Alan2005

Wealth Creators? I wish this meme would die - bloody fox news. The rich do not create jobs, the people that create jobs (as you actually said in the second half of your post) are people starting businesses and growing them.

helcat12 is kind of right (although I don't know for sure - it depends on what else she said). The monetary system is being used to steal from us - whether this is deliberate or systemic it doesn't matter - the end result is the same, we are being stolen from.

dbd33

I very much doubt that this is the case. While there are, no doubt, some people of whom this is true, the vast majority of the rich are rich because their parents were rich. Futhermore, there are plenty of people who started with nothing and through hard work, risk and despite a dash of good fortune, still have nothing. Becoming wealthy after makeing a poor choice of parents is a matter of luck.


I dare say but I don't see them here.

Almost Canadian

Are you arguing that the poor would rather buy said DVD players from The Bay for $300?

Almost Canadian

There was an article in the local rag that, I believe, made a good point. It was aimed at the "Occupy [insert city or street]" demonstrations. Their grievance appears to be that the top 1% are not playing fair and that the bottom 99% should receive more of a slice of their wealth. I have no idea if this is what they are arguing for or not as I haven't spoken to any of them.

Anyway, the article postulated that, based on world wealth/income statistics, anyone with a family income of $50,000 CDN or more was in the top 1% of world wealth/income. I would imagine that most posters on this board would fall into such a category. So I ask you all: Do you believe that you have too much and will you be donating it all to those that don't in other parts of the world so that we can all be on the same level? If you are, good for you. If you do not believe that this should happen, why not?

JamesM

Yes the public treasury bails out the banks who then are able to pay bonuses to people whose bonus should be the fact that they have managed to keep their job in the first place.

I'm not sure how a seven figure bonus benefits every one else. It's just re-invested in more tradeable commodities- that alot of us have no opportunity to purchase.

How many of you were offered Google Stock post float? How many of you have shares in Facebook already?

I'm with the 99% on this one.

Incidentally in the UK you only need 100,000 pounds per year or $160,000 CDN to qualify for the 1%. It's really the 0.1% but I understand the sentiment!

JamesM

Just highlighted a similar thing- this had not been posted yet.

As I said I agree with the sentiment of the Occupy "Insert here". There are people with far too much but how you draw the line at what far too much is- is a different matter.

Alan2005

If they could have jobs making said DVD players, then yes they would prefer that.

It's trite to say it's not left/right, but right/wrong - but that I think is the aim of the movement; or at least the one thing that those protesting all agree on.

A fair share of the wealth maybe. Not fair as in equal, but fair as in not obtained by fraud and deception.

Almost Canadian

Who have committed fraud or deception? The ones that are wealthy (has Bill Gates committed such crimes?) or the politicians that enacted the laws?

I don't know if anyone is arguing that the bankers (I believe that these are the group you are referring to) didn't screw up, was there any fraud and deception involved with the "securities" they sold, or was it simply that those that bought them had no real idea what it was they were buying? Caveat emptor and all that.

I blame the electorate, for voting in the politicians that allowed this. Has anyone that was responsible for the bailout and the subsequent payment of bonuses actually been held to account, or did the votes simply tick the same box they always do on the ballet?

Alan2005

Blame the victim eh? Nice attitude for a lawyer

And yes there was fraud, theft, deception, and perjury.

If you sell me you something that you know is shit, in fact you're so convinced it's shit that you have actually placed large bets that will pay out when the shitness is revealed. You tell me it's as good as mana from heaven, and so I buy it. You could say I should have checked first, but that doesn't make you not a crook or what you did not fraud. That this happened in banking is well documented.

But that's the thing. They thought they were voting for change with obama; they thought they were voting for change with the tea party. So, when you realize that you can't rely on bought politicians to make the change - what recourse do you have?

Almost Canadian

If someone buys something and they don't understand what it is they are buying, they have to accept some responsibility for doing so. I have no idea what actually went on, but it is my understanding that those that were doing the buying were not Mr. and Mrs. Smith from suburbia, they were "sophisticated" investors

I don't know enough about what actually went on to be able to respond to this. How did the perjury come about?

I always thought the argument went that the securities were so convolulted and complicated that no one really understood them. As I said, I don't know what actually happened so will have to defer to your greater knowledge.


