You know, it’s an odd thing when you see on news reports and forums when they talk about these “Occupy This And That” groups and it seems to be the default for every source to tell them to “go get a job”. Odd I say since I’ve been out of and seeking employment for a very long time now (granted, started up Jester Brand and am slowly but surely making these comicals pay the bills) and can confirm with a great deal of accuracy that those people are @#$%@holes. Indeed, the problem here is that unemployment is just astronomical! And don’t even get me started on the “reported figures” since they’re bupkis. Just try and apply somewhere, or look at a stripmall that’s completely barren, or look at your neighborhood with all the empty homes for sale because the owners were laid off. The problem, my friends, isn’t going to just go away.
This, I suppose, is a bit of a sensitive issue with me, since it impacted me directly. Luckily I have many friends and family and viewers like you who have helped me through this. But many people aren’t so lucky… And who’s going to help them?
I think my biggest issue with the whole situation is how it was handled on the governmental level. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, trickle down NEVER works (well, in some specific cases, but not with economic reboots)! Give money to big companies and banks and what not who lay off their staff the next day isn’t a sign of progress. And the other issue is with the whole hiring process! It is seriously messed up right now. Because so many of the upper level people are now on the lamb (totally used that wrong), the expectation for entry level is much higher. Now you see “Entry Level Job: Requires 5 yrs of experience”. What the hell are they talking about? Sorry college kids, you guys are going to get hit the hardest with all of this.
The other problem I see is this… many companies have slimmed down to save money. That’s a fancy way of saying they laid off half their staff so the managers and owners can still bank their Christmas bonuses. So now you have a company, making the same product or service, with less people doing twice or three times the work… Get where I’m going with this? If things just magically turned around tomorrow and the news announces that the recession is over and everything is fixed… If that happened, what is to make the rest of us believe that companies will un-lay off the workers? What leads us to believe that companies will hire to fill those thousands (or even tens of thousands) of jobs they shoved on to their remaining staff? Yeah, something tells me that a lot of folks will find out the hard way that those who are looking to get back with their old companies or fields will have a tough time finding spots left open, and those that remained will be burdened with carrying the weight of those who were let go. Time will tell, but for now it looks like we’ve still got some rough waters ahead.
Heck, all those people mocking the protesters should just be thankful that all they are doing is just raising a little rabble. There’s a word for what happens when classes become split too far, when people get tired of choosing between food for themselves and for their children, when their pleas for stability and equality fall upon deaf ears… And historically, the outcome has never been all that great for the people at the top of the class system. Not saying it will, but just saying that maybe instead of mocking people, it might be in everybody’s best interest to try and squash this whole economic poop hole for good.
There’s a lot of theories and such about how to get the whole thing back on track, and I’d love to hear in the comments some good discussions about how to do it (keep it nice and orderly, ol chaps an chapettes!). My theory is that people need to spend more… hoarding money causes more problems than not, so getting that good old fashioned materialism back up in order will definitely give a booster shot to the system. Otherwise… I’d say penalize large companies for layoffs (especially if they get stimulus money)! For every person out of work is another major hit to our economy and it’ll take longer to recover. Oh right, and add duties (taxes), heavy ones, for services rendered in foreign countries! That might not play nice with out nations, but outsourcing jobs is never a good thing.
Anyways, the floor is open, lets hear some fixes people! We got a civilization to save! (well… at least we can say we tried… I’m sure all the suits will just laugh at us derisively and toss some gold shillings on the ground to shut us up)
(PS… I’m still out and about… I’ll be back soonish!)
Unfornetly we can’t solve it we did in the first great depression ( yay for the roosvelts)
unfortunately we can’t just let this hit a depression… I mean, when it hit bottom, things were getting done and trying to fix a lot of probs that they had with the system (except for whatever reason we still let people buy on margin… guess it lasted for a short time eh?)
