A MESSAGE FROM THE 1%

 

Hovels now, used to be called cottages, then it became bungalows, now if you live within reason, you live in a hovel, times sure have changed.

Yup.

As the rich get richer and everybody else gets poorer from it, these current protestors can at least say down the line, "we told you so" ...

(sadly that might be all they get)

http://www.owsexposed.com/

Typical of the RW funded ThinkTank brainwashing crap ...

I'm in the 99%. Even my icon says so. I worked all my life. Lost my job in 2008 when my employer of 15 years went bankrupt. When my unemployment ran out, several hundred resumes later, I applied for Social Security. My wife gets a pension so between us we make the house payment, eat, and have health care. We don't have much else. Like a lot of people I wasn't pleased when the bailed out financial institutions immediately started awarding bonuses in the usual way. Even when they paid the money back, I still had a bad taste in my mouth.

We were prudent and lucky. a couple of years before the housing bubble burst we refinanced our house and paid down the mortgage by a fair amount. We're not under water. We can even make a small profit if we sell our house. Of course we'd have to live somewhere after that. Our daughter and son in law bought at the market peak and are now in the middle of a short sale. They're moving to a rental and hoping to rebuild their credit as fast as they can.

I'm tired of a relatively small group of people running the country for their personal benefit. Real wages have remained almost constant for over thirty years for the vast majority of people. The one exception is the very top of the income range. They've done very well over the same period. The government is filled with former finance executives. The revolving door that used to stand between defense contractors and the federal government now stands between finance and the federal government. Seems like the new boss is just like the old boss except for the designer suits.

John, it's not working for the "crime factories" it's buying from them that makes them richer.

Hmm, let's see here. Micky D is not in the 1% and he is not in the 99%. Where is he?

On another planet.....

....where math and logic don't exist?

Oh, Jim....

Out of his mind?

He alternates between two CRTs, the one that presents FOX to his kind and the other that allows him to pollute Gather with that thinking.

Some mathematicians have developed an alternative system for calculus that accepts the existence of infinitesimal quantities just to show you could do it without limits. I suspect that there is an infinitesimal bucket for the folks who are neither in the 1% nor the 99%. The other option is what's called a "dirty zero" in computing. If you use floating point numbers to do a calculation sometimes rounding errors way out to the right of the decimal point can result in a value that should be zero being displayed as something like .000000001 or something even smaller.

That is the situation whether any of the top one percent say it or not.

I'm not sure whether we should be laughing or depressed at this message.

depressed or mad as hell.

The ultimate threat we face, I am quite convinced, are people who have no allegiance to any class, or culture, or nation, or ideology, at all. They have no more concern for the rest of their species than you have concern for pieces in a chess game, or the implied inhabitants of the "houses" and "motels" you buy and place while you're playing Monopoly.

They are very rich, but they are not the rich. In that 1%, but also in the 5% or so psychologists call "sociopaths", and in the top few percent in terms of IQ. Their wealth is the product of their cleverness and lack of concern for things like fairness, justice, the well being of others, or any sort of guilt or remorse. They are playing "World", the way you might play something like "Sim City" . . and it's time to end this pretense that the infinitesimal "citizens" are ruling themselves. It makes the game too slow and cumbersome. Besides, it leaves that tiny crack of a possibility that the sappy little pleebs will somehow be able to take over the game . . The "real" players want a new World order, that seals up that crack.

You don't have to be intelligent to become rich but, for the most part, you have to ditch your give a damner for other people.

JK has the picture !

I don't think the 1% are ever so secure as this in fact. Or can be. Dictators fall as do minority regimes sufficiently disconnected from the people.

Sure they tend to fall, but not before a great deal of suffering is inflicted on multitudes, teri. This ain't a game, where the ultimate fate of the dictators makes that suffering any less real . .

Yeah, even if that is true Teri, we all have to live in the world that is made miserably chaotic and poverty stricken by the negative order pushed on everyone from above by force.

I think the thing that we really need is facts. We need someone to report reliably on real facts, not the nonsense that the extremists on either side claim.

We need to know how much money there is, where it is, where the money goes Why are we really attacking Khaddafi, or Iraq, or anywhere else. We need to know if we are attacking somewhere that is not in the news. The people of the world all need to know.

We are all born into this world and we all deserve a say and we all deserve to be able to see what is happening. It is only by blindness and lies that we are misled.

