The Demands of Occupy Wall Street

[WinePusher]

People at occupy wall street have released unofficial lists of demands here and there. There are apparently many out there and they don't seem to correspond to eachtother, but here's one unofficial list of demands:

-Demand 1: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending Freetrade by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.
-Demand 2: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.
-Demand 3: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.
-Demand 4: Free college education.
-Demand 5: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.
-Demand 6: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.
-Demand 7: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of Americas nuclear power plants.
-Demand 8: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.
-Demand 9: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.
-Demand 10: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.
-Demand 11: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the Books. World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the Books. And I dont mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.
-Demand 12: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.
-Demand 13: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

http://toddkinsey.com/blog/2011/10/08/o ... f-demands/

1) What do you make of these demands? Are they reasonable or unreasonable?
2) In a list of demands seperate from this list, OWS protestors have expressed disapproval towards the ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commision. Do you agree or disagree with the ruling?
3) Although absent from the list of demands, OWS have expressed disdainment towards what they percieve to be a growing gap between the top 1% of society and the remaining 99% of society. What is the truth regarding wealth and income inequality?

[WinePusher]

2. Allowing student loan debt to be cleared with bankruptcy.

These people have no clue what they're saying. If students don't pay their loans
when they graduate, public student loan programs would not be able to exist. Where do you think the money for student loans comes from in the first place? A large part of it comes from the payments recieved by graduated students. And allowing students to get out of paying back their loans would destroy the federal student loan system and prevent many students from getting a college education. These people don't understand that nothing is free.

I love American responses to this movement of decent people - many of which responses are pure pharisee.

Decent people? Give me a break. They're a public menace, they've vandalized the neigborhoods they protest in, and they're guilty of public displays of indecencies. Most of them are young people, in their late teens and early twenties. And it amazes how they can take weeks out of their lives to sit in a park and protest about something they don't understand. I wish I could join them, but I have a job and go to school. I guess these people don't.

[Adurumus]

I have been taught, as a child, to walk away when something makes me too angry to respond with a clever head. I'll try to follow that teaching, but for now, enjoy a demographics report of Occupy Wallstreet. It is somewhat important to note that this is a report from October 19th.

[ThatGirlAgain]

I have been taught, as a child, to walk away when something makes me too angry to respond with a clever head. I'll try to follow that teaching, but for now, enjoy a demographics report of Occupy Wallstreet. It is somewhat important to note that this is a report from October 19th.

The article is dated October 19. The study is not. Neither is the study even based primarily on OWS participants. The demographics given are from ...

"...a study based on a survey of 1,619 visitors to the occupywallst.org site on October 5. And about a quarter of them have also attended occupation events."

Although the study asked whether the respondent attended OWS events, there does not seem to be a breakout of the statistics for those that did. Unless I missed it. Maybe I am over sensitive but an occasional part of my job is critiquing studies for reasonableness of conclusions.

[JohnPaul]

I love American responses to this movement of decent people - many of which responses are pure pharisee. They remind me of a woman on our 'Any Questions' who said, 'Yes, I agree that Jesus would be with the protesters at St Paul's - but I think he'd be wrong!' It caused a perceptible gasp, even here in tory Britain. Different in the 'States, I suppose.

Movement of decent people? I don't know exactly what kind of public movement is considered decent in England, but here is a published quote from a participant in New York:

In addition, one of the young men featured says, We need a sex space in the park, a space surrounded by tarps, held by the people, so we can get naked and fill each other with ourselves." And a few lines later: I want to moan as the bankers and men on Wall Street watch with their binoculars, and in this way we shall win. Theyll come, demanding our naked bodies, and well share ourselves. Sasha Gray, where are you? Get down here and gang bang for democracy. And show them just how beautiful our bodies, and the way we glow when we make one another radiate.

John

[Adurumus]

I have been taught, as a child, to walk away when something makes me too angry to respond with a clever head. I'll try to follow that teaching, but for now, enjoy a demographics report of Occupy Wallstreet. It is somewhat important to note that this is a report from October 19th.

The article is dated October 19. The study is not. Neither is the study even based primarily on OWS participants. The demographics given are from ...

"...a study based on a survey of 1,619 visitors to the occupywallst.org site on October 5. And about a quarter of them have also attended occupation events."

Although the study asked whether the respondent attended OWS events, there does not seem to be a breakout of the statistics for those that did. Unless I missed it. Maybe I am over sensitive but an occasional part of my job is critiquing studies for reasonableness of conclusions.

