Who are the protesters behind Occupy Wall Street–and what do they want?

[Darryl1958]

Almost all of the demands coming from the OWS protesters are stupid. But there is a real problem.

Which of the demands are not stupid?

It seems like a lot of people here are dismissing the plight of the recent college grads, for instance. A lot of college students did do all of the right things and are now underemployed. Had they graduated two years earlier, they would be doing much better.

Elections have consequences for sure.

That is a fact. They got unlucky, due to the economy.

yes, it was just a run of bad luck.

N

obody should be saying that these people have no right to complain. They are worse off than the others who did exactly the same thing and there is no reason for that other than that they got unlucky…

There is a reason though, and that reason is that Obama was elected.
Elections have consequences.

I know people, in the sciences even, who have been looking and haven’t found ‘good’ jobs. One of my great friends go great grades, worked multiple jobs throughout school, captained an athletic team, and had a reasonable choice of major (he majored in a hard science). After school, he searched and searched for a job, but found nothing. So now he’s working for a liquor store half time and in a packaging plant half time. That is underemployment. He doesn’t really complain, but it would be understandable if he did.

There is a the law of supply and demand at work here too. Encouraging everybody to get a post secondary education drives up the price of education as the deman outstrips the supply, but the product that is put out, namely vast numbers of people with advanced education, there is a glut in demand.
A good functioning economy would help use of some of the oversupply, but with energy prices rising and continuing to rise due to ‘green’ tape that effectively dries up supply, with class warfare talk of ‘making the rich pay’ making new entrepreneurs wary to invest in new jobs, and with a social climate that is overall quite hostile to the business class in general, to the point of marching against and denouncing it, and vandalism, business is getting the clear message that now is the time to lay low.

Sometimes it can feel like the older generations are shafting the younger ones. Social Security? Current retirees paid in much less than they will get back. We pay in and pray to get 70% back.

Surre. Younger generations are the ones getting shafted by the eat now, pay later agenda that Obama has become the herald of. Old fogies in the Tea party movement disagree with this, but young people by and large have bought into this system.
It is not too bright for those who have gone on to higher degrees to reject the movement that doesn’t want benefits today being financed with their children’s and grandchildren’s future, but this is very much what young people have chosen.
Elections have consequences.

Previous generations could expect some level of economic growth or that if you worked hard, went to college, and acquired useful skills, you would get a job and be successful. That is how it worked. But now it’s not like that and everyone questions why the young people are mad…

Good jobs are inversely related to a bad economy, and for the economy to function, Wall St is an integral part of that. If jobs are the goal, then getting the economy functioning again is the means.

 

[Pirate_Talker]

iwillrisenow;8436676:

I’m glad someone stepped up and actually acknowledged how bad things truly are right now. Thank you,** Alan55**

.

Since when does wanting to be able to afford to eat make you a Communist?

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. That sounds about right. It’s how you want to pay for your needs that make you Communist or not. If you want to take from the rich then yes. I like what Herman Cain said
Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! …]
These demonstrations…I honestly don‘t understand what they’re looking for…It is not someone’s fault because they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed.”

What do you do for a living?

 

[bellasbane]

I know people, in the sciences even, who have been looking and haven’t found ‘good’ jobs. One of my great friends go great grades, worked multiple jobs throughout school, captained an athletic team, and had a reasonable choice of major (he majored in a hard science). After school, he searched and searched for a job, but found nothing. So now he’s working for a liquor store half time and in a packaging plant half time. That is underemployment. He doesn’t really complain, but it would be understandable if he did.

Now imagine what it must be like for a high school graduate with NO college degree to get a job. How is he or she going to compete with your friend for those “entry level” positions that conservatives claim is the first step up the ladder?

An entry level job is not going to help our college students get out of debt - so they are screwed. A high school graduate is not going to get an entry level job, because they are all being taken by college graduates desperate for any kind of work - so they are screwed.

The old conservative pathways to success have evaporated due to the unregulated greed and stupidity of Wall Street. It’s a mess for everyone - expect the Wall Street bankers and the 1% who created the crisis in the first place. They are back in business and making a bundle.

I hope this turns into a real revolution.

 

[timotheos]

campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/letter-new-york-city-protestors



Looking at the photos of the protestors sort of reminds me of the Oingo Boingo song Capitalism (not that I agree with all the sentiments of the song):

In spite of being part of the New Wave music scene in the early '80s, I found this band to be surprisingly conservative in lyrical expression.

