I'm a One-Percenter...and I Support the OWS Movement.

reply to post by deadeyedick


Well yea, 100k is not gonna be enough to buy a property out right, but that 100k turns into 500k or more with a loan from a bank. If you can get one that is, lol. Working on the credit score as we speak. And I've seen lot's of properties (with real Cap rates above 20%) under 500k.

And I think like 70% of restaurants fail within the first year. Some people say it's as high as 90-95%, but apparently that's a myth. 70% is still crazy high though. Not saying it can't be done, just saying the figures don't seem to be on your side, even if everyone does like chicken wings. You need to sell quite a few chicken wings to pay the rent, the electric, and the wages of your employees.

Originally posted by Sunlionspirit

Originally posted by Dalamar7742
I'm just saying: If I'm a company looking to hire someone and I can determine if you were being Stupid on 10-15-2011 or there abouts I'm not going to hire you. I'm thinking that you are a give me everything for free kind of person who signed up for student loans at a 20K a year school to take, I don't know say, political science, liberal arts, Psychology, or some other useless area of studies and *GASP* Can't make 200K a year doing this nothing. And now you want someone else to pay off your loans. Instead of putting your life together and getting to work you decided to loaf around making a park stink and being incoherent because you are still living off Mom and Dads work and Student Loans. You will be hunted down to pay those loans because you are a loser who won't make the payments you promised to pay. So why would I hire you? You think I'm Evil because I have more capital than you, but I'm the one who WORKED hard to have that capital which allows me to hire you. Get off your ass and do some work and you can be one of the EVIL RICH too.

man man man, the studying should be as cheap as possible !! for everyone !! so people should get more valuable for the whole society by studying and becoming engineers to try to resolve the world's problems of energy and petrol depending slavery !!!!
that is the question !!! it is much too expensive to study up there at yours !!! only the rich can study and then benefit from their job to sustain the system .... ok, I am tired of explaining ... you even do not hear me ....
yes I want to be rich too, nothing evil with that !!! just I want all the people being rich !! and like in the years 1950 till 1980 feel that they are living better ... not like now where everybody except the 1 % feel that they become more and more slave, less and less human !!! Stop the killing of the middle class !! stop the poor becoming more poor !! the rich we do not care, but the fascists on the top we do and will find them !!

edit on 18-10-2011 by Sunlionspirit because: (no reason given)

I understand your sentiment. I can hear you frustration and anger. But let's take a critical look at what you are saying. You say that education, 'the studying', should be as cheap as possible so that people 'should get more valuable for the whole society' as you so eloquently put it. But I ask this; Who would clean the halls at those institutions of higher learning if everyone were studying to become greater people? Who would take of the litter that lines the highway leading up to those schools if everyone were learning to become an asset to society? Don't you see that we ALL can not be engineers and visionaries for the greater tomorrow? Someone needs to be that guy that delivers the mail, cleans the the public restroom, takes your order at the drive through. Without the little guy down on the bottom struggling to make ends meet society would cease to exist. Great things are born out struggle. Beautiful ideals that people can hang their hopes on are born out of adversity and deprivation. It is a fact. If life were easy and we could achieve anything we wanted at anytime then where does the desire to live come from? How could any human be satisfied with an easy no challenge life where everything is handed to them freely? Honestly think about that.

How we respond to struggle and difficulties defines us, displays our character and state of our soul. Instead of demanding that a fair share of the pie be meted out to the masses what if we shifted our focus away from what we should have and focus on what we can have. What if we chose to thrive where we are planted instead of desiring to be planted in someone else's garden? What if we chose a different path altogether. Perhaps it is time to stand up and say..."As for the world's narrowly defined image of success I choose not to believe it. I choose to ride a bike instead of drive a car. I choose to grow my own instead of buy from big agriculture. I choose to visit a friend instead of sending a text. I choose to walk in the park instead of going to the movies. I choose to read instead of watching TV. I choose to live my moments as they arrive instead of living to make a living for a future that may not ever materialize. I choose the thrift store over the name brand. I choose my family over the internet. I choose to live simply and within my means. I choose to be happy and spread good will and kindness to everyone I meet. I choose not buy into the false dream that accumulation of worldy possesions is a measure of my success.'

Originally posted by Mcupobob
reply to post by rebeldog

 

What? It was hard to understand what you were trying to say, but what I got was "How dare they make a profit!". They put money into the business, then they get a return on the investment exchange for getting the business off the ground. Of course they want to make a profit off of what they invested in, otherwise why invest?

They investors take the risk if they business doesn't come through and loss out on all the money they put forth.

