On October 28 2011 07:55 Oreo7 wrote: If nothing else, I think it is good that people are finally starting to care and pay attention. We were getting close to a Brave New World esque scenario.
I also happen to agree with their message. The rich keep getting richer, and they do it by risking other people's money. Why should someone who is talented with finances be entitled to more money than someone who's talented or works in another field? It's all very random, and this outburst of anger is a result of that arbitrary distribution of wealth becoming an even bigger problem as a result of the incessant risk taking of the past few years.
If the wall street bankers were a Starcraft race, they'd be early release terran who go 5racks reeaper every game. Big rewards, little risk. People just want blizz to patch it ffs!
SC2 refrence SC1 vanilla terran were shit, no medics.
Late last night, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan issued a statement about the police crackdown against Occupied Oakland protesters. In it, she expressed concern for those injured and a commitment to minimize police presence in Frank Ogawa plaza, at least for now. Her statement follows national and international outcry over police treatment of unarmed protestors.
Jean Quan wrote that she will “personally monitor” investigations of police misconduct. Yesterday, the ACLU of Northern California and the National Lawyers’ Guild demanded a full investigation. The groups also asked the Oakland Police Department to immediately produce records about the use of force in responding to the early morning raid of the Occupy Oakland encampment and the evening demonstration, and the detention of those who were arrested.
Her statement also expressed “deepest concern for all of those who were injured last night, and we are committed to ensuring this does not happen again.” Iraq Vet Scott Olsen was critically injured by a police projectile and remains at Highland Hospital. Hundreds of others were sickened by tear gas or injured by police violence or projectiles.
The police had barricaded the plaza and threatened to arrest the protesters unless they dispersed; some protesters were arrested and others were tear-gassed
On October 28 2011 09:41 7hm wrote: It's amazing what a little history and knowledge of economy actually puts things in perspective as to why we are where we are now.
the is purposely inflated 53% is including retired people and people who make so little money it's pointless to tax them when we have social programs to help them. The 53% is based on federal income tax ONLY, not other taxes such as state taxes, medicare/cade, social security et al.
53% is based on the 2009 numbers, 2 years before that it was only in the 30's that was 2007, I wonder what happened between then and now.
Well worth the read. Especially if you disagree with the protests, don't know where they are coming from or don't know what they want.
the number 53% is full of crap anyways it's based on 2009 numbers and it's only talking about federal income tax. In 2007 the number was 38%(which is still inflated to some extent talking about the elderly) i wonder what happened between then and 2009? http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/412106_federal_income_tax.pdf The same group that got that 47% number explains it.
However, much of the commentary failed to explain why. The deep recession is one cause — incomes are down and so are tax liabilities. But a much larger factor is that Congress has chosen to deliver large portions of social policy through the tax code.
The income tax has long used itemized deductions to encourage activities such as homeownership and charitable giving. For more than three decades, the earned income tax credit has supplemented the wages of lowearning workers. More recently Congress has substantially increased the EITC and introduced new tax credits for children, college expenses, and retirement saving. The proliferation of those tax expenditures, now totaling nearly $1 trillion annually, has reduced income taxes for most Americans and pushed many off the tax rolls entirely. TPC estimates that 45 percent of households will owenofederalincometaxin2010(seetable)andthatmore than 90 percent of them will get government payments throughrefundabletaxcredits.Mostnonpayershaverelatively low income: Six in 10 make less than $20,000.
More than two-thirds of people who pay no income tax do pay Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes and about half owe payroll taxes that exceed their refundable tax credits. Counting income plus payroll tax liabilities, less than a quarter owe no tax.
To examine how tax preferences move people off the income tax rolls, TPC simulated what would happen if we remove all dependent exemptions, itemized deductions, and personal credits. Dropping those features reduced the percentage of non-income-taxpayers to 27 percent, four-fifths of whom make less than $20,000. Most would pay no income tax because of personal exemptions for the taxpayer and spouse, the standard deduction, and the tax exemption of Social Security benefits for low-income recipients.
Counting both income and payroll taxes, less than 13 percent of households would not pay tax; 94 percent of them would either be elderly or have incomes less than $20,000. Get rid of tax preferences and tax benefits for dependents and it’s pretty much just the poor and elderly who don’t pay federal income or payroll taxes. And even they likely pay federal excise taxes on gas, alcoholic beverages, and other goods.
Is it a bad thing that some Americans pay no income taxes? Some argue that everyone should pay some income tax so they have a visible stake in what our government does. Others say that administering social policy should not be the IRS’s job. However, the tax system does provide an efficient means of delivering cash benefits to low-income families without creating a new bureaucracy.
