An Open Letter to the Self-Proclaimed ’99%’
Self-delusion is no way to go through life, but it’s clear from perusing the “We Are the 99 Percent” web site that self-delusion has become an epidemic. Anyone who believes that they represent 99% of Americans, without any supporting evidence, doesn’t. Deluding yourself that you do leaves you unprepared for opposition and rejection.
The 99 percent site reminds me of the “Sorry Everybody” site, on which liberals posted photographs of themselves apologizing to the world for the re-election of George W. Bush. Perhaps many of the 99 percenters still haven’t quite come to grips with that defeat. Regardless, common themes emerge from the photos posted there — excessive academic credentials that are mostly unrelated to producing anything in the real economy, high personal self-regard, massive personal debt, and shattered dreams.
For those whom those terms above describe, and it’s a heavy majority of the 99 percenters, it’s evident that they hold to a certain political world view in which abstract credentials entitle you to a comfortable life, and that the fact that you dream something entitles you to have it. In the real world, neither has ever been true. The world doesn’t care about your credentials. It doesn’t care about your self-esteem. It doesn’t care that you chose of your own free will to rack up a mountain of debt. It doesn’t now owe you a painless way out of that debt. And it really doesn’t care about your dreams.
That’s not an indictment of the times in which we live. In fact, if you take the sweep of human history into account, these times are obviously the most accommodating of our personal aspirations, by far. The Hobbesian world of short, brutish, and nasty lives still exists all over the world, but mostly far outside the America that has so disillusioned the 99 percenters. America is not a dark Dickensian place where wishes can’t come true, it’s a free land where anyone can succeed if they have enough determination, some useful skills, and a little luck. And of the three, luck is probably the least relevant. This was true at our nation’s founding, and despite the efforts of some, remains true today.
The self-proclaimed 99 percenters say they want jobs, and they cast blame hither and yon for why they don’t have them. Some seem to have replaced faith in God with faith in the state, faith which the state has never earned and will not live up to. But I’m not here to blame the unemployed among the 99 percenters. It’s a tough economy out there, the toughest in a very long time, and once you lose your job for whatever reason, it can be very tough to get another one. Anyone who has ever been unemployed, and most of us have been at one point or another, knows the terror of waking up each day without the dignity of work and the expectation of future gains. You feel the anxiety in your gut and in your chest. I don’t wish that feeling on anyone.
“We Are the 99 Percent”
You are the handful of losers who can’t make it through life on your own, and expect every one else to pay your bills.
That’s who you are.
This probably sums it up 99%. I cannot think of a better comment.
Nicely done, #1.
well stated.
I call bullsh!t ..these unwashed masses are 100% irresponsible dregs of society.
they are the takers in society not the producers not the givers.
THEY ARE 99+% PARASITES.
NO ONE MADE THEM TAKE ON DEBT …YET THEY WANT THE REST TO COVER IT FOR THEM.
The 99% was probably awaken by Sarah Palin’s “Crony Capitalism” speech. It makes a lot of sense to them that our government is indeed paid off by the top 1% of this country. Beware of where Sarah Palin stands in this country!!!
Good point Mike.
Beyond the “God first” solution to all of life’s problems (a strong belief which I hold), the so called 99% must all try to keep in mind the word “Power”. They say they want to take money from the rich in order to have money to give to the poor. To do so, they must transfer power from the private sector into the hands of government via taxing and regulating. If they are successful, they should get ready to eat processed cheese, live in quonset huts and work on bridges to no where. Corporations cannot rule our lives, but government can. Corporations do not rob us of our freedoms, but government does. To curb corporate greed, how about deregulating and putting an end to monopolistic practices and let true competition return to the work place? Drive down pricing, enhance quality, and increase the abundance of desired goods and services through a competitive environment, and return the power to the people.
I would go further and assert that the Obama campaign is orchestrating this so called movement. Notice the unions are now getting into it. This whole deal has unions written all over it. These guys don’t even take a crap without clearing it with Obama first. Especially the teaching unions. The fact that the useful idiots are mostly deprived college students should also be a clue. But, get used to these contrived flash mob political movements. It is the latest in the “science” of modern day politics and it will never go away if it works.
Not seeing too many Sarah Palin pins or buttons in the crowd, it’s more likely the 99%ers were awakened by the Chosen One’s assertion that the wall streeters vacuumed up all the money leaving none for the little guy–a situation that will be rectified if He is elected for a second term.
It seems that the 1 thing that this 99% ‘group’ (or what ever they are) really graphically illustrates is their inability to apply simple arithmetic or statistical math to reality. Products of the Public School System. Which only further diminishes any claim to ‘being correct’ or any potential point they could make. Being stupid is a horrible way to have to go through life.
How many of these protestors are complete fakes?
“Days of Rage” / “Occupy America” Protestors: Posers and Useful Idiots
If they’re that poor, how do they all get there? They can’t possibly be living right by Wall Street! Protestors who can afford to fly in from distant cities to participate in those pieces of street theater are clearly getting their money from somewhere. Or perhaps some of them are being bused in – by whom?
I would suggest that some of them already have jobs – probably in the pay of some George Soros front group or other.
I call it Entitlement Derangement Syndrome, EDS. Products of a failed Educational system that has promised lots of nothing for nothing. That’s called work. Lots of non-parenting skills at work here also. These people are tools for anarchist and bet they don’ even know what that means. Go poop on some more Cop cars and tune into some more Michael Moore movies. That’s the ticket. Who is paying for these people to wander aimlessly through their mental wilderness. Going to take more than power hoses to remove all the feces
left behind by this wandering group. New hippies, the most disgusting group of people to hit American soil.
I’ve not been to the site, but if (ahem) 99% of the posts are by unemployed, at most they could represent what, 14-20 something percent (factoring in the underemployed as well)? Which means they really represent about 5%? Since a lot of the unemployed/underemployed are doing something about their situation instead of spending a lot of time on the net (funny to be broke, nearly homeless and walking dogs- which can actually be a decent job if you have any business sense- and yet still afford a land line or cable for internet- I notice those three aren’t in cafes or libraries).
Maybe if they learned some basic math, they’d get ahead?
Maybe if they researched the need for disciplines such as Art Historians or English Lit graduates before selecting a major they would less likely be in their situation. Something more practical such as Engineering, Chemistry or Biology probably did not cross their minds. This is the result of our public school system promoting the “be all you can be” philosophy, instead of directing kids toward a needed commercial field. Art Historian is good at 4% national unemployment, but not when the economy is stagnating.
While I agree that a large number of the protesters are doing it for vague reasons or merely to protest, I take offense at saying a degree in English isn’t practical. Yes, there are too many graduates majoring in English, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is that they don’t know how to turn it into something useful. English is a versatile degree and studying it isn’t only studying literature. You’re studying writing and there are a lot of people in your “practical” industries of Chemistry, Biology, or Engineering who wouldn’t know grammar if it hit them in the head. If you look at most job openings, one of the most sought after requirements in any industry is the ability to write well.
Though, in my experience, people who usually mock English degrees are usually the first people to slap the “pretentious” label on anyone who can speak and write well. There are uses for English degrees that go far beyond sitting in a coffee house reciting Keats. It can be just as useful as any practical science or engineering degree. It’s a versatile degree and I know people who have a MA in English and have gone on to write for politicians, corporations, newspapers, or television. It’s a versatile degree, but you have to know how to use it to your favor. Deriding a BA as useless and unpractical is ignorant. But I suppose you’d rather have your news stories about engineering and biological discoveries written by someone who has the writing ability of a twelve year old using internet slang.
Danielle, I think you kind of missed the plot.
It’s not the idea that an English major can do well in a number of different endeavors once he or she leaves school. (Full disclosure…I’ve got a BA in Russian Language, myself.) I don’t think anyone argues that point.
What is being mocked is the apparent inability for these mooks to think of any other use for their liberal arts degree besides something that involves the faculty lounge. Their sense of entitlement to having one of those plum jobs is evident in the pictures used for this story. I mean….do you REALLY expect someone with a graduate degree to accept something less than a suitable sinecure with complete job security? Do you expect them to “sell out”, as the chick in the first picture so memorably put it, in order to live indoors?
THAT’S the attitude that is so damn annoying about these people. If I would have had a similar attitude, I’d never have gotten a job. Since I didn’t have that attitude, I have had several pretty good ones, none of which remotely “required” my degree. But then again, I wanted to drive a Corvette instead of live in a beat up old clunker….and did, thank you very much!
Though I respectfully agree with many of the points you made in this article I was very disappointed with your delivery. There are plenty of ways to make ones opinion known without all of this name calling, yet you chose none of them.
I don’t want a handout and I don’t want a free pass.
I want humanity to stop destroying this planet, I want an end to World Bank & IMF, and I want to be proud of my country. Call us unwashed, call us dreamers, but a new age is coming. An age of peace and advancement. An age without talking heads and white noise.
If you want “the 99%” to garner some of the quality thoughts you presented in this letter to us, a bit of reflection needs to be done. I am very saddened by the way older generations seem to have lost their way in the world, so many of you that claim to be ‘good honest Christians’ in one breath and condemn free health-care with the next.
If even half of you walked out of those doors on sunday and practiced what you preach and read about inside of them I suspect we wouldnt have many of these problems today.
One question, oh wise scion. Precisely where in the Good Book does the Lord order that his followers provide free healthcare?
I mean, I got the part where He tells us basically not to be schmucks and help each other out…..but I don’t recall the part where he said that we gotta pay for Susie’s abortion and pull the plug on Gramma because she’s got a low quality of life rating and we could better spend that money on someone who’s still young and productive instead, unless of course that younger person is a disabled baby, because as we all know it is far better to just let nature take it’s course and let the kid die before he/she becomes a burden on us all….
I mean, help a sista out. I don’t recall seeing that in the Good Book. But the general idea is more or less in pretty much every “free” healthcare system out there. Ya see, those are the choices that are made every day in those systems (paying for abortions, not paying for certain procedures if someone is considered “too old”, valuing some lives over others especially in the case of disabled children), and since you are all about the theology, pardon me for pointing out that none of those choices seem very Christian to me.
The common theme seems to be that these young people borrowed a lot of money to go to an expensive private university instead of their state school. My son had a choice between Princeton and Minnesota and wisely chose to go be a Gopher. (OK, he’s from Virginia but they gave him an out of state tuition waiver.) He will graduate next June with no debt. Since he is in the sciences his graduate education will also be debt free. These 99 percenters made poor choices and now want someone else to pay for them. Some adult needs to tell them to grow up.
Exactly.
That comment is spot on. Every one had a choice.
“These 99 percenters made poor choices and now want someone else to pay for them. Some adult needs to tell them to grow up.”
Well, they were brought up with an entitlement mentality, getting trophies and accolades for showing up and trying, regardless of the outcome. So, what do we (the other 99%) expect from them. Ask anyone in business how different millennials are to manage.
Let’s see, I’ve been laid off twice in my career. Always managed to find some work even during the 2 recessions when I was laid off. Our student loans were my biggest debt until my wife and I bought a house. We dug ourselves into credit card debt. Guess what, following Dave Ramseys program we dug ourselves out of credit card debt.
Someone needs to tell those 99%ers to grow up and take responsibility for their actions.
I graduated with Student loans as well, and no job, instead of whining, I found that the Armed Forces have very nice loan repayment programs in return for a few years of service. Additionally, the skills I picked up in the military provided me the skills that currently provide my employment. These folks all look young and healthy. HMMM….
Doesn’t the Army do psychological screening to weed out the guano-crazies?
I know they do drug testing.
not everyone can join the military. not everyone in the military can get college help. yet when you are in the military, you sign your life away, to murder/ kill foreigners, and none of the spoils come back to the US. Instead the spoils go to mostly European countries. we are in at least 3 wars/conflicts, with such vicious countries as Libya ?!?!?! If the government of the US can take away the sovereign land away from a dictator (such as Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and not arguing if they were good or bad) THEN THEY WILL TAKE AWAY YOUR LIBERTIES. ohh, by the way, they all ready are. now they are squeezing your pocketbook ,so you can not leave the country.
now about housing and student loans. If you are behind on your payments, they are difficult to get, or almost impossible to get caught up. they add interest continually. companies sell the lie that you NEED a house and COLLEGE, just to get you caught in a trap. Once you take the loans, you are theirs for more or less 30 years. Basically a slave/serf about 1/2 of your life. the choice they give you is to work for them, until you pay it off. what really sucks, if you lose your job,downturn in life,etc, you can eventually get out of a mortgage,(for now)however student loans,IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO FILE BANKRUPTCY. ( LIKE 200 or less cases are approved in the whole US, and remember the FEDS will be combing through your records, if you decide to file this way. (they might even follow you around) RUN RUN, get out of the country while you can get a passport. DONT TURN BACK. the TITANIC, is getting ready to set sail, and lots of americans will die
You honestly believe what you wrote?
1) Obama is perpetuating the wars you mentioned
2) NO ONE required to ‘buy’ into having a house or a car
3) You view seems to be that the ’99%ers’ aren’t responsible for their choices.
I’ve got news for you: they are.
4) One thing I’ve been seen mentioned is that all these protesters seem to be of the age that they were raised with the idea that having high self-esteem is the most important attribute of life.
Well, look where that’s got them: getting credentialed in fields that have little-to-no employment opportunities.
Once again why is society to blame for this? NO ONE made that one chick get a MFA. It was her decision and now she wants the government to make her life better.
This is sad and moronic.
So why aren’t they marching and protesting at the universities they attended? I know, it’s a self-answering question.
Wall Street is being scapegoated by Obama. The universities currently aren’t.
Evidently some of them have started blaming the Jooooooos.
This will not end well for anyone.
“We are the 99% of liberals who are idiots and who think the world owes us a living”
There is one perception here that is overwhelmingly true. The burden of student debt is the last straw. All of these students who were encouraged to do what they love, rather than chase the dollars, are stuck in the low end of the economic ladder. They have taken on careers that are expensive to enter (humanties Ph.D. students pay their own way much of the time) and do not pay well, even at the top. Try nursing 100 Grand in debt and having a life on $60k a year. This cannot continue.
“My father (Ph.D.) lives in his car so he can do what he loves for a living…”
Your father is not earning a living if he has no home by choice. In my circles he is what we call a derelict. He is definitely NOT someone to emulate!
To the 17 year old worrying about how to pay for college I recommend going to a 1 year trade school instead and getting a professional certificate. Get out into the world of work as an auto mechanic, truck driver, IT implementation engineer or somesuch. And you can obtain all the free knowledge you want at your local library when you finish your workday or on weekends.
“My father (Ph.D.) lives in his car so he can do what he loves for a living…”
What she left out is that what he loves to do is crack.
Note that “Daddy-who-lives-in-his-car” does not live with Mommy. Mommy, no doubt, threw him out
Hilarious. Proud moments.
Thanks for the good laugh, Rob. I’m still laughing as I post. Tears coming out of my eyes.
If the impending hydrocarbon boom has any legs (we’ll never know if the Calamitous Clown continues to be our Prez), then many men and quite a few women with no more than a GED could end up making some serious bucks, and even move up the petrodollar ladder over time.
Oh, wait. That would mean “raping” the environment. I guess $70-100K/year for being a full-time-plus roughneck on a rig is out, then.
In the early ’70s I was pretty much the archtypal long-haired, dope-smoking, FM Radio- listening Southern version of a liberal living in Atlanta. I was distinguished from these losers by the fact that I did know how to work and wasn’t crippled by student loan debt, though it took me the better part of twenty years to finally make myself pay off the last of it. I got sick of the crime, race hassles, and uncertainty in Atlanta, packed up Wife v. 1.0, kid, and dog in a Toyota LandCruiser and struck out “North to the Future” as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was just ramping up.
Some of the men looking for their future were older itinerant construction hands but most of us were ‘Boomers with liberal arts degrees and such. We hauled pipe, dug trenches, carried heavy stuff, got cold, got wet, and along the way we made a lot of money. Some of us went on to the next big job, some of us listened to complaints from the homefront and quit after awhile and came to town and got jobs there – and there weren’t a whole lot of jobs in Anchorage and Fairbanks for liberal arts majors either so you needed to either get dirty or sell stuff to make a living. Along the way, we built a state and a good life for ourselves. Most of us even became Republicans.
“get dirty and sell stuff..” pretty much sums up the way the real economy works!
“I recommend going to a 1 year trade school instead and getting a professional certificate. Get out into the world of work as an auto mechanic, truck driver, IT implementation engineer or somesuch.”
Exactly! Get your hands dirty learning a real job. The country needs carpenters and plumbers and electricians, and they command very healthy hourly wages. The country doesn’t need and won’t support liberal-arts divas. Not everyone can, or should, be an ivory-tower academic.
Hmm — I am surprised she is not able to get a job in a call centre. They are booming these days.
Call centers are indeed booming these days – overseas.
Many companies outsource a lot of their less skilled jobs to call centers but those call centers are much more likely to be in the Philippines or India than to be in America. Even the domestic call centers that do exist are often in decline. A good friend found himself in a domestic call center but told me that the company which hired them was constantly shifting work from their center to the overseas call centers. Finally, the domestic center closed altogether and my friend was out of a job.
The trades used to be where you could make a decent living. Right now with construction being in decline,( Thanks Fannie and Freddie.), there’s not much work. I just got laid off temporarily yesterday with no way of knowing when work will start again. But I’m not going to put a ring in my nose and complain about it. Something will come up, even if it’s “picking sh!t with the chickens.”
“The country needs carpenters and plumbers and electricians, and they command very healthy hourly wages.”
Yes, but:
* The current scam around here (by the unions I assume) is to hire apprentices and then fire them before they can become journeymen – rinse and repeat.
* Don’t need so many of these with the economy the way it is.
* Reality is, if they did not have high union wages we’d be able to afford/hire/use more of them, but they’d be paid less. (Just like my IT competition in Bangalore – argh!)
www
“Why won’t my Philosophy of Art History graduate degree give me the lifestyle to which I am entitled? Should I get a bigger ring for my nose? Help!”
LOL.
I’m reading through that website and I’m about to die laughing at the pathetic sob stories.
It’s way funnier than the old “Sorry Everybody” site, and that site was comedy gold.
Example of sob story:
“I am a college graduate – $30,000 in debt from a degree which makes me “unhirable.” I work part-time for $7.25 per hour. My bills are accruing interest and more debt by the minute.”
“Meanwhile, millionaires sip champagne and look down on me from their penthouses with the same human eyes I have.”
Yeah, they’re looking down on you because they’re winners, and you’re a pathetic loser who can’t even take care of yourself, fool. Get a clue: no one looks up to idiots; and dolts with minimum wage part time jobs don’t get any champagne.
If I was such a pathetic loser, I certainly wouldn’t proclaim it to the world on a web-site.
“…..a degree which makes me “unhirable.”
What a loser. Didn’t he consider that before selecting his major? These people are so stupid, but funny. It’s one thing to say, I’m an engineer and can’t find a job, but another to say, I have a degree in Social Justice and can’t get a job. No doubt he can get hired by the State Department. This is the objective of all socialists. A free college education for all with insignificant study majors, if only they could get away with stealing the money from the rest of us in additional taxes to pay for it.
“It’s one thing to say, I’m an engineer and can’t find a job, but another to say, I have a degree in Social Justice and can’t get a job.”
