Anyone switching to a credit union with what's going on?

[o.pwuaioc]

Good. That will cause an increase in wages for these jobs no one else wants to do. Which is really what should be happening anyway. The hard, nasty, unavoidable jobs should be paid more than the cushy sit on your ass all day white collar jobs.

I disagree. Jobs should pay based upon the availability of people with the required skillset. If only 10 people are qualified to perform a job then it should pay far more than a job that 10 million people are qualified to perform. And many of these cushy, sit-on-your-ass-all-day white collar jobs require a lot of training to be an effective worker.

I disagree. Job pay should be based upon the availability of people with the required skillset and the number of people applying for it. Free market ftw.

[MrPopo]

Good. That will cause an increase in wages for these jobs no one else wants to do. Which is really what should be happening anyway. The hard, nasty, unavoidable jobs should be paid more than the cushy sit on your ass all day white collar jobs.

I disagree. Jobs should pay based upon the availability of people with the required skillset. If only 10 people are qualified to perform a job then it should pay far more than a job that 10 million people are qualified to perform. And many of these cushy, sit-on-your-ass-all-day white collar jobs require a lot of training to be an effective worker.

I disagree. Job pay should be based upon the availability of people with the required skillset and the number of people applying for it. Free market ftw.

Point taken. To generalize, jobs should pay based upon how easy it is for a company to fill the position, which combines both.

[o.pwuaioc]

Point taken. To generalize, jobs should pay based upon how easy it is for a company to fill the position, which combines both.

It only logically goes then from there that the fruit companies should be raising wages if they want to attract workers.

Unless you want to go the immigration route. I have no comment on that.

[Hatta]

I fear this tangent has taken away from the main point of my post. The bad behavior of the rich costs this country more than the bad behavior of the poor, and that should be addressed first. Every one of the OWS demands I linked to is perfectly reasonable. They're not complaining for the sake of complaining. They're complaining about real injustices, and providing workable solutions. And further, they're the only group doing either.

[mjmjr25]

I guess i'm mystified at what the bad behavior of the wealthy is - or more importantly, how it affects you. No one forces any of us to buy stock in one company or another. No one forces us to work at one company or another. I still see it as feeling a need to place blame - sometimes there is no one to blame.

A very few of us if in the right circumstances of wealth, would choose to pay a higher percentage of taxes.

We can choose as a majority to become a social democracy (which is what i'm reading between the lines here), or we can remain a mostly capitalist nation. In capitalism, the industrious, the intuitive, the inventive, the investive, the inheritors, and yes, sometimes the lucky will accumulate wealth. Better to have that chance imo than to live in a country where it is distributed.

History lesson: This country (for us Americans) was once a socialist nation. The persecuted who rode the mayflower and founded the first colony, and thus eventually these United States were socialists and this country was founded on socialist ideals. These people were persecuted for: religious belief, skill set, wealth, standing and other identifying factors. They thought, "this is WRONG". In our new land, we are all equal, and that is what they did.

Each surviving family was giving an equal size plot of land. Each building built belonged to the community. Each vegetable harvested belonged equally to the colony. Each family was asked to tend and harvest their assigned plot of land. They sowed it, they planted, they harvested and most importantly they managed that land. This is ideal correct? This is FAIR!

But, while it was "fair", our socialist beginnings did not work. The industrious, the inventive, the motivated had not greater need to work than anyone else. There was no reward aside from pride. And that pride was sapped when they had to turn over their ripe full harvest and share it with their lazy neighbor.

William Bradford, the most remembered and admired of the original pilgrims wrote this: "The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God. 'For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense...that was thought injustice."

More easily put, why would I work for someone else, should I not rather work for my own family?

And thus the communal economy was abandoned and a true capitalist society took root and has been the shining light for the past 300+ years. Think of a major invention, a major idea over the past 300 years and then ask where the idea was thought of. Electricity, the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, on and on. Here...and why, because we have an economic system that rewards invention and hard work.

Apparently some of us wish to live like 1970's Russia though, yeesh. Its called the good with the bad, and we have it pretty damn good...still.

[Hatta]

I guess i'm mystified at what the bad behavior of the wealthy is - or more importantly, how it affects you.

I guess you missed the financial crisis and recession that was caused by blatantly criminal behavior in the finance sector? Did you also miss the trillion dollars and thousands of lives we lost in the Iraq war, which only benefited Halliburton? Or the decades of persecution of harmless pot smokers at the behest of the paper, alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical industries? Or the suffocating patent system which serves more as a barrier to market entry than any sort of impetus for innovation? Or the thousands of medical bankruptcies our country allows in order to deliver more profits to private insurance companies? Or the erosion of our rights by the TSA which exists only to deliver lucrative contracts to well connected companies?

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

[J T]

I guess i'm mystified at what the bad behavior of the wealthy is - or more importantly, how it affects you. No one forces any of us to buy stock in one company or another. No one forces us to work at one company or another. I still see it as feeling a need to place blame - sometimes there is no one to blame.

