What is you opinion about Occupy Wall Street ? Is it a revolution?
By jammyPaul
@jammyPaul (101)
Taiwan
October 19, 2011 7:33am CST
As action keep going, many people from different states has joined the action of occupying Wall street. It is symbol of the battle between riches and poor. I think that it indeed attract the media attention. But does it have meaningful work or influence? So far, I do not see that how government response to such action. Are they going to set up more taxes on those riches ? I don't think that any senator would be willing to pass this policy with risk of losing support from the riches. Riches are not just the people with only a lot of money. They also use their money to support their favor candidate to help them secure their wealth. I don't it would have any clear result from action. Although the imbalance between poor and riches is huge, we could not follow the way as communist do in the past---separate equal money to every person. It would make no difference on personal distribution. Yet, the government still needs to find a proper way to solve this gap between poor and riches, or at least make it small. What do you think about action ? Do it mean anything to you ?
3 responses
@Mashnn (4501)
•
19 Oct 11
America is a country that has always amazed me, the fact is that the rich people usually use the same poor people to make money and don't pay them considerable amount. Why not then be taxed more taxes and be used to improve lives of the poor men outside there. I support the movement.
@jammyPaul (101)
• Taiwan
19 Oct 11
You say about the key point--poor people work for rich people and don't get the equal amount of money. The rich people blame that poor people do not work hard to earn more money. The truth is that rich people are not willing to add the salary of poor people. How come I would be rich if I got pay for only 3000~4000 dollars a month? That is poor. And that is why the poor people are going to support this action. It is just not that fair.
@jammyPaul (101)
• Taiwan
20 Oct 11
I see your point. You described a most regular business running in United State. But the protesters are not going to blame them greedy. The most greedy companies what the called are not regular business. Most of them are international business. They don't hire the employees or hire a little number of employees in United Stated and pay them with minimum wage. They used other country's cheap labors to replace those employees. The point is that those bosses wants high profits to sustain their high luxury. The thing is much different that your description. If most companies like what you said, I believe that situation would be much different. However, some bosses and CEO just want more money to enjoy their lives. I could not blame that. But if they want to use the government's money to save their companies, then it would make taxpayers furious.
@matersfish (6306)
• United States
20 Oct 11
Well, they're different things of course, but there's also a difference in the employer-employee structure of these businesses.
Most employees working for these large corporations make great money. So that's not an issue.
I brought up my example because a lot of people protesting are not simply protesting the excesses of Wall Street; they're protesting "capitalism" on the basis that people deserve economic equality, and a guy working in a restaurant (per my example) deserves to be "equal" to his boss in both pay and treatment.
For those mega-greedy companies accepting bailout money and paying their employees huge bonus packages, I can agree with everyone. But that is far from the only thing people are protesting.
Most of these guys out in the streets want to replace capitalism with a government-enforced system of redistribution.
Following my example, if these protesters had their way, the boss--the person who started the business and runs it--would make the exact same as everyone else. So 20 employees plus 1 owner, they'd all make $333/week. According to them, this is what's fair and equal.
But wait. That's not a living wage. $333/week is only $8.32/hour. They want a minimum of $20/hour. So it gets worse.
That means per my business example, the restaurant would suddenly have to make a profit of $16,000 after expenses every single week to keep all 20 employees. Since that wouldn't happen, as profits just don't magically more than double, over half the workers would need to lose their jobs.
So if I did everything they really wanted, I would cut my pay, pay employees more, and fire 12 employees in order to pay the remaining 8 their "living wage."
What I just stated here is why a lot of businesses leave towns and cities and states and lay off countless workers. People not understanding that you can't pay people what you don't earn push up wages and have unions come in and fewer people end up employed.
Now, this obviously isn't the case with some of these Wall Street corporations. But they are really the exception and not the rule.
If the people protesting only targeted Wall Street, I'd be right with you and them both. But they're targeting capitalism as a whole, because they believe people should be guaranteed free education, free healthcare, and job security + a living wage.
@matersfish (6306)
• United States
19 Oct 11
It's really a mixed bag of people there.
Some people really want to see reforms so that the excesses of Wall Street stop.
Others, however, want to see wealth redistribution - and I'd argue that these "others" make up the majority of the movement.
They want money taken from those who have it and given to those who do not. They want a cap on how much you can earn. They want free healthcare, free education, financial security with or without a job. They want jobs they work at to start out paying at least $20/hour, even if it's washing dishes in a diner.
They want, more than anything, for "wealth" to be an idea and not something tangible.
According to their beliefs, wealth is an unlimited natural resource that's currently being held hostage by the 1%. Their aim is to take this money, disperse it amongst the masses, and then create continued wealth from... wherever they believe wealth comes from.
What is a proper way to solve the gap? Does the gap need to be solved?
So what if the rich have money? It seems to me that people should be trying to lift the poor up, not tear the rich down.
There was a time in America where people aspired to be wealthy through hard work. Now people aspire to be mediocre and their biggest wish in life is that a large, controlling government takes money away from those who have it and simply hands it to them for no other reason than that they're alive.
The majority of these evil rich people went to school for a long time, got good grades, sacrificed a lot in their lives to work, spent countless hours honing their craft, and then finally hit it big.
Attacking Wall Street is just a symbol. What they're really attacking is the idea of wealth. And this means anyone who has a lot of money will eventually be on the radar. Taking everything from Wall Street would only be the beginning in class warfare. Anyone who had more than these people would be the next target.
It does mean something to me. It means that my hard work as an American, my success, makes me somehow an evil person if I do well and my neighbor does not.
What's stopping the people protesting from becoming wealthy? Haven't they got the brains? Haven't they got the drive to study and work? Haven't they got the innovation to change the market?
If the answers there are no, no and no, then is it really the rich people's fault that they don't?
Remember, these folks don't want to lift themselves up. They want to bring the rich down and pass it all around.
Where does anyone have the right to do that? Just because they didn't succeed--or won't succeed for whatever personal reasons they have--doesn't give them the right to take from someone else.
@airkulet (2700)
• Philippines
19 Oct 11
Yes Ive recently watched it on news. And even I read it somewhere on yahoonews but never thought that it is now beginning to propagate in the world. I don't know what would become the impact but I do hope that they do something immediately and give solution so that it will not clash.