Whether engineer or Social Justice, both are unemployed, right? Is that because neither one “made the right choices?”
Um….where can I make $6/walk picking up dog poop? Who knew that such an unskilled job paid so well.
It took lots of training because she used to pick up ‘Shinola’ and wouldn’t get paid for her effort.
GREAT POST!
I wish I hadn’t been taking a drink of tea when I read that. Now I have a mess all over my monitor!
She should move to DC. Dogwalkers make $15 a walk.
One more thing. Knowledge these days is almost free; it is the credential that costs.
Bart, you are correct:
Knowledge is free.
Information is free.
Education in its truest sense is free.
Degrees and credentials? Not so much.
Add “common sense” to the free list.
I am pretty sure that if these 99%’ers would just protest at their neighborhood universities, all of the tenured professors would be happy to reject their $100K salaries and teach these wonderful young people for free.
Funny- they march on Wall Street while University Ave. is where the real rip-offs takes place.
Yes! Yes! Yes!!! The universities are money making machines and liberal indoctrination centers!!!
they are “ponzi schemes”
the new students pay the top of the pyramid- tenured professors and senior administrators- while they get brainwashed and learn to say “heyheyhoho” somewhat in unison
I almost dropped my dentures the other day reading the classifieds in the newspaper. There are so many job-seekers with college degrees these days that one outfit was requiring a bachelor’s degree for secretarial position paying $9 to $12 per hour (pay commensurate with secretarial experience).
A grocery store manager requires a business degree. No mention whether 39 years in the grocery business, including manager at two locations, with a high school education would get you a call back.
A used car salesman apparently doesn’t need any kind of educational level of attainment.
It’s a sad, sorry state of affairs when you can make millions of dollars selling bogus paper, ruining the lives, hopes and futures of millions of Americans and nobody goes to jail.
By the way, I’m one of the 99%.
Nah, your one of the diminishing Obama supporters at 47%…43%…39% and downing.
I guess you still haven’t figured out that businesses put unreasonable sounding job qualifications in their ads in order to weed out the feint of heart.
Hmm, so the one who was laid off in 2009 and hasn’t made decent $$ since has a 3 month old, as of September/October 2011? I sense a bit of a breakdown of responsibility there, among the other CHOICES embodied in the way they explain their plights.
And they aren’t the 99%. They are a subset of the 9% (unemployed) that has acquired Really Impressive Degrees in Uselessness Studies. The real “99%” (or whatever significant majority actually exists) is still waking up each day and finding ways to provide actual value to others, rather than demanding sympathy.
“…laid off in 2009 and hasn’t made decent $$ since has a 3 month old, as of September/October 2011…”
Lessee; unemployed, lots of free time, not much else to do… Yeah, I can see how that came about, especially from one who feels no personal responsibility for their own actions and their consequences!
I met a girl like this several years ago (she didn’t have a baby) – met her in, of all places, a kickboxing class (she wanted to be empowered, I guess). She was employed as a social worker and was irked that she wasn’t getting a salary commensurate with her credentials (and yet, she regarded her occupation as her “calling”). She was extremely earnest and as dumb as wet paint (I recall author P.J. O’Rourke’s remark: “Earnestness is Stupidity gone to college).
I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed the age of the baby (I also noticed there’s no mention of the father)! I also find it interesting that the art historian is the only one who mentioned a field of study. And if ALL your friends are “jobless or homeless” you should really be looking for a better class of friend.
I’m also fairly certain none of them are posting their whines via equipment/connectivity from the public library. Apparently their circumstances aren’t so dire they can’t have toys to fritter their days away.
I’ve been laid off twice since January 2009 (it was not a libido enhancer). I’m currently working a contract job 350 miles from home, in a city with a hateful climate, because hey, it’s a job. It’s hard and it’s lonely, but I’ve been able to learn skills I can use to to seek work somewhere more pleasant, something I’d not be able to do if I’d spent 2010 waiting for my funemployment check to arrive so I could get a new neck tattoo to impress a new hookup.
I’m only a couple of years older than these children, but I feel ancient.
I lost my job in May and took a job that I hate with a long commute in June because doing “what I love” doesn’t actually pay anything, let alone a pittance.
Guess who paid to hatch the baby? And guess who is now paying to feed, clothe, house and provide medical care for ‘mother’ and child? Useless is as useless does.
Someone should start a new “movement” called, “No, I am the 99%” where the real 99% can post their not-so-sob-stories like mine:
I racked up a small mountain of college debt to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English, and left a PhD program to be a full-time stay at home mom. As an adult, I have never been reckless enough to not pay to have medical insurance. I have no income. My husband worked hard his whole life and has a good job. But he hasn’t had a raise in more than three years. So our inclome had dropped while our necessary expenses (having a baby) have increased. We live on a tight budget and are paying down our debt, despite high medical bills (some expected, some not). Thanks to government intrusion in healthcare, our health insurance bills have sky-rocketed, and we’ve adjusted our personal spending accordingly. Through all the financial fluctuations, I’ve maintained the same level of monthly charitable giving. I don’t have as much money as I used to, or as I’d liked to, but that is a result of the CHOICES I’ve made and I’m NOT blaming the government or Wall Street or Capitalism or anyone else.
I submit there should be a new movement called “Don’t Work, Don’t Eat”.
The goals don’t necessarily have to be THAT harsh, but if you’re so impoverished, WTF are you doing with luxuries like make-up, rainbow-hued markers, digital cameras, and computers?
Exactly. ……But you can’t tell people they are responsible for 99% of their own problems BECAUSE of their life choices.
When the going gets tough these “modern Liberals” blame every one else and will not allow anything to change their minds. TO me it seems that they are all looking for a parent not a job.
I’m sure if you provide the “work,” they’ll provide the “eat.” How many are YOU hiring this week?
One thing being overlooked. There will not be many “jobs”, but there will always be work. It is too difficult to have employees these days. Therefore there is a growing workforce that takes only cash. I have homeless who want yardwork and they want $20 per hour. This is the equivalent of a “job” making $35 per hour. I’ve learned to hire by the “job” and not by the hour. If you want to mow my lawn, it’s $10. If you work fast, you can make $20 per hour (for 1/2 hour). Without having to pay S.S., income taxes, health insurance, union dues, etc., you’ve just made $35 per hour in “job” money.
Propagandist, well…I just hired one. Myself.
See, after spending time raising two kids at home, and seeing how crappy the job market is, I decided to start my own business selling stuff at the local farmer’s market. I have some good recipes and people have offered to buy what I make for a long time, so I figured, what the hell…..if I wait for someone to “give me a job”, I’m gonna be waiting for a damn long time thanks to the economic conditions created by your hero, O-blah-blah.
I won’t be making a ton of money, but it will be honest. Laugh at me all you want, I don’t care. Because this job will either be successful and eventually turn into a profitable small business of my own, or it will show one of the people who are still hiring that I have a little bit more drive than the average mook who posts on “the Other 99%” should I ever decide to look for a regular job. Either way, it’s a win.
Now….how many have YOU hired, dahlink?
EMM- I hate to be harsh but here is reality.
BTW, you and your hubby are doing the right thing(s) = pay your bills, have kids, love each other.
When I was in school – state U – AAS EE, BS Mathematics w/minor Physics, MA Project Mgmt – English majors were the low end. Q: What skill is marketable with English? A: None. Try teaching. Or …… anything.
The harsh is that all those social workers are useless. There is no more money for useless eaters. Same for the marketing types. Mostly they make ads that make me feel insulted so I will never buy their product. Learn to cook! Short order cooks can make a living. Go to a trade school. The world has enough ivory tower dilettantes.Sorry, but the world outside of the US borders is still very, very Hobbesian = fang, tooth, claw.
Our tax dollars have pretty much made knowledge free. You can sit in a library all day long and learn–for free (that is,if you aren’t paying taxes). Heck,you can sit in a Barnes and Noble all day long and read their books for free. What isn’t free are the salaries of professors, buildings for classes, land to hold those buildings, administrators to keep track of your learning, etc. No, getting a degree isn’t free, but learning really doesn’t cost much.
Yes, but – it’s the very student loans that these people (stupidly encouraged by the govt.) have taken on that has caused all those un-free university resources to rise in cost (i.e. artificially increasing demand). If no loans, grants, etc. were available it would all be affordable and stupid decisions like Art History, would automatically not be made.
This is just like the housing bubble – all the stupidly govt. encouraged (sanctioned) NINJA loans, fraud, etc. caused house prices to rise so they’re unaffordable.
Let’s stop this insanity. Debt jubilee – KILL the banks – and start over. Only real solution IMO – otherwise we’ll muddle on for decades.
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I love the “KNOWLEDGE should be free” line.
The school’s job is to pack one’s head full of knowledge. It’s their JOB. They don’t owe anyone anything other than what they are paid for.
When one gets into the job force, guess what the potential employer is paying for — acquired knowledge.
To the afore mentioned mental giant: Listen, Buckwheat, I don’t care if you are a rocket scientist or a fry cook. The knowledge to get your job done is why your employers keeps cutting you checks. Should your knowledge be free to your employer? “KNOWLEDGE should be free”, right? If you give your knowledge away to your employer, I will consider you vindicated. Until then I will consider you either grossly ignorant or a hypocrite (or both).
I’ve figured it out: They are 99% of the left side of the intelligence bell curve.
Even though you’re right, your comment is too extreme for most of the intellects here.
Best comment here to describe the percentage meaning.
My personal favorite is the ‘Knowledge should be free’ twit. If you believe that, honeybunch, quit sitting around on your whiny little ass and join the Peace Corps or some other group of volunteers. There are millions of people in this world who haven’t been blessed with the education you’ve had, so get out there and start giving it away.
But, for sure, like ya know, that would be haaaarrd.
Knowledge is just information. That pretty much is free these days with
the advent of the internet. What she needs is some applied Wisdom and
Intelligence, and that comes from within. You can learn how to think, but
alas these days the Halls of Higher learning are more into indoctrination
than teaching our youth how to synthesize information into a coherent plausible
aruguement.
This is what happens when liberal hippy-dippy idiots tell everyone they can go to college. When everyone has a degree in Soc, Psych, Art, etc. they are unemployable in the real world because there simply aren’t enough jobs to go around. My sister – who I love dearly – has an MA in Education and can’t find a decent job. Why? Because MA Eds are a dime a dozen. Told her a dozen times to branch out and separate from the crowd by getting some administrative credentials because even when schools aren’t hiring teachers they sure as hell hire supers and principals.
As for the above losers, 5 minutes of research would have told these people to pick a different degree program.
Bottom Line: Not everyone should go to college. The world needs truck drivers and plumbers; our parents – and most of us – understood that.
As an aside, if the 2nd girl gets rid of the face hardware, she can put that Art degree to work painting my house.
“MA Eds are a dime a dozen”
Not so much. It just seems like it, because, when you get a Masters in Ed, you are suddenly unemployable. You cost too much to hire. They can get someone less skilled for less money and keep their budgets going. It also lets them have more “educators” (administrators). More bodies mean more union dues and political clout. It’s not like they are looking for quality teachers or anything. The government does not do quality. They do quantity.
She should try going to church. Get educated about God. Maybe then she can be hired by a private school. Of course, they pay even less, but there is so much less stress. Very rewarding.
I was in an MA Ed program once, and found it to be an incredible waste of time. I stuck around long eneough to earn enough credits for a promotion, but then bolted.
One of my two best friends is a master plumber. Makes a very nice living indeed. As he once said to me “No matter what the economy looks like, people always want the hot water to flow in and the shit to flow out.”
Meanwhile, I decided to do what I love. I make beans, but that was my choice. After many years of hard work I’m finding other places where my hard-won skills can be applied and starting to find ways to bring in some money. This is known as “paying dues.”
“Knowledge should be free”
Perhaps this person should Google MIT OPENCOURSEWARE. My 13 year old spends hours at a time on that site.
Knowledge IS free. The problem is that they don’t have the knowledge to find it. The ignorant tend to stay that way, and those who know how to learn tend to learn.
Spot on Mate.
Thanks for the tip on the MIT site.
“Knowledge should be free.”
It is.
Next problem?
It is just so wrong of that art history teacher above to demand money to teach. Doesn’t she know that knowledge should be free? We should use that the next time the teachers’ union goes on strike.
I remember when these just called themselves EMOS. The last two covered up their mouths – excessive piercing? And they wonder why they can’t get legitimate employment. Pull the metal out of your faces kids, cover up your tats, comb your hair, pull up your pants, and start using deodorant. No one is interested in hiring what looks like a bunch of hobos. Too much self esteem, and personal regard, I highly doubt it.
They need to join the Peace Corp, and spend some time in the 3rd world, find out what real hopelessness, and poverty looks like, sans all their electronic toys.
Get them into yet another government subsidized program that perpetuates the myth that a liberal arts major from some third rate institution actually has something to offer hard working, careful people who were not lucky enough to be born Americans? I don’t think so.
I just got out of the Peace Corps. I spent my time working with farmers on their production and teaching them how to market their crops. I got out and I working with them to export some of their crops here to the US. I’m their agent and I’ll make good cash on the deal. It’s just good business and if you treat farmers right, you have “secure supply chains.”
What I learned in the Peace Corps is how good we still have it in the US. How little money and material goods I need to survive and how easy it is to make money here if you have technical skills, managerial skills, not risk adverse, and people skills.
I’m in the process of starting three businesses while working full time. I wouldn’t mind hiring a few of the 99%ers. There are so many ‘educated’ critical thinkers out there. While their knowledge isn’t free, it is certainly cheap.
Obviously I’d prefer to hire someone that knows real opportunity when they see it.
The last 3 years have been a watershed moment in so many ways. At 47, this feels like the most important era of my lifetime.
The 99%ers have flipped on Obama and soon they’ll flip on soft communism as well. Look at the trend: A couple years ago we expected the media to bounce Obama but never, ever his base. Yet here we are. Today they are dancing around the core issue in every direction, but I believe there is no more denying the truth for them as now their very daily survival is in jeopardy.
They will swing right. They’re halfway there already.
“They will swing right.”
I doubt it. To a man (or woman) they are expecting the government to wave a magic wand and fix the problem. This is the only way they know how to think. To give credence to the “Government IS The Problem” nostrum would negate everything they have learned in the ivy covered halls. Given the value they clearly ascribe to the academy I do not see this happening any time soon. At least not in the context of this movement.
“soon they’ll flip on soft communism as well”
You are probably right about this. But I expect them to go from Trotsky to Lenin/Stalin, not the other direction. And if the SEIU/AFL-CIO/etc. goons get involved things will get very dicey very quickly!
“They will swing right”
Doubt it. Conservatism and Libertarianism take a certain amount of intelligence and maturity. Most of them have neither.
They don’t have to understand Conservatism to vote Conservative, just as they don’t have to understand what communism really is in order to think it’s a good idea. (It actually helps if they don’t understand how socialism actually ends up working in the real world, as if they knew, they would be horrified at the hypocrisy.)
OB 15min, you put it better than I did. Let’s call their version of swinging right; just as you say, we’ll let them think they invented it. I can smell a new acronym in the air, like ‘Sustainable Economy Progressive”, etc.
Perfect
I don’t buy that. “Power to the People” is not a conservative expression. These kinds of slogans are what makes liberalism attractive to stupid people, useful idiots and those whose political philosophy is based on “social jusice” without considering the ramifications, those who ignore unintended consequences. That’s why stupid or uninformed people are 99% more likely to vote Democrat – for the sake of “social justice” to assuage their guilt, hide their ignorance or for “entitlements”.
There are also plenty of stupid people who vote Republican. I think they’re making the right choice, but if you’re stupid and you vote Republican because you preacher or your father or whoever tells you to, it doesn’t make your smart. Neither party has a monopoly on intelligence. Smart people can come to different conclusions about what will work just as easily as stupid people.
So, don’t pat yourself on the back for having made the “smart person’s” choice. Applaud yourself for your reasoning ability, not for the company you keep.
What a vivid display of utter absurdity. The gal with the nose ring is simply hilarious!
I have a BA in English, but also have a minor in mathematics. Hence I was able to enter the technical writing field very easily, and make a decent living at it. A straight English/History/Sociology/other liberal arts degree isn’t worth the electrons used to create the words. That these children are so deluded to believe that they would walk into a good job with such degrees is a huge failure on both the parts of the students and their advisors.
Advisors? Like Career Counselors? Guidance Counselors at school? Why would anyone take advice from someone in such a dead-end job? They are low-paid salesmen for the college system. How many of them do you think actually advocate starting your own business?
I actually have a similar situation. I took a double major in English and creative writing because ever since I was young I’ve wanted to be a novelist–but my parents, God bless ‘em, pointed out that very few novelists actually make enough money to support themselves, and encouraged me to look into technical writing as well. Now I write fiction in my spare time and make a decent living wage with a day job . . . not bad for someone only eighteen months out of college.
I look at these people, and I see my peers. And they scare the hell out of them. What are they thinking?
I look at these people, and I see my peers. And they scare the hell out of them. What are they thinking?
Actually, you could simply your last sentence and still make perfectly good sense: just omit the “What”. In other words “are they thinking?”. It seems clear that the answer is a resounding “no”.
How in the world does a 27-year-old accumulate $100,000 in debt?!
Idiots deserve what they’ve gotten themselves into.
“Knowledge should be free”.
It is, you idiot. Walk into the library and you can read every textbook you’d need for class ON SOMEBODY ELSE’S DIME. Those of us who work have already paid for that, and you’re perfectly capable of using it.
What’s not “free” is the labor necessary to coddle you while you party through to getting your credentials. What’s not “free” is all the BS you keep demanding schools provide: gyms, “student centers”, gay-albino-Muslim-acrobat identity groups…
It does rather seem that a lot of these people got taken for a ride by fatcat college profs and administrators who “earn” six figures for dispensing Marxist drivel and useless arts and crafts instruction. Maybe they should be protesting on campus?
In effect, the modern “education” system puts all the risk on the students, even though they are the people least likely to know the value of what they are being taught. Maybe the universities should back the loans with their endowments? If the student can’t pay it off, the college has to? I suspect that with their own dollars on the line, they would not be offering so many majors ending in “Studies”.
Best comment so far. Put the money where the mouth is and the BS stops.
Or the pensions of the teachers who have taught them. Put some commitment behind the job and I would bet the education would change.
Is there any doubt that this is all being funded by Soros money? The are kids and neo-hippies all over the country saying doing the same thing. Some one is organizing/funding; my bet is Soros and his brown shirts. Next thing is that once the kids and neo-hippies get high and self-motivated, they’ll break some things and burn a few. Then, the union and ACORN thugs will start throwing rocks and molotovs from the back and things will really burn and break.
The union guys will be interesting because they have a direct tie to Obama and he won’t dare denounce them.
Cops will move in; some kids will be hurt bad. Soros, Obama, the captive media and some dems will blame the Republicans and Tea Party folks for the damage and injuries.
Real Americans, of course, will blame Soros and his Kenyan and their silly attempt to start class war. The net will be to turn the Congress over to Americans and put another black man, Cain, in the White House. Soros will still make a lot of money and the Kenyan will be indicted and, maybe, deported.
