Why all the hate on the 1%?

[Trevor]

A lot of what's at the root of OWS is campaign finance reform. Candidates know that if they keep pleasing large corporations, they'll keep getting huge amounts of donations to their campaign from said corporations. This is, of course, on both sides of party lines.

So, while every vote theoretically counts, it doesn't really matter who I vote for - since my candidate will be voting along the lines with their corporate sponsors.

So effectively, those with enormous amounts of money can override my vote, which is not right. That is not what the US is about.

Trevor

 

[joncosta]

Besides... what does that have to do with CEOs...:thinking:

Really? What dose global warming have to do with CEOs of billion dollar companies? You should know this one. The only reason we haven't been running on solar power the past fifty years is because it would cost to much to stop using oil. And what dose any of this have to do with lasers in the first place.

 

[daguin]

A lot of what's at the root of OWS is campaign finance reform. Candidates know that if they keep pleasing large corporations, they'll keep getting huge amounts of donations to their campaign from said corporations. This is, of course, on both sides of party lines.

So, while every vote theoretically counts, it doesn't really matter who I vote for - since my candidate will be voting along the lines with their corporate sponsors.

So effectively, those with enormous amounts of money can override my vote, which is not right. That is not what the US is about.

Trevor

Unfortunately, that is exactly how the framers of the constitution (in the US) meant it to be. The US is NOT a democracy. It is a "republic" ruled by the elite. In the framers' mind, "the elite" were the landed gentry of the country.

The republic is actually governed by "laws" not politicians. The laws meant to govern the country could only "realistically" be written by educated, landed, gentlemen

Virtually any citizen could be a politician, but politicians were supposed to hearken to the gentry



What are the actual aims of the OWS movement

Peace,
dave

 

[joncosta]

lol I was gonna make a comment on you (laserbee) being the 1% on this forum with over 10,000 posts bullying me, the other 99%, for speaking off subject Ha ha ha lol I don't wanna burn any bridges though. Not sure if you appreciate sarcasm during such a heated topic. Nothin but love for ya

 

[lasersbee]

lol I was gonna make a comment on you (laserbee) being the 1% on this forum with over 10,000 posts bullying me, the other 99%, for speaking off subject Ha ha ha lol I don't wanna burn any bridges though. Not sure if you appreciate sarcasm during such a heated topic. Nothin but love for ya

:thinking:

Jerry

 

[daguin]

lol I was gonna make a comment on you (laserbee) being the 1% on this forum with over 10,000 posts bullying me, the other 99%, for speaking off subject Ha ha ha lol I don't wanna burn any bridges though. Not sure if you appreciate sarcasm during such a heated topic. Nothin but love for ya

:thinking:

Jerry

non sequiter

Peace,
dave

 

[Trevor]

Unfortunately, that is exactly how the framers of the constitution (in the US) meant it to be. The US is NOT a democracy. It is a "republic" ruled by the elite. In the framers' mind, "the elite" were the landed gentry of the country.

The republic is actually governed by "laws" not politicians. The laws meant to govern the country could only "realistically" be written by educated, landed, gentlemen

Virtually any citizen could be a politician, but politicians were supposed to hearken to the gentry

What are the actual aims of the OWS movement

Peace,
dave

Sure, our Republic is rules by laws, and not politicians.

That being said, those laws are written by extremely self-interested people. If a lobbying organization writes a law and hands it to a representative who they've been giving piles of donations to... well, we know what happens.

This is why our representatives are willing to vote for things like SOPA... because they don't want the MPAA/RIAA money to stop coming. And they know they won't get elected without those donations to run their campaigns.

They please the people with money.

Trevor

 

[rhd]

I dont know about you, but most of the people I know have busted their ass their whole lives. It has nothing to do with laziness.

I don't know much about you, but I think you're a generation my senior. The people you know may have busted their asses their whole lives, but the young generation today is largerly (and I know this is a generalization with some exceptions) an "entitled bunch" that doesn't want to work hard or bust their asses. Before the young on this forum take up arms at this comment, remember that none of us here are typical of mainstream society. We're on a forum about electronics, talking science everyday. We're atypical. Most of the mainstream young generation today isn't willing to bust ass or open books in order to secure their own future. They don't want to work hard. Our society idolizes accidental wealth, and celebrity status. We play the lottery, and expect crap to work out. We're short-sighted.

Again there are exceptions, but in aggregate, we've got a much less motivated society now than we've had in that past. Further, especially in the US, they are so tax-phobic that public education is generally poor for a lack of funding, with typically poor uniformity across the country.

