Occupy movement - I'm in the 100%

[MamaRoo]

Quote:

I dunno, makes perfect sense to me. I certainly condone spending 4 or 5 years working your butt off only to spend the rest of your life in a fast food career so you can lower your payments to a single loan. If I do this can I also lower my mortgage, car payment, insurance payment, food bills, feed bills....??

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

I cannot speak for "college grads" but I am not seeing this in my seniors terrified of what comes next when they know what their payments are going to be and they see no jobs. I see a massive increase in the number of students in full time college who are working 40 hours or more a week. Usually they are two part time jobs or a 35 hour a week job and another one on campus to cover costs. I have a huge increase of students who live at home not just because they cannot afford to move out, but because they are contributing to keeping their parents in their homes.

I do things like read The BLaze - Glenn Beck's web page and Huffington Post each day - the truth is usually a combo package. (Although I think I need a new liberal view point, since AOL bought HuffPo it has started having a decided corporate voice.)

C'mon people. What is good and right for the nation is what can be found in the middle ground. But, to get to the middle ground we need the far leaning folk to keep the tension pulling in BOTH directions. The system is badly broken right now. Quit looking for what we have that keeps us apart and start looking for what we have in common.

Corporations have gotten waaaay too much power. They have used that power to take over the government. The courts have failed to hold ALL members of our society accountable for violating the law. We arrest people for trespassing on public land but let them keep bonuses after they perpetrate massive, well documented, fraud. We have to start somewhere. Instead of standing around doing useless blaming and nit-picking DO SOMETHING POSITIVE.

Find one thing you can work on fixing and work on fixing it. The entire system is collapsing under its own corruption if we don't save what we have we will lose the whole d*** thing.

 

[Royd]

I have WHAT in my yard? :

Royd did you read the OATHKEEPERS list? Sure doesn't sound like it. You highlighted it.


Many, many of the people protesting have jobs and families, they feel this is important enough to take time out to do.

As for college professors, well lets just say - most of us don't have and will never see the tenured life.

I read the 99% Declaration, linked by Q9. As I commented earlier, the first 9 articles have some sound thought to them, but after that, it sounds like something some teenager would demand, just so that the parents can get him to take out the garbage.

After rereading it, there are really only two items, which I would heartily agree with. Term limits for legislators and A fair tax. Of course, I would embrace The Fair Tax...elimination of all taxes and the implemintation of one national sales tax...I call it, across the board, skin in the game.

Some of the other demands would create as big a beauraucracy as the trouble it tried to eliminate....No person working in the public sector or their relatives shall ever work for a corporation....Really? We can't even issue legitimate IDs to keep from corrupting the voting process.

Seriously, forgivness of student loans? Who's going to pay the $100,000 salary of those erudite professors? Oh, I see. The loan is made, on the back of the tax payer, but never repaid by the student. Tell me, what incentive does a student actually have to learn and study? There will obviously be no grade accountability, because that is becoming a big PC no no, these days. Sounds like 4-6 years of extended adolescence, to me.
Then, what do we have? A 25 year old, with a tax payer bought piece of paper, with no real marketable skills, but demanding a $80.000 a year starting salary, when, in truth, flipping burgers would be a stretch, as to acquired skills.​

 

[Royd]

I have WHAT in my yard? :

I cannot speak for "college grads" but I am not seeing this in my seniors terrified of what comes next when they know what their payments are going to be and they see no jobs. I see a massive increase in the number of students in full time college who are working 40 hours or more a week. Usually they are two part time jobs or a 35 hour a week job and another one on campus to cover costs. I have a huge increase of students who live at home not just because they cannot afford to move out, but because they are contributing to keeping their parents in their homes.

I do things like read The BLaze - Glenn Beck's web page and Huffington Post each day - the truth is usually a combo package. (Although I think I need a new liberal view point, since AOL bought HuffPo it has started having a decided corporate voice.)

C'mon people. What is good and right for the nation is what can be found in the middle ground. But, to get to the middle ground we need the far leaning folk to keep the tension pulling in BOTH directions. The system is badly broken right now. Quit looking for what we have that keeps us apart and start looking for what we have in common.

Corporations have gotten waaaay too much power. They have used that power to take over the government. The courts have failed to hold ALL members of our society accountable for violating the law. We arrest people for trespassing on public land but let them keep bonuses after they perpetrate massive, well documented, fraud. We have to start somewhere. Instead of standing around doing useless blaming and nit-picking DO SOMETHING POSITIVE.

Find one thing you can work on fixing and work on fixing it. The entire system is collapsing under its own corruption if we don't save what we have we will lose the whole d*** thing.

What, exactly, are you proposing? There has to be one of two things: A reboot to some original thought process or a complete redo. Honestly, with today's ingrained entitlement mentality, I don't see a complete redo being possible. There are just not that many deep thinkers available. Everyone wants their piece of the pie.

I do agree with some serious financial regulation, but most of those corporate bonus' were private contracts, so it is really on the stockholders of any corp. to have performance based bonus' or severance packages for upper management.

As for Wall St. even though I wouldn't risk my money, I say that no broker should be able to take profits, until profits are returned. Very simple. If I give you $100 and you immediately put $10 and tell me that my stock lost money, $10 is coming out of your hide. When I sell my stock, and it's made a profit, then the broker can get his little percentage. If he sells it at a loss, he has worked for free.

We always seem to be focused on the greed of the 1%ers, yet seem to gloss over three other sins....Envy, covetousness and jealousy.

