StanTheMan: CasperImproved: To clarify, you *act* as a 1%'er when:

1) Your personal wealth is 10x more important then your fellow man.

It is. My personal wealth takes care of me and my family better than the government can. My family is my priority over my fellow man, most definitely. I sincerely hope my fellow man feels the same way.

2) You feel it is more important to get that second house, than to feed the poor.

Well I don't really think either is important, because I don't want a second house, and the poor in the US are experiencing an obesity epidemic. But buying more homes would sure help this economy, certainly in California where I live.

3) You have a four year old vehicle that needs replaced solely because it's four years old.

I have a 2011 vehicle, so no. But I thought I was supposed to support those UAWs as a good American? Someone has to pay for those big fat bonuses they just got at Government Motors, no?

4) It's never occurred to you to volunteer to help at the church, soup kitchen, or shelter.

Conservatives donate more of their time and money than liberals. Personally, I assume my massive tax bill pays for the homeless, and I don't want to be near the unwashed masses. It's gross. I'd rather give my money to animal rescue or military-related charities.

5) If you are more concerned about your timeshare, then the current state of the economy.

I would never make such a bad investment as a timeshare, but a rising tide lifts all ships. I invest in stocks, US companies. They make money, I make money, they hire people, pay taxes, and I spend money and pay taxes, win win for me, my stocks, the economy. You know, stimulus, but without the inefficiencies and cronyism of government stealing from future prosperity to do it.

6) I could go on... but it likely would not make a difference.

True that.

I suggest you consider your place in the universe, rather then your place in the economy, and how much it hurts.

My investment strategy enriches me and my fellow man. Maybe you should consider that your good intentions add up to a hill of beans, and that just being on the "poor me, please send me a check" end of the economy doesn't help your fellow man.

In other words, be like me, not against me, and everyone wins. Don't steal from me, emulate me if you want some of the wealth. Teach a man to fish, don't give hm a fish...

Believe it or not, helping others actually feels good.

Ah, so it's all about your feeling good, not altruism, got it. Outcomes/results, notsomuch.

when arrogant assholes like you have your backs against the wall, i will cheer.

fark_your_mudder: If the police acted outside of protocol, then I absolutely support a thorough investigation and punishment for any officers/those in charge who acted inappropriately. That being said, the victim still has to own some of the blame. As I stated in an earlier post, even if the protesters were confident in their right to be there and protest, when people are repeatedly telling you that they are going to fire tear gas at you if you don't move your ass, it's in your best interest to move your ass and take it up with those in charge later, rather than standing around to be nailed in the head. Again, not saying he deserved it, just that if he would have left when asked, he couldn't have been present to be injured.

I guess I just assign blame differently. To me, a victim is a victim. And the minute we start assigning partial blame to victims, we start partially condoning abhorrent behavior.

I blame the person who made the last bad decision. Sure, Olsen could've left. But since he didn't, the officer had a lot more options to avoid what happened. He or she could have A) not fired a round at all, B) not aimed it AT the crowd and C) not aimed it at people's heads.

Anyway, you seem like a reasonable person and I think we're both firm in our beliefs, so we'll just have to agree to disagree. But here's a link to the report I heard earlier that suggests the Oakland PD may not have had the right to use tear gas AT ALL.

Link (new window)

Two random facts from the local news -- Chief Jordan went to the hospital to talk to Olsen and his family. It's unclear if he's under arrest, but it's really classy to interrogate someone with a brain injury bad enough he can't talk and not allow him an attorney.

It's also worth noting that the 97 protesters arrested on Tuesday were scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday, but haven't been yet. That's 72 hours without an opportunity to post bail.

CasperImproved: Thanks for your response. It points out that you are a nice person, but also that I failed to convey my point.

The 1% haves, for the most part had the wealth already there before they had anything to do with it recently. Because of poor taxation planning by the government (or planned), this previous wealth continued to grow leaps and bounds by having not been taxed at the same rate as the underprivileged, or even the middle class.

Addto that the tax advantages that corporations have achieved in that same period? Especially when many have moved much of their job needs overseas, and still reap their tax benefits.... Hell, Obama not long ago sent $500 million overseas by giving it to an in country company, that sent the work overseas (solar power technology apparently can be built cheaper over seas). The complaint list could go on forever.....

And you will understand the need for a current protest. The inequity of earnings, loss of jobs to overseas "cheap places to move jobs", continued devaluation of the dollar, and the seeming greed of share holders not willing to invest, but rather just short term accumulate cash.

