we found out about the careless practices that ran rampant throughout the banking industry. i find it odd that the same people who claim that was the government’s fault are still against regulation of the industry when it was after serious deregulation of the industry by 2001 that Wall Street execs used the deregulation as an opportunity to pocket tons of money at the expense of business integrity. imagine Local, State and Federal government deregulating crime. does anyone think that’s going to make crime go down? John Gotti would have loved it.
since the 1980s when “trickle down” economics was put into play the income of the wealthiest 2% in the country has skyrocketed while the income of the middle class has almost flat lined. that is where class warfare is found and it doesn’t favor most Americans. if that works for you then fine. it doesn’t for parents hoping for a better future for their kids.
@soccerdadforlife - i have no doubt your wife does that but you are talking about something completely different which makes me expect the rest of your claims are bogus. i’m talking about what happens before people in need of medical attention ever reach your wife, denial of coverage and payment for people with “preexisting conditions”. that means a person either never makes it to medical care which of course your wife would not be aware of or they get to a hospital and are told later their insurance will not cover something they need. my mom worked for an insurance company for 36 years.
@soccerdadforlife - and you’d be best to keep your meaningless bogus comments to yourself since most on Xanga apparently know you are just that
@TheSutraDude - ”we became aware of the fact that United Healthcare CEO made $225 million not including perks in 2005 while his company made a practice of denying paying customers medical procedures whenever they could.”
See, I know why your comment is a load of deception I wouldn’t want to step in. My wife works as a charge audit nurse, which means that she makes sure that patients and their insurance companies are charged properly. Insurance companies also employ charge audit nurses for the same reason. They look at accounts to see if the insurance company has been overcharged by the hospital. It’s not that the insurance company is trying to deny benefits improperly. If there’s no hospital documentation that a procedure was done, or if the wrong billing code has been used, then the amount charged on an account needs to be changed, maybe.
I expect that the rest of your claims are equally bogus.
” we found out about the careless practices that ran rampant throughout the banking industry.”
Actually, bad practices occurred in the investment banking industry (Wall Street), not the banking industry. But don’t let a little thing like facts get in your way.
And the problem was caused by govt., which encouraged making bad loans based on stated income. Wall Street tried to make lemonade out of a lemon. The SEC was deliberately ignoring fraud when securities were being evaluated for risk by Standard & Poors, Moody’s, etc. Oh, same with ignoring fraud by Fannie and Freddie execs. And by Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, too. Countrywide was their baby. Bush was guilty of encouraging home ownership by people who weren’t able to make payments (“compassionate conservatism” aka “old fashioned liberalism”). Clinton did the same thing and so did all the presidents going back to Carter. The whole thing was his dumb idea. As long as there was real demand (people who could make payments wanted houses), there was no problem. It was when lots of houses were being sold to people who couldn’t afford them that the problems began. The investment banks were part of the problem, do the dems passed Dodd-Frank to regulate the banking industry? And never regulated the investment banks????? (Check the gravy train to find out why.)
Maybe you should scrutinize your sources a little more.
@TheSutraDude - suckerdoucheforlife is a stinking and mindless bag of shit. His reputation precedes him here. I wouldn’t bother trying to talk to him. You’re better off…well, doing just about anything else.
@In_Reason_I_Trust - thank you. i’m well aware of that. i just hate leaving stupid comments dangling out there lest others might assume them to be valid.
@TheSutraDude - Maybe you need to learn to communicate better–like saying that you’re talking about pre-existing conditions. Denying pre-existing conditions is standard practice. I don’t know why you think that is somehow crooked.
Has the standard of living increased for Americans since the ’80s?
Comparing the wealth of the top 2% with everyone else is standard liberal Politics of Envy. Shame on you.
Funny how you aren’t bothered by Obama’s denial of bondholder rights regarding General Motors. He stole the assets of GM and gave them to the UAW instead of letting the bondholders keep them.
I hate populism.
Funny how no one is concerned about Obama raising taxes on the poor via the taxes on tobacco and liquor.
@TheSutraDude - ”he’s cut taxes to small and mid-sized businesses but wants the wealthy who earn…bring home a paycheck of over a million dollars a year, not earn from nest egg investments…to pay an equal percentage in taxes.”
Codswallop! He wants to raise taxes on investments and on paychecks. Funny how small businessmen are having to close their businesses because they can’t make money because of taxes. Obama wants to raise taxes on household income of 250k a year; this is what a teacher/police officer couple might make in NYC.
Startup businesses are way down. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/02/us-usa-economy-businesses-idUSBRE84113G20120502
@soccerdadforlife - envy? nope. i am wealthy in fact. shame on you. try to get a clue.
“has the standard of living increased for Americans since the ’80s?” i don’t know what your point is supposed to be but we became worse off than some countries we once called “banana republics” what country do you live in?
GM is alive dude. Romney wanted the company to go under. Bin Laden is dead. Romney said he wouldn’t have bothered.
it is largely States that have raised taxes on tobacco and liquor.
@soccerdadforlife - “what a teacher and police officer *might* make in NYC”. your talking to someone who lived in NYC for 35 years. police officers and teachers do not make half of $250k/year. funny how small businesses have shown growth in this economy. it’s the public sector that has had it’s biggest decline in decades because of Congress, not Obama. the approval rating of Congress has been at a historic low since only months after the 2010 election. on the other hand Obama’s approval rating is on the upswing since more and more people have become aware of Congress’ “block anything good for the economy so we can win the election” tactics of the right wing.
codswallop! he wants to raise taxes on the ultra rich, something the republicans keep blocking. wealthy people from Bill Gates to author Stephen King agree with Obama. Mitt Romney with his offshore bankroll endorsed the Paul Ryan plan which cuts more taxes to the rich and puts that added burden on the middle class and working poor.