I went through the same stuff these little buggers did when I was a kid. I wanted to “be myself” or “find myself” or whatever. It was all about me – my dreams, my desires, my identity. As it turned out, I wasn’t able to pursue my intended career in the Liberal Arts. Instead, I ended up out in the world learning to take care of myself. Compared to my “creative person” dreams, the world was ugly and uncaring. I was on the verge of suicide at one point. But I survived. I don’t recall ever expecting Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush or Bill Clinton to “do something” about my employment situation or my career path. It never occurred to me to picket Wall Street because my life wasn’t turning out like I planned. I never considered wealthy people undeserving nor myself naturally entitled to some of their cash. The entire notion that other people are primarily responsible for my circumstances just didn’t enter my head. Was I the exception? I don’t remember many of my friends or acquaintances complaining that vast, unfeeling entities were messing up their lives.
So what’s changed?
Couldn’t have put it better Bugs.
Glad you made it, Bugs. Went through something similar myself. Cheers.
I posit that what has changed is that the majority of these stupid children have rarely if ever been made to actually work to achieve something. They have been taught from early childhood that no one keeps score, there are no winners or losers, and that everyone who plays gets a trophy. They were never taught the concept of personal accountability or agency and now that The Real World is staring them in the face they are helpless to confront it. So they behave like the children they have been raised to be. They throw a tantrum.
I can’t help but wonder if this hasn’t been the plan all along. Give large numbers of college kids degrees in fields that don’t offer much in the way of job prospects, do it for a couple of generations, wait for a major economic downtown that can be blamed on someone else (like Bush), and then stoke the resentment of those unemployed students as the leaders of the 99%ers are doing. With a bit of luck, you can get very large number of young people with a strong belief in their own entitlement to the Good Life to protest and ultimately riot. If enough of them participate, you have a huge “popular groundswell” to justify really dramatic new policies on the part of governments.
I’m picturing laws requiring companies to hire these young people at decent salaries regardless of how little they can contribute. It shouldn’t take too many of these drones to drag even strong companies down. The failure of these businesses will be proof to the Left that capitalism is melting down due to its own internal contradications and that only a centrally-planned economy is a viable alternative. Next thing you know, you’re living in the Soviet Republic of America.
Our son was riding on an Alaska ferry upon which an elderly woman became ill.
Our son has an EMT certificate and provided first-responder care.
The captain called for physician-passengers to help.
Two German doctors (tourists) responded.
They took the woman’s medical history & discovered how she lived.
They angrily denounced our American health-care/elder-care system as “barbaric.”
Uhhh … maybe these two German doctors had a point, eh?
Of course, the Germans can afford to provide good health-care to all.
Not to mention, higher education is free in their country.
It’s kind of impossible to understand how they do it, eh?
———————————————-
Germany reports a trade surplus of 10.4 Billion Euros for July 2011
URL: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/germany/balance-of-trade
Sure, the Germans have had government provided healthcare for generations. And, it’s worked well too.
As long as you weren’t among the millions treated at the Auschwitz or Buchenwald health centers. They kinda sucked.
Healthcare and education aren’t free. They are paid for with crushing taxes and massive borrowing in some countries. One reason Europeans stopped having kids and started importing cheap labor. Also why the Euro is collapsing.
Germany is able to have their level of health care and other social safety net programs because for sixty-plus years they, and the rest of western Europe, were protected under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Even now Germany and the other EU nations are witnessing the collapse of their societies as they buckle from all the cushy benefits that Americans never enjoyed. But I guess someone had to pay the bills, right?
When you say “higher education” in Germany, do keep in mind that most Germans end their education after 10th grade and only those who have been in the proper educational track AND pass the proper examination can attend university. If you’ve been selected for a vocational education early on, there is no realistic opportunity to become university educated. If only 10% of American students could attend university, I expect the costs would be rather different.
Johnny, are you EVER on topic?
Snork, every measure of economic and social health, Germany is doing extraordinarily well.
Therefore, to claim “we have nothing to learn from Germany” isn’t conservatism …
… it’s stupidity. Eh?
You never answered about Tyndall, greenhouse, and AGW. You’re not going to answer this, either, are you?
Johnny, are you EVER on topic?
Well, at least he didn’t supply a link to another person’s opinion. I think he is making some progress here.
Of course, the second question was rhetorical. Somebody who works at Big Edu doesn’t want to hear about the educational bubble. Nope, there’s no educational bubble. Keep telling yourself. There’s no educational bubble… There’s no educational bubble… There’s no educational bubble…
“Snork, every measure of economic and social health, Germany is doing extraordinarily well”
Sure, they’re doing great, now that they’re an American client state. There was that little episode of unpleasantness in the 30′s and 40′s though, when their nanny-state went off on a little tangent and murdered 20 million people or so.
Physicist, what really gives you away is to protect your credibility by flaunting your occupation. It outs you as a liberal for these reasons:
1. You hope we’ll agree with your points because you hold a degree in an unrelated profession.
2. You feel you need to use it in the context of this thread in the hope that somebody will think you are smarter than them.
3. You forget that most PJM readers and contributors have degrees too.
I work with NASA/JPL physicist friends who would be embarrassed if not horrified to have sunk to such a depth that they had to hide behind such empty devices.
Well, it’s not exactly rocket science: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I
Second that. I am a geophysicist and so are most of my friends and I am tired of this person’s drivel.
Second that. I am a geophysicist and so are most of my friends and I am tired of this person’s sanctimonious enviro-drivel. I think he is an Obama troll. We will get a lot more of these as we get closer to Obama’s demise.
What makes anyone think the clown is actually a physicist? He could just as easily be a janitor at Podunk Elementary School. “On the Internet, no one cares if you’re a dog.” Anyone can claim to be anything online. Hey, I’m now a brain surgeon — because I just said so!
About all we can deduce for certain is that he’s likely Canadian, given his tendency to append “eh?” to nearly every idiotic sentence.
His name is Dr. John Sidles of the University of Washington and he actually is a physicist and does good work *in his field.*
Unfortunately like many if not most people with that Piled head Deep degree he thinks it qualifies him as an expert on everything.
But hey, he drives traffic and makes those evile capitalist pigs who run PJM more money so what the hell, let him drivel on.
“Obama’s 15 minutes” above has the important point. If you don’t pass the proper exams in Germany, you don’t go to university. In many ways the trade apprenticeship program in Germany is to be admired, but the young people have far less latitude in their choice of careers there than we do here.
Yep, the great thing about the U.S educational system is that you can be a total screw up, yet in the end, figure it out and become somebody. Something most of the commentators on the wearethe99percent site will figure out.
I spent three years in Munich, working for NATO and the US Army, which employed plenty of German nationals. Their health care was never free, nor is their education. They pay huge taxes for their cradle-to-grave welfare, and it’s killing them. Haven’t you been following what’s happening to the European welfare state?
You, sir, are a Communist, which explains your constant disinformation campaign.
“They angrily denounced our American health-care/elder-care system as “barbaric. Uhhh … maybe these two German doctors had a point, eh?”
I had a friend here in Germany who needed a lung tranplant due to the misdianosis of a former doctor. He died after 2 years waiting and its next to impossible to sue a doctor here for malpractice. They also have caps on any lawsuits that get through, so no real compensation for your sufferings.
“Of course, the Germans can afford to provide good health-care to all.”
As long as you don’t get sick, its great. Its rationed like anything else.
“Not to mention, higher education is free in their country.”
No, the taxpayers pay for it. You also see alot of 30-somethings on campus who never left the university.
“It’s kind of impossible to understand how they do it, eh?”
No it isn’t, the state is going broke and has been for quite some time.
First I have trouble with the notion that the son provided “first reponder” care for more than at most a few minutes; the entire licensed complement of an Alaska ferry would likewise have EMT training as a part of their licensure and wouldn’t risk the liability of a “civilian” providing first reponse.
There is also the fact that the “elderly woman” at issue might well have been an Alaska Native (Eskimo, Aleut, or Indian) in which case the “barbaric” medical care she’d had was courtesy of your tax dollars and the Indian Health Service, an arm of the federal government. But, that said, lots of Alaskans, Native and White, live in places far from more than rudimentary medical care and accessible only by boat or plane, but y’all don’t like to pay for those “bridges to nowhere.”
“A physicist” asks an excellent question – how do the Germans do it?
Surely we can learn from each others countries & what they do right as well as wrong? Can we at least admit with humility that this is a possibility?
Some of the replies do hint at some answers.
Sure enough the US paid for & maintained a security umbrella over western Europe from WW2 onwards that saved the respective govts $$billions as did the US paying for much of the rebuilding of the devastated continent. In the longer-term, having US & UK bases in West Germany also helped a little economically.
I think folks here have forgotten what an enormous stress & burden the reunification of Germany was in the 1990′s for prosperous W. Germany bringing aboard the economic ruin that was E. Germany. Imagine the US taking Mexico aboard… we’re already half way there!
What impresses me about Germany is that their govt & industry have the maturity to think beyond the next quarters financials or the next election cycle. They plan effectively for 10-20 years at a time. Compared to the US there is no rust belt there. They have maintained their heavy engineering, precision machining, design & manufacturing. They continue to produce world class products & have high exports. China is not the same threat to them as they are to the US.
Their education system takes a balanced approach to the changing times & plans for the future. They do not waste their time & money telling all their teens to go to college. Only those seeking specific careers that require college go there & as a result they have a low proportion of college students. Instead many teens apprentice in their high school years gaining hands on experience at world class firms. They graduate high school & complete their trained apprenticeships & becoming competent, highly trained engineers & well paid young folks in their mid-20′s. Compare this to the US students who have wasted years & dollars on some letters after their name but know little about life.
I don’t know about other states but here in Kentucky our community colleges are implementing a more German-like approach working in conjunction with industry & planning ahead.
Again – we can all learn from one another. I’m just one British guy in the Bluegrass. Each of our countries do some things well, somethings less well & are pretty poor at others. Personally I like the German approach as it’s a proven success story. I also like Norway because they had the maturity & foresight NOT to spend all the money they made on North Sea oil but instead save it for the rainy day when oil is less plenty & they still have bills to pay. (Dave Ramsey would be proud!) Same goes for our Canadian neighbours who balance their budgets, invest in their oil sands & are doing quite nicely, except for the NHL…
Hopefully the American people will have a fundamental choice ahead of them next year: more of the same bovine scatology from this failed administration that is completely out of its depth, tied in with a party & regulations that are the cause of so much of the turmoil (see book Reckless Endangerment). Or someone with common sense, business experience & who sees in the Bakken fields of the Dakotas a picture of the prosperity that could impact the nation in the short term as we make the longer term transition to more renewables. Add in the potential trillions $$ in oil leases & the nations financial situation could be turned around. (See Powerline story called “The smart & the dumb”)www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/the-smart-and-the-dumb.php
Goodnight all.
David
The reason why Germany can afford such great public health care is that the USA has paid for its defence since 1945. Ditto the rest of Europe and their welfare states. They can’t afford both.
The american troops contribute much to the economy; and Germany has a military…serving alongside the states.
Here in Germany, we live in much smaller units (which we usually rent rather than own). We walk and/or use public transportation instead of owning two+ cars per family. We do not have televisions in every room, we do not have large coolclosets to keep weeks’ worth of food. We do not supersize every purchase at a Walmarkt. We do have a 19% VAT, utility rates that are high, steep income taxes, reunification tax, and a ‘lower’ standard of living compared to the states.
And living to be past 80 is the exception, not the normal.
Yeah. When life’s that empty and grim, there’s no need to stick around.
Our military is paying for the German health care system. Pull our military out of Germany and watch towns go bankrupt , unemployment increase and taxes rise. You’re still spouting the same myths.
US has approx 57,000 military in Germany.
German population is approx 82 million.
I can understand the wish to bring the troops home & indeed support the notion there & elsewhere but neither the German health care sector nor their economy is dependent on US bases.
Your figures simply do not compute.
I can enjoy American movies, German turbo diesels, Indian buffets, English football, British chocolates & Irish beer. Learn from each other, appreciate the differences but lets avoid the bovine scatology…
these “99% ers” are no different than the generational welfare spongers back home in the UK. I know families in the 3rd generation of not working, enjoying family allowance (for each child), govt housing, DLA (Disability Living Allowance – “Dr I’m depressed”), & “unemployment even though they have never worked… & so the list continues.
Cheers
David
If I was just out of high school I would seriously consider going to trade school and learn welding. The few welders I know make alot more money and work less than most of the people I know.
Wahhh wahh wahh. Poor us, we’re highly credentialed and unemployed. Our answer is to be hip on the internet and plug up the streets. Pull out your nose rings and go learn how to weld. If you’re two years out of work in your “chosen field”, YOU CHOSE THE WRONG FRICKEN FIELD. Choose something else and get away from your obviously toxic friends who support you in your delusions.
I like the guy who claims that JPMC didn’t pay any income tax last year. I didn’t believe it so I opened up their annual report – sure enough, they paid $7.5 Billion in income taxes.
Knowledge is free. The information is available. You are free to study on your own. But if you want a school to gather the information for you and pay someone to present it to you and provide you with an accredited diploma, that is a service. You have to pay people for their services. You were right about one thing, though. You certainly COULD use an education.
I was out of the country a long time. When I returned, everything was different. In the 60′s and 70′s, if your family couldn’t afford to pay for your university education … if your grades were good enough, you got a scholarship — or you could go to a state university fairly cheaply — your parents helped you and you got part-time work. I never heard about any “student loans.”
Now, I keep hearing about all this “student debt” of outrageous amounts. From what I can figure out, government encouraged these “student loans” — that, and the fact that many additional kids who had no real interest wound up going to college — both of which drove up the price of university education out of all proportion.
I feel sorry for these kids (not the one’s who are demanding to be taken care of) who fell into this terrible system.
Seems to me that if there were no more student loans, the costs of education would plummet and become affordable again for those who want it enough to earn it.
And … there isn’t any reason why every kid has to go to college. People used to earn good middle class incomes — were home owners — had new cars every couple of years — raised their families decently — at trades and small businesses. What happened?
Sometime in the 1980s, I read a magazine article, “Growing Poorer By Degrees.” Can’t remember the magazine. It asked the question: “I went to college; why aren’t I rich?” That echoed a sentiment felt among many college graduates about that time.
Seems that the going to college ball got kicked off with the GI Bill for veterans after WWII. When they were growing up during the 20s and 30s, everybody they knew who went to college was “rich” later in life. In their mind, they equated the two: College degree = money.
So, when the chance came for them to go on Uncle Sam’s dime, they jumped at it. Of course, this provided a flood of better-educated employees during the booming 50s and 60s, and those ex-GIs experience a better income than they would have expected otherwise, due to the U.S industrial base notbeing not being destroyed by war. In their mind, again, they equated the two: College degree = money. So they encouraged their Boomer children to go to college, too.
By the time the 80s rolled around, those later college graduates were not experiencing the same boost in income their parents had experienced and what their parents had said they observed in others when they were younger. It was about that time, also, that because their were so many college graduates to choose from, employers began requiring a college degree for jobs that previously required only a high school education (or maybe not even that if you were very good at what you did).
The question asked in the magazine article was “If I went to college, why aren’t I rich?”
Come to find out, there were two generations operating on false presumptions. What the GI generation observed in their earlier years wasn’t that people got rich because they went to college; rather, they went to college because they were rich. Only rich kids or those otherwise able to afford it went to college.
The GI generation was an aberration: A college education plus a booming economy, but the two weren’t necessarily cause-and-effect.
Two more generations since then have been sold the college-to-riches fairy tale, and now we are seeing the logical conclusion of a self-induced delusion.
I think it depends on what you chose to get a degree in. I am Chemical Engineer who went on to get an MBA and my wife is a Occupational Therapist. With those degrees under one roof we are not doing too shabby.
“My father lives in his car so he can do what he loves for a living rather than be a slave to the system”
And that’s my fault why? Sounds an awful lot like he made a choice. Does that have anything to do with mom’s mortgage by any chance?
“All of my friends are jobless or homeless or deep in debt or all of the above”
Yet you guys are the ones that have the answer. Which apparently is college should be free and my diploma guarantees me any job I want in any economy.
You guys like unicorns, too?
I mostly take issue with the fact that these are overprivileged white kids who made poor decisions with regards to their education. You can get good education for cheap, and there are plenty of opportunities to become competitive in the business world with a “soft” major. I’m a philosophy major at a liberal arts college, but I’ve done internships at a major international magazine, a finance firm, and a large developmental policy organization. The key thing is not that we shouldn’t do the things we enjoy, but we have to be conscious of the realities of the economic climate. This is what they bungled.
That said, I disagree with your structural claims regarding the current economy. Neoclassical theory, which is what Trump et. al learned in school, has been debunked pretty thoroughly. A more effective model of the economic responsibility of government is to spend in times of crisis (like now) to stimulate the economy, and save in times of surplus. It’s kind of the inverse of personal finance. Unfortunately, we’ve done the opposite, which leaves us in this predicament.
No. Absolutely not. KENYESIAN economics (you know that word) has been thoroughly debunked, no one in their right mind would recommend following its policies. We HAVE spent trillions and trillions and it just keeps getting worse. History has shown if you want to improve the economy and increase the governments coffers – LOWER TAXES. Look it up.
Liberal Kid if you wanted to end unemployment today you would suspend corporate taxes for this year… just the opposite of what your friends would say.
An explosion of hiring and productivity would follow with tax receipts up dramatically as a result. It’s sad that the one thing the Left wants – free money falling from the sky – would happen tommorrow if they would get their feet off business’ neck to let the latter catch a breath and get up again.
liberal kid, you are doing just fine, but try reading Adam Smith instead of Keynes this year and see whether that fits better with your existing knowledge base. Plus, try out these two ideas. There was no social structure until there was a need for the division of labor among individuals and that wealth or poverty is the difference between the value of what we produce and the value of what we consume.
Kid, even if Keynesian theory were correct in theory, in reality the government never ever saves during the good times. The greedy give-us-your-money people simply demand more and more. And they get it in return for their votes.
I think they should retitle the website:
“Sorry Everybody, We are the 99%.”
We don’t like paying for college and not being CEOs today, gah!
So explain something to me. You went to college. You racked up a bunch of debt. You can’t pay it off. Anybody with the sense God gave a 2×4 could have told you that you wouldn’t be able to pay those off with the kind of job you might get with a liberal arts degree.
What do for-profit corporations have to do with any of that? You were hosed by a non-profit educational institution and the federal Sallie Mae. Does a rape victim blame some stranger across town when she was date raped? That’s about what this boils down to.
“Anybody with the sense God gave a 2×4 could have told you that you wouldn’t be able to pay those off with the kind of job you might get with a liberal arts degree. ”
There was a time when they could. I remember.
When I went to college in the early 1970s, a liberal arts degree was a sign of more education than the average American who still had just a high school diploma. It meant that you were intelligent and knowledgeable, more than average, and that was worth something to an employer. Back then, 40 years ago, we did NOT have millions of young people with liberal arts degrees walking the streets unemployed. The only field I remember as having chronically high unemployment was the acting profession.
College tuition was much cheaper back then, so student loans were more affordable. Since then, the cost of tuition has increased faster than any other service (even faster than health care), and MUCH faster than the rate of inflation. When I went to Columbia in 1972, a year’s tuition was $6,000. Care to guess what it is now?
