Why I take the "occupy" thing seriously

[LONGTOM]

Without really taking sides I would like to answere a few of these remarks that have been stated.
Who can live on 18,000 a year?
My best friend and hunting buddy and his wife live on less than that a year.
She works part time at Martins food store even though she often puts in more than 40 hrs a week.
He works in construction as a heavy equipment operater (track hoe) and has done so for over 30 years.
Combined they make a little over 16,000 a year take home and get along pretty well they think.
They owe no money.
They have paid for their small home, his 4 trucks, her newer jeep, his JD Gator with cab & heat.
He even takes off from the first week in NOV until the second week in Jan to hunt full time.
They live off the game he kills and he kills anything and everything.
They say they really want for nothing more than what they have.
They have no kids.
Now to you & me this may not be much of a life but to the way he was raised he feels he has done well.

 
It was reported on the news that some of the protesters on wallstreet are being paid to be there by none other than George Soros, the multibillionaire!
I know he paid to have some of them brought in to protest.
A little ironic isn't it!
 

Most of these people will not work a job that is below their college level.
I know I wouldn't want to but I would until something better came along.
 

 
The young man who is putting up my new barn to replace the one that burned back in July isn't having any trouble finding jobs.
Just since he started my building he has gotten five more buildings to erect.
He has three crews working for him full time and is thinking of adding another.
The difference is he is a hustler.
He is always on the lookout for more work to do.
He is also adding on to his small house and he & his wife own and run a motel beside his house.
The man is doing good but he works at it.
 

 
The point is, the jobs are out there.
Our paper is full of help wanted ads each week.
Some better than others but jobs none the less.

 
 
A friend I went to HS with worked at a gas station for 13 years.
It is the last full service station around in our area.
Just last year he bought the station off of his boss who wanted to retire.
Yes, he is heavy in debt but he seems to be getting along and always has plenty of customers.
 
The opportunities are out there but you have to look for them and be willing to give up a few things and work at it, not just sit back and expect it all to be handed to you.
That is a big part of what has gotten us into this mess.
I don't think our founding fathers ever intended for the government to keep the people.
They were to help out but not to just give handouts.
 
I still like the old saying,  "AN HONEST DAYS WORK FOR AN HONEST DAYS PAY" !!!
 
Just my take on things.
You can disagree with me and no hard feelings.
 
 
 
LONGTOM
 

[45-70.gov]

do  any one that has said  $9  is not a living  wage  i have 2 questions


what has that got to do with  anything?....work 2 jobs  or make yourself worth  more


what  did the last job you offered ANYONE  pay?


why aren't you still offering these jobs  to all??

[Shu]

I still say 9$ an hour starting is a good wage. A single person can make it off that and still attend night courses at college. 18k$ a year is not great but it is a starting wage. I wouldn't pay an 18 -25 year old without a college education or a good trade skill more until they proved themselves.
Really think about this-
I see you just barely squeaked by high school.
Dude just gimme a job.
 Ok starting is 9$ an hour when you prove yourself we can talk about a raise.
Dude I am worth like 100k a year.
Ok what skills do you have that are worth that.
Silence
 
Of course welfare and food stamps are about 15k a year.
I would take a job starting at 9$ an hour.
I would enlist in the military.
I would not take welfare.
 
I have dug ditches, roofed houses as day labor and did enlist. It is my responsibilty to take care of my wife and kids not the states.

[jlwilliams]

  As I took a walk today, I decided to listen to what is described as a “progressive” talk radio station. The host was commenting on the doings of the local “occupy movement” and attempting to define what it is all about. After a lengthy disjointed monologue on events that have occurred locally and around the country, he summed it up by stating that the movement's intention is to erect a new paradigm and empathic society in which sharing is valued above all else. It sounded to me like he was tying a pretty little bow around communism and I don't think he had any idea what he had just said.


To add clarity to his synopsis, the host made a very specific statement. He said, “Obviously if a relative few have billions of dollars, then there can't be enough for the masses. Now this is where I would normally posit that it makes no difference how much Joe Blow has, it has no affect on me at all. But then I thought about it; it really does have a profound affect on me and that is that maybe Joe Blow will hire me and might even pay me well if I do a good job for him. That's pretty much how things work in my world. I probably won't make it in the new world, because I have no intention of sharing anything with the occupiers.

  Wow.  I mean.....Wow. "A new paradigm." It's the dawning of the Age of Aquarius?  They are still banging that tamboreen.  I hope the tool you heard on the radio didn't spill his bong water all over the sound board at the radio station.
 
  I go to go get some love beads and a headband.  Just to be ready for the new age that's a comin'.

[magooch]

I don't know where the talker came from, but if I had to guess I would say he probably came out of some academic situation.  He didn't sound like a hippy except in his silly ideas.
 
I won't be tuning into that station again too soon.  My hands start twitching and I get this terrible urge to strangle something.

