I AM A 1% WANNABE!!!!!!!!!!!

[silverflake]

Look guys, it hit me like this: these '1%' that the occupy wall street sheep are jealous over and want brought down, who are they?

The VAST MAJORITY of them are business owners. They are entrepreneurs, they provide capital, they create jobs, they take risks, they pay the lions share of taxes for the sheep to live off (and receive little for their payment), they are independent livers and thinkers, they are not relying on government, the are free to move, to build to create at any time. They are the doers of the world.

Instead of the mob trying to DESTROY those that generate the capital in this country, why don't they try to CREATE or PRODUCE in order to join the 1% (thus, in theory increasing that 1% and decreasing the size of the sheep herd).

All things told - I WANT BE LIKE THE 1%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For crying out loud people!

[tbram88]

Me too.

[Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay]

Ditto.

[Thogey]

I'm perfectly happy being in the 99%, That's why I'm not protesting.

[justoneguy]

1%.jpg (15.88 KiB) Viewed 718 times

[silverflake]

thogey, your comment about being in the 99% and being happy - good point. I will always be in the 99% too. I hope my point came across that most (not all) of the 1% are hard working Americans and should not be villified the way the media is doing to them right now. It's starting to tick me off.

[Hawkeye]

thogey, your comment about being in the 99% and being happy - good point. I will always be in the 99% too. I hope my point came across that most (not all) of the 1% are hard working Americans and should not be villified the way the media is doing to them right now. It's starting to tick me off.

I agree with that. The "1%" didn't get to be the "1%" by being lazy and stupid. Some of them got there by underhanded methods, but I guarantee none of them got there by sleeping until noon and watching tv 8 hours a day. And I would say that they didn't get there by demanding that somebody give them something.

[barrytrot]

thogey, your comment about being in the 99% and being happy - good point. I will always be in the 99% too. I hope my point came across that most (not all) of the 1% are hard working Americans and should not be villified the way the media is doing to them right now. It's starting to tick me off.

Silverflake, why do you assume you will *always be in the 99%*?

If you are smart enough to make the post above then all you need is a plan a goal and a lot of hard work over a long period of time to achieve the goal.

[silverflake]

barrytrot, I appreciate your enthusiasm. Somedays when God gives me clarity, I look around at my family and realize that if I died today, I would die a rich man.

[mongo]

What I see in this is an entitlement mentality. Give me Give me Give me you owe me everything. Quite frankly nobody owes you anything. Not the government not the wealthy nobody owes you jacksquat. The way I see it is the federal government needs to get out of the way and let free enteprise have its way I.E. Lets get back to drilling for oil in the gulf and especially up north where there are vast amounts of oil. That alone would put 100,000 Americans back to work with good jobs that people could support their familys with. But they get in the way with rules and regs that nobody can live with and it hampers and impedes business. Im not saying throw caution to the wind but every time you turn around they are shutting down some kid with a lemonade stand because he didnt get a city permit. PPPLLLLEEEAAASSSEEEEE. Just protect the borders fix the roads and please stay the heck out of my life. I will abide by the law, mind my own business, you do the same.

Mongo



"

[Treetop]

I do believe there is a major problem when money can buy justice. where our laws are written often enough to block competition by the wealthies among us. where profits are theirs but risks ours... big topic but there IS truth to many of the complaints of these 99 percent folks... If I spent a lot of time making the case I doubt anyone here would disagree, most here seem intellectually honest....

that said I do NOT find all the thoughts about these 99% folks as accurate, and see NO problem with wealthy folks at all. Heck the founders of this nation knew very well the dangers of the wealthy having these SAME abilities!!!! Our laws were set up to block this as much as possible in fact.

EDIT... geez I accidentally wrote " I do find all the thoughts of the 99% as accurate...." I forgot the NOT...

[Kurr]

Ha.

I come from an older era, and have known bikers my whole life. I seen a LOT of 1% tats on follks who were PROUD to wear it. Meant they were PROUD to be outlaws.

I do not think we ever really see the 1%. Look at the hunt brothers back in the day. Billionaires. Smart. Worked hard. Had a plan. Actuated that plan and was succeeding. What happened, IMHO? The 1%, the "true" PTB, changed the rules and SCREWED THEM almost to bankruptcy.

Same thing, as treetop said, we had laws to block alot of this. A decade or so ago they REPEALLED a law that would have prevented the meltdown from the MBS fraud, leading to the economic collapse and the devestation of what was left of our manufacturing base.

I do not think fiscal levels determine a thing. I do not think a WORKING man is the problem if he is honest and fair in his dealings, and doesn't seek unfair advantages. Whether he makes 5k a year or 10 million. It is the easy money, inflate our debt away, win at ALL costs, we want to control/own everything mentality, coupled with an almost sexual attraction to power, and reckless diregard to EVERYTHING else man that, to me, forms the 1%.

