Forum Post: The Mathematics of Occupy Wall St
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 13, 2011, 8:08 p.m. EST by Mets
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Charts breaking down our grievances. Thank you to whoever made this - I know that I'm glad to have solid numbers in graph form to fall back on.
This is a interesting post. However, I'd look more at wealth/asset distribution.
about 40% of Americans have zero assets. 1% own 40% of all assets.
When you factor out houses and pensions, it gets even more extreme.
Basically we now have a younger generation with little hope of paying down their student loans-let alone ever accumulating even some basic personal property.
The rich are idiots if they expect respect for the property rights of the rich in that situation.
why would housing and pensions not be included in assets?
why does asset distribution matter? worry about what you have and not about what other people have.
im married and have never made more than 55k a year and ive paid back all of my debt and have a decent sized retirement account. i live within my means, didn't buy into the housing hype (so i still rent). i dont care how much the richest one percent have.. why should I and why should you?
i dont see why people argue about assets, you have what you have.. if you dont have any, live with less and start accumulating.. on the other hand, if you say it is unfair that hedge fund managers lost billions of dollars yet still make millions of dollars, then i agree. but if it makes you feel any better, those millions in dollars of management fees are coming from other rich people.
if peopel stopped spending 100$ on sneakers, 200+ on a f*king purse, 500 on a telephine and 100/month for cell phone service, the rich would stop making all their money. but until the sheep stop behaving irresponsibly, the best thing you can do is to take advantage of this and buy stocks in those companies and start accumulating your own assets.
The point it that most of the assets of the bottom 80% are pensions and homes.
The important thing about pensions: Pension holders have little say in how their pensions are invested-and don't get to vote those shares. That mean the real voice in how corporations are run is really very narrow.
Why do I worry about this? Well, I don't like situations where folks can buy political influence and enrich themselves that way-and we've seen a lot of that the last few decades.
There are property rights that are pretty "natural". someone that owns a house doesn't need much protection from the government to maintain his property-he's right there looking after it. The holders of financial assets depend a lot on government to protect that property-and they ought to pay for that protection -especially when they are the ones doing well and the wages of those paying heavy taxes have been declining for decades.
How about this math - we have the numbers to stifle and replace almost any corporation we want. http://occupywallst.org/forum/dont-change-the-system-use-the-system-against-itse/
You want change? Stop giving away your money...