I was thinking it was a great thing that Khaddafi was deposed ... not that he was brutally murdered of course, and then I started to read about what he did for Libya and how Libya had the highest standard of living in the area. I don't know if what I read was right, but I don't know either if what the US did there with 8000 bombing runs was right either. We did far more than we said we were going to when we said we were going to defend the rebels. Like many countries before we bombed the hell out of Libya and the result of that is to force them to rebuild and use American contractors, so again we have corporate socialism, the global corporations push a war, and then go in and clean up and gain a source of resources and money that no one else has, and then they distribute that only to their friends and supporters.

The same patten happens in the economy all though the US and the world, the result is to box in anyone who wants to be able to survive who has to work for a living for slave wages. Before in the US and the world people would work the land and they were not easily enslaved, but now the system we all seem to accept pushes people off the land, the land and resources are taken and those people are forced to joined the vast worldwide masses of unemployed and hopeless that anything can be done to.

We in America seem to accept it because we never thought about it much, and if we did we assume we all benefit from it because are Americans.

We better start thinking for real.

"I think the thing that we really need is facts."

Facts don't matter to irrational people. Ronald Reagan bailed out the S&Ls at the price of more than the entire cost of WWII, imposed higher taxes on Americans than currently exist under Obama, and was the first US president to bomb a country (Libya) without a threat of war provocation. Republican governed and voting states with lowest taxes fare worse than liberal states with higher taxes in every metric the Census tracks and they attract less VC capital investment by any calculus you do. None of these facts matter to a low intelligent conservative.

I'm not posting in anger; I'm saying republicans and conservatives and libertarians are fact indifferent. They haven't any concern for them. It's the definition of non-intelligence.

John Knight,
I agree with you in some respects on the character of some of the 1% that you have expressed. I wrote about this below before noting yours.

Bruce has the picture ... in addition to facts people need to increase their requirement quotient for truth ... and demand it from so-called leaders.

I am the 53%

You are getting pretty sarcastic these days my friend....

I am somewhat confused by these people that come to protest the rich fat cats from Wall Street...
I think there are many just there to freeload.. Even the ones that were feeding them , have changed their opinions and menu , due to all the freeloaders and homeless people who are there just to get a free meal.. These people put in long hours just to feed them ... So, there are many there that are using this situation to help themselves... Now, having said this... I can understand that this society is getting ticked off by the way things are going... but.... but... why, arent they protesting in Lafayette Park, in DC. Many of the problems are made there and started there.. I have not seen to many solutions made there, only a quick fix.. then they try to smooth it over by saying they support the protest... How can they support it when they are the biggest part of the problem? How can the rich( such as Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon and many more) even be in support of this , when they got rich by Capitalism? Isnt this what the Occupiers are against? These people seem to only have selective memories.. They protest certain CEO's houses but leave out people such as Soros.. I think , this bunch is being used and brainwashed by someone... How can they have free education and all the other freebies that they want? Do they expect a broken goverment to fix this? Or do they expect their employers to fix this? But remember, we have no jobs, so where is the money coming from for this? I think that many of these people are not able to face reality... THIS world owes us nothing and our country or anyone else for that matter doesnt owe any of us a free ride.. This is what is wrong with the thinking of today... GImme, Gimme, Gimme... If living under controled is what they want, they can always go to some foreign country and they will probably find it there...

Yes, micky d. We are wasting our time trying to educate you.

Vickie, it was not D.C. that went out and destroyed our economy for their personal gain, it was the Wall Street Investment Banks. Perhaps that fact has something to do with why people chose to protest Wall Street instead of the federal government. I have not had the impression that they are protesting the wealthy per se, just the bankers.

vicky and micky ... two sides of the same FOX coin.

The Grid has spoken...tear out their tongues.

I am pissed the 99% claim me in their number without my say so.

I am on Disability from the army and get a small Social security payment. I live in senior housing on section 8.

I earn to much for any welfare benefits like medicaid or food-stamps but I get by.. I get medical treatment through the V.A.and am quite happy.

I have as little in common with the 1% as the 99% .

I think the 1% (even though its for tax write offs and self esteem) fund most charities and not for profits ...who get huge funding from the 1% and many of those 99% who I put in three classes.... the agitators ....the disenfranchised...the paid by Acorn rally rousers have all perhaps at one time benefited from the 1%.

I think now that the weather is turning cities like mine (Eugene) should put away the tear gas rubber bullets and wooden dowel guns and bring out the fire hoses.