@TheSutraDude - I didn’t say that you weren’t wealthy–just that you were using the Politics of Envy. Maybe you don’t understand the difference between being personally envious and using the Politics of Envy?
“”has the standard of living increased for Americans since the ’80s?” i don’t know what your point is supposed to be but we became worse off than some countries we once called “banana republics” what country do you live in?”
Maybe you can support this claim? The point is that even if relative income has dropped, standard of living hasn’t. I guess that notion is also over your head. Maybe you are thinking about foreclosures? When you look at foreclosures, you need to look at how many are due to investment properties (Arizona and Florida), how many are due to poor risks (no money down in California), and how many of the rest are outside the normal percentage.
When you look at standard of living, you need to consider the impact of illegal aliens who lack health insurance and have low wages, many of whom came because of the government-encouraged housing bubble. They are migrating out of the U.S. (net outflow), so you might see an uptick in standard of living. Do we have more and better stuff like cellphones, bigscreen tv’s, etc.? Better health care for the majority? Are cancer survival rates up? Yessss!!!!
Here in Kansas our economy is pretty strong now, though we still have a lot of older people who will never be re-employed full time.
Why didn’t Obama push affirmative action for people who are 40+ and 50+? That would have helped the economy.
Us prospective retirees are looking at a bleak future thanks to Obummer.
@TheSutraDude - ”With annual increases plus increases for additional coursework, teachers’ salaries will rise to the current maximum of
$100,049 per year over time.” http://schools.nyc.gov/nr/rdonlyres/eddb658c-be7f-4314-85c0-03f5a00b8a0b/0/salary.pdf
“The 50 highest-earning Clarkstown employees were all members of the 173-member Police Department, with those 50 earning roughly $10 million, or about $200,000 each on average.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/nyregion/03clarkstown.html?pagewanted=all
Sorry, that was Clarkstown, not NYC.
“By comparison, the New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, makes $189,700, and average annual pay for city police officers ranges from $43,062 for a cadet entering the academy to $90,829 for an officer with five and a half years on the job, including overtime and other earnings, according to Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman. In New York City, salaries for captains start at $108,342, and grow after four years to $135,524. “ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/nyregion/03clarkstown.html?pagewanted=all
Just because you lived in NYC doesn’t mean that you knew what was going on there. These couples might have other sources of income besides their jobs from rentals, so their income levels might be above $250K. Hardly wealthy. Cost of living in NYC is out the roof.
“funny how small businesses have shown growth in this economy.” Yeah, negative growth. Did you bother to look at the link I provided?
GM is alive and the thief is in the White House.
“it is largely States that have raised taxes on tobacco and liquor.”
Obama and the dems raised the Federal Excise Tax on tobacco 156%. http://www.atr.org/comprehensive-list-obama-tax-hikes-a6433
“more and more people have become aware of Congress’ “block anything good for the economy so we can win the election” tactics of the right wing.” Yeah I guess all those right wingers are democrats since they aren’t supporting reid and pelosi’s agenda anymore. Opposition to reid and pelosi is bi-partisan now, lol.
“codswallop! he wants to raise taxes on the ultra rich,” Yeah, like that ultra rich cop/teacher couple. Good point. (If you are talking about the Buffet tax, that’s been shown to be insignificant.)
“Mitt Romney with his offshore bankroll endorsed the Paul Ryan plan which cuts more taxes to the rich and puts that added burden on the middle class and working poor.”
What added burden is being put on the working poor? Do they even pay income taxes? As I understand it, upwards of 40% of Americans file income tax to get money from the feds. They pay no net federal income tax. It’s the upper middle class and wealthy who pay most of the income tax already, along with corporations.
And what taxes are being cut in the Ryan plan?
@soccerdadforlife - i’m not using politics of envy. i don’t envy anyone. that’s a Romney misnomer and talking point. remember, he’s all for a plan that will cut his 14% taxes even more. you’re using the politics of calling anyone who wants to see democracy and fairness work, envious.
i guess the notion that job loss under and caused by the Bush administration, the worst since the Great Depression is over your head. how is it you think our standard of living has not dropped after millions of hard workers lost their jobs or were forced to take pay cuts to keep their jobs is not a drop in standard of living? how is it you see an ever deteriorating infrastructure as not being a drop in standard of living. how is it you see a greater number of people, mostly white btw, in need of government assistance to feed their children not a drop in standard of living? how is it you see the laying off of public school teachers while the latest non-partisan study says charter school students lag behind charter school students.
as for illegal aliens you should thank President Obama. under his administration there have been more deportations than under the Bush administration by a huge margin.
our healthcare before Obama came into office was ranked quite low among developed nations…somewhere between 40th and 50th. infant mortality rate around 48%. against opposition from the right Obama is trying to improve on that and healthcare reform is a huge step in the right direction.
everything Obama has pushed was knee-jerk opposed by republicans in Congress. they even opposed him when he said, ok let’s try your idea. this is why the approval rating of this Congress is the lowest in history. Americans have seen through the republican agenda stated openly by Mitch McConnell and Rush Limbaugh…the mouthpiece of the republican party no republican has the balls to oppose…”Our number one goal is to see Obama fail.” this was repeatedly voiced by the leaders of the republican party when the number one goal should have been getting our economy back on track.
the practice of replacing experienced employees in their 40s and 50s with young people they could pay less for has been a private industry agenda for decades. so now in spite of all your arguments you want government to jump in and fix that? i might agree with you on that point.
oh and i have to add….living in NYC for over 35 years doesn’t mean i know everything but i am guessing….just a wild guess….it means i know a bit more than you about life in NYC.