The fomenting of this class warfare by the politicians has nothing to do with solving the problem. It's about keeping a few people in the seat of power. Have you ever noticed that community organizers always seem to get the biggest piece of the pie?​

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
I consider this reasoning to be flawed. Oh, it has a simplistic righteous ring to it, but it does not address reality. The stock market goes up and down. The economy goes up and down. Practically anyone can make money when things are going up. The value of a financial advisor comes in when everything is going down. That's when you need someone good to try to cut your losses so you don't lose too much base value.

During the last four years, I've seen people I know lose almost everything because their financial advisor did a lousy job. I've also seen people that got hit by the market lose mney, but not destroyed. And they were positioned to come back and are now in a position better than where they started. Not much better, but at least no worse off.

I suggest the correct way to pay a financial advisor is by a percent of the money they have invested for you, not a set fee or lump sum, though I can see a certain one time fee to set it all up. This way, if you do good, they do good. If you do bad, they don't do as good but can still pay their bills if they are good enough to stay in business.

This is not contingent on when they sell stock. Why give them a way to manipulate their income out of your costs by giving them a way to work the system. It is purely based on the value of your investments they manage, say quarterly. That ties your interests in with theirs.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

ROYD

http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2009/03/03/declaration-of-orders-we-will-not-obey/

See order number ten and recognize the problem they face and what they are doing about it. This is so much more than hippies and college kids with a sense of entitlement.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

since AOL bought HuffPo it has started having a decided corporate voice

Huh, I was actually wondering about the sudden voice change. Makes sense now.​

 

[Royd]

Quote:
I consider this reasoning to be flawed. Oh, it has a simplistic righteous ring to it, but it does not address reality. The stock market goes up and down. The economy goes up and down. Practically anyone can make money when things are going up. The value of a financial advisor comes in when everything is going down. That's when you need someone good to try to cut your losses so you don't lose too much base value.

During the last four years, I've seen people I know lose almost everything because their financial advisor did a lousy job. I've also seen people that got hit by the market lose mney, but not destroyed. And they were positioned to come back and are now in a position better than where they started. Not much better, but at least no worse off.

I suggest the correct way to pay a financial advisor is by a percent of the money they have invested for you, not a set fee or lump sum, though I can see a certain one time fee to set it all up. This way, if you do good, they do good. If you do bad, they don't do as good but can still pay their bills if they are good enough to stay in business.

This is not contingent on when they sell stock. Why give them a way to manipulate their income out of your costs by giving them a way to work the system. It is purely based on the value of your investments they manage, say quarterly. That ties your interests in with theirs.

I have never played the market, so only pick up what I hear....When money is lost, it is going somewhere, and I don't seem to recall any stories about stockbrokers suffering from malnutrition.

The problem with allowing them to take a percentage every quarter is that the money only seems to be virtual, until they put it in their pocket. They could get rich off of your investment, and ten years down the road, say it just tough luck, when you don't get back a dime. I think that's where the mismanagement of funds comes from. They know that they have a guaranteed income, regardless of whether they pay attention to your funds or not. If it were based on percentage of profit, at sell time, you can bet that they'd be on their game, everyday.

 

[flyingtnh]

Looked at oathkeepers - good stuff there in general. But I'll let my oath stand as I said it and reaffirmed at my last promotion - I will support and defend The Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I take that oath seriously - gravely so. I'm not a lawyer, but because of that oath, I consider myself a serious scholar of The Constitution and believe that any such distillation of that Oath to promise to uphold a limited portion of The Constitution (such as Oathkeepers is doing) is disloyal to the core because it disregards the rest of the document, especially the stuff we might not "like."

For the record, I wasn't in Oakland and so I can't give firsthand account, but there is obvious debate between credible sources as to whether there was a violation of the 1st Ammendment right of the people "peaceably to assemble." Some say they were being peaceful, some say not. The Supreme Court, under their authority granted in Article III, Sec 2 of that same Constitution I've sworn to support and defend, has declared that this right of peaceable assembly can be restricted in certain circumstances subject to strict scrutiny. Given the behavior of a minority of the protesters exacerbated by the lack of self-policing and arguable complicity by the majority, the officials of city government obviously felt that such circumstances existed.

It is now up to the courts will decide if they were right.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

My husband and I both have double majors (thank you scholarships), and he still has some student debt (I'm from a better off family, he had to put himself through college). The only job we were able to secure after graduation was working 12 hour back to back security shifts an hour and 40 minutes away from our rented apartment, trading off sleeping in the car. The security company would not even supply their workers with toilet paper or electricity. Very valued workers indeed.

Many of our friends were unable to secure jobs including a brilliant and kind friend of his who was valedictorian of their college (and yes...the *only* one, as I know how important that is to some..). He eventually landed a job in used car sales. Two of our friends were only able to afford go into teaching because of a government sponsored program that reduces your debt if you choose to teach in inner-city regions. I believe they are still working there, though their obligatory time doing so is up. They have been disallusioned seeing how sports scholarships work, despite wanting the best for those students. Percentages can help illustrate how college grads are fairing, compared to past years. Seems to me that their is a logical reason to be upset. And, as a side note, both tenures and pensions *that workers have already paid into* are either not being offered or taken away. I do kind of wonder how many people have ever met a professor, as some of the views expressed seem a far cry from reality.

I now work ten hour shifts and have not taken a sick day in a very long time. Due to this, I have three weeks saved up, that I can use however I wish (ie. protesting). It was also specifically covered that many people attend the protests only at night because they work days. It is amazing to me that those who claim to love America the most seem to despise most Americans. It seems partly juvenile and partly malicious to me to try to reduce a large group to one label.