It’s a good thing that these protestors do not represent any substantial movement. They are basically the same group that shows up at G8 summits and Republican conventions. Our future will require people of great personal fortitude and mettle, and those who do not have it will have the choice to either quickly acquire it or be swept into the whirlpool of chaos and despair.

It’s coming, I fear. I can feel it. And I am not the only one.

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

Which of the demands are not stupid?

Elections have consequences for sure.

yes, it was just a run of bad luck.

N
There is a reason though, and that reason is that Obama was elected.
Elections have consequences.

There is a the law of supply and demand at work here too. Encouraging everybody to get a post secondary education drives up the price of education as the deman outstrips the supply, but the product that is put out, namely vast numbers of people with advanced education, there is a glut in demand.
A good functioning economy would help use of some of the oversupply, but with energy prices rising and continuing to rise due to ‘green’ tape that effectively dries up supply, with class warfare talk of ‘making the rich pay’ making new entrepreneurs wary to invest in new jobs, and with a social climate that is overall quite hostile to the business class in general, to the point of marching against and denouncing it, and vandalism, business is getting the clear message that now is the time to lay low.

Surre. Younger generations are the ones getting shafted by the eat now, pay later agenda that Obama has become the herald of. Old fogies in the Tea party movement disagree with this, but young people by and large have bought into this system.
It is not too bright for those who have gone on to higher degrees to reject the movement that doesn’t want benefits today being financed with their children’s and grandchildren’s future, but this is very much what young people have chosen.
Elections have consequences.

Good jobs are inversely related to a bad economy, and for the economy to function, Wall St is an integral part of that. If jobs are the goal, then getting the economy functioning again is the means.

I mostly agree with this. Good job as always, Darryl.

I haven’t read the whole thread, but I think a lot of people here tend to ignore the crucial fact that the protest is mostly being organized by ACORN, MoveOn and Socialist/Communist/Anarchist people-------so the idea that these are basically “fed-up, middle-class ordinary Americans” is just plain disingenous.

Half of the folks in the protest that I’ve seen on TV and/or YOUTUBE don’t even know why they’re there, to be honest.

 

[mystagogia]

I spent some time reading the profiles put up by people at the OWS site. Almost every post mentions at least these two beefs: 1) humongous student loans, and 2) unaffordable health care.

One thing that does strike me as odd is the obsession with health care coming from a group of people who are quite young on average. This is contrary to my life experience. When I was young and in the restaurant business surrounded by other mostly young people, nobody except management ever had any health insurance. Even when it was offered for a small monthly payment very few takers could be found. Nobody worried about it much either, the classic “I’m never going to die” mentality of youth! So it does smack me of a little bit of orchestration that so many young people are coming along here with health care concern right near the top of their list of beefs. I have met very few young people in real life for whom it is held so dear.

Regardless, let’s look at the two most prominent beefs (student loans and health care costs). Wall Street does play a role in the financing of these things, but to a vanishing degree. In fact, thanks to Obama, Wall Street is out of the student loan financing permanently. The industry has been nationalized. Wall Street’s involvement in health care financing is largely directed and channeled by the legislature and bureaucrats in Washington and in the state capitols. So the protesters are really in the wrong place on this one.

Secondarily, in both the cases of education and health care costs, these two places where the federal government has inflated costs across the board and created massive economic bubbles. They have done so in an effort to make these things more affordable by throwing government money after them. The same thing was done to the housing market (this is an area in which Wall Street has far more culpability) and the popping of that housing bubble is what caused the great meltdown of 2008 that’s ushered in the current depression.

I feel for the young people, because they are young and starting out life in what is a global depression. The great majority of these protesters are shackled with the nearly worthless college degrees the education mills are stamping out thoughtlessly, degrees which are certainly nowhere worth the great mountain of debt that’s been accrued getting them. These kids cannot shake that debt, ever. Bankruptcy will not protect them from student loans - they are specially exempt. They are functionally entry level low-skilled workers carrying a mountain of debt. You would be a fool to hire them and invest time and training developing them unless you understood clearly and can accept the fact that you’ll be losing them as employees the minute they have gained the ability to sell out for a better sounding gig elsewhere. They simply have to, they have a debt albatross around their necks.

We are all victims of the housing bubble and the health care bubble; these kids are victims of the additional education bubble. And it’s a particularly nasty one, too.

What is unfortunate is that the kids seem to understand little of it, since their solutions typically involve expanding the exact same policies that led to these bubbles forming. They cry out in their pain, yet demand more lashes!