Hmm, the wallstreeters in my part of the country seem to mostly protest capitalism, without using that term. In America, protesting capitalism is kinda like fish protesting algae. My hipster state folk are telling people to stop supporting large corporations. I would love to weed out the corruption in some of those, but I cannot ignore the fact that those businesses managed to be successful by providing something people want.
Take Starbucks, people whine about the coffee being overpriced frequently. If you truly cannot afford it, by all means put your money somewhere more useful. I personally think their stuff is TASTY and I look forward to the medium mocha frappichino I get once or twice a month; pricey, sure, but I love the flavor and consider it $4.50 spent pretty well.
While I do think a change is needed, for anything to happen at all, we need a more unified stance on what we are arguing for.
For the great depression, Roosevelt and the rest of the world were lucky that Hitler was a nutjob and that later the japanese went batshit crazy. Unemployed and employed alike flocked to join the war effort, which not only employed people directly, but it also freed up positions in existing jobs AS WELL AS creating a whole host of new jobs dedicated to manufacturing for the war. The severe inflation that was developing as a stupid response to the depression (I’m looking at you, baskets of cash left on the sidewalk and people stole the basket) leveled out because the money started moving in a rapid way due to all the war stuff speeding it along.
Someone’s said that war seems to be a natural factor through which humankind’s overpopulation is stimulated. Cruel, but in a way true. Now I think war may be a factor of economic growth too, but the scale has changed. In the past people were employed because they had to be. No people, no products, simple.
Nowadays how many people does a big company employ compared to, like, 70 years back? Machinery and computers are doing great job in manufacturing, but this way there are more people and fewer things to do. Some idealistic ideas were that one day, due to the advancement in technology, people won’t need to work. Unfortunately, the inequalities between people and their urge for profit and domination makes it impossible. It’s like holy grail used for dental only. You work — you have.
It’s sad, but when I look at China and India, where people are doing all the work for the machines (not vice versa!) everyone has work, everyone has money (VERY LITTLE but the prices are also very low) and most of them consider it normal. That’s how beautiful dreams of technology helping mankind go down the drain.. :/
I could rant and rant about that one for weeks it seems…
Wow. I didn’t know things were going good in China at all. I guess I should have looked into it instead of assuming from the vast number of gold farmers.
On the other note, anticorps have a point(it’s most likely someone else’s point somewhat misunderstood and delivered in the worst way possible, but still). Big companies and monopolies are just fine unless led by someone nasty, but since those who can step over/on people and still get a good night’s sleep have a major advantage climbing up the ladder, they either ARE led by someone nasty or someone nasty replaces the former leadership, eventually. The problem is, protesters blame the corporations as a whole and not the people who own them. Their employees are honest folk and they don’t do anything bad by working there. And if you take the money out of these corporations these folk will lose their jobs while the owners are already set for life and laugh at us from the top of their big green mountains.
On the wars, I don’t really know about you guys and this comes from someone whose nation lost in both of them(sadly, serves us right), I really hope nobody who is in charge in solving these problems comes to that conclusion. War is bad. I don’t care about economic stimuli and whatnot, good people died out there. And a big lot of them never even signed up for it.
I’m not saying it’s good, something is still rotten in the state of Ramen and Pandas, but it’s a different situation. I still prefer to earn more, who doesn’t, but I am aware that if I earn more, someone else earns less, the money pool is limited so the prices are prone to inflation (Demand rises — they want more money, they want more money, unions want higher wages — a vicious cycle).