I think the 1% (even though its for tax write offs and self esteem) fund most charities and not for profits ...who get huge funding from the 1% and many of those 99% who I put in three classes.... the agitators ....the disenfranchised...the paid by Acorn rally rousers have all perhaps at one time benefited from the 1%.

Grumpy: What do you mean? That most of the 99% should be happy for receiving charities or that the 1% should be happy for being able to throw some coins to the 99%?

When profit raised by 275% in 10 years (the 1%) while the others enjoyed a far maximum raise of 40% (some even less than 18%), the latter would much prefer having jobs than remaining alive thanks to charities.

Charities are felt as disrespectful and, sometimes, even, as racists.

Well I got by without charities sometimes on piddlin' pay my whole life. I've had side jobs like plowin snow, car repair and home repair alongside my full-time job to make ends meet.

I could give a shit less how much more the 1%'s have, or how less they pay.

I find the 99% a chaotic rabble who exist like a scab on the !%'s asses.
A symbiotic relationship.

Losers on friggin welfare have computers smartphones big screen t.v.'s nice cars.. even our poorest homeless bums live better lives and are healthier than most 3rd world countries.

And it's not up to the !% to provide it. My bosses over the years gave me bonuses...So who cares if a professional banker gets an indecently large bonus for his or her chosen career.

Banks and wall street is no different than a casino...the house always wins they are in the business to take your money....

So the whining twits in the park who never made it or failed to have the fortitude and brains to be a corporate bloodsucker should quit bitchin and the communities they infect should haul out the firehouses...

Oh dear. This is one of those "for the record" posts as I'm sane enough to know the futility of addressing the poster: Grumpy Gus Oct 28, 2011, 10:02pm EDT
"I am on Disability from the army and get a small Social security payment."
You could relinquish it as the 1% 's representatives in government believe you are a waste to fund and should provide for yourself.

"I have as little in common with the 1% as the 99% ."
This statement launches a cartoon when taken with the next:

"I live in senior housing on section 8."
Of course you do. The cartoon wouldn't work if you made sense. Who else would be so arrogant as to complain about protesting and disgruntled taxpayers and the  middle class who subsidize your living standard. Section 8 was afforded by the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 under the Ford administration. You may not "identify" with welfare, but you clearly "identify" with the home this welfare legislation provided for you. Cartoon complete.

"I think the 1% (even though its for tax write offs and self esteem) fund most charities and not for profits ..."
Right. You think. Because you clearly don't know: See (a) actual founders of the largest philanthropic organizations;  (b) the political leanings of the founders; and (c) the political leanings of most US billionaires. You seem to assume that those billionaires and frankly, a bunch of millionaires somehow automatically do NOT side with OWS.

What you don't understand is that the angry tax-hating millionaires in Congress do not even represent most millionaires. It's a terrible illusion.

I think you're out of touch.

"And it's not up to the !% to provide it."
Or up to me to provide for you (1) the OWS-supported VA for your healthcare----one could argue in pure libertarian fashion, you chose to go in the military, so choose to take care of yourself when you get out; (2) the OWS-supported Section 8 housing.

"I could give a shit less how much more the 1%'s have, or how less they pay."
Of course, of course. Despite how what gets paid by taxpayers pays your key bills of subsidized shelter and subsidized healthcare. You live off other people's money with not even a "shit's" regard for where it comes from---so long as you don't have to earn it. Then complain about people you assume live off other people's money and do it more successfully than you do it, because they have more stuff than you. But when 1%ers do it, they are simply "doing their jobs" and the house is rightly winning.

Ingenious.

And par for your demographic's course.

Come on Grumpy, just say it, it is all the fault of Acorn and Soros ...

Hey Bernard...after you said I was "pretty sarcastic," I looked up the definition, which is:

cutting language: remarks that mean the opposite of what they seem to say and are intended to mock or deride

So, au contraire, my friend, the above remarks are intended to mean exactly what they seem to say, although there may be a little mocking involved...

Extremely well said whatever ...

The B.I.S. ( the Bank for International Settlements - the Central Bankers private bank), the last time I looked , estimated there are over 1 quadrillion (that's over 1000 trillion) derivatives that are owned by a few banks and funds . Bank of America is estimated to have 75 trillion, Chase to have 79 and so on. There are very few players. (Just as, similarly about 3000 individuals run the transnational corporations that have multiple subsidiaries , companies with different names but one real "owner").

A few billion is small change to the "1%" !