 

[mystagogia]

Now imagine what it must be like for a high school graduate with NO college degree to get a job. How is he or she going to compete with your friend for those “entry level” positions that conservatives claim is the first step up the ladder?

An entry level job is not going to help our college students get out of debt - so they are screwed. A high school graduate is not going to get an entry level job, because they are all being taken by college graduates desperate for any kind of work - so they are screwed.

The old conservative pathways to success have evaporated due to the unregulated greed and stupidity of Wall Street. It’s a mess for everyone - expect the Wall Street bankers and the 1% who created the crisis in the first place. They are back in business and making a bundle.

I hope this turns into a real revolution.

Actually, I’d take the high school grad over one with your typical Master’s degree any day. Especially if we’re talking about aged 24+. Someone that age with a successful employment record and bearing only a high school diploma is a heckuva lot more attractive than the kid just coming out of school with a Master’s these days. That high school grad has demonstrated an ability to work in the real world and support himself. The guy with the Master’s has demonstrated an ability to stay in school and probably run up huge debts he’ll struggle to repay.

The Master’s guy would attempt to move up and out at the first possible moment, too, costing me my investment in him and setting me right back at square one. I’d also have a greater question mark around his reliability and suitability in a work environment, which are simply unproven and unknown. The high school grad will have at least proved by then that he can hold a job, show up, do work, or not. He will have also proved that he had the brains not to get himself involved in a costly college education he could ill-afford.

 

[gnjsdad]

These are people who have awakened to the fact that their government is a plutocracy; run by the rich and powerful for the rich and powerful.

Capitalism and democracy are incompatible. Democracy means that the wealth of society is diffused among the greatest number of people. Capitalism inevitably concentrates wealth and power in the hands of the few. It turns government into an instrument for carrying out policies designed to favor the interests of the rich and powerful.

 

[rlg94086]

Why does everything have to be a communist plot?

I don’t know. Ask the young folk carrying the communist placards.

 

[rlg94086]

.Since when does wanting to be able to afford to eat make you a Communist?

I don’t know. Ask the young folk carrying the communist placards.

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

I spent some time reading the profiles put up by people at the OWS site. Almost every post mentions at least these two beefs: 1) humongous student loans, and 2) unaffordable health care.

One thing that does strike me as odd is the obsession with health care coming from a group of people who are quite young on average. This is contrary to my life experience. When I was young and in the restaurant business surrounded by other mostly young people, nobody except management ever had any health insurance. Even when it was offered for a small monthly payment very few takers could be found. Nobody worried about it much either, the classic “I’m never going to die” mentality of youth! So it does smack me of a little bit of orchestration that so many young people are coming along here with health care concern right near the top of their list of beefs. I have met very few young people in real life for whom it is held so dear.

Regardless, let’s look at the two most prominent beefs (student loans and health care costs). Wall Street does play a role in the financing of these things, but to a vanishing degree. In fact, thanks to Obama, Wall Street is out of the student loan financing permanently. The industry has been nationalized. Wall Street’s involvement in health care financing is largely directed and channeled by the legislature and bureaucrats in Washington and in the state capitols. So the protesters are really in the wrong place on this one.

Secondarily, in both the cases of education and health care costs, these two places where the federal government has inflated costs across the board and created massive economic bubbles. They have done so in an effort to make these things more affordable by throwing government money after them. The same thing was done to the housing market (this is an area in which Wall Street has far more culpability) and the popping of that housing bubble is what caused the great meltdown of 2008 that’s ushered in the current depression.

I feel for the young people, because they are young and starting out life in what is a global depression. The great majority of these protesters are shackled with the nearly worthless college degrees the education mills are stamping out thoughtlessly, degrees which are certainly nowhere worth the great mountain of debt that’s been accrued getting them. These kids cannot shake that debt, ever. Bankruptcy will not protect them from student loans - they are specially exempt. They are functionally entry level low-skilled workers carrying a mountain of debt. You would be a fool to hire them and invest time and training developing them unless you understood clearly and can accept the fact that you’ll be losing them as employees the minute they have gained the ability to sell out for a better sounding gig elsewhere. They simply have to, they have a debt albatross around their necks.

We are all victims of the housing bubble and the health care bubble; these kids are victims of the additional education bubble. And it’s a particularly nasty one, too.

What is unfortunate is that the kids seem to understand little of it, since their solutions typically involve expanding the exact same policies that led to these bubbles forming. They cry out in their pain, yet demand more lashes!

Very well done, Sir.

Very well done.

