Forum Post: what we should be asking for, maybe someone will listen
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 5, 2011, 6:55 p.m. EST by Rob
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A living wage. A young family cannot afford to live making what is known as the minimum wage. Free secondary education, whether it be a tech school or a pretigious university. Knowledge should be free. Free access to the internet and a device to get online. Communication is a basic human right. Free electricity and water. Water is the basis for life, clean water is a key to health and well being. Electricity because it is now part of the human condition. Low cost food. Humans have to eat to survive. Not saying this would include junk, but healthy food. Free health care. No explantation needed. Access to affordable housing anywhere someone desires to live. Banks should not be allowed to charge for access to our own money. Banks must exist as security is important. A bank cannot charge more for interest on a loan than what it pays on deposits. CEOs, CFOs, and other corporate executives may not earn more than 50% more than their lowest paid employee. Senators should be appointed by their state governor as originally intended by the authors of the Constitution, thus they represent the state and can be withdrawn should they not have the interest of their constituancy at heart. All lobbying shall be abolished. Most companies have policies in place that prohibit receiving gifts beyond X amount, subject to termination if violated. Brokerage firms should be liable for losses do to negligence or fraud, with jail time served as well. Stocks are a risk, but they should be handled with proper feduciary care. Companies that outsource should be required to pay in to the social security system the entire amount for each employee that is located overseas to compensate the SSA for the loss of payment do the outsource action.these funds will not be available to non USCitizens. Just a start, but I believe a good one. Any thoughts?
These are too focused and ar not supported by all.
You should be fighting for a better democracy so that you can easily propose these to the country and let them vote on them.
That is the problem, there is zero focus. One two three four what the hell we fighting for? And a couple thousand voices scream a couple thousand different answers. Protesting just to make noise is counter productive, unless the plan is to create chaos to divert attention from something else. So many strings are being pulled could there be someone else with a nefarious plot causing this protest? Is there an agent provocatur involved?
There is constantly something wrong and corrupt going on. If this is distracting from something, it is just a coincidence
For me it is very concerning that there seems to be a concerted effort not to come up with a plan, a focal point. There is nothing more than finger pointing at the financial and government sectors of our country. If there is no cohesive message then whenever someone is interviewed b the media they sound like disorganized bafoons. Problems are pointed out but no one offers a real solutions. I offer reasonable solutions only to be told they are too focused. This is either going to become a huge party that will have a reunion every year or it is going to fall into utter chaos and violence will break out. Our country lacks leadership as does this event, we, or at least I am, plan on doing something about the country, but it seems everyone here is happy to just hang out, yell and protest without any clue as to what they expect. Slogans are nice, kind of like "I'd walk a mile for a Camel" , but in the end the product is useless.
I agree we need to do something. But that Something isn't make a list of specific demands and strong arm our government into going along with them or we will all hold our breaths until we pass out. That goes around the democratic system.
We need to fix our democracy and remove the corruption, so we can all be represented properly, and we can all vote on policies such as these.
Right now we are mostly "lefts". We need to wait for the rest of the country to join us before we make specific demands. We need to make sure most of the 99% agree with those demands.
Therein lies the problem, no one knows what the goal is. How can the rest of the 99% get on board if they do not know where the train is going. "Hey, what is it you want?" "I'm not sure, let me get back with you"
Our goal is to make the government for the people, by the people. Spread it around. People can debate on the best way to achieve that and what to do afterwards, but that is our goal
To get to the goal you must have a plan. You cannot just "wing it". "We'll get there when we get there" is not a strategy.
We first need them to all understand the goal. Then we need people of all views to join the movement. Then we can get a true consensus on what the people think the best course of action is. Right now is the time to collect the think tank. A time for unity. Then we will all come together to figure out how best to make this change.
2 weeks in and there is still not much movement in the "idea" farm. There is still so much pointing fingers in different directions and a lot of fringe people ( OK, down right strange) that this is becoming a circus. Now there are already splinters falling off with the unions coming on board ( this is not good at all since the majority of the population is staunch anti union) lose their hearts you lose their minds. Lose their minds you lose the fight.
thousand on the street
This guy here is consistently on point.
