Alpha-Bromega
Member
Cloudy said:
symbolic show of discontent, initiating national dialogue, showing that fundamental issues exist
easier said than done? well that's the point of the movement....
Occupy Wall St - Occupy Everywhere, Occupy Together!
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symbolic show of discontent, initiating national dialogue, showing that fundamental issues exist
easier said than done? well that's the point of the movement....
Angry ForkAngry Fork said:
Math Genius
(Today, 06:13 PM)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl1ObUGAoHE&feature=player_embeddedAlpha-Bromega said:
Alpha-Bromega said:
That's fine but "occupying" the streets indefinitely will not fix the issues. Opponents of the movement are already discrediting them by saying they are ready to riot and what not. Nobody likes income inequality but they'll tolerate it over the threat of social unrest...
kame-sennin
Member
Cloudy said:
OWS and the local housing groups wanted to negotiate with the city in order to improve health and safety. Bloomberg refused.
kame-sennin said:
How about they just get the fuck off the streets?
If they want to change stuff, vote people out of office. If they can't find politicians they like/trust, they should run for office themselves! Additionally, they can boycott companies that are treating customers badly. Yeah, it's not going to affect anything immediately or even in a few years but that is how it has to happen.
Throwing a tantrum indefinitely is not going to accomplish anything and is HURTING the cause. I am 100% on board with the message but the strategy is idiotic IMO. All they are doing is KILLING whatever positive momentum they gained and making the OWS toxic for any politician/celebrity/group who can help spread the message
Alpha-Bromega
Member
Cloudy said:
the issues are STRUCTURAL. you don't vote out structural issues. symptom, disease
and boycotting? LOL, that creates a specialist niche for a new consumer base, but does nothing against multi-billion dollar contracts.
when you are shaking the system to the core, you need more than just angry letter writing campaigns
kame-sennin
Member
Cloudy said:
I respect your opinion and I'm more than willing to have this debate with you, but in order for the conversation to be fruitful, there has to be common ground in terms of what the reality of our current political situation is. I don't say that to be rude. I suggest you check out these two articles for a start:
Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?
Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?
kame-sennin
Member
Zabka said:
The problem is that America is under a media black out. None of us really understands the depths of the problem because it is hidden within a very byzantine system that no one really understands - even the power elite who perpetuate that system. The media has completely abdicated its role in investigating and exposing such corruption, and so its not surprising that most Americans are completely oblivious as to what the real problems are. And I'm not calling anybody out in particular here. We are all in the process of understanding precisely how fucked our governmental and financial institutions are.
travisbickle
Member
Cloudy said:
Millions of people adore income inequality, it's how they buy cheap products. Then there are the sociopaths, like on here, that slather at the idea of people's lives being ruined because they don't "work hard enough". Don't pretend people aren't going to protest because they don't like violence they are not going because they don't like all people being treated equally.
Cloudy said:
Holy shit, of course 'occupying' the streets is not going to fix issues. That's not the point of it. The point is to bring awareness to the issues, because guess what? most people don't know what the issues are or how bad they were being manipulated/screwed over. It has people talking about the problems we have here, and that's a start.
teruterubozu
Member
bounchfx said:
People were already aware of the issues. OWS happened because the anger boiled over. The idea that Occupy is educational is ludicrous.
rohlfinator
Member
What? Did you fail algebra, because this is very plainly wrong. And even if it were true it would be a terrible argument against raising the minimum wage.NervousXtian said:
Great post. It seems like the "just vote" counterargument has been coming up quite a bit, and I don't begrudge people for making it because it's a reasonable sentiment, but it does kind of miss the point of the discussion.kame-sennin said:
GrotesqueBeauty
Banned
While I like the abstract principle of an independent voter, they often seem to be the electoral equivalent of a fart in the wind. It's hard to really give a shit where there opinion falls statistically because at the slightest gust it dissipates or else floats downwind to the next issue, ready to once again disperse when another breeze comes along.sangreal said:
So if something like Occupy gets squashed and changes nothing, and those folks get thrown in jail while the corrupt fucks up high get to have their riches and be free, what's gonna initiate change again? Cause voting sure as hell wont. Game is rigged. Time to start shootin some bitches.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
rohlfinator said:
I think I understand my business considerable better than you do. If my largest expense pretty much doubles, I have no choice but to drastically raise the prices that we charge for our service. Otherwise, we'd go out of business.
I'm not about to post up my P&L, but go into any small business and ask them if they could absorb doubling their labor line.. especially in a service industry where their primary cost is manpower.