How is the average Joe Blow going to create industry when they are out of work because of all the outsourcing of jobs in the area, and the price of necessities has almost tripled??

Totally valid question / point. For one, the average Joe (and everyone else) can stop buying crap that they don't need. Have you every people-watched at Walmart? I do it all the time (I actually like shopping there too). Look in the shopping cart of a low income mother, buying goods for her family. 9 times out of 10, 9 items out of 10 are far from necessities. I see mostly crap/garbage/junk in those shopping carts: Non-nutritious fatty and sugary garbage snack food, cheap trinket doileys to decorate their home, copious supplies of cosmetics and other make-up overkill, and all sorts of other completely non-essential items. Fun fact - Walmart actually sells milk, eggs, bread, and even frozen whole meats like chicken. I have never, not once, ever, seen an obviously low-income family, with any of these core whole foods in their carts. I'll see them with a $3 box of Eggo sugar waffels, but never a $2 carton of Eggs. I'll see a $5 pack of Coke, but never a $4 carton of milk.

Or because their start up companies fail because giant corporations can offer the same services for 1/3 the price? Its not the peoples fault we became consumers. Corporate outsourcing has take all the jobs from the people, and they have profited hugely on it. They have manipulated the system to funnel the most money they can from the population. Its capitalism at its finest. They have it down to an art form. Only they have the control to bring back industry, and make incentives for people to prosper. But that will never happen, and thats BS. How much is enough? How many cars, houses, yachts, property, ect does one person need before they start thinking about other people other than themselves?

See, outsourcing is 95% within control of the masses. If we voiced our dissent with our wallets, and bought locally made/grown products/foods, then outsourcing would not be an attractive option to corporate CEOs who have a duty to shareholders (often regular people BTW) to maximize profit. We don't do that. We've happily bought crap made elsewhere for so long, that now there often aren't locally produced alternatives to buy if we wanted to. Outsourcing is something that our own consumerism has spurred on. The argument that CEOs are so crafty that they're to blame for us buying foreign crap that we don't need, is non-sense. I take responsibility for my decisions. If I've bought something, it's because I've wanted it, and have consciously decided to part with my money for it. Blaming "corporations" for us spending money on foreign-made junk that we don't actually need, is the pinnacle of an immature inability to take responsibility for our own decisions. It's an angsty teenager's argument, not the reasoned reflection of an adult.

Look, everyone loves a bargain, I'd never blame anyone for that. It takes a lot of self control to say "I'm going to forgo this bargain, because I don't like the future it promotes".

(I bet you lazerer.com sells 10 crappy junk lasers for every 1 domestic build sold in the BST section)

 

[daguin]

Sure, our Republic is rules by laws, and not politicians.

That being said, those laws are written by extremely self-interested people. If a lobbying organization writes a law and hands it to a representative who they've been giving piles of donations to... well, we know what happens.

This is why our representatives are willing to vote for things like SOPA... because they don't want the MPAA/RIAA money to stop coming. And they know they won't get elected without those donations to run their campaigns.

They please the people with money.

Trevor

Absolute agreement.

Now, what is the actual goal of the OWS movement?

Is that goal compatible with the US style of government?

Peace,
dave

 

[Drew]

I am the 53,205,017th richest person in the world

That puts me in the top 0.88%

Should I apologize now?


See where you really fit in
If you are not living alone yet, plug in your family income

Global Rich List

Peace,
dave

86,086,957th richest person myself. I still feel broke.

 

[Sigurthr]

I wonder the validity of that website. If you enter in a yearly wage of $500, you will not that it says 20% of the population makes less than you do.

I would be more inclined to trust the results if it were based on working population and not just total population or if it had country specific categories. Of course a janitor making minimum wage in the US will make more than a swearshop worker in China.

 

[Mohrenberg]

Of course, everyone hates people such as donald trump and paris hilton, but I don't get the hate on CEOs. Sure, they often get multi-million dollar compensations, but they well earn them. They've busted their asses off to get where they are today, and although they might not be the best at what they do they are often the most dedicated.

Look at Billy Fucello, "mr huge". Sure, the man has a private jet. However, he goes to work at 5AM and comes home at 9PM. Often it's the same with most other CEOs. They work 70 hour weeks and have no time to for anything non-company related. If something is wrong, they along with the other board members must haul ass to the office and meet, NOW. Not tomorrow, but within 30 minutes.

That is certainly worth the million dollar paycheck.

