I found this bit pretty amusing:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tu...8-2011/the-99-
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I found this bit pretty amusing:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tu...8-2011/the-99-
"This content is unavailable from your location." This isn't the first time that I couldn't view some online video on a website from another country...I don't know why but my two guesses are: government intervention/regulation (well there was talk of some internet filter a while back LOL), or the actual site itself has barred Australian users to view it?
So I saw/read some news report of people pouring out onto the streets in Europe, as a part of this "we are the 99%" movement, and was reminded why I avoid watching the news. All I saw were a mass of people in nice clothes, waving signs around and then listening to some random person talking about how they're the 99%. Can someone break it down for me what the fuss is about? Are they upset that they're not in the "1%", that they don't get a share of other peoples money? Is it that they're out of work due to the latest financial crisis/recession? Are they fed up with corruption? Are they sick of the government bailing out irresponsible banks/companies/idiots ?? Which one is it, because there's a resounding theme of "anti-capitalism" and a lot of people seem to be protesting for the sake of protesting, so that some day in the future they can say "Yep I was there, I did something *pats self on back*"
Some of the photos from London are interesting:
Check out the guy holding the sign "unite" (watch out, big statement there), he's got one of those trendy caps, trendy glasses, a trendy scarf and a nice looking coat to top it all off. I don't own that type of clothing, but that must have something to do with me not being in the 99% so I should partake in these protests too, surely! I'd like a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses, trendy scarf, cap and matching coat, it's my right isn't it?
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/...28_634x422.jpg
Oh and this one's good too:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/...80_634x450.jpg
Proves my point that people are just going for the sake of it. Like when there's a fight at school, everyone gravitates towards it so they can have something to talk about afterwards.
Oh right, this one made me laugh
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/...65_634x422.jpg
Gotta love one of the comments on that site though: "As so many times in history a good old 'Peasants Revolt' is underway."
I think the safest answer to your question is, "All of the above."
I like how Draco assumes only the worst off of society should be allowed to protest when they feel they are living through something that isn't right. :noob: And he arrived from that conclusion from a picture of someone who looks like your regular thift store hipster (but I do love the damned if you do attitude, poor clothes = poor message, good clothes = bad protestor). Hell, I don't think Draco is understanding what he is seeing in any of these pcitures :haha:
Anyway, to kill your first conspiracy theory, dailyshow is blocked for you because of copyright and distribution rights of that company.
I loved the Occupy the World little old lady in the Daily Show clip. :heart:
Bank of America Deathwatch: Moves Risky Derivatives from Holding Company to Taxpayer-Backstopped Depository
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/bank-of-america-deathwatch-moves-risky-derivatives-from-holding-company-to-taxpayer-backstopped-depositors.html
Is anyone still wondering why there's an Occupy Wall Street movement?
There's clearly two solutions. 1: Stop using BoA. 2: Stop having the government insure BoA. :oQuote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Hi guys.
What are you doing here?
I'm here for the protest man.
Not with those Ray Ban sunglasses, trendy scarf, cap and matching coat you're not :mad:
:(
I can't get my head around those numbers. They are too big for me to comprehend :cry:
Millionaires Control 39% of Global WealthQuote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
By Robert Frank
Here’s another stat that the Occupy Wall Streeters can hoist on their placards: The world’s millionaires and billionaires now control 38.5% of the world’s wealth.
According to the latest Global Wealth Report from Credit Suisse, the 29.7 million people in the world with household net worths of $1 million (representing less than 1% of the world’s population) control about $89 trillion of the world’s wealth. That’s up from a share of 35.6% in 2010, and their wealth increased by about $20 trillion, according Credit Suisse.
The wealth of the millionaires grew 29% — about twice as fast as the wealth in the world as a whole, which now has $231 trillion in wealth.
The U.S. has been the largest wealth generator over the past 18 months, according to the report, adding $4.6 trillion to global wealth. China ranked second with $4 trillion, followed by Japan ($3.8 trillion), Brazil ($1.87 trillion) and Australia ($1.85 trillion).
There are now 84,700 people in the world worth $50 million or more – with 35,400 of them living in the U.S.. There are 29,000 people world-wide worth $100 million or more and 2,700 worth $500 million or more.