Fair enough, retracted. Something about Winepusher's position makes me want to harm little ducklings, though. Can someone a little less... angry than I am address him? Possibly JohnPaul as well?

[WinePusher]

The argument "people like me" (those who like evidence?) is that the rich and their offspring tend to stay rich and the poor and their offspring tend to stay poor. There is, overall, little class mobility which the data I provided supported.

The fact that you didn't object to is that income changes. If income changes, the idea of economic immobility is false. So which is it nygreenguy, you can't have iit both ways.

And what about the laborers? The people doing the work? Why is their a disproportionate increase in compensation?

It isn't disproportionate. Per capita income has risen and will continue to rise. The problem is you don't measure income according to individual people, you measure income according to households which is fallacious. Household income will rise if the number of people per household rises, and household income will decline if the number of people per household declines. Because of this, household income is not an accurate measurement of income.

Either you mis stated the title, or the people who did this study don't know what they're talking about. Executives are offered pay after their performance as been evaluated. The pay doesn't lead to a particular type of performance, the performance leads to a particular amount of pay.

I offered evidence, you offered opinion.

I am asking you for clarification. Executive pay is the result of performance, performance is not the result of executive pay. What you said is wrong, so either you misrepresented the study or the study was done by people who aren't credible economists.

Fair enough, retracted. Something about Winepusher's position makes me want to harm little ducklings, though. Can someone a little less... angry than I am address him? Possibly JohnPaul as well?

Listen Adurumus. This site is for exchanging opposing viewpoints and opinions. Yea, it's dominated by people like you, by people who are liberal atheists and agnostics, and that's to bad. But I'm not here to cater to and reinforce your beliefs, I'm here to debate them. And if you can't read a post espousing different positions than yours without getting angry than go hang out in a more friendly subforum.

[JohnPaul]

Adurumus wrote:

Fair enough, retracted. Something about Winepusher's position makes me want to harm little ducklings, though. Can someone a little less... angry than I am address him? Possibly JohnPaul as well?

Well, hello there, Adurumus!

I know that mush-for-brains liberalism is a common disease of the young, but don't worry, you will get over it as the years go by. Abusing little animals is another matter.

When you calm down a little, perhaps you would like to offer a rational argument defending your position. Please, don't just parrot the usual liberal platitudes about equality for all, evil corporations, etc, etc.!

John

[Adurumus]

Adurumus wrote:

Fair enough, retracted. Something about Winepusher's position makes me want to harm little ducklings, though. Can someone a little less... angry than I am address him? Possibly JohnPaul as well?

Well, hello there, Adurumus!

I know that mush-for-brains liberalism is a common disease of the young, but don't worry, you will get over it as the years go by. Abusing little animals is another matter.

When you calm down a little, perhaps you would like to offer a rational argument defending your position. Please, don't just parrot the usual liberal platitudes about equality for all, evil corporations, etc, etc.!

John

Ain't no rest for the wicked, then. Let's look at the two demands I quoted.

• 1. A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people, removing money from politics.

What about this is bad? The phrase "corporations are people", seems to be coined through a 2010 Supreme Court Ruling that corporations are protected by freedom of speech. Not the people that run them in this case, but specifically corporations. There is a fear that, as time goes by, corporations will gain more and more rights and effectively become human. Mitt Romney has also borrowed the phrase.

I, and the 99% movement protestors, would like to see this court ruling overturned and further, have it explicitly stated that corporations are not human beings. They do not have, or deserve, the intrinsic and inalieable rights that a human has. Where in this do you disagree, so I may direct my argument towards those points?

• 2. Allowing student loan debt to be cleared with bankruptcy.

Using this site, as credible as it is, shows the debts that are not dischargeable on declaration of bankrupcy. Note that I use the source more as a pointing direction, not one for credibility. I can imagine that some people would take out a lot of loans for education and roll that into the ground, but why is it loans for education that are exempted? There's a lot of hardship on proving that you cannot utilize what you learned at schools. One information website jokes that being a double amputee will still not let you be excused, since technically most jobs don't really need legs, some don't need armes either.

As noted, a lot of protestors likely are college students or graduates. The difficulties in paying back the loan. A cheaper way of saying this is "Make it easier to go to college", but that's not strong enough. The punchy version is "If I can't pay back my loans, I can't pay back my loans- excuse it on bankrupcy."

Listen Adurumus. This site is for exchanging opposing viewpoints and opinions. Yea, it's dominated by people like you, by people who are liberal atheists and agnostics, and that's to bad. But I'm not here to cater to and reinforce your beliefs, I'm here to debate them. And if you can't read a post espousing different positions than yours without getting angry than go hang out in a more friendly subforum.