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
Angry Fork said:
Thanks guys. I know we disagree on some things, but your presence is important too. You make me defend my views and that's good. Circlejerks pro or cons one view are worthless in the long term, even if it seems good in the short term.
Oh Angry much appreciated, its always good to know people still care about NASA even when we disagree on a ton of other stuff.
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
I think George H W Bush might disagree on their impact, Al Gore too.GrotesqueBeauty said:
rohlfinator
Member
Please explain to me how raising one of your business costs (even if it is your largest cost!) by 1.5x requires you to double your revenues to stay even. Are you selling your service at a loss?NervousXtian said:
GrotesqueBeauty
Banned
Oh, please. The idea that independents were the decisive factor in that election is silly. In a race that close you could ascribe the results to any of the dozens of demographics that would technically bridge the incredibly narrow gap, if only. In reality the final results came down to overt manipulation in the form of cronyism and voter suppression, not a handful of people voting who happened to prefer a third party candidate.Manos: The Hans of Fate said:
rohlfinator said:
Revenue: 10
COGS: 60% of 10 = 6
Labor: 30% of 10 = 3
Etc: 10% of 10 = 1
Break Even, no reinvestment into business, no growth.
Now add in effect of 1.5x increase to labor (equivalent of 45% for labor versus 30% before)
Assume only change to labor, no change to revenue:
Revenue: 10
COGS: 60% of 10 = 6
Labor 30% of 10 = 3 x 1.5 = 4.5
Etc: 10% of 10 = 1
Result: Loss of 1.5
Adjust for 50% increase to labor, double revenue and all costs associated with achieving doubled revenue.
Revenue: 20
COGS: 60% of 20 = 12
Labor: 30% of 20 = 6 x 1.5 = 9
Etc: 10% of 20 = 2
Result: Net Loss of 3
As a business all you can hope is that economies of scale kick in at some point during growth. However the rate of growth to accomplish this may be unattainable in the short term (tight credit, low growth economy, etc). You can try doing more with fewer people as well. In a poor economy with high unemployment, you can fire your current staff and potentially get close to equivalent talent for lower pay. The time and cost of training may come into play in the short term depending on what good or service you are providing, but in the long term the change will be beneficial. You're not going to have too much success at cutting the cost of the goods or resources you are purchasing (That is, not without purchasing lower quality goods, thereby sacrificing the quality of the product or service you are providing and therefore lose business unless you also lower your price of your own goods or services). Overhead isn't going to just change overnight easily. You can try raising prices but probably lose a ton of business in the process; if you were properly managed before, you already optimized price for optimal total revenue and demand. Competition will take a price increase as an opportunity if they can instead find ways to cut costs. Any changes to prices will likely not help. Labor by comparison to many of these is the most easily adjusted.
Now thats not to say I am convinced something like healthcare benefits create a 50% increase in your total labor cost. That seems rather exaggerated.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
rohlfinator said:
I don't have to double my revenue, in reality it's more like 50-60% increase to stay even, but that's a pipe dream as a ton of struggling businesses would just fold up. Also, there's no way most of our clients could absorb that cost, and there's no way we could stay afloat without the increase for very long. Also, any OT would then be at over $30 hour. Insanity.
rohlfinator
Member
Mii: The hypothetical was that the minimum wage doubled, resulting in him having to pay 1.5x more for labor. He said he would have to double what he charges for services, nothing about selling more product to make up the difference.
So it would be more like:
Revenue: ???
COGS: 6
Labor: 4.5
Etc: 1
So he has to double his prices to cover that extra 15% cost? That seems like a pretty high dropoff in demand.
And yeah, doubling minimum wage would have pretty dramatic effects and would hurt a lot of small businesses (though mostly only the ones who employ a lot of min. wage workers) which is why I agree that that particular proposal is unrealistic. But let's at least not exaggerate the effects.
So it would be more like:
Revenue: ???
COGS: 6
Labor: 4.5
Etc: 1
So he has to double his prices to cover that extra 15% cost? That seems like a pretty high dropoff in demand.
Oh so the 2x figure was bullshit then.NervousXtian said:
And yeah, doubling minimum wage would have pretty dramatic effects and would hurt a lot of small businesses (though mostly only the ones who employ a lot of min. wage workers) which is why I agree that that particular proposal is unrealistic. But let's at least not exaggerate the effects.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
rohlfinator said:
Sort of bullshit, but sort of realistic. I was being dramatic. It's not a 1-to-1 correlation, since labor isn't 100% of my revenue. Still in the end my prices would drastically rise for our service, or we'd be gone.
