OWS Needs Demands

I have been thinking a lot about the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I understand the core grievances of the people who are participating.
I understand the core causes of what led the economy to generate enough momentum for those people to accumulate at ever-increasing numbers.
I understand the feelings of fear and hatred that the movement is generating among others.
I see the current situation as INCREDIBLY dangerous.
It is dangerous for the participants.
It is dangerous for the "1%."
It is dangerous for the police.
It is dangerous because each incident of police brutality adds more pressure to the situation.
Each incident of peacefully gathered protesters being abused, assaulted, brutalized and injured by the police is causing more and more anger from the population over the situation. It WILL lead to more violence. History has shown MANY examples where military force being used on the civilian population (and make no mistake in judgment; the type of police tactics being deployed warrants calling them a military force) leading to violence against the ruling individuals and the military force supporting them. In previous posts I have cited many examples where economic forces pushed the poor majority to violently overthrow the rich minority. Almost all of those examples included the abuse of power by a domestic police/military force against the civilian population in an effort to stop the revolution. In addition to those examples there are also the recent examples of Egypt and Libya and, slightly less recently, the civilian over-throw of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Oppressing the civilian population does NOT work as a lasting solution.
In many countries it can work for generations, but it most likely will NOT work in this country.
This country's founding concepts are being violated by the police occupation of our rights and we won't put up with it. Unlike the other countries who survived for generations under a totalitarian regime this country has tasted freedom and will not surrender it to a military rule easily.
Continuing this course of action WILL result in an eventual flashpoint where the peaceful protesters suddenly convert into an angry and vengeful mob. When that happens ANY police officer on the streets will die. They will die horribly. They will, literally, be ripped apart and/or beaten to death with whatever is available. No number of firearms, pepper spray, mace, batons, non-lethal projectiles, tear gas, etc will stop an angry and driven mob from doing it will do. Each effort of defense by the police will drive the overall mob onward. The fatalities among the protesters will greatly outnumber those of the police, but ALL of the police will die. The numbers are too great in favor of the protesters and each and every police officer that succumbs to the violence will provide weapons to make the mob more efficient.
 Make no mistake in judgment here.
We are on the precipice of the most dangerous situation this country has faced in nearly a century. One event like the Kent State University catastrophe will ignore a wildfire among the entire population. People across the country will know what is happening before it is done happening. The slaughter there will spark a huge blow-back on the local force that committed the atrocity AND decrease the tolerance level in every other "OWS" protest around the country.
When the first locale falls the rest will go like dominoes.

 I see only one way out of this situation. The OWS movement needs to organize. It needs to generate a list of rules and a means of generating order amongst its encampments. Most importantly it needs to generate a list of goals and demands that can be accomplished. Without all of these points NOTHING will get done. NOTHING productive will happen.
Without all of these items being put in place the entire movement will only serve to destabilize the entire country (and world) with no benefit for anyone.

If I were in charge of the OWS movement these are the demands I would start with.
I would have EVERYONE publish them and memorize them.
I would deliver them through any channel available to any authority figure available.

1. Restitution for police brutality.

• A. Each and every police officer who committed ANY act of violence against a protester be investigated. Their act(s) reviews and any/all evidence of their act(s) be evaluated by a neutral jury of people who know neither the officer nor the victim(s) of the act(s). Each and every act deemed to exceed acceptable force for the situation will be stripped of the protection of being an act conducted by an active-duty police officer enforcing the law. Each act stripped of that protection will then be tried in a court of law as though the offending party were one citizen assaulting another with no cause. Any/all penalties of law that could be applied to a conventional citizen who committed the same acts shall be applied to the police officer as though they were such a normal citizen. Any officer whose action(s) are deemed to be appropriate to their duties and situation shall retain the exemption and protection against assault/battery/etc based on their active performance of their duties. 
• B. Any officer who commanded officers to perform acts that were deemed outside the acceptable actions for the situation (as stated above) shall be tried on a conspiracy charge and stripped of the ability to EVER hold a police force, military force or security position for the remainder of their lives. 
•  C. Any officers who were present who are documented to be standing by without making any attempt to stop the brutality (as outlined in section A) shall be discharged from the current police force without any continuing benefit of having served. They may be eligible for police, military or security positions if any police organization is willing to hire them. 

