5 ways "we" ruined the occupy wall street generation

The occupy group turns my stomach. They need to grow a set and take charge of their own destiny.

 

it seems like thats what this started out as but it looks like the majority of the ones you see have no idea what they are doing out there and just want something for nothing.

 

I will start with manual labor jobs. I firmly believe that manual labor jobs are underrated but having said that, I beg to differ on certain aspects of this beast. If you flip burgers for a living you will never be able to climb socio economic ladder. You will never be able to send your kids to college. You will never be able to go on vavations, drive a car that does not break every other week etc etc. That alone makes manual labor jobs less attractive. People associate manual labor with low wage. In many ways that is why today's youth does not aspire to work in a factory or work in construction or be a farmer. There is literally nothing appealing about those jobs. Long hours, overworked, underpaid, halfway unemployed, living contract to contract or until factory shuts down. If and when they come up with a way where lack of college degree will guarantee a GOOD house that does not fall over, a DECENT car that does not break, ability to go on vacations, live a decent lifestyle without stressing on whether to buy $3.00 loaf of bread or $2.54 loaf of bread, not having to live paycheck to paycheck... then maybe people will start appreciating manual labor jobs.

College is another beast that has blown itself out of proportion. There is no 1 job out there that could not be taught to those who are WILLING. Significant drawback of college education is the cost. News media constantly quotes $25,000 national average for college tuition. Pfft. Yeah maybe if you go to community college and get an associate degree. Going to state college I was spending $7,000 per semmester not counting living expenses, food. My college charged $257 per credit. Each book cost $100+, parking cost $100 per semmester. College edumacated people do not feel a sense of entitlement because they are snarky needy greedy individuals but because it is understood that GOING to college allows you to climb socio economic ladder. You earn this much with a high school diploma, that much with an associate/technical degree, that much with a college degree. Unless you reivent the wheel (highly unlikely).. no person in this country... absent extraordinary set of events can start competing financially with people who have spent tons of money and went to college and got a career job (hopefully). It is a perpetual circle with no beginning and no end.

And finally the entertainment. I am a supporter of illegal downloading. Well I was a supporter of illegal downloading until ALTERNATIVES became available. Case in point. It costs $20 to buy a music CD with 1 good song and 19 garbage songs. Along came napster and people started having a 21st century downloadfest... something that was previously done through tape sharing. Then itunes came along and allowed people to pay $1 per song and get what THEY wanted. It became hugely supported enterprise. Likewise it used to cost $20 to buy a dvd that you only watched once or twice. Now you can rent 25 disks per month from netflix for that same amount. Entertainment should NOT have significant monetary value attached to it. Why does Tom Cruise earn $50 million per movie while entire filming team, special effects team and all other support teams combined earn less than 5th of what he earns? Why does Lady Gaga earn $100 million or so per year where statistically 99% (hint hint) of the USA combined earn less than that in their combined lifetimes?!

Social inequality is THE reason why occupy movement has come to be in the first place. If they stripped every single dime from movie stars, sport athletes, singers etc and gave them a standarized salary.... and used that money to REPAY ALL DEBTS... maybe then we would not have teenagers parading on wallstreet demanding better times.

Some numbers are just unfathomable. I want you to think for a second. If you spent $1,000,000 per day every day of your life you would not even come close to exhausting Oprah's banking account. Average CEO earns about $7 million per year. Average american earns half that in his or her 40 years of work including investments. How do you explain that?!

Sigh...

 

Plenty of people work their way up the career ladder starting out flipping burgers. The Smart people take their skill sets they acquire and strive to step a little further out of their comfort zone and learn new things and acquire new skill sets to better themselves. The people that tell themselves they'll never amount to anything and Johnny over there makes more money that me waaah waaah wahhh will never amount to anything in life and will flip burgers forever.

$18,000 average sounds about right. I went to a state college (3rd largest in GA). When I started college in 2003, my tuition was about $1500 per semester for 12 credit hours and above. By the time I graduated 11 semesters later in December 2008, tuition was about $1800. I probably spent about $18,000ish total in tuition and $400 in books on average per semester. So that was 22,000 give or take. I had a state funded scholarship my first year of college, then I lost it. Fortunately My parents had some money set aside for tuition. I paid for books. Then my last year of college, I applied for tuition reimbursement with my company and they paid for my last year of school (3 semesters). If my parents hadn't paid for it, I still would have gone to school and taken out student loans. I worked full time during college and lived on my own. Aside from tuition, my parents didn't help me out. I paid for everything. I moved out at 19. Remember, It's a CHOICE where you want to go to college. ALSO, JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A DEGREE DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE GUARANTEED A JOB! I work with people who make less money than me who have Masters degress and are dumb as a box of rocks. Book smarts isn't everything. It's about how you apply yourself and market yourself to employers.

Not sure why you brought up the music stuff...

As for the Social inequality bullshit you're spouting. Actors and Music Artists make lots of money because SOMEONE IS WILLING TO PAY THEM THAT MONEY. They obviously have a marketable skillset that people WANT, NEED, OR DESIRE and are willing to pay for it. If you're jealous of the money they make, then get off your ass and come up with a skill, product, or service that people WANT, NEED, OR DESIRE and you too can make lots of money. It is no ones responsibility to repay debts except for the people who took out those debts, NO ONE ELSE'S!!