Who get's screwed? The middle class.

A flat tax across the board would be a good start. Trim the tax laws. If everyone paid the same percentage, and there were *NO* loopholes for anyone, That would be a great start.

Cut all benefits for companies and only start giving them incentives when they achieve in country employment targets. All this crap about giving small start-ups benefits? That's crap. Most new startups fail in the first year. Why give/brag about incentives to small startups knowing that most fail in the first year? We need commitments and tax money from the big companies. If they balk? Kick them out of the country, and don't allow them business here. Meet quota targets for taxation, and for employment. If they can't? Go find another country to sell/build your wares as they can't be sold here until you meet requirements.

The time for the piggies to start opening their purse strings is now.

We are getting to the point of "let them eat cake" just not being supportable anymore.

And yes I know I am only touching what needs to actually be discussed along with hundreds of other initiatives.

But I say start big, then work on the details.

I tend to think that people on all sides of this are nice for the most part; even the officer(s) who put Olsen down. I seriously doubt that he intended to seriously injure this guy, or any guy, and I would expect that right now he is a ball of conflicting emotions about it: guilt over what happened, anger at Olsen for being in that place at that time, and fear over the possibility of losing his job and/or freedom over the incident. Put another way, I spent years debating religion for "fun", I've learned how to see other sides of a particular issue & not to take counter-arguments, no matter how poorly worded, the wrong way.

Look, I'm not a rocket scientist, nor an economist. I can't quote you a bazillion and one articles or historical references or mathematical figures to prove why this is right or that is wrong. Truth be told, I'm a college dropout & lifelong underachiever who often feels he has more intellect than he knows what to do with. I think about issues like this one a lot, and have been since long before OWS or the Tea Party or any of these protest groups took to the streets. I know what I consider to be logical, and I know what I consider to be right.

We both mentioned the tax codes, and we're almost 100% in agreement on that. It should be nothing short of a crime that top "U.S." corporations can get around billions of dollars in taxes, annually, by shifting this or that reporting office offshore. It's likewise absurd to think about the fact that middle class persons in America end up collectively spending millions (hundreds of millions?) of dollars per annum on tax preparation. When the tax laws are so cluttered and filled with loopholes that not even a career tax specialist can know everything, they're broken.

That being said, I also know that without small businesses, we'd have no large businesses in America (or anywhere, for that matter). I've worked for mom & pop organizations in the past, and I've worked for mega-corporations as well. Walmart started as a small business, so did Tandy (RadioShack), hell, even coca-cola was small-time at one point. Those small businesses need help from the government to get going, especially with the stiff (borderline unfair) competition they get from the large chains. So, on the one hand I can see that all the loopholes and stipulations in the tax laws overwhelmingly benefit the ultra-rich, but on the other I can see that those working hard at becoming the 1% of tomorrow need them to succeed. Interesting quandary.

I also cannot fault the large corporations for moving work overseas. There, they get huge tax (and other) breaks from the host nation, they get a large work force willing to work hard for lower wages and longer hours than their American counterparts, and with modern equipment and quality control practices, do not see a sharp decline in the final product. Simply put, it enables those huge corporations to provide the products that we feel we need, at lower prices. Which in turn enables them to make even more money which they can use to beat American tax laws while lobbying our politicians to keep the status quo.

Forcing large corporations to keep jobs stateside won't work, and the American public wouldn't stand for it when they found out that it would drive consumer pricing up. And that, my friend, is where I believe the root of this problem lies--we are all greedy bastards.

I sell cellular phones and plans for a living (or did, until recently...now one of the nameless, faceless unemployed). Smartphones became the thing while I worked in the industry, and do you know what one of our selling lines focused on for people thinking of moving up to one? All the apps you can get to save money--finding the cheapest gas station close to your location, comparison shopping the competition while you're standing in a store, etc. And of course, the saving money translated to the devices themselves; I can't tell you how many times I had a customer walk up and quote me a price from a competitor on one of our handsets. Not saying you or anyone in particular, but in general, Americans don't really care what it takes to make their products cheap, they just want them cheap. Which, again, tilts the marketplace heavily into the favor of global supercorporations who can negotiate better supply deals, move their factories (or their suppliers) overseas, and provide a cheaper, quality product.

If you take away the tax breaks that small businesses get, you drive even more of them out of business, which raises unemployment. If you place rules & regulations like you mentioned on the large companies, you take a big ol' chunk out of the whole concept of capitalism and either drive them away or drive up the final costs to consumers, more of whom are out of work because the small businesses are failing more rapidly (and, incidentally, raise prices even more because less competition invariably equals higher prices from the survivors--basic supply & demand).