This small bunch crashed the world economy and walked away scot free, and now are back in business thanks to taxpayers bailing them out . And they are at the same game. Bank of America can shift its 75 trillion of derivatives from its owned susidiary Merril to its own account and "qualify" for government funds that insure banks for losses - a "legal" and automatic "non-bail bail out" legislated by a "bought" Congress.

The 1% protest against regulations to protect against what was and is really criminal activity by a small number of wealthy interests. Eliot Spitzer was one of few who tried to go after these crooks.

How much of this Euro (and global) crisis is not tied to these derivatives? Goldman Sachs enabled the Greek government to deceive others, globally, in acquiring debt (and likely GS shorted it as well). Is this only a "Euro" crisis as the US claims? Wall St knows better, I think. So does the US Treasury Secretary who came from Wall St.

With the monetary system as it is, considering who is in control of it , crashing the system more now may actually be profitable for those who can destroy it, but not for the 99%. Destroying a system and a nation's economy can be very profitable for a few and even, to them, desirable.

How can the present situation can be dealt with (and do some of these government leaders not understand it and if they do would they say so!) Take the "Euro" crisis as reported in the media and by the leaders: it seems to be about ideology or cover-up and staying in office. There is in the US much nonsense about "free market" and "too much government, " mostly by the Republicans.

Occupy Wall St is not a "political" movement. This is not to put down the "occupy " movement, which has spread to some 2,300 cities and is addressing real concerns in a refreshingly open and non-violent way and including young and old, wealthy and poor, unions, middle class etc who do have "common ground" to build upon. There is no need to "define" aims in the divisive "left, right, red, blue, liberal, conservative, secular, religious right" ways.

To continue, I have written above, about the value of the "occupy" movements. The participants share "common ground" and should work to not be drawn into the divisiveness that is manipulated by a powerful few, notably in the US today,where the major political parties and Congress serve their interests and not the people's. What is called "capitalism" has little relation to sound business and financial practices, which are rightly a different sphere from the political sphere that serves the welfare of the society. For Mussolini, fascism meant that business and government were merged as one. Globalization in practice is subject to the same dysfunctional model.

Perhaps a strategic and logistical view is worth considering. I try to anticipate different possible scenarios for near and longer term. To whit, the US has enough resources to be self-sufficient with old and new energy without Arab' et al. oil and can withdraw from the Middle East and Central Asia and let Europe and NATO deal with maintaining their access to oil in that region. Perhaps a further deteriorization of the US economy (and other economies) will precede a rebuilding. Not a pleasant scenario, when there are serious challenges with water shortages, the potential for epidemics and lack of food in the US as elsewhere.

A transition to new, alternative technologies and the development of new industries takes time and investment. Climate change is having an impact already.

China has invested a minisicule amount of its budget in clean energy technologies and much of that on "borrowed" technologies. They can sell it profitably to the West but that is small change. China - the Party - has big problems with developing their economy and governing 38 ethnic groups, some in revolt. They need the oil and natural resources from C Asia, Middle East, Africa etc. All nations are competing for these, including buying land in other nations to raise crops.

Well said ...

Clark,

"The 1% protest against regulations to protect against what was and is really criminal activity by a small number of wealthy interests"

That's because for the most part, the actual regulations don't really "protect against what was and is really criminal activity by a small number of wealthy interests", they aid and abet them. The concept that all regulations stifle criminals needs to be reexamined in light of the whole "corrupted government" paradigm. These are mostly regulations intended to control legitimate competition and meaningful investigation/oversight I believe, merely packaged as restrictions on criminal behavior . . by the people that corrupted the government. It's like the "Patriot Act" . . there is the pretense of keeping us safe from the bad guys, but in reality it's actually for keeping us from being able to deal with the real bad guys . .

The idea that more regulation is what will fix things has no logical basis as long as the corruption is not addressed . . The "regulations" are being put in place (effectively) by the very people we would wish to control with them. No magical powers are summons by naming things "regulations on the bad guys" . .

There is absolutely no point in calling on "big government" to control big corruption which infests that very government. There's not another Government above the corrupted one . . It's like calling the police to report that the police department has become corrupt . .

The ONLY hope I see, is in returning to the Constitution with great passion and thoroughness . . because through it's basic "rights" and "powers", we the people can claim the real authority it grants to us. Which then requires the corrupted government leaders, agencies and institutions to resist and denounce the very basis for their ostensible status as any sort of legitimate government . . the Constitution of the United States. Any other course allows that corruption to be justified as the "new improved" form of the United States . .