Look if you gave money to a friend to start up a restaurant. Then you're friend started making a good amount of money off of it wouldn't you want a return on your investment with interest? It would only be fair because you're friend wouldn't have the money to have the restaurant in the first place, then no one would benefit.

Look, investors are a way better alternative to the predators of banks and loaners.

1. given -----> the money loaned to start restaurant is paid back...obvious... lender is made whole...


if a friend started and succeeded at the restaurant it was HIS!! a douchebag p.o.s. (not meant at you, at the 'investor) would want to greedily take part of WHAT THEY DID NOT EARN... WHY should someone be able to take a part of someone elses prosperity..its MORE despicable than a slum lord..

that is one of the main things wrong with this society, people think that they are entitled to someone elses fruits..

did the lender DO anything daily that would contribute to the restaurant success? NO

People need to be able to reach THEIR FULL POTENTIAL one their own!!!

once again it s this simple:

when someone takes out more than they put in AN IMBALANCE IS CREATED.....



investors are PRIMARILY BANKERS and LOANERS (as you say).... definition of duh

plus there ARE INVESTORS DIRECTING those bankers and loaners as what to do ....definition of duh (squared)

you may not even recognize the conditioning (it is insidious) but your restaurant scenario is the EPITOME of GREED... not happy with having the funds and wealth to loan.. but must have a piece of someone else's too!!



Men had better be without education than be educated by their rulers; for their education is but the mere breaking in of the steer to the yoke; the mere discipline of the hunting dog, which, by dint of severity, is made to forego the strongest impulse of his nature, and instead of devouring his prey, to hasten with it to the feet of his master.
Thomas Hodgskin



OR here is another way to explain my belief on our opposing perpective..

Imagine you loaned me $1, and asked me what I needed it for. Mr reply is "dude I will pay you back tomorrow".
then i take that dollar and buy a powerball ticket.. AND I WIN $124 million dollars... what should you be entitled to?
thats right.. your one dollar... why would you be entitled to anything more? it was my numbers that I had played every drawing for the last year or so.It was my decision what to do with the money. And I just didn't want to hit the atm. I would be thankful, hook you up with some nice things buts that my decision. In no way would one be obliged or expected to give a portion of the winnings right?

You expressed yourself very well on your post. It is what it is or to be more specific, it's all in how it's perceived.
I had a discussion yesterday with a friend about the Occupy movement. She thought it wasn't going to accomplish anything. I told her it reminded me of the movements in the Sixties, which I had the opportunity to witness. She said the Sixties didn't accomplish anything. So, it's all in how you look at it.

Personally, I see a similarity in the Occupy movement and those movements back in the day that dealt with civil rights, women's rights, the Viet Nam war and so on. The people knew something was wrong and it got to the point where they had to do something...even if they didn't know what that something was. So they UNITED, they got together and let the leaders and their own fellows know exactly how they felt. I do believe it made a difference, just as I believe the Occupy movement is making a difference. When people act spontaneously and in unison, it's time to pay attention.

reply to post by ldyserenity


Its a pr statement on a website to get a donation which he has not backed up with his actions (his released official budget plan), politicians make big promises all the time just to get votes. It's not in his actual plan that he just released and wouldn't fit in his plan at all as it is (since he cuts taxes on corporations/wallstreet there'd be no revenue for the govt if there was no income tax too..).

Why else do you think Rush Limbaugh is supporting him now...?

His plan says specifically the only thing as far as income taxes go is he extends the bush tax cuts which are already in place. Gotta put your actions where your mouth is and he didn't live up to his promises.

His actual plan is what he is going to do... pr one-liners on his website are just fluff. Read his plan before you argue, there are ZERO cuts to the income tax, no tax relief for the middle/lower class. Only cuts to corporate taxes and capital gains/dividends taxes which just helps the rich wallstreeters get richer. Meanwhile he cuts all the programs which help the middle/lower class drastically and fires 10% of govt workers instantly (adding to unemployment).

His plan only lowers drastically taxes on the rich/wallstreet/corporations (corporate/capital gains/dividends tax cuts/eliminations) and leaves the income tax on middle/lower class intact while cutting all the programs that support them (meaning wtf are we paying for then? our taxes just go to wallstreet and corporations instead of to programs which support us). Kinda getting tired of repeating myself vs people who just want to blindly believe in Ron Paul despite even his own plan proving them wrong.

While I admire OP's candour, I can't help thinking he is backing the wrong horse.

After WWII, every woman in Germany was seen as "fair game". If they weren't raped, they were forced into performing sex acts for food and other essentials (the food situation certainly in the British Zone was dire). The Russian Zone was apparently the worst for rape and abuse. It was said, that it was 10 years before any German woman could wear jewelry. Such is the fate of the vanquished.