I truly wish it were as easy a fix as updating the tax codes and requiring "American" businesses to keep jobs in America, but it isn't that simple. We, as a nation, need to accept the fact that in order to keep jobs American, we need to pay more in the stores. In order to keep unemployment down, we need to keep taxes reasonable on people most of us see as "rich"--the small business owners. We need to learn to make due with a little bit less for a little bit longer, and we probably need to pay higher taxes in order to fund the tax breaks for businesses which do provide jobs in this nation and keep our economy afloat.

As an aside, what happens to the rest of the world if we actually manage to pull this off? Right now, many of these evil corporations (and we all, as an extension) are creating middle classes in developing nations which have never had them. Global trade is among the stimuli towards freedom and democracy in many third world nations, and our dollars are helping to fund this. I seem to recall reading once that the second-most recognized English word in the world (behind "hello") was "coca-cola".

It's remarkably easy to say that the 1% are to blame for everything that's wrong in this nation, but in reality it's every one of us. Call me a pessimist, but I don't think we're ready to accept that, let alone do the things necessary to fix it.

Wow, that was way longer than I meant it to be.

Here, son. I want you to put on this uniform. Go over there and shoot a bunch of people who have no argument with you. Make sure you don't leave anyone standing. Why? Well, son, it's like this. We have financial and political interests there. Without that squat of land to call our own, we can't choke out our real (perceived) enemies or garner all this insane money for military contractors we are beholden to.

But, don't worry. When you get back home, you'll get a hero's welcome (right in the farking face) and we'll take care of your urgent medical needs as they arise. After all, you're fighting for our 'freedom' and it's the least we can do.

Trust me.

halfof33:

Yeah. It has been confirmed that "ihatethematinecorps" was his website.

Citation please.

halfof33: 2wolves: Citation please.

Link (new window)

My suggestion is that you use the WayBack machine to confirm the information yourself.

And please don't bother angrily attacking me for providing this information. We went through that yesterday.

What do you mean "we?"

DeathByGeekSquad: If we're not considering things outside the situation, why does it matter that the individual was a veteran?

It doesn't.

My point in that particular post was that it does not in any way tarnish his service to this country if he exercised his rights to free speech once he was discharged.

grimnir: Were OWS demonstrators organizing the same type of events, the response would likely be similar. Take that how you will.

The tea party was financially propped up by big corporations. It is pretty easy to assemble "concerts" with permits when big money pays for it all.

And I believe those same corps bought organizer leaders as well.

Harv72b: DeathByGeekSquad: If we're not considering things outside the situation, why does it matter that the individual was a veteran?

It doesn't.

My point in that particular post was that it does not in any way tarnish his service to this country if he exercised his rights to free speech once he was discharged.

Nah, its totally cool, every ex-marine-cocaine using-jew hating-guy who trashes the men and women who fought beside him deserves to have his freedom of speech protected and deserves to be held up as a hero because he forgot to duck.

This one really came back to bite the left in the ass.

mgshamster: archichris: Harv72b: DeathByGeekSquad: If we're not considering things outside the situation, why does it matter that the individual was a veteran?

It doesn't.

My point in that particular post was that it does not in any way tarnish his service to this country if he exercised his rights to free speech once he was discharged.

Nah, its totally cool, every ex-marine-cocaine using-jew hating-guy who trashes the men and women who fought beside him deserves to have his freedom of speech protected and deserves to be held up as a hero because he forgot to duck.

This one really came back to bite the left in the ass.

He was using jews? And how does one be a marine-cocaine, much less leave the marine-cocaines in order to be an ex-marine-cocaine?

You left out that he hates guys, which obviously makes him heterosexual and an affront to God.
/Or something.

SkinnyHead: luckyeddie: That accusation was made in the other thread - probably by you - many times. Strange that no evidence of that happening was produced. Perhaps the cops haven't had time to fabricate it yet.

Eye witnesses claim that they saw protesters throwing rocks and bottles at the police. Isn't that evidence right there?

So... you got nothin. Thanks.

mgshamster:

I read that as "guy who hates," which might be the only part of that sentence which makes sense. Especially in light of the website he used to own: IHateTheMarineCorps. So perhaps he is (or was) a hating-guy.

Are there any citations for the cocaine use and the website ownership? Not that it would matter, but a Google search turned up anonymous comments on a second tier website as the only hit.

I saw a refutation posted by Karl Denninger even.