The Revolution is on. Going to the rally today.

[CatBuilder]

Originally Posted by michael pierzga

Concentration of wealth is a worthy issue to attack. The high profits and personal wealth found in the Banking industry are already in the sights of government and civil society. The Volker Plan is attempting to address this.

I dont see VOLKER PLAN on any protesters placards ?

One reason the middleclass is falling behind economically is a lack of competitiveness. Recent college entry SAT test score reveal that this years crop of students is the dumbest, least competitive class since records began.

I dont see this on protesters placards ?.

I have to second every post Boston made. He's right on point. That's the truth.

One thing I should point out for you, Michael:

Calling every new generation "dumb" is some kind of farce. It's simply not true. I have a personal experience in this area. I am a well educated physicist who left that profession when the funding (investment in the country's future) kept diminishing and pay went down.

I was young, so I didn't understand bubbles, but I moved into the computer industry in the late 1990's. I did well for a while. Then... they started to bring in H1B Visa holders from India to take all the programming jobs. I actually *was* the capital, not the labor - and a large part of my software company's difficulties were from first, the Indians in the USA doing the programming but ever worse, from the Indians in the USA selling the services of Indian software farms overseas. They under bid us by about half on every project and stole all of the accounts. My programmers were highly educated people (as am I) and we were put out of work by globalization. See, my programmers couldn't live on $10/hr in the United States. The Indians taking our jobs could live on $10 a day! So, our jobs (at the project and CEO levels) were sent over to India. It decimated the industry and shrank salaries for computer professionals quite a bit. This was the first real recession for me - the dot com bust that sent me into being a marine professional.

I am a real life case of someone who isn't "dumber than previous generations" but also lost his place in the workforce. I was de-funded out of physics and globalized/outsourced out of the computer industry. Yet, I have all the qualifications and skills necessary to be a premier asset to any company in need of someone technical.

It doesn't matter how smart you are if your jobs vanish. That's what happened to me. Because of that, I have not been able to afford a house (real estate was sky high while I was losing everything) and have had a very rough time in life compared to what was suggested I'd have when I took on tremendous college debt. (Lived in boats and vehicles because it was affordable, have never had health insurance, except when crewing on megayachts outside the USA, etc... etc...) As an 17 year old child, they told me, "don't worry, it seems like a lot of money, but your job will pay for these loans and you will have plenty left over to life a very well off life. Just sign these papers. They are your ticket to living a good, well to do life."

So, I signed them.

Well, that college education turned out to be worthless because there are few jobs available that I can use it in.

I was smart enough, however, to re-invent myself and took my hobby (sailing) and turned it into a business. A business serving the rich. I'm a glorified butler now, instead of a scientist. I'm sure you know the feeling.

However, I was trained for a certain type of job (physics / computer science) and cannot put my knowledge to work due to a defect in our system here in the States. THIS is why people are angry. I share all of the same problems as the people out protesting. Yet, we hear that there is nobody qualified for today's jobs. This is complete BS. I'm sitting right here and cannot put my knowledge to work for this broken country. They use the "we have no qualified workers" excuse to bring more and more H1B visas in and send more and more work overseas. Bringing in more H1B visas depressed the wages of the technical worker here (smart people) and makes it so they (I) have to go and work in the marine industry instead to be able to afford a modest, but reasonable standard of living. It also makes it so that the labor costs and salaries in the industry decline year over year, racking up more profits for the company in question.

I have a different philosophy than these protesters, however. Mine is "screw the country, I have citizenship elsewhere if it gets too unbearable." So, I concentrate on improving my own life (rather than the country) and create the next charter boat with the money we have from selling the last one... all earned by being a rich guy's boat butler.

If it wasn't for me doing this blue collar type work, I'd be homeless too.

See, these protesters were sold rotten apples.

They were told to take on massive college debt (as I was also told) with the guarantee that they would be able to pay it off with their future income, no problem at all. Well, seeing as how there are no jobs to provide that future income, people's entire lives have been turned upside down:

No houses, crappy cars, no jobs, possibly a WalMart job if you're lucky but no advancement and very little pay, no health insurance, no way to pay off student loans, no way to have a family, taxes being used for wars and bailouts, etc...

This is why they are pissed off and rightfully so.

They have worked very hard and done everything they were supposed to do, yet... they are left with nothing.

They're not dumb. The system is just broken beyond belief for anyone that isn't one of the following...

a) born into money, or...
b) somehow lucky, or...
c) born a long time ago and able to secure your life before the system was broken to this point.

Troy's comments are also 100% dead on.

I've felt and known this stuff for years. It first happened to me around 2000-2001. I thought my way out of it by downgrading to become a blue collar guy from a white collar guy. Found work that couldn't be sent offshore or have funding dry up. Not everyone is as crafty or willing to make the same sacrifices. Some of these people want jobs, houses, families, health insurance and communities. My wife and I chose to do without these things so as to be able to survive. Some of them want a system where the majority of people can control the destiny of the country, rather than the few.

[CatBuilder]

Originally Posted by daiquiri

Yes, I have seen the link and it is very informative, thanks.
What worries me is the possibility of the history repeating. We all know what has happened in the aftermath of the Great Depression, starting from Europe and spreading to the rest of the World. I can see several worrying social parallelisms between the current situation and the period of Great Depression.

Don't worry, I don't think there will be any aggression in the places it was after the Great Depression.

If anything, it'll be fighting over the resources in the Arctic Circle, some regional war near Israel or some incident in the Pacific.