 2. Corporate Citizenship

• A. Corporations are NOT citizens. There is no accountability if a corporation misbehaves. Legislation shall be drafted that makes all "chief" level officers and all vice-president level officers and all members of a board PERSONALLY liable for actions conducted by a corporation. In the event that there is a dissenting minority vote all those who submit, in writing, a dissenting opinion to the HR department of the corporation AND to the Attorney General of the applicable geographic region shall be exempted from legal penalty. All those who do NOT dissent in the corporation conducting illegal actions shall be considered equally liable for the damages caused. The corporation itself shall be responsible for repaying any and all damages resulting from the illegal actions and the parties being held PERSONALLY responsible shall be responsible for submitting payments to cover the jury-awarded "pain and suffering" that the illegal actions generated. In addition, those held PERSONALLY responsible will be tried for any criminal offenses that the company has brought against it AND they shall be discharged from the employment of the company. Additionally, they shall be barred from EVERY holding an officership / board position on corporation for the remainder of their lives (after they complete their prison sentences). 
•  B. Corporations cannot be considered a person for legal purposes. 

3. Separation of Church, State and Corporation

• A. No political campaign or office shall be able to accept ANY donation from any non-person.
• B. No single source can contribute more than 1% of any political campaign fund. 
• C. No corporation may submit any legislation request for consideration; corporations are limited to filing formal protests against legislation being enacted that may damage their business model or customer base. 
• D. Politicians shall be required to present an analysis of how any legislation or decision they are making shall affect their constituents directly. 

4. Lobbying Reform

• A. Each and every politician shall be required to conduct a poll of random constituents for each and every legal issue to generate a baseline of opinion. 
• B. No politician shall be allowed to entertain speakers speaking on the behalf of a non-person. The behalf of shall be determined by the funding of the speaker. Investigation of indirect funding channels shall be allowed. 
• C. Non-person entities shall be permitted to present their opposition or support of proposed legislation ONLY in the public hearings. 

5. Reparations

• A. Investigations shall be conducted into the causes of the economic collapse leading to the OWS movement. 
• B. Those found to be responsible shall be indicted for their actions in the same manner that those who caused economic turmoil in previous economically hard times were indicted and tried for their role in the damage. 
• C. Politicians shall not be exempted from the investigations. 

6. Transparency and equality

• A. ALL publicly-funded budgets shall be EASILY and readily available by any citizen for review. 
• B. ALL publicly-funded programs shall make use of the same non-salary compensation programs available to every private entity. 
• C. ALL political offices shall be paid ONLY while the politician is serving. There is no post-serving compensation. 
• D. Non-salary benefits for those serving in political office shall be similar to the constituents that they serve (e.g. no special health care programs or retirement planning). 
• E. Public servants shall NOT be eligible for bonuses. 
• F. Public servants are not eligible to receive gifts of any sort that may be affiliated with their position from any source. 

7. Compensation

• A. There shall be enacted a limit to the salary that the highest-paid executive may earn within a company. That limit shall be based on the comparator between highest-paid employee and lowest-paid employee in all developed nations. Any highest-paid employee within a corporation shall not exceed the pay of the lowest-paid employee by more than the ratio found at the 67th percentile of the developed nations comparison chart. 
• B. There shall be no cap on the performance-based incentives that a company wishes to bestow on any employee so long as the performance-based pay incentives operate in both a positive and negative direction. 
• C. Corporations shall have complete employee termination powers of any employee found to be using the company resources or acting on behalf of the company in an illegal manner. The employer found to be acting in an illegal manner (as determined by a court of law) shall have NO RECOURSE (even if they had a contract) against the company. This includes executives. In the event that an employee is terminated for illegal actions (as determined in a court of law) their severance package shall be used to mitigate the damages awards from the court case and/or applied to the charity that is selected by the wronged parties. 

