Occupy Wall Street

But are they inspecting and confiscating only what they deem to a fairly reasonable threat or are they are confiscating everything with a greater than .001% chance of causing a fire hazard?. Surely not everything is in violation.

 

Your timeline is missing a few things. OWS has been in Zuccotti Park since around September 23rd, with ever increasing numbers off full-time occupiers since then. Generators were in place for the media arm of the movement starting around the beginning of October. While the tent photograph is from later in October, that's not an accurate representation of when it was widely known that generators were in place.

Currently, they're trying to make do with bicycle generators, but obviously they are no substitute for the real thing.

 

But you said:

Anyway, according to your own link (the article is now hosted here), the FDNY named potential fire hazards, and specifically cited gasoline and flammable liquids, the type used with generators since the beginning of October in full view of everyone, as being the problem that triggered the FDNY's active response and the eventual confiscations. Gas was clearly used on site before the tents went up last week. That information is pertinent to your timeline whether you like it or not.

And, as I've mentioned previously, getting permits is a nod to the existing power structure, not something I consider absolutely necessary. I see no evidence the occupiers were in real, actual danger (divorcing the question from the permit issue), so it's not something I see as so absolute to the discussion.

 

Bloody hell. This is splitting hairs. Move the fuck on...

 

Some interesting stats on Taxpayers:

FWIW.

 

KirStang. I dont think anyone disputes the fact that the top earners pay the highest rate and contribute the greatest amount of all taxpayers. That is the nature of a progressive tax system.

The issue is that the top earners are also receiving a signficantly larger slice of the total income pie...earning more and more while those in the middle have seen their wages stagnate or grow marginally, at best.

From the CBO report I posted earlier:

Shares of income after transfer and federal taxes, 1979 and 2007:


The top one percent have seen their share of total income double, while all other tax payers have seen their share decrease. It is correct, as your link noted, that the top one percent earn 16.9 percent of adjusted income....up from under 8% just 30 years ago.

Or in different terms:


For the one percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007. For the 60 percent of the population in the middle of the income scale (the 21st through 80th percentiles), the growth in average real after-tax household income was just under 40 percent.

The top one percent made $165,000 or more in 1979; that jumped to $347,000 or more in 2007. On the other end of the spectrum, those in the lowest bracket went from $12,823 in 1979 to $14,851 in 2007.

Can you see the growing income inequality?

Where's that trickle down, after the Reagan tax cuts for the wealthy in the 80s and the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in o1 and o3, that conservatives promised?

 

And somehow, unfairly burdened as they are, they still managed to double their income and gain a larger slice of the economic pie. Now unless the pie lies or someone can figure out a way to bring in a second, unsliced, freshly baked pie.....



Who here actually believes that the top 1% doesn't covet the 7% of financial wealth the the bottom 80% still has?

If the widening slice of the top 1% ends, where does it end?

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

 

I saw this sign on-line and had to laugh.

 

You know, that's some pretty poignant data, but I'm reasoning through it, and I think there are a couple of critical flaws:

1.) The chart somewhat assumes, or implies, that the middle class individuals in 1979 remained middle class in 2007. I'd imagine, or hope to imagine, that the middle quintiles from 1979 ended up int he upper quintile in 2007. Families are always rising and falling in America, right?

2.) The chart doesn't really reflect how much of that income is as a result of the preferential treatment given to Capital Gains Tax (and other programs which encourage "societally beneficial" spending, such as investing.)

3.) Successful people make more money, hence, even after they pay their 35%, they'll still end up with more money. Nothing really wrong with that, is there?

I'm just thinking out loud here.

 

All valid points, most of which are addressed in the CBO report - http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12485

If lowering the rate at the top to 35% (from 39%) had resulted in economic growth, a stronger case could be made for maintaining the current rate rather than reverting to the pre-2000 rate. But there was no real economic growth or jobs created in any significant number and the result was several $trillion contribution to the debt (on top of the contributions from the Reagan tax cuts for the top earners).

But consider the fact that the only earners seeing their slice of pie increase over the last 30 years have been the top one percent. How does that contribute to economic growth and prosperity?

I am not suggesting that the slices of the pie be equal, but rather that the middle class needs to see something more than marginal income growth (beyond just the cost of living) to have a vibrant economy.

 

He reminded me of UsTwo.

 

The increased size of the slice of pie is irrelevant when you consider that the pie itself has grown substantially over the past 30 years.

What matters, is the fact whether the slices of pie the middle and working classes now have are bigger in their absolute value than they were 30 years ago. If it is the case, that is economic growth.

 

The fact that the rich are naturally in a better position to accumulate more wealth is not at issue here. It may look like the issue sometimes, given all the pie charts and tables, but the tables fail to include the reasons for the disparity in wealth we are discussing. They fail to shed light on the incredibly cozy relationship which has developed between Wall St and the government.

At issue is the substantial economic advantages which have been leveraged by already advantaged corporate agents and
Legislated through Congress or,
Bullied through the Supreme Court or,
Snuck in and out of the Oval Office.

Campaign financing is an undiscriminating john that has no issue with buying state and local
whores either.
The result is government sponsored subsidies on suspicious commodities,
tax breaks, incentives and loopholes (often given where there's been no offsetting advantage,
mass deregulation and the abolition of Congressional oversight.

The issue is not about naturally occurring wealth or wealth advantages.

I don't see why this is so difficult for some to grasp. Do you really want your government in bed with business this way?

--- merged: Nov 2, 2011 7:24 AM ---

Why aren't we seeing that growth manifest into job creation then?

For purposes related to this discussion, the percentage of wealth held by the top 1% has grown larger. The overall size of the pie is irrelevant in this context as it is always 100%.

 

Economic growth is what it is. It concerns the overall pie size, not the context of a discussion.

Regardless, when it comes to your question above, my response is "likely due to compounded inflation rates and increased standard wages/salaries of US employees over the past 3 decades (which may not have happened as quickly as people would like them to have happened, but they nevertheless did)". Of course there's also the issue whether the average wage/salary has increased proportionally to the overall increase in size of the pie.

When the average job costs more to the employer and money is worth less, even economic growth cannot produce jobs.

Mind you, this is not a statement against or for OWS, or on the current economic issues the US faces.

 

I would go even further and ask why we haven't seen true wage increases. Instead of paying people more they "Outsource" and leave only lower paying service jobs. It's a basic reason why the 1%'s portion has grown. Lack of good wages.

I would even argue that the rich are causing themselves to pay higher taxes by eroding the work force and manufacturing tax bases we need in this nation to have a better tax structure.

If I sit as CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation and I pay 35% in taxes, the corporation pays 35% with no deductions/write offs and next year if I cut jobs, outsource and close factories then my pay and the corporation's earnings go up 100% and I still pay 35% and the corporation gets write offs and deductions and so on. then I actually made money and the corporation just made a killing. Now multiply that by every corporation and the banks that own them and not only are you destroying the tax base and crying about taxes, but in reality your income and the corporations income is growing almost exponentially while paying the same percentage in taxes. Yes, you pay more yearly, but your wealth accumulation increases while you decrease the tax base making your taxes that much more important. Grow the tax base, pay better wages and bring back industries and factories and the tax base spreads out more equally, BUT that 1% doesn't make as much.

Very true.

 

Maybe pictures and simple messages would be easier for some to grasp.