Forum Post: Not really the 99%
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 3, 2011, 8:56 p.m. EST by dadvocate
(8)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Just so we are all aware: The 99th percentile in income corresponds to around $402,000 per year. I would hazard a guess that most of the people who have enough spare time to sit around and protest instead of get on with working hard to improve their lives make far less than this, I would say they are more like the bottom 45%.
We need to change the law that defines a corporation. If we are to define a corporation as we do people we need to hold them to the same standards of conduct. They can no longer be singularly created for generating a profit. They must be responsible for their cost to society. There should be a means by which corporations that, for example, mine the mountains of North Idaho should not be allowed to move all their money into other entities and then declare bankruptcy and leave the EPA to spend BILLIONS cleaning it up.
Anybody complaining about being "held down" by capitalism is looking for a hand out. There is all the opportunity you can imagine out there, just waiting to be harvested. If you think that a free economy holds you down, you are just not smart enough, just not industrious enough to really make something of yourself.
Oh, what's that, you say? You want to spend your life mastering watercolor painting, and while you don't ever plan to sell the paintings, you feel you deserve to be compensated for your efforts just as someone like a stonemason or a carpenter would be compensated? Well, in that case, carry on.
WELL SAID!
amen brother
The 99/1 doesn't refer to income percentiles. It refers to statistics like this one: "The economic top one percent of the population now owns over 70% of all financial assets, an all time record" and "400 people have more wealth than 155 million people combined"
As for "having spare time to sit around and protest" - wow. I would hope all Americans regardless of their income bracket are making time to get involved in their government.
Ill post the same reply as below: I don't want to pretend to know a lot on this subject it is far out of my realm, it just bugs me when people complain complain complain. I am just a doctor (poor compared my fellow Ivy League graduates). And in terms of income I too am the 99%, just like all those protesters. That being said, I work my ass off and I love my life. Things are great. Being the 99% in America (Ill admit I am now in Canada) isn't that bad. Pull up your bootstrings and look around (at other countries for example).
Like you said though... get involved in your Gov't great, but do it in a constructive matter, write letters, get involved in politics etc. Don't block streets, camp out with signs etc. I understand the point of doing all that, you make a scene and get attention and "rally the troops" but it comes off as tacky. What kind of message does it send to the kids? Kick and scream and yell to try and get what you want?
sorry, i do know exactly what feudalism is. You trying to talk about its main features and then say that other features of feudalism are not the feudalism is silly. The dominant or single most relevant point is land ownership, certainly, but there are other features of feudalism, one of which is most certainly taxes, and to the point, by definition taxation as such begins in feudal systems. It is remarkably futile and silly to argue with me. It would be wiser to stop and take your opportunity to chat with the DJIN. capitalism is ALSO a system which has NEVER existed.
the core issues; 1. Corporate Personhood. 2. Caste Warfare; they started it. 3. Its legal to lie to the USA public. 4. They are OUR airwaves. They should be used for WETHEPEOPLE not leased by the government to corporations. Put Local colleges in charge of all the media. Arrest and seize all mass media devices and then give those devices straight out to the local colleges, including the land they sit on. We need education public media; not legalized lying and propaganda wars against the people. 5. Education reform. Everyones being kept stupid and ignorant on purpose in school and repugnicons want to argue about how to pay or punish teachers. We need child centered education reform, not a con scam to privatize education and thus score all our children for corporate zombotification. 6. Free market system. Not slave market system. Not caste market system. Not Caste warfare market system. Not rigged Casino. Not making something off of nothing and making bubbles to grease a gravy train either. Free market system. We must have one of those. Its time to have one of those. We have NEVER YET had one of those. 7. Realistic regulation of the government to regulate and control corporations so that what they do is fair and just and ethical and under control instead of a parade of unleashed godzillas turning the masses into to toe jam. 8. Real and direct representation, including no more lobbying, and including an evolutionary use of the internet with organized forums and wikis replacing the old style of congressional/ mayoral office.
"Right, but that still doesn't preclude taxation, which is in fact necessary to regulate the value of money"
nope. taxation period of any kind is merely and only a means to the end of creating a caste system. And even deeper, taxation dynamically entropizes a system, so its not only not necessary to regulate money, its the single largest entropic contributor to the system. The ONLY reason why we pay taxes is thats the feudal system; the idea that we pay anything remotely approaching the same thing or fair to what the rich pay is preposterous. The whole point of taxes is to distribute wealth from the poor to the rich. period.
gawdoftruth (Santa Barbara, CA) 1 points 0 seconds ago
"the end goal product should be that every small community takes care of its own. Any federal system is a problem definition of something requiring more serious attention to solve. long term social programs managed by nation sized meta entities is a disaster not only socially and civilly but to the people who get third rate borg social services. A well functioning system does not need a welfare system, it only has a highly evolved net which catches people and only involves less than one percent of the population at any given time, not punishing but rehabing and educating folks. Until such time as that end goal is achieved, no hand outs is a paradox... you have to spend time and thus money in order to fix the problems till their fixed past needing time or money."
