Occupy Wall Street?

[DL82]

I'm interested in people here's views of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It seems, with the exception of some Italian Communists hijacking the Rome rally, that the movement is peaceful, largely law-abiding, and has as its aims some form of distributist approach, in which moral values would trump greed in the regulation of the market. They are extremely disorganized and incoherent, but there is a groundswell of argument in favor of some kind of decentralized control of the wealth.

It also seems to me that the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Tea Party basically want the same thing - the Tea Party want to see the Federal Government give powers back to the State and local level, while OWS want to see big multinational corporations broken up so that they have to pay attention to local needs instead of corporate profit. If someone could harness both, they would be highly electable, but they would also be the President who destroyed America, by breaking up everything that holds the Nation together, turning it into a loose federation of autonomous communities - within a decade there would be nothing that a pro-life prayer-in-public-schools Texas would have in common with a Massachussets where pot was legal and handguns were not.

I guess there are two questions here - what do people make of Occupy Wall Street, and is there anything that holds America together anymore?

[Waiting]

Originally Posted by DL82

I'm interested in people here's views of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It seems, with the exception of some Italian Communists hijacking the Rome rally, that the movement is peaceful, largely law-abiding, and has as its aims some form of distributist approach, in which moral values would trump greed in the regulation of the market. They are extremely disorganized and incoherent, but there is a groundswell of argument in favor of some kind of decentralized control of the wealth.

It also seems to me that the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Tea Party basically want the same thing - the Tea Party want to see the Federal Government give powers back to the State and local level, while OWS want to see big multinational corporations broken up so that they have to pay attention to local needs instead of corporate profit. If someone could harness both, they would be highly electable, but they would also be the President who destroyed America, by breaking up everything that holds the Nation together, turning it into a loose federation of autonomous communities - within a decade there would be nothing that a pro-life prayer-in-public-schools Texas would have in common with a Massachussets where pot was legal and handguns were not.

I guess there are two questions here - what do people make of Occupy Wall Street, and is there anything that holds America together anymore?

This is America, the land of the free. The Occupy crowd wants to dictate. They are, I'm convinced, Marxist in nature. If their $20.00 an hour minimum wage were put in effect, that would be the end of small businesses, and certainly fast food chains where young people get their start. They want free health care. Someone has to pay. It seems to me that they're making ridiculous demands and destroying all initiative to work and be proud of your accomplishments. Instead of occupying and dirtying the parks that are there for our enjoyment and relaxation, they could be volunteering that same time in places that are very much in need of the services that they could provide. They could be a tremendous force for good if they channeled their energies in the right places.

[Aelred Minor]

I haven't been following it very closely, but it seems to me that Occupy Wall Street isn't so much a movement for something as a movement against an economic system that does not seem to serve or even honestly try to serve the best interests of the vast majority of people. As far as that goes it could be a healthy thing, as long as no one finds a way to harness the discontent to gain support for a cure that's worse than the disease.

I agree that Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party Movement have a lot in common inasmuch as they both call for the (perceived) interests of the common people over those of the elites. On the other hand I think the members of each movement tend to be very different kinds of people with very different ideals and ideas for the future. Hippies and rednecks might have a lot in common but they don't generally get along, except maybe in Vermont.

[Rascalking]

Occupy Wall Street are people who are trust fund brats who want to appear "hip and cool" and "down with the working man". I say that because I am also a trust fund brat who messed around with this rubbish when I was in my 20's. I am immensly proud of myself for realizing that people like this don't represent the working masses-they are selfish, spolied rotten, are very insecure. Are there "true believers" in the movement? Yes, of course. They are in the small minority. Ask yourself-if the Wall Street Occupiers are so concerned with "corporate America" why don't they raid they're own trust funds, sell the Iphones, and work for poverty causes?

Is there anything that brings Americans together? Terroist attacks...not much else, sadly. Regardless of what anyone says, Americans are deeply divided today.

[jhynds]

I think she nails it...

