From Al Gore’s blog, a clear signal that he’s lost it. Like McKibben, he’s like a moth attracted to a flame, looking for it to jumpstart his own failed movement.
Thoughts on Occupy Wall Street October 12, 2011 : 5:07 PM
For the past several weeks I have watched and read news about the Occupy Wall Street protests with both interest and admiration. I thought The New York Times hit the nail on the head in an editorial Sunday:
“The message — and the solutions — should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered. The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening.”
“At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity.”
From the economy to the climate crisis our leaders have pursued solutions that are not solving our problems, instead they propose policies that accomplish little. With democracy in crisis a true grassroots movement pointing out the flaws in our system is the first step in the right direction. Count me among those supporting and cheering on the Occupy Wall Street movement.
You can support the protests by clicking here.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Jim G says:
October 13, 2011 at 1:05 pm
No one is forcing you to hold those stocks. You should march on down to your broker and sell them.
Then start up your own innovative company. Surely with all your wisdom you can do better than that fool earning the $100mm bonus!
Careful not to earn any excessive profit though! LOL
RB says:
“…we are WAY beyond covetousness. We are talking about people who have made billions off of the backs of all of us through corruption, plain and simple. Fabulous and uneeded wealth. It is beyond what is reasonable for a man to earn, or whether others are jealous.”
To prove you’re wrong, notice that it’s big news when a corporation is charged with corruption. There are over 70 million corporations in the U.S., and 99% of them are law-abiding. So your claim is patently false.
As for “fabulous and unneeded wealth”, who are you to be the judge? Who elected you to decide what is “reasonable”? If someone makes millions lawfully by providing goods and services that others are willing to pay for, who are you to try and confiscate the money they honestly earn? Moral bankruptcy is a hallmark of the Left. They are all thieves at heart.
And of course you are jealous. Green with envy. Someone else did better than you and got rewarded for it. But you’re not banging the drum for Tiger Woods and Oprah to have their hundreds of millions in personal wealth confiscated, are you? So you would steal the assets of honest businesses simply because you have been brainwashed to believe they are the problem – and because you approve of stealing from those you don’t like. Despicable.
pokerguy says:
October 13, 2011 at 5:05 pm
“He didn’t have enough Democrazy votes either…..
…how are the Republicans obstructionist when he didn’t have enough Democrats either?”
This is so typical. Why not open a newspaper before spouting off. 2 democrats voted no. Ben Nelson and Jon Tester. Reed changed his vote to nay at the end on a procedural maneuver.
================================
This is so typical. Why not go back to school and learn to count before spouting off.
They needed 60 votes, they did not have enough democrat votes going in to pass it……….they had 51……………..
It was never meant to pass in the first place……they knew it wouldn’t pass, and just wanted to use it so they can call republicans obstructionist……and some people are stupid enough to fall for it
Doug says:
October 13, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Ok, got some things stirred up here.
When does a retired person need a seven figure investment portfolio? Well when your only income is $808 a month in social security, and the interest and dividends (averaging 5%), it just keeps you middle class. I worked as a consultant most of my career and have no other retirement plan. I saved enough to retire on investments.
———————————————-
Doug, I would be the first to defend your right to your seven figure investments that you have earned.
I earned my money too and put three kids through university. When I see people whitewashing CEOs and their pay I get worked up. Was Steve Jobs worth 11 million per year? Of course not! More like 110 million.
And when I see kids graduating with a degree in political science wanting their 24,000 in student loans written off, I wonder why I have to pay for everything.
So guard your money closely. They are looking for a free ride.
Garrett says:
October 13, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Being a part of the movement, here are some facts:
———————————————————————–
Excuse me but you are not part of the movement.
The middle class does not want to be represented by socialists, Soros, Gore and the New York Times. They actually hate Al Gore. And they have their own genuine movement – the Tea Party – and do not want to be misrepresented by hijackers.
What they want is not a new socialist model but to address and fix the causes of the current crisis. And this is:
1. Stop 0% interest rates. This punishes savers and real investors but makes credit based speculators incredibly rich.
2. Justice needs to address the issue of bonuses and stock options, massively stealing property from company owners and putting it into pockets of managers. It is theft, if bonuses or stock options are awarded for success but nothing has to be paid for failure.
3. Tobacco industry style investigation is required against main funders and promoters of the climate change swindle.
4. People who financed corrupt regime changes in other parts of the world need to face justice in those countries, such as Georgia or Ukraine.