"Why aren't u in office???"
aspergers syndrome. you want to run,? i can ghost write your platform? :)
↥
"Understood we need more ideas then politicians anyway. The fixes are so simple but so difficult to get implemented."
↧ gawdoftruth (Santa Barbara, CA) 1 points 0 seconds ago
i'm running for chief of staff. bit early to announce yet since i have no clue whos running on my ticket for president?
http://forums.keller2012.com/index.php i created this forum org structure. but scott keller turned out to be an idiot.
your still missing the point. your playing with math. your right. its something more like the 99.99 percent. There are 4000 or 100,000 persons depending on wether we are talking the inner or outer circle of oligarchs keeping the rest of us trapped in a "capitalism" Hotel California con scam. While you can climb upward from the bottom there are increasingly more powerful glass cielings. And on fact one of the effects of the recent bush era caste war changes is that the people who imagined themselves to be in the inside are amongst those that are losing it all. The real question is not how YOU define it. The real question is; as a system org structure, how does it operate? Thats 100 thousand peeps keeping 3 million peeps as cattle.
I see your point, it is a small group with all the power but lets be honest, if we let the "Average American" make important financial decisions, the United States would never have risen to the nation that it has become. The "average American" doesn't understand the complexities that are involved in these kinds of decisions. I would like to consider myself slightly above average having an Ivy League education and even I am not so arrogant as to pretend to understand the minutia involved in major corporate decision making. These protesters and theorists love to pretend that everything is simple in order to make the mistakes that corporations have made look stupid. If they were the ones making the decisions with the same responsibilities and information I doubt if they would do a better job. Hindsight is always 20/20!
The complexities of derivatives and other esoteric financial products are what caused some of the problems being discussed. If financial transactions are too complex to be easily understood & audited, then they shouldn't be taking place at all. I read somewhere about trades that come so fast & are so complex that even the accounting firms hired to track them cannot do so. Something is wrong with that picture.
Also - many are equating Wall Street with corporations when they criticize the "complaints" of the protestors. Wall Street & banks do not equal companies like Apple, McDonald's, Starbucks etc. I understand the concept of a publicly traded corporation - but corporate business decisions are separate and apart from the complaints about Wall Street trading practices.
Wouldn't you agree the NY Attorney General has an understanding of these issues? He's investigating BOA & other financial firms.
http://www.rttnews.com/Content/BreakingNews.aspx?Id=1664108
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/business/17bank.html
If only life were that simple....but wait we wouldn't have Iphones, or Internet or anything if we decided that things shouldn't exist if they are complicated.
See? lol Iphones & derivatives are two entirely different animals! Don't conflate consumer products with financial sleight-of-hand.
er. "average" joe is only that bad because hes been dumble downed on purpose. its a catch 22. I agree, we need to address the full complexity of it all and thats what i am here doing in and as an example. I don't think this is about claiming moral responsibility via the "we would have made a better decision" road. I think this is about everyone learning the important lessons so humanity can evolve.
I don't want to pretend to know a lot on this subject it is far out of my realm, it just bugs me when people complain complain complain. I am just a doctor (poor compared my fellow Ivy League graduates). And in terms of income I too am the 99%, just like all those protesters. That being said, I work my ass off and I love my life. Things are great. Being the 99% in America (Ill admit I am now in Canada) isn't that bad. Pull up your bootstrings and look around (at other countries for example), you'll see that it ain't so bad!
it bugs me too because i am a work work work guy. I wish the complainers would help with the work. Complaining about whats wrong ain't the same as building something thats the alternative and right.
gawdoftruth - you sound like a smart person - I have to admit your responses are all logical and thought provoking. Having gone to Brown (activism/hypocrisy central) I just get so frustrated with all the "activism" which comes off as complaining and childish at times. I feel there is a right and a wrong way to do things. I recognize that sometimes you have to kick your feet yelling and screaming to get enough attention to get things going, but I just feel like there has to be a more mature and sophisticated way to get change. Protests just bug me..they seem so unproductive. Not to say that nothing will come of this effort, but I just think it could be done differently.
i agree. everything is out of order. they need a wiki and 1001 sub forums and until they have content over and for and inside of that they have nothing to march over or with. they are out avoiding the work people like me have put in front of them bitching instead of doing open source research and direct democracy. My way gives a paradigm shift centered revolution via a viral internet information paradigm shift. their way is yesterdays news six months from now. They are over all wasting everyones time- most of all their own. They should have joined forces with me, instead of going off to protest. then they would be armed as protestors and this would be a very different game.