I have a thought maybe you should stop asking for more things. Honestly. The country is broke and you want more? Yes education should be free, teachers should all be unpaid, seriously, think out your ideas in your head before using your fingers......
I have thought very deeply about this. These can be paid for by dismantling the military industrial complex. shut down the illegal wars. close the overseas military bases and bring the service men and women home. increase the tax on the wealthy, not just income tax, but asset tax as well. Warren Buffett is lying to everyone regarding the taxation. He has no income, so therefore his idea will not affect him, but he does have billions in assets that are left practically untaxed.
Sounds like a lot of 'entitlements' to me. What happened to taking personal responsibility?
You know you'll be waiving most (if not all) of your rights away for such benefits.
"Those who give up some liberty for some security deserve neither." Ben Franklin.
Isn't corporate welfare a form of entitlement, something for nothing?
So, from what I can tell, is you justify YOUR entitlements cuz you believe someone else is getting entitlements? Have you ever attempted to live your life with personal responsibility? If not, I highly recommend it; it's really quite liberating.
Those entitlements they receive come from the peoples money, so that money should be returned to the people for their benefit, not for the CEO to receive a bonus.
You have no standing to tell a corp what to do with their funds. Do you know exactly where each and every dollar you pay in taxes goes & what it's used for? Do you agree to how every tax dollar is spent by the govt?
Instead of whining about how things SHOULD be, take some personal responsibility, realize the difference between a US Citizen and a State National, realize the IRS can only tax US Citizens, and realize it's time to accurately re-educate yourself.
I've written 2 books (one on Fed/State Grand Juries, another showing how we are truly under Martial Law via the Civil War because it never ended), and have plenty of other accurate info I'm willing to freely share.
Please feel free to contact me for any accurate info mentioned.
Rob, who exactly do you think is going to pay this living wage? Who is going to pay for this education, electricity, water, health care? Honestly, do you really think these things can just be free?
Taxation, level the playing field. The uber rich are working to benefit themselves. An educated society is beneficial to the world. Also colleges and universities have out paced inflation and it is mostly due to administrative costs. These can be lowered by adjusting the inflated saleries down as well as expect the professors to teach instead of relying on TAs.
Taxation actually couldn't even pay for the obligations our government already has. Regarding higher education, I think you need to examine why it is that costs are so out of control. There are many obvious parallels between the housing bubble and the higher education bubble. When the central bank pursues a policy of constant inflation, the new money has to manifest itself in the economy in the form of rising prices. Where will it manifest? All over and unevenly, for sure, but certain things provide an easy path for it to flow to. Look at all of the ways the government fueled the housing bubble -- lower lending standards, implicit bailout guarantees, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc. Now look at higher education and all of the government involvement there. Now look at health care and ask why those costs are exploding. There is a pattern here...
We can cancel the debt. Yes, inflation will take off, but that would be temporary and it will never come close to the trillions we owe. The US is resiliant and will bounce back, a temporary hiccup and growing pain. You know there is no backing of our money so it is just worthless paper that is only bound by our "good word". The rest of the world is near financial collapse as it is, so we could just speed up the inevitable.
Actually... http://mises.org/daily/1423
You're a nut bag!
Who is a nut bag?
We shouldn't be trying to imagine our best possible solutions for how the world should be and make request for unrealistic goals, do they server beer and hot dogs in your utopia cause i'd sure love to live there, it's just not a realistic goal, pushing for a perfect world is just not realistic, accomplishing small goals with a big impact and taking steps towards one is.
It is not nationalism, it is a suggestion on how to "incentivise"' a corporation from not off shoreing. Others are suggesting taxation through tarrifs, but that does not benefit the American worker. This is only a suggestion to assist the American population and those who rely on social security.
OK, take out the free stuff, but if we are going after corporations and most importantly Banks, then why not adopt those that specifically address those, if not, then what? What is the plan? Is this just a party now? Is this like Woodstock where we should just hang out and "discuss" all day long with no real goal except to fight banks, change the government, and dismantle capitalism as it is now operating, but no plan? Even the media is saying we have a growing movement, but no plan and no leadership.
taking out the free stuff i mostly agree with what you wrote about political reform, and i "hope" thats the direction this movement takes, ending the corruption.