I'm fine with civil debate. I just happen to be having a poor day, and I'm somewhat upset. Yours' is the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. I apologize.

[LiamOS]

2. Allowing student loan debt to be cleared with bankruptcy.

These people have no clue what they're saying. If students don't pay their loans
when they graduate, public student loan programs would not be able to exist. Where do you think the money for student loans comes from in the first place? A large part of it comes from the payments recieved by graduated students. And allowing students to get out of paying back their loans would destroy the federal student loan system and prevent many students from getting a college education. These people don't understand that nothing is free.

I do have to agree with WinePusher that allowing people to default on student loans is ultimately idiotic. Under some circumstances, it might be appropriate to allow suspension of payment for some amount of time, but writing off student loans as soon as bankruptcy is filed is just a really, really bad plan.
That said, I do believe that an education should be completely free(But only the education and very basic living expenses provided), but writing off loans that people took knowing their permanent nature is not a good way to go about it.

[Edited upon reading the post above mine]

The argument "people like me" (those who like evidence?) is that the rich and their offspring tend to stay rich and the poor and their offspring tend to stay poor. There is, overall, little class mobility which the data I provided supported.

The fact that you didn't object to is that income changes. If income changes, the idea of economic immobility is false. So which is it nygreenguy, you can't have iit both ways.

This is a false dichotomy. It's trivial to say that incomes change, but that they do does not nullify nygreenguy's point.
The expectation of your wage after some amount of time would normally be your current wage plus or minus some reasonably small amount, do you agree?
If you do, it follows that, in general, the rich will stay rich and the poor will stay poor. There will be some deviations from this trend of course, but it's still a trend.

Your objection would be valid if one's income tomorrow had nothing to do with one's income today, but in general this is not the case.
Consider Bob, a worker at McDonnald's. Bob makes $8/hour cooking chips, burgers and getting verbally abused by the public. If I were to ask you what Bob will be making in six months' time, you'd probably expect it to be between $7/hour and 10$/hour, which is, in essence, exactly nygreenguy's point(I think...).

[JohnPaul]

Adurumus wrote:

Fair enough, retracted. Something about Winepusher's position makes me want to harm little ducklings, though. Can someone a little less... angry than I am address him? Possibly JohnPaul as well?

Well, hello there, Adurumus!

I know that mush-for-brains liberalism is a common disease of the young, but don't worry, you will get over it as the years go by. Abusing little animals is another matter.

When you calm down a little, perhaps you would like to offer a rational argument defending your position. Please, don't just parrot the usual liberal platitudes about equality for all, evil corporations, etc, etc.!

John

Ain't no rest for the wicked, then. Let's look at the two demands I quoted.

• 1. A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people, removing money from politics.

What about this is bad? The phrase "corporations are people", seems to be coined through a 2010 Supreme Court Ruling that corporations are protected by freedom of speech. Not the people that run them in this case, but specifically corporations. There is a fear that, as time goes by, corporations will gain more and more rights and effectively become human. Mitt Romney has also borrowed the phrase.

I, and the 99% movement protestors, would like to see this court ruling overturned and further, have it explicitly stated that corporations are not human beings. They do not have, or deserve, the intrinsic and inalieable rights that a human has. Where in this do you disagree, so I may direct my argument towards those points?

I will take your first demand first. There is nothing new about the legal principle that a corporation is a legal entity or "person" with many of the same rights as a natural person. This is essential to the conduct of modern business. The recent court decision merely reaffirmed a legal principle that has existed in America for more than two centuries. The history of corporations goes back at least to the 16th century, but by the end of the 19th century the modern corporation was well established. Here is a brief extract from Wikipedia:

By the beginning of the 19th century, government policy on both sides of the Atlantic began to change, reflecting the growing popularity of the proposition that corporations were riding the economic wave of the future. In 1819, the U.S. Supreme Court granted corporations a plethora of rights they had not previously recognized or enjoyed.[13] Corporate charters were deemed "inviolable", and not subject to arbitrary amendment or abolition by state governments.[14] The Corporation as a whole was labeled an "artificial person," possessing both individuality and immortality.[15]

Please note the term "artificial person" above.

I will not go into a long lecture on the advantages and disadvantages of the corporate business structure. Simplified versions of the corporate structure are now available even to the smallest businesses. An introduction to Business Law is part of the General Education requirement in most colleges. It is enough to say that it is an essential part of any country's economy and the modern world could not exist without it.

John