It was also possible a generation ago to work your way through college. No more. Easy loans have made college unaffordable to all be the rich and the indebted.
There’s an education bubble, and unlike the housing bubble, there’s no walking away. They’re serfs. The federal government is guilty of loansharking.
Griggs vs Duke Power made the four year degree the new, unbiased aptitude test. The job I got in IT, sans degree at the time, but with experience provided by the Marine Corps now requires a four year degree to be hired. That’s not Wall Street’s doing.
Meanwhile the 99 percent continue to look to the government to solve the problems it created.
The courts have dramatically increased the burden on disparate impact since this seminal case and now that the plaintiff must demonstrate actual discrimination, these cases aren’t good fodder for maruauding poverty pimps and plaintiffs attornies. The USDOJ and its state law analogs still like them in Democrat times when they lay a finding of discrimination on an employer and propose an extortionary consent decree; pay it or we trash you in the media and make you pay millions to defend yourself. Holder is playing this game hardball to cripple police forces around the Country.
Even in better times, the real cost of Griggs and its progeny is in the minds of corporate counsels, AGs, and HR types; they up the ante on qualifications or drop qualifications altogether. A real problem in state governments, which must be more responsive than the US, is that they’ve dropped the minimum qualifications for most jobs to “fogs a mirror,” and try to rely on running the bad ones off during a probationary period. That is hard to do in a unionized environment, hard to do in any environment if the employee is a member of a protected class, and there is no willingness in a Democrat government to deal with poor performing employees. The US deals with it by making a PhD. the MQ for any job above janitor and then using AA to fill with the minority flavor of the week. A well-run government is pretty much a 90-10 proposition where 90% of the work is done by 10% of the employees. The US government is closer to 99% – 1%. There are smart, dedicated feds, but I don’t know how they stand the place!
Not true. A friend of mine worked his way through a private college by saving money from his weekend/evening job to take 2 or 3 courses a semester rather than 5. He lived at home and drove a 20-year-old pickup truck. It took him 6 years, but he graduated debt-free with a math degree. He went on to get a master’s degree in math from a prestigious private university–also debt-free thanks to his graduate assistantship and the same part-time jobs. I am not going back a generation, either–this was two years ago. It can be done if you don’t demand the college “experience” and choose a practical major. Anyone who thinks it can’t be done has not investigated all his options.
So there’s a clash and potential confrontation coming between a bunch of immature stooges that are orchestrated by a bunch of radicals that might affect a bunch of self serving thieves on Wall Street in the most liberal and over-regulated city in the country. Tell me again why this is such a problem for a regular guy? Somehow you could kinda think they all deserve each other.
I’m with you Reverend, except if the top really blows off history shows no one can tell how it’ll play out, with possibilities ranging from hard left totalitarian tyranny [ and excuse me to all the marxist revisionists that have spent 60 years trying to portray the Nazis as right wingers but why is "Socialist" in their title? ]to merely screwing up the capital markets even worse so that small innovative job growing companies could find it impossible to get capital.
Search engines make for odd twists sometimes. 99% is number 3 on the trending now on Yahoo, however the first search result takes you to a site dedicated to entreprenurial self improvement.
“Oh you’ll never go to heaven
on an arts degree
cause an arts degree
ain’t worth ten p”
Just in case anyone doesn’t understand the “10 p” reference, I believe it means “10 pence”, the British equivalent of a few cents in American money.
Perhaps the girl in the first photo should consider that her parent’s troubles may partly stem from the fact that they did not try to work it out in marriage. If her father living out of his car moved in with her mom who is upside down on her mortgage, they may be able to work something out. Or, perhaps she could let her parents move in with her. In the real world, families do those kind of things for eachother. It is sad that people expect the government to solve problems that families once did for their own. What a cold sad world socialism brings.
It’s fairly easy to be contemptuous of these people. Now, kindly please find a way to explain to them that they can live their highest values- compassion,art, whatever, while making a living. You know they are living out their parents’ values. You might want to explain the step by step thoughts that get them somewhere else, somewhere employable. The author of this piece was quite compassionate.
I, for instance, do not have a degree. I would be living in my car, since my skills seem to translate into minimum wage jobs, or about ten cents over. I have three children, and we do depend on my husband’s pay, and his work ethic, and his degrees and his decency. My father advocated becoming a social worker, and intimated anything else was selfish and evil. He says businessmen are evil and shallow and stupid and bankers are several varieties of evil. I, of course, married Satan. with a red sports car, and a taste for hard rock. My whole family hates him. My grandmother hates the car, my mother hates his manliness, my dad hates his business career. I am happier than I’ve ever been in my life. But- I didn’t think this out- I rebelled, as much as possible, and got really, really lucky.
My grandmother thinks people with any college degrees are uppity. I trained the retail managers who then got promoted over me. My stomach hurts, when I think about my career, and horrible lack thereof. We think, maybe I could become a nurse- it’s a two year program. Each time I try, the kids go wild. So, I can study, or they can study, but apparently, not both. My self- discipline is getting used to grow their self- discipline.
These people believe things that lead to an unstable,frightening life. If yours is not frightening, why not explain why you believe what you believe, and how you behave? I know my friends and I have to research really basic stuff- how to mop, how often to mop, when to read a story to your kids rather than mop— things that obviously, ya’ll understand, and we poor benighted raised leftist people don’t. Be nice, please. It’s easy to jeer at foolish people, it’s hard to give a good, specific education.
Unfortunately, we cannot.
You are not salvageable. Your parents filled your head with crap instead of survival skills. You are wholly dependent on the man you lucked into marrying. A tiny fraction of the red diaper — or undiapered — babies that make up the other 0.99% will be as lucky. The rest will depend on minimum wage jobs or collecting soda cans to eke out a bare existence for the rest of their miserable lives.
The revolution has come and gone. And you lost. Move On™.
not my revolution. my parents. there is a difference.
there really isn’t a need to gloat, now is there? I’m being polite.
“Now, kindly please find a way to explain to them that they can live their highest values- compassion,art, whatever, while making a living.”
You typically don’t get to make a living in a way that expresses your “highest values.” Very few people are that fortunate. Most people who want to work in “art” aren’t going to find a job, and the few jobs pay poorly. There is little market demand for the output of art-related labor, and the world does not owe people an art-type job
“We think, maybe I could become a nurse- it’s a two year program.”
If you haven’t, go chat with a bunch of nurses to see what they like and don’t like about the job and career. Do this before spending your money on credentials. Be realistic when you talk to people in the field.
I would presume the salary would repay your investment in training – but make sure you know that upfront.
“I didn’t think this out- I rebelled, as much as possible, and got really, really lucky.”
But now you are thinking. Good for you. Be glad of the luck you receive in life, but you are smart not to keep counting on it.
“My father advocated becoming a social worker, and intimated anything else was selfish and evil.”
Your parents are small-minded and judgmental. (They sound so absurd that I wonder if you’re pulling everyone’s leg with your post). Find your values elsewhere. Most work is honest work. 99% of us aren’t social workers. Are we all evil? You can give some time or money to charity, but you should feel no obligation to make your career about “giving.”
Your husband’s character is more important than how he makes money. His character you see every day, not some idealistic fluff. And his choice to put bread on his family’s table, as more important than having a career that expresses his “highest values” (if he has to make that tradeoff), says good things about his character.
Also, does your father’s attitude have anything to do with your thoughts about nursing?
“Most work is honest work.”
That’s the key thing to remember. Work is for MAKING A LIVING. It’s for food, shelter, and clothing for you and your family. The baseline. It’s the energy you expend, the price you pay, for being alive. Anything beyond that is pure luxury.
oddly enough, nursing is a wild rebellion, too. Nurses are mostly women, and are caring, and are not doctors. and anything that’s not at the top, prestige-wise, is lame. It’s his logic, not mine. I grew up with it, so I have to talk it out, bit by bit. Like, everyone else here lined up to jeer at Elizabeth Warren- but what she said is perfectly common-place around my dad’s dinner-table. I’ve read both her popular books, written with her daughter, Ms Tyagi. I recommend them to friends, when we are trying to figure out how to live, financially. The workbook is pretty weakly laid out, but the economics and jobs books are really….she does know her domestic economy stuff.
Right now, exactly one friend is not in debt up to her eyeballs from college. so people have degrees and only hand-me-down furniture. People were trying to be responsible- get a degree- do something worthwhile. People weren’t thinking, “ah- assembly-line job and drinking starts five minutes after the whistle.” Every little bit in the paper was ” Hey, get a degree, or a well-educated Asian will eat your lunch.” and, you were supposed to get degrees in your strong areas. For a lot of women- that was english and art. I took chem classes, and had to put up with professors saying I’d get signed into classes if I’d go out with them. At the highest levels, this meant every class. And I’m not the sort to think ” Ah, a grievance!” I thought, I wanted a degree to have the freedom to not depend on some guy’s whims, and I dropped out. English classes- have always been a misery. I’m not brilliant at math, I’m good, probably better than some,I can’t tell- I mostly hung out with post-docs, not freshmen- but English- words at the mercy of a professor with a political agenda? I’ve only ever gotten A’s or Fs, and I don’t know how to control that curveball. With money on the line, it’s better to not gamble that way at all.
One way to frame this is, all these people have expensive degrees and no jobs. Another way is to say we have enormously invested in people, and haven’t grown enough of parts of the economy. I’m not sure why these people keep holding up signs done in sharpie- are they trying to have solidarity with computer illiterates from the third world who live near a Kinkos? Somebody had to put up the website- that’s a skill. Master’s in English, PhD’s in English- maybe American prose needs careful anatomizing. I don’t know. It, to me, practically sounds like an eruption from the scriptorium from the middle ages, into modern times at the university.
And, FWIW, my husband and I decided that being a very good mother to children worked for generations of women, and will probably work for us. After they aren’t as entirely dependent, who knows- when they are grown?- I’ll pursue outside interests. Minimum wage work outside the home versus being home with fresh-baked cookies…..it seemed to work out for Steve Job’s adoptive parents, and his biological parents who preferred work and degrees threw away someone wonderful. However, it is absolutely a nightmare of fragile dependency for me, since I’ve seen what my mother went through, when she was cast aside. So I look at it as, I’m gambling in every way that my children become excellent, high- earning, good people. the sort of people that have a big house and a mother-in-law edition out by the pool.
“However, it is absolutely a nightmare of fragile dependency for me, since I’ve seen what my mother went through, when she was cast aside. So I look at it as, I’m gambling in every way that my children become excellent, high- earning, good people. the sort of people that have a big house and a mother-in-law edition out by the pool.”
I’m no therapist, so take it with a grain of salt, but I think you expressed a VERY UNHEALTHY ATTITUDE with which to approach life.
Take pride in the process of doing a good job raising your children – instilling values, overseeing their academic education, etc. – rather than the goal you describe above. Your esteem from your hard, thoughtful work can’t be “cast aside” even if your husband leaves you. It will survive the vagaries of life – including the tragic loss of a child.
You ARE economically dependent (though child-support/alimony would partly protect you in the misfortune of a divorce). Do not make yourself mentally dependent by believing, wrongly, that your choice to focus on raising your children is somehow unworthy, or validated by your husband’s eternal love, or by your children placing you poolside.
Now, ignore all that if your nightmare is purely financial dependence. But to that extent, in this day and age, it is to your benefit if you can develop a marketable skill, even if you want to primarily remain a stay-at-home mother. Maybe you could become a part-time nurse. If that only is breakeven versus the cost of credentials/tuition, you’d have a safety-net nonetheless.
“I thought, I wanted a degree to have the freedom to not depend on some guy’s whims, and I dropped out.”
I’m not trying to downplay the harassment, but you kind of passively did what you said you didn’t when you bailed on majoring in chemistry. Do not passively accept an attitude of fragile dependency for your life.
Ari, I am a Registered Nurse, have been for twenty years. And your right, nurses are not at the top of the ladder, now let me clue you just a bit about the rest of it.
You’re not at the top of the ladder, yet you are responsible for everything. And I mean that literally. You are responsible to ensure the doc doesn’t miss labs that are important, or symptoms that are changing, or meds that weren’t ordered. Your job is to ensure the unit clerk put all the orders in correctly, that the pharmacy got the meds on the administration sheet so their given correctly. The tests that need to be done actually get done, that the proper diet ordered is the one given, that Physical therapy and occupational therapy are doing their job, that the social worker shows up. Not to mention doing your very own job of assessing and reassessing the patient constantly, calling the doc with issues, putting up with physicians who bitch and scream at you for doing your job and calling them with issues. Cause you know what? The facility doesn’t care if the doc is a complete a** as long as that doc is bringing patients and therefore money into a facility.
Healthcare as it stands today cannot function, literally cannot function, without nurses. That’s the good news, I’ve never went without work unless I wanted to. Most of the time I have worked more than 40 hours a week for most of my 20 years as a nurse.
I did it with a two year degree, which means you will take 18 credit hours or more a semester. In my time at least, it also meant that two out of the three big tests each semester had to be passed with at least a 75% or you failed out. The math test had to be passed with at least an 80% or you failed out, and there was only one chance. We had frequent quizzes and at the end of the semester if you had a 74.9% average you failed. You had to average at least 75%. And when I say failed I mean you were out of the program, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
I started nursing school when my oldest was 5. I started back to college the same day he started Kindergarten. I would never have made it without my mom’s help with the kids as well as with dinner’s and helping keep things on an even keel.
I figured my own children would have seen me work hard to not only have a decent life, but because someone had to be there to take care of the patients, don’t want to work Christmas? Then don’t be a nurse. Want weekends free for fun? Then don’t be a nurse. Somehow though, my oldest just never got it. He seemed quite normal to me, in fact he’s quite bright book wise, but he has always lacked ambition. After 2 years of college, much debt to us, not him, he came home not really knowing what he wanted to do, except not have to work hard, and certainly not the hours and with the frustration I often had. He quit school, once again quit a job, and decided sleeping all day while staying up most of the night was a great idea.
Three months later I had had enough and told him he could no longer live at home, hardest day of my life. Cried for three days straight. He seemed to get it at first, had to get a job and so he did. He moved in with friends from school, met the gal who would become his wife and I thought was growing up and moving on.
Wrong. He did manage to make it back to college, but to say he’s willing to work hard to get to his goals would be a lie. Somewhere along the way he became a clear socialist and I literally can not talk to him about politics, he pisses me off so bad I want to duct tape his mouth. You know what? I coddled this kid until the day I said enough. Sure we had arguments about lack of responsibility, but every time I would still step up for him instead of making him step up for himself. When mama wouldn’t do it anymore, he substituted the
gov’t. He saw me doing one thing with my own job but another in my expectations for him, and through that he imbibed the idea that he didn’t have to be responsible for his decisions, someone would do it for him. Leftist professors simply were icing on the cake. I thought I was doing the right thing but helping him, instead I was carrying him.
Nurses do that type of thing alot, I see it over and over with people I work with. So sure you can do the degree in 2 years, though it is incredibly difficult, particularly compared to other professions. You will work hard, and often with little gratitude from not only others within health care, but your patients as well. Did I mention that nurses are assaulted more frequently than police officers? And we can’t hit back. To do so constitutes abuse of a pt. even when they know what they are doing.
So do it with your eyes wide open, make sure you don’t take on the problems of the world and try to save them all, and that includes your own children. Take it from an old hand.
And always remember this-health care can’t function without nurses, they try, which means you likely take care of more patients that is frequently reasonable, but you’ll learn to deal with it. You know why? Because you have a job, and you will never have to occupy anything while begging scraps from someone elses table.
So the 99% probably have no real idea what it takes to keep a job. My experience is that todays younger generation have been so filled with entitlement by the educational system, and the unions, that they never developed a good work ethic. I was taught, mostly by my parents, that you gave a days work for a days pay. If you saw a problem in how things were being done at your work you didn’t merely criticize you offered a solution. If your employer didn’t take your suggestion then continue with your work. So to the 99% there will be work again in this great country, prepare yourself to be a good worker.
I totally agree.
I used to manage a group of group of 7-8 people (mostly female, mostly <25), who I was not much older than (mid-30s). I was amazed at their blatant use of FB, IM, etc. when I was around their work area and the body language I'd get when I asked them to do something. I even had the mother of one of my employees call my boss because I had told her daughter she couldn't extend a last minute vacation. I'm sure she put her mom up to it.
The girl in the fourth photo should heed the warnings of her peers; don’t go in massive debt for college and don’t pick a useless major. Otherwise perhaps she could try to bargain with Elizabeth Warren and her kind, maybe they would be willing to take a cut from their enormous salaries to make college more affordable. If she and her kind would give up their tenure, then there may be more openings to hire people like the girl in the second photo.
I actually see no difference between these losers and our Congress.
For example; What Congressman comes out and petitions American Citizens to boycott a bank?
This U.S. Congress, and this Regime, are the nuts running the nut House.
Can s-a-n-i-t-y be a required quality for our politicians?
Preston: “America is not a dark Dickensian place where wishes can’t come true, it’s a free land where anyone can succeed if they have enough determination, some useful skills, and a little luck.”
Are you sure?
That principle depends on America continuing to be a land of opportunity, which in turn depends on America continuing to be a land of economic growth and a rising standard of living.
A stagnant economy combined with a rising population will result in a falling standard of living and fewer opportunities for today’s young people.
These young people aren’t very knowledgeable on politics and economics, evidently. They don’t understand how the world works. But they do sense something that we adults are also starting to sense: America is slipping. It’s certainly not the undisputed world leader in manufacturing, technology, and affluence anymore.
And today, unlike 50 years ago, it’s next to impossible for a man with just a high-school diploma to earn enough money to support a family.
That’s a big change.
Not true! A man with a trade, a real trade, can make a very nice living in America. Trouble is, he has to work hard, stay clean and sober, and be willing to get dirty; nobody much wants to do that. The best job skill in America today is the ability to pee in a bottle. If you can do that and pass a background check, you’re going to be making really good money while the “99%’ers” are eating Top Ramen because they’re trying to pay off their student loans.
I have two sons. One went to college and did the typical Alaska kid thing of borrowing vast sums of the State of Alaska’s money so he could live like he had at home while partying a lot and studying a litte. He finally got a degree in “Communications” and had about $50K in debt (that I know of). And don’t tell me I’m a terrible parent unless you’ve tried to tell a college-aged kid what to do recently. The other one spent most of his adolescence with one foot in jail and the other on a banana peel. The only time my wife and I ever used our positions for anything personal was to keep him from getting a warrant served on him long enough for us to get him out of town and into military school. He went from there into the Army and did a turn as an Infantryman in scenic spots like Kosovo and Afghanistan. He got out after his 3 year active duty commitment with the better part of $50K in savings, his GI bill, and after a spell of being a screwup partying with drugs and skanky women, has his act more or less together working as a Laborers’ Union apprentice making pretty good money with good benefits. But, he does work long hours, sometimes in unpleasant places, and he gets very dirty. That seems to be the key – and peeing in the bottle.
You just disputed yourself. A man with real trade (certified, licensed, bondable) is not a man with just a high school education. Do you think he spent his high school classroom time in apprenticeship to a trade? He didn’t become journeyman-qualified with a high school diploma.
so a union teacher hated losing his job due to seniority…and a union supporter wants education to be free.
retards.
