Harvard Yard was closed today, with campus police trying to inconvenience the Occupy Harvard tent city that is set up in the Yard. Certainly the closure inconvenienced Ollie the (border) Collie, who had to try to pick his way through a crowded sidewalk en route to the Verizon store (clogged with iPhone customers needing assistance in transferring the contacts from their old phones to their fancy new ones; apparently the iPhone is at its simplest when being advertised).
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/11/11/matthews-occupy-harvard/ explains the goals of the Occupy Harvard movement, including “We want Harvard to pay its workers a living wage” and a complaint that too many Harvard kids (about 30 percent) are from semi-rich families (who constitute just 5 percent of the U.S. population).
https://innovationandgrowth.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/the-state-of-young-college-grads-2011/ meanwhile shows that the wages of U.S. college graduates are trending steadily downward while Generation Debt is accumulating ever larger student loans (plus of course their federal and state governments are borrowing trillions of dollars on their behalf). Could it be that these folks should be studying Mandarin rather than perfecting their camping skills?
A lot of people going to college these days don’t belong there, I’m sure the people worth educating and employing in fields that require a degree are still there and probably end up getting good paying jobs even if the average wage is trending lower.
“Could it be that these folks should be studying Mandarin rather than perfecting their camping skills?”
Fallacy of the excluded middle.
I wonder what these campers truly think they can accomplish by setting up a shanty town in a public area. Certainly they must realize that they will not get any real recognition for all their “efforts”. In fact, they are complaining about not getting their voices heard in Congress because of who they are yet they continue to do the same things and hope for different results. Isn’t that one of the proverbial definitions of insanity?
Maybe Occupy Whatever is a direct manifestation of 99 weeks of unemployment insurance.
Occupy whatever is a transliteration of “I’m stupid and greedy and everybody should know.”
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/fdominicus/archive/2011/10/18/another-sentence-for-quot-i-39-m-stupid-quot.aspx
So there should be more justice, while stealing even more from those who “deserved” to get stolen from. They should just check the constitution and they will see it’s they who are wrong.
And they should look up what Tanstaafl means. In the end they want more for themselves with as much pressure, because they are “right”.
Maybe reverse engineering an economy to turn the U.S. into competition for China is worth protesting about.
The ‘occupiers’ are not actually sleeping in the tents according to this Harvard blogger:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/spaceoccupants/2011/11/12/day3/
“Could it be that these folks should be studying Mandarin rather than perfecting their camping skills?”
Yes. Although if they have no way to immigrate to China then their camping skills should prove very useful here in the U.S. in the near future.
I have watched several of the national networks interview these protestors and have yet to hear anyone articulate anything remotely rational regarding what they are actually “protesting”. I’d like to know how many are drawing their 99 weeks of unemployment insurance and if there are many, they should be directed to that city’s employment offices so that they could possibly get a job. Hey, they’ve already staked a claim to a plot of land…
This is actionable with high impact, I say.
“Condemn venal journalism for severely fooling the people” at
http://occupywallst.org/forum/condemn-venal-journalism-for-severely-fooling-the-/
Also
http://homepage.mac.com/ttsmyf/debtGDP_whys.gif
Recall that those who repay national debt are borm later than those who incurred it. Note the recent increment is well above half that for WW2.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/us/the-occupy-movements-common-thread-is-anger.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
In Boston, a hub of colleges and universities, a higher education theme emerged among protesters. “What did I spend the last four years doing?” asked Becky De Freitas, a recent graduate of Gordon College in Wenham, Mass. “Fluent in Mandarin and French and no one wants to go for that? And it’s like, now what?”
How about a marketing career – camping gear with North Face in China?
The Occupy Wall Street movement makes lots of sense to me. I’m with the grumpy people when they say all the other ones are pretty ragtag and nonsensical. Two of the better guys I’ve seen put the OWS into terms is Matt Taibbi and Tim Krieder (probably known to no one here, but draws The Pain Comics: http://www.thepaincomics.com/)
In this specific case I have a *really* hard time sympathizing with Harvard students; but at the same time, even here, I’m with Dan Carlin (podcast: Common Sense) when he says he enjoys people actually getting out and doing *something* (Tea Party, Occupy, Greece, etc.), even if it basically comes down to: we want money, rather than something grand and righteous like the civil rights movement.
FDominicus suggests that the OWS people look up the definition of TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch).
I don’t think most of them are asking for a free lunch, or any sort of handout. They’re protesting a rigged system, in which financially powerful groups lobby Congress for preferential treatment: capitalism when they succeed, and socialism (a government bailout) when they fail.
Warren Buffett, who is certainly no enemy of the rich, is worth listening to on this topic:
“Through the tax code, there has been class warfare waged, and my class has won,” Buffett told Business Wire CEO Cathy Baron Tamraz at a luncheon in honor of the company’s 50th anniversary. “It’s been a rout.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/warren-buffett-tax-code-l_n_1095833.html)
And from Buffett’s New York Times piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html):
“But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.
My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”
I’d also quote Elizabeth Warren:
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.
You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.
Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
Andrewl: A problem with your exhortation that the successful must pay higher taxes is that it is unclear what the government services you cite (e.g., roads, police, schools) should cost. heritage.org statistics show that Singapore does it all for about 17 percent of GDP while Hong Kong is up at 18.6 percent. Americans at all income levels already pay far more than this, but it still isn’t enough because the U.S. government (federal, state, local) spends somewhere between 39 percent (heritage.org number) and 45 percent of U.S. GDP. As the U.S. economy stagnates or shrinks and Medicare and public employee pensions costs soar, the percentage may get higher.
If you say “You have to pay higher taxes or otherwise there won’t be any police” there really is not a limit to what the government can collect. Nobody wants to be murdered and therefore a tax rate of 98 percent would be eminently reasonable. By the same token, the government could fairly collect 98 percent of income in exchange for clean drinking water.
I’m not sure that higher taxes on high income Americans would solve the issues that OWS talks about. Consider a Fannie Mae executive who makes tens of millions of dollars at taxpayer expense. Will the problem of cronyism be considered solved if this crony is made to pay 50 percent of his income in tax rather than 35 percent? I think the main problem is how he got his high income not how much tax he paid on the money that he didn’t earn.
“Occupy Harvard” is a bit of a misnomer, as virtually no one is actually on site — for example, on Monday morning, only Day 5 of the occupation, photographers and cops outnumbered the occupiers by 3 to 1:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/spaceoccupants/2011/11/14/worlds-smallest-occupation
Apparently a similar situation exists even at Zuccotti Park:
http://www.jammiewf.com/2011/its-come-to-this-media-now-outnumber-protesters-at-zuccotti-park
I’m tired of folks quoting Buffet and Buffett himself complaining about the Rich, the system, taxes, and all. If Buffett is such a good person, and doesn’t like the system, why then he gamed the system to get where he is now? Why he thinks he needs government help to give back when he took advantage of government in the first place? Did he just, overnight, grown wiser and now feels sorry? [1]
As for the occupy whatever crowd, they are barking at the wrong tree. They need to occupy all of Washington DC, and local States capital. Or, they can rally support, run for office and change the system — because the %1 they need to bark at, is the politician in DC.
[1] From @andrewl quoting Elizabeth Warren: “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.”
Theres a big difference between “98 percent of income” and:
‘not less than those in lower income bracketts, (and probably a bit more), and
include dividends and capital gains’.
Phil – I agree that our government spends money inefficiently and that higher taxes may not be the solution, or even part of the solution, to our economic problems. And I don’t know what the tax rates should be. I’m more interested in focusing on manipulation of government by powerful corporations and rich individuals. If the successful pay lower taxes it shouldn’t be because of behind the scenes lobbying, which I referred to in my comment about a rigged system.
Many years ago I read several long investigative pieces about the American tax system written by Donald Barlett and James Steele. They turned up all sorts of interesting exemptions. Some were almost at the level of “Massachusetts companies whose primary income derives from helicopter training or use of helicopters in transport, and whose founders are male computer programmers with an affinity for Lisp and dogs, shall be exempt from taxes.”
If you have some money and find the right lobbyists, you can get help like that. I think that’s anti-capitalist. If another helicopter company is more efficient than you, offers better training than you, and in all other ways is a better company, you could still beat them because you don’t have the burden of taxes. I’m fine with losing a fair race to somebody who worked harder than I did and can just run faster. Or who was born with longer legs and never had to work as hard at all but just got genetically lucky. I’ve come out behind in math classes for the latter reason. Too bad for me. But I’m not fine with losing a rigged race. Rigged races deter people from competing.
George says he’s tired of people quoting Buffett, and Buffett’s complaints about the system, and suggests that Buffett gamed the system to get where he is now. I don’t know enough about Buffett to know that he gamed the system. My understanding is that he got where he is by being born smart, working very hard, and being lucky. Does anybody know if Berkshire Hathaway employs lobbyists to get preferential treatment from Congress?
And if Buffett didn’t manipulate the system to get where he is, then I have no objection to his being where he is. If he played by the rules and won, fine. My understanding is that many of these big banks and brokerage houses lobbied and probably bribed Congress and various regulatory agencies to get all sorts of rules and restrictions lifted, made tons of money, crashed, and then got bailed out.
If my understanding is not accurate, let me know. It almost has to be oversimplified, as I’m not educated about high finance or the SEC.
andrewld. You want a free ride on the expenses of the “rich” which you find are exploiting you. Well tell us how do they do that if not with help from government. Are you forced to buy at Walmart? You want more money for what you want and others should pay. So this makes perfect sense because that is what is done by every good-doer. I do not claim my way of living in the right one. But it’s not your business how I want to live it. I do not ask for the government to help me out with anything I just expect government to get out of my way.. I’m paying taxes for more than 25 years now. And I’ve to pay for all stupidicites one just can think of. I’m absolutely fed up with this bandits. They are stealing they are black-mailing and they work together to maximize the damage I’ve to suffer.
They do not want a free ride. Hell they want it as nothing else. The rich have to pay more because they have more then they. What an unjustice. The government should pay for all their needs, free health care, free learning, best paid jobs for all and all other crap.