This is an extremely rough draft. I am sure there are plenty of edits and refinements that are needed. But it is a starting point for the things that could be asked for by the OWS movement.
If these items were started and finished the OWS movement would fade away into the non-existent state that it had prior to the first mobilization.
Enacting something similar to the set of demands above would be the fastest way to avoid a nation-wide civilian uprising.
I hope someone manages to put something together similar to this soon.
I welcome any comments.

Note: edited for formatting 5/5/17 (formatting issues discovered 5/4/17). Content unchanged.

Martial Law

The Occupy Wall Street movement is growing in momentum, as it should.
The core point behind it is to peacefully assemble in a show of solidarity with everyone else whom the corruption in our political system and greed in our financial system has inflicted harm upon.
The point of this is NOT to overthrow the government but, rather, to show those whom we (those assembled and those not assembled) have given power to for the expressed purpose of protecting our interests that the people are unhappy.

The sad outcome of this is that the politicians are disturbingly quiet on the issue. They have the power to diffuse the entire situation by calling for all of the assembled protesters to write them and call them. They could have diffused the situation by opening their ears and eyes and inviting a dialog on what we, their constituents, think is wrong. Instead they remain quiet. Their quietness on this issue is tantamount to trying to hide from it and trying to pretend like nothing needs to be done. They are, in essence, telling us that they do not want to listen to our concerns because we do not matter.

The way to solve this problem is to vote AGAINST the incumbent in the upcoming election. Regardless of your political affiliation vote for the incumbent's opponent. If enough incumbents are removed from their elected offices then, and ONLY then, will the people in power decide that they are responsible TO the people whom elected them.

I titled this post "Martial Law" because without the change being instituted at the upper levels we will receive martial law. Up until yesterday the OWS movement was mostly a peaceful movement with occasional incidences of violence being perpetrated by the LEADERSHIP of the NYPD. Yesterday that changed. Yesterday brought incidents that are reminiscent of the "Bonus Army" break-up in the 1930s. Yesterday brought the dawn of wide-spread police violence against protesters. Yesterday the police department and Sheriff's department in Oakland, California fired upon the OWS protesters with rubber bullets and tear gas. Flash-bang grenades were used on the crowd. There is even footage of one police officer deliberately throwing a flash bang grenade into the very center of a group of people who had stopped to assist an injured protester.

I dislike police. I always have. I see the uniform of a police officer and my first reaction is to move as far away from it as I can. I have NEVER seen them as a helpful force whose purpose is to protect me and I have, with few exceptions, not experienced police who were polite, respectful and competent enough to do their job correctly. I am not a criminal and I have never been arrested for anything. I have SHOULD have no reason to dislike the police as much as I do but it is incidents like what is happening in Oakland and New York right now that reinforce my opinion of the police.

This is a sad situation where the small percentage of the police on the streets are ruining the reputation of the blue uniform for the remainder of the population. This, ironically, is in parallel to the core problem that the OWS movement is protesting. The entire OWS movement is protesting a situation where a very small percentage of the people have ruined the economy for the rest of the planet and we've had enough with it.

The sad part is that most people don't even understand the full reasoning and depth of what they are angry about.....

If you are reading this and you are in a city where the police are abusing their authority then film it. Film it and submit it to the local media and the national media. Submit it to YouTube and any other outlet you can. Most importantly submit it to the police department's chain of command AND the management of the municipality. Submit it to the town council and be sure to enclose a letter saying that your vote will be against everyone currently seated unless action is taken against the police officers who perpetrated the crimes AND their supervisors for allowing the behavior.

This is a country of the PEOPLE not of the police. Don't let us become a police state under martial law. It will be worse than anything a terrorist regime could ever do to us.

The Pendulum Swings.... Always

Economics is an interesting social "science."

It has few hard rules and a complex feedback mechanism that makes nearly every mathematical function for prediction and modeling a circular reference.