@soccerdadforlife - you do understand you are quoting salaries of teachers and police who have risen to their top pay grade. do you know what the salaries are for Wall Street associates and analysts just out of school? you get hired at 70 to 100k fresh out of school. if you do the standard shit you make well over $100k after a year. kids go into the wall street industry that ruined our economy in the hope of retiring in their mid 30s which many are able to do in high fashion. they don’t have to commute from the Bronx or Staten Island Jersey or Long Island to afford to live off their starting incomes. they live in Manhattan where they can party on weekends in clubs where a bottle of wine costs $100 plus. i know because i worked for 8 years on Wall Street. not all of them do that but it’s well known many take prospective clients to expensive “gentleman’s clubs” to close deals. unlike teachers, police and firefighters if they stick it out they make millions a year. last i heard it was not teachers, police or firefighters who drove our economy off the cliff.
@soccerdadforlife - [Funny how no one is concerned about Obama raising taxes on the poor via the taxes on tobacco and liquor.]
Holy mother of Zeus do you have any idea how bigoted that sounds? Like only poor people use tobacco and booze. You know what Obama DID do? Fight to end the change between sentences of crack cocaine and powder cocaine, which in itself ABSOLUTELY is punitive to poor black communities by increasing the penalty of crack cocaine (that affordable by poor, especially poor community members) by as much as a FACTOR (that’s TEN TIMES).
You know what WOULD make him seem prejudiced against the lower class? Trying to raise their taxes. Oh wait, he fought against that, instead trying to maintain the tax cuts of the middle and lower class and end the tax cuts of the rich.
["With annual increases plus increases for additional coursework, teachers’ salaries will rise to the current maximum of $100,049 per year over time."]
Wow, I can’t wait to start my career as a public school teacher knowing I’ll be able to soon make more than my father’s starting salary as an investment banker. Of course, this is only because NYC teachers make the most of any teachers nationally, probably because they work in areas that are insanely expensive to live in. And that’s only if one were to obtain a doctorate in science AND be a public teacher AND reach a 22 year tenor. You’re acting like six-digit salaries are the norm for teachers, when in fact my likely starting salary will be well under half of that when I become a teacher.
I know you’re going to act like all of this is me being racist or something. I know your MO, and I’m assuming in my six month absence you didn’t up your moral bar.
@soccerdadforlife - [What added burden is being put on the
working poor? Do they even pay income taxes? As I understand it,
upwards of 40% of Americans file income tax to get money from the feds. They pay no net federal income tax. It's the upper middle class and wealthy who pay most of the income tax already, along with corporations.
And what taxes are being cut in the Ryan plan?]
How much would the lower class contribute to our taxes? Oh right, we have data on that.
The statistic itself is ludicrous. The movement is righteous. The problem is ALL the people who ended up watering down the movement with fringe causes, or (like in London) all the people who felt civil disobedience WAS the message, and only hung around to keep “sticking it to the man”. The moment our city council offered to meet with the Occupiers (one of the first in North America to do so), those members showed their true colours and ultimately doomed the movement here to fail.
I have two reactions. At age 78, I can only have 2 at a time:
1. CEO pay is obscene.
2. Since I am now financially comfortable, will they want to take my nest egg away because they think it is to big?
Moderation in everything. lol
Yes! I looked at that statistic, pissed my pants, and now I have to hang myself on the clothesline until my clothes and I get dry. Dratz! If I’d have had a V-8, rather than reading your post, I’d dry as toast right now.
And the Republicans claim that there is no such thing as class warfare going on.
The biggest problem with the Occupy movement is that it is not very effective. Not enough people know what it’s about. Many of the people protesting are doing so just to do so, with a pretentious form of passion.
Of course, my opinion is that the government doesn’t need to hear the message. The CEO’s do. Many just don’t care. They need a reason to care.
The only way you can’t get pissed is if you’re one of those CEOs.
@TheSutraDude - Of course I understand that. Doesn’t matter, they are hardly wealthy, lol. You are being very ridiculous. The point is, which you apparently have forgotten, is that Obama wants to tax the middle class as if they were wealthy.
@GodlessLiberal - Apparently you don’t know that the poor account for about 55% of tobacco use. The average income of tobacco users is 35K. The point is that Obama isn’t focusing his taxes on the wealthy, but is applying a regressive tax. It was one of the first things that he did. Yep, the dems are the party of the poor, so this tax makes sense if you want to hold on to your base. Keep em poor. P
Sure, Obama wants to use the gravy train to enlarge his constituency of dependency. Unfortunately, that isn’t fiscally sound. Grown ups understand this.
You’re still a self-righteous asshole, btw.
@curiousdwk - Oh, no, repubs say no such thing; in fact, they claim that the class warfare is the dems’ politics of envy. Sounds like you are one of their suckers.
@GodlessLiberal - Your john stewart link was laughable. Try to find reliable sources next time.