Vote for another that is not a "bought" politician; run for office yourself; remove all of your investments and deposits from those you believe are responsible; make sure that those that were responsible are held to account. Alternatively, you could form yourself into something akin to the People's Front of Judea or the Judean Peoples' Front and have lots of meetings about it.

helcat12

Wealth distribution is not at all related to the amount of work put in. I think that is well understood and agreed throughout civilised society.

Wealth and power go hand in hand, so no-one powerful wants things to change so it never does.

Naive to think that democratic vote could ever achieve change in this regard.

In the end, everyone becomes a "bought" politician because however lofty their morals when they are voted into power, they soon realise that the status quo will never change and the only sensible thing to do then is forget your ideals and get whatever you can for yourself.

Normal people have to put their earnings and paltry savings somewhere - there isn't a bank or financial institution that is NOT responsible or without connection to those responsible, so it is Hobsons Choice.

Every now and again there is some movement like this "Occupy...." that rises up and gains support because ordinary people recognise these facts and that there is no legal or constitutional way to bring about real change.
Sadly, they never get anywhere.

Alan2005

Doesn't matter who the victim is. Fraud is fraud.

If you want to know more then google fraudclosure, robo-signing etc.
(edit: I just did this, and here's a good summary or everything http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/10...operty-rights/)

No, they knew what they were doing. The problem with MBS was that demand for these investments was incredibly high, more than could be met with traditional safe mortgages. So to meet the demand banks were making loans to anyone at all despite knowing that these people were almost certain to default. Selling these as investments while lying about the risk is fraud.

I think you might be referring to the fact that in the end nobody knew what risk was in what security, but that's because of the fraud not an excuse for it.

There aren't any.

Even you know this isn't practical unless you have access to vast sums of money.

I have done this where I can.

Shouldn't the legal system be holding people to account? The police, the courts, judges etc. Those things that western liberal democracies have to protect honest people from crime?

Pretty Flowers

Speaking as someone who is one of the Canadian 1%, I definitely think that we should strive for greater equality. However, I don't support the occupy movement (and I know a number of the Toronto occupiers personally).

I think that this sort of movement would only really work if

1) they can actually articulate their requirements (rather than just camping in a park downtown)

2) they are actually able to promote these.

Case in point, in the first week of the demonstration, cityTV were in the park every morning. Rather than this being an opportunity for protesters to let us know their demands, they were..... asleep! So much for fervent beliefs. They can't even get up early in the morning to represent themselves!

Also, of the members that I know personally, I'd say that a significant proportion are those that have decided to live as much outside society as possible (won't work, subsist on dodgy deals and peddling, spend all of their summers at camping festivals etc.).

Makes me wonder why they really want to protest against a society that they don't want to be a part of.

As a board member of a Toronto Arts Group, I frequently have to explain what the reasons are for fundraising, promotion and the like, and why these are important activities when it comes to meeting our agreed aims.

Most of these folks read 'No Logo' and think that Capitalism is worse than Soviet Communism....

Alan2005

Huh? Don't you work in marketing?

It seems to me that once they start making specific demands divisions will be created and then manipulated and the whole movement will collapse. This is the right strategy for them - i.e. a general protest about the failure of the current system without collectively tying themselves to any specific solutions. Remember they are the 99% (not supposed to be taken litereally) not a special interest group; the political outlook contained within it is going to vary enormously, at least in the US where OWS is supported by both libertarians, commies and those inbetween.

Pretty Flowers

Doesn't mean I'm any good at it

On the other hand, no-one knows what they stand for. For example if they said that Financial Coporations profits should be taxed above a % of say 20% or that bonuses that make up more than 300% of salaried compensation should be taxed at a marginal tax rate of 90%, then it would be easier to understand what they're after. Personally I don't have a clue, other than to say that they are part of a notional 99% that in terms of global policy is still within the 1%. I can hardly support their views unless I know what they are, and what they think could remedy the situation.

Think of the successful popular movements of the past - Suffrage, Discrimination, Ban the Bomb, the Jarrow March, Luddites, The Pilgrimage of Grace, It's pretty clear what these were fighting for, and what they wanted.

Despite having friends & acquaintances who are part of the movement, despite keeping up with current affairs, I'm really none the wiser about what they actually want - other than it has something to do with them being a part of a notional 99% of something or other, and that they'd like to be part of a 1% of something else, or to subsume the 1% into the 99%..... What do they want for that to work? Would they like the distance between the bottom 10% in society and the top 10% to be reduced, or for the distance between the 5th and 6th percentile to be reduced. I would provide strong support to the former, but would be significantly less likely to support the latter....