The Wall Street Occupation

blatantninja said:

the average person certainly works more than 10-20

Click to expand...

I said that we do not need to work more than that, not that they do.

blatantninja said:

In order to sustain society, the production output must be greater than or equal to the production consumption. If people are all working 10 hours a week, that isn't going to happen.

Click to expand...

Most jobs doesn't "produce" something that can be quantified and there's plenty in life that isn't about "production consumption". I find it hard to believe that even 40 hours "on the job" means 40 hours of actual work. Then there's the problem with unemployment. If unemployment is growing while the average hours-per-week is growing there seems to be a correlation that tells me that people who work work more because the amount of people actually working are getting fewer, or the other way around.

This is related to an optimization routine. There's an assumed average and an actual average. The assumed average is established on what is believed about the average, anecdotes and people who are capable of temporary working above their capacity. The actual average is what people are generally fit to do over time without problems. When the assumed average goes up, fewer and fewer people fit the norm. There are still anecdotes about people who are capable of handling the pressure but the rates of unemployment and general sickness go up along with other social factors like drug abuse, exploitation and corruption.

I have to ask though how come people in a such advanced nation like the USA works by average almost 20 hours more per week and still seems to have less than an average Swede?

skavenhorde said:

Where do people who are happy in being the "fertilizer" fit in your world? Will we be the outcasts then?

Click to expand...

To the contrary. In hintersight "fertilizer" was a bad word since it sounds like "poo". What I meant was the soil. A neutral position that contribute to the current system without improving or changing it. Most people will not go beyond friends and family and still live meaningful lives.

skavenhorde said:

I'm a teacher and have no desire to be a flower or to be unique in this world. I want to teach others so they have more opportunities to shine in this world, but according to you then I would be an outcast in your world order because I have no desire to think about how meaningful my life.

Click to expand...

Please have a look at What Teachers Make on my perspective on what teachers make.

skavenhorde said:

I have thought about it and I am content in my role in this life. I go to my temple, go to work, play games and take my girlfriend out. I'm happy without thinking about all that crap you do. Actually thinking about that nonsense leads to discontent or a should have/could have scenario.

The only thing I want from this Wall Street Occupation is for America to wake up and stop letting people take what we already have. I had to leave the freaking country because of this greed. My mom and dad were part of the middle class that got swallowed up in corporate greed. They took my dad's job and then my mom's and couldn't see anything improving. So after my mom got situated and my dad died I said, "Goodbye suckers!!! I'm taking my ball and going to a new home!!!" I've never been happier since I left that godawful country.

Click to expand...

Where do you live now?

blatantninja said:

While you may not work 40 hours (and illegal or not, I know for a fact a lot of people do in our Stockholm office and it is far from the exception), the average person certainly works more than 10-20. In order to sustain society, the production output must be greater than or equal to the production consumption. If people are all working 10 hours a week, that isn't going to happen.

Click to expand...

There are ways to get around that law and it's unlikely to be enforced unless someone complains. Besides if you can agree with a union you can strike a deal that more or less disregards the law completely. A lot of our labor laws can be circumvented if the employer and a union agrees to.

JemyM said:

Then there's the problem with unemployment. If unemployment is growing while the average hours-per-week is growing there seems to be a correlation that tells me that people who work work more because the amount of people actually working are getting fewer, or the other way around.

Click to expand...

Exactly. When some employees are made redundant but the rest of them can work the same hours as before it can be called "cutting the fat". But when remaining employees have to work extra hours (often for no extra pay) that's "cutting the meat". That's why I like EU 40 hours initiative. Prevents companies from taking advantage aver their employees. And, like peko says, those laws are also flexible enough that they can be applied according to the circumstances.

JemyM said:

To the contrary. In hintersight "fertilizer" as a bad word since it sounds like "poo". What I meant was the soil. A neutral position that contribute to the current system without improving or changing it. Most people will not go beyond friends and family and still live meaningful lives.

Click to expand...

That's sums up who I am. I have no desire to change the real world other than my little corner of it. That is enough for me and all I ever want out of this life.

It took me a long road to get here and had to leave the United Fed Up States of America to find my "American Dream" - a little ironic - My life right now is pretty damn good. I get paid well, not huge mind you, but enough to keep me in games and living in this suburban jungle area. Seriously I live in the jungle in a closed off community. It's odd, but great. I get something I'm familiar with - the suburbs -, but I'm surrounded in beauty and monkeys. I have freaking monkeys as neighbors. They don't come around that often, but you'll see them from time to time. Also have huge gigantic spiders that decide they want to take a look around my place from time to time. Hate those suckers. They freak me out.