Perhaps you missed earlier parts of this thread (it is really huge now), but the main point is that Wall Street and the National Banks led the economy to topple with the subprime mortgage crisis. Taxpayers bailed them out. The bailout total has been estimated at $12,200,000,000,000.00. (source)

Eye on the bailout:
http://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list

If you are a taxpayer, you have been paying for this for several years. You are essentially paying for the ultra wealthy's bad gambling decisions and alleviating them of the responsibility for their actions. In the meantime, social services that could be benefitting you and the society around you are cut. Those bailout tax dollars could have been spent on fixing roads, providing healthcare, improving education, pursuing scientific research, improving parks and recreation, or any number of government social programs that are for the betterment of society at large. Instead, bankers and traders took your money. Bankers and traders who are now richer than they have ever been. Some have paid back their portion of the debt, but the full bill is nowhere near being paid back. And are these bailout recipients creating the jobs they promised to help boost the economy? It doesn't really seem so. They've been evasive about saying where their money has gone, other than to say it was used for new acquisitions. They'll still gladly foreclose your home though.

That is how this affects me. And yes, I do place blame. I place that blame on the bailout recipients, I place it on the people that caused the mortgage crisis (borrowers and lenders alike), and I place it on the politicians that have allowed this to happen without repurcussions to the guilty parties. We, the American taxpayers, are becoming more and more aware of the scams that have been played and enough is enough.

And the rich keep getting richer and the poor and middle class keep getting screwed over and left to dry. Back in the 1960's, on average, CEOs made 25 times more than the average worker. Over the decades since then, that gap has steadily increased and we now see that on average, CEOs make almost 300 time more than the average worker (source). This is dangerous. Without a thriving middle class we are in danger of becoming a plutocracy, and many would say we are already there now. Something has to change.

[MrPopo]

And the rich keep getting richer and the poor and middle class keep getting screwed over and left to dry. Back in the 1960's, on average, CEOs made 25 times more than the average worker. Over the decades since then, that gap has steadily increased and we now see that on average, CEOs make almost 300 time more than the average worker. This is dangerous.

Why is it dangerous? If the workers are making enough money to sustain their lifestyle then why does it matter that the top CEOs are making astronomical amounts compared to them?

[mjmjr25]

Completely inept at the multi-quote, so responses are underlined.

I guess i'm mystified at what the bad behavior of the wealthy is - or more importantly, how it affects you.

I guess you missed the financial crisis and recession that was caused by blatantly criminal behavior in the finance sector?

Criminal behavior is prosecuted. This should only affect people who invested in those banks / companies, invest by choice that is.

Did you also miss the trillion dollars and thousands of lives we lost in the Iraq war, which only benefited Halliburton? The war had congressional approval (ie, people freely elected by us). A tyrant and his torture machine is gone. Our soldiers and their families paid an incalculable price. I'm not sure how this is a part of the wall street debate. This is resolved by not voting (and convincing others to not vote for) those who supported the war. Tell your friends and post on blogs about who approved no-bid contracts. The answer is not to occupy town centers, setting up camps, having alcohol / dancing / fights and sexual assualts - which is what happened in Oakland under the guise of "occupying Wall Street".


Or the decades of persecution of harmless pot smokers at the behest of the paper, alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical industries? By that logic, legalizing marijuana would create a dreaded marijuana conglomerate, no?

Or the suffocating patent system which serves more as a barrier to market entry than any sort of impetus for innovation?
Without that barrier, ideas would be stolen more frequently than they already are. It is a necessity. "Spontaneous Invention" has greatly decreased due expressly to our Patent system, and our tireless efforts to get other countries to abide, bravo in fact.

Or the thousands of medical bankruptcies our country allows in order to deliver more profits to private insurance companies? Well right there is the crux. "Our Country Allows". You are blaming the state for a "medical bankruptcy". That is the problem, its not my fault, or my wife's fault, its the governments fault. Profits of private insurance companies? I've belonged to many insurance carriers - each and every one has an out-of-pocket-maximum. I'm not sure how the government or the insurance companies are to blame for health issues that simply cost a lot of money. If you don't want the care, then you don't go. That is a choice. If it is a life and death choice, then sadly, it may take every penny you've made to save your life, or the life of a loved one. That is reality. Its also reality and any one of us can fight and claw our way through medical school and then offer FREE care to any of their friends. You can do it. You really can. But it is easier to blame the government I guess.

Or the erosion of our rights by the TSA which exists only to deliver lucrative contracts to well connected companies? What is your right? You have a right to fly on a plane? That's not a right, its a choice and the cost is you are going have to a pay a large fee for the choice and you are going to have to agree to possibly prove you are not carrying a weapon, etc. If you don't like it, don't fly. <THAT is your right.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. Actually, not yet. I see more examples of blame and not of action and personal accountability.

[J T]

And the rich keep getting richer and the poor and middle class keep getting screwed over and left to dry. Back in the 1960's, on average, CEOs made 25 times more than the average worker. Over the decades since then, that gap has steadily increased and we now see that on average, CEOs make almost 300 time more than the average worker. This is dangerous.

Why is it dangerous? If the workers are making enough money to sustain their lifestyle then why does it matter that the top CEOs are making astronomical amounts compared to them?

The entire economy does better with a healthy middle class because all business depends on goods and services being purchased. The people at the top can only buy so much. The 99%, on the other hand, can buy a lot. Businesses thrive when the general populous is more readily able to participate in the marketplace and a healthy middle class allows for that.