I explain the income gap for CEO's the same reason as state above. CEO's have a skill set (running companies) that corporations and business NEED to operate and remain profitable. So therefor they are willing to pay a CEO their desired salary for the skill set that the CEO provides.

 

it talked about music/entertainment in the linked article.

I agree with you on the actors/sports stars making what they make.
if people stopped going to see their movies and stopped supporting the major sports teams then I'm sure they wouldnt be making as much money...It's basically the consumers who are paying them.

Same goes for the CEO's of these companies. If someone is jealous of what they make or do then i suggest the stop bitching about it and get started on becoming a CEO and when you get to that position then you are more than welcome to spread your wealth.

 

Gotcha, It's been a few days since I read the linked article. I must have forgotten about that part.

Exactly! Glad someone else understands this simple concept. If people did not go see their movies, buy the products they endorse, etc. They would not make the money they do.

If people did not buy the goods and services that companies provide, the companies would be out of business.

Here's a simplified version of how business works for the occutards out there.

If you opened a lemonade stand and Bobby across the street opened a lemonade stand too but sold better tasting lemonade and everyone seemed to buy Bobby's lemonade instead of yours. Are you going to scream social injustice because Bobby makes more money and because someone told you that if you opened a lemonade stand you would make money too? Or are you going to figure out why Bobby's lemonade tastes better, then find a way to make your product better, then try to sell why your product is better than Bobby's to his customers?

This is how the markets work (simplified) ^^^ This is why some people are more successful in life than others. This is how businesses grow to hire more people. This (simplified) competition is what keeps the economic engine turning. If you can't make it out there in the real world, maybe you should ask yourself what Bobby is doing and try to mimic that because he's obviously successful. Seizing Bobby's money because he's more successful than you and your business is losing money isn't going to make you any more successful.

 

I'm one if those blue collar / manual labor guys that flipped burgers when I was young.

HOWEVER, I don't think charging (stealing) more money from those who legally earn it is right. Leveling the wages and paying off "our" debt is flat communisim. I can't believe an able bodied 28 year old man could even think such a thing let alone post it. Sounds like somebody needs mommy to help them out.

 

99% of these "Occupier" losers would otherwise be in their parents basement whining about how unfair it is that their mommy and daddy wouldn't buy them the latest iPhone... the other 1% of them are the criminals working their way through the hippie trash communes victimizing the most naive of the bunch...

I am a big supporter of free speech, and the whole bill of rights, ...but these losers have overstayed their welcome, ...they are dead weight on society, as evident by their childish ranting, property damage, filth, and the burden they've been putting on taxpayers (the rest of us who pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps day in, ..day out) in these cities for months - necessitating the extended police, EMS, public works/sanitation, traffic impediments, ...all costing the real "working" citizens more and more so the freeloaders can freeload...

i've had it, ...instead of evicting them from the communes,... evict them to the eurozone utopia of their choice...

 

America is no longer based on markets and capitalism, instead our economy is designed as 'socialism for the rich' – it is designed to ensure that the wealthiest people take all of the gains, while regular Americans cover any losses

-Robert Johnson

 

..........Sigh
People who bash the rich are simply jealous. People who are rich, are indeed rich for a reason. They worked hard to get where they are. Granted, I'll admit some people don't deserve the pay they recieve, but that's life and you'll find that anywhere. If people spent less time spewing their sob story, and more time figuring out how to improve their means, and trust me, it can be done... We'd have a lot better country. I've never heard more whining and lack of responsibility in my life. People who blame others for their poor decisions and lack of initiative disgust me. I'm 18 and live in a relatively rich suburb but by no means are me and my family loaded. We're very middle class maybe lower-upper only because of how high the taxes are where we live. My highschools parking lot was filled with Beamers, Range Rovers, and Mercedes Benz while I had my 99 Taco Granted, I was jealous and wished I had their cars, but I had the satisfaction of knowing nothing was handed to me and I was learning of the value of things I earned. I started working at 16 and I hope I don't ever have to stop. If I ever have to resort to a handout from the government, I deserve all the humility that comes with it. End Rant.

TLDR People want handouts and don't wanna work hard to become wealthy. They want everything handed to them and the rich are bad because their rich and they in turn aren't.

 

I would want to see a reporter go through the crowd there and see how many of them have iphones, the latest laptops/Macbooks, fancy cameras....

 

You haven't been around long enough or done enough to even grasp the bigger concepts outside of your little high school... get a job, go to school, learn economics, and in 10 years come back and talk to me about "In my life." What all 12 seconds of it? pfft!

Grown folks are talking...now shhhh!

 

Haha yeah, considering Apple is probably one of the MOST "greedy" corporations out there.

 

I agree!!

 

Old school. They don't make them that-a-way anymore. Every one wants a paycheck with as little work as possible.

 

oh, they have,... check it out daily on any non-LSM media site, ..breitbart's sites, etc,.. i think it was jessie waters (from O'reilly Factor), who went down there and tried to get some signed up for job applications, ...one of them was a "job application" to work at solyndra - hillarity!

 

This just goes to show how close minded you are. I have a job and go to school. Don't attack my age because I was raised with decent ideals. And just because I'm 18, doesn't mean I haven't read up on ecomonics. Clearly, I've read and seen a little more then you

 

lets not turn this into a pissing match, guys.

I think all that Solus is saying is that your still pretty young (nothing against you personally). "reading up on things" and "ideals" only go so far.

 

that's a shame you weren't involved. Probably could have made for some hilarious posts.