The fastest growth in the coming years will be in China, India and Brazil. China now has a million millionaires. Wealth in China and Africa is expected to grow 90%, to $39 trillion and $5.8 trillion respectively, by 2016. Wealth in India and Brazil is expected to more than double to $8.9 trillion and $9.2 trillion respectively.
Did anyone else see this and think "ok, now what are the real, normalized numbers?"Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
I did. :p Clearly, they're not talking about income but wealth. As far as I could tell, the Credit Suisse numbers were adjusted by state and nation, including other factors like COL and variations in real estate prices. (So, someone in California with a mortgage-free home that's valued at $600,000 plus a 401-K valued at $400,000 might be considered a millionaire in the US, but not by global standards....)Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
I've forgotten how I found that link while reading about "personal wealth vs income", but it wasn't from reading WSJ or that blog about the culture and economy of the wealthy.
<The WSJ blog has a calculator on the margin, one for income and one for wealth, with definitions:
Income is defined as household, adjusted gross-income including other sources of income such as social security benefits and interest on municipal bonds.
Source: Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
Net worth here is defined as total assets (including primary home, investments, cash, collectibles and cars) minus total debt. Percentiles are as of 2008.
Source: Federal Reserve Surveys of Consumer Finance
You'd have to find and follow Credit Suisse stats to see their definitions>
Also, this statement has wiggle room:
That means property ownership may not be the determining factor, since we've seen such deflation in real estate values, and millions of people "underwater" in their mortgages. Our housing bubble bursting puts a different spin on this. That California person with a $700,000 mortgage on a $600,000 house + a $400,000 401-K (that has declined in value since 2008 to $300,000) or even worse---they're now unemployed--- isn't considered a millionaire in that chart.Quote:
The wealth of the millionaires grew 29% — about twice as fast as the wealth in the world as a whole, which now has $231 trillion in wealth. The U.S. has been the largest wealth generator over the past 18 months, according to the report, adding $4.6 trillion to global wealth.
What's left are "investments" in stocks (that lost massive value but are trying to rebound), bonds, currency trades, commodities and precious metals. Over 50% of Americans aren't "invested" in these markets. Even those with a pension plan or HR managed 401-K are self-defined conservative investors, where trading risk and volatility for profit isn't what they want. Most people want a return OF their investment, enough to keep up with inflation, not a return ON their investment. Not when those trades mean a high chance of total loss. That's why pension funds and mutual fund advisors have been lambasted for engaging in really risky transactions a la Icelandic style. :sour:
People who have the most money have the most money. What a profound statement.
Can a $250,000 piece of jewelry really be considered to be adding $250,000 of global wealth?
What a profound strawman.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
If someone is willing to pay the money, why not? Should we get into the business of deciding which transactions are foolish and which are not?Quote:
Originally Posted by agamemnus
It's hard to sympathize with rich douches who have 55,000 square foot mansions, but this is an important point. A point that would get drowned out in the garden-variety anti-capitalist protest otherwise known as Occupy Wall Street.
Quote:
THE SATURDAY ESSAY | OCTOBER 22, 2011
The Wild Ride of the 1%
The once-stable incomes of America's biggest earners now fluctuate dramatically from year to year. And as go the rich, so goes much of the economy.
By ROBERT FRANK
Jacqueline Siegel paces the floor of her unfinished 7,200-square-foot ballroom. The former beauty queen, with platinum-blond hair, blue eye shadow and a white minidress, clacks along the plywood construction boards in her high heels trailed by a small entourage of helpers and staff.
"This is the grand hall," she says, opening her arms to a space the size of a concert hall and surrounded by balconies. "It will fit 500 people comfortably, probably more. The problem with our place now is that when we have parties with, like, 400 people, it gets too crowded."
The Siegels' dream home, called "Versailles," after its French inspiration, is still a work in progress. Its steel-and-wood frame rises from the tropical suburbs of Orlando, Fla., like a skeleton from the Jurassic age of real estate. Ms. Siegel shows off the future bowling alley, indoor relaxing pools, five kitchens, 23 bathrooms, 13 bedrooms, two elevators, two movie theaters (one for kids and one for adults, each modeled after a French opera theater), 20-car garage and wine cellar built for 20,000 bottles.
