Can someone explain "Occupy Wall Street"

Parent Cafe
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<p>As part of that top 1% I must say we believe we are undertaxed and are perfectly willing to pay more of our fair share. We follow the tax law to the word and it allows us to pay less, that is wrong but it is what it is. Because of my husband’s business we also pay state taxes to most of the 50 states, yet we still pay to little.</p>

<p>It is an honor and privilege to live in this country and to be able to live the American dream. Through hard work and luck my husband and I went from very modest childhoods to being one of the wealthiest people in the world and it is a crime that the middle class is disappearing and there is such an imbalance in income.</p>

<p>On that note though, when was the last time you purchased something from a mom and pop shop as opposed to a big discount box store or chain? When were you willing to buy your toothpaste or pimple cream from a local drug store instead of a CVS or other chain? How about eating at a local restaurant instead of an Applebees or Olive Garden? Why are you paying extra for a Starbucks coffee instead of supporting the local coffee shop or diner? In my neighborhood people are always saying how they would love a local bookstore yet none were willing to support the local bookstore just 10 minutes away rather than drive 25 minutes to the Barnes and Noble to save a little money. </p>

<p>The middle class owes a lot to local stores and union jobs and big box stores are not union nor local. Unions helped create the middle class but the middle class is no longer willing to pay the extra prices paying unions wages demand. We can ALL help the economy if we just think about it.</p>

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<p>I think a large part of it is the (perceived) corruption of our political and economic system. The wealthy and big corporations can buy the laws that benefit them, and now these “job creators” are not really creating any jobs here, and seem to be focused on squeezing the poor and the middle class so they can be even wealthier.</p>

<p>Regarding taxes, I would be for lower taxes on activities that actually lead to US jobs and higher taxes on activities that offshore jobs or just involve trading money. Of course, any kind of rational discussion on taxes or anything governmental seems impossible these days.</p>

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<p>The thing about the protesters on Wall Street is, I don’t think they have a well-thought out mission statement so to speak. I’m not exactly sure what the gripe is except I know they’re unhappy. I want to know, what would make them happy? I wish the media would start asking and telling us. I look at video of these people and they look like recent college grads or people in their 30’s primarily white. They look fairly well groomed and well fed. I wonder if these people are unemployed, if so, are they college grads as I suspect. If that’s true, what did they major in that they can’t find work and where are they now living. Are these the people who returned home after college because they couldn’t find that first job? I would really like for the media to stop ignoring them and begin asking them what they want. For now they appear to be a group of noisy, whining children in young adult bodies without a head. I would love to be able to begin to understand their problems by hearing their words and not making assumptions about what they might be thinking or experiencing.</p>

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<p>Why should they have a “mission statement”? These are mostly unemployed folks, with extra time on their hands, and they are angry at Wall Street. Isn’t that “mission” enough?</p>

<p>They aren’t committing any crimes, they are being beaten and gassed by police because they are standing around in rich people’s neighborhoods. (They are supposed to be ‘quietly unemployed’, and in the best of all possible worlds, die, so they won’t collect benefits.) I think that pretty much sums it up.</p>

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<p>amtc, what percentage are you paying that you feel is too low?</p>

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<p>I say “ditto” to what mini said. Are the bulldozers there yet?</p>

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<p>“I talked to my CPA today and I was shocked to hear how low my taxes are for 2010. Nothing like long term capital gains on trades that are held for milliseconds to one day…”</p>

<p>Only for futures</p>

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<p>Majority of people on CC are are far richer than us. Being born in eastern europe and an immigarnts with zero dollars when we came here, we still struggle with english language. </p>

<p>But we taught our kids that hrad work pays off. We taught them that wtaching TV means making someone else Rich while the person who watches TV will remain poor. </p>

<p>We worked two and sometime three jobs to make sure that kids get best education and I am talking working on getting minimum pay. We always belived in hard work.</p>

<p>But if you ask me while I work work very hard to make life better for my family and then my neighor watch TV and just knows who won baksetball games and football games statitsistcs. The neighbore kids did not immerse themselves in hardwork while they were in school and now wants etitlement, it is not right. </p>

<p>If this is the case then I am better of not tecahing my kids the value of hard work as someone else will pay for me… . </p>

<p>While these kids have right to protest, I wonder why they do not learn some skills that will pay them better or make their life better in few years. Once they have their own kids, the time will pass and they have to struggle to make life better for their kids.</p>

<p>They have to prepare themselves to compete with other nationality … This country nneeds seriouly to improve math/scinece and why states are getting varaince from no child left behind.</p>

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<p>There is this phenomenon I see in school/offices etc.etc. people talk about statistics about organized sports, American Idol, Dancing with stars etc. etc., </p>

<p>America will not stop exporting jobs but it is a start to talking with their kids what books one has to read, tellinkg kids that watching TV will not help them otherwise Indians/ chinese/Mexican and what not will take their jobs, why they need to borrow math books and learn more scince/math/engineering etc. etc. </p>

<p>I undertsand not everyone can go to school, the learn trades that will help in future. </p>

<p>And rememebr that politicans in general (99.999999%) are not to help anyone but themselves.</p>

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<p>How much federal income taxes are those protesters paying? Probably not much. They are not carrying their weight in our society. They should be protesting the slackers in our society which means they would be protesting themselves.</p>

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<p>Huh? What does this mean? Are you saying we are too dumb to discuss politics and other serious issues “in school/offices etc.etc.”? FYI, many employers specifically prohibit political and religious discussions in their employee manuals to prevent proselytizing, political propaganda, harassment, etc.</p>

<p>Here is Yahoo Finance’s take on the event:</p>

<p>[Occupy</a> Wall Street: What?s It All About? | Daily Ticker - Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“Occupy Wall Street: What’s It All About?”>Occupy Wall Street: What’s It All About?)</p>