The only thing I improve are the second grade tests I make for my students. Since being promoted to head teacher for the second grade I've gone on a quest to find the perfect balanced test. It's a never ending quest, but that's fine with me.

I go a step farther than your description and have cut out friends all together. I don't get along with most adults in real life because I just can't think the way they do. So I have my cat, my kids (at school), my girlfriend, my games and my job. That's enough for me. Just don't take any of that away and I'll be content in this life.

Please have a look at What Teachers Make on my perspective on what teachers make.

Click to expand...

Sorta the way I feel. They always ask me about how much money I make. Compared to when I was working at a corporation in America it's peanuts, but I don't have the stress that goes with that job and these kids have unconditional love for you. They are just so dang happy to see you everyday that they'll shout out in the halls "HI" every single time they see me. That doesn't happen so much in the higher grades, but for now they still like coming to school and like coming to class.

That and coming up with games for the class to help them learn. I love doing that. Sometimes the kids go crazy for the learning games (we have a smartboard in the class) while other times they're not as excited. When I come up with something new and the kids are actively participating in the game and learning at the same time, then that is the time I feel like I did something good. I can't really describe the feeling other than a sense of accomplishment….though it's more than that. I get a sense of accomplishment by playing a difficult RPG and passing it, but that doesn't even come close to when my students are excited and actively participating in the game without even realizing they are learning at the same time.

Thanks for the link btw. I will be sharing that with everyone at school tomorrow.

Where do you live now?

Click to expand...

Taiwan…check to the right of my posts. It has my location right there

For those of you that follow US College Football:

http://occupyherbstreit.tumblr.com/

blatantninja said:

The problem is too many people don't plan for them. I do, but I seem to be in the minority.

Click to expand...

That's what's so great about public ensurances - even pepole stupid enough to not plan ahead are covered.

blatantninja said:

1) Buying the largest house they can get a loan for, instead of buying a smaller one and saving the difference in payment

Click to expand...

The problem (according to the video I posted) isn't size, it's location. Location near a good school for your kids, that is. If you'd get decent profit marigins by sacrifizing an extra room lots of pepole would probably be ok with that, but when it's your children's future?

blatantninja said:

2) Having 2 or more cars, often on leases of 2-3 years (IE trap you in a car payment for ever) instead of buying a car and driving it until the wheels fall off

Click to expand...

I don't know about replacing them that often, but the problem here is that, due to the state of your public transportation, most families needs two cars. Because both parents has to work, and to get to work you need a car.

blatantninja said:

And I could go on. Americans waste a massive amount of money on materialistic things. Thankfully, I was raised by a cheap bastard and especially after suffering a year of unemployment in '01-'02, I've adopted his ways. I know so many middle class people that make less then me, yet spend significantly more than me. If they get fired/laid off, they are screwed as soon as the unemployment benefits run out (and often before since those benefits don't replace all lost income).

If I lost my job, even without unemployment benefits, we could last at least 6 months and possible as long as a year. (and that's without earning any income from side jobs along the way). Nobody handed this to me. I've been scrimping and saving every way I could since getting re-employed in 2002. It's all about choices and Americans are addicted to immediate gratification.

Click to expand...

Free choice is a myth. Nobody handed yourself this? Well, would you have handed it to yourself if your dad hadn't handed you the upbringing of a cheap bastard? What if you'd been luckier in '01-'02 and gotten a job much quicker? You making choices few others are making is as much a coincidence as life popping up on earth but not on Venus.

You have the marigins you have because you were lucky enough to be born smart enough/raised to understand you need them.

blatantninja said:

Absolutely. We certainly share many similarities, generally can do the same jobs with the same levels of performance, and I certainly do not believe anyone should be discriminated based on sex (or age, etc.), but that doesn't mean there aren't fundamental differences in us that are biological in nature.

Click to expand...

The differences are bigger between left and right handed pepole. I don't give much for these supposedly fundamental differences between us. The fundamental differences are (pretty much) different genitalias and that's it.

blatantninja said:

So we've actually seen a deflation of the money supply of around $2T, though consumer prices, in most cases, have either stagnated or even gone up (I could write a ten page post on how that works!).

Click to expand...

My (quite uneducated) guess is going to be "pepole want to keep their profit marigins/pepole stubbornly refuse to lower their profit marigins".

Übereil

Ubereil said:

That's what's so great about public ensurances - even pepole stupid enough to not plan ahead are covered.

Click to expand...

I don't see that as great, I see that as wrong. Why should I, a responsible individual, pay for other's irresponsibility?