[Conan The Librarian]

Being married to an academic myself, and socializing with them, I can say from experience and in all seriousness that they don't understand two things:
1) Time
2) Money
 
The example from a previous post about a talk show interviewee implying that there's a fixed amount of wealth in the world shows the typical thinking involved.
 
Check out the first paragraph of this news story and prepare to laugh when you hit the end of the second sentence:
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/07/142092366/the-nation-the-audacity-of-occupy-wall-street
 

[jimster]

The occupiers for the most part do not have what it takes to make it through life.  I know a young person right now that works 2.5 jobs...two minimum wage jobs during the week and one part time deal on weekends.  I gave this young man my car abut a year ago, it was an old car but it ran and his car was all washed up. I gave it to him for free cause I wanted to.
 
I would not give anyone anything that was staying in a tent full time to prove a point instead of trying to put forth some effort to better themselves.
 
And did I hear someone on here say there were similarities between the tea party people and these occupiers?  Only thing I see that is close is they all have heads, the occupiers don't use theirs though.

[BUGEYE]

The occupiers for the most part do not have what it takes to make it through life.  I know a young person right now that works 2.5 jobs...two minimum wage jobs during the week and one part time deal on weekends.  I gave this young man my car abut a year ago, it was an old car but it ran and his car was all washed up. I gave it to him for free cause I wanted to.
 
I would not give anyone anything that was staying in a tent full time to prove a point instead of trying to put forth some effort to better themselves.
 
And did I hear someone on here say there were similarities between the tea party people and these occupiers?  Only thing I see that is close is they all have heads, the occupiers don't use theirs though.

that is the definition of sharing.  much different than the WSoinkers who want to share your salary and your retirement.

[Conan The Librarian]

That was me about the similarity between tea and occupy. They have in common that they are both responding to the same basic stimulus: there are problems in the country that are severe enough to get people into the streets protesting. They perceive the problems differently and have different ideas about how to solve them.
 
As a wildlife analogy taken from Peter Capstick: when there's a drought the elephants go to where there is water. The rhinocerous just stands there wondering what the hell is going on until he falls over and dies. In this analogy the tea party is like the elephant and the occupiers are like the rhinocerous.

[mcwoodduck]

There is no comparison between the OWS and the Tea Party.
The Tea party wants goverment to live with in its means and to stop over spending and threatening to cut off Police, Fire, Teachers, Social Security and Medicade if they do not get Higher taxes to pay for it.  The higher taxes kill the economy providing fewere and fewer tax dollers, requiring higher and higher taxes that.....  The Tea party want the government out of the way so they have the oppertunity to become one of the 1% through superior ideas, innovation, and taking risks to provide labor, raw materials, capital, or just the superior idea.  At the rallies propper permits were obtained, and the place is generally cleaner when the Tea party leaves than when they arrive.
The OWS people, well they want Government to steal everything from the top 1% and then the fractional part of the mob comes in from Communists, anarchists, dolts, and others that have no clue as to why they are there.
They trash the cities, expect services they did not pay for, do not abide by the law, bully shop owners, and in the march they made around Oakland left a bunch of trash in their wake.  It took the warehouse guys an hour to clean up all the signs, and crap that blew into the pipe yard last week.
 
The Elephant and the Rhino would be correct if the Rhino bullied the plains game into supplying them with water and had the Zebra telling everyone about their movement and that the Elephants are the reason there is no water and they should be killed.  There is no rational argument that the OWS people have.  Weeks ago some one should have hired protestors (my guess is Sorros has to start this) to spread word that it is over and then have someone come out from wall street in a suit and say they are goi9ng to agree to all of the protestors demands.  Ta Da! the stupid go home thinking they won.

[Squib]

the OWS are (mostly) the same as welfare bum ACORN types, they have all the time and unearned money they need to vote or protest since

THEY DON'T HAVE JOBS OR RESPONSIBILITIES



also, I think that if "riot busters" showed up at a tea party rally the "peaceful assembly" wouldn't have been. 

[Conan The Librarian]

The tea partiers and occupyers are two sides of the same coin, so to speak. The tea partiers are fed up with paying too much and having too much regulation. The occupyers sense that their gravy trains are about to end and they are rebelling against the specter of losing all their free benefits (i.e., the ones the tea partiers are tired of paying for). The root causes are the same in both cases.
 
In the short run, I am not sure who will win. On the one hand, states like Wisconsin have taken signifcant steps that improved their fiscal picture. A lot of people aren't happy with it, but the state is financially sound again after being in a precarious condition for a while. On the other hand, the federal government appears not to take fiscal responsibility seriously, and seems to have no qualms about continuing to increase spending, even for frivolous projects, redundant agencies, and programs that are known not to work. Look, for example, at the "super committee" whose job it is to cut spending. They have significantly increased spending, and they can't seem to agree on even relatively minor cuts. It looks like the only cuts that will come out of it are the cuts S&P will apply to cut the US credit rating again.