 

[St_Francis]

Before we get all crazy arguing over who the OWS folks really are, let’s take a look at their “demands:”

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

---

How do these sound to you?

Two TRillion dollars “demanded” for infrastructure and environmental projects?

In addition to unknown, but extremely large amounts for college education and health care for all (including, I imagine, the billionaires…)

Open balloting instead of private votes for unions?!?!? Now why on earth would those attempting to unionize want to know who voted and how??? Do you think that people will be able to vote freely if their vote is public? Yeah, right.

So before you go feeling sorry for this supposedly spontaneous grassroots movement, look at what they are “demanding.” Are they really just upset because they cannot get a job appropriate to the work they put in at college? Or are they being manipulated by people with a different agenda, as were so many during the radicalism of the 60s?

 

[rlg94086]

I hope this turns into a real revolution.

I have no doubt.

 

[JimG]

Before we get all crazy arguing over who the OWS folks really are, let’s take a look at their “demands:”

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

---

How do these sound to you?

Two TRillion dollars “demanded” for infrastructure and environmental projects?

In addition to unknown, but extremely large amounts for college education and health care for all (including, I imagine, the billionaires…)

Open balloting instead of private votes for unions?!?!? Now why on earth would those attempting to unionize want to know who voted and how??? Do you think that people will be able to vote freely if their vote is public? Yeah, right.

So before you go feeling sorry for this supposedly spontaneous grassroots movement, look at what they are “demanding.” Are they really just upset because they cannot get a job appropriate to the work they put in at college? Or are they being manipulated by people with a different agenda, as were so many during the radicalism of the 60s?

Oh my. And here I thought they were just a mob of crazy anarchists.

Crazy, yes, as indicated by the above demands.
Anarchists, no. Because getting those demands means gaining power and using it to tyrannize the nation.

Never trust a mob making demands.

 

[bellasbane]

Actually, I’d take the high school grad over one with your typical Master’s degree any day. Especially if we’re talking about aged 24+. Someone that age with a successful employment record and bearing only a high school diploma is a heckuva lot more attractive than the kid just coming out of school with a Master’s these days. That high school grad has demonstrated an ability to work in the real world and support himself. The guy with the Master’s has demonstrated an ability to stay in school and probably run up huge debts he’ll struggle to repay.

The Master’s guy would attempt to move up and out at the first possible moment, too, costing me my investment in him and setting me right back at square one. I’d also have a greater question mark around his reliability and suitability in a work environment, which are simply unproven and unknown. The high school grad will have at least proved by then that he can hold a job, show up, do work, or not. He will have also proved that he had the brains not to get himself involved in a costly college education he could ill-afford.

Theoretically that sound very good. However, that is not how things appear to be working out for real people in the real world:

Unemployment Rate by Education (August 2011):

Less than a high school diploma = 14.3%
High school graduates, no college = 9.6%
Some college or associate degree = 8.2%
Bachelor’s degree and higher = 4.3%

bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm

Having a college degree clearly helps you to get a job - However, is it enough of a job to support the huge debt that many college graduates carry?

Then you also have the problem with a disproportionate unemployment rate for minority populations, for example:

Black unemployment: Highest in 27 years

What’s up with that? How do those “bake sale” Republicans who want to end affirmative action explain these numbers? Could it possibly be discrimination or are Black people just too stupid or uneducated or lazy to find jobs?

The housing bust devastated minority populations - most of whom had the majority of their personal assets invested in their homes:

Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics

So when I see the kids protesting on Wall Street - I see them protesting not only for the injustice done to them, but for the injustice done to all those Americans who may not be as articulate or educated or have the time & resources to protest.

 

[rlg94086]

Oh my. And here I thought they were just a mob of crazy anarchists.

Crazy, yes, as indicated by the above demands.
Anarchists, no. Because getting those demands means gaining power and using it to tyrannize the nation.

Never trust a mob making demands.

My guess is that the vast majority of the mob don’t know what the demands are. I think St Francis’ last question gets to it. These young folk are being manipulated by others. Is their anger/frustration real? Absolutely. This economy is frustrating for many, self included. I changed industries and worked an entry-level job for almost two years and an entry-level management job for nearly a year. We’re hiring, so send a OWS kid my way. I might hire him. [EDIT ADD] Oh yeah…no degree required![END EDIT]

Meanwhile, I hope to get out, and return to my former career at 2-2.5x what I’m now making…soon.