Oh, in order to evaluate how workers are doing, EPI should have considered benefits from all sources–not just income. Fyi, the cash economy is huge. Unemployment is lower than has been figured because a lot of tradespeople now have their own businesses working on projects to upgrade existing homes, while collecting unemployment. Also, the latest conservative statistic regarding workforce participation doesn’t include the impact of the baby-boomers. A lot of them were working in 1981 and a lot of them will be retiring over the next ten years, so expect the workforce participation rate to crater.
@soccerdadforlife -
“Funny how no one is concerned about Obama raising taxes on the poor via the taxes on tobacco and liquor.”
tobacco and liquor are luxury items. and i know plenty of rich people who drink and smoke.
Maybe other workers should become CEOs.
It’s also about the top 1% capturing 93% of this “recovery”, leaving the 99% with remaining scraps.
Want more money? Work harder…
It’s not science, it’s logic.
@soccerdadforlife -
@TheSutraDude Is correct in his statements:
1) Regarding insurance companies denying benefits – It’s not about billing or documentation snafu’s – it’s about insurance companies practicing rescission – deciding to run an audit on a long term premium paying member who develops a serious (ie, costly) ailment to find some way of cancelling their policy. An example – someone gets diagnosed with cancer, and the insurance company conducts an audit and finds out when the member first applied years ago, they never mentioned that they had acne at one point, and so revoke the insurance so they don’t have to pay for costly cancer treatments. Several companies have been caught engaging in this.
2) Careless practices did indeed run rampant in the entire banking industry- the investment banks just helped the problem explode into proportions that massively eclipsed the savings and loan crisis of the 80′s. Banks were guilty of approving overvalued loans and forging documents raising applicants salaries and failing to do any due diligence to verify income. Banks used what are what is known as “liar loans”, where they would just take the word of the applicant. That’s not just careless, it’s being an accessory to fraud.
And the banking problem was NOT caused by government policies encouraging loans to lower income people that had been previously red-lined and denied loans. You’re obviously getting your info from a biased source such as Fox news as that is what they’ve been pushing from the beginning.
The truth is the loans made to lower income families were proven to be successful and a gold mine for banks who could charge higher sub prime rates and were making a huge profit and defaults were just as low as prime rate payers. This caused investors to want in on this action and drove up demand for sub prime mortgages and their lucrative returns. That’s when Wall Street banks stepped in and screwed things up royally by creating “derivative” products based off mortgages, that could be sold worldwide. This meant banks no longer had to hold onto a loan they gave out, as they just sold them to Wall Street. Once banks lost the responsibility of having to keep the loans they made, the greed genie was released and they made loans to anyone with a pulse since they no longer cared about the quality.
The government does have blame – and that is in allowing Wall Street banks to create such dubious investment products thanks to deregulation and lack of enforcement. That rating agencies have a great deal of blame for rating sub prime mortgage products “AAA” grade to the highest bidder, which allowed Wall Street to sell these products as blue chip investments to pension funds worldwide.
Well, this certainly is an interesting debate and not the usual “I agree with you because we subscribe to each others blogs” comments.
Why *should* that bother me? What is your solution?
How about we all just work harder if we want more money?
If I was in a race with someone who runs faster, should I go push down the fastest runner? Or should I just try to run faster next time and accept that I might not always be the fastest runner?
If you have a smartphone right now and you are commenting on this post, you are the 1% of human history. Learn to appreciate what you have.
I’m not into the protesting. It is frustrating.
Kings think they can rule their kingdom forever but there is no such thing as forever.
Since the “Occupy” movement has introduced the issues of what an absolutely crooked playing field has wrought in the jobs, economic (including housing) and healthcare sectors I think that if nothing further were to happen it would have to be deemed a success.
One of the rationales of the more committed groups in the 1960′s was that their issues should not be dominated by personalities. Occupy has certainly been true to that standard. I don’t know how many provocateurs have already infiltrated to be at the head of counterproductive actions like general property trashing, etc., but I suspect more than a couple are there. Some things seem to have never changed over the last 50 years. But I also believe that there are people who feel our economic, legislative, executive and judicial systems are completely unresponsive to the growing demands for accountability and transparency. At least the demands made by those who have yet to become completely demoralized. Some of them may feel fed up and enraged with police and mainstream media tactics. I’ve seen it happen before.
If there were a reliable way to measure it I can’t help but think that many- maybe most- Americans in their most honest moments feel despair at the very notion of politics or going against the grain in any manner that might put their or their family’s livelihoods or even lives on the line and at risk.
Some of the folks posting here act as though the poorest among us have the same access to a battery of high-powered and priced attorneys and tax consultants to pay a zero-sum in taxes as the corporations they seem to defend by comparison.
While I can understand the need for most people to want to have the direction of a couple of specific issues we do seem to be living in an era in which there are so many dysfunctional aspects of our culture it’s not altogether unreasonable to see people trying to put many issues together as a sort of “list of grievances”.
Among the areas of focus emanating from “Occupy” it would be great to see new parties formed with an emphasis on issues. Here’s a pair of interesting articles/commentary on what’s happened to our “two party system”: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/do-nothings-and-know-nothings/?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/26/democrats-gop-plot-obstruct-obama
In any event the “righteousness” of the Occupy movement is more than matched by the amoral pandering and outrageous lying that defines our present status quo.
Gotta ask “Godless Liberal” if he reads Chris Hedges? I’m very far from a church-going moralist (or immoralist, if you like) in almost any sense but the notion of spirituality has been high-jacked along with almost everything else these days. He’s well worth your time. People could do worse than to listen, watch and read anything from Naomi Klein and Glenn Greenwald as well. But you probably already know about all of them.
