Occupy ____________

The troubling issue for me is that, as oldpb was saying, I think that alot of peopl are just genuinely ignorant of how a free market system works.

Our people have a fantastic way of life here, even the poorest among us lives better than most of the world. It's just not possible for everyone to enjoy everything all the time, and that's a lesson my generation struggled with.

My sociology teacher said that my generation and the one after is going to deal with the the difficult lesson that we likely won't enjoy the prosperity of our parents. Industry is shifting, and most of us enjoyed a great free ride via our parents, and we don't understand the idea of barely surviving.

I know from my own experience that if you'd have told me when I was in high school I'd be 24, living with my sister, and struggling to pay my bills just to get my bachelor's down in distant hope of achieving graduate school I'd have probably shot myself. But part of life is adapting, and my generation has a metric ton of adapting to do.

Alot of these people would rather adapt the system to meet their own hardships. Rather than excercising some ingenuity and problem solving, let's whine and moan about entitlement and fair share. Let's picket and protest the people that DID make it big, be it by luck or skill, because we lacked one or both. It just bugs me.

It also worries me, because I believe eventually enough people are going to want the easy way out that they'll change the direction of our country to something that frankly scares me.

stratoaxe wrote: It also worries me, because I believe eventually enough people are going to want the easy way out that they'll change the direction of our country to something that frankly scares me.

"Hey guys, have you heard of socialism? I heard through some guy that it can't become corrupt or greedy! Let's nationalize socialism!"

oldpbnoob wrote: But then, don't we get back to the problem with paying more than is needed to get the job done, which decreases profits, therefore lowering gains by stockholders, resulting in investors and fund managers buying less stock of those companies and ending in the company sliding?

agentwhale007 wrote: While indeed true I don't think it's anywhere near enough of a reason to stop trying to improve things.

Agreed, but I think that the definition of improvement is what's at stake here.

I certainly don't support a purely deregulated form of capitalism, but I do question how much regulation really affects or benefits the average joe. I'm all for working against corporate greed, and I for sure would love to see restructuring and enforcement of the tax code. But my problem is in the vision of my generation. I think that there are many that are, at the risk of going full FE, simply pushing for redistribution of wealth. When they say they want to regulate big business, I think many just want big business to support them.

Being management/owner for over 20 years,  if you get tired of the ankle biters for demanding too much you just take your ball and go home.  It's just the position that management is in.

Piss-poor attitudes from employees can drive the optional feeling of social obligation right out of you.

Edited by Lightningbolt - 11 October 2011 at 2:33pm

Lightningbolt wrote: Piss-poor attitudes from employees can drive the optional feeling of social obligation right out of you.

I'm really not familiar with Costco. I also am not a huge fan of Walmart/Sams. I do shop at Sams, but rarely at Walmart. I would actually consider Walmart a part of our countries problems and feel they are one of the biggest reasons for the failure of the mom and pop specialty shops. I also find it sincerely hilarious how all the people here are so pro union and demonize Wally World while spending a huge amount of their hard earned dollars there. I don't consder this to be a very big area and I have 4 Super Walmarts within 20 minutes of where I'm at. I'm certain one of the main reasons they are able to offer such low prices is due to the low wages they offer their employees.

CHiKUN_PiMP wrote: Strato- I don't hate Austin really, I'm just tired of the drug fueled scenesters wanting the world to change while doing nothing to change themselves and the hipsters who dress like they're characters at disneyland. Austin is a nice place to visit, but it eventually gets frustrating to live in such a hipstertastic town.

It sounds like you live on the drag or in some hippie commune. I agree that the people who spend inordinate amounts of money just to achieve the look of not having money are annoying, and that the drag rats are the epitome of suck, but I feel like you are paying too much attention to them.

Besides, the dumb ones are always the loudest.

Regarding the discussion at hand, I've failed to see any unifying theme (or at least something other than general discontent), so I haven't paid much attention to it. The Occupy Wall St. thing was at least an intelligible movement on some level, but I see so many things being posted on the facebook feed about some sort of occupation/movement that are (at least on the surface) unrelated in any meaningful way.

Other than that, I'll take my stock position of simply agreeing with Whale unless stated otherwise.

People that say "just be be more creative, work harder, have some ingenuity" are vastly oversimplifying how things work. Sure, some people will get a golden idea and make their own way with it, but you know damn well most people don't work that way. Some people are destined to be service workers for a variety of reasons, and telling them they aren't working hard enough is total crap, especially when you're referring to someone working 3 jobs to barely support a family.

The issues aren't just with unemployability, but with the huge disparity between positions. The ratio of pay between American CEO's to the average worker is 475:1 while in Japan it is 11:1.

People are unhappy because this large of a gap is just uneccesary. Yes they are a CEO, yes they (likely) worked very hard for their successes, but the gap between them and the next rung is insane here, and doesn't need to be that large. That's sort of a big slap in the face to a lot of the working class.

Honestly, who cares? Sure, I'd like more money, but I'm not willing to sacrifice the very idea of this country for my own selfish wants. It's terrifying that a lot of people are.



The only way to get rid of the "1%" is to transform the country into a communistic type country.


I'm not for that.


Edited by Linus - 11 October 2011 at 3:45pm