At 90,000 square feet, the Siegels' Versailles is believed to be the largest private home in America. (The Vanderbilt family's Biltmore house in North Carolina is bigger at 135,000 square feet, but it's now a hotel and tourist attraction). The Siegels' home is so big that they bought 10 Segways to get around—one for each of their eight children.
After touring the house, Ms. Siegel walks out to the deck, with its Olympic-size pool, future rock grotto, three hot tubs and 80-foot waterfall overlooking Lake Butler. Her eyes well up with tears.
Versailles was supposed to be done by now. The Siegels were supposed to be living their dream life—throwing charity balls and getting spa treatments downstairs after a long flight on their Gulfstream. The home was the culmination of David Siegel's Horatio Alger story, from TV repairman to chief executive and owner of America's largest time-share company, Westgate Resorts, with more than $1 billion in annual revenue and $200 million in profits.
Yet today, Versailles sits half-finished and up for sale. The privately owned Westgate Resorts was battered by the 2008 credit crunch and real-estate crash. It had about $1 billion in debt—much of it co-signed by the Siegels.
The banks that had loans on Versailles gave the Siegels an ultimatum: Either pay off the loans or sell the house. So it's now on the market for $75 million, or $100 million if the buyer wants it finished.
As she stands on her deck in the Florida sun, Ms. Siegel wipes away her tears. "Maybe it will still work out," she says. "It always does, right?"
The Siegels' Versailles may be the nation's most extravagant monument to the debt-fueled, status-crazed real-estate binge of the past decade. Like many Americans, the Siegels borrowed too much, spent too much and bet that values could only go higher. Even in the age of excess, Versailles was excessive.
Their story might seem like the exception among the rich, who, we're told, just keep getting richer. Yet episodes like the Fall of the House of Siegel are becoming increasingly common as the wealthy undergo a sweeping and little-noticed revolution. The American rich, who used to be the most stable slice of the personal economy, are now the most volatile, with escalating booms and busts.
During the past three recessions, the top 1% of earners (those making $380,000 or more in 2008) experienced the largest income shocks in percentage terms of any income group in the U.S., according to research from economists Jonathan A. Parker and Annette Vissing-Jorgensen at Northwestern University. When the economy grows, their incomes grow up to three times faster than the rest of the country's. When the economy falls, their incomes fall two or three times as much.
The super-high earners have the biggest crashes. The number of Americans making $1 million or more fell 40% between 2007 and 2009, to 236,883, while their combined incomes fell by nearly 50%—far greater than the less than 2% drop in total incomes of those making $50,000 or less, according to Internal Revenue Service figures.
Of course, the trauma of giving up a Gulfstream or a yacht can't compare with the millions of Americans who have lost their only job or home. The Siegels will make do in their current 26,000-square-foot mansion.
The incomes of the wealthy can also be "managed" through selling stock, exercising options and shifting around business losses. Yet their income volatility is roughly the same when options are excluded, and their accumulated wealth is also highly unstable.
During the 1990 and 2001 recessions, the richest 5% of Americans (measured by net worth) experienced the largest decline in their wealth, according to research from the Federal Reserve. As of 2009, the richest 20% of Americans showed the largest decline in mean wealth of any other group.
Yet the rise of the manic millionaire marks something new in the U.S. economy and will increasingly be felt by the rest of the country. With the wealthy now at the center of the political debate, from the Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York to the tax battles in Washington, portrayals of millionaires and billionaires are being shaped more by partisan ideologies than economic realities. The story of more volatile wealth may not fit neatly with either party's agenda, but it offers a clearer view of the rich—who they are, how they got there, and how they will drive our own economic futures.
Though often described as a permanent plutocracy, this elite actually moves through a revolving door of riches, with some of today's nouveau riche becoming tomorrow's fallen kings. Only 27% of America's 400 top earners have made the list more than one year since 1994, one study shows.
It wasn't always this way. For decades after World War II, the top-one-percenters were the most steady line on the income and wealth charts. They gained less during good times and lost less during contractions than the rest of America.
Suddenly, in 1982, the wealthiest broke away from the rest of the economy and formed their own virtual country. Their incomes began soaring higher during good times. The top 1% of earners more than doubled their share of national income, to 20% as of 2008. Looking at another measure, the richest 1% increased their share of wealth from just over 20% to more than 33%.