Nobody deserves that much money. It doesn't matter what you do. Money isn't magically created. The more money that goes into his bank account, the less that goes into the other 99%
I work a 72 hour shift every week, I start at 8am on friday and work until 8am on monday. and when someone calls 911 i have to go, NOW (as you said above).
On top of that i also work prn at another service, do 24 hours of clinicals per week and then sell shit on here.

Their income is obscene. there is no possible way to "earn" that much, unless you some how single handedly save the world from being destroyed.

income from just one of my jobs? 20k/year. Saving lives doesn't pay as much as destroying them I guess. it's common for people in my profession to work 2 jobs. making it anywhere from 4-6 separate 24 hour shifts per week.

 

[Wolfman29]

This was an... interesting thread to read through, to say the least. Just my two cents. I feel like both RHD and TJ have made good points, but I don't think either extreme is correct. While it is true that our ruthless consumerism of the past fifty years or so has put us in the situation, the top dogs of society, being the natural leaders in the West, certainly should have had the forethought to look after their followers. After all, as TJ said, we are ruled by the elite. In the same sense that a king has a duty to his people in order to provide for them, a ruling elite has a duty to their people as well, and they have not fulfilled that duty.

Then again, it would be nice to have a more equally distributed, global income.

 

[Deleted member 22482]

I'm on number 39,397,610*and in the top 0.65%. Seeing those numbers makes me afraid. That is a pretty normal wage in Sweden and our pals in Norway earn 50% more then the average Swed does, so my normal lifestyle belongs to only the top percent of the world.. Of course things are more expensive here but when we are on travel its cheap. Looking at the information, I could have let two generations of Angolan kids go to school instead of buying clothes for $4-5k when I was in NY,, since I don't even use half of them.

But if there are more wealthy people, there always has to be people with less wealth. If everybody would have lived as each other and there were noone to work hard; we would all be sitting by our tables waiting for the food only to realise: there is no food. Why? Noones working. And I guess thats one of the basic things when it comes to capitalism.

We all could be equal and live as each other and maybe grow our own food and stay happy, but the human is greedy and has a desire to be better. We always want more food then our neighbour and we want to be better. Thats why communism won't work in practice, it may sound fancy on paper, but have you seen North Korea? It was proven in a scientific test that most people donate to feel good, to boost your own ego. You're not doing it for the children, you're doing it to boost your ego and as a side effect the children get food (actually the CEO of the companies such as Red Cross get 50%).

So for now, a world where everybody is equal won't happen; it will have to be somewhere over the rainbow.. Skies are blue...

Until the human gets human and starts losing their animal-ish instincts and the way of thinking. We are animals. There is no way a intelligent creature would do all the horrible things we do to each other such as killing each other, raping women and so on. No way.


And the money goes to the wrong jobs. I work as a engineer on the web qnd I don't do much good for this world, looking at Mohrenberg at the ER saving lives, he should earn as much as I atleast; but still, it's just a fraction of my income he earns. A cleaner in sweden earn $4k per month, roughly $3k after taxes, and thats the starting wage. Most cleaners end up with $4k-$5k after taxes when promoted to group leader or whatever. Moh says he earns 20k from his jobs working intense and all. We work 8am-4pm and that includes one hour lunch and half a hour of pauses for coffee and a cookie. Monday to friday. We also get 3-8 weeks of vacation peer year and our pension is paid by 50% of what we earn. So for every 10k we get 5k pension + another 1k in pension from the government per month when you turn 65, we have all insurances paid and medical treatment is free, if we live in a to expensive house, the government pays for the half, if we live to far away from our jobs; the government pays the transportation and if we would lose our jobs the government pays for all our needs (up to $4k a month) + more. When looking at the americans without all of these benefits I want to cry literally. And then all the people in Asia, Africa....

(When I say Mohrenbergs salary I mean per year, in Sweden we count per month so the numbers given from Swedish statistics is per month)

gin

 

[millirad]

^I'm moving to Sweden. Any room left? Hmmmmm $4K really sounds tempting. How hard would it be to master the Swedish language?

 

[Deleted member 22482]

^I'm moving to Sweden. Any room left? Hmmmmm $4K really sounds tempting. How hard would it be to master the Swedish language?

There is actually a loot of room. Sweden has one of the strangest politics for new people coming to the country, you get everything paid for the first two-three years, you get free tuiton to learn the language, free education and all of those things for the first years and then you'll have to start working or they'll lower your payments by half or something..

It isn't to hard to master the Swedish language, we have a couple of words that are similiar to the english.. We have hamburgare, pizza, hej, laser, kaffe, telefon, latte macchiato..