5. Political influence of rich individuals has to be capped.
6. Ethnic networking needs to be investigated and stopped – not only on Wallstreet.
pokerguy says:
Absolutely mystified. …Obama proposes a jobs plan that most economists agree would help, and the obstructionist Republicans who would rather burn our once proud country to the ground than do anything that might help him politically vote “NO.”
——————
Why is it that politicians accept the second half of Kensyian economics – spending borrowed money to temporarily create jobs – but forget the first half – getting out of debt, getting out of the way of business and building up a war chest. If countries went into recessions with a surplus they would come out with a much smaller deficit. A 1930s economist would faint if he were alive to see this mess.
Uh, huh. So let me understand, you’re saying the Democrats are equally obstructionist because 2 of them voted no? 2 Democrats versus every single Republican.
You really see an equivalency there?
If you can’t understand there’s something wrong with your logic then there’s no sense trying to explain it to you.
pokerguy says:
October 13, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Uh, huh. So let me understand, you’re saying the Democrats are equally obstructionist because 2 of them voted no? 2 Democrats versus every single Republican.
========================================================
They needed 60 votes going in to break the filibuster……they knew going in they only had 51 votes.
They did not need 2 votes, they needed 9.
Which means they needed some republicans to vote “yes” on it, and they knew that wouldn’t happen.
They had no intention of the bill passing when they introduced it……..they knew it wouldn’t pass.
They wasted our money again, introducing a bill that they knew, going in, that they did not have the votes to pass it. They didn’t even get all of the democrats to vote “yes” on it.
If you can’t understand there’s something wrong with you logic, then there’s no sense trying to explain it to you.
Steve says:
“When I see people whitewashing CEOs and their pay I get worked up. Was Steve Jobs worth 11 million per year? Of course not! More like 110 million.”
—————————————————————————————-
Nice example Steve. Jobs was paid ONE Dollar in salary. Warren Buffett only gets $99,999 more. I have nothing against executives having an interest in the success of their company and benefiting from that. I am down on the ones with a 20 million dollar bonus regardless of whether or not they do their job:
“According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that Jobs only receives $1 per year.
It may be hard to believe that Jobs only makes a three figure salary – in pennies – but don’t worry he’s more than adequately compensated in shares and reimbursements. Though he still does not receive equity, he received $248,000 this past year for the use of his private plane for business purposes and owns 5.5 million of the company’s common stock (and is the company’s largest shareholder).
Obama knew when he proposed the bill it was not going to be passed. It wasn’t designed to be passed, it was designed as a plank for his reelection platform. The Obama jobs plan was such a non-starter Harry Reid delayed the vote on it for over a month.
BTW – What makes you think it would it work any better than his last stimulus plan?
Why just Wall Street? Why not occupy his house too? Isnt it unfair that that he live in such a big house and have such a large compound when 99% dont?
“Wreckers!” Somebody knows his Solzhenitsyn.
It’s too bad people don’t learn real history anymore. Socialism only works through force or the threat of force. The OWS people should Google the literal meaning of the word “Utopia.”
Here is an interesting perspective………. a comment from the NYT Editorial linked above:
John Jazwiec
Chicago and Old Naples
October 9th, 2011
6:52 am
I have consistently posted comments to the Times about the problem of the 99%, the need to stimulate the economy, the need to raise taxes on the wealthy and even predicted social disorder that makes Occupy Wall Street seem tame. I have also posted why the movement is less about Wall Street and more of a protest of the establishment.
With that said, I am have been a CEO for the last 10 years, and am part of the 1%. Not all of us are evil. Not all of us make our money by running a casino or on Wall Street.
In a world where labor, best-in-practive methods, automation and supply chains are ubiquitous; only creative people can add value. The only reason my life’s arc is different, is that I am not a conformist. I have ideas and then I mine the world of ubiquity.
Tax me higher please. But at the same time, as I have said to MBA students as an adjunct professor, no book or degree is going to make you successful or even employable. Instead you need to be unique value creator.
Who is a unique value creator? In general, it is someone that can’t be duplicated within certain geographies. Examples are: an innovator, an entrepreneur, a salesman, a gifted writer, a local HVAC specialist and a local community banker who knows what kind of businesses work and don’t work to make the best loans, come to mind.
Who is not a unique value creator? Pharmacists, GPs, Eye Doctors, accountants, computer programmers and lawyers come to mind. Pharmacists and GPs end up working for CVS. Eye doctors work part time for Lenscrafters. Computer programmers, be they offshore, or domestic have to meet a market price of $30 per hour. Lawyers also are forced to compete in the same darwinistic hyper-world economy
The days of posting a resume is not where the world is heading. That worked a decade ago. The protestors don’t understand their own obsolescence. They are victims of unpredictable titanic forces. Schools are conformist factories. Only the non-conformists, can be unique value creators.