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<p>Ditto to what mini said.</p>

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<p>There’s something so gratifying, so “morally right” about the idea of taxing the “wealthy,” and it feels like it would be awesome if this would actually “solve” the problems we face as an economy.</p>

<p>But, it won’t.</p>

<p>The reality is that we deal in the global economy as if everyone else is operating from a free-market standpoint and we continue to simply give our wealth away to other countries who protect themselves fiercely.</p>

<p>When Japan manipuled their currency, in the 70s in an effort to do what China is successfully doing right now, we slapped tarrifs and fines on everything coming from Japan to our country. within months, they were in negotiations with us to operate fairly. Until we are willing to understand that the problems we face are:</p>

<ol>
<li>globalization.</li>
<li>crony capitalism</li>
<li>wild unrestrained overregulation of business</li>
<li>being the world’s military force (which must end now!)</li>
</ol>

<p>we will never begin to create the kinds of and numbers of jobs which would lead to a resurgent US prosperity.</p>

<p>Sure, absolutely, make a minimum tax, tax capital gains, but, like France, we might want to consider making a maximum tax, as well. Nobody ought to pay more than 50% of thier income in taxes, and that is all total, including real estate, state tax, federal and withholding.</p>

<p>Also, the fact is, we are going to have to means test retirement pay outs. Many of us, above a certain income, should not recieve social security or medicare.</p>

<p>But, simply taxing the “wealthy” wont solve the deficit problem, as even Clinton has pointed out.</p>

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<p>Bunsenburner:</p>

<p>All I am saying that the kids must realize that nothing comes for free in life. While they watch TV eduaction will suffer. Thus it is better to minimize wtaching TV (maybe news for few minutes only) and start focuing on studies. Once they do not watch TV, they will not discusss meaningless TV shows. </p>

<p>If you watch TV only person who is making profit is who are on TV, rst of the people are just wasting their precious time which they can focus on their families or education or profitable endeavours or learning something new.</p>

<p>Otherwise the kids who watch TV, in future, will end up with fewer opprtunities to have craeers where they have lesser means to help their own kids and families.</p>

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<p>

expressed here:

</p>

<p>But there have always been people with more and less intelligence, drive, etc. The overall makeup of humanity hasn’t suddenly changed in the last 30 years. Something else has changed to alter the balance between rich and poor in America. Blaming the poor for being poor is a simplistic and empty response to that fact.</p>

<p>An important point in the Reich video which is worth mulling over is the fact that in a bad economy people with similar interests can be set to fighting over the crumbs - union vs. non-union workers, private sector employees vs. public sector employees, etc. The easiest, most self-righteous position to take is that people without jobs, or who are earning $30K a year from low-level employment, are “slackers” who aren’t “carrying their own weight” and that they are the problem. Just blame them and presto: problem identified, problem solved.</p>

<p>I don’t think so.</p>

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<p>Well, I can tell you that the Ocupy Wall Street protesters that I knwo personally are museum administrators, small business owners and at least 4 professors, so they are “pulling their weight”, as it were. I think the biggest problem is that taxes were lowered on the false assumption that those with the most would create jobs in the US. That hasn’t been happening, not in the lst couple of decades. We, as a nation, are not manufacturing or even designing the “next big thing”. for years our best and brightest did not go to the labs but rather, to Wall Street. Our mathematical genius worked on complex computer models that did not create anything but money for a small perentage of Americans.
So, it comes back to the higher taxes, particularly with capital gains. Those taxes were lowered rather than funding 2 wars (which are a large part of the deficit) in hope that those people would be the job creators. They failed. Therefore, there is a belief that that benefit-proven to be ineffective at creating jobs- should be eliminated in order to fund policies that will create jobs.
Raising taxes back to before this failed social experiment would not hurt those whose investments were in retirement plans or those who pay taxes on income. It would hurt those executives who get paid primarily from stock, which would put them back to receiving compensation through salaries that could be taxed.</p>

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<p>Slackers who aren’t carrying their weight? Maybe just young people with a good education, a really bad job forecast and no way to pay back their loans. Angry, young, educated, unemployed and becoming disaffected. Jeez, it sounds like a recruiting tool for the Taliban… all those angry young Egyptian men with no prospects, etc., etc. Haven’t we heard that before? With tragic results?</p>

<p>Better to try and solve the problem than laugh at them, gas them, dismiss them or otherwise just hope they’ll go away.</p>

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<p>I just feel like we’re advocating higher taxes on the rich (which I support) because we don’t know how to actually boost the middle class. I still see little economic relationship between those two events. It seems like we’ve run out of ideas.</p>

<p>The higher revenue would barely narrow the deficit, so confidence wouldn’t really change.</p>

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<p>The only way we can have a strong economy, is with a strong middle class. Are we certain that higher taxes on the super rich would strengthen the middle class?</p>

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<p>Yes, exactly.</p>

<p>go ahead and make a minimum tax, which raises the capital gains tax, but then, we will still have to solve the problem of the economy.</p>

<ol>
<li> Get rid of all the impediments to doing business in the US.<br></li>
<li> Develop rational, real world, not utopian world, responses to protectionisms and manipulation by other countries.</li>
<li> Cease and desist with the policing actions for the world.</li>
<li> Develop higher taxation and tarifs on US based companies who outsource labor to bring products back into the states.</li>
<li> Allow low tax repatriation of US money on foreign land, only if it is proven to have been given out as divedends to shareholders and/or reinvested in the states.</li>
<li> Force transparency at the FED to reduce practices of favoritism in crony capitalism</li>
</ol>

<p>Still, raise the taxes. But, to address the real problems, not just further stagnate the economy, you will have to do these other things, as well. Good luck.</p>