Those surges were often accompanied by mini-crashes, even though the direction over time was always up. A top 1% that had once been models of financial sobriety set off on a wild ride of economic binges.
This marked a new personality type in the history of wealth: the High-Beta Rich.
"High beta" is a term used in financial markets to describe a stock or asset that has exaggerated up and down swings with the market. Tech start-ups and casino stocks have high betas, for example. Yet studies show that today's rich have higher betas than many of the riskiest gambling stocks. Between 1947 and 1982, the beta of the top 1% was a modest 0.72, meaning that their incomes moved relatively in line with the rest of America. Between 1982 and 2007, their beta soared more than three-fold.
What created high-beta wealth? Economists aren't sure. The rise of the high-betas and the rise in inequality started at the same time, suggesting they have a common cause. Mr. Parker and Ms. Vissing-Jorgenssen cite new communication technologies that allow the best workers and products to be scaled over larger markets, thus making them more sensitive to economic changes. Others cite globalization and the rise of "winner-take-all" pay schemes.
Interviews with more than 100 people with net worths (or former net worths) of $10 million or more, and a wave of new studies on the rich, suggest a different cause: the "financialization" of wealth. Simply put, more wealth today is tied to the stock market than to broader economic growth. A larger share of today's rich make their fortunes from stock-based pay, shares in publicly traded companies, selling a business or working in finance.
Because the stock market is up to 20 times more volatile than overall economic growth, the market-based fortunes of the wealthy are now more unsteady. Fast-moving global capital is also creating more asset bubbles, which have become their own self-destructing wealth machines.
Rising debt plays a role. While the rich are often portrayed as thrifty "millionaires next door," the era of low interest rates and easy money has turned them into a leveraged elite. The household debt of the top 1% surged more than three-fold between 1989 and 2007, to $600 billion, and grew faster than their net worth.
Add to that the growing arms race in conspicuous consumption and you get big spenders who are only one crisis away from financial ruin. Edra Blixseth, the former co-owner of the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Mont., went from being a paper billionaire to filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy—liquidation—in three years. She says that she and her husband, Tim, were "living on the financial edge" even as they had two yachts, three jets and a California estate with its own 19-hole golf course and staff of 110 people.
"I felt like we were always trying to project the image of success," she says.
The fallout from the "high betas" is likely to grow. As the wealthy gain a greater share of wealth and income, they account for a growing share of spending, taxes and investments. The top 5% of earners now account for 37% of consumer outlays, according to Moody's Analytics. The top 1% of earners pay 38% of federal income taxes. The richest 1% of Americans own more than half of the country's individually held stocks, according to the Federal Reserve.
As go the high-beta rich, so goes America. Their hyper-cycles will become our own, as the consumer economy, financial markets and tax revenues experience more rapid and extreme spikes and crashes.
The spending of the rich is even wilder than their incomes. The spending volatility of the top 10% of earners is now more than 10 times the spending volatility of the bottom 80%, according to one study.
Since a high percentage of spending by the rich is discretionary—jewelry and vacations rather than toothpaste and milk—it rises and falls with their confidence and the stock market. Luxury is now the most volatile segment of the consumer economy. The average price of a Gulfstream V tumbled from $45 million to about $23 million during the latest recession, while sales volume fell by nearly half. Similar patterns show up with racehorses, yachts and multimillion-dollar vacation homes. The butler shortage of 2007 became the butler glut of 2010.
The Siegels show how the cycle of high-beta wealth plays out in the lives, values and economy of the rich. Before 2008, Mr. Siegel's company, Westgate, was earning hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the family. The Siegels poured $50 million into Versailles, which seemed reasonable at the time. When friends asked David why he wanted to build the largest home in America, he had a simple answer: "Because I can."
"I was cocky and I didn't care what the house would cost because I couldn't spend all the money I was making," Mr. Siegel says.
When Westgate couldn't roll over its debts, he had to bail out the company with hundreds of millions of dollars of his own. He fired half of his workforce of 12,000 people and sold off assets. Mr. Siegel says that today, Westgate is "highly profitable" and demand is strong, but revenues are still half their peak levels due to lack of financing.