Doug,
Buffet made $49 million last year and paid $7 million in taxes. Salary is a small part of compensation. If you think that Jobs was paid one dollar then you may want to have someone else look after your investments or I’ve missed your point.
Doug says:
October 13, 2011 at 6:06 pm
Uhhh….Doug…..do you think Steve Jobs had to buy all that stock? The stock options diluted the shareholders the same as would a cash bonus. You really don’t seem to get it.
Al Gore donates all of his “salary” to a non-profit, but he is now drowning in over $100 million of the guilty green. Did he print all that evil money?
Anthony, it’s too bad you decided to remove the “Al Gore is an I***t” descriptor from your blog. It definitely qualifies in this case.
Doug,
Jobs owned $4 billion worth of Disney stock which netted him about $47 million in dividends. He was given a $90 million jet by Apple which pays the annual operating expenses valued at over $776,000 in 2007 alone. He owned about $1.2 billion in Apple stock.
The guy was worth every penny but likely earned more than $1 per year.
Doug says:
“Anyone who just assumes a totally unregulated market will look after them are the rightful prey of the 100 million a year executive looter.”
Doug, the market is not there look after your money. That’s your job.
@ur momisugly Sloan says: October 13, 2011 at 12:24 pm
I will give 800 billion good reasons to support the Ocupation of Wall Street and lock up those theives, but Al Gore and his AGW junkies are not one of them…
————————————————————-
Sloan I second this.
I will add the anti-union rhetoric I see coming from Americans (and to a lesser degree Canadian Conservatives) is part of your problem. Unionized laborer set the bench mark for the middle class and it’s the middle class that make a country prosperous not the 1% rich. Germany and Canada are two highly unionized countries that are handling this down turn better than any of the other G8 countries. BTW do not bother to throw Greece in my face; their problems are pure incompetence on a scale that by far outweighs a unionized work force issue.
It wasn’t the Unions that gave us the “.com” melt down or this latest investment banking melt down (rip off). CEO’s getting multi-million dollar bonuses while they take down companies and economies are the problem compounded by Corporate Socialism (bail outs).
Don’t underestimate these Wall St. protests, these people have legitimate grievances and ad hominem attack on these protesters is a grievous error. The rich (modern royalty) always try to hang on to their lucre and power way to long with disastrous results.
@Dave Worley says:
October 13, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Here is an interesting perspective………. a comment from the NYT Editorial linked above:
John Jazwiec
————————————————————————
Hey Dave, this John Jazwiec comment exemplifies why you and him just don’t get it.
You have got to be kidding . . . . .
@richard says:
October 13, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Why just Wall Street? Why not occupy his house too? Isnt it unfair that that he live in such a big house and have such a large compound when 99% dont?
———————————————————————————————–
Hey Richard, historically the 1% European Royalty that controlled 90% of the wealth had allot worse things done to them than having someone occupy their house.
Michael Dell on CNBC today complained about the lack of skilled Americans as being a serious limit to growth for Dell Computers. I wonder how many people in the Wall Street walk-about are qualified to join his company?
Sun Spot says:
“Unionized laborer set the bench mark for the middle class and is the middle class that make a country prosperous not the 1% rich.”
Non-sequitur. The existence of private sector unions doesn’t make much difference to a country’s prosperity one way or another, only to how it’s divided up. But public sector unions reduce prosperity based on Bastiat’s Broken Window fallacy.
The real problem is public sector unions, which should be abolished. In the private sector a union will not destroy its host by demanding too high a pay scale, because that would put all the workers out of a job. But in the public sector the taxpayers are feasted upon by overpaid union workers who provide votes to politicians, who then pass the expense on to an unwilling public.
It is a corrupt and dishonest system that is completely out of control. Public employee unions, like all unions, have become dues collection organisms, first and foremost. Unions are not really needed any more. And I say this as a four time elected President of my Local, and twice elected to statewide union office. Public employee unions like the SEIU should be outlawed for being contrary to the public interest.
@Smokey says: October 13, 2011 at 7:32 pm
You’re wrong, it does follow. Unions set the pay grade of the middle class, eliminate the unionized worker and you eliminate the middle class (it’s called class warfare).
Dave Worley says:
October 13, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Here is an interesting perspective………. a comment from the NYT Editorial linked above:
John Jazwiec
Chicago and Old Naples
October 9th, 2011
6:52 am
—————————————–
Dave,
Why is it that all CEOs want to see their taxes raised just as they are ready to retire? Where was this guy at the start of his first year? Oh, making money.