Edit to add:

It burns my a** to hear now about banks bulldozing houses with all the homelessness and people that do not own their own place going on, just so that they can create an artificial shortage in order to prop up already ridiculously overpriced housing markets to keep their bottom lines up. THAT'S and example of 1% mentality

[barrytrot]

Ah, Kurr, good point.

So it's not the 1%, it's more like the 0.0001%.

There may be some merit in that actually.

[Lemon Thrower]

i don't use the 1% lingo. it buys into an artificial dichotomy of class envy.

the real struggle is between savers and spenders. thats why a demonstration of tea partiers and communists makes no sense, because they are polar opposites.

[Nickelmeister]

Ah, Kurr, good point.

So it's not the 1%, it's more like the 0.0001%.

There may be some merit in that actually.

Yeah, the OWS crowd has their math off by a few orders of magnitude.

By most socioeconomic standards I am part of "the 1%" (as are a few other people on this board that I am aware of), yet I completely identify with the so-called "99%". I have worked hard for my successes, obey the rules, pay my taxes, etc. It is not people like ME (I hope!) that the masses are protesting, but the VERY, VERY elite top 0.000001% (about 10,000 people worldwide) who literally make the rules to suit their own agenda.

It isn't necessarily about politics, wealth, or status - it is about fundamental FAIRNESS. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to succeed or fail based on their own merits without being subjected to regulatory favoritism, political corruption, nepotism, or other barriers.

[Treetop]

I agree totally with the thoughts above.... its the .0001%, (or lower even) and for many of the "99%" it IS class envy and an inability to understand some of the core issues. For one that we can never afford these social programs. even without the wars. or heck we could scrap the military entirely and not afford it. http://www.usdebtclock.org/#

the talk of "fairness" freaks me out to.... build your OWN utopia!!! stop trying to drag everyone else into it. You would need machine guns to enforce the telletubby worldview!!! Hamburger for all!!! not enough steaks to go around!!! Give the government even more power??? Mob rule isnt any better then elitist rule even if it starts ut that way. The majority ruling the minority?

[John_doe]

I have no problem with wall street.


I think the occupation got lost on their way to the fed.


Wall street does not control monetary policy, they merely capitalize on it.



Occupy a book.

[Kurr]

LOL!!

Love the "Occupy a Book"

I think a part of the crossover is due to the revolving door between "wall st" and the "DC". Look at the relationship between Goldman Sachs (Gold in my sacks) and DC. They got from a goldman worker, to an appointed position on comittee, or cabinet member, then back to goldman, then back to a different commitee/appointed posistion, asserting unfair influence the whole way.

As far as the "1%" I read this yesterday:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z1bP2NQqpi


A University of Zurich study 'proves' that a small group of companies - mainly banks - wields huge power over the global economy.

The study is the first to look at all 43,060 transnational corporations and the web of ownership between them - and created a 'map' of 1,318 companies at the heart of the global economy.

The study found that 147 companies formed a 'super entity' within this, controlling 40 per cent of its wealth. All own part or all of one another. Most are banks - the top 20 includes Barclays and Goldman Sachs. But the close connections mean that the network could be vulnerable to collapse.

'In effect, less than one per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,' says James Glattfelder, a complex systems theorist at the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich, who co-wrote the research, to be published in the journal PLoS One.

Some of the assumptions underlying the study have come in for criticism - such as the idea that ownership equates to control. But the Swiss researchers have no axe to grind: they simply applied mathematical models usually used to model natural systems to the world economy, using data from Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors

Economists such as John Driffil of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, told New Scientist that the value of its study wasn't to see who controlled the global economy, but the tight connections between the world's largest companies.

The financial collapse of 2008 showed that such tightly-knit networks can be unstable.
'If one company suffers distress,' Glattfelder says, 'This propagates.'

The research requires more analysis, but it could be used to look for the weaknesses in the network of global wealth, and prevent future financial disaster.

Looking at 'connectedness' also puts paid to conspiracy theories about the world's wealth - companies connect to highly connected companies for business reasons, rather than world domination.
The 'core' of 147 companies also represents too many interests to wield real political power - but it could act 'as one' to defend common interests. Sadly for market reformers, resisting change may be one such common interest

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Now I say cross refferance the members of the boards of these corporations and see how many people call the shots, and how much overlap their is. I believe a good investigation of these board members would lead you to the true PTB and the .0001% that truly deserve the attention.

*******************************
Everytime I look into where trouble/misery and suffering come from in my part of the world, it ALWAYS comes back to the banks and debt backed money.