"We are the 53%"

And what, precisely, is different about your business plan that's "guaranteed to succeed" from everyone else plans that are "guaranteed to succeed?"

Because that's the rationalization that just about everyone uses.

And I'm writing lyrics that will surely make me the next Lupe Fiasco and make me millions once Atlantic forces me to dumb them down.

Secretist, so do I.

Its calling Pimping or Arms selling

Well, it's certainly possible to make 75k/year with a college-degree-requiring job. I'll say that much.

I also really dislike using any of my personal information in an argument, so I'll leave my own status as "unknown" in this situation.

But I purposely chose a bunch of pro-OWS answers in that quiz despite how insulting the answers were. It was too much intellectual masturbation by a bunch of guys who clearly are too cowardly to challenge the current economic system, or care to understand the reality of the instability in such economic imbalance.

Capitalism is about hard work being rewarded with good cash. Although, it also takes into account smart work. So the smarter and harder you work, the more cash you should bring in. Essentially, you should be paid by the value you add to society. And the way you earn such, is through market allocation of goods. But when the markets fail to do so (workers paid far less than their value add, and executives paid far more than their value add), then something is wrong and something is not working.

The captains of industry are people who succeeds base on innovation and product quality? What is that? It's the owners of small and medium size businesses (between 1-400 employees), where they can know individually each and every single person under them, the product they make and the process under which it is made. We can count the number of captains of industry in megacorps off by heart and by name in a world of 7 billion who actually are any good. Bill Gates, now retired. Steve Jobs, died of cancer. Eric Schmidt of Google. You know what I mean.

In Canada there are 1.1 million small businesses. These are people who have to work hard and work smart to succeed in life, pay their employees proper wages (because these owners have to actually face the people they pay and do you think a company will run smoothly if the guys under you are wage-screwed?).

People who support the current system are backing bloated bureaucratic corporations who succeed in society because of nothing but stupidity on the part of both the government and the consumer base. People who buy corporate products because they don't ignore brand-advertisement or don't understand product quality. Government who gives these companies tax breaks, bailouts or supportive legislation. Where's the capitalism here? Even objectivists should disagree with the current society.

I need to save this.

Did I told anyone I am part of the 53%???

Still... I like the 99% better.

It's the right thing.

Generally speaking it's the goal of those who push the "53%" nonsense to actually decrease, and not increase that number. That's what we have to keep in mind here. These are people who advocate for lower paying jobs in order to be more "competitive". Which actually isn't a horrible/terrible idea, if you don't entirely put it on the backs of the poor. You start by putting it on the backs of the rich, then work your way down.

Isn't the movement about taxes and not wages?

No.

Wikipedia is vague as to what the demands are.

• "We are the 1 percent, we stand with the 99 percent" - members of the Resource Generation.org blog, along with Wealth for the Common Good ("a group of business leaders, high-income households and partners who work for shared prosperity") created a second tumblr called "We are the 1 percent, we stand with the 99 percent" for the "one percent" to express their support for higher taxes.[18][19]
• "We are the 53%" - In response to the slogan, Red State.com blogger Erick Erickson (along with Josh Trevino, communications director for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and filmmaker Mike Wilson[20]) launched a counter-slogan — "We are the 53%" — referring to what Erickson calls "... the half or so of Americans who pay income taxes."[21] This slogan has also suffered criticism due to its failure to acknowledge that even those who are exempt from paying federal income tax may be required to pay other taxes, including payroll taxes and state income tax. [22] The slogan has also been criticized on the basis (as has the 99% movement) that the particular policy goals suggested are unreflective of their demographic namesake (there is not sufficient evidence to suggest that a greater proportion of republicans pay income tax: income tax is determined largely by income and number of children, and distribution of which is relatively the same among republicans and democrats)[23]

edited 20th Oct '11 9:36:46 AM by secretist

It may be smarter for the movement to aim to constrain possible policy goals rather than make specific goals of their own. That is, to say "we're not agreeing on what the exact solutions, but we know they're not this" before giving a list of all the policies they oppose.

And hopefully that could be the end of senseless tax breaks for major corporations and effectively paying banks to not lend money during a recessions.