Ashbad, inflation, being a percentage, affects everyone equally, so it should be irrelevant. They're comparing laterally within years, then across years normalized on a per-year basis, so it shouldn't make a different at all. Spud, I don't think anyone is saying that people shouldn't be paid wages relative to the importance and quality of their work; we see how well that worked out for the Soviet Union. However, in Japan the ratio of (for example) CEO to work-a-day employees' wages was 1:22, according to something I saw, whereas in the US it was something like 1:390 (I might be exaggerating, but not by much). Does the CEO of [big bank here] really do work worth 390 times as much as a hard-working teller?

Charlie Stross (one of my favorite authors) has some interesting tidbits on the subject of wealth distribution.

Particularly enlightening (horrifying? rage-inducing?) is An Investment Manager's View on the Top 1%. I find the following quote particularly damning:


I can't speak to the neutrality of tone in some of this, but it seems factually accurate.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-26-2011/parks-and-demonstration---oakland-riot?xrs=share_copy

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57317374/occupy-oakland-protesters-clash-with-police/

This would be a case where I think the police actually were more or less justified. Windows were smashed and a large bonfire was started. I'm not sure about the order though. If the vandalism/window smashing occurred /after/ the teargas was fired, that /would/ make this quite a bit grayer. I need to read more on this.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/45410896#45410896

This is why I watch MSNBC. Occasionally, you actually do learn something. Last night, I learned about the Scoville Scale for spicyness, which in addition to being a really cool thing to learn, shows how police-grade pepper-spray is several orders of magnitude hotter than the hottest pepper you would ever use in the kitchen. Compare this to Fox News which asserts that pepper spray is no worse than what you'd find in your local supermarket.

I'm still having trouble understanding why there would be such organized resistance to such an unorganized movement, when highly-organized and focused movements like the Tea Party have received no police pushback whatsoever. The people who bring guitars to rallies and sing about peace love and understanding are getting sprayed while the people who bring guns to rallies and shout about lynching the president are given a wide berth.

uhh, is Fox News totally tarded? Just... wow, I have known that pepper spray is much MUCH worse than that Butch T trinidad scorpion pepper, and is just a little bit away from pure Capsaicin..... (some idiot managed to down an entire teaspoon of the pure Capsaicin, for a good 3 hours he had burning of the tongue..)

DShiznit, you can find things far worse than peppers at your local supermarket, like bleach A little HCl never hurt anybody!

Also, the concept that the government, essentially a corporation entrenched $14 Trillion in debt, wants to manage my money is something I want to avoid. That's not going to change.

And to my knowledge, noone is saying the government should manage your money. What we want is for the government to provide for those who have no money at all. In order for it to do that, it needs to take something from everyone, and in order to be fair and just to all(like it says in the preamble of the constitution), that percentage needs to start low(like at 0) and rise progressively up the income ladder. Taking 30% from someone who can barely eat hurts a whole hell of a lot more than taking 30% from someone with a mansion the size of of an aircraft carrier.

That's exactly what you're saying: The government gets to decide, based on their own knowledge, how much of your money they will take.

Your treating the government as if it's some ominous alien occupying force beyond all understanding or control. If you take a high-school U.S. Government course, you'll learn that's not the case. We have what's called a Federal Representative Democracy. That means the government is simply made up of and controlled by, the people. The government is you, the government is me, the government is every other citizen of this country. We decide collectively how to tax and spend our country's collective wealth.

I treat the government like it is run by imperfect individuals, which it is. Regardless of who you think runs the country, I don't care because I'd frankly rather take care of my own money. That way, if I make a mistake somewhere I can easily find out and fix the problem. The government, being as large as it is, is unlikely to notice or even care.

And I don't belong to a collective. That's called Socialism. I have my wealth, you have your poverty/wealth, we have individual ownership. Go move to North Korea if you want a collective.

So if someone who did everything right, who has always worked hard all their life, gets cancer, through no fault of their own, they should lose all their savings, all their livelihood, and die? I'm sorry but that's a heartless system I will have no part in. We can continue with a strong social safety net that gives EVERYONE the same chance at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness(again, first part of that constitution you pretend to love so much) as we've done for more than 70 years now, or we can descend completely into anarchy and watch everything we've built burn around us. No government means noone puts out fires. No government means noone goes after murderers. No government means no water, no power, and thus no industry. If you want to live in a country where you have complete control over every cent you make, with no government taking anything from you, go move to Somalia. Otherwise, stop flapping your jaw and go take some civics classes so you can understand and start participating with the rest of society.

And for the record, North Korea ≠ socialism. Far from it. North Korea, China, and other "communist" countries have actually become unitary dictatorships, which are fundamentally different from anything resembling collectivism(which is what a democracy essentially is).

That person would never exist, since someone who did *everything* right would have health insurance.

I didn't say I wasn't willing to pay taxes, I'm just not willing to have any kind of "wealth redistribution" system, where someone else decides how much of my money I deserve to keep.

Oh, and by the way, Water, Electricity, and the vast majority of your utilities are run by private industry, not the government. That's why you have a power bill, and not a Road Usage bill. The ones run by the government come out of taxes.