Finally, a handful of people with very high income pay no income or payroll tax. How? IRS studies show that high-income households that owe no income tax most commonly get much of their income from tax-exempt bonds or from overseas sources for which they get foreign tax credits. They may not pay taxes to the U.S. government but they nonetheless bear a burden from the lower interest rates they receive on tax-exempt bonds or the income taxes they pay to other countries.
On October 28 2011 09:41 7hm wrote: It's amazing what a little history and knowledge of economy actually puts things in perspective as to why we are where we are now.
the is purposely inflated 53% is including retired people and people who make so little money it's pointless to tax them when we have social programs to help them. The 53% is based on federal income tax ONLY, not other taxes such as state taxes, medicare/cade, social security et al.
53% is based on the 2009 numbers, 2 years before that it was only in the 30's that was 2007, I wonder what happened between then and now.
Well worth the read. Especially if you disagree with the protests, don't know where they are coming from or don't know what they want.
the number 53% is full of crap anyways it's based on 2009 numbers and it's only talking about federal income tax. In 2007 the number was 38%(which is still inflated to some extent talking about the elderly) i wonder what happened between then and 2009? http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/412106_federal_income_tax.pdf The same group that got that 47% number explains it.
However, much of the commentary failed to explain why. The deep recession is one cause — incomes are down and so are tax liabilities. But a much larger factor is that Congress has chosen to deliver large portions of social policy through the tax code.
The income tax has long used itemized deductions to encourage activities such as homeownership and charitable giving. For more than three decades, the earned income tax credit has supplemented the wages of lowearning workers. More recently Congress has substantially increased the EITC and introduced new tax credits for children, college expenses, and retirement saving. The proliferation of those tax expenditures, now totaling nearly $1 trillion annually, has reduced income taxes for most Americans and pushed many off the tax rolls entirely. TPC estimates that 45 percent of households will owenofederalincometaxin2010(seetable)andthatmore than 90 percent of them will get government payments throughrefundabletaxcredits.Mostnonpayershaverelatively low income: Six in 10 make less than $20,000.
More than two-thirds of people who pay no income tax do pay Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes and about half owe payroll taxes that exceed their refundable tax credits. Counting income plus payroll tax liabilities, less than a quarter owe no tax.
To examine how tax preferences move people off the income tax rolls, TPC simulated what would happen if we remove all dependent exemptions, itemized deductions, and personal credits. Dropping those features reduced the percentage of non-income-taxpayers to 27 percent, four-fifths of whom make less than $20,000. Most would pay no income tax because of personal exemptions for the taxpayer and spouse, the standard deduction, and the tax exemption of Social Security benefits for low-income recipients.
Counting both income and payroll taxes, less than 13 percent of households would not pay tax; 94 percent of them would either be elderly or have incomes less than $20,000. Get rid of tax preferences and tax benefits for dependents and it’s pretty much just the poor and elderly who don’t pay federal income or payroll taxes. And even they likely pay federal excise taxes on gas, alcoholic beverages, and other goods.
Is it a bad thing that some Americans pay no income taxes? Some argue that everyone should pay some income tax so they have a visible stake in what our government does. Others say that administering social policy should not be the IRS’s job. However, the tax system does provide an efficient means of delivering cash benefits to low-income families without creating a new bureaucracy.
Finally, a handful of people with very high income pay no income or payroll tax. How? IRS studies show that high-income households that owe no income tax most commonly get much of their income from tax-exempt bonds or from overseas sources for which they get foreign tax credits. They may not pay taxes to the U.S. government but they nonetheless bear a burden from the lower interest rates they receive on tax-exempt bonds or the income taxes they pay to other countries.
If people honestly think the hardest working in our country make the most money and that people in our society are more or less morally obligated to work (the tumblr had such a morally superior tone I'm assuming that's what he was insinuating) they are dumb. Becoming super rich takes a great deal of luck, even outside of the obvious factors, ie how the economy is going and all that stuff, but also just things like your location of birth, race, gender, etc. all are contributing factors to how much money you will make. Because capitialism isn't a meritocratic system (or at least America's current form), then how can you expect people to contribute to a system they aren't proportionally getting back from? That makes people angry. OWS is just an expression of that anger.
Furthermore, if actions create and control reactions, isn't everything controlled by the original action? Determinism motherfuckers.
Well put Oreo7. People talk about supporting a free market but a free market is only free if everyone's ability to enter it is equal. Obviously this ideal is impossible but we can try to try to get it to as equal as possible. Regulations does not mean it's any less of a free market, if anything regulations could lead to a free market being more possible. Currently the system is stacked and unfair, the OWS movement is trying to bring attention to that fact.
I personally think that these protests are ridiculous.
When did it become the successful person's fault that these people are too lazy/incompetent to get a job?