I also have major degrees in the english / writing field. By my own experience, most of the graduate students in these programs are NOT good writers. This becomes even more painfully clear in fiction classes, where many of the stories submitted for critiques are weak avant garde experimental fiction and wannabe grandiose narratives with ZERO compelling characters and plot. I would dare guess “shock for the sake of shock” pieces like Cho Seung Hee’s “Richard Mcbeef” is a standard in some of these classes.
You can tell how the “99%”s inablity to create coherent narrative carried over to their political / economical philosophy. Colleges cut classes because the states mismanaged their budgets, and adjunct faculty without tenure are obviously the first to go. An MA in english doesn’t buy you much blue or white collar skills. Outside of academia and inside this economy, you’re kinda screwed.
I can just about guarantee that these 99 percenters jumped between 3,4 credit cards. In their freshmen year they got wasted on beer and played hours of counter strike (or starcraft). They blew the loans they took out on shopping sprees and major purchases while living in cushy on campus housing. Guess who funded your expensive educations (that did not always return a career) and enabled acess to easy money? Why, it’s wall street and the financial institutions. Did you occupy wall street when you filled out credit card application at age 22 without a source of income?
Oh my gosh. Did you go to my school? I have fond memories of a student who, when I cited “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” in a critique, brushed it off with “What does Mark Twain know about writing?” I never met a sorrier bunch of adult writers than in Fiction Workshop 2.
If these people actually were the 99%, we’d be dead already. There’s some massive delusion going on here.
I wound up taking an English/CRW major and a minor in philosophy, because I love those topics and I’m pretty good with them. A lot of my peers in the same career track went to graduate school, though, and I chose not to; that’s how you get 100k in debt. My teachers all pressed me to get an MA, warning that I’d be working fast food if I didn’t.
But believe it or not, an English major with a decent knowledge of computers can get entry-level technical writing work pretty handily. Now, I’m supporting myself and paying my loans down just fine, and I’ve published a novel in the meantime. If I’d followed my professors’ advice, I wouldn’t be where I am.
It is possible to use an allegedly useless liberal arts degree, but you have to be willing to do something besides teach or be part of the arts scene. Why should the successful have to pay the way of a bunch of people who want to create consciousness-raising post-feminist modern dance critiques instead of thinking about the different ways they can use everything they’ve got?
My daughter took the same path. She had a BA in English when her evil father said, “get a job kid.” She moved to Seattle where she found that her time spent at the U’s computer lab help desk was worth a lot more than her degree. But then she found that her English skills combined with her computer knowlege made her able to be the interface between the carbon-based lifeforms and the people who only understood silicon based life forms; she could talk geek with geeks! So, she’s had a progression of better jobs, has a decent husband, the only one, a nice house, nice cars, and all that “stuff” that these punks are complaining that they’ve been deprived of.
Hah, good for her! Talking geek with the geeks pays decently if you can do it well enough. And the industries do need that bridge between the technical people and the ordinary consumer–I sometimes joke that my job is Engineer-to-English translation.
Rosa,
Translating Engineer to English is often a crucial gig. Engineers want to build wonderful things, but lack the ability to comunicate their true visions to most of the folks who have to impliment them. Personally, I’ve been making a living for almost 20 years on the ability to teach engineers how to insert the word ‘or’ into the right spot of their specifications.
My grandaddy told me over and over for as long as I can remember; ” Everyone has to work. If you dont work, you dont eat.”
I hate my job. My wife hates her job. For almost thirty years we have gotten up when we didnt want to, went to work when we didnt want to, doing what we didnt want to. But, we did it well. We have made huge personal sacrifices. Such is the way of the world.
Our sons are in college. We have very little debt. We have a good savings and a very nice house. Our car is paid for. We both can afford to do the things we love on our own time. We dont live our lives entirely on our own terms, but because of the sacrifices we have made, we can to a large extent. It is nearly time to retire, and when we do, we will have enough to get by on comfortably and all of our time will be ours. I am looking forward to it very much.
I have no sympathy for these self-absorbed, spoiled twits. Screw what they love. They can suck it up and get a job doing whatever or starve.
“If you want people out of poverty, make them uncomfortable in their poverty.” – Ben Franklin
Amen, Brother!!
Infact, 99% are keeping away from the nasty protesters. They carry placards of lies and think that people are so foolish to take them for granted. Only the otherday, a black young man was screaming that Chase bank cheated his parents and forced to lkeave their home and later found that the parents are living in their homes where the mother earns more than 100K and the father has double
PhD.
He himself a law student has no problem with money. People, young, like him are misguided by marxists like Van Jones and the result is nothing but vandalism. Yet, the main stream media have no problem. The real place they should protest is infront of White House.
I think I deserve lots of free stuff because I’m a good person!
“Knowledge should be free”
That’s laughable. What the little girl holding the card doesn’t understand is that college tuition is a product that you buy. If it costs you a boatload of money, swallow your pride and go to a cheaper school. If you still can’t afford it, get a job and save for a few years, then go to college.
And forgive me, but ‘art history professors’ are useless. If you go into hock for an art history degree and one day find yourself collecting dog crap for $6, you have learned an important lesson: picking up dog crap is more valuable to society than learning about art history.
This is all so much like a line from an old Doors song: ‘we want the world and we want it now!’
Well, go out and earn it. The world doesn’t owe you jack squat.
I tried to care, but failed completely. I’m one of the 99.995% of people who feel that way.
Probability anyone cares about their “movement”: P < 0.0005%; i.e extremely statistically insignificant.
Charlie
Not all academics should be tarred with this brush. I’m an academic. I have a recent PhD in philosophy and teach at a major university. I have no student debt. How? I got full-tuition scholarships for my two graduate degrees, because I’m smart.
When I was in college I was advised never to take out loans for graduate studies (except medicine and law, which are special cases – although even law is not the sure thing people think it is). If you’re smart enough to do it for a living, someone else will pay for it.
Many of my friends who were in graduate school when I was are either a) still in school or b) crippled by debt. I do feel bad for them. But I don’t know whether they didn’t get the same advice I did (it was in the “applying for grad school” handbook, though!), or just didn’t listen.
Things are hard, but I’m special. Why should I struggle or still be expected to pay my bills?
99% owned you are, you little trough sloppers in the making.
Nobody has any pride anymore.
I’d be ashamed to hold up a sign like that. I’d be busy doing what I could, but not putting up my pity story like I was competing in the old “Queen for a Day” show or something.
Right On!
I played mechanic in high school and college, busted tires and pumped a lot of gas. The crappiest job I ever had was picking up hay bales in the field and stacking them in the barn for 10 cents a bail, but I’d do any of that again rather than go on the dole.
They’re just a bunch of spoiled brats who can’t buy a clue.
Charlie
Jeez, I hate baling hay, or even moving bales of hay.
Wish you hadn’t reminded me of it. Makes my arms itch.
You ought to try picking cotton or cropping tobacco! And I never even did the hard stoop-work part of cropping tobacco; stinking, sticky stuff made you sicker than a dog from all the nicotine when you worked with it all day and into the night by the time you got it bundled and into the barn. And knowing all that, I still smoked it for almost forty years.
We did hay in big hayracks, or hayricks in the vernacular of the day, only rich Yankees had balers though a few better off Southerners had them, or at least used ones that Yankees had worn out and sold South.
Omg, and the nasty juicy green tobacco worms! I’ll take hay any day. Put all these kids to work in a tobacco field to teach them the true meaning of work!
Well, you guys have certainly cured me of any desire I might have had to pick tobacco for fun or profit.
You all were funded by Big Tobacco and Big Ag. Next we will find out that you now take funds from Big Oil. The evil of the evils.
Kan,
I used to own some shares of Exxon-Mobil, so I was getting dividends of about $80 per quarter from Big Oil. So, I know I’m soiled! (Sadly, I diversified. I miss it. Mutual funds are boring.)
I’m a good person who went to college and I think someone should give me a great job right now. So now the economy is in the toilet and I can’t find work so I don’t want to pay my bills anymore cuz it’s hard. And my friends have all failed and feel the same way, too. Damn you fat cats. I’m going to look over my prissy little whine-sign at the camera now with a look that suggests I’m bravely confronting a child molester in court.
No matter how much real money people can put together to build their countries the way they want there are those that can print up what ever it takes to dictate their way.
Maybe this will help make the danger of fiat money clear.
Imagine you and me are setting across from each other. We create enough money to represent all of the world’s wealth. Each one of us has one SUPER Dollar in front of him.
You own half of everything and so do I.
I’m the government though. I get bribed into creating a Central Bank.
You’re not doing what I want you to be doing so I print up myself eight more SUPER Dollars to manipulate you with.
All of a sudden your SUPER Dollar only represents one tenth of the wealth of the world!
That isn’t the only thing though. You need to get busy and get to work because YOU’VE BEEN STIFFED with the bill for the money I PRINTED UP to get YOU TO DO what I WANTED.
That to me represents what has been happening to the economy, and us, and why so many of our occupations just can’t keep up with the fake money presses.
http://photos.imageevent.com/stokeybob/followthemoney/Supersingle640x537.jpg
You guys are all complaining that you can’t find great jobs to pay for your education and you attack Wall Street?
Go back to school.
We could solve allot of these problems if we just made it mandatory that anyone, who has a net tax pay out at the end of the year is zero, is not allowed to vote the following year. If your income falls one year and you pay no taxes, no votey. If your income picks up and you do pay taxes, you get to vote again.
Kick that thought around.
I’d like it, but I’d give an exemption to active-duty and honorably discharged military. Their service is a pretty big payment.
Does the employer who cut their pay, or cut their hours, or both get his vote taken away, too?
Nah, he’s a Republican — let him vote.
You’ll have to bring back poll taxes for that. Speaking of which, if you do that, there should be a way for people to elect to pay taxes in order to maintain suffrage.
Indeed, people just throwing out words saying they represent the 99% is just vawncast and a blast of what exactly. How can anyone claim without any evidence, sure people can say general things like I am of the 99% in this and that bracker but to say their actions are representative of the 99% is well pushy.
These people should be protesting the Universities with their obscene tuition fees and outrageous salaries for part-time know-nothing professors.
I put myself through University and Law School in the late 60′s and early 70′s and graduated with a debt of $2500. which I felt was a fortune at the time. Tuition for my first year of University in 1966 was $525.00. These young people are being ripped off by the unethical leftists running our universities.
WHERE THE FU K IS DARWIN.
THIS ISN’T A JOE BLACK MOMENT. YOU HAVE WORK TO DO. GET TO IT, THESE FREAKS DON’T WASH AND I CAN’T HOLD MY BREATH ANY LONGER.
So 99% of America is made up of Liberal-Arts losers?
Seriously?
Did they actually believe that taking that 3-hour course in Arthurian Lit would get them someplace?
I just wish that America would wake up to the Total Scam that is Academia. We have been throwing beaucoup cash down the rat hole for far too long, people. And we are getting no return on the investment (unless you call hundreds of thousands of unread articles in journals nobody actually reads a boon to civilized society). Tell your children to pursue professional degrees. And if they aren’t interested in that, tell them to settle on some skilled trade that consumers will actually pay for. As for the felt-board, leftist-indoctrinated waifs highlighted in this piece: sorry kids, you need to start over, and the sooner the better. I know you didn’t realize it at the time, but you allowed yourselves to be tools to the Leftist elites who live in their gated communities, have no comprehension of financial insecurity, and could not care less about your personal disappointments in life (so for pity’s sake, put aside the embarrassing homemade posters, and just get on with it. It’s harsh. Really harsh. God knows. Grasshopper, ant, etc. etc. But please, embrace reality: live & learn, or get the hell outta the way.
Get a skill that’s useful… get a job… work.
That’s been the way it’s been since Agriculture was invented.
The problem is these mobs of yobs want to repeal a law of nature.
Good luck with that folks. I suppose Mother Nature can look at your application of repeal when she’s done with you.
It’s not like you can repeal the law of gravity or entropy with a majority vote and the stroke of a pen… and I don’t care who’s signing it. You work to earn your keep or you starve.
And before Agriculture it was you hunt to eat… or be eaten.
You folks have no heart. I believe that we should tax all $1,000,000.00/year earners at 99.999999%. We should then pay everyone of these poor souls $1,000,000 a year just for their hard earned knowledge and the thoughts they come up with.
The 99% ha! lol, They are absolutely delusional if they believe that…
And to top that off they actually think the fake boy wonder is on their side… He is just using their nativity for his own benefit..
I am quite sure Obama is happy with what he sees with these protesters. It is what he really wants, he is after all nothing but a affirmative action made community organizer..
Obama is probably ecstatic seeing all these useful tools in the streets. When he gets through with them they won’t have a pot to p!$$ in and they will be blaming everyone but the real culprit.
The #1 poster pretty much summed up the situation rather well.
I think the real reason these self-styled 99%ers are unhappy is that they didn’t get cushy, well-paid government jobs of the kind Obama and his disciples did. They saw it as their birthright and can’t understand why they can’t get those jobs just like their prophet Obama.
I see something different here. I see two sides of America blaming
each other for a Govt. that abuses their power and sets one against
the other. I’ve been reading “the creature from Jekyll island”
a history of the Federal Reserve board and it’s got me so pissed off
that we’ve been ripped off since 1913 when they were formed in secret
by crooked senators and the world elite bankers. All real competition
was halted and the Fed cartel changed everything behind the scenes
because they controlled the money supply. They pull the strings of
whoever is in the white house, they call all the shots and they want
us fighting each other, it takes the focus off them as they manipulate
people and corporations to do their will. It must be time to break
up America as that seems to be what they are doing right now.
Special thanks to Sen Nelson Aldrich from R.I. father in law to
John D Rockefeller, then maybe you all should read the book or at least
check it out at Amazon and read the reviews, it’s just entirely
footnoted history about the greatest act of treason ever committed on
these United States and it’s been going on for 100 years.
I just keep imagining a United States free to prosper unconstrained
by the FED.
Well, let’s see… A bunch of women and a few metrosexual hipster types, mostly single, who opted for liberal arts and business degrees. In other words, worthless.
My sister’s kids are exactly like this. Any average schmuck can get into a brand-name college now if their liberal boomer parent wants them to. Their IOUs rolling in to keep tenured liberal professors in their seats.
These people are all a bunch of narcissists if they think they represent 99% of the population, which makes them potentially dangerous.
I just finished reading “The Proud Tower” by Barbara Tuchman. One thing that struck me about Socialists at the turn of the century was their total disconnect with how the people they supposedly represented actually lived. I get the same feeling with these 99 percenters. They are a jumble of intellects and agitators who don’t understand anything at all about personal finance and responsibility, which are requirements for living in what we out here call reality.
I have no sympathy at all for that woman in the third photograph who, despite having $100k in debt, decided to have a baby. That was her mistake, and she should live with it. Tough ****.
Hell, she can’t even make relevant literary allusions. That quote “best of times, etc.” is from A Tale of Two Cities, set before the French Revolution. She is delusional if she thinks her plight is comparable to oppressed starving peasants.
These people are idiots. Complete idiots, and they expect us to take care of them…and our worthless government will probably give them something. More idiots.
They are the 99% of what?
Perhaps they are confused and think a 9.9% unemployment rate somehow translates into 99%
This is exactly the left wing moonbat “everyone’s a victim’ propaganda that is being rammed down their oh so naive, immature and gullible throats on a daily basis by the left wing “Progressive” Professors at their Colleges. You wont regain sanity in the student body until you root out the INSANITY and Academia.
I want a generation of young people who think with their rational minds not vomit the diseased dreck poured into their heads by facist professors who’s ONLY achievement is in perpetuation class warfare among the young skull full of mush we send to college.
I want colleges to have to live by the same rule the rest of us do including hate crimes. I want professors to have to leave their bias outside the classroom and to have to live for some substantial amount of time in the REAL world before they attain ivory tower status.
I want those who are disrupting commerce, threatening business and acting inappropriately to go to jail. Not for a few days but for years. Keep them off the streets. If they can’t behave appropriately put them somewhere we don’t have to see them. Stop coddling them, this is what got us in this situation in the first place.
Is it just me or does anyone else wonder where these people are, in this economy, getting the money to stay in NYC, eat out all day, ect. If these folks are living off the government their checks should stop now. One cannot look for a job if their protesting all day. If they put half as much effort into their jobs, classes what have you imagine where they’d be.
Typically liberal.
In 1995 I made the decision to be totally responsible for ME. I started my little consulting business and by doing my niche thing, my bills are paid, I have retirement money and money to pay for health care so I don’t have to pay for the Aetna-Humana-Obama-Blue-Cross-what-else is out there health care.
I AM A ONE-PERCENTER!!!
You go girl!
What a collection of dazzling, trenchant and hilariously spot-on comments. Well done, Pajama Media readers, you have said it about as well as it can be said. This is the real voice of adult America, the one you never hear in the media because they are too afraid to allow anyone to speak the truth, plainly and simply, for fear of offending some dingbat. This is why talk radio and the web caught fire: because we couldn’t listen to one more minute of these lit-crit idiots whining and bemoaning their self-inflicted wounds.
The first thing that comes to mind is simply that the people in the group are the ones that voted for Obama and themselves out of any possibility of employment. Now the want to make a meal of the goose with the golden eggs.
I love them whinging about the police. They should be very very thankful for police protection. They never realize that the people that they taunt on the other side of the lines have serious grudges against them.
This seems like a real get out there and get it done bunch; slamming these kids because of their ‘styles’. Seems like an education system complete with those with masters in education ‘counseled’ these kids to get these loans and go to school in a country whose constitution heralds the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Our wonderful system our tax dollars has supported has had this very result: the 99%’ers. Boo hoo to us, and cast the stones and boulders at them. Hey , at least they realize they’ve been screwed. You guys seem to have no clue.
“slamming these kids because of their ‘styles’”
People are criticizing their attitude more than their style.
“country whose constitution heralds the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness”
Right to pursue happiness, not right to be handed happiness.
“at least they realize they’ve been screwed.”
Not by whom. If they were screwed, it was by (1) their parents who failed to give good advice or steer them to people who could give good advice regarding their college education, and (2) their colleges who charged them a huge price for a weak education in an unprofitable major.
Maybe these young adults should go protest their universities, or their parents.
The rest of our society of people are not responsible for the education they purchased.
Why was life A-OK for graduates such as these ten years ago, but not now? I wonder what’s changed in the last ten years? Can anybody tell me what’s changed in the last ten years that make it so hard for these graduates now, when it wasn’t so hard ten years ago? I wonder what happened ten years ago?
College is even more expensive now than it was then, and there’s less of a work ethic. It’s a lot harder to find a job these days, too.
Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness…THAT’S NOT THE CONSTITUITION, IT’S THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, YOU DUMBASS!
No wonder you feel for these idiots…you’re just as uneducated as they are!
Who is “you guys”?
The government is not the solution to your problems, you are the solution to your problems. Can’t find work or make a living doing what you love to do? Perhaps that is because people are not willing to pay you for what you want to do. Find something you can do which people are willing to pay you to do. Just because you fail at one thing is no reason to demand that someone else solve your problem. No jobs where you live – go somewhere else. Can’t find work in your chosen field – find another – do whatever it takes to survive. Made a bad choice by borrowing wads of cash to become educated without becoming smart enough to support yourself – sorry, your problem. Having difficulty making the bills because you are a single parent – keep it in your pants so you don’t have another. Your indescretion is not my failing – I have no obligation to support you. Truly amazing how much these self indulgent, I’m entitled types whine because they want others to fix the problems they cause.
