I've skimmed through a lot of the posts here and there is a huge misconception with OWS by far and large with what people are believing and what it is about.
OWS is not a fight against corporations or even the rich. It is about the separation of corporation and government. In 2008(?), it was ruled that corporations are people but are not subject to the same restrictions. In other words, corporations have unlimited "freedom of speech" and can donate infinite amounts of money. This is NOT equal representation. The money these corporations are donating is upwards of millions and has really caught the eye of every politician. The people who are donating this money from these corporations? Multi-million dollar investors and so on. These "rich" people are, in reality, circumventing the system and actually are obtaining more power than the average individual. This circumvention is a direct result of money in politics. Case and point: In Texas, I forget who but If you really want me to, I can find the name, someone had incorporated a business just so that they could give some four million to Rick Perry before liquidating the said business. The business never existed but lawyers are smart and can get around that in the paperwork. Thus, that rich individual was able to have thousands of times more power than any normal individual and it is a DIRECT result of the money they possess.
Money is power. That's the bottom line here. The whole movement is because normal people are not being heard anymore; it is the rich and powerful who are controlling everything. This control has not only ruined our democracy and made it more of a corpotocracy(sp?)/plutocracy, but also made a system in which the average individual is being removed and discarded like waste. Corporations are no longer loyal to their employees and these said corporations are more so just trying to raise their bottom line to line their own pockets. I can find you plenty of statistics and facts about the 1%, such as how they make, on a relative scale, ten times more than they would have in the 1950's while on a relative scale, people today make just as much as they did back then. In other words, the increase in money that has resulted from the 1950's has only been used to inflate the top 1% rather than us as a country.
It is not about "working hard." I work hard. I actually am in university right now doing cancer research as one job and as another, being a market analyst for one of the largest defense contractors. I make barely anything but the experience is paying off; although I am poor right now, I am looking at jobs that are 70-100k a year once I graduate in a year and a half. I will be part of the upper class, or at least have a good chance of being upper class, as soon as I graduate. However, I'm not stupid in realizing that with this money comes great responsibility. I realize that I need to put more of my own money into the system to help make my community better. The fact is that others don't share this view. I've talked to plenty of upper class millionaires who believe that because they "worked hard," that they deserve to keep all their money and should pay equal share. The fact is that it's not about whether they worked hard or not. It's a matter of general equality. You're in a world currently where money is being centrally located in a handful of individuals and are only keeping it; This doesn't stimulate the economy - it destroys it. The middle class is what the economy runs on and the problems you are seeing right now is a lack of money in the middle class simply because the upper class hoards it, more specifically, the top 1%. This is a blatant, greed-fostered problem caused by regulations affected by these "infinite" free-speech millionaires. This is their effect, not the middle class and not the lazy.
People took out student loans, mortages, and other investments simply because they were under the impression that they would be able to pay them back because, let's face it, we've all been there and some of us, including me, still are - we have the idea that this world isn't an economic warzone. But it is. People are realizing this and it's causing a disruption in many things. First off, you can't get a job if you don't go to college now. However, colleges are not subsidized enough and so college, which has always been expensive, has actually become more relatively expensive than it was in the past. This creates a kind of necessitated evil - you have to take the bullet in order to get to college and get that student loan, whether or not you get a job. It is not the students fault; it is the world we live in. There is not enough opportunity available for a person who doesn't have a college degree to live a fully functioning, happy life. The jobs that used to do that have been sent overseas for cheaper labor and the idea of "keep it in america" has long since passed. Personally, I am in a good position. I pay $15k a year because I am in-state, under multiple scholarships, and because of my jobs, have been able to actually not rack up any student debt - I am virtually 0$ in the hole and in my last year and a half of school. However, I'm not an idiot. This endeavor took my own blood, sweat, and tears. However, here's the little bit that hits home. My parents paid for half of my school. I am lucky with respect to that. Without them, I would be, in fact, $7.5k in debt. There are other, more qualified, harder working individuals who are doing worse in school because they are doing 40 hour shifts at the local fast food joint. It's an evil spiral; BECAUSE of my parents, I am able to focus more on school, get better grades, and get a better job. On the other hand, here is another guy who is smarter but has to work at a fast food joint every night resulting in lost sleep, worse grades, and therefore, worse job. It's unfair. There should be more opportunities for people like that and not people like me. The fact is that the system is made for only a select few and marketed nationally.
You can say you work hard all you want, but you're missing the point and it's ignorant to not see the influence money has in politics.
If you want a much more fluid, thoughtful, and realistic essay, I recommend you read this article:
http://spfaust.wordpress.com/2011/10/15 ... at-53-guy/
It is directed entirely at your stance of "I worked hard so I deserve it."
Absolutely nothing wrong with what you said. I agree with you 100% about reading a contract or loan, or mortgage . I think I said that in a previous post.