@TheTheologiansCafe - Sorry your comment seems a completely ridiculous pile of rubbish. Workers have been working harder and harder the last several decades and get less and less for their time investment. The folks with the gold parachutes and the corporations that weasel out of paying taxes have offshored millions of jobs. We are developing an underclass that is beginning to and will deform the future of this country. The only thing that’s been “trickling down” the last few decades I wouldn’t advise you to sip. Yet.
nice post.
@firetyger - when it is made on the blood and backs of others who are not being fairly compensated for their sweat.
i couldn’t agree more!! spot on!!
@flapper_femme_fatale - Good point. I guess the 55% of smokers who are poor should be happy that the rich are taxed as much as they are. Oh wait, the rich pay a much lower percentage of their income in excise taxes. Never mind.
@SoullFire - ”failing to do any due diligence to verify income” This is mistaken. Govt.-sponsored corporations (Fannie and Freddie) encouraged banks to not verify income, as did some other mortgage-purchasers like Countrywide and WaMu. If a bank were to check stated income, they would quickly find themselves out of favor with those corporations buying their mortgages, which would have been very bad for business.
“And the banking problem was NOT caused by government policies encouraging loans to lower income people that had been previously red-lined and denied loans. You’re obviously getting your info from a biased source such as Fox news as that is what they’ve been pushing from the beginning.”
Nope. I got it from CNBC and an article on the business insider website. It wasn’t just a banking problem or a subprime problem. Basically, you had several sectors pushing the envelope. The govt. was pushing the envelope by encouraging no-money-down, stated-income loans. Wall Street was pushing the envelope by making CDO sausage from subprime loans and conventional loans. Fannie, Freddie, and WaMu facilitated bad loans, selling them to Wall Street to use in their CDO sausage. Investors were buying speculative homes with no money down.
The real estate market relies on demand for starter homes to push up prices for all homes. People in starter homes can’t sell without demand for starter homes. Subprime borrowers started losing their homes in 2005-6 in some markets, producing a glut of starter homes, causing home prices for starter homes, then prices for non-starter homes, to fall in those markets. Investors started selling their investment homes in the panic, taking any profit they had. Other investors eventually walked away from their no-money-down investments in real estate investment markets like Phoenix and Naples, FL. Then you had CDO demand drying up once people figured out that the CDO’s were backed in part by subprime loans and nobody could figure out the risk. CDO values dropped like a lead balloon. As a result, Lehman lacked sufficient assets to operate as a bank relative to their obligations and closed down. There was so much uncertainty about how much risk any bank had to CDO’s that the lending between banks stopped for three days.
Now there’s one piece that I’m not 100% sure of, but I think that this is what happened. Fannie, Freddie, Countrywide, and WaMu were buying mortgages from other, originating banks. Fannie, Freddie, Countrywide, and WaMu wouldn’t buy any mortgages from a bank unless a certain percentage of them were subprime (maybe because of the Affordable Housing Credit?). Banks needed to sell their originating mortgages in order to be able to compete with other banks. With the advent of investors in housing, the availability of “good” subprime borrowers began to dry up. You had mortgage brokers pushing the envelope, making no-money-down, stated income loans and selling them to the originating banks, who sold them to Fannie, Freddie, et. al. Then Fannie, Freddie, et. al. created the MBS’s using the loans owned by Fannie, Freddie, et. al. Wall Street bought the MBS’s and packaged them as CDO’s. Oh, Standard & Poors and Moody’s had to be complicit in this to give the CDO’s AAA ratings, knowing full well that the packages relied on subprime loans based on no-money-down, stated-income. Their models assumed that housing prices would always rise, which is ludicrous.
The camel’s straw was the no-money-down, stated income loans, but that wasn’t the only culprit in the whole mess. Several actors pushed the envelope, including the govt., Fannie, Freddie, et. al., Wall Street, the ratings agencies, real estate investors, and some subprime borrowers.
I don’t know, but I suspect, that some conventional loans are currently being held up because Fannie and Freddie are still requiring a certain percentage of loans to be subprime. I don’t think that anyone is doing no-money-down, stated-income loans anymore.
Oh, I think that “no-money-down” loans are called “interest only.”
You might find this history of Fannie Mae to be of interest: http://www.alliemae.org/historyoffanniemae.html
“In effect, Wall Street connected this pool of money to the mortgage market in the U.S., with enormous fees accruing to those throughout the mortgage supply chain, from the mortgage broker selling the loans, to small banks that funded the brokers, to the giant investment banks behind them. By approximately 2003, the supply of mortgages originated at traditional lending standards had been exhausted. However, continued strong demand for MBS and CDO began to drive down lending standards, as long as mortgages could still be sold along the supply chain.[26]
A sample of 735 CDO deals originated between 1999 and 2007 showed that subprime and other less-than-prime mortgages represented an increasing percentage of CDO assets, rising from 5% in 2000 to 36% in 2007; yet these CDOs were still rated the same, and their ratings did not get lower until many mortgage holders began to default.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateralized_debt_obligation
It’s noteworthy that Fannie and Countrywide made commitments in their public statements to increasing the percentage of subprime loans.
Fannie and Freddie are guaranteed by the Treasury to pay their obligations. Countrywide and WaMu (both now defunct) weren’t, though they were competing with Fannie and Freddie. Maybe it’s stupid to compete with institutions that can take on much larger losses than you can.