I don’t know why we should be surprised at the Wall Street protests. After all, left-wing politics is, essentially, a substitute religion for losers. In our society, Wall Street symbolizes what winning looks like. So of course, all the losers instinctively hate it.
It doesn’t matter to them that their actions makes no sense; that in fact, for an unemployed person to attack financial institutions is like a mortally ill person bombing a hospital. Leftists are mostly young, ignorant, and as out of touch with reality as the economically illiterate dolts on the 99% site; trying to use logical reasoning with them is like dogs barking at the moon.
Actually, for these folks to be broke and unemployed sounds like a pretty good outcome. When bad decisions are punished, better decisions might follow. Although with the 99%ers, I wouldn’t be too optimistic.
Let this be a lesson to you kids. Don’t study Art History and rack up unsustainable debt, get a nose piercing, and have a child out of wedlock. Their lives would be better if they had made better choices.
When you have a socialist community-organizer-in-chief ranting about the rich he hates you get rabble rousing. And this rabble has been roused to become as ineffective, counterproductive and mindless as the instigator himself.
Student loan debt should be made dischargable again for hopeless cases and stricter standards on what kind of courses you can take applied to future loans. That would solve the legitimate gripe of these kids who were lied to by the “best and brightest” about the value of any degree, no matter how unrelated to real life.
Discharging student loan obligations would just encourage irresponsible behavior and these people already have it in spades.
What needs to happen is for the government to end Sallie Mae.
Do not be too quick to dismiss these losers! If the commies, the dopers and the union thugs can cause enough civil unrest, Obama might attempt to call off the 2012 elections. Lincoln took control during the upheaval of the Civil War; the Kenyan (or his owners) may be about to try to do the same thing, and stay in office.
Learn your lessons kids. Guidance counselors don’t know shit.
Temp agencies and staffing firms should set up tables right across from these protest sites with huge banners advertising job refferals. How much would you bet that they would not get a single taker from one of these vermin?
heck if I were a job placement site, I would have banner ads plastered all over the stupid website.
ACDC out.
Hot tip:
High tech manufacturing jobs, sciences and jobs in the trades are in demand.
I’m sorry you failed to make yourselves marketable the first time around..stop your self-absorbed pity parties and develop a little true american grit.
Get off the couch,push away from the video games and cell phones,take out the nose rings and go get your hands dirty. For goodness sake! What a bunch of weak whiney babies….. go re-educate yourselves in something other than liberal arts.
This administration models and fosters poor behavior and capitalizes on making people dependent wards of the state. They are counting on those sad little souls in the protest videos and the “99% website” to stay weak and pathetic.
It’s time to admit that we have a feral youth problem in this nation and time for a cull has arrived.
So, the Universities raised tuition at multiples of the rate of inflation, raising the price of worthless degrees to unaffordable levels. The government made these debts non-dischargeable by bankrupcy, and the not so useful idiots are protesting Wall Street. Logic is not their forte.
The purpose of a government education is to produce compliant citizens. These pathetic losers are, by that definition, well educated.
Your website contains links to spyware & infected my computer I have reported it to Site Advisor accordingly and written you up in the user review section. If you want to be taken seriously even a little bit I would recommend removing them immediately but most of all you are infecting computers with your “free antivirus scan download” ad which completely trashed my computer thanks a lot!
This is one of the end-results of the work of generations of clueless “guidance counselors” and “caring” teachers who endlessly flatter their charges that “You can be anything you want to be. Dare to live your Dreams!” So you promptly decide to go out and get a B.A. in Dramatic Arts because you’re always wanted to do puppet shows for children on public TV. After four or five years as an undergraduate you go on for your MA in Advanced Puppet Studies. Eventually you have to leave your hermetically sealed world and are smacked in the face by that giant truck called “The Real World.” (Not to be confused with the old televison program.)
Notice that all of these people want all their perks while continuing to live in New York City. North Dakota has an unemployment rate of 3% and employers there are badly in need of workers. However who wants to live in North Dakota or Alaska for that matter? The sub-text of most of this protest is “We want free stuff, we want to stay in school forever and we want to do it in the cosmopolitan environs of New York City. Please subsidize my lifestyle.”
Hahah, zing!
You made a nice point about people more or less demanding to be handed jobs in the places they already live rather than starting a search for opportunities elsewhere.
Nice comment.
“Anyone who has ever been unemployed, and most of us have been at one point or another, knows the terror of waking up each day without the dignity of work and the expectation of future gains. You feel the anxiety in your gut and in your chest. I don’t wish that feeling on anyone.”
That is EXACTLY what I wish for most of the Democrats in the House and Senate… and many of the Republicans, too.
Someone needs to inform this high on self esteem, low on sense bunch that the world, apparently, has enough film art teachers, women’s studies professors, artists, actors, poets and folk singers. I know it came as quite a shock to me that I couldn’t be Bob Dylan. That job was taken. Get over it. I did. Be the next Jobs or like someone else said, move to Alaska or the Alberta oil sands, work hard, get dirty, save and spend wisely and in the future vote against government overreach.
I am currently a college student, specifically a mechanical engineering student, in my fifth year. Many of the students I first came to school with graduated in 4 years, none of them with a science or technical degree. Not a single one of them has a job in their field (who knew the philosophy factory down the road wasn’t hiring?). Across the board, their solution is to go to grad school. I don’t get this logic (then again, I don’t get why people play the lottery either) as even with a Master’s or PhD, they will never be certain of a job, much less pay down their debt.
I routinely get told that I am “lucky” to be getting a degree that makes money that I love. I don’t “love” engineering. Hell, a lot of it is frustrating as hell and since it is so wide open, a lot of what I have to do in college will never be used in my career. But I’ve been poor (try living off of E-4 pay in Va…it ain’t easy) and realized that I want the economic freedom to do what I want. If that means not partying or taking easy classes in college, oh well.
I also love how I get told how “lucky” I am to get a free education for being a veteran. No kid…I only get four years of funds so even with it, I am still having to pay for my last year total along with any expenses and besides I PAID FOR IT! Feel free to sign up and get the same deal…
Heh! Try going for an engineering degree back in ’69. The mass layoffs following the end of the space program were a true horror. Doctorate engineers were pumping gas to survive. I watched the ads for degreed engineers go from a whole section of the paper to 1/2 collumn in 9 months.
As to the G.I. bill; try goig to school full time on $100./ month like I was expected to do (’74). Went baack to spinning wrenches; 5 semesters of engineering was a plus though.
Once again products of the Toxic Cult of Sentimentality. Read Theodore Dalrymple. It’s the reason these infantile adults exist (with added rings and piercing’s of course)
In his writing, Dalrymple frequently argues that the liberal and progressive views prevalent within Western intellectual circles minimise the responsibility of individuals for their own actions and undermine traditional mores, contributing to the formation within rich countries of an underclass afflicted by endemic violence, criminality, sexually transmitted diseases, welfare dependency, and drug abuse. Much of Dalrymple’s writing is based on his experience of working with criminals and the mentally ill
Theodore Dalrymple finds fault with our society’s romanticised view of childhood, modern educational theory, demands for public displays of emotion, overseas aid and the assumed moral superiority of victims, and also lays bare the connections between sentimentality and brutality.
http://www.skepticaldoctor.com/Spoilt_Rotten__The_Toxic.html
“Knowledge should be free.” Move to Italy, where it is free, then. Oh, and Italy is the center of Europe’s debt crisis. Coincidenza? I think not.
There was another political party that declared itself the majority, even though, numerically, it was a minority.
Being in Russia, it used the Russian word for “majority” — “Bolshevik”.
Okay then — do you defend 30% interest rates on credit cards, bailouts for friends of politicians, higher prices in reduced packages, sending employment overseas, government of, by and for the insiders?
Do you worship at the altar of Henry F. Potter, the “It’s a Wonderful Life” banker?
Do you think George Bailey, the “It’s a Wonderful Life” populist, would be comfortable at an Obama $35,800 per ticket fundraiser?
Do you have a problem with Madison’s warning, in Federalist No. 57, about the “ambitious sacrifice of the many, to the aggrandizement of the few?”
Is your definition of capitalism — screw the other guy and screw him damn quick?
If you agree with these questions — congratulations: you are a committed believer in governmment of, by and for the insiders — Obamacracy, you might call it.
I bet 99% of the 99% have useless Liberal Arts degrees.
Oh the poor boomerang generation. Spent 100k+ of Daddy and Mommy’s money on a useless Liberal Arts Education at a useless Left-wing Liberal arts college filled full of left-wing socialist professors, who never worked a real day in their lives, and fill these poor babies heads full of dreams, and very little useful information about how to make it in the real world.
This comes after a childhood and adolescence built on grading curves, no score little league or soccer, “Real World” and all the other fantasies that they are fed for the last 20 years by Spoiled Baby Boomer parents.
It is kind of nice to see people out marching because they feel “left out” of the American dream. Tea Party people march, but they are mostly well off and mainly started complaining because Obama was elected president and hate paying taxes on their earned income. Both sides have their right to complain so we can at least agree on that eh?
“….started complaining because Obama was elected president….”
No, the Tea Partiers started complaining because they knew what Obama’s policies would bring – higher taxes, more government intrusion into their lives, higher healthcare costs, corporate cronyism, and the lies that “investing” in the green industry would create millions of new jobs. Your insinuation that they were protesting Obama because of his skin color is typical lefty mythmaking. Maybe your marchers wouldn’t be “left out of the American dream” if not for the Democrats’ economic policies. The American dream is not about paying humongous taxes to support a bloated government bureaucracy, a big national debt and an unsustainable welfare system, including Obamacare, Social Security and Medicare. And now you have a bunch of brats complaining about not being able to realize the “American dream” because of 9% unemployment and no practical job skills.
not only what obama would bring but it was the final straw that was first placed on the camel by the likes of woodrow and delano and the rest of the collectivists over a hundred years ago
THE SHUTDOWN AMERICA MOVEMENT AND THE BIG 99% LIE
The persuasion of force is on the march. They know what is good for you, what’s right for you, what’s best for you, what’ll work for you whether you know it or not, like it or not, want it or not………
Click my name to read the rest of this piece at my TOP, widely linked, Townhall.com blog
The really bad thing is that these are the children of our generation. We screwed up a long time ago and now we are paying for it. These kids have been taught that they don’t have to work for anything they want and now they want these mysterious jobs everyone is saying they should get (as long as they are green jobs of course) after they finish with the scholastic program. We raised the something for nothing generation, or should we get to the point and say, a bunch of bums. Question: When everyone is a bum, how will we know we are bums?
It does seem that with the pic’s published here that a lot of the 99 percenter’s are in debt from school loans but they don’t seem any different than the Beatniks of the late 50′s the Hippies of the 70′s or any layabout looking for someone else to pay their bills. $7.25 an hour,min. wage in some places is still $14,000 a year. Take the minimum wage and get some marketable skills.
My son is tens of thousands in student loan debt. He lives with me (his dad) and is biting off huge chunks of his debt. Anyone who can not make 15-20 grand a year in this world just aint trying. There are jobs, no, not teaching art history, but there are jobs. Get one fools and quit whining.
and ohhhh yeah maybe the universities should cut some of the pampered faculties pay. whatever they make is ok in Obamerica.
I love the one about how knowledge should be free….
The fool doesn’t realize it is..
Blame is a one party game. Unfortunately, bad players are always looking for willing victims.
Its great that so many of you regular people have so much hate for others who are trying to get a fair shake out of life. Having a system that unfairly redistributes wealth up the ladder is what is hurting our country. The main factor in the our country’s detioration is the squeezing of the middle class. You people actually root for the crooks that are taking all of the money and the power yet you actually have none of either on your own. The rich “so called” conservatives played you. Very few care about the social policies your want. They just want to fix the system to benefit themselves while making you believe they are on your side. The young may be naive but they are flexible, you are the people who have been conditioned that wealthy and white makes right.
you forgot to: “/end sarcasm”
Some of these 99%ters would be in this bad of shape no matter what. What we are starting to seeing now though is the first generation paying for all past promises given to the generation before them. What good is a college degree if there are no jobs and the way obama is killing jobs in America, these young people have a very bleak future ahead of them. Our jobs were shipped over seas by our politicians with their regulations. We are no longer a nation of builders, but a nation of me,me,me,me people. What do we make anymore, thank you politicians.
note to Liberal Arts Majors: put down the book about humanity, pull up your baggy pants, remove the nose ring, switch your degree to accounting, become a CPA, forget about graduate school, and I guarantee you will be making a 75 to 150k in a small to mid size city before you know it. A bi-product of the worthless Congress you Libs keep voting for is that corporate America has to hire more and more accountants!
waaahhhh i want free stuff, waaahh why do i have to pay bills, waahha i dont want to work a starter job. waaahhhhh, why do i have to worry about life.
spoiled kids who should have had there butt beaten more in the real world. There have only been a hand full of these where i thought this person could use some help(and none of these are it), or they are in the wrong protest but had a point.
Don’t want to work a starter job? If you read their messages, every one (except the last one who hasn’t been to college yet) had a job before the Big Crash, caused, of course, by YouKnowWho. You would prefer to go to hell first rather than to name them or blame them.
By the way, that was a nice rant from page 42 of the “Right Wing Ready-made Reply Phrasebook.” Next time, how about using your brain and come up with something more original. I’ve read that Phrasebook — nothing worth squat in it.
I am amused at you one-percenters. Most of what you do is manipulating numbers and devising “heads I win, tails you lose” games in the financial industry. Many of you possess the same academic qualifications that you disdain in the ninety-nine percenters. Many of you would be in the same boat if you hadn’t gotten jobs through your connections (family, college social networks) or received trust funds from your relatives. (As the recipient of an inheritance that is keeping my small business afloat in hard times, I actually know that I lucked out in the genetic crap game instead of being innately wonderful, as many of you seem to think you are.) Frankly, you come off as smug and selfish and clueless about life outside your own enclaves. Recall who said, “Qu’ils mangent des brioches” and what happened to her.
it is your beloved and benevolent federal government rigging the coin toss amigo
stop feeling guilty over your “genetic crap game” and projecting your issues on pajamas media which has fewer “1%ers” than many of the families of the doe eyed protestors on wall street
l o s e r
pdxtran you sound like a spoiled brat explaining why it’s everyone’s fault but your own that you can’t succeed. If you and your whiny cohort but in 1/2 the effort the average “one percenter” put in to get where they are, you’d all be successful. The world, including its one percenters, doesn’t owe you anything.
Hey, pal, feel free to take your inheritance and pay off the debts of these crybabies.
I won’t stop you.
Haha, loser! OMFG yur so smart, you sed “Let ‘em eat cayk!” in Spanish! Well my goodness, you deserve a job at my daddy’s business, we’ll give you a big corner office and pay you a hundred grand a year to spout off smug forrin language epitaphs for our Annual Report, I tell ya what!
Yeah you obviously “lucked out,” or you’d be too busy shovelling up super-size french fries to waste time on the computer. Lemme tell ya something, failboy, my academics are a little more substantial than “art history” and ‘Medieval Spanish poetry” and “The philosophy of the Ouga-douga.”
PS-
“keeping my small business afloat in hard times,”
Now think very carefully — what would be the better for your business to prosper — higher taxes, or lower taxes? More regulations, or fewer regulations? More freedom to run your business as you see fit, or less freedom?
Think carefully, no rush. You have until November of next year to come up with an answer.
For a good one that puts things in perspective click my name (I am not that guy, but that is the only way I know to put a link here.
Of course a new agency and czar are being installed at tax payer expense to handle charades verified only by more community organized saps that have no idea of just what change they demand. Their pep squad leaders intentionally kept them in the dark on that issue for fear of internal rebellion upon historical name recognition. Recovery from the effects of the koolaid may outlast their memory potential but not that of the growing army of resentful veterans aroused by their unmitigated gall.
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2011/10/05/oath-keepers-and-the-wayseers-to-occupy-the-occupation/
Stop buying into this nonsense, people. It’s the Federal Reserve– not capitalism.
You keep blaming capitalism, but you’re talking about how poor and victimized you are– but your ideology is to gain income. How can you defeat capitalism, and survive at all? It will never happen. People have to eat, like you do. Occupy the Federal Reserves!!
Well, I’m sure there’s a few legitimate hard-luck stories in there, but most of what I saw was self-indulgent whining about the consequences of decisions freely made. You spent 150k to get a degree in “Minority Women’s Studies,” and you’re aggrieved and oppressed because the corporate fascists won’t “give” you a job?
Pray tell, precisely what corporate sinecure do you think your degree entitles you to?
The second line: “Anyone who believes that they represent 99% of Americans, without any supporting evidence, doesn’t.”
Who said they “represent” anybody? They ARE the 99%. If you aren’t in the 1%, then you, too, a part of the 99%.
It’s the 1% and their deluded sycophants among the 99% who look down from their rung on the ladder to sneer at those who no longer have a ladder to climb. The vitriol among you speaks volumes at the state of your heart and brain.
I pray that your own rung on the ladder remains fast. However, it might do one of you a bit of good to have it slip a little bit. For one of you to experience something similar to the situation in the Dan Aykroyd/Eddie Murphy movie “Trading Places” just might do a world of good on the attitudes of some of you.
“My dad (PhD) lives in a car so he can do what he loves…”
So ffnng what? That seems to be a choice he has made. He could live in his car, or he could be a “corporate slave.” Why am I being called upon to subsidize his choice?
“I taught Art History for 2 years…”
Same thing. And? Who required you to take a degree in Art History, rather than Architecture or Electrical Engineering? What prevents you from returning to education? Truck driving school is not terribly expensive, I understand, or you can earn a paralegal certificate in 6 weeks and work in big city law firms.
Tough Sh1t.
PS — I’me doing reasonably well, I am NOT one of the “1%,” and I have always had to work hard to get and keep what I have. I have sympathy for those less well off, and I’ve been down pretty far myself, but I never thought anyone else in the world owed me anything.
unless you are a billionaire, you are part of the 99%. you just dont realize it yet. but… you will.
don’t underestimate this, as a dyed-in-the-wool conservative age 50, having looked for work for nearly 4 years now without success, I agree with them. don’t underestimate the depth of feeling – there are a lot of arrogant writers on here, wait till it’s your turn to live in your car!
So much for the baby boom generation. They are toast, they followed the greatest generation and ruined our country. Now they are mad at the gen-xer’s and millinials for telling them off. Hopefully they are the last extremely bigotted generation of white people as well. They messed up big time and created a race to the bottom where you need to get yours before its gone and if you stumbled along the way its a personal fault of your own and you are a terrible person. Good riddence baby boom take “your” overaggrandized self importance with you because you will truly go down in history as the garbage cohort you are.
You have it all figured out now, don’t you boy? I hope I grow up to be like you! What will be the first thing you will fix for us?
