Talk:Occupy Wall Street

Is the "shockingly" in the article supposed to be sarcastic? Because if you have spent any time around right-wing nuts, you know they play the "anti-semite" card probably 100 times the number of times the left plays the race card. In fact, probably the most common neocon/Zionist/talibangelical arguement against those who are winning a debate is "you are a jew hating commie heathen". Grykeham (talk) 02:00, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

We'll leave it up to interpretation. Osaka Sun (talk) 18:21, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

They've been cherry-picking pictures of LaRouchies for quite some time. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:46, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Alternet article

Is this all statistically correct?

I would love to add it in. Osaka Sun (talk) 05:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The statistics are probably accurate, as far as statistics can be, but I would put this particular use of them under the header of lies, damned lies, and statistics. What is not mentioned is that most of what is discussed there is measured in dollars, and with increasing deregulation that money is being traded around using an increasingly sophisticated array of financial devices (e.g., futures contracts, credit-default swaps), so the rich are probably not taking home as much as it might appear here. ListenerX^TalkerX 05:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

What are you talking about LX? The trade in cash-derivatives is part of what is causing the increase in wealth for the already wealthy. You can take money, trade it for money, sell it for profit and claim the money as capital gains tax instead of income tax, which is how you normally would be taxed for bank interest. - π 05:53, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It is just money, that is what I am talking about. Since 1971, money has been only indirectly related to anything tangible. ListenerX^TalkerX 06:07, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I know how it works, I used to teach a course in modelling cash derivatives, but I can't see how your claim that the rich are probably not taking home as much as it might appear here has anything to do with it. Making money at the world's largest casino is still money made. - π 06:13, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

In terms of dollars, the statistics are correct; but those dollars are meaning less and less in terms of things one can actually put one's hands on. ListenerX^TalkerX 06:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

But they are still dollars, you can sell them and have the money. I am at a loss on how you think by trading cash derivatives for a living you somehow means you appear to have more income then you actually do. The statistics are taken from things like the IRS income reports. Are people over declaring their income because they trade in credit-swaps? - π 06:36, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I only skimmed, mostly looking at the charts, but they seem to be more or less in line with what I've seen the academic literature.

"I am at a loss on how you think by trading cash derivatives for a living you somehow means you appear to have more income then you actually do." They are obviously not truly "adjusted" for inflation, because of the government conspiracy. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 06:45, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

(EC) Obviously you misread my statement. I was not saying that a rich person who appears to be taking home X dollars is in fact taking home Y < X dollars. I was saying that X dollars today, even inflation-adjusted, is not representative of the same thing as X dollars many years ago, due to the change in monetary systems and the new financial devices. ListenerX^TalkerX 06:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

So basically what you are saying, even adjusting for inflation, it is now easier to earn X? Is that the problem? That people who were once earning Y are now earning X>Y, but the people who were earning A are still earning A or even relative to their production B<A. - π 06:53, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Roughly, yes. ListenerX^TalkerX 07:00, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Wait, so because it's easier to make money by dumping wads of dough into derivatives, this is lying with statistics? What?? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 07:19, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The lie, as I see it, is that while the statistics are correct in terms of dollars and cents, it is not the dollars and cents that bother the Wall Street protesters, but certain things that those dollars and cents will buy (food, housing, etc.). If you were to re-formulate the statistics in those terms, I doubt the graphs and pie-charts would look quite the same. ListenerX^TalkerX 07:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I like how you parrot out the line "lies, damned lies, and statistics" and then want to rework the numbers to show something different. That metric is unreliable because for example technological improvements have made certain things easier to own, tvs, electrical goods, excreta and other things more expensive, e.g, medical care. - π 23:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

That was actually what I meant, but my point was that it makes the money metric unreliable, rather than the metrics of food/housing/etc. ListenerX^TalkerX 05:37, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not the absolute amount: it's the proportions:

“”¶ The share of after-tax household income for the top 1 percent of the population more than doubled, climbing to 17 percent in 2007 from nearly 8 percent in 1979. ¶ The most affluent fifth of the population received 53 percent of after-tax household income in 2007, up from 43 percent in 1979. In other words, the after-tax income of the most affluent fifth exceeded the income of the other four-fifths of the population. ¶ People in the lowest fifth of the population received about 5 percent of after-tax household income in 2007, down from 7 percent in 1979. ¶ People in the middle three-fifths of the population saw their shares of after-tax income decline by 2 to 3 percentage points from 1979 to 2007.

—source

Scream!! (talk) 07:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

People have been spewing this same bullshit since 1848 at least (back then, it was phrased as "the bourgeoisie are centralizing the means of production"). During most of that time, a large number of those people have been claiming that the system to which they attribute the inequities is on the edge of collapse. They have, in essence, made more apocalyptic predictions than all Christian pseudo-prophets combined. But — surprise, surprise! — the sun has not gone out yet. ListenerX^TalkerX 07:19, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Except just that one time in 1929. - π 23:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Come on: "Director pay at #FTSE 100 firms rose 49% last year, taking their average earnings near to £2.7m - Incomes Data Services" BBC. Don't try to tell me that's in any way right when the 99% are having to "belt tighten". Scream!! (talk) 23:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

BTW, Lx, no-one's saying it's on the edge of collapse: it's just totally UNFAIR that so small a number get the benefit of the increased wealth while the rest of us suffer. I've no doubt it could carry on that way for ever, but would it be right? Scream!! (talk) 23:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Lx, if it was all fine as you think it is there'd be no reason for these protests.