Also, not only those that pay min would be effected, but those that pay over min would be effected as well. Say a guy pays his people $12/hr.. now what's he have to pay to keep the same level of worker.. $22? Same effect.
rohlfinator said:
Ah I see now that he really did mean raising the price of his service and that you referred to revenues. My mistake.
I personally think that raising the price charged by the business seems a difficult route to take. It will lead to lost sales to better managed competition. Instead, a mix of economies of scale and taking advantage of a high unemployment environment is the route to go if your good or service requires a low to medium level of talent (and you have the means to grow). Would this hypothetical increase of minimum wage be phased in over time? Ultimately a company could properly adjust if the increase is spread over a reasonable amount of time; however, I do think it would lead to either 1) inflation or 2) fewer hired as a result. Just how beneficial an increase to minimum wage is in a vacuum is questionable. The rich know how to defend themselves in an inflationary environment; the poor do not. The rich can financially orchestrate a gain from inflation; the poor merely pay higher prices with their larger paychecks. I don't see much benefit in the government attempting to improve the lives of people through inflation; I would be curious to hear of more beneficial alternatives to helping improve the life of the lower to lower-middle class. I tend to think some well placed progressive taxes to fund communal benefits will do more good than an increase to minimum wage.
rohlfinator
Member
But to a lesser extent. So they won't have to raise prices as much.NervousXtian said:
And the incomes of a large part of the population will have gone up by enough to offset the rise in prices, giving them greater purchasing power. (Well, assuming that companies don't all strictly double wages/salary all the way up the chain.)
Yeah, I'd be curious about that too. It's a complicated system and the one-line responses from both sides of the argument tend to gloss over a lot of issues.Mii said:
travisbickle
Member
Mii where are your profits? The problem these days is businesses are run to appease the shareholders, ie: keeping the profits up to the detriment of the workers, of the customers, and of the environment.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
travisbickle said:
Way to oversimplify things. The point of having a business is to turn a profit. Not all businesses take advantage of every employee, customer, or the environment.
True story: Not all corporations are evil.
..but judging by your comments, you don't want to believe that.
Mortrialus
Banned
NervousXtian said:
I'm sure a few of them aren't, but when companies with products as seemingly benign as Pepsi and Coke are funding death squads in Columbia, it paints a bad picture of general conduct of corporations.
I'm pretty sure the US government already is on the hook for the vast majority of health c are expenses in the country. The elderly, disabled, and military/ex-military all are covered under government plans. However, these government providers, at least those involving the elderly and disabled, are self-regulated to not have significant input or control over market pricing.
I think people would be very, very surprised at how cheap it would be to give everyone not already on government plans coverage under a single-payer system. It would probably increase the payroll tax from 7.65% to 12.5%, 15% at the worst, but that increase is significantly less than what most people end up paying under the current system, especially when you factor in deductibles and copays in addition to their family premiums.
I think people would be very, very surprised at how cheap it would be to give everyone not already on government plans coverage under a single-payer system. It would probably increase the payroll tax from 7.65% to 12.5%, 15% at the worst, but that increase is significantly less than what most people end up paying under the current system, especially when you factor in deductibles and copays in addition to their family premiums.
travisbickle said:
Personally I don't think it is a business's corporate responsibility to cater to any of that list. If labor is cheap and plentiful, it is not the business's responsibility to somehow fix that. For it to survive in a competitive environment (all realize that labor can be had cheap at this point in time), they must react. As for customers' disapproval, if people walk through the door, something is going right. The corporation does not exist for the welfare of the masses; it represents a collection of assets and debt that individuals contributed and reaped the benefits from. It is idealistic but unrealistic to claim the corporation should do more for this country; to expect the greedy rich, satiated by greater wealth, to charitably provide to the jealous masses is foolish.
The government has the responsibilities you list. It is the government that is responsible for deciding what is good and appropriate for the country. It is the government that should apply carbon taxes or set limitations for pollution. It is the government that should enforce standards of quality and safety, prevent abuse of corporate power (i.e. monopolies), and shun lobbyist money. It is the government that can allocate tax dollars towards the infrastructure and business environment that lets those corporations operate. It is the government's responsibility to determine what is a fair share for the corporation to give back to the country as a cost of using said business environment and infrastructure. It is the government that can spur GDP growth and cause drops in unemployment through appropriate fiscal policy and strengthening of the people's institutions and agencies. It is the government that sets the rules for these corporations to play by.
