I Totally Support the Occupy Movement...Follow

I completely agree there are many who abuse the system. But on the bright side at least the systems are in place for us to use, and if I never have to use them, then I never have to use them. But I will happily support them because If I do need them I want to know 1. I made my fair contribution to get the help, and 2. that the program is still there.

The people around the slow guy help him fight off the lion. A nearby village with food and water helps out. It's called civilization. Some of us don't view the world as a winner takes all competition anymore.

Edited, Nov 20th 2011 5:32am by Lubriderm

In capitalist America, bank rob you.

Go for it, I stole it from someone else.

Interesting. People actually think poor people are poor because rich people take from them? Or (even more bizarrely) fail to give them enough? Anyone care to explain this assumption? Cause it make no damn sense to me at all.

Apparently, this touched a nerve. Even more interesting. No one's willing to explain the assumption though?

People are poor because we've constructed a socioeconomic system that requires them to be poor. Stop acting like capitalism is the natural order of things--it, like Socialism, Manorialism, Marxism, etc., are all human constructs. They are merely ways in which wealth and labor are organized and related to.

We have a construct that takes the limited amount of wealth and spreads it so that the vast majority of it is controlled by the few. The NECESSARY RESULT is that people end up poor. HOW MANY is relative to the way wealth is distributed, and ours has led to a huge percentage of the population to being poor.

Systems that spread wealth and labor evenly (or at least more equitably) are equally possible, it's just a matter of choosing to use them.

Whether or not it's something to feel guilty about is one question (which you were clearly trying to confuse it with, by evoking the negative connotations of giving/taking). But the absolute fact of the matter is that, for you to be rich, many others need to be poor. That doesn't mean all rich people are ******** (and that isn't something that OWS is saying, at all).

What OWS is protesting is the small group of the richest peoples who DO actively seek to take from the lower classes, and feel absolutely no remorse over the fact that they have forced them into their situation (which they realistically have), nor see any reason to stop exploiting them just because they are suffering. PLENTY of upper class peoples are speaking out for OWS. It's called Occupy WALL STREET for a reason. It's not Occupy Beverly Hills, Occupy The Upper East Side, etc.

So you *are* arguing that people are poor because rich people take money from them (or fail to share it equitably with them). I thought I couldn't have been that far from the mark.

I don't agree that wealth is a zero sum equation, doubly so in modern industrial based economies.



I believe that because wealth isn't a zero sum game, attempts to spread it more evenly will cause there to be less of it. You're arguing for a larger slice of pie. I'm arguing for a bigger pie.



That's a strange argument. I didn't say anything about emotion. You assumed it because I used words like "take" and "give". But your own position assumes this, doesn't it? I mean, the rich guy doesn't have to be mean or anything, but you're still arguing that by him making money on Wall Street, he's somehow hurting the poor guy. Isn't that your position? Isn't that what OWS is claiming?

If not, then what is it?



So they just want the rich people doing exactly what I said you were saying they were doing to pay for it. Ok... But how do they decide who "the rich" are? So if we raise taxes on everyone making over $250k/year, aren't we targeting everyone? I've yet to see anyone propose a system of taxation which can just target those who do what you talk about, nor do I think we should attempt to build one. It would rapidly become about attacking political enemies (technically, it already is).




Sure. But can't you see that this is far more about political targeting than economic? And I'll ask again: What changes do you want, and how would you implement them? You talk about how just "some" rich people are big meanies, but I've yet to see proposals for what to do about that. Which kinda makes one wonder what the point is.

If we are thinking beings, capable of making our own choices, then things are unfair because we MAKE then unfair.

I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, just that it is. We become stronger and better through competition.

However, it's a matter of degrees. If there is no room in civilization for compassion, then we have failed. If the "haves" are completely unwilling to help the "don't haves" at all, then we have failed.

People are unhappy at the moment because we have politicians that refuse to work together to make things better. We have billionaire bankers that have defrauded their customers, and walked away from it.

Will things get better? Maybe.

Just claiming things are bad because life is unfair however, is a cop out.

Are things "unfair" though? I seem to recall there was a disagreement on the definition of fair earlier in this thread. If we can't even determine a common definition for the term we're using, how the hell can we make broad sweeping conclusions about anything at all?



So does everything else in the world, regardless of how much thinking is involved. And btw, we'd call those systems "fair" as well. The fact that a taller tree gets more sunlight and therefore thrives is "fair". The fact that the faster antelope escapes the lion while the slower doesn't is "fair". I'm questioning this odd idea that this is some kind of human construct that applies only to us and that things somehow become "unfair" when we do it.


We might argue that our advanced moral capabilities might encourage us to do things that prevent the natural "fair" outcomes from happening, but to call it unfair if we fail to do so is somewhat absurd.



But this is what we've been dancing around those whole thread. And we keep going in circles. Compassion is the rich person choosing to help someone. The government forcing him to do so via higher taxes and big government assistance programs *isn't*. It's a third party stealing from one person to give to another and is a whole different animal.

I just find it odd that you speak of degrees, but them make an absolutist argument. If there's "no room for compassion"? Really? There's a whole huge range of compassion by the rich for the poor that exists completely outside of a political system which taxes those rich people to provide better outcomes for the poor. I just think it's fallacious to use that as an argument here.



I think this is a overly simplistic cop-out. People may say that, but they'd be less happy if the compromises their politicians make are things they care about. The politicians refuse to work together because the people they represent are so polarized. Let's not put this all on the politicians here.




Strange. The billionaire bankers paid back all the money they borrowed with interest. The portions of TARP which haven't been repaid are the parts that went to bail out the auto industry (the unions really), and the teachers (for some reason no one can see to explain). Yet, everyone points their fingers at the rich bankers.

No politics in this at all though!



I was responding to someone else who said that equalizing outcomes would be "fair" (or something like that, I've honestly forgotten the specifics).

Which would seem to be relevant to the OWS cause.



Defrauded? That's a strong word to use. And which customers? Lots of people lost money during that bubble collapse. Most of them were wealthy people btw. As you correctly point out, bailing out the banks themselves didn't help the people who's investments lost tons of value. But it's unclear how directly that affects the average working class renter. So I'm curious how this translates into the rich vs poor dynamic that keeps cropping up.



Um... Zero? Everyone who got foreclosed on was foreclosed on because they couldn't afford to pay the mortgage payments they'd agreed to pay. It was the rate of sub-prime and underwater loans in the market which caused the problem, not the other way around. Anyone who purchased a home that they could actually afford didn't have any problems. Even those who lost value in their homes when the bubble collapsed are still not being foreclosed on (unless they choose to) as long as they can make the mortgage payment (which hasn't changed).



Was there a crime committed? I know it's become popular rhetoric to call a group of people criminals because you don't like them, but can you say which law was actually broken here?