Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About
 

Wonder what all this ?Occupy? hubbub is really all about? Here's a quick guide. For even more in-depth analysis, check out Henry Blodget's post at BI.com.

Unemployment is at a 30 year high.
http://s3-ak.buzzfed.com/static/enha...18460838-8.jpg

[IMG]Many people have given up looking for work.
http://s3-ak.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/web04/2011/10/12/19/enhanced-buzz-12213-1318460892-3.jpg[/IMG]

Long term unemployment is way, way up.
http://s3-ak.buzzfed.com/static/enha...18461040-4.jpg

CEOs are doing fine, too.
http://s3-ak.buzzfed.com/static/enha...18462000-7.jpg

Income inequality is really getting pretty bad.
http://s3-ak.buzzfed.com/static/enha...18462124-8.jpg

instead of protesting, they should go out and work hard.
where in the constitution does it say we'll hand losers money so they can be happy with themselves?
for every protester standing in his own shit, there's someone else working hard and making themselves rich.

Thanks for sharing this in black and white. I think it's hard to ignore the facts when they're presented like this...

Certainly all true. The only thing that ISN'T factual is what caused it.... (here is a hint, higher salaries for CEO's is not at all linked to how many people are unemployed, nor does inequality of wealth. It was caused by government, and now the OWS wants that same government to fix it.... This will end in disaster if they actually get their way).



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Fair enough then.... but, where does it say it wont?

For every protester.... is a successful person standing with them that's smart enough to know the system screwed them over too.

If they want a hand out, fuck them. If they are protesting because the major financial institutions that produce nothing and make billions of dollars on gambling OPM on such things as Credit Default Swaps, in turn tanking the economy, in turn getting bailed out with tax payer money with the understanding that they keep credit flowing, in turn they do no such thing, they actually keep cutting credit, in turn it forces small businesses to layoff employees and creates an entire recession including the highest unemployment in 80 years. Well then, keep protesting.

(I've obviously done a bit of condensing above.)

what the facts show is that any middle class guy who works hard can become rich. it also shows how many don't bother trying but expect to own a new house, new car, and iphone.

:1orglaugh

These people better hope that this does not become a worldwide movement. Every person in OWS is in the top 10% of the wealthiest in the world population overall. If the other 90% of the planet decides to come take their iphones, they are gonna be upset! LOL



.just saying

if thats their argument, they should be protesting in washington.
Interfering with the free market and then blaming others for the results is a washington thing.

But targeting Wall Street is both vague and misleading. Wall Street itself did not cause this crisis, nor did the majority of the companies trading on Wall Street. GM, for example, had nothing to do with the crash of the housing market.

It's not Wall Street or the rich who caused this. It was the average homeowner. Anyone who bought a house and then sold it three years later for twice the original sale price is guilty. It's not the bank's fault - it was win win for them and yes, they made a profit. It was the greedy fucking homeowner - myself included - who caused this.

Funny that I had said many times that there are Jobs out there. Just not the jobs people want.

I was a CEO and I should be again.. Guess what. Time to take that shift manager position at McDonalds and pay the fucking bills instead of just bitching about it.

Do I disagree with what some of the banks and brokerage houses have done. Hell yes. But you can not fix that without fixing your own shit at home first.

Stop crying about not working and find some damn work.

1/2 right and 1/2 wrong. Wall Street did cause this (Read "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis or "House of Cards" by William Cohan) along with the fools that bought a $700,000 home, no money down on stated docs when they didn't have the resources to pay for it.

Mortgage companies would not have been doing predatory lending and offering idiots houses they couldn't afford if Wall Street hadn't found a way to package and sell these subprime mortgages as AAA rated credit default swaps and bullshit investors (with the help of Moody's etc.) into buying them. They created such a demand by lying about them, that it caused a greed rush.

haha. now they're "anti-greed protesters"
so comical.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nati...-broadway.html

Actually wall st did my friend. They were betting against mortgages and gave spiffs to mortgages brokers to write as many mortgages as possible. They also put pressure on companies to keep wages as low as possible ie off shoring. I read a article about costco, they pay well ,their people stay longer and make them more money per employee than say sam's club who pays shit. They spoke about how they fought pressure from wall st to lower their wages to the norms of the industry.

Well said I read the Michael Lewis book a good read

This is America.

I believe that anybody should be able to do whatever the fuck they want with their company. Hire / fire whomever they please. Pay people whatever they please and spend their money however they please.

but

This is America. People will protest, boycott & riot to get what they want. Politicians will pass laws to get what they want, and sometimes what the people want, but mostly what corporations want.