While I personally feel a serious western revolution is actually quite a way off.... perhaps a decade. If it does happen, the enemy are the rich. It's that simple. It wont matter that you were a philanthropist, philosopher and backer of open society. If you have more than everybody else (and the mob isn't particularly fussy), you will be a target.

If I were rich, I wouldn't be backing the 99%. If I was rich, I would be doing two things:

1. Investing in anything that prolonged the status quo.
   
2. Building a secret underground fortress with food for at least 10 years.
   

reply to post by FailedProphet


My thinking. If you are truly that well off, OWS does take donations. Maybe a generous donation to the movement would be a good gesture to show your support and you can always do so anonymously.

That said, how do you feel about giving a gift of $1,000 to me? No joke. Id take it if you want to help out an upper third class citizen. Well, I fall somewhere between lower middle class and upper lower class... If that makes sense...

You want to help out, send me a U2U. I can tell you exactly what the money would get spent on and would gladly sign a contract stating that is what the money would be spent on.


^ Yeah I have no shame. But hey when you are living hand to mouth ( When I am lucky enough to afford that) you lose a lot of shame.

Peace and love from the bottom of the 99%

I work!
I have always worked.
My pay has been down graded to Ditch Digger .
I have 26 years working in Aviation. I now make what I started at when hired.
My house payments go up cause of Wells Fargo.. Fanny and Freddie and the BS lies and path they had us follow to get a mortgage modifcation.
I have no equity because of there games,. I have taken ALL of my 401k and spent it on the house to try and keep it secure and worthy of protecting us from the elements.
So...I keep working and purchase a Lotto ticket once in a while buy feel that no one ever really wins. Do you know of anyone ever winnig? I mean a friend who went from poor to riches...ok I suppose they are out there but I never met one and know one I know has either.
OK back to the story ,
' play guitar for fun and have been for 45years.
We never vacation just go out to some resturant if we have coupon.
So ...my question is...what precent am I? I pay for all the punks that suck life out of people like me. Green Libs..worthless , and shallow thinkers!
I could care less about their misgivings that ma & pa didn't leave em.
' Go get a dam job and pay me when I retirer ,which will never be,cause of all that free loading that is normal behavior these days.
You're and your kind are a drip of the end of my #%^*.!!!
You're an embarassment to humanity! A Suck U Bus!!! In similarty..[prefect].
Eat Dirt..go back to Africa with all who seem to know best or want a better plateform than work on what we have in front of us! and start over take all of your friends/kin with you .And Mike Moore, for ur Preident or LEADER! Then.. Sean Penn...[learn to speak again], You've lost it Dude!!!...purchcase brain cells from Hugos supplier.!.
Please!! We all notice...once a good actor become evolved in Politics...DUMB DUDE.. or are u a PAID FOR?
You sound foolish when you speak!!!...We need to get you to a rehab or brain transplant center.
Signing forf now ...that means good bye!
You all unable to add or understand whats happening to US and beleive in False Flag representation..of a president...or Hugo kinds...
Signing off now.
Just a regular American working class indivigual , once use to be a country where the soul of a person tries!
Again..eat dirt or grass and see a witch doctor who chargers a bottle of White Port!

reply to post by MrXYZ


I hope everyone eventually figures out there is only one party pretending to be two. We are having issues in Alaska now of Democrats running as Republicans. Apparently it is legal to do so.

For some reason people cannot seem to fathom that the two parties are the same. Bush and Obama are pretty much the same people. No matter what party controls Congress they do the same things.

When the OWS folks decide to go after the real bad guys, then I will be impressed. Sadly I don't think most of the protestors have a clue they are being used. They understand something is not right but don't have the fortitude to find out where the real problems are. For instance that the banks were forced to make the bad loans by Congress. Yes their are crooks in positions of power in banks and large corporations, but what they do is legal. The regulations they pass hurt only the customers and they have no intention of going after the people who have bought them.

They also don't understand that the large corporations are the job providers. Without them, there are no jobs. They don't understand small business is the largest job provider or that the so called rich are not rich but are operating as an SP. Like with me, on paper I bring in a half a million a year but in reality my and my wife's combined earnings after taxes is now around $70,000. Before Obama it was $100,000. That's with both of us working full time and often far more than that. Obama is calling me rich even though most government employees make far more than I do. He wants to take more from me to give to them.

My postal carrier just told me he gets $120,000 plus another $40,000 in benefits.