About the only thing we know for sure, through observation about a connection between the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and Anonymous 99, is that 99% of the people protesting with shouts of “We Are The 99%” are non-anonymous white people (because we can see them) who seem to support progressive/socialist/anarchist/Obamaist policies and owe a ton of money in student loans to the banks and financial institutions they are protesting.
Hi Bryan,
I like your comment about America being sort of a material wonderland compared to the “Hobbesian” existence in most other parts of the world. It boils down to one thing:
You get the government you deserve.
The lion’s share of this terrible economy is due to governmental meddling in private affairs. I recall a couple I knew a few years back. He was an assistant manager at CVS. She worked part-time at the library. They bought a 3,500 square foot house for $500,000. Now how in the world can a couple with a combined income of around $60,000 afford a house for a half mil, with no savings?
The government. Yes, the government made it possible for people to bury themselves. And now, it has all come home to roost.
Combine that with the government’s total ineptitude and/or corruption in almost every facet of governance and you have a recipe for disaster. Just go right down the line. Foreign affairs? Fail. Domestic affairs? Fail.
To everyone and anyone who thinks the democrats OR republicans will save us from ourselves, stop voting for morons who have no desire to serve your best interest and every desire to fatten their wallets on your backs. Wake up.
You sound confused. So what you are trying to say is that the government should have regulated properly to ensure that a minimum downpayment is required or that predatory lending is not possible right? Or is it that the government somehow made the sale? Because your argument seems to have two conflicting views on the rights and responsibilties of government.
The government backed Freddie and Fannie, who in turn bought up all these loans from the banks, so the banks were making all kinds of crazy loans without having any risk associated with them, because no sooner did they make the loans and pocket the fees, they sold the loans to Freddie and Fannie for securitization, so junk got mixed in with good mortgages for investors.
NotReally, you are the one who is confused.
The govt. doesn’t need to “regulate properly” to ensure appropriate down-payments. If it doesn’t regulate down payments, out of self-interest the private sector (banks) will require a safe amount to create a collateral cushion in case of default by the borrower.
The govt. distorted the market by guaranteeing unsafe loans, even with as little as 0% down. So the banks issued the loans (and were even pressured by the govt. to make more of the loans) because the govt. said they’d eat any losses. i.e, the taxpayer would eat them.
And we have eaten losses, to the tune of hundreds of billions, pouring money into Fannie and Freddie (the govt. instruments of the loan guarantees), since the unsafe loans went bad.
Supporting a govt. role in regulating against some predatory lending abuses (like regulating advertised interest rates on a uniform A.P.R. basis, rather than misleading methods) to ensure consumers can make informed decisions, is entirely different than price controls, loan guarantees, etc. that wildly distort the market and dump huge costs onto the taxpayers.
Well said, Ken.
Just like how liberals painted the Tea Party as “extremists” the article and comments are painting the Occupy Wall Street protestors as “extremists” as well.
Not all the 99% are students who spent over 100k for a liberal arts degree and want handouts. This article just shows four out of hundreds of posts.
There are people three jobs trying to make it, but aren’t. There are people who cannot get insurance while working because of pre-existing conditions. There are people who have Business Administration, Law, Computer Science, Engineering, and Nursing degrees who cannot find jobs in their fields since they need either a) a Master’s degree which would put them further into debt or b) 3-5 years of experience when employment (and even volunteering — for those who are lucky enough to do so) is so volatile now.
Just wanted to point that out.
We find ourselves with an economy on the brink of collapse primarily due to the intervention of the Federal Government into our lives and the extreme level of increased spending put forth by this 44th Presidency. The friend you describe is a victim of our stifled culture and economic engine thanks to increased bureaucratic regulation and a 5 Trillion dollar increase in overall debt in only 3 years. Progressives never get a clue when they think income redistribution actually works … if one kills the cash cow that actually creates income.
The friction of regulation, uncertainty, taxation, and Federal Government Spending is just incomprehensible to most who are politically Democrat, progressive, socialist, Marxist, and un-Constitutional.
I just wanted to point this out.
So let me get this straight. You f-ing morons spend money you don’t have and then cry about it when you realize you were an irresponsible POS and don’t want to have to repay your debt. What world are we living in again? Is this the land of stupidity? I’ll make all of you 99%ers a deal, America will forgive your debt if you leave the country and never return, because your not living the American dream, your living a fairy tale.
The more attention these people get, the better for the Obama campaign. They get new bogeymen to run against.
You know guys and gals, Dennis Miller and others are reading these-cause they are all pretty good on this page. So don’t be surprised if they tun up in a “turned up fashion” on one of those shows! So I’m sorry some of you are not getting paid for the comedy writing trade. Your good keep’em coming. Nose Ring-Art History I can’t stop laughing just picturing that
Check “6″
This is a smear article. It totally dodges the point of the protests by making broad stereotypical attacks on the character of the protesters. The only time the article even addresses the reason behind the protests is when it says that people have lost jobs “for whatever reason.”
The “whatever reason” that people are losing jobs is something worth protesting over
Here are some statistics about the US economy over the last decade taken from Tomdispatch.com:
“between 1999 and 2009, the net jobs gain in the American workforce was zero. In the six previous decades, the number of jobs added rose by at least 20% per decade.”
“in 2010, the average middle-class family took home $49,445, a drop of $3,719 or 7%, in yearly earnings from 10 years earlier. In other words, that family now earns the same amount as in 1996. ”
“In this lost decade, according to economist Jared Bernstein, poor families watched their income shrivel by 12%, falling from $13,538 to $11,904. Even families in the 90th percentile of earners suffered a 1% percent hit, dropping on average from $141,032 to $138,923. Only among the staggeringly wealthy was this not a lost decade: the top 1% of earners enjoyed 65% of all income growth in America for much of the decade, one hell of a run, only briefly interrupted by the financial meltdown of 2008 and now, by the look of things, back on track.”
“15.1% of all Americans are now living in officially defined poverty, the most since 1993.” “In 2000 [the poverty rate] was at about 11%.”
Part of the blame obviously rests on the political system. On fundamental issues political representatives do not represent popular opinion. From Noam Chomsky’s August 24 article, “American Decline: Causes and Consequences:”
“For the public, the primary domestic concern, rightly, is the severe crisis of unemployment. Under current circumstances, that critical problem can be overcome only by a significant government stimulus, well beyond the recent one, which barely matched decline in state and local spending, though even that limited initiative did probably save millions of jobs. For financial institutions the primary concern is the deficit. Therefore, only the deficit is under discussion. A large majority of the population favor addressing the deficit by taxing the very rich (72% for, 21% opposed). Cutting health programs is opposed by overwhelming majorities (69% Medicaid, 79% Medicare). The likely outcome is therefore the opposite.
Reporting the results of a study of how the public would eliminate the deficit, its director, Steven Kull, writes that “clearly both the administration and the Republican-led House are out of step with the public’s values and priorities in regard to the budget…The biggest difference in spending is that the public favored deep cuts in defense spending, while the administration and the House propose modest increases…The public also favored more spending on job training, education, and pollution control than did either the administration or the House.”
The costs of the Bush-Obama wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion — a major victory for Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to bankrupt America by drawing it into a trap. The 2011 military budget — almost matching that of the rest of the world combined — is higher in real terms than at any time since World War II and is slated to go even higher. The deficit crisis is largely manufactured as a weapon to destroy hated social programs on which a large part of the population relies. Economics correspondent Martin Wolf of the London Financial Times writes that “it is not that tackling the US fiscal position is urgent…. The US is able to borrow on easy terms, with yields on 10-year bonds close to 3 percent, as the few non-hysterics predicted. The fiscal challenge is long term, not immediate.” Very significantly, he adds: “The astonishing feature of the federal fiscal position is that revenues are forecast to be a mere 14.4 percent of GDP in 2011, far below their postwar average of close to 18 percent. Individual income tax is forecast to be a mere 6.3 percent of GDP in 2011. This non-American cannot understand what the fuss is about: in 1988, at the end of Ronald Reagan’s term, receipts were 18.2 percent of GDP. Tax revenue has to rise substantially if the deficit is to close.” Astonishing indeed, but it is the demand of the financial institutions and the super-rich, and in a rapidly declining democracy, that’s what counts.”
The fact that you are stooping to these kinds of charades rather than giving any serious rebuttal to the protests only reveals how clearly reform is needed.
These 99 percenters piss me off, but ultimately they don’t worry me a bit. That’s because all they can do is paint their signs, bang drums on a street corner and post dopey photos with self-absorbed messages of entitlement on the internet. This group is nothing more than a Whitman’s Sampler of all of the usual left-leaning, disaffected, anti-establishment, anti-capitalist boobs that have always comprised the bulk of these vapid protests. They can’t articulate a clear message, don’t know exactly who they’re mad at, and most of all — don’t know how to organize.
Say what you will about the Tea Party, but they know how to communicate, they understand how to convert their anger into goal-setting and executable actions, and they’ve impacted policy in D.C. by actually sending representatives to Congress who get things done.
Wake me up when any of these 99 percenters stop whining and actually come up with a coherent message and strategy that’s worth a bucket of snot.
Something for all the 99% to think about. Many (many) years ago when I was about to graduate from high school, my true passion was marine biology. See, even old white guys have dreams. But this was essentially a research career with almost no job prospects even after achieving a doctorate. I was pretty good at math and after some guidance from family friends I decided to pursue a degree in computer science. I have been rewarded with a pretty good career. I have worked a lot of long days and weekends and still do. I like my job and feel very fortunate to have it but would not say it is my “passion”. But I have bills to pay and a family to take care of so I work hard every day. I am NOT complaining. I suspect that a similar theme is shared by most of the true middle class.
Freedom and opportunity is about choices and effort. If a person wants to pursue their passion for fashion merchandising, that is great but be realistic about expectations. It also seems that the media has led many young people to the belief that they can sing a song (American Idol) or act like idiots (Jersey Shore) and they will get a career out of it. That’s great. Some do but most don’t so again, be realistic.
The pervasive theme of posts is that it is arithmetically impossible for e.g. 1000 protesters to be 1% of any number but 100,000. It’s funny that this level of rigor was never applied to T-Party whackos, who were purported to speak for a massive, silent majority.
Unemployment was this high when ? Great Depression. and that’s just percentage, thanks to population growth we have more people out of work than EVER before.
“Get a Job” – where ? how ? there are over 27 million without work.
27 MILLION ! OUR TOTAL US MILITARY IS 2.7 MILLION … 10 TIMES THAT UNEMPLOYED… AND THATS ONLY THE ONES TAKING BENEFITS !!
HOW CAN YOU REALLY JUST IGNORE IT AS A “LAZY” ISSUE ??!?!?!
“They are not the 99%” – no what you are not getting is they are NOT claiming to have the same opinion as 99% of the USA, they are NOT claiming that 99% of the population is upset. THEY ARE SAYING THAT 1% of the population controls 60% of the money, while 99% is forced to live on 40%. The fact that all of you keep saying that “they are not 99% of the country” means you will not even take the time to read their message.
You, me and everyone who commented on this page is the 99%. and that is a true statement. All our money together doesn’t add up to wall streets.
I am baffled by your close mindedness and tactics used to insult a protest.
Again, the 99% statement is NOT in reference to population, opinion or political view.
So as you keep arguing that they are not the 99%, please tell me why.
Boo Hoo, you Tea Partier’s want to have your say but as soon as someone else wants to exercise their free speech you criticize and attempt to ridicule.
The truth is that most of you who are criticizing the Occupy Wall Street have lost something to the greed of Wall Street you just haven’t had a chance to realize it yet. When your 401k took a big hit, when you paid more for fuel,
when you lost your home, when you lost your job, when you could no longer afford
tuition for your children and many other circumstances… All driven by Wall Street greed.
When George W. Bush stole the first election with the help of his brother he started deregulating the banking industry and just to be sure they had the power to destroy the economy quickly he gave them huge tax breaks. When he stole his second election with the help of the GOP controlled company that intercepted voting data in Iowa and changed the results he started deregulating even more.
The author thinks the Bush elections were a referendum, a reflection of the will of the voters of America? Consider that Bill Clinton had balanced the budget and with 8 more years at the Clinton tax rates there would have been NO deficit (that’s right, none) he would have paid back the money that Ronald Reagan and Bush senior hijacked from Social Security. People were working, the U.S was secure and business was prosperous. Then when business got everything handed to them by Bush junior everything went to hell, nice of the author to blame the current administration for the past ones failings. The Obama administration is handicapped by the GOP congress or we would be pulling out of this mess by now.
You Tea Partier’s keep getting your way and you won’t have to worry about invading countries, we will be owned by them.
If you are not a millionaire you are the 99% most are just too stupid to realize it. (you can thank the GOP for cutting funds to your education over the last 30 years).
FYI- Glass Steagell Act was repealed by Clinton and Congress.
Sigh. I will probably regret this, but i feel the need to weigh in here. I came here via Google news and with no particular agenda. And i have to say, i find the level of vitriol and rancor very disappointing. It seems that both “sides”, left and right, have retreated to their own self-amplifying echo chambers. It seems that in this corner of the blogosphere, liberals are idiots. They are irresponsible and lazy and think the world owes them something. Oh, and they don’t wash. And many are either posers or puppets.
It seems to me that all the posts start from those presumptions and then marshal facts to prove them. And since there are no opposing views presented, those presumptions are never challenged. This website is not the only one to suffer from this condition. I have found it on both sides of the ideological divide. So please permit me to offer up some middle ground.
Some of the 99%ers have made bad decisions regarding the costs and benefits of certain university degrees. Some of the 99%ers made good decisions but are still suffering in this economy. Many of the people occupying wall street are young. But sit ins and long term protests like this are for the young. Many adult, middle aged and elderly are also suffering, but don’t have the opportunity or ability to camp out in a park. They have young children or elderly parents to care for. They work long hours in low wage jobs without benefits. Their sympathies are with the protesters, but they cannot join them. In that sense, those young people represent a larger, more diverse group of citizens who are suffering in this economy.
It is important for people to take responsibility for their own lives and decisions. It is also important for us to support those who are suffering through no fault of their own. Uninsured medical expenses are a leading cause of bankruptcy and home foreclosures.
Not everyone can be a CEO or an entrepreneur. The loss of manufacturing jobs disproportionally affected the working class (lower middle class). Many of those jobs were outsourced to places with no regulatory oversight of workplace safety or environmental impact. Innovations in technology have automated manufacturing faster than it has created jobs in the new sector. Making robots to make cars results in a net loss of jobs. Our high unemployment rate then is not simply the result of bad educational decisions, laziness, or an unwillingness to work.
Under US law, corporations are people. But corporations are not American, even if they are headquartered here. Corporations act in the best interest of their shareholders, not the best interest of the American people. Some level of regulation is therefore needed to protect American citizens from corporate behavior that chases profit at the expense of American wellbeing.
I have long believed that home economics should be a mandatory middle school or high school class. And no, not cooking and shopping advice. Real home economics. How to make and live within a budget. How to make decisions regarding insurance. How to invest and save for retirement. How to negotiate the price of a car or home. How to apply for and understand a mortgage. If we are going to expect people to make good personal financial decisions, we need to give all Americans the tools to do so, regardless of the quality of the the parenting they received.
Anyway, i hope that i have shown that there is a lot of middle ground between all liberals are idiots and all conservatives are heartless. Personal responsibility and social responsibility are not incompatible. Both are essential for any society to flourish.
Holy jesus farts!!! Everyone on here but like one dude is a total idiot tool. I’m out!!
I too came here from a Google link and, quite frankly, the comments here are about as un-American as I’ve ever seen and I’m really shocked! So let me point something out. I’m part of the 2% so I’m pretty close to the 1% these people are protesting about. None of you people are, I can tell by your comments. To be clear here the floor for the 1% in the US is about 645K a year AGI and the floor for the 2% is about 320K AGI. The floor for the 3% is around 250k a year AGI. Who among you has this on your Federal returns here?
The comments here remind me of bitter old people who didn’t get as far in life as they’d have liked to, and now want to take away things from everyone else because, god forbid, someone have something they didn’t. That’s not only un-American it’s uncivilized. I know what it’s like to incur student debt. I know what it’s like to work hard. I also know what it’s like to see huge banks bailed out and all you get in your health insurance cancelled because you lost your job, unemployment doesn’t cover the rent, and you can’t afford the COBRA payments. I had all of that happen to me at some point in my life, and I’d like to see younger people now not have to go through these things, unlike most of the comments here. I made it though and now have a C in front of my title, but I never forgot where I came from. Evidently a lot of you have or are still there and resent it.
I submit that it is YOU who are lazy and selfish. Because if you belonged to my class, which clearly you don’t, you’d be more generous and understanding of these people. I applaud them as doing what is a right enshrined by the Founding Fathers: protesting. And protesting upper-class greed (one of the reasons for the revolution, but I’m sure none of you actually read any of that stuff, just mouth what Fox News tells you to). The problem is most of my class is pretty sympathetic to these people, not your class who keeps voting for people and for issues that couldn’t possibly make your life any better because, you know, you have a better chance of getting hit by a meteor than joining my upper 2%. Now you want to hold back other generations for your failures. Shame on you all! Selfish and un-American the lot of you. I hope the protests pick up even more!
you called it 100%…
Well stated with genuine insight and clarity!
This is an interesting post.
I have to say I admire your generous attitude and understanding of the hardships that one may have to incur to elevate themselves to the level they want to be at. Hats off, sincerely.
However I have to wonder how you might feel about allowing others to more easily traverse the economic and social system to get to a position of equal satisfaction and pay as yourself. Would your attitude be the same if you knew somebody else achieved everything you had, but with much less effort and because it was handed to them? I’m not trying to make a point, I actually want to know your answer. I am also not suggesting that the 99%ers want things handed to them(although you might say one major issue with their ideas could be that they are not proposing any kind of alternative to current way of things).
Being a student myself who hopes to someday be in shoes that are similar to yours I just have to wonder what your attitude about “earning your place” might be. I think it’s kind of funny that people have this attitude that capitalism is about hard work and earning what you have, when in reality it is simply that a person is paid based on the current value of their skills, which is determined by the economic demand for that skill(demand by people who will pay their salaries). I have to laugh reading some of these posts acting as if they got their BMW 3 Series explicitly by laboring in a sweatshop for the first 30 years of their lives, walking 15 miles a day to school, etc.
Waiting for your response.
I’ll bite. I learned very early that life is not fair. I had a very hard life for the first 20 or so years. I’ll spare the details, but i learned early on that life is not fair. Nobody gets what they deserve. At best you can hope to get what you value most.
I choose not to be on TANF. I choose to work hard and pay taxes, even though the person next door is getting subsidized food and rent with my tax money. Why? Because I know what kind of person i want to be. Regardless of what anyone else has or gets at my expense, I like me the way I am. Perhaps my neighbor gets money without working, but I wouldn’t want to be her. I wouldn’t choose her life.
The intangibles i would have to give (pride, dignity, self respect) are worth more to me than a paltry TANF check and a life of wasted time.
There will always be people in this world who get more than I do. Most of them don’t “deserve” it any more than I do. Some of them will get their money or lifestyle at my expense.
But unless some space junk falls on your head or you suffer some other sudden death you never see coming, there comes a moment, I’ve seen it more than once already, when whether you live or die is out of your control. At that moment, facing death, you ask yourself, “Did i make the most of my time on this planet? Did i become the best person I could be?” The only thing that matters in that moment is not “Did someone get something undeserved at my expense?” It’s life, that’s inevitable. At that moment you don’t care about how your neighbors lived their lives. You care about how you lived yours.