The one hard and true thing we know about an economy is that it is based on the MOVEMENT of money. If one outlines that reality on a spectrum it looks something like this:

The very nature of an economy makes it very hard to predict how an economy will run and even harder to steer an economy where one might want it to go. All that we know is that we want the economy to be as close to the green zone as possible for maximum growth and earnings potential for everyone living within the economy.

The unpredictability of how to steer an economy is at the heart of the current issues with the economy.
It is at the heart because the lack of predictability makes it very difficult to determine how much government is needed to regulate the economy and in what areas.

Too much regulation will stifle the economy (at best, choke it completely at worst) but not enough regulation leads to a completely free market with no controls.

Governmental structures vary from completely oppressive regimes that micromanage EVERYTHING to a complete lack of government (anarchy) all exist. We have, throughout history, discovered one true and steadfast fact about the differing governmental structures: neither end of the spectrum works. Extremism in managing the government is destined to be a complete and total failure.

This same realization regarding extremism also exists in the managing of the economy. On one side of the spectrum above lies a shrinking economy and on the other lies complete prosperity. The spectrum model above, however, is not the only way to view the economy. One can easily convert the economy spectrum above into a pendulum that aligns with the political viewpoints of "liberal" and "conservative."

That new chart looks like this:

When one does this it becomes apparent that pushing an economy too far in either direction bring catastrophic effects to the economy as a whole. If the government generates too much interference then the economy suffers and, as a result, so do ALL of the people who depend on it. The opposite is also true; if the government does NOTHING to regulate the economy (or simply not enough) then the anarchistic free market will consume the forces of economic development and generate new controls that end up limiting the growth (or even generating shrinkage) in the economy.

The current situation, where the government regulation has been allowed to relax on many financial transactions and policies, has allowed the top 1% and the megacorporations and megabanks to direct monetary policy in such a way as to direct raw capital into the control of people whom already possess more than enough. When their aggregation of wealth exceeds their growth in expenditure they generate a situation of economic shrinkage by sequestering wealth.

As was stated above the economy depends on the MOVEMENT of money. If the money hits a savings or investment account and stops moving then it generates a shrinkage in the economy. This means that ALL savings damage the economy of the time in which the savings are saved BUT the aggregation of super-wealth creates a permanent level of damage because the money rarely comes back out. With the average person the savings eventually come out (emergency spending, retirement spending, buying that long-sought-after-thing, etc) creating a boost to the economy equal in scale to the original damage. As the population distribution is mostly flat (there are a couple of significant variations that can affect this) the saving in compared to savings out levels across the majority of the lower 99% are fairly steady... the problem occurs when the savings in of the top 1% starts to grow because their savings out levels rarely go up.

I think I have made my point on this. Excessive wealth accumulation is as damaging to the economy as governmental controls. It is as damaging to the free market as regulations. It is the root cause of the current economic crisis. It removes economic opportunity from everyone who is not accumulating wealth.

Shortcomings of the OWS Movement

The second major shortcoming of the movement lies in the fracturing of the American populace.

This fracturing is evident in the people who are arguing over the movement itself. It is also evident in the divergence of behavior between the protesters and the police forces that are monitoring their situation (particularly the leadership of the NYPD).

The longer the situation is able to fracture the people of the country the longer it will damage the average person.

On the plus side, the gathering has generated a specific level of quiet from the politicians. The politicians whom have lost all touch with the very nature of the lives of the people they allegedly represent. The flip side to this fracturing is that it is highlighting the divergence in the lives of the ultra rich and the average person.

So, this one shortcoming is also the core strength of the movement.

That is something that the detractors of the movement should keep in mind when they are stating that the movement is not making any difference and cannot make any difference. It can: the politicians see that the people can be a cohesive unit. They see that we can be a single voice. They see that we want a change. They see that we view THEM as a part of the problem. The core reality is that the more people who get involved in the movement and/or support it from afar the greater the power of the movement through the reduction of the fracturing of the populace. The smaller the fracture among the general populace the greater the fracture between the populace and those whom the movement is protesting. The greater that fracture the more valid the movement will be proven to be.

If you are unsure of whether to support the movement or not based on its lack of a cohesive agenda then consider the reality that the greater the number of supporters the less the specific agenda will be needed.

