OWS's Day is Dawning

[KeithE]

[Mrs Haruo]

Interesting......and a little encouraging.

[Sandy]

OWS is already a larger movement, in terms of scope and number of people involved, than the Tea Party movement of a couple of years ago.

The problem with the current economic stance of government, in our "republic" is that too many of the individuals who are in the representative body are representing the business and corporate interests of the 1%. And they've invented language, and built a system of propagandists to promote their view in the media, so that most of their political support comes from people whose attention has been diverted to side issues of "moral legislation" and "values voting." Usually, voters measure the effectiveness of a politician by what they have accomplished, and determine how they will vote based on whether they've delivered at least some of what they promised. But this group has managed to avoid accomplishing anything with regard to the main social issues, yet they've stayed in office largely because their propagandists have avoided an honest analysis of their lack of accomplishment, and have diverted their attention away from the real issues, as well as economic truth. So, a fair sized segment of voters go to the polls every time there is an election and put people in office whose plan is to benefit themselves at the expense of the very people who voted for them.

That's why candidates like Mike Huckabee failed to draw the kind of support they need from the religious right. Huckabee's credentials as a "religious conservative" are flawless. But the corporate interests hate him with a purple passion, because his economics proposals include a balanced tax proposal that would shift the weight of paying for the infrastructure and security needed for the corporate world to thrive back to where the money can be found, and off the shoulders of the middle class. There's a money trail in there somewhere, which is causing prominent religious right wingers to abandon their theological and doctrinal perspective to support a Mormon candidate for office.

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

OWS is a threat to the financial industry and plans to discredit it are underway.


But the Occupy movement is growing organically.


And 43% American people favor it while 27% are against it.


What say ye?

[Ed Pettibone]

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

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[Dave Roberts]

[KeithE]

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[Haruo]

Greed is not "constant like gravity". But it is close enough to constant to work fairly well as a basic factor in the marketplace.

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[Sandy]

It is getting tougher and tougher to find media reports that are believable related to economics. So much of what gets put out is paid propaganda by those who are interested in keeping things the way they are. So much information is simply bought and paid for, and so many politicians are as well, especially Paul Ryan. Good grief, these corporate interests are buying political-style advertisements on television now, putting out false information and urging people to call their congressman, senator or even to "tell President Obama" something they want to push.

The corporate tax rate does not cover the costs generated by the operation of the major business interests in this country, including the diplomatic services required by international trade, protection provided by the military and police forces, maintenance of the court system, and a whole host of other costs incurred by government so that they can do business. This is absorbed by middle class taxpayers. The profits would be monstrous even if the tax rates were doubled, but they bought and paid for a President and a congress and they got the tax breaks they wanted.

Europeans have paid higher taxes that Americans have for generations, yet in most of Western Europe, there is less poverty and more prosperity than there is here. Taxes in Switzerland, for example, run to nearly half of personal income, but given all of the services that government provides, especially public transportation, higher education and health care, personal expenses are also reduced. The main problem that Europe is experiencing as an economic unit are related to the inequities experienced in the various countries involved in the union. Germany began to struggle when it assumed responsibility for the former East German state, and is still experiencing some of that drain in infrastructure and industrial development. Greece and Italy are less stable economies that require bucking up by the others.

It is interesting to me that the claim is made that those who have all these resources need to avoid taxes because they have the means to employ people and won't employ as many if they are taxed too much. That's garbage. They aren't employing anyone here, but they are generating profits at a level never seen in business before, and employing people in India and Indonesia like they never have before. That's the problem, and it is something that government can fix. I'm glad to see that OWS represents a segment of society that recognizes this and sees through the propaganda.

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[Ed Pettibone]

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[Dave Roberts]

[Dave Roberts]

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