1%-er walks into the lion's den

[Monkeyleg]

Here's a video of a Wall Street one-percenter trying to talk sense to a bunch of the Occupy idiots. He makes his points very well, but he's just talking to a wall. They don't want to really hear what he's saying.

The loud woman in the middle is really annoying. He should have just smacked her in the head with the microphone. Or, better yet, follow through on his own suggestion that he close up shop and fire 150 employees.

The leeches are running the country.

[TommyGunn]

There's an old saying about debating with an idiot which says ,  basically; don't.  At some point it becomes impossible to determine which debater is the idiot.
I've seen a lot of videos of these occutards (as Neal Boortz likes to call them [and I'm appropriating the word]) and few if any of them seem to have any common sense, or education, or even edumakashun, for that matter.
Placards decrying capilalism dismay me.  What do they expect or want?  Socialism?  Communism?   Do they have the slightest idea what those "isms" did to Russia from 1917-1989?
Capitalism is really nothing more than free enterprise. 
While there are many things wrong with our country today, doing away with free enterprise isn't a cure. 
The media acts as though it's Wall Street and Big Bankers that weere the cause of the recession.  They seem to totally ignore Freddie & Fannie as a cause, and the Community Reinvestment Act as a catalyzer, and our fearful leaders in D.C. like Bawney Fwanks and Chris Dodd, et al.  This feeds into this anticapitalism feeding frenzy these occutards dwell in.

 

[grampster]

There's an old saying about debating with an idiot which says ,  basically; don't.  At some point it becomes impossible to determine which debater is the idiot.
 

The proper saying is,  "Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk."

[Perd Hapley]

Shouldn't your title read,  "1%-er walks into the nursery"?

[wmenorr67]

I thought this was going to be a joke about a bike gang member.

[Strings]

>I thought this was going to be a joke about a bike gang member.<

That might be kind funny to watch, actually

[Grebnaws]

I work weekends and recently came across a group of weekend protesters outside our downtown bank and asked, to no one in particular, if any of them would pass the required drug test required by my employer. The response was a lot of flippant nonsense about how drugs should be legalized and what they do in their own time is none of their employers business. Certainly, I agree. But I am employed and had to pass a drug test to become so. My employer has open positions and is interviewing next month. Will any of them even apply when the online website and all application forms clearly state in bold red letters that a drug test is required?

OWS isn't entirely about employment but jobs and wages are the heart of the matter for many of protestors my age but I have become deeply suspicious that many of them simply don't desire to WORK for living and are actively engaging in recreations that guarantee their ineligibility for a skilled labor (no degree required) job like mine. They aren't happy. Neither am I. At least I can do my complaining on the clock.

Fwiw - I mentioned this at work that same afternoon. It is a PC work environment but on weekends the big wigs are off so we can play loose. My boss told me that she personally knows many of the local OWS protestors and that some of them are trust fund babies, live-at-home middle aged men and drug addicts. In short, they are not people I accept criticism from.

[MicroBalrog]

I didn't know you needed to have a job to have a valid opinion.

Especially if you're getting the money from a private trust fund.

[MechAg94]

I didn't know you needed to have a job to have a valid opinion.

Especially if you're getting the money from a private trust fund.

In this case, Yes,  you really do need to have a job or do some sort of productive activity or you probably have little or no understanding of economics.  It is difficult to learn the value of money and work until you earn your own money.  Complaining about capitalism when you are an unproductive idiot just means you put yourself at the bottom rung of the ladder and don't want to work to get higher.  

It doesn't matter if the trust fund is private if you didn't earn it yourself and are just living unproductively off the hard work of someone else like your parents.  In this case, it is nuts to me as they are living off the hard work of someone else, but then complaining about the system that allows them to live the way they do.  It fits some stuff I have read that the biggest proponents of communism and other efforts to "change the system" are rarely the lower class, but the idle rich and the dispossessed.  

[seeker_two]

A trust fund is just privatized welfare....


http://www.top-wide-receiver-training.com/images/hard_work_crushes_talent_football.jpg

[MicroBalrog]

It doesn't matter if the trust fund is private if you didn't earn it yourself and are just living unproductively off the hard work of someone else like your parents.  

There's no moral duty whatever to have a job. People can quite well get an understanding - flawed perhaps, but then neither does experience stop people from having flawed understandings - of things by observing them, not necessarily by participating.

[Monkeyleg]

Following the logic here, can I assume that some of you would favor taxing or prohibiting your father or grandfather passing down his favorite rifle to children or grandchildren?

[Perd Hapley]

I think the assumption being made is that the trust fund occupier is complaining about their own personal circumstances, when their trust fund gives them a head start most of us don't have in life. I would guess that is probably happening in some cases.

That doesn't mean they can't express an opinion about "the system" making things difficult for those without a trust fund. Of course, they would get better results from simply allying themselves with the Tea Party, as it is pushing for actual solutions and not more socialism.

[birdman]

It's not the fund, it's the person.

The hardest working couple I know puts in 60+ hour weeks, started their own company doing defense work, and stand to inherit several hundred million from her parents and grandparents.

True, one's friends aren't a statistical example, but you are making a broad generalization and I'm offering an exception, as if there's one, there must be others.  And I can guarantee those exceptions aren't out protesting.

[Grebnaws]

No, they mustn't have a job to have an opinion. They are entitled to whatever opinion they like, it simply won't be validated by me when I discover they're better off, working less, and have more private wealth than I do, and then further attempt to extort even greater wealth for themselves. Eventually what they're demanding will come out of my pocket and not the 1% they think it will be coming from. The case is worse for those who have the ability to work but have put themselves into a situation where they can't find work when their lifestyle choices compromise employment opportunities. Circumstance alone isn't responsible for their plot in life and some of them are squarely to blame for their problems. The roadblocks to success were placed there by themselves.

Work is a sacrifice and sometimes the sacrifice is greater than just the 9 hours a say spent on the job. It's the time away from friends and family, the lousy schedules you have little control over, the sobriety you must keep, the living arrangements you make to stay near work, and even the transportation choices that have to be made for sake of economics. Some people are defined by the work they do and others work just for the paycheck. Too many of the disillusioned young adults I know can't accept that. They all believe that their job and education defines them and doing anything less than their ideal job or taking less than their ideal salary is beneath them. These are the aging college idealists who have not found found utopia. They will not suck it up. They will scream and shout and take you down with them. They're wrong, but they can't accept this and they are more than happy to vote your rights away to make themselves comfortable. At that point their opinions simply aren't valid and won't be considered.

[MechAg94]

Following the logic here, can I assume that some of you would favor taxing or prohibiting your father or grandfather passing down his favorite rifle to children or grandchildren?

Not at all.  I was mainly referring to people with trust funds who do nothing productive complaining about inequities in a system they know nothing about.  Anyone can have an opinion, but some opinions are worth more to me than others.

Personally, I don't feel I really learned the value of money until I was earning my own money and living in my own place paying all my own bills with no one else to do it but me.  I also think people would learn something when they have to work in a group or company and see the difference between guys that give and damn and work hard with skill versus those that do as little as possible or don't care about the quality of their work.  When you see that difference, you start asking yourself who the people are that don't have jobs or can't keep a job.   IMO, you don't get exposed that stuff unless you are in a situation where work needs to get done. 

[Monkeyleg]

Personally, I don't feel I really learned the value of money until I was earning my own money and living in my own place paying all my own bills with no one else to do it but me.

Same here.

[Tallpine]

I was earning my own money

It's not our money, it's the government's money.  It says so right there on the bills.

They just let us spend a little of it on ourselves because they are so generous.