Also, these people are saying that the rich bankers are stealing peoples money. This is absurd. They are also saying that the top 1% doesn't pay enough taxes. Again, absurd. Here is the percentages of what each group pays in taxes.
Top 1%: 36.73% Top 5%: 58.66% (this includes top 1%) Then if you do the math, the top 50%, where most of these people are, pays only 10.45%.
I think that these people should try and invest in a reasonable college degree and put more effort into finding a job rather than having this silly protest.
By the way, you know that this is misguided when it gets welcomed support from the Communist Party of the United States and the Nazi Party.
On October 28 2011 10:41 MarkT34 wrote: I personally think that these protests are ridiculous.
When did it become the successful person's fault that these people are too lazy/incompetent to get a job?
There are 4 times as many job seekers as job openings right now, so I don't think it's fair to call them lazy and incompetent.
This is absurd. They are also saying that the top 1% doesn't pay enough taxes. Again, absurd. Here is the percentages of what each group pays in taxes.
Top 1%: 36.73% Top 5%: 58.66% (this includes top 1%) Then if you do the math, the top 50%, where most of these people are, pays only 10.45%.
The top 1% pay less effective taxes (as a percentage of their income) than the bottom 99%. They pay most of the federal income taxes because they happen to also make most of the money.
I think that these people should try and invest in a reasonable college degree and put more effort into finding a job rather than having this silly protest.
See above.
I don't think the protesters are upset that the rich are 'stealing' their money. They are upset that for the past 30 years, middle class income has remained stagnant while upper class income has more than doubled. Everyone should share in economic growth, not just the wealthy.
I liked the beginning of the movement, and the wave of enthusiasm for a change in economic policies, but it's turned into a big 1%'er bash about how they should be paying more. I think taxing the rich is just going to make us all poorer as the money gets dished out by a continuously growing government.
All the government is good at is redistributing wealth and acquiring power. Printing money, taxing citizens, and borrowing from other countries is not a trend I think we should continue, but unfortunately we will see it continue if the Federal Reserve isn't audited and controlled (and hopefully removed over time).
The prevailing attitude is that the government needs to fix all of our problems, when in reality, the government needs to stop creating all of our problems.
On October 28 2011 10:51 Sentient wrote: I don't think the protesters are upset that the rich are 'stealing' their money. They are upset that for the past 30 years, middle class income has remained stagnant while upper class income has more than doubled. Everyone should share in economic growth, not just the wealthy.
Blame China and India and Mexico for taking your middle class jobs.
10 years ago I saw this coming. If I went for a normal degree I'd have to compete with guys that were far hungrier and willing to work much harder and lower salaries.
Economic reality that you guys just didn't want to see or just won't accept.
Your middle class incomes will continue to stagnate for the next couple of decades. The rest of the 3rd world want your jobs and living conditions you have. Only a matter of time until they get it. 30 million people are being added into the middle class each year in India.
On October 28 2011 10:51 Sentient wrote: I don't think the protesters are upset that the rich are 'stealing' their money. They are upset that for the past 30 years, middle class income has remained stagnant while upper class income has more than doubled. Everyone should share in economic growth, not just the wealthy.
Blame China and India and Mexico for taking your middle class jobs.
10 years ago I saw this coming. If I went for a normal degree I'd have to compete with guys that were far hungrier and willing to work much harder and lower salaries.
Economic reality that you guys just didn't want to see or just won't accept.
Your middle class incomes will continue to stagnate for the next couple of decades. The rest of the 3rd world want your jobs and living conditions you have. Only a matter of time until they get it. 30 million people are being added into the middle class each year in India.
that's right
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1 Except for the part where the top of the income class has only become richer while the bottom classes have stagnated long before 10 years ago. Ie people are rigging the system to benefit the top at the expense of the bottom, they could pay us more but then they would have to move profit margins around and end up with less gasp! People would fight back against companies but labor laws have be mangled over the years and unions are at an all time low, so we just what sit back and take it in the ass? NO we demand better we demand to be treated like human beings not merely tools to increase a person's wealth.
Blame China and India and Mexico for taking your middle class jobs.
Why would we blame them for wanted to work?
We should be blaming our government for allowing American corporations to hire these people without any kind of penalty over American workers
Why deny a hungry intelligent college graduate kid in India a middle class job?
So we advocate fairness for everyone, from rich to poor. But when fairness goes to the ones less fortunate than we are, people that live in 3rd world countries with dirty drinking water, we no longer support it....
Blame China and India and Mexico for taking your middle class jobs.
Why would we blame them for wanted to work?
We should be blaming our government for allowing American corporations to hire these people without any kind of penalty over American workers
Why deny a hungry intelligent college graduate kid in India a middle class job?
So we advocate fairness for everyone, from rich to poor. But when fairness goes to the ones less fortunate than we are, we no longer support it....