Politicians do not fear their populace but if the ENTIRE populace is screaming for change they may begin to do so for fear of being not-re-elected.

The Shortcomings of the OWS Movement

The more I think about the OWS movement the more I see some shortcomings that will need to be addressed for anything to come out of this.

The first is the lack of a specific agenda.
At the moment the core message of the movement is to simply inform our political representation that We, The People, are ANGRY about the economic developments of recent years and that we really want SOMETHING done before it is too late. This is a fantastic STARTING POINT.
The longer this situation continues the greater the need for a cohesive request to be made of our law-makers. A cohesive request to benefit the people and to stop the pendulum swing in the direction of bankrupting the masses in favor of sequestering wealth with the already super-rich.

Sadly, I have no ideas on how such a cohesive action could be made. The current movement, by its very nature, is a chaotic yelling match. It is many voices yelling a variety of specific messages that, at times, conflict with each other.

I would like to see a new political party come to the forefront on this. Perhaps not one that gain office but one which would be able to speak for the masses and voice the concerns of the many rather than providing sound bites that protect the wealthy or pretend (this is important as many things that APPEAR to help the many are actually ineffective) to benefit the masses. I would like to see some sort of group emerge who the government fears and whom the average person hears from daily if they pay attention to any media. I would like to see a group appear that does not advocate for an increase in spending while advocating for a decrease in taxation. I would like to see a group emerge whose sole point in existence is to provide a reasonable voice to the government on actions that will benefit the WORKING people of this country. Not benefit the people who choose to under-work (or not work at all) and certainly not the people who earn a living by exploiting those less fortunate than them. I want to see a group emerge that creates sound bites and proposes plans that are based on the mathematics of revenue collection and general expenditures and examines rules for the social hand-out systems to propose better ways of streamlining those systems.
Sadly, I believe that there are several groups whose purpose is to do exactly what I have outlined, but they are all ineffective are reaching the mass audiences.

Perhaps, if we are lucky, the groups whose purpose is to make things better for the average working person will, in fact, start having their voices heard by the core media.

More on Occupy Wall Street

There has been a lot of discussion on the facebook pages of friends of mine regarding the core reasoning behind the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I appreciate it when people challenge my views because they force me to reinforce my ideas with critical analysis and research.

I have one friend who is obviously very much against the entire movement and believes that the root causes that people are upset about are manufactured. This friend has challenged many of my positions on the movement and, as a result, I have done more research including crunching some solid numbers.

This post is all about those numbers.

One of the major tenants of the 99%'s complaints is that the value of their income is decreasing with each passing year.
One of the major counter arguments against this opinion is that in the past 20 years the minimum wage has gone from $4.15 to $7.25 an hour. This amounts to a raw 75% INCREASE in the raw number value. The people who disagree with the OWS movement demand an explanation about how a 75% increase in the raw figure can possibly be considered a decrease in effective wages.

Here is how:
The first thing that one must acknowledge is that $4.15 in 1994 is equivalent to $6.25 in 2011 money (You can check for inflation-corrected values here). $7.25 is higher than $6.25 so it still APPEARS that the minimum wage is a better deal to those confined to it for their incomes.

But they are not better off because the costs of living NOT rolled into the CPI exceed the increase in pay.

Here are the core comparison points that need to be considered when examining the minimum wage differences between 1994 and today:

1. The number of people on minimum wage in 1994 for whom the minimum wage was their primary household income is different from the people today for whom that is a reality. There are more people today trying to earn a full living for their families on minimum wage and fewer trying to merely supplement the household income on that pay scale. Lower pay works great for supplementary jobs (and jobs of people whom are not supporting themselves) but it is hardly a means to generate wealth for the primary "breadwinner" of a family. I will readily admit that I have not done the research to back up this perception, but I do believe that research will support the assertion that more primary incomes are on minimum wage now than ever before.

