The somewhat-articulate ball-capped “Wall Street Occupier” bemoaned being banned from the stock exchange… Flanked by a group of 99%ers, he chastises CNBC’s correspondent for the network not inviting him into the studio (dress code), then offers up “the movement”‘s message…
I bullet-point:
Bold means I absolutely sympathize, not bold means I don’t… my retorts parenthesized…..
But first, allow me to interject: Generally I wouldn’t give the likes of Michael Moore my (and now your) attention… However, the Wall Street Occupiers’ message, bolstered by yesterday’s CBO (Congressional Budget Office) report suggesting that the top 1% more than doubled their share of the national income over the last thirty years (I’ll have plenty to say on this shortly), is just too aggravating (for me, for the most part) to ignore…
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*We have an unjust and unfair economic system that benefits the wealthiest few at the expense of the many… (the wealthiest employ the many)
*Not a single arrest here, on this street, with these banks… (there was one taken away today)
*Where’s the special prosecutor?(waste of time/taxpayer $)
*Don’t the American people deserve some answers and some justice?
*Where did their money go? (check their credit card statements)
*Who stole this money? (how much did they save while working)
*Who misappropriated or played with it awrong?
*They (the Occupiers) want the wealthy to be taxed more… (and then what? redistribute?)
*They want Glass Steagle reinstated… (no more regs, please!)
*They want to get money out of politics…
*What bankers do good is buy politicians…
*The reason why this protest isn’t centered in Washington is because those are just the employees of this street… (nonono… you’d have better luck going after the politicians for accepting the payoffs)
*This is the center, this is the core of the problem… (nonono… it’s D.C.)
*They (politicians) don’t listen to the people, they only listen to who’s lining their pockets and those people happen to be right down this street… (they listen to the polls too)
*These are people who have a story to tell and I’m just one of those people… (you’re a fat cat multi-millionaire)
*We need to build a much better country, a much more equitable and fair country… (nonono… we need a free country… fairness = someone else deciding what’s fair for someone else)
*That’s not an economy that’s run by the people… (thank God it’s not run by the occupiers)
*I do not own a single share of stock and I have never owned a single share of stock. (the Dow was at 2,169 the beginning of the year you made your first movie – that’s an 8.04% annual rate of return – with several bear markets along the way… what a dumbasscus)
*I don’t support this, this is a rigged casino, I don’t know why anyone would put in their hard-earned money, especially after what happened in this last decade. (ditto last comment)…
*These guys on this street played with people’s future, played with people’s pensions.
*These derivatives and credit default swaps, no regulation from DC, and it’s still going on… (CDSs are legitimate hedging vehicles…. just need to stop bailing out the abusers)
*Who’s making this money? Who’s divvying this pie up so that the 1% get the majority of it? (that’s just an ignorant statement)…
*They want to know where their jobs went, they want to know where their future’s going to be… (how did they become such victims… did it have anything to do with personal choice?)
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Summary:
Michael Moore made his first movie, Roger and Me, in 1989…
He mentioned (referring to the occupiers) something about them “all having iPhones”…
Where would we be, as a country, if the 1% hadn’t created their businesses and all those jobs in the process?
What country does enjoy income equality anyway? Go find one then tell me if you’d like to live there… And if you would, what are you waiting for?
Are we not each, as individuals, built uniquely… Would you personally be pulled higher or lower if by some magic we were all blessed with equal talents and motivation? Would the consumer be more or less motivated in such a world? Would Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, yourself, have achieved all they/you had in such a world? Is it even true that”we have an unjust and unfair economic system that benefits the wealthiest few at the expense of the many…”??
Hmm…. Today = iPhones/Androids (etc), 6th graders with laptops, flat screen TVs (with 99 thousand channels that I betchya 99% of the 99% own), affordable air travel – you can imagine all the other stuff I could add when comparing to 1989…
Yes I know; 9% unemployment, record foreclosures, etc… And yes I feel for those folks… My only hope is that they remember where they live; the land of the free to work your ass off… Picketing Wall Street ain’t going to land them a job or start them a business…
Moore rails against what he doesn’t understand… How could any American in his right mind protest capitalism? Capitalism is synonymous with capital, growth, opportunity, entrepreneurship, freedom, hard work, ingenuity, invention, prosperity, productivity…
Notice the areas I bolded above, there he’s talking cronyism – and I couldn’t agree more… Moore might actually inspire the hearts of true capitalists if he understood his own undertaking, if he chose his words more carefully… But, that said, he has made $millions, he has definitely capitalized on America (big time!)…
This nation was built by people exploiting capitalism… Tour Ellis Island when you have a chance… Unrelenting individuals, heroes, risked life and limb to come to the country where they’d be granted the opportunity, the freedom, to work their asses off – and keep the fruits of their labor!!!!