You sound like you've taken 2, maybe 3 US government classes from the same teacher, and base every single one of your political opinions off of what you hear, without thoughts to the contrary. That is the worst possible situation you could put yourself in. I would say it's worse than knowing nothing, because you become an extremist and join the hordes of other misguided individuals pushing for something that is really quite unnecessary.

Could you at least try to see from my point of view? I see yours, I just don't agree with it due to a few things:

1. You seem to have this belief that people who have more money got it in dishonest ways. That is generally not true. Keep in mind that I do not dwell in the upper echelon of income rates, and you do not live in the absolute lower. That implies that it isn't black and white: It's a gradient, and really a quite smooth one if you cut out celebrities and CEOs of absolutely massive companies, which regularly donate enormous amounts to charities which help the same problems you think the government should try to deal with.

2. You see the government as an organization that should try to prevent suffering. I see it as one to prevent injustice. There is a big difference between the two.

3. You think that the majority of people living in poverty are there entirely because of their circumstances. This is not true. This is the one you keep flaming over.

1. I don't recall ever making the point that rich people are honest, please show me if I did because that's something I should correct if true. That said, you seem to have some very fantastical ideas about the altruistic nature of big business. Businesses are machines, like a car or truck. You wouldn't want a tractor trailer driving itself purely on it's own cruise control, would you? Maybe I'm crazy but I'd prefer to have someone at the wheel of that vehicle making sure it stays on the road.

2. Is this an example of satire? Fighting injustice has been everyone's purpose for government. The difference is what we consider to be unjust. Personally, I find having one's entire future and all it's prospects predetermined by a zip code pretty d@mn unjust. But again, maybe I'm just insane. Go ahead and call the white-coats on me because I'm clearly delusional with my radical ideas of "fairness" and "equality".

3. This is because everyone I've ever known who was impoverished was there through no clear fault of their own. Both my parents work harder than I've ever seen anyone else work ever, and yet we're still going into foreclosure on half-a-twin, which is costing more than twice my parents combined salary. Compare that to my grandparents on my father's side, of whom only one actually had to work(and did more or less the same kind of work my dad does now) and was able to purchase a full-size house for less than a year's salary.

I did come on rather heated earlier, and for that I apologize. I'm just frustrated at the growing gap between how hard people work and how little they actually get for it.

To bring down the heat(this really wasn't supposed to be a big political fight topic anyway), and get back on the topic of Police abuse of power, I'd like to submit to you this article I stumbled upon on the LA Times website:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-turley-video-20111108,0,2342191.story

It details how people have actually been arrested, charged, and convicted just for filming police officers abusing suspects. I don't care what your politics are, you can't possibly think this is ok.

The police have little to do with conviction. It's more of the judge interpreting the law. Most of the time Police present evidence, other times it's crime scene experts.

Also, this topic is about the wall streets protests and police cracking down on the protesters, not police abuse of power in general.

@DShiznit Do you have a solution in mind? I mean, I'm not for allowing corrupt officials to do whatever they will. That's a completely different issue than what is at hand anyways.

A solution for what? Arresting people for video taping police officers? Yeah it's called stop arresting people for video taping police officers. Simple as that. I can't see how simply recording something can ever do any harm, unless the people being recorded are themselves committing crimes. Those enforcing the law need to be held accountable under the same law.

@comicIDIOT
There is some relevance, as mentioned in the article some people video taping raids on OWS protesters have been told by officers to put their cameras away in the same manner.

It's completely bogus that those who worked their way to the top of the ladder make so much more money than the rest of us and live better lives. Just because I took job as a fry cook instead of taking the risk of starting a business is no reason for me to live on $8.25/hr instead of $250,000 / yr. I DEMAND EQUAL PAY!

PS, did one of you guys pee on my tent?


troll ol ol ol

READ MY WHOLE COMMENT BEFORE YOU CALL ME A JERK! I think that the "Occupy" movement is dumb personal. Before you critisize me just listen why. 1: They all fight against corporate greed, but offer no solutions for all the issues they bring up. 2: Most of them own I-pods/I-pads aka corporate products. 3: Some of the protesters are somewhat violent. 4: Everything they blame the corporations for is the governments fault. 5: Some want communism where the government controls the economy, and they complain about people getting laid off, and how corporations overprice products to make huge profits when in actuality they make a small amount of profit because so much comes out in government taxes so it can go to the occupy protesters and they can sit on their lazy butts have no job. Times are tough and jobs hard to find, but my Dad works two jobs and sometimes gets home around 11:30, and our family is not in much dept because he is willing to work instead of get government handouts that are being sucked out of businesses across the US. No in case you are wondering I don't feel that it is right for the protesters to get sprayed unless they are deliberately disobeying the laws, and were given a warning to get off the street and disobeyed. Plus some people across from the parks people occupy can't sleep because they stay up at night listening to "We are the 99 percent!", which they are not by the way, and that is a crime called public disturbance, and if they do not recognize that and resist arrest they have reason to be sprayed... As for news I watch MSNBC, FOX, and CNN... I don't agree with them all, but I get all views then draw what I agree with out of it to form my opinion... If you disagree post a response don't say u r dum... l