2. In 1994 there were still many companies that provided pensions for people who had worked for them for the duration of their careers. This was a no-cost benefit that the companies provided as a reward for loyalty. This was in the age of people working for a single employer for their entire career. Those days are gone. Pensions are almost entirely extinct and people must contribute to the retirement plan in order to get anything out of their employer toward retirement. This means that a benefit has been removed from the base pay of 1994 and it has been turned into a cost. This affects the effective pay on both ends: decreasing compensation AND increasing cost of living.

3. Health care costs have risen far faster than many other things in this country. The CPI accounts for some of this change, but it does not account for other aspects of it. The raise in the cost of health care is an added adjustment for many. Furthering this is the growing trend for employers to provide smaller and smaller percentages of the healthcare package as a benefit. If one includes ALL increases in cost of healthcare as part of the CPI-adjusted purchasing value of the dollar one still must consider whether or not a particular subject had full coverage provided for them in 1994 but must pay a portion of it now.

4. New costs that are considered essential have appeared in society. In 1994 the idea of going without electricity or a home phone was ludicrous. People assumed that everyone had both of these items and to NOT have them meant you were excessively poor or truly eccentric. Today the home phone has migrated to a cell phone, electricity is just as important as it was in 1994 (more so) but there is a new core utility: internet service. Many people can still get by without this new utility but children in school are finding that their schools are relying more and more on internet-based tools and content to save money on supplies and textbooks. To have a school-aged child in 2011 without home internet access is just as irresponsible as having no telephone was in 1994. This is a NEW expense and, therefore, the CPI does not incorporate it into the adjusted buying power of the dollar.

5. A budgetary affect that occurs only for people who have children is that of school supplies. When I was in school there were a great many supplies supplied by the school. In 2011 economic conditions have forced many schools to scale back on the supplies that they have available to students at no charge. Each and every piece of paper, pencil, pen, etc that a family has to purchase for their school-aged-children that they did not before is a new cost that is not included in the CPI. This new cost varies widely by school district and age group so it cannot be a standardized item that is applicable to all.

6. Additional government fees and regulations applied to the individual. An example of this is the state in which I live. In this state there is a car inspection. There has ALWAYS been a car inspection for the entire duration of my life. I currently possess a vehicle that will not pass inspection this year. The estimated repair cost is $2,000 for one of the problems and an unknown amount for the other. in the mid 90s I drove cars that were in worse condition that the one I am referring to now. I drove them and they passed inspection each and every year. The inspection criteria have both gotten stricter AND been more highly enforced. The reasoning for this is that each inspection attempt generates a fee (which has more than tripled in size since 1994) regardless of the pass or fail status. Each failure generates a list of work that MUST be completed to pass inspection. That work generates a sales tax. The net story is that the state has increased the fee AND made passing more difficult in a way to force more business to automobile service providers AND generate more tax revenue. The end result is that many people are driving cars without valid inspections because the "bogus" safety violations are NOT a danger to anyone and are too costly to fix. This is a cost that is NOT rolled into the CPI because it is an increase in the volume of car repairs required and not simply an increase in the cost of the car repairs themselves.

7. There is also the factor of the average debt load of the average college graduate. Those entering the work force from college now are bringing an average debt load of approximately $23,000 with them. Compare that to the rates of approximately 10 years ago and you see a nearly 77% increase in the volume of debt that people START their professional lives with. That increase in debt means an increase in debt payments which, in turn, is a decrease in the available money for other living expenses. At 5% interest for 15 years this increase in debt load translates to an increase of $79 in monthly payments. This alone is approximately equal to $.49 / hour in pre-tax income. That, alone, is nearly half the surplus generated by the new minimum wage as compared to the equivalent buying power of the minimum wage in 1994.

When you add up all of the factors listed above it rapidly becomes apparent that the $.90 hourly discrepancy between the effective $6.25 per hour and the actual $7.25 per hour is completely consumed by new expenses and items not covered by the CPI adjustment.

I am a solid example of this situation. I checked the factors listed above (salary, retirement planning, healthcare provision, etc) along with the expected time at work for the job I held in 2003 and the job I hold now. I did the inflationary adjustment on the 2003 figures. The end result is that my post-healthcare, post retirement planning, post taxes current income is a 49% reduction in buying power as compared to that of the position I held in 2003. Is my current gross pay higher? Yes but the effective purchasing power of my money is significantly less after all of my critical expenses are adjusted for.