Where’s the demand that governmetn should not bail-out fallen banks? No the banks are guilty and the government is the good guy. Hell how many of your soldiers you like to get killed from your government? Do you do not realize that the state is hindering everything. Have you ever opened you own business? I bet you haven’t. So you want a ride on the expenses of your employer and you define that as just.
FDominicus – I think you’re reading more into what I wrote than is actually there, and making assumptions about what I think that aren’t accurate. And I’m having some trouble parsing what you’ve written. I suspect this is all caused by a language problem, which I do not mean as an insult. From your blog it looks like you’re a native German speaker, and English is your second language (which you are much more fluent in than I am in German).
“You want a free ride on the expenses of the ‘rich’ which you find are exploiting you.”
I didn’t say that, and I’m not asking for a free ride. I’m mostly asking that corporations not get special, privileged access to Congress which often allows them to get out of paying taxes. In other words, I don’t think corporations should get a free ride, or a discounted ride, just because they can hire lobbyists.
“I do not ask for the government to help me out with anything I just expect government to get out of my way.”
I don’t like the government in my way either, although it sometimes is. I do think that the government has helped you out with a lot, whether you live in the US or Germany. They have literally paved the way for you by building roads and maintaining a transportation system which is one of the foundations of the country’s economy. You may not have formally asked the government to defend you from foreign invaders, but they do. There are other examples. And corporations benefit from these services as well, and that’s why they should conform to tax law.
I do take Philip Greenspun’s point that we don’t know what government services should cost. But they cost *something*, I and many others (corporations included) benefit from them, so it’s fair that we (all) pay something for them. But I don’t know how much we should pay.
“Do you do not realize that the state is hindering everything?”
No, I don’t see that. It certainly hinders *some* things. And some things *should* be hindered. I think the EPA hinders some environmentally damaging activities, and I’m glad of it. The government does some good and some bad. Like the corporation which sold me the computer I’m writing this on. Some good and some bad. I’m not saying the government or corporations are evil. I do say that they sometimes do evil, and should be corrected.
“Have you ever opened you own business? I bet you haven’t.”
I’ve done some consulting, but I make most of my money as an employee of a company, doing computer programming. I’ve never started a business.
“So you want a ride on the expenses of your employer and you define that as just.”
I want a salary from my employer for the work I do. The salary they offered me was acceptable, so I trade my work for money, and it seems fair enough to me. But it’s not a free ride. If I stop doing work for them they will stop giving me money, which also seems fair to me.
It seems that the only place these “occupiers” should be occupying is Washington,D.C.
I fail to see the logic behind camping out in a public park weeks on end, marching around rich folks’ homes, causing a ruckus in an open to the public business and so on. These people who supposedly benefitted unjustly are merely just that, the beneficiaries of the system. Shouldn’t the folks who are so rabidly opposing our current laws be protesting to the people who MADE these unfair rules, i.e. our elected and appointed people who run our government? Seems to me that screaming at Wall Streeters is a huge waste of time. Why not go to the rule-makers themselves?
Maybe march around a few elected officials homes and pick out some leading lobbyists to chase after…
@andrewl. I’m sorry, if I insulted you. But I’m fed with all this justice crap which just means getting someone else pay for what I want. And government is all to willing to give in to this sorry crap.
Anyway you wrote you did some consulting, I assume with a safe jobs in the background. Sorry that does not count as running your own business. I bet you could give good advice in your area of expertise, but overall you do not have much risk, do you?
And that is what I hate so massively about he occupy wallstreet. gang. Since when are laws made in Wall Street, since when are markets unjust?
Even in your job you must “serve” customers, if you miss that the customers will not make any business with you any more. That all does not hold for government. Just see crimes. Does it matter if police solve a crime? No, it does not. They got their cheque nevertheless.
And now to the things stats have done to me. Now tell me why should I pay for things I’ve not asked for. I’m willing to pay my toll for roads. But if the state owns the tools where’s the market. It’ s just a monopoly. I do not want to pay taxes for certain kind of things let’s day treatment of drug addicts and or work of the police against drugs. I do not think that that this is the governments business. And imagine how the prohibition has helped to install organized criminality. As an American I would not be willing to pay for the army in Afghanistan, do I have that choice? No I have not.
The state is just growing and growing and it gets more unjust every day. Now you crossed the 15 trillions debt border. Does that change anything? No they are just spending and how do they do that they take away from everyone and give to those which they “decide” deserve it. Hell how could it be that trillions were spend to “save” banks? Where there any choice? No the government is not better than organized criminals, the unfortunate things organized criminals are prosecuted and but the organized politicians are “chosen”.
I can’t write in civil words on how disgusting that is and occupy wallstreet is not about justice of markets but “justice” of good-doers. So feel free to flame me on it. I’m fully with Mark here, abolish this deledefs and then we can talk again about justice.
Mark etc: they should protest. Period. Doesn’t really matter where. In DC, in NYC — they should make enough noise first to be heard. Everything else is kinda secondary. Why not this and why not that… The simple thing is, while we are arguing what SHOULD be their point/their tactics/etc, etc, they are out there, they are making the noise and they are attracting attention of the general public to the very real problems.