I’m totally against corporations in this sense, as I see them as a tool of spreading one’s policies and influence and then being able to use these to manipulate people. I’m not into demonstrating, but I’m aware that they often weaken the economy instead of strengthening it (if it’s an invasive corporation i.e. pumping out cash into their homecountry just like da evul Naga did with water on Zangarmarsh :P )
I never claimed that wars are good and never will. In my view, if one desires conflict, they should immediately be restrained as I can’t imagine a reason good enough to start killing those who want no part in it. And I’m from a country that suffered quite badly from WW II and later on the communists (still, I don’t blame the people living in those countries, I blame the leaders)
Seems this is becoming more and more of a political discussion, where it’s dangerous to go alone ;)
Cheers!
yeah, I’m not sure I understand the whole “anti capitalism” thing. maybe anti-materialism, but the idea of exchanging goods and services helps to make for a large and sophisticated society (like, advanced I mean), because it divides labor and such. but yeah, I think the problem isn’t in the corp itself, but how it is run.
actually, right now china is having issues too (in some places). I worked at a company that had a factory there and those guys were complaining cause their economy was so tied to ours, that when people stopped buying junk, many people lost their jobs there too. so all this economy stuff is hurting everyone. not a good situation. but hopefully we can rebuild and restructure how we do things globally.
great discussions here you guys! >D
“Unfornetly we can’t solve it we did in the first great depression ( yay for the roosvelts)”
FDR prologned the Great Depression. The destruction of Europe which created a huge market for American goods after WWII solved the Great Depression by increasing demand for things that we made that Europe no longer could. Had that market not been available, we would have slumped back into depression after WWII.
“It’s sad, but when I look at China and India, where people are doing all the work for the machines (not vice versa!) everyone has work, everyone has money (VERY LITTLE but the prices are also very low) and most of them consider it normal. That’s how beautiful dreams of technology helping mankind go down the drain.. :/”
If we would elminate the minimum wage and let the market itself set the price for labor, we would have a similar situation develop as in their labor market. If you make a man cheaper than computerization again, those jobs would come back. Wages would drop, there would be more jobs, and prices would drop (prices would drop less but thats because of the over-inflated price of labor we currently have).
one of the things that definitely helped was some investors who injected tons of money into the system as buying stocks and whatnot… iirc. this helped to give a mini reboot. probably didn’t cause it to reform, but it helped.
Some thought about Great Depression:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usq2eiqCfjU
And remember war dont give economic boost because you can only kill someone with it. How many tons of steel you need to build battle ship? How many Trucks you can build from that? And how much you can earn using them?
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/That_Which_Is_Seen,_and_That_Which_Is_Not_Seen
“Society loses the value of things which are uselessly destroyed;” and we must assent to a maxim which will make the hair of protectionists stand on end—To break, to spoil, to waste, is not to encourage national labour; or, more briefly, “destruction is not profit.”
cool!
After all the latests messed up events , economy, wars and so on…. I have no trust in the Government… The name itself seemed to awake a slumbring rage inside me.
I am wondering how these incompetant and greedy idiots get to decide what hard-working citizens should od…
Where they suppose to find solutions to these problems…all they care about is to ” how to make a bigger profit and ripoff people ! ” or ”how to hold our position in the office by s*cking the corporate c*cks ”
With the latest SOPA and PIPA , I am fully convinced that Government does not give a Sh*t about the country they should protect and their only alliegence is for their pockets…
There are thousands…MILLIONS suffering and when they can help them or fix the messed up system THEY caused, all of a sudden they decide to deal with internet and copyrights because it hurts the ”BILLIONERS” ……
There should be more events like that and hell if they keep pushing people off like this…there is gonna be a Revolt mark my words. Just look at the events at Romania… People had enough of getting pushed around by Fat , incompetant jackasses who living off on their hard earned money and time… If they keep this up, there WILL be consiquences…
Sorry if I sound a little bitter but for days now I keep hearing the news getting worse and worse and the only thing media seems to care about which celeb wiped their ass in which restaurant…. I am sick and tired of this ”corruption” and I had to say it somewhere…
I feel helpless to do something about it since even if these events happen around the world, the backlash will effect me in the end and I won’t be another ”casuality”. Soo there.. thats how I feel about it…
I’d really really like to think the people in charge had our best interests in mind, but looking at all their actions to “help” the people, it seems the only ones who come out of this without a scratch are the people who grease the pockets of the suits at the top.
seems like they should hold the small group of people that allow huge layoffs and steal tons of money accountable… but that’s just silly, rich people are never in the wrong.