"pushing for a perfect world is just not realistic, accomplishing small goals with a big impact and taking steps towards one is."
Talking steps towards one(a perfect world) is pushing for a perfect world.
but I think that's just a typo
indeed, creating a functioning democracy needs to happen to restore the peoples faith in their government
yes, typo, but you get what i mean, you can't have a bunch of unrealistic demands of what you think will make the world perfect, you have to fix what broke it, and as you said, a functioning democracy is where you start.
we can't heed to every demand
but a simple and clear one of campaign reform i think is something that people can rally behind and can be achieved. I don't think our politicians would ever back unless we really beat down the doors on them, but there's other ways to achieve this.
Campaign reform is a crock, look at McCain/Feingold. Obama circumvented this and was able to get a billion dollars from world wide donors. Has anyone asked why foreign countries would want to be a part of our process? Who is pulling his string?
why is campaign reform a crock??? The reason you just listed is a very good reason for campaign reform? we should not allow this type of election to take place.
Because mcain/feingold is campaign finance reform and it failed.
mcain/feingold isn't what i consider reform, it added a few rules to the system thats already in place, i'm talking about complete reform and removing business and special interest all together and have a fair level playing field in our election process so that our politicians are no longer being bought and paid for.
I'm for transparent voting over a redundant net storage system copies can be compared for consistency
that way anybody can count the results
I am in the IT field and I can attest that this is not the way to go. Heck all you have to do is point to Anonymous to know how secure networks are. The best way is still paper.
I'm in IT as well, and if done right you can have a secure system that can be protected against attacks, it's not the network infrastructure that i'm worried about being comprised, it's the people running and installing it that i worry about being compromised, that's where the real security flaws lie.
Exactly.
which is why I suggested a redundant system
one copy may be corrupted but that can be compared against the other copies
Redundancy is based in replication. Ever have a virus attack a network?
or sending raw data to several independent sources when on initially voting
Sometimes the best solution is the simplist
To me it's not that as much as it is campaign finance reform and not allowing elections to be paid for by individuals, companies, or special interest groups.
right now, the people feel their vote isn't counted
they need to know that it is
net elections would be on a leveler playing field
in virtual world, anyone can have a billboard
maybe abolish political campaigning in private media broadcast
Are you suggesting voting on line? I would hope not.
voting publicly online so an individual can go back and see how they publicly voted online
identity confirmation would be critical
But the left is opposed to any voter ID, claiming it is unConstitution. The group leans more left wing, though I myself am actually conservative leaning. The unions that are joining us are against voter ID as are the community organizers. So this voting idea is DOA.
lol saying it's DOA doesn't make it so
How will you verify identity? Any form of verification is voter I'd and it just will not fly.
there's a permanent record recorded at multiple independent servers which anyone can go over and confirm or disprove
Huh? administrative nightmare. Almost sounds like Wikipedia, self editing and not totally accurate. I say issue voter I'd card for free to all us citizens (proof required 1 time) then use the paper ballot. Even the Iraqis have a better system by dying their fingers after casting a ballot.
a lot more accurate than trusting a single source
administration is a lot simpler with electrical files
we are very comfortable with our anonymous voting system
but a responsible citizen would stand by his/her decisions
I honestly don't know the answer to what would work, i'm probably not smart enough to come up with a perfect system that would eliminate corrupt politicians and inspire politicians who are genuinely there to make this country a better place... But i am smart enough to know the system right now doesn't work for the most obvious of reasons... i know when the fix is in...
"Companies that outsource should be required to pay in to the social security system the entire amount for each employee that is located overseas to compensate the SSA for the loss of payment do the outsource action."
I'm not a nationalist
Maybe you should try to understand why companies have to outsource to survive?
people in other nations want jobs also
They can afford to produce cheaper?
living conditions in other countries may be cheaper
the people have always been there the Indians learned computer programming