 

[Sabda]

Actually, I’d take the high school grad over one with your typical Master’s degree any day. Especially if we’re talking about aged 24+. Someone that age with a successful employment record and bearing only a high school diploma is a heckuva lot more attractive than the kid just coming out of school with a Master’s these days. That high school grad has demonstrated an ability to work in the real world and support himself. The guy with the Master’s has demonstrated an ability to stay in school and probably run up huge debts he’ll struggle to repay.

The Master’s guy would attempt to move up and out at the first possible moment, too, costing me my investment in him and setting me right back at square one. I’d also have a greater question mark around his reliability and suitability in a work environment, which are simply unproven and unknown. The high school grad will have at least proved by then that he can hold a job, show up, do work, or not. He will have also proved that he had the brains not to get himself involved in a costly college education he could ill-afford.

We really need to stop thinking that college degrees are necessary in order to find a job. Fact is they are not. You can find a decent job without the degree. In fact my bil just got promoted to a supervisor position and he doesn’t have a degree. He’s never even been to college.

I have 2 nephews and a stepson who are the same age as a lot of the kids at this protest. One nephew makes good money at a steel mill and is currently in Afghanistan. The other has been working the oil fields sense he graduated from high school. He also is chief of the local fire department. Both of them own their own vehicles. The second also has a bike and an apartment. He’s 25, he’s brother, the first nephew, is 23.

My stepson is married has a 2 yr old and a baby on the way, owns his own home and has 2 cars. One of which was bought brand new 3 years ago. Recently entered the Air Guard. He has some college but no degree. He’s also 25.

BTW, the two who are in the military did not join because of money. They joined because of a desire to serve.

My dh has some college served in the Air Force for 8 years and makes good money working in the industrial sector.

I have thought about this issue and 2 questions have popped up.

1. Who benefits by all these people having a degree?
   
   The colleges and universities- it’s all about the money people!
2. Who is pushing the idea that you HAVE to have a degree if your going to get a job?
   
   See answer to question #1.

When I was in elementary is was you HAD to have a high school diploma if you want a job. When I got to high school it became you HAD to have a college degree if you want a job. Now it’s becoming you HAVE to have masters if you want a job. What’s next a phd?

This idea that a college degree is necessary to even get a job needs to stop. Yes, college degrees are necessary for certain specialized jobs but they are not necessary for all jobs. It wasn’t so long ago that many of these same jobs didn’t even require a degree, so why is the degree necessary now?

 

[Sabda]

Theoretically that sound very good. However, that is not how things appear to be working out for real people in the real world:

Unemployment Rate by Education (August 2011):

Less than a high school diploma = 14.3%
High school graduates, no college = 9.6%
Some college or associate degree = 8.2%
Bachelor’s degree and higher = 4.3%

bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm

Having a college degree clearly helps you to get a job - However, is it enough of a job to support the huge debt that many college graduates carry?

Then you also have the problem with a disproportionate unemployment rate for minority populations, for example:

Black unemployment: Highest in 27 years

What’s up with that? How do those “bake sale” Republicans who want to end affirmative action explain these numbers? Could it possibly be discrimination or are Black people just too stupid or uneducated or lazy to find jobs?

The housing bust devastated minority populations - most of whom had the majority of their personal assets invested in their homes:

Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics

So when I see the kids protesting on Wall Street - I see them protesting not only for the injustice done to them, but for the injustice done to all those Americans who may not be as articulate or educated or have the time & resources to protest.

Break all that down by age and get back to me. I’ll betcha a lot of those people are 40+. My mother has been laid off twice in the past 3 years. The people at the unemployment office admitted to her group that age discrimination was very real. Most of the people she saw in the unemployment office where 50 and older. Most of those people are not going to have college degrees. The people who where 30 and younger got hired on a lot faster than the older people did.

 

[Darryl1958]

By your own logic, you should invest in a dictionary or should have paid more attention in English class.

Sorry guys, but sometimes people make mistakes.

(Unless you meant to write that, because in that case, I have just made a mistake.)

Well if the gall thinks she is going to make any money selling drugs or her body, that would be the biggest mistake of all.

 

[rlg94086]

Break all that down by age and get back to me. I’ll betcha a lot of those people are 40+. My mother has been laid off twice in the past 2 years. The people at the unemployment office admitted to her group that age discrimination was very real. Most of the people she saw in the unemployment office where 50 and older. Most of those people are not going to have college degrees. The people who where 30 and younger got hired on a lot faster than the older people did.

Yep. I’m 46. One of my newest salesman is in his 50s…former business owner.