I’m going to admit, I didn’t read all the previous comments, because I kinda wanna focus on something many people don’t realize, that I noticed someone talking about in a previous post… A complaint that you no longer need masses of people to create a product from machines, and that the number of manual labor jobs has greatly reduced as a result… A few things on that topic, though. The job conditions for those kinds of things were absolutely terrible before the new machinery. Now robots can do the dangerous things for people, instead of putting them in harms way, as they used to. And also, you have to think about the end-game a little with robots… Given natural supply and demand, things should eventually improve with their presence. Demand for goods will eventually level off, because the earth can only handle a certain number of people, there IS a soft cap to population. And if you slowly replace everything with robots, and I mean EVERYTHING, goods production, energy production, even robot production, the costs to produce goods approach zero, and production rates increase massively…by simple economics, any good that doesn’t put a massive strain on natural resources essentially becomes free. Basically, replacing everything with robots is a possible base of a successful communist society, because you don’t have to depend on people to try their hardest even though it won’t help their position, and robots work many times faster than people anyway.
Also, on another note, SOPA sucks. People don’t even see the real problem behind it…The big sites, facebook, youtube, and google, won’t be shut down, because they realize that will make people riled up enough to DO something about it. They didn’t become the leaders of massive corporations by throwing away every advantage they had, they’re smart, if nothing else. It will only hit the smaller sites that won’t have a big enough following to do anything about it. However, the big problem behind this is it marks a step in the direction of catering to the coorporations over the consumer, which is scary. In history class you read about the “Gilded Age” in which businesses completely dominated the country, and I’ll be damned if this isn’t a step back towards that.
meh, it won’t be as much of an issue when the robots rise up and rebel against their masters… >)
but you’re right, there is a tipping point somewhere in there… so unless we can have some sort of communist state similar to that of Star Trek, where people are free to pursue matters of discovery and exploration, while all basic needs are met through technology, then we’ll have a very big problem when the classes with money just have machines do all the work and the 99% of us have nothing left to do but rebel. which won’t last long against those terminators…
SOPA… sopa is the result of a good idea turning bad. yes, we need better constraints and abilities to respect copyright holders, but not at the expense of civil liberties. just think of the massive repercussions it would have had on the legal system… man… just crazy! but that’s a discussion for another time. >)
Just because I hate the shiney-arsed fatcats that piss in one of your pocets while picking the other doesn’t mean I have any sympathy for the “Occupy” protesters.
I’m not sure what yours are like, but the ones we have here are NOT “honest workers thrown on the scrapheap after a life-time of toil”
What we DO have is the usual rent-a-crowd of burnt-out hippies, professional uni students, vegans, animal libbers and the like. Often the Homeless and the mentally-challenged turn up as well as they blend in pretty well with the rest of the rabble. Sometimes, militant union officials turn up for a bit of “Solidarity’ for the TV cameras, only to leave again just as quickly.
The really odd thing ‘tho is this: They are NOT protesting against Big Biz so much as about their ‘right’ to ‘reclaim’ (occupy) public places. In practice, this means tent shanty towns in all of the city parks - neatly excluding the ordinary members of the public in whose name the are “protesting”.
yeah, I guess it depends on what chapter you’ve got going on, but the local people here seem to be a good mix of folks. well, just judging from what I see on the tvs.
lol, I wonder if they have generic rabble rouser crowds… “Have a promotion? Want to make it look like your business is doing well? Need to protest something? Well stop on down to Rent-A-Crowd! Where we match the right crowd to the right task! Protesting the latest bill? We have the college/hipster theme. Want to draw more customers to your car dealership? Try on our trademarked ‘Midwestern Moms’ theme! Reserve your Rent-A-Crowd today and receive a 10% larger crowd bonus!”