This will either end in three ways: a) reasonable centre-left reforms that every Western nation excluding the US has, b) another recession (possibly worse than 1929) or c) mass civil unrest. We're already on our way to the third. Osaka Sun (talk) 05:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

...no one's saying it's on the edge of collapse... Tell that to the pinkos who wet their pants with excitement and start screaming, "THE REVOLUTION IS COME!" every time somebody hoists a picket sign.

If the problems in question were peculiar to the U.S., I submit that the protests would also be peculiar to the U.S.; yet we see protests of this sort all over the world. The problem, of course, is this: the economy is sluggish and there are not enough jobs to go around. As always happens in such situations, radicals are trying to piggyback on popular discontent to remake the world in their image. These people believe that "reasonable reforms" is code for "no action at all;" we see what happened the last time people paid serious attention to those blockheads. ListenerX^TalkerX 05:37, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Wow. Did you just Godwin OWS? And no, multiple surveys have shown that the protestors do not want to abolish capitalism. They have every right to ask why they don't have a public health care system, why unions are being cracked down everywhere, and why the highest quintile of earners are paying less and less taxes while "job creation" (the supposed intention of these policies since the 80s) have ground to a halt.

If you're looking for utopian radicals, the police using pepperspray on a bunch of kids sitting down on a sidewalk would be a good start. Osaka Sun (talk) 05:58, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

You appear to be forgetting that there were two countries primarily responsible for starting World War II. Both were run by radicals who had come to power by piggybacking on popular discontent (or, as Orwell put it, enlisting the Low to overthrow the High).

Similarly, although the Occupy Wall Street protesters are not generally in favor of abolishing capitalism (although they have famously come up short about just what they do want out of the government), and would probably be satisfied with some moderate measures like single-payer health care and financial reform and more education funding, their ringleaders and hard core are the same old pinko crew.

If you're looking for utopian radicals, the police... Right; just like Miss Piggy stole the nice man's purse. ListenerX^TalkerX 07:21, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Any more videos we should put in?

Here's a Pacman clip from the Guardian.

Are there any other ones you've seen as well? Osaka Sun (talk) 06:05, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Pooping on cars?

http://waznmentobe.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/poop-car.jpg^{— Unsigned, by: 24.189.254.24 / talk / contribs}

Criticisms

Yeah, the entire "Criticisms" section is bullshit. I am fairly cut so can't fix it with any coherency right now but mark my words, I am gutting that shit. I am extremely critical of the OWS movement but this section reads as if: "Critical of OWS? You are already wrong". Ace^Moderator 08:38, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

If this is the French Revolution

Can I be Napoleon? I suppose this makes Obama Louis XVI (moderately in favor of reforms but eventually overthrown by the radicals), Barney Frank Turgot (proposed solutions, but watered down by Congress the Parlement), Micah White Abbey Sieyes (author of "What is the third estate), Mitt Romney Talleyrand (flip flopper), and Bernie Sanders Necker. I'm sorry but I'm studying this in class and I couldn't resist. Anyways who volunteers to be Robespierre? You'll get to rule everything soon enough. Mr. Anon (talk) 03:22, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I want to make a rule that all French Revolution allegories are banned until the speaker has read Carlyle's history.--^talk 03:25, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

That's an old source. Better to consult more recently written historiography. Mr. Anon (talk) 03:53, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Um.--^talk 04:21, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Can we also ban Maginot Line allegories? Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:22, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

+1 Blue (is useful) 04:37, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

We are the 53%

"Of course, some of the 53%-ers' assertions are actually evidence that those individuals are in denial about their own place in America and the role of the government in their lives." Can anyone give an example of such an assertion? Or is this just an exercise is attacking strawman?

There were dozens of 53%-ers in the military, to start. Osaka Sun (talk) 04:07, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

"There were dozens of 53%-ers in the military, to start." is an example of an assertion that is evidence that those individuals are in denial? Fdof (talk)

The "53%" countermovement was a Tea Party reaction to OWS, and claimed that the rich in the US are already paying too much taxes/the federal government has become overbloated under Obama (and, as latest data proves, is ironic). Unless the Tumblr users who posted them are Reaganite neocons, it would imply that their goal is to reduce all state spending, including the Armed Forces.

Take of it what you will. Osaka Sun (talk) 05:51, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Lead

Saying that "wall street" is responsible for the recession is extremely simplistic.Fdof (talk) 22:21, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

But pretty accurate. Bad Faith (talk) 22:22, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Move?

I think this could be moved, either to Occupy or Occupy movement, to take in the various Occupy spinoff groups elsewhere. We should deffo have something about the Indignados in Spain. Sophie^Wilder 12:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

They've also done a lot for the relief efforts for Hurricane Sandy. When I was working down there they were a ubiquitous sight.±KnightOfTL;DR^{free guybrush threepwood! no new taxes! down with porcelain!} 13:34, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Al Jazeera doc described as 'pretty good'

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdVODFombco)... can't be shown in my country? why must the poster hate the freedomz of baby jebus? 184.78.166.161 (talk) 04:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

US income distribution

"The U.S.'s income distribution, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is nearing the level seen in ancient regime France around that time, and even worse than those seen in the Roman Empire."

I removed the bit around ancient regime France and Roman Empire because I think this not a useful comparison. Replaced with "Instead The U.S.'s income distribution, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is more unequal than most OECD countries."

Not too happy with the wording but cbf. Kauri0.o (talk) 03:02, 19 January 2021 (UTC)