The reason why this is government's responsibility is because we are shareholders of the government of this country by birthright. Others have come here and decided to become shareholders in this country. One life gets you one share here. Your elected officials are your board of directors. We have allowed our board to be corrupted. Corporations have bent the rules, breaking our capitalist society and replacing it with regulations friendly to particular corporations and particular industries. We did not realize these were harming us as we began to confuse policies that help capitalism with policies that help industries and corporations. Corporatism is not Capitalism. What is good for Verizon or Exxon Mobil is not inherently good for the people of this country. Why is that? Because it never was either of those company's responsibility to tend to any nation's people. It is the nation's responsibility to tend to the people, and the people forgot this fact, becoming apathetic to the corruption of our political system.
If a corporation can thrive in an environment in which we dictate the rules, they should be commended and the shareholders should have the right to do with its profits as they please. However, we have not required they play by rules we deem reasonable.
bill gonorrhea
Member
Karma Kramer
Banned
I think people need to grasp the main problem right now and stop making it sound like OWS are just lazy, who don't want to work.
Since the recession homeowners in america (aka the middle class) lost 7 TRILLION dollars. This was caused by criminal behavior on wall street. Americans picked up the bill for the banks, the government did not split them up so they would not be too big to fail and they did not enact any financial reform that would prevent this systemic flaw in our financial institutions from happening again. Essentially millions of lives were ruined due to this injustice.
Is this not worthy of protest?
Since the recession the supreme court has given those with power/money even more control of our government with Citizens United.
Is this not worthy of protest?
Elected congressman have the legal right to do insider trading.
Is this not worthy of protest?
Our media is controlled by advertisers. Majority of the media therefore is being supported by these systemically flawed institutions.
Is this not worthy of protest?
The middle class is suffering more right now then it has since the Great Depression. Because the middle class supported the banks and the CEOs, you would think it would be fair for them to take more out of their bonuses and pay higher taxes... especially considering their taxes are at an all time low. When we had most stability economically before the late 1970s, they had much higher taxes on the top brackets and more regulation on the markets.
Since the recession homeowners in america (aka the middle class) lost 7 TRILLION dollars. This was caused by criminal behavior on wall street. Americans picked up the bill for the banks, the government did not split them up so they would not be too big to fail and they did not enact any financial reform that would prevent this systemic flaw in our financial institutions from happening again. Essentially millions of lives were ruined due to this injustice.
Is this not worthy of protest?
Since the recession the supreme court has given those with power/money even more control of our government with Citizens United.
Is this not worthy of protest?
Elected congressman have the legal right to do insider trading.
Is this not worthy of protest?
Our media is controlled by advertisers. Majority of the media therefore is being supported by these systemically flawed institutions.
Is this not worthy of protest?
The middle class is suffering more right now then it has since the Great Depression. Because the middle class supported the banks and the CEOs, you would think it would be fair for them to take more out of their bonuses and pay higher taxes... especially considering their taxes are at an all time low. When we had most stability economically before the late 1970s, they had much higher taxes on the top brackets and more regulation on the markets.
Karma Kramer
Banned
Also, congress might pass an internet censor bill.
Http://Americancensorship.org/
Is this not worthy of protest?
Http://Americancensorship.org/
Is this not worthy of protest?
makingmusic476
Member
bill gonorrhea said:
Karma Kramer said:Our media is controlled by advertisers. Majority of the media therefore is being supported by these systemically flawed institutions.
Does that chart consider internet journalism, and the fact that a growing number of media and information is being distilled through the internet and not physical copies. Most of the "independent" new sources got their news from select sources. How is it a benefit if 10 different newspaper all source from the Associated Press as compared to 5?
Is Occupy Wall St protesting this? I haven't seen a single sign or speech, online or off that references that. If anything I have seen more action for government to regulate media(i.e. attack foxnews, reinstate the fairness doctrine, create a BBC for america) than preserve the freedom of information.Karma Kramer said:
Karma Kramer
Banned
remnant said:
Have you ever watched Fox News before? lol
The so called "liberal" media is a hoax.
And about internet journalism, do you have any stats on how much attention is given to "independent" news sources?
Whats your feeling about this internet censorship bill?
Karma Kramer
Banned
IRA supporter chides Occupy for violence
video at link: http://www.salon.com/topic/occupy_wall_street/
video at link: http://www.salon.com/topic/occupy_wall_street/
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