No one should deny the Indian kid a job, however, it shouldn't cost a company a lot less to hire him. That's all I was saying. It shouldn't be profitable for a company that gets enormous benefits from a country to not hire people from that country. Tell me why it shouldn't be that way.
On October 28 2011 03:17 bonifaceviii wrote: Nothing. It just fits well into the protesters' narrative.
Honestly, it would behoove you to read the articles sometimes.
Yeah I did...
I still don't get the point of this.
Why is it the businesses' fault that they pay their CEO's a bunch of money? Shouldn't the real question be why those businesses have not gone out of business due to their seemingly poor management and policies?
Well, it's kind of a big circle, isn't it? The business has people in Washington passing the legislation that makes their poor business policies possible, whether it's through regulations or bail outs. And then you have people saying, blame the government, or blame the business. But really, they're all part of one big interconnected web. So, yea, it is the business' fault at the end of the day.
If you have to place fault, why so fast to dump gov's accountability and just say buisness? Take away all the faces, all parties, all the names, and visualize the U.S. under one President, one party, who over time, with bankers/business interests who got us to this point. How would you fix it?
I'm not. I'm saying gov and business for all intents and purposes here are the same thing. You protest one, you're protesting the other.
I would fix the problem by voting in people that do not accept "campaign contributions". And I'd do this by starting grass roots movements to make people aware of the current corruption.... hm...
Seems to me that we're on the right track already.
Cain is on the right track? Obama is on the right track? Romney?...
The problem with this is it's a very temporary solution, and it's so easy to the government to trick people with legislations that's thousands of pages long.
The real solution is to get the government completely out of the business of managing economy.
You get them out of the economy completely, and lobbyism will become useless.
Sorry, was out for most of the day and this thread has moved quite a bit since then.
No, Cain/Obama/Romney are precisely the sorts of people that do accept "campaign contributions." I'm saying the current protests are the movement towards voting for people that do not. You can never, ever get the government out of economy until you remove the people from government that make gov. in economy possible.
Advocating getting the government out of economy while voting for the same people that made it possible is like asking the mafia to please get out of organized crime.
Blame China and India and Mexico for taking your middle class jobs.
Why would we blame them for wanted to work?
We should be blaming our government for allowing American corporations to hire these people without any kind of penalty over American workers
Why deny a hungry intelligent college graduate kid in India a middle class job?
So we advocate fairness for everyone, from rich to poor. But when fairness goes to the ones less fortunate than we are, people that live in 3rd world countries with dirty drinking water, we no longer support it....
No, see, the water stays dirty, the Americans have no jobs, and the employers accumulate wealth, laugh and laugh, and lobby the government to make policy more amenable to them to laugh and laugh even more.
Blame China and India and Mexico for taking your middle class jobs.
Why would we blame them for wanted to work?
We should be blaming our government for allowing American corporations to hire these people without any kind of penalty over American workers
Why deny a hungry intelligent college graduate kid in India a middle class job?
So we advocate fairness for everyone, from rich to poor. But when fairness goes to the ones less fortunate than we are, people that live in 3rd world countries with dirty drinking water, we no longer support it....
This is wrong on so many levels. Our forefathers and worker unions did not fight to save the world because the world is a different beast where every country has its own laws and its populations have different standards.
The point of it all was to rig the game so that there would be a very decent amount of Americans or whatever country you are from that stayed above poverty.
But then the corporations got smart, they started outsourcing just to make an even bigger profit. Well the uneducated Indian that is smart should cost the company just about the same as the average american. Problem solved.
Except for the part where the top of the income class has only become richer while the bottom classes have stagnated long before 10 years ago. Ie people are rigging the system to benefit the top at the expense of the bottom, they could pay us more but then they would have to move profit margins around and end up with less gasp! People would fight back against companies but labor laws have be mangled over the years and unions are at an all time low, so we just what sit back and take it in the ass? NO we demand better we demand to be treated like human beings not merely tools to increase a person's wealth.
This economic reality thing is really taking time to sink in with you isn't it?
High income jobs are high income jobs because they do not compete with India / China / Mexico. There isn't a way to outsource doctors and lawyers. And their wealth grows because they are smart and invest their money in assets that grow.
Many companies can afford to pay American workers can. Absolutely. But they'd rather increase the income of the 4$ an hour Mexican graduate than they will the American one.
You can be angry and fight all you want. Cause a revolution if you want. Take the whole system down with your angry blood lust. It still won't make the 99% any happier or wealthier.
On October 28 2011 11:09 dOofuS wrote: I think taxing the rich is just going to make us all poorer as the money gets dished out by a continuously growing government.
do you have any evidence that this actually happens.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5659/heheny.jpg)