So, that is the mark i am aiming for. I can’t control the choices other people make. They don’t have to answer to me. In the end, we answer to ourselves.
Nellie, I hate to be the one to tell you this but whatever you’ve heard about “earning your place” or even “Having it handed to you” ignores one big thing: luck. I’m sorry to tell you this but you can do everything right and still not get the brass ring. And you know what? I also admit this. I don’t think for a moment that my position or my life is due to “my hard work” alone. Sure you have to be smart and work hard to be in the right place at the right time, but you still have to be in the right place at the right time.
So do everything you can, so you have the shot. And that’s all you can do. And stop listing to people that think the universe is some sort of gigantic machine where if you put in good intentions you get a prize at the end. Because if you don’t, you’ll be as bitter as the people posting here.
ecomimonium: My thoughts exactly.
What is really sad, is that those who are not suffering cannot have empathy on those who are. 99% is not an actual number, only an idea signifying that the majority are those who are protesting.
I support the protesters. To those loud mouths condemning them, be very careful, circumstances have a way of changing quite suddenly. Do not feel too comfortable by that sum of money you have saved. Before you know it, the protesters may be the group you most identify with.
Compelling and very funny videos about Wall St, the Fed, unemployment and the economy…must see…
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Bank?: An Uncensored Investigation of the U.S. Federal Reserve (Part 1 of an
8-Part Episode)…
http://www.youtube.com/user/BaitAndSwitchTV#p/u/0/_M_Rh_fgKEQ
The Proud, The Rich, The Reserves: Self-Serving their Country Since 1913…
http://bit.ly/nEiTJS
Sub-Primal Scream Therapy – Big Bank Financial Crisis Explained
http://bit.ly/qWoSED
The Real Housewives of Tent City-Hot New Reality Show
http://bit.ly/pOzWDO
I don’t care about the 99%. I don’t care about the 1%. But I do care about MY money being taken and redistributed to someone I don’t know. I’ll be as blunt as I can be: SCREW YOU ALL. I don’t care if you live, die or kill yourselves… but leave me and everything that’s mine alone.
Unfortunately there is no hope for you, you have bought into the Tea Party rhetoric.
The Tea Party mantra:
They’ve made up my mind, don’t try to confuse me with the truth.
You see? I was right. MY MY MY ME ME ME. Well unless there is a government imposing some playing field rules, someone like me can come over, kill you, and take everything that’s yours. Or I can do the modern equivalent: I can market and lie to you, convincing you that yes you can live in a 500K house on a 50K a year total income, write you the loans, make you pay them for a while, take your money, and then take your house and ruin you by wrecking your credit rating. Then I make it impossible for you to climb out by lobbying to change the bankruptcy laws.
Oh then since I wrecked the economy also in the process, I make sure that you don’t have a job, or when you finally get one it will be for 25% less than you were making with no benefits. Then I convince you to vote against any health care reform, and to vote for cutting social security and medicare in the hopes that you’ll just die quietly and I don’t have to pay you anything. While I’m doing this I convince you that taxes are out of control, so we end up cutting local and state education, enslaving your kids to 100k debt loads to get an education in order to get a decent paying job. Except it isn’t so decent when they have to pay back 1500 a month after they graduate. So I steal from your next generation also.
See how this works now? Probably not because you watch Fox too much.
“unrelated to producing anything in the real economy”…sounds more like wall street to me…
Who’s the idiot? Thd 99%ers arent claiming that 99% support them politically. Theyre saying they are members of the 99% of America who arent the top 1% of the wealthy. That’s pretty unarguable, unless there are billionaires in the crowd.
And yes world and America, still sorry for George Bush. We’re all still suffering economically because of him.
So because they are hurting, as am I, they feel that they are entitled to what other people earn. I know I have NO right to other peoples private property, that is why I stand on my own and work hard to survive. You would not catch me dead at one of these protests! I am a middle aged skilled tradesman trying to survive like everyone else. Corporate America owes me nothing.
You lie, plus they aint looking fer yer scratch, snatch, they looking for richie rich to pay his FAIR SHARE
If you own your home Wall Street fraud cost you 31% on average of your homes value (its entire value, not just 31% of the equity you have in it) this is why people who have responsibly made their home payments for 15 to 20 years suddenly find they owe more on their home than it is worth. As a middle aged skilled tradesman you likely had some sort of retirement portfolio which also has been robbed, good thing that when you retire you can fall back on Social Sec… oh no wait, I guess you won’t be getting that either or if you do it might be that you get a percentage of your own money back which you are supposed to give to those trustworthy Wall Street brokers to invest for you. Those criticizing the protesters are working against their own self interests.
Big corporations like Koch industries hire people to write these articles in an attempt to villanize the people looking out for our rights, since it cuts into their profitability. Personally I feel that no-one person needs $22 Billion dollars (each of the Koch Brothers has that) John Paulson has that much also and yet they are unwilling to pay an extra 5% out of their $1 Million dollar per hour salaries to help create jobs for the people who will inevitably buy their products and make them even wealthier. Paulson is not an Industrialist, he invested heavily in the subprime mortgage market helping to bring about the collapse of the housing market and made a meager $5 Billion in 2010, divide that by a standard 2000 hour work year and it means he made $2.5 Million dollars per hour (you know where that money comes from, the equity that all of those homeless protesters previously had in their homes) so fine, you may not feel that they owe you anything but don’t try and preach to those people who lost everything and tell them they do not have the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms to assemble and have their voices heard. No man raises himself that high without climbing there on the backs of others, government is supposed to represent 100% of the population, not just the 1 percent who pay for their elections. Remember when we had industry in the United States, your products were made to last by people who had health coverage and clean water to drink.
The Industrialists now produce their products in countries where the workers are as disposable as a Bic Lighter and wages are $1.62 per DAY (Levi’s made it Haiti) meanwhile the price they charge goes up. Should we give tax breaks to American corporations for creating jobs … in other countries? Free trade agreements were not intended to ship jobs overseas but it has happened and it still happens every day.
If a person with a lot of money buys paper (futures) saying they own a high percentage of the oil coming into the U.S. and they trade it around on Wall Street to the point that we pay an additional 82.3 cents per gallon every time we buy fuel should that person then pay a lower tax rate than the person who might die in a coal mine or the fireman that might save your life or the cop that might risk his life to save you from a crazed gunman?
The protesters think that the people who get rich of making our lives harder should pay more taxes than those of us who work ourselves to death, why don’t tea partiers get it?
I might add that some executives pay themselves $1 per year as salary to avoid paying taxes, of course they also get multiple millions in stock options but of course that is deferred payment and taxed at the much lower than income tax capital gains rate. In my opinion this is cheating the tax code.
Meg Whitman the former GOP candidate for Governor of California is paid this way by Hewlett Packard.
the right is scared
ecomimonium said it
I’d also like to point out that the two indebted college graduates here, which everyone seems to be focusing on, are NOT representative of all voices on the website, but rather the author’s selection that best supports their point. If anyone here actually clicked on the link to the website, you’d see a disabled vet with nothing to show for his service and handfuls of EMPLOYED individuals who still struggle to make ends meet.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to feel entitled to financial stability when you’re working for a company whose CEOs self-award multi-million dollar bonuses. In fact I would argue that it’s a basic human right.
Google picked up this article sometime around Oct. 8 or 9, judging from the comment stream. It’s great to see the pre-google comments versus the post-google comments. Tea party hate-fest becomes liberal smack-down.
INTELLECTUAL LAZINESS
The pictures here were obviously cherry-picked so sad trolls could make fun of them all day. It’s great to brush off a whole political movement as poor losers with PhD’s in basket weaving. Emotionally satisfying as it may be, however, reliance on such dichotomies is intellectual laziness.
ECONOMICS
There are actually valid points being made by these protesters. Among them: our tax system is broken. Progressive taxation is based on the idea that those who have benefited most from society – its roads, schools, power lines, etc – should do the most to support it. By letting most major corporations and many of the very wealthy off the hook with huge loopholes, our tax system is failing.
As to keeping the government out of private business – perfect competition requires perfect market penetration by perfect information. In other words, not gonna F***in’ happen.
BITTER BILLIES (Baaah, BAAAahhhhhhh!)
Most of the commenters on here are Bitter Billies. I’ve got half my four year degree, I work my a%% off putting in unpaid overtime to get a good reference, and I’m not out protesting. But I support those who are, even if some of them are have inflated senses of entitlement, because I know it’s not black-and-white.
WITHERED TROLLS GO HOME
I support them because, unlike the withered trolls here, I refuse to give in to simple dichotomies.
TAKES TWO TO TANGO
We have become bloated and entitled, but the corporations are also f%%%ing us via the government and fixed-bid contracts and a decade of war. We do have useless educations, but they are especially useless since we decided guns and trucks and sub-prime loans for subdivision houses were our business, rather than research and education and innovation. Minimum wage laws do potentially create synthetic demand for unskilled labor, but they also protect the vulnerable in society.
FACE IT
Just because we aren’t perfect doesn’t mean all our problems are our own. The system we’ve created has huge problems, and we have a choice: face it or stick our heads in the sand.
GOLLY
Golly, why did I even bother? Head in sand = ears full of sand.
I am printing out comment 132 and sticking it on my wall, as an example of what I should have done:
132. woah!!!!!NOW!!
Holy jesus farts!!! Everyone on here but like one dude is a total idiot tool. I’m out!!
I am typing this on my sexy iPad and I feel entitled to everything America invents. I am not American born and I love basically not contributing to this society and in return driving a Mercedes to my investment banking job and making deals. I believe USA these days are a bunch of idiots in Washington who just represent themselves and poor people who represent themselves too, but never together demanding and working together to achieve anything. It will keep people like me streaming into this country and taking advantage forever. I don’t see things changing anytime soon. Comparing to europeans, Americans are total morons from societal aspect.
Zratis
You people should be ashamed of yourselves. This is a deeply cynical and narrow view of what’s going on with the 99%/Occupy protests. Unemployed English majors are NOT the only ones involved. The phrase “99%” simply refers to income level, and covers a wide range of people. These are just the people with Internet access and skills & motivation to post to the blog. How can you just dismiss the issues raised in these posts? It’s easy to target a subset of people involved with the protests and draw sweeping conclusions, but to write off this entire movement on the grounds that the people involved are simply too lazy and/or stupid to find work is incredibly callous. Also, the writer’s point about how things are so much worse in other countries is absurd. Things are much better in other countries as well. Higher education in Canada and Australia, for example, is virtually free, thanks to gov’t support. Government “of the people, by the people, for the people” CAN and SHOULD “support the general welfare” by providing funding for basic services like health care and education, the absence of which is creating spiraling income gap and the destruction of the American middle class.
Get over yourselves. Provided you simply select a profession that is actually useful to others, and devote yourself to mastering that profession, you can enter the top 5% of income earners in that profession in 6 years no matter what the economy is doing. Devotion means 100 hours/week not 40. The additional 60 hours is your tuition but at least you don’t have to repay any student loans.
Education is never free but anyone can get educated with zero cash outlay if they simply apply themselves and get a library card. How difficult is that? Furthermore you’ll probably get a much more useful education than most Ivy League Schools are providing.
I am comfortable saying this because I’ve done both. I now employ people with master’s degrees and Ph.d. s. and I’ve never paid a single penny to any college. I was a millionaire by age 30 with only a high school diploma. I don’t owe you a F***king thing and neither does anyone else. If you want it, go earn it.
I did earn it, bought a home and had a good job then some pr*cks on Wall Street decided they wanted the equity in the home I had been paying for 12 years on, they took it. Also by collapsing the housing industry they eliminated the need for my job and millions of others. I doubt the veracity of your claims, someone laid out capital to get you started. I don’t care how you made your money but I am certain of this, you did not make it alone. Those you employ only get a portion of the money that they earn for you, if you collect a portion of the money from each of them you owe them some respect at least. If you make your living by providing products or services to the general population you owe your livelihood to them. If you sit in an office collecting a paycheck from the work that other people do then you have no right to pay a lower percentage on your taxes than a man who lays on his back in a hole 4 miles underground mining the coal that heats your office, you have a lot better chance of making it home every night. The occupy movement is phase one, historically speaking when a majority of the people in a given area are denied the basic comforts while the ones they produce them for flaunt their success protest comes first followed by revolt. Know this, wealthy people as a rule do not send their children into the military or national guard. If there is a revolt the military and national guard will be called in to control it and they are more likely to side with those who come from the same circumstances they do.
Pay your fair share of taxes, pay back the giveaways you’ve received over the last 10 years. Quit crying and thinking you are better than everybody else, in the end we all return to the earth and none of your wealth will stop that.
The 1% control what they control only because the 99% let them, the 99% have come calling and they want their wealth back.
I found your comment about the coal miner hilarious. My first job after high school was actually drilling underground in the American Girl gold mine outside of Yuma AZ. In fact I’m 3rd generation underground miner. It 125 degrees all the time and almost a mile underground. I never saw the sun because I started before the sun came up and didn’t come back out of the ground until the sun was already down. Did I mention the 150 pound jack leg drill I had to carry in and out of that mine on my shoulder 1 mile in the morning and another mile back out after running it all day. How about the migraine headache every day that started the second I stuffed the first hole with powder every morning that lasted until I showered that night? How about the 100 pound rocks falling from the sealing when ever high tide came every day. Ya, it sucked and that’s the very reason I decided I didn’t care what kind of work I had to do as long as it was above ground. It was the only job I ever quit but let me tell you something. In comparison, everything I’ve done since has been a cake walk. You guys don’t know what tough means.
“Education should be free!” Well, actually… it is. Right now, you can obtain the same quality of education available at your local university, for the low, low price of a library card. With the advent of the web, everything you ever wanted to learn is out there, somewhere, for free online. Much of it is out there in dead tree edition as well, for those of you who don’t read fast enough to do it at a library computer terminal.
The problem is, the little piece of paper that says you’re smart is now more pricey than it ever has been. I graduate in December with double majors in Anthropology and Humanities (Disciplinary focus: linguistics.) What have I learned in my 4.5 years at college? Not one single, blessed thing that I couldn’t have picked up elsewhere for free. (Most of what I “learned” I’d already encountered in the wild- I’m an avid reader. But what I didn’t know already, came out of books and lectures I could’ve had free.)
I don’t regret my degree, or the money I’m paying for it: I wanted that little piece of paper. I wanted “proof” I knew what I was talking about. Most of all, as a high school dropout (I left home and went to work at 16) I wanted evidence I wasn’t stupid; that I was more than a mom, wife, and a caterer. In all honesty? I may never really use my degrees. (Okay, this summer? I did. I made 15.00 an hour, working part-time digging holes as an archaeology field tech. Whee. I went to college to be a ditch digger!)But odds are, my career path is unchanged: I’ll just be an overeducated cake decorator ( and occasional ditch digger.) And you know what? That is okay.
I think the problem is students are mistaking a college degree for a job training program. It isn’t one. Your experience and work ethic count for much, much more than your degree, out in the real world. If you’re not going to school for what you’re learning there, you’re just blowing money. If you can afford to blow it, go right ahead. But stop thinking of college as an investment; it may be an investment in yourself, in your self-worth and self-awareness… but it’s got a poor rate of return on the open market.
As a cake decorator and as an archaeologist you at least produce something useful, there is no shame in that. The Wall Street broker wants his child’s cake decorated but he is unlikely to do it so he comes to you to have it done or his maid has to do it for him. The Broker’s child needs an education and without archaeologists some people would still believe the universe was only 6000 years old and it was created by their imaginary friend. The point is that there are those who produce (99%) and those who exploit (1%), those who exploit have contempt for those who produce even though all of them together could not function as a society without the producers. The percentages used are representative of the current national discourse and are not meant to be spot on.
The posting of incendiary articles denigrating the 99% (such as this one) might embolden the under educated and rally their support of the exploiters against their own common good but they have another effect, they allow those of us with knowledge to reach out to this target audience and present other views. These articles do not discourage those who have been exploited, rather they help to wake the sleeping giant.
222 years ago the french said enough:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_revolution
Currently revolutions are happening all over the globe, you read about it every day. It might happen here.
Here’s a scary thought for you (worries me a lot) the top 1% may have 50% of the wealth but the bottom 1% have 50% of the guns. I might also add that the bottom 1% feel like they have nothing to lose (read the news).
Social change needs to be welcomed by the top 1%, not forced by the bottom 1%.
I strongly suggest you read Why Wages Rise which was publised in 1957. It’s available here for FREE. http://mises.org/books/whywagesrise.pdf and reading it will make your life much easier.
I found your comment about the coal miner hilarious. My first job after high school was actually drilling underground in the American Girl gold mine outside of Yuma AZ. In fact I’m 3rd generation underground miner. It 125 degrees all the time and almost a mile underground. I never saw the sun because I started before the sun came up and didn’t come back out of the ground until the sun was already down. Did I mention the 150 pound jack leg drill I had to carry in and out of that mine on my shoulder 1 mile in the morning and another mile back out after running it all day. How about the migraine headache every day that started the second I stuffed the first hole with powder every morning that lasted until I showered that night? How about the 100 pound rocks falling from the sealing when ever high tide came every day. Ya, it sucked and that’s the very reason I decided I didn’t care what kind of work I had to do as long as it was above ground. It was the only job I ever quit but let me tell you something. In comparison, everything I’ve done since has been a cake walk. You guys don’t know what tough means.
I forgot to add a few URLS to my last message:
Cry me a river! OMG! There’s people that desire OBAMA’s new job bill that did not pass CONGRESS, not yet! Obama spending is out-of-control and the so-called 99% want more money?! I can take you all back to the days I knew of older men working on potato farms in America; earning one dollar an hour, ten hour days! That’s right and I bet there’s folks that worked hard for two bits an hour in days past too! I met the ladies working in Mom & Pop diners earning fifty to seventy-five cents an hour! Yes, I met people on my neighborhood block earning a few dollars an hour at times; other times, lucky to make the next home rent payment! Families, large ones managing on the breadwinner’s salary. Dad was the breadwinner in my home! Someone could argue that the US Government screwed DAD since he had given his life to the country [America]. YES 35 years! (NOTE)33 years working the US Post Office & 2 years overseas [51-53] Korean War[Conflict]. Did he retire wealthy? not hardly, his pension barely covered the medical costs. Stop complaining and get a life, it’s never too late to start at the bottom like most of us did in reality! Money hungry young people are destroying America and stop blaming current capitalism! Here’s a link that does not stink: http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/2012-presidential-election/perry-territory-obama-will-promote-jobs-plan/
(Now… go get a real job and a real life and stop playing like children! PP)
http://www.google.com/search?q=Obama's+Half+Trillion+Dollars+Job+Plan&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&rlz=1I7TSHB&prmd=imvns&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:d&sa=X&ei=BZSXTty8LpCDtge9kMXiAw&ved=0CAkQpwUoAg
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/280072/rational-jobs-plan-senate-republicans-douglas-holtz-eakin
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/tappan_zee_snow_job_gEEfsgTZpHuXlr6bsbqFGN
(SORRY!) PP
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