The Siegels took their first hard look at their own lifestyle. They fired 14 of their 15 housekeepers and lost their private chef, named "chef Jeff." They pulled their kids out of private school and put them in the local public school.
Ms. Siegel has started a nonprofit called ThriftMart, a mega thrift-store that sells donated clothes—many from her own closet—and other items for $1.
She does miss one luxury—the Gulfstream. After they defaulted on the $8 million jet loan, the banks seized the plane. The Siegels can use it only occasionally, with the banks' permission.
Recently, the family boarded a commercial flight for a vacation, making for some confusion. One of the kids looked around the crowded cabin and asked, "Mom, what are all these strangers doing on our plane?"
—Adapted from "The High-Beta Rich: How the Manic Wealthy Will Take Us to the Next Boom, Bubble, and Bust," to be published Nov. 1 by Crown Business.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...631627402.html
But they're measuring net wealth, not "money". Total assets minus total debt. The largest asset for most Americans is their primary home.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Now that over half of all mortgages are underwater, many home values plummeted, and the real estate market has huge inventory 'overhang'....that translates to $Trillions of lost wealth. What was previously an asset is now a liability and nothing but mortgage debt to millions of people. A debt they can't restructure or repay, a house they can't sell. Savings is still historically low, credit card debt is still high, and student debt alone is now One Trillion Dollars. A majority of Americans can't come up with $2,000 to pay for an emergency expense, 50 million don't have health insurance, ~40% don't have a 401-K or stock/mutual fund investments, and wages have decreased 9% (back to 1979 levels). That's the picture: millions of broke Americans. Many more than the number of millionaires or billionaires.
From Dread's post:
Of course, the trauma of giving up a Gulfstream or a yacht can't compare with the millions of Americans who have lost their only job or home. The Siegels will make do in their current 26,000-square-foot mansion.Quote:
"High beta" is a term used in financial markets to describe a stock or asset that has exaggerated up and down swings with the market. Tech start-ups and casino stocks have high betas, for example. Yet studies show that today's rich have higher betas than many of the riskiest gambling stocks. Between 1947 and 1982, the beta of the top 1% was a modest 0.72, meaning that their incomes moved relatively in line with the rest of America. Between 1982 and 2007, their beta soared more than three-fold.
What created high-beta wealth? Economists aren't sure. The rise of the high-betas and the rise in inequality started at the same time, suggesting they have a common cause. Mr. Parker and Ms. Vissing-Jorgenssen cite new communication technologies that allow the best workers and products to be scaled over larger markets, thus making them more sensitive to economic changes. Others cite globalization and the rise of "winner-take-all" pay schemes.
Interviews with more than 100 people with net worths (or former net worths) of $10 million or more, and a wave of new studies on the rich, suggest a different cause: the "financialization" of wealth. Simply put, more wealth today is tied to the stock market than to broader economic growth. A larger share of today's rich make their fortunes from stock-based pay, shares in publicly traded companies, selling a business or working in finance.
This is a point that anti-capitalist protestors tend to miss a lot. When someone has money, they don't just sit on it in a giant vault and hoard it from the rest of society. It sits in investments and bank accounts, where that capital is available for others to use. Including (!!!!) the government to borrow.
Economies aren't zero-sum.
OWS, or any Occupy protest isn't zero-sum, either. For every "anti-capitalist" protestor you see, there are probably hundreds more who want investment banks separated from commercial banks, want Too Big To Fail to end, want a return to boring old banking where deposits get more than 0.04% interest...or want to end corruption between politicians and corporate special interest groups.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
That's not being "anti-capitalist", that's being "anti-crony-capitalism" and pro-democracy.
More on the top percentile:
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/atkin...-saezJEL10.pdfQuote:
Top Incomes in the Long Run of History
Pretty heavy stuff (my eyes glazed over half-way through) with interesting graphs.
So...Rockefeller Republicans?Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Do the labels matter, or the fundamental principles?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
If you met someone in Zuccotti Park that shared all your views and opinions, but was wearing a hippie hat and hadn't bathed in a week, would you still think of them as your ideological peer? Or would you "dismiss" them and walk away?