"Some Belated Parental Advice to Protesters" by Marybeth Hicks on Oct 19, 2011 in Columnists, Featured, Parenting

http://catholiclane.com/some-belated...to-protesters/

[RyanK]

Actually Occupy Wall Street is full of kids who got worked over because of the college system. They're angry for several good and legitimate reasons. First off, colleges have ruined countless peoples' lives by charging so much that someone who plans on going has to get countless student loans and once they graduate college, there's no garuntee that they'll get a job and now they have a debt that they will more than likely never pay off for their entire life and even if they go bankrupt, they will continue to be hounded. The second reason they're angry is by how our federal government has completely destroyed the value of the dollar by constantly printing out more money. (You can see the value of a dollar simply by looking at the price of gold because the value of gold never changes.) The third reason they're angry is because of the corruption in corporations. There's no competition anymore. There's now only big name corporations who completely destroy any trace of competition whenever they show up in a town or city. The reason these corporations can do this is because they have low prices. And how do they have low prices? Through cheap labor that they get in other countries where there's terrible conditions, child labor, and unfair pay (i.e. less than a dollar an hour). The fifth reason these kids are angry (and btw, there aren't just kids there, there's also military now who are equally upset with the way the things are going) is because of what's going on with this "war on terror." This war is no longer about what it used to be about. Soldiers are sharing their stories to where all they do when they get over in the Middle East is guard big oil rigs. Day and night, they guard oil rigs, and they don't even know why. And now since all of this has happened, police are unnecesarily man-handling protestors who are peacefully standing on the sidewalks. I watched a video where three young girls were standing and then a cop randomly walks up to them and sprays them in the eyes with pepper spray. I've also seen several videos where protestors are thrown to the ground and then pressed down by the cop's knee, which is located on their neck. Personally, I thought cops were supposed to be protecting us, not beating up our kids.

[ManOnFire]

Originally Posted by jhynds

I think she nails it...

"Some Belated Parental Advice to Protesters" by Marybeth Hicks on Oct 19, 2011 in Columnists, Featured, Parenting

http://catholiclane.com/some-belated...to-protesters/

wow

[Aelred Minor]

Originally Posted by jhynds

I think she nails it...

"Some Belated Parental Advice to Protesters" by Marybeth Hicks on Oct 19, 2011 in Columnists, Featured, Parenting

http://catholiclane.com/some-belated...to-protesters/

She has some good points, but falls into the trap of assuming that all of the unemployed (at least those with college degrees) are unemployed because of a moral fault of their own.

Also I doubt anyone, much less billions of people, would literally die for a college degree. What good would a college degree be if you are dead? I think her gut feelings ran ahead of her brain on that sentence.

The reality is that college has become an assumption for middle-class American kids, something they are told to go to their entire lives (along with the idea that you can do anything you put your mind to), and it's only around the time they graduate that they start encountering the hard realities of how the world works, unable to find their dream job and saddled with massive debt that they agreed to because their parents told them to. They feel they have done everything they were told to do and are now being denied their due (much like seniors with their “keep your hands off my Medicare and Social Security; I worked my whole life and deserve my benefits!”) . Also they've grown up in a culture that idealizes the protests of the 1960s and have been exposed to media coverage of the nonsense going on in Europe. It's a perfect recipe for big naive demonstrations.

[ManOnFire]

Why aren't more people asking why colleges are paying to fly their non-revenue sports scholarship teams across the country for games? This adds to the costs and debt of the non-scholarship students and it's unnecessary.

[Wardog]

Originally Posted by DL82

I'm interested in people here's views of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It seems, with the exception of some Italian Communists hijacking the Rome rally, that the movement is peaceful, largely law-abiding, and has as its aims some form of distributist approach, in which moral values would trump greed in the regulation of the market. They are extremely disorganized and incoherent, but there is a groundswell of argument in favor of some kind of decentralized control of the wealth.

It also seems to me that the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Tea Party basically want the same thing - the Tea Party want to see the Federal Government give powers back to the State and local level, while OWS want to see big multinational corporations broken up so that they have to pay attention to local needs instead of corporate profit. If someone could harness both, they would be highly electable, but they would also be the President who destroyed America, by breaking up everything that holds the Nation together, turning it into a loose federation of autonomous communities - within a decade there would be nothing that a pro-life prayer-in-public-schools Texas would have in common with a Massachussets where pot was legal and handguns were not.