@soccerdadforlife - Life is a pre-existing condition.
Almost anything that can kill you can be marked off as a “pre-existing condition”.
And as someone who FOUGHT the “deny, delay, defend” system for a decade to get the treatment I PAID for, I hope very sincerely that you too will know that joy…just so you can understand “what’s wrong with it.”
In a medical situation, a doctor’s orders can’t be contradicted by a nurse…ever.
UNLESS the nurse works for your insurance company.
Stop being a chump.
@galadrial - I’ve never had a problem with the insurance companies not paying for my treatment because of a “preexisting condition,” so I don’t know what your issue is. I’ve had a fair amount of procedures, too. Maybe you are using FlyByNight Health Insurance?
And what do you mean you paid for the treatment? If you paid for it, why is paying for it even an issue? Maybe you need to fill in some details instead of assuming that I will be persuaded simply because you claim to have experience.
Actually, a doctor’s orders can be contradicted by a nurse. I know of a couple of cases where the nurse didn’t work for an insurance co. The doctor wrote up the nurse, but that didn’t prevent the contradiction in the first place. Writing up the nurse didn’t really help, because the nurse was in a union and the nurses have more weight than some of the doctors in the hospital. Kind of sucks for the patients when the nurses can ignore the doctor’s orders.
Stop being a chump yourself.
@TheSutraDude - ” i just hate leaving stupid comments dangling out there lest others might assume them to be valid.”
You need to get busy then and delete your own stupid comments, lol.
@mtngirlsouth - His solution is to tax every household making 250K or more 98% of their income.
@bobcatg - Too bad that the dems joined the gop to obstruct Obama after the 2010 elections. You do realize that relying on Michael Moore causes you to be considered an idiot, right?
@flapper_femme_fatale -
Saying that there is something inherently wrong with people making CEO pay is demonizing their success. I don’t believe in putting a cap on success. Certainly, I don’t think anyone should be making money through illegal means. However, I don’t believe that everyone should be paid the same. Not all work is equal. Flipping burgers at McDonald’s shouldn’t give you the same pay grade as a brain surgeon. There is a significant amount of time spent on studying, money invested in education, and learning that goes into becoming a surgeon that is rightfully awarded with greater pay. The only way to give people the incentive to go through all the trouble of becoming a brain surgeon is to make it worth their while. Otherwise, why put in all the extra effort? For many, it’s not otherwise worth the sacrifice.
When it comes to starting a business, sometimes your investment is only a couple of hundred dollars, like my sister and her Pure Romance business. Other times, you have to go out and find investors to help you get your business started. By no means do you absolutely have to put up all the funds yourself. If you have a good business plan, chances are you can find investors. Or, if you’re creative, find a way to make it work yourself. My husband does freelance web design in addition to his full time IT position. All he had to do was put up a website, write up his resume showcasing his experience, talk to local businesses about doing websites for them, and look online at places like Freelancer.com for job bids. Once he did some of those, customers came to him. He doesn’t have enough work to do it full time since we have kids, but it is a decent side job. As for your grandma, yes sometimes people save their money and invest. If she is investing her savings, she is having an affect on the economy and helping businesses.
I’m not saying you have to be a CEO to be considered successful or own your own business to be considered successful. But some people are those things or do those things and it’s not right to take away what they have just because other people have less.
@RealistFantasies - The only thing this statistic tells us is that those in CEO positions have had a significant percentage increase in their pay over the past thirty-four years compared to average workers. This doesn’t tell us what the average worker makes, what the average cost of living is, etc. It doesn’t tell us if the average worker is starving and living in poverty. There is a lot of information missing before we can start making sweeping statements like they “hoard money and say they deserve it more but allowing the people DOING
the work to starve.”
@TheSutraDude - Just because some corporations have been corrupt, doesn’t mean every corporation is corrupt. I agree that people should not be getting wealthy through illegal means.
As far as wanting prosperity for the future and our children, yes I want that. I just don’t agree with you on how we make that happen.
@GodlessLiberal -
@flapper_femme_fatale - Interjecting here but I wanted to point out that statistically, smoking is far higher amongst the poor and it’s not bigotry to point that out:
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-620164.html
http://www.med.wisc.edu/news-events/news/study-of-smoking-among-the-poor-reveals-striking-findings/25041
Raising taxes on tobacco raised taxes on many of the poorest of us. It was one of the first bills Obama signed. Lower income families do drink less alcohol, however. But drink significantly more soda. Which is why I have criticized the Obama Administration for wanting to impose a tax on food items with sugar. It would be a tax aimed mainly at low income families.
@firetyger - if you think the cost of living hasn’t gone up more than the 5.7% more that they’re making, i don’t know WHERE you live but it’s not america.
@RealistFantasies - Like I said, percentages are great. But we need to see some real numbers. Otherwise, going by what you’re saying, anyone who is just a Regular Joe should be living in poverty. And I’m pretty sure that the majority of Americans are not living in poverty.
@soccerdadforlife - You being vexed by the mention of Michael Moore’s name is par for the course, of course; but the point he makes is substantiated from several different methods of verification that what he said was true and include someone from those Bolsheviks at the CATO Institute: we’re not surprised you glossed over THAT point.
@bobcatg - I don’t bother to listen to anything he says, tho a broken clock is right twice a day. If you have a link to a Cato paper, better to post that. Moore is a firebrand–whole lot more heat than light.