The problem (according to the video I posted) isn't size, it's location. Location near a good school for your kids, that is. If you'd get decent profit marigins by sacrifizing an extra room lots of pepole would probably be ok with that, but when it's your children's future?

Click to expand...

I disagree with that. Otherwise, no one would live in Texas! People seem to look for schools that are 'good enough.' Occasionally I meet someone that makes the sacrifice for a good school, but it is rare. People don't really think about the profit margin, they just seem to want the material benefit.

I don't know about replacing them that often, but the problem here is that, due to the state of your public transportation, most families needs two cars. Because both parents has to work, and to get to work you need a car.

Click to expand...

Well first, it is a bit of a myth that most families need two parents to work. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. They need a second car to get to work. They need the extra income to cover the child care that they need because they work. And if they are making any type of margin on the second spouses income, again, it goes back to paying for a lot of crap we don't really need: cell phones, flat screen TV's, cable, eating out, etc. Our materialism has caused the need for second incomes more than anything else.

Free choice is a myth. Nobody handed yourself this? Well, would you have handed it to yourself if your dad hadn't handed you the upbringing of a cheap bastard? What if you'd been luckier in '01-'02 and gotten a job much quicker? You making choices few others are making is as much a coincidence as life popping up on earth but not on Venus.

Click to expand...

It's still a choice. No doubt my upbringing prepared me better for it than others (and I think schools could play an important equalizer here, but they don't), but ultimately I made the decisions. I could easily have gone back to my excessive spending ways that I enjoyed prior to '01 (I graduated from college in '97). I wanted to, I even relapsed at times, but I made the decision to give in. I know plenty of people that had parents as cheap as mine and have completely given in. It's a choice.

You have the marigins you have because you were lucky enough to be born smart enough/raised to understand you need them.

Click to expand...

It doesn't take much intelligence to realize that if you lose your job you better have some savings. I was definitely fortunate to have parents that gave me good values, but again, the decision is ultimately up to the individual.

The differences are bigger between left and right handed pepole. I don't give much for these supposedly fundamental differences between us. The fundamental differences are (pretty much) different genitalias and that's it.

Click to expand...

I'm guessing you aren't married.

blatantninja said:

For those of you that follow US College Football:

http://occupyherbstreit.tumblr.com/

Click to expand...

Ha! Good stuff! Love the Alabama Tailgate sign.

Btw: Them Longhorns got smoked last week.

Bloomberg is moving to close down the protest

I sure hope this doesn't turn more violent...

This 'Occupy *fill in the blank*' has spread to Taiwan now: http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=1733322

JDR13 said:

Ha! Good stuff! Love the Alabama Tailgate sign.

Btw: Them Longhorns got smoked last week.

Click to expand...

Yeah, thankfully after suffering through 66-3 to UCLA in '97, 65-14 to OU in 2000 and 63-14 to OU in 2003, I'm kind of numb! And I didn't expect to win this year, so that helped!

I'm thinking of going down to the protest with a sign that says "I watched my team get slaughtered by OU and I STILL can't get the Longhorn Network! I am one of the 99%!"

Thrasher said:

Bloomberg is moving to close down the protest

I sure hope this doesn't turn more violent…

Click to expand...

The protesters cleaned up the park, so they should be ok for a bit longer. So long as they don't block traffic (foot or vehicle), I think the city will be fine letting them stay there until it gets cold enough to drive them off.

skavenhorde said:

That's sums up who I am.

Click to expand...

SH, I just wanted to say I read your reply and thankyou for it. I couldn't add much to what you wrote and give something valuable in response mostly thanks to having just 3 more days to an exam and very little time.

Yesterday night, while playing DDO (the MMORPG) :

"Occupy Khyber is recruiting." It's a guild, and Khyber is one of the servers.

No joke ! I thought I couldn't believe my eyes ! (Well, maybe I should do a screenshot of it the next time I read this message ...)

Well, now that you mention it:







Übereil

Luke Skywalker aka "Occupy The Empire" ? :lol:

Interesting. I read up on the Expanded Universe explanation on why the Empire in Star Wars got such great support so quickly and why they were allowed to abolish democracy: The large democratic republic was accused of being corrupt and ineffective at dealing with issues facing the people of the galaxy.

When a new leader came along and argued that he would end corruption and make the state more effective, this was welcomed by the public who agreed to reduce their own rights to vote in order to bring forth the promised utopia.

The end of the Old Republic is very much modelled after the rise of Caesar, I mean THE Ceasar.

But Big Julie is dead!!