I guess there are two questions here - what do people make of Occupy Wall Street, and is there anything that holds America together anymore?

I don't agree with your assessment. The Tea Party events did not result in hundreds of arrests, defecating on cars, attempted rapes or littering like the OWS events.. They did emphasize that government is too big and needs to be cut down. They directed their ire at the source of the problem, the government. The Tea Party emphasizes fiscal responsiblity. There are plenty of Tea Partiers who are not pro-life, pro creationism in schools or other conservative social issues.
OWS people are protesting the corporations for the bailouts that were authorized by the govt. They are asking for more government intervention, not less. They want more government regulation, not less. They want more government hand outs. They want distribution of other people's money so they can get a share of it.

[Wardog]

Originally Posted by RyanK

Actually Occupy Wall Street is full of kids who got worked over because of the college system. They're angry for several good and legitimate reasons. First off, colleges have ruined countless peoples' lives by charging so much that someone who plans on going has to get countless student loans and once they graduate college, there's no garuntee that they'll get a job and now they have a debt that they will more than likely never pay off for their entire life and even if they go bankrupt, they will continue to be hounded. The second reason they're angry is by how our federal government has completely destroyed the value of the dollar by constantly printing out more money. (You can see the value of a dollar simply by looking at the price of gold because the value of gold never changes.) The third reason they're angry is because of the corruption in corporations. There's no competition anymore. There's now only big name corporations who completely destroy any trace of competition whenever they show up in a town or city. The reason these corporations can do this is because they have low prices. And how do they have low prices? Through cheap labor that they get in other countries where there's terrible conditions, child labor, and unfair pay (i.e. less than a dollar an hour). The fifth reason these kids are angry (and btw, there aren't just kids there, there's also military now who are equally upset with the way the things are going) is because of what's going on with this "war on terror." This war is no longer about what it used to be about. Soldiers are sharing their stories to where all they do when they get over in the Middle East is guard big oil rigs. Day and night, they guard oil rigs, and they don't even know why. And now since all of this has happened, police are unnecesarily man-handling protestors who are peacefully standing on the sidewalks. I watched a video where three young girls were standing and then a cop randomly walks up to them and sprays them in the eyes with pepper spray. I've also seen several videos where protestors are thrown to the ground and then pressed down by the cop's knee, which is located on their neck. Personally, I thought cops were supposed to be protecting us, not beating up our kids.

Some questions for you:
1. Did the colleges force those kids to take out ruinious loans to go to college, or did the kids make their own decision to go into debt.
2. Who chose their major for them?
3. Why didn't they go to a lower cost school? Or get a job without a degree.
4. There is no excuse for police brutality; do you agree there is no excuse for defecating on cars, attempting rape, blocking traffic, getting arrested in the hundreds?
5. How did you post this note without paying an evil corporation for your computer? If you use the library, or someone elses computer, how do you justify that if the computer was built by an evil corporation.

[Julianna]

Glad to know that only the rich with the cash should be in college.

[Allegra]

Originally Posted by RyanK

Actually Occupy Wall Street is full of kids who got worked over because of the college system. They're angry for several good and legitimate reasons. First off, colleges have ruined countless peoples' lives by charging so much that someone who plans on going has to get countless student loans and once they graduate college, there's no garuntee that they'll get a job and now they have a debt that they will more than likely never pay off for their entire life and even if they go bankrupt, they will continue to be hounded.

I don't think the colleges are alone in the blame for this problem. I grew up in an upper-middle class high school and we were always taught "college at all cost". If we had to get loans, it was no big deal because we would easily pay them off once we started working. This might have been good advice at one point when college was three grand a year, but now even a less expensive university is ten thousand dollars a year and students are encouraged to take out loans to pay their dormitory rent so they don't have to work!

Most college students are straight from high school and are basically children. My question is, where the heck are their lousy parents? What sort of psychopath advises their children to take out thousands of dollars of loans to pay for a degree in addition to putting their room and board in loans? I suppose if your kid is in law or medical school that would be one thing, but how in the world are they supposed to pay back 40 thousand dollars on a teacher's salary?