@firetyger - but they ARE and that’s what you don’t get.
the gap between the rich and the poor is widening and the middle class is disintegrating, and the majority of americans are CERTAINLY not rich, which only leaves one option if what was the third is disappearing.
@firetyger - If college students are now in poverty, they need only look at the cost of going to college. Relative to wages, the cost is way up compared to when I went to college. The cost of college has gone up much faster than the rate of inflation. Student loan debt is now comparable to the federal debt. Oh, but liberals want us to go to college, so that we will be enslaved by college loans and go running to them for handouts. The dems are the party of the poor and their policies aim to increase their constituency.
@firetyger -
“ However, I don’t believe that everyone should be paid the same. ”
nor do i… and i said that in my comment. honestly, if you aren’t going to take the time to read what i write, there isn’t much of a point in talking to you on this particular point. i’d just be repeating myself.
“If she is investing her savings, she is having an affect on the economy and helping businesses.”
nope. it’s all in high-yield savings accounts. being a child of the Great Depression, she hates the idea of investments and stocks as a source of income.
“When it comes to starting a business, sometimes your investment is only a couple of hundred dollars, like my sister and her Pure Romance business.”
only? now you’re showing yourself to be slightly out of touch. a couple of hundred dollars is what i make in a week.
“I’m not saying you have to be a CEO to be considered successful or own your own business to be considered successful.”
but what you DO seem to be saying is that financial incentives should be given to the wealthy to keep them wealthy. and i find that silly. if a rich person in charge of the wages of others really cannot tolerate raising those wages to something closer to a living wage, he or she shouldn’t even have that job.
@firetyger -
“Raising taxes on tobacco raised taxes on many of the poorest of us. ”
tobacco isn’t a necessity. just because the poor use it and are addicted to it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a luxury good. i’m all for taxes being raised on luxury goods, especially ones that have a negative health impact on society. and since, you point out that it’s predominantly the poor, it’s a negative health impact to people who’d be relying on government support to deal with those health problems. it’s the same reason i agree with a soda tax, and the removal of tax subsidies for the corn industry (which is what helps to keep unhealthy, processed food much cheaper than naturally whole foods).
and this is coming from someone who smokes… not cigarettes, but shisha. and i haven’t noticed a price increase on that form of tobacco. if it ever got too expensive for me, i’d stop buying it. end of story.
@soccerdadforlife - the 55%, if smoking really breaks the bank, should quit. nothing is stopping them.
@flapper_femme_fatale - Just exposing the hypocrisy of you libs. You claim to be for the poor, but you really don’t give a crap about them. If the poor pay the excise tax at the cost of food for their kids, that’s just too bad, is what you’re saying.
@flapper_femme_fatale -
“nor do i… and i said that in my comment. honestly, if you aren’t going to take the time to read what i write, there isn’t much of a point in talking to you on this particular point. i’d just be repeating myself.”
I wasn’t accusing you of not agreeing on that point. I was merely reiterating my own stance. I certainly do read entire comments before responding.
“it’s all in high-yield savings accounts. being a child of the Great Depression, she hates the idea of investments and stocks as a source of income.”
Though she doesn’t invest, because her money is kept in the banking system, the bank is able to lend the money to corporations and the government through the purchase of Treasuries. Which in turn, does affect the economy.
“now you’re showing yourself to be slightly out of touch. a couple of hundred dollars is what i make in a week.”
Considering that the median U.S. household income is $51,914, I don’t think I’m out of touch. You said you make $200 a week, so that’s roughly $9600 a year. I’m guessing that you and your boyfriend pool your resources? Because otherwise you’re living in poverty. And according to the government, only 13.8% of Americans are under the poverty level. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html All things considered, saving up a couple of hundred dollars is not an impossible feat. Which was the whole point I was trying to make. If you want to own a business, there is always a way. Not all businesses have exorbitant start up fees.
“but what you DO seem to be saying is that financial incentives should be given to the wealthy to keep them wealthy. and i find that silly. if a rich person in charge of the wages of others really cannot tolerate raising those wages to something closer to a living wage, he or she shouldn’t even have that job.”
Financial incentives play a role in the careers that people sacrifice for, study for, and work hard to pursue. Take away financial incentive and no one is going to want to work long hours and go to school for 12-16 years, accumulating hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt to become a neurosurgeon. Or any kind of doctor, honestly. The medical profession is just one field where burnout is high so those who remain are highly valued. As for those who hire employees, if people don’t like the pay being offered, look elsewhere. It’s not my place or yours to take away someone’s wealth or business just because you don’t like what kind of pay they’re offering.
@flapper_femme_fatale -
Now personally, I consider cigarettes a luxury too. However, I’m not in support of raising taxes on them. Cigarettes are unhealthy and do have a negative impact on the health of those who are on government assistance. The problem? Raising taxes on cigarettes won’t make people stop smoking. It hasn’t. I have family that sell their food stamps for cash to friends just so they can buy their cigarettes. People are seriously addicted. Raising taxes on cigarettes only takes away food from their families…it doesn’t make them quit. If it made people who couldn’t afford them quit, the number of poor smoking would have dropped when Obama signed the tax bill for cigarettes. It has not.
@firetyger -
“Raising taxes on cigarettes won’t make people stop smoking.”
true, but i don’t believe that’s the intent. the intent is to offset the financial costs that smoking has on society, particularly in terms of medical treatment.
“
People are seriously addicted. ”
and it’s entirely their choice to remain addicted, as it was their choice to become addicted in the first place. it is true, i don’t have much sympathy for addicts of anything.
not to mention, you can become addicted to absolutely anything… psychologically, if not chemically. that’s not a good reason change the tax on items.