This is America. It's a zoo but it's my zoo, I know the rules and I like it here, so the rest of you animals who don't like it can go fuck yourself :thumbsup

fannie and freddie (both government entities founded during the "new deal") have a huge part of the blame.

Just about every mortgage company on the planet have a part of the blame.

So they have been around 60 yrs and its their fault lol. also if it was so broken, why wasnt fixed when republicans controlled it all?

Common people benefited from repackaging of these mortgages, AAA rating, etc as much as the banks. Without all these financial "tricks" mortgage rates would have been a percent or 2 higher, meaning $100s of dollars more per month for homeowners. So everyone was benefiting from it, everyone was part of the "scam", but when shit hit the fan everyone started pointing fingers at the banks?

Not to mention that the core of the problem is that homeowners took on loans they couldn't afford... "predatory lending" or not, it was the homeowners that signed on the dotted line, they were driven by greed just as much, if not more, as the bankers...

Because trash like yourself would call them racist.
Kinda like what your kind does with the tea party.

Stop watching Faux news... they are protesting because the top 1% dont pay as much taxes as the other 99% do.

meaning, instead of the super wealthy giving 30%+ to taxes, they are around 10%, sometimes less. Therefore, the rich keep getting richer while the rest of the country continues to find ways to avoiding paying more taxes and making some extra money on the side.

That means in order for states to generate revenue, they need to tax businesses and the general people more... hence, more taxes and fees a business has to pay, the less amount of money it has to hire new employees

oh ok , you have no real answer thanks. You see adults dont name call. Have a great weekend.

You too, fatty

Here is some thoughts on that, in conjunction with what Warren Buffet has been saying recently:

Most simply, Warren Buffett is almost definitely lying about the tax rate of his secretary. Now, it?s possible to pay any tax rate if you really want to, by paying more than is required. You can just send in a check. Since Warren apparently refuses to do that, let us dismiss that option for his secretary. The typical person making between 50-75k, according to this IRS tax data, pays an effective rate of about 14%. 14% is less than 30%. Even adding on payroll tax, it?s nowhere near 30%. CBO data, including payroll taxes, shows that someone making about $64,000 per year pays a total effective rate of around 14.3%. We asked an accountant to run the numbers in general for someone like Buffett?s secretary. The results: if they were single, 14%. If married, 7.6%.
Buffett is comparing two different taxes. One is a tax on income, one is a tax on investments. They are two different taxes on two different things. Want another scandal? Warren Buffett pays less in sales tax than his secretary does in income tax. We better write another law.

Warren Buffett has already been taxed on that money. Here?s an oversimplification to explain what I mean.

You earn $100 in salary.

TAX #1: Uncle Sam takes $35, leaving you with $65.

You then invest that $65, and that investment earns 10% or $6.50.

TAX #2: Of that new $6.50, Uncle Sam takes another $1.

Now, add up the earnings: the original $100 + $6.50 = $106.50.

And, add up the taxes: $35 + $1 = $36.

On $106.50 in earnings, you were taxed $36, or 33.8%,? about double the rate Warren Buffet claims he?s paying. This gets more complicated with margin, outside investment, and a million other variables, but this how it works in general. (Dividends are worse: you get taxed on initial income, the company gets taxed on their profits, then when they give you a slice, it gets taxed again.)

So, how does Buffett justify his low tax numbers? He acts as if TAX #1 never occurred. Then he tells you that the rate of TAX #2 is too low. It?s a completely disingenuous shell game.


Buffett is an exception to the rule of the mega rich. While he earns around 90% of his income at the lower rate through investments, the typical person who earns more than $10 million per year only earns about 38% of their cash at that rate. Sure, someone who is mega rich is an exception to the rule. But, Buffett is an exception to that exception. Basing a rule on his experience is not sober policy making.
Buffett?s secretary is an exception to the rule of secretaries. She/he makes $60,000 per year. While I?m not exactly blown away by Buffett?s generosity in his pay-scale either, the average secretary makes about $33,000 per year. Instead of the 14% tax rate of Buffett?s secretary, the typical secretary pays more like 10%. This information makes something like this, even dumber than you previously thought.

Rich people pay far more than the middle class in both total dollars and percentage terms. Don?t take my word for it, listen to the Associated Press: ?This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1 percent of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes and payroll taxes?Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay 15 percent of their income in federal taxes.? Those numbers aren?t even close to what Buffett is claiming. Did I mention he is lying? (Quick side note?a tax is nothing but a fee you pay to the government to run the structure that maintains society. In theory, each person has equal access to government services. Even in Buffett?s (false) example, he?s claiming that he pays over $8 million, and his secretary pays $18,000 for the privilege of living here. Does that really sound so unfair even if it was true? (It is not.))
Rich people already carry far more of the burden than the poor or the middle class. The top 10% of tax payers carry 73% of the income tax burden. The bottom 51% of tax payers carry 0%.
The Buffett rule has nothing to do with wealth. The ?problem? Obama is describing is a ?problem? with professional investors, not rich people. To get a rate of 17.7% on your income as Warren Buffett, you have to earn roughly 90% of your earnings from investments. But, you don?t have to make tens of millions for this to happen. Anyone who makes 90% of their money from investments could theoretically pay right around 15% whether they earn $50,000 or $50,000,000. Yet, Obama just keeps talking about rich people. This is one way to be completely sure this is really about class warfare, not tax policy.