If you'd decided to take your week of vacation to hang out with Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park, and hadn't gone back to your comfy abode for a shower and shave, because you were very needed and busy trying to set up a media networking hub or something, would you want to be "dismissed" based on your five o'clock shadow or dwindling deodorant?
Dr. Paul makes a lot of sense, when he says there's not much difference between status quo R or D. Both parties have gotten us involved in wars without congressional approval, a clear goal, or a clear way out. Costing Americans trillions of dollars (which we borrow from China) and spending treasure in loss of life or long-term injuries. It's no great "principle" to come home after being deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan, with PTSD or missing limbs, or having burns across half your body, or losing genitals to IEDs, only to face an inferior Veteran's medical system. Followed by unemployment in the private sector.
I know my post doesn't quite "belong" in this thread, but I was watching a late transmission of Meet the Press when Ron Paul was interviewed. I think this is part of the OWS movement....not trusting the political elite to make decisions based on our national interest. Acting as an Empire, long after our super-power status has dwindled. Relying on arms trading or "industrial military complex" when it comes back to bite. Nation-building in other places, while home turf is ignored.
The Occupy movement is about all these things, not just Wall Street, but all inequities and injustices decided by the 1% Elite, using the other 99%, right here at home. Including our military personnel, small percentage that they are.
Do labels matter? I think they do to you, as you started a "Today's Republicans are" thread devoted explicitly to defining labels and fundamental principles. So please stop this charade that you (or Occupy Ground Zero) is somehow this etherial mass floating above partisan politics.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
If I met someone I agreed with at OWS (which I may visit today), I would ask him what he was doing at an anti-capitalist protest.
Is this some kind of candyman thing, where, if you repeat "anti-capitalist" 3 times, it becomes an anti-capitalist protest?
It is what it is.
Just like them racist TEA partiers.
edit: I also didn't realise Obama was so successful in implementing his socialism that there's only 1% of the country which is capitalist. I apologize for mocking everyone who told me Obama would make the US socialist. You were right, I would have been wrong if I had formulated an opinion.
Calling something racist is pejorative. Calling something anti-capitalist isn't. I'm not insulting the protest (which I am leaving now to visit). I'm simply stating the most consistent message coming out of it.
Obama is not a socialist. If anything, he is a hyper-capitalist. He believes the capitalist system can grow and support the population no matter how many regulations one throws at it.
Way to miss the point Dread.
So, explain to me what this "99%" what I've been seeing is all about. If the consistent message ([red] your selective bias allows you to see as proven by your completely different approach to the TEA party who were the voice of the American People after all) is anti-capitalism, how do you combine that with "We're the 99%" in any other way as: we're the 99% which are anti-capitalist?
I've read this several times and still can't make heads or tales of what you are trying to say. Maybe Dread will have better luck.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ziggy Stardust
I don't really think you are making sense here. From the start I have been critical of this message of "We are the 99%". A few people squatting in a park don't represent 99% of anyone, any more than the Tea Party represents 99% of anyone. But those who claim to represent 99% of any population hint at a great deal of arrogance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ziggy Stardust
I can imagine. I was trying to incorporate Dread's claim into the movement, which indeed leads to nonsense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch the Red
Dread says OWS is mainly an anti-capitalist movement.
I have heard, read and seen a lot of "99%" going around.
I was taking a shot how to explain this, since Dread won't.
I think you're purposely trying to misrepresent what the 99% stands for. They are not representing 99% of the population, anymore than a black man represents for his race. They are part of the 99%, I believe in their view of wealth and power. Its a reference to the wealth gap between 99% percent of the population and the top 1%. But you never intended for this thread to be about discussion of the movement, so I doubt you actually care about addressing your own bullshit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
People who claim to be the "99%" are trying to brand all of society as part of them (and thus a worthy recipient of expanded government services as part of a socialist or social-democratic Brave New World).Quote:
Originally Posted by Ziggy Stardust
It is a declaration that everyone should agree with them, when in fact not everyone does.
Given that they don't agree with each other I think they've waived the unity of demands and are "the 99%" in much the same way as someone is "a democrat".
They are part of the group that doesn't earn what the top 1% earns.
It's like very complicated and shit.
Who cares, you don't need money to influence legislators and stuff.