What parents and guidence counselors should tell kids is never take out any loans for anything even if you have to work three jobs! Who in the world decided that late-teenagers are entitled to go to college without working a job, at the expense of their futures? Why would anyone advise kids to do something that would ensnare them in dept for the first decade of their adult life?

Sorry for my little rant, but I think it is horrible the trouble people start their lives in, because of this irresponsible guidence from what should be responsible adults. I think there should be a legal limit to how much a student can take out and I don't think student loans should be allowed to be used for anything except tuition, paid straight to the university. Young people should earn their education, either with scholarships, work study, or working as many jobs as it takes. The days of spending college in a frat house, playing sports, or finding oneself and charging it to one's future need to come to an end.

[Nate13]

Originally Posted by Allegra

I don't think the colleges are alone in the blame for this problem. I grew up in an upper-middle class high school and we were always taught "college at all cost". If we had to get loans, it was no big deal because we would easily pay them off once we started working. This might have been good advice at one point when college was three grand a year, but now even a less expensive university is ten thousand dollars a year and students are encouraged to take out loans to pay their dormitory rent so they don't have to work!

Most college students are straight from high school and are basically children. My question is, where the heck are their lousy parents? What sort of psychopath advises their children to take out thousands of dollars of loans to pay for a degree in addition to putting their room and board in loans? I suppose if your kid is in law or medical school that would be one thing, but how in the world are they supposed to pay back 40 thousand dollars on a teacher's salary?

What parents and guidence counselors should tell kids is never take out any loans for anything even if you have to work three jobs! Who in the world decided that late-teenagers are entitled to go to college without working a job, at the expense of their futures? Why would anyone advise kids to do something that would ensnare them in dept for the first decade of their adult life?

Sorry for my little rant, but I think it is horrible the trouble people start their lives in, because of this irresponsible guidence from what should be responsible adults. I think there should be a legal limit to how much a student can take out and I don't think student loans should be allowed to be used for anything except tuition, paid straight to the university. Young people should earn their education, either with scholarships, work study, or working as many jobs as it takes. The days of spending college in a frat house, playing sports, or finding oneself and charging it to one's future need to come to an end.

Yeah I think people forgot that student loans are an investment, which means there is risk involved. They are allowed to take out these loans without any collateral and the price is that you are strapped to the debt forever. If they want the option for bankruptcy then student loans are going to require collateral. I feel sorry for them, but not that sorry. If you make a choice to go to an out of state college for 20 grand a semester for a business degree as opposed to the local community college for 2 years and then the state college you have to pay the price.

I do believe the federal student loan program has enabled schools to let costs soar out of control. I'm not sure if we have to get rid of the program in order to fix that, but something needs to make sure students realize the value of the dollar they are spending for their education so they start demanding lower prices from schools and bring the pressure on. I know everyone hates the idea of allowing competition in the school environment because we don't want to cut corners when it comes to education, but a good amount of competition is healthy.

[Jeremiah1278]

Well, I'll admit these are my "thoughts" and that I haven't done much looking into the OWS thing, so read it in that light.

I don't think the protesters think 3 feet beyond their demands. I do think that their anger at how terrible 99% of the U.S. has it is a credit to how terrific 99% of America has had it. Unemployment has gone up, but this spike is not much different than 1992, 1982, 1975. We're talking 2% more than our last big unemployment problem. This is our devastating moment of terribleness? I'll take it. I'll take an economic system where this is the devastating down turn. The one where I get foreclosed on and move into a 3 bedroom apartment and job hunting takes twice as long. The down turns that are so non-terrible that decreasing entitlements and military spending are STILL not on the table. The downturn where we launch a baskillion dollar healthcare program.

In any event, my thoughts on OWS is that they are expressing legitimate frustrations, illegitimate frustrations, and that the movement is now hijacked by (if not created by) folks with an agenda that is quite near-sighted and incompatible with what has made the U.S. so prosperous.

I say all this, but I'm glad that folks are out their expressing their frustrations about how things are shaking down. I hope that it helps do something to decrease some of the influence of business on legislation.