Obama?s rule doesn?t actually target people like Buffett. Forget everything we?ve talked about here for a second and strip things down to the core. The claims about secretaries are just false. But, in theory, someone making $1 million could complain that he pays a rate that is slightly higher than someone making $11 million. Those 7 figure earners are victims to the tyranny of the 8 figure earners! Cry for them! In other words, the really rich get slightly screwed as compared to the really REALLY rich. But Obama?s rule, just targets anyone making $1 million or more?the rule actually ?screws? the people being ?screwed? most by the ?problem.?
The rate on investments should be lower than the normal rate?for many reasons (see #3 and #10 for example). But in addition to those: when I go to work, I receive a salary. When someone earning their living through investments goes to work?they may LOSE money. It?s wonderful to focus on the ultra-rare person like Warren Buffett who is so successful that he/she is able to acquire tens of billions of dollars. But the average person who invests might just bet wrong and get hammered. When he/she bets right, it makes sense that he/she gets taxed at a lower rate. They?re playing a different game than you and I, and therefore pay a different tax.



.:2 cents:

I lost 190 lbs so far and have another 80 to go. I will be thin and you will still be you. Thinking about that makes me sad.

So you support the flat tax

definitely.




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But the banks got bailed out. The homeowners, not so much and therein lies the rub.

Pay off all of my outstanding obligations for me and you're welcome to point your finger in this direction too :winkwink:

If you ever get to a normal weight, you'll still be a loser, thinking your failure is someone else's fault.
Thinking about that makes me sad.

I will be there by april. I will do a big announcement so you can say mean things to me some more. take care:thumbsup

Incorrect on many levels.
1. The top 1% are NOT "super wealthy"
2. The "rich" who earn pay way more than you. 30% is pretty common.
3. Most of our rich came from the middle class. Pretending they were born into the rich class is incorrect. YOU could have been Bill Gates except that you weren't smart enough, not because you weren't rich enough

Dude, spending your whole life as an over weight slob is not why I say mean things to you.
It's your limited intelligence I call in question.
Take care:thumbsup

Banks received a liquidity injections of various forms, which basically means that they received a loan that they had to and have by now paid back.

"....combined with dividends and sales of warrants, Treasury has declared that taxpayers have earned a profit on the CPP. Thus far, $245 billion has gone out, and $255 billion in repayments, interest and warrants has come back, yielding a profit to taxpayers of $10 billion. And there's several billion more where that came from."

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/danie...205658852.html

So banks received some help, and tax payers ended up with so far at least 10B profit... where exactly is the problem?

"what wall street protesters are angry about"

Doesn't seem to me that there is a single, focused, clear message or point. Just a bunch of people frustrated about a wide range of things.

Really ? Because you have never called me stupid but fat, fatty and how you were disgusted by my weight.When I came up to introduce myself to you at the Atl Forum. Now Im not smart like you but I think the word is disingenuous to describe what you wrote. I can look it up to check if you like.

Trust me, fatty, I find you to be one of the least intelligent posters here.
I've said so many times.
In fact, I told you so in the thread recounting meeting you in GA.
Look it up.

I will thanks for the heads up :winkwink:

A nice message for 12clicks...

You used to be arrogant and obnoxious.

Now I see that you are just the opposite - you are obnoxious and arrogant.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Everyone was making bank off of this. I bought a house in 2002 for $220k and sold it in 2006 for $550k. I have friends (stupid friends) that took out hundreds of thousands of dollars against their house and lived high on the hog, and when it crashed they just defaulted. Wall Street isn't to blame. Anyone who bought or sold a house in the past ten years is to blame. The 99% is to blame.

winner! The more crap the inept politicians do, the worse it gets. Look at what's happened from 2008 to 2011. In 2008, things were not great. Government came in and turned "not great" into "completely in the shitter". We're STILL wanting to hire a guy whom the government won't let us sure to months of paperwork delays.

the rabble always think this.

greedy share holders are doing it!

http://i51.tinypic.com/ac6hvl.jpg

The problem isn't one or the other, the problem is both of them working in collusion.