Clarke, thanks for the comments, particularly those stunning numbers on the derivatives.

As we learned during the financial crisis, entering the derivatives market is akin to walking into a Las Vagas casino. Essentially, it is nothing more than a platform for bets on all types of variable possibilities - such as the direction of interest rates or the movements of currencies. And, as with any casino, every bet ultimately involves a winner and a loser.

In the case of the Las Vegas casino, the "house" is the programmed winner, of course, and, in the case of derivatives, the taxpayers, of course, are the programmed losers - which is ironic, since they are largely uninvolved and uninformed as to the bets themselves.

How many times does history have to repeat itself before the public understands that the 1% have (1) not only fashioned a jobs crisis that is precisely what they want (an employers market where they get the pick of the crop and have no need for morale considerations while watching their net incomes and their productivity rates grow); but (2) have also fashioned an ongoing financial gambling behemoth in which they are, collectively, the "house."

No, Dave. It is far worse: the dices are loaded, the cards are marked and the roulette is magnetic!

As a private person, you have NO ACCESS to the info given to the professionals who recommend you to buy what they are interested in selling.

It would be not very important but the scale and the concerned amounts are such that you are just unable to compete.

We are talking about a huge debt of some 15 (fifteen) TRILLIONS but the overall figure of these manipulations EXCEED 1,000 (one thousand) TRILLIONS.

Maybe the figures are, this way, more legible.

Aww come-on guys, you are just working for Acorn doing the work of Soros ... just ask the FOX crowd.

Another difference is that investment banking houses don't offer cabaret shows, liquor, or valet parking.

Derivatives are a lot like horse racing bets like the trifecta. The big difference is that derivatives are much more complex and difficult to understand. Race tracks and casinos haven't hired a lot of people with advanced degrees in math. Investment banking houses have. At least you can estimate the odds on a trifecta bet using simple probability and figure out whether or not the payoff is worth it.

A disturbed and twisted mind like micky d.'s blame others for his own fears and lack of self-esteem.

Another difference is that investment banking houses don't offer cabaret shows, liquor, or valet parking.

Nippy,
They certainly do. and much more, to politicians. "Want to borrow one of my private jets?" It took some years for Congressman Boehner to " live down" his handing out checks from them to members on the floor when Congress was in session.

I think OWS is the voice of frustration ---- but has no direction.


Globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations.

The result is a shrinking middle class and growing lower class.

Frustration? Indeed.

Where we differ is that it is not the :"result is a shrinking middle class and growing lower class" this is nothing else than the symptom of the economic disease.

The financial institutions, instead of lending the money received through the TARPs, is playing with it, creating markets on non-existing goods, represented by a simple sheet of paper (you may write sheet as you like) and playing around making either huge profits for themselves or accusing the traders to "over-pass their responsibilities" while losing billions so the trader ends in prison.

Figures? The US external debt amounts to 15 Trillions but the amount of this fake market, known as derivatives, which deals with any kind of commodities, currencies, gold, oil, etc. is about 33 times higher exceeding 500 TRILLIONS.

We are sick of such abuse, even if most people cannot figure exactly what is going on thanks to deregulation!

There was a British gentlemen who was yelling a warning to us we could hear across the pond. His words didn't make the U.S. media, of course. The politicians and other leaders knew exactly what they were doing and that was, essentially, softening up the expensive American worker for the benefit of big business. And oh how they've succeeded. Nice going, Bilderberg bunch...

bitingly true.

When Stephen Colbert utters such, it sounds funny, but when you talk truth, it is biting. It is so true. I began to see this in 79 when I came back to the US, that I saw so many here in MA who had no clue what it was like to live another life and that here in NE it was going to get worse. But I certainly did not expect to be back in Jacob Reis' time of NYC in the 1890s, of how the other half lives - the 99 percent, or in Chinatown in Boston in 1850, where an open flame oven was on the street for the tent people from China, which is where they lived in Chinatown. A plaque discussses this communal oven that was in existence for nearly 100 years until 1950.

This whole thing is inconscionable.

Interesting past history, Kathryn....

And, of course, a pathetic present...

Not to mention a bleak future...

Quotable quote: Go ahead and occupy, you pitiful, hippie bums. The winter winds will soon chase you back into your hovels where you will no longer annoy us.

tame: Priceless.