A friend who works for the Fed's tells me she gets $140,000 plus full benefits. She runs and overhead crane at a government facility. She picks up a barrel on one side of a warehouse and moves it to the other side of the warehouse. She had 14 days training. She brags she can skip three months work a year without loosing a single days pay.

Me, I have one employee out sick with the Flu right now. He's been sick for a couple of weeks and is coming back tomorrow. My income will drop by almost half for the two weeks. That is reality. I'm the person Obama is after.

They also fail to understand that these companies they want to shut down are owned by ordinary people like them. They are ignoring the fact that it is the stockholders who own those companies and the companies are not the problem. Its the hired executives who are not honest. I don't think they even have a clue what a corporation is or that when you hurt them you destroy peoples savings and retirements. It's the blind leading the blind or should I say the illiterate leading the illiterate.

reply to post by Blaine91555


You are clearly a liar with an agenda. You can't have $500,000 of personal income magically shrink to $70,000 because of taxes. You the only american ever with a 85% tax rate? Furthermore, obama hasn't raised taxes... the bush tax cuts were extended sorry you didn't get the memo. If your company is making less money that is because the economy is in shambles right now then maybe you missed the news where this all started before the current president was even sworn in to office so I'm not sure how blaming everything on him instead of greedy Wallstreet/corporations/rich makes sense.. OWS is not "after" small businesses they are tired of wallstreet, big banks and multi national corporations screwing over the middle/lower class and further widening the wealth gap.

The rest of your post is obviously utter lies. Don't make up lies to discredit OWS and defend wallstreet.
I personally know a mail carrier and he'd laugh his head off if you accused mailmen of making $120,000 a year plus $40,000 in benefits.

reply to post by randomname


RN... his qualifiers didn't include "foolish and stupid". The lawn guy might be worth 10k over the life of an annual contract... YOU didn't qualify your comment... kimda disrespectful of the Lawn Guy, if you ask me. But all your comment proves is envy and resentment, and no small "tell" about how YOU would behave if you were in his shoes.

Don't assume everyone has the same issues you do about money. 85% of the "rich" folks in the U.S. engaged in a lifelong novel behavior... spending less than they made, and being wise with what they saved.

They didn't buy all kinds of consumer "crap."

Just sayin...

Originally posted by randomname
just like greed and a stupid sense of self ego and importance makes warren buffet, the second richest man in america, pay his secretary a lousy $60,000 a year. and then he has the arrogance to go on cnn and say it isn't fair more people don't have a greater share of the wealth.

edit on 17-10-2011 by randomname because: (no reason given)

This may shock you but many people in this world would literally kill to earn $60,000 for a years work - wealth is all relative to the wealth of others around you. Most westerners dont realise what they have ! and once they have it they just want more...

Instead of giving individuals more money than there role deserves just because he can he should simply be building more companies, those companies hire people who then get paid, and the people use their pay to buy products from warrens companies and other companies that buy from warrens companies. This way companies make their money, warren continues to make his money and the number of people that have money flow is increased.

MONEY FLOW yes key words there, money comes in money goes out this is how a good economy works, when people get gready and dont spend large amounts of the money the economy begins to stall.

If only people realised all pennies are magic this song could be economics 101:
"It’s just like a magic penny, hold on tight and you won’t get any
Lend it, spend it, give it away, and it comes right back to you. "

Originally posted by whyamIhere
These protests are small and unorganized.

I could be wrong, but I see them going nowhere.

Congratulations on your success.

Be careful what you wish for...

You just might get it.

You sir are completely wrong. They are world wide....you must be watching fox news!

Hey man, good read. I couldn't agree more. BTW, I was one of the guys who got in & out at the wrong times...lol. I manage to make a decent paycheck but boy it seemed like our money went way further 20 years ago!

This sums it up nicely

to the original poster

whats your opinion of a globalist corporate CEO like GE's immelt

basically says F U to America in this interview...says "i'm a globalist" and expresses anger americans are not happy and willing to root for him...even though this company has laid off and closed factories at a staggering rate in the US and is moving operations to china

www.youtube.com...

oh...he also says to FU..i work for the shareholders and profit is the only mandate

reply to post by FailedProphet


Hi OP,

Thank you for sharing your story. It was very well written. I agree with everything you've said in the post. I think your assessment was brilliantly said especially since it's so easy to get wound up in smaller issues that distract from seeing the big picture as you laid it out. When people go from looking at the big picture and start trying to think of ways to fix things they can immersed in the smaller details that can take a lifetime to sort out. What is your perceptive on how things should be fixed?

I hope you have time to expand on solutions. If you can offer solutions as well as your assessment of the overall situation then we might have to vote for you for president

Anyway, thank you very much for posting.