One of my friends who is critical of the movement directed me to a "fact checking" article that did its best to normalize all of the tax revenue data for all income earners in this country. The end result of that article was the claim that the top 1% (who own 40+% of all the wealth) pay their fair share of the income taxes at 32.1% of the taxes and that that means that they are only earning 32.1% of the income. That article, at best, is reporting the figures on the IRS-labeled taxable income; at worst it is blatantly warping the data to misrepresent the wealth distribution. Either way, the math is just-plain-WRONG. In a situation where there is a volume of wealth and a means to both increase and decrease that wealth (income and expenditures) each and every year the net volume of wealth of any population group will asymptotically approach the income value for the group. If the income is below the wealth holdings then the holdings will decrease over time until they equal the income level and vice-versa. I believed this to be true and then I build a spreadsheet to prove it (the non-pretty version is here). If you adjust the starting amounts (currency, not percentage) for each of the population group's starting cash, income and outflow you will quickly see that if the income % is above the owned percent then the owned percent rises and if it is below the owned percent the owned percentage falls. You will also see that for any one group's net ownership to go up another group's wealth must fall by an equal amount. This is a VERY simple model but it is effective at demonstrating the core principles at work.

These are the reasons that the bottom 99% are unhappy. These are the seeds that led to the OWS protesting. These seeds have been properly cared for and watered to germinate into the full protest movement against the upper class because the actions of the upper class over the last decade have generated a greater squeeze on the already tightening budgets of the middle class. When pensions are being cut and life-savings are being drained from corporate holdings while the CEOs are taking multi-million dollar bonuses there is a HUGE problem. When bankers are developing schemes to trick (yes, stupid) investors into borrowing more money than they can afford to pay back and then foreclosing on their homes and making them homeless there is a problem. When corporations are making bad business decisions and losing all of their customers only to receive a handout from the government because they are "too big to fail" while smaller companies have to make it on their own there is a problem. When mega-corporations are receiving bail-outs from the government and the executives in charge of the companies are still collecting salaries that are many times that of the average worker there is a problem. When one of the richest men in this country (Warren Buffet) is stating in no uncertain terms that the loopholes in this country's tax codes allow him to pay a much smaller percentage of his income in income taxes than ANY employee he has while he has the greatest level of disposable income in the company there is a problem.

I am not advocating that all of the wealth be evenly spread out for that would result in a larger problem than we have. I don't care if the top 1% own 40% of the wealth. I care that the remaining 99% be able to live and survive on what they have. I want the taxation to be applied equally for all, regardless of what income bracket they are in. I want everyone to have their chance to work hard and save and make their own lives better. I want an end to people getting further behind the harder they work because that leads to a self-perpetuating system of poverty that the masses CANNOT escape without a violent revolution (see the French Revolution and half the current conflicts on the African continent for details). I want to avoid a situation where the ultra-wealthy have sequestered money above their threshold of being able to reasonably spend it because that capital gets locked away and ceases to power the economy. The economy requires money MOVE. Once people reach a threshold where they cannot spend all of their income their savings rocket upward and the volume of money that is poured back into the economy decreases.

When greed runs unchecked the problems of society get magnified and destabilization occurs. Greed has been running unchecked in this country since about 1986. It has finally caught up with us.

There are MANY historical examples that closely mirror the current situation that all lend support to the feelings behind the OWS movement. The times leading up to the Great Depression, Germany after WWI, the economic crunch in the mid 1800s in the US (broken only by the HUGE inrush of capital from the gold rush in the Rockies), the economic conditions that led to the revolution in Russia (allowing communism to take root), the economic conditions that led to the French Revolution, the banking crisis in the 1300s that destroyed the European economy so completely that we suffered the 400 years of the Dark Ages.... the list continues onward. All of these historical events have economic forces that drove them, all of them have similar scenarios to where we are today in this country.