@firetyger -
“It’s not my place or yours to take away someone’s wealth or business just because you don’t like what kind of pay they’re offering. ”
actually, i do disagree on that. i believe the minimum wage should be raised to reflect living wages. it’s not simply that i “don’t like it”, but that i think it’s damaging our economy. it makes no sense to push wages of the middle class lower and lower, all in the name of greed and profit, ESPECIALLY when the middle class is the class most likely to spend their money on the goods and services that businesses are currently having trouble selling.
“I’m guessing that you and your boyfriend pool your resources? Because otherwise you’re living in poverty.”
no, that’s about right. my boyfriend makes less than i do. we split everything down the middle, and i receive financial assistance from my parents for things like health care, ato insurance, student loan payments, etc. i’d say that together, we make around $17k a year.
@soccerdadforlife - pretty much. being poor is not an excuse to be stupid, terrible parents. anyone who would choose cigarettes over feeding their children, rich or poor, should be sterilized and have their children taken away.
@firetyger -
“Financial incentives play a role in the careers that people sacrifice for, study for, and work hard to pursue.”
i don’t see what that has to do with making sure that the poorest workers in the US still make enough to live a healthy, happy life where they don’t have to worry about going bankrupt over healthcare, education, etc. just because you make sure the people at the bottom are paid more, that doesn’t mean the people at the top will be paid less.
on the other hand, maybe the wrong type of people in this country have all the money. maybe being rich makes you incapable of gratitude. if being taxed more really makes it horrible to be a wealthy individual, there’s nothing forcing them to continue to be. and that’s the reality of it: as much as the rich openly complain they’re being persecuted, they wouldn’t trade places with me in a heartbeat. i, on the other hand, would happily pay 50% in taxes. even if i only made $1 million a year (not even the 1%), that’d leave me with $500k. anyone who thinks they cannot live comfortably on that is either stupid or greedy.
@flapper_femme_fatale - So, to conclude, you favor imposing a regressive tax–the excise tax on cigarettes–on the very poor, so that their children might be deprived of food. Thank you for making your position clear.
@soccerdadforlife - no. i favor a tax on cigarettes for anyone who buys them, regardless of how much money they make. i also favor taking away children from any parent who is so addicted to cigarettes (or anything else, for that matter) that it prevents them from taking care of their children. being poor isn’t an excuse to be a terrible person.
nice try, trying to twist my words. conservatives seem very good at that.
@flapper_femme_fatale - No twisting, you just enjoy deceiving yourself to cover your hypocrisy.
Is the tax regressive? No question about it, it is.
Does it cover the very poor who use cigarettes? Again, no question about it, it does. Sure it covers everybody who uses cigarettes, but the point is whether it impacts the very poor disproportionately, which it does.
Is it reasonable to assume that some of the children of the poor might experience a decline in the quality of their nutrition as a result of Obama’s cigarette tax increase? No question about it. You want to take away any children who experience such a decline? How would you know that they experience a decline? Another massive layer of bureaucracy? Is such a thing even practical? And how do you know that where you put them (say in foster care) they might not experience the same problem or other, worse, problems?
@soccerdadforlife -
“Sure it covers everybody who uses cigarettes, but the point is whether it impacts the very poor disproportionately, which it does.”
i don’t find that as relevant as you. i’m not sure why you find it relevant at all, in fact. cigarettes are a luxury good that not everyone, rich or poor, needs to buy. if something’s out of your price range, and it’s not a necessity, you shouldn’t buy it. i also have zero sympathy for addicts, regardless of what one is addicted to.
“You want to take away any children who experience such a decline? How would you know that they experience a decline?”
there is such a thing as Child Protective Services. educators are also often encourage to report any signs of abuse, malnutrition, untreated illnesses, neglect, etc.
“ And how do you know that where you put them (say in foster care) they might not experience the same problem or other, worse, problems?”
that’s an argument against removing children from dangerous home situations, period… not just in the case of neglect due to higher taxes on tobacco products. do you also believe that children molested or physically abused by their parents shouldn’t be removed, since there’s also a possibility that someone else could molest or abuse them?
I was involved with the Occupy movement, so I think I have a general idea of the mood of it.
But this statistic doesn’t mean a lot by itself.
So it’s easy for people to say that it’s “envy”, “punishing success” or wanting “other people’s money” when statistics like this become the message.
However, the real point should be that the growth in CEO compensation was gained largely by cheating others. It’s not all due to success. And furthermore, due to the excessive influence of wealth on elections, politicians and courts, the chances that large scale fraud will lead to punishment are diminishing, thus opening the path for even more fraud. This is a negative feedback loop that won’t stop unless actively resisted. That’s what Occupy was all about at its heart.
@kirakirasky - ”the growth in CEO compensation was gained largely by cheating others” Seriously? Most CEO’s are involved in cheating others? How many people have you provided with employment and a living wage?
Why not just pass an amendment saying that only real persons (i.e., not corporate officials) have a right to meet with govt. officials? Why not criminalize lobbying and campaign donations by corporate officials? That way, small businessmen could still meet with officials as long as their business wasn’t incorporated. Of course, unions are corporations, so they wouldn’t be allowed to donate or lobby, either.
If that makes you pissed then this new report by Dianne sawyer on ABC news will cause you to duck tape your head so it doesn’t explode!
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/us-bridges-roads-built-chinese-firms-14594513
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