Are 99%ers poking fingers at a failure of capitalism?

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151 comments, last by JustChris 12 years, 5 months ago

[quote name='way2lazy2care' timestamp='1321133523' post='4883286']
Another good one:


Isn't that slightly undermined by the paychecks and tuition coming from by tax dollars.
If you want everyone to literally follow that example your basically advocating communism.
[/quote]

Eh. It's kind of valid when a bunch of recent college graduates are getting upset because they didn't get jobs the day the graduated are protesting the lack of jobs. In reality as a college graduate there's one employer that will instantly hire you, give you work experience, pay for your room and board, give you a fairly competitive salary, great benefits, great pension, and pay off your college loans. It's interesting how few people even see it as a viable option.

I say this somewhat ironically as I wouldn't have thought about it as an option either when I was post-graduation job hunting.
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[quote name='Kaze' timestamp='1321137208' post='4883297']
[quote name='way2lazy2care' timestamp='1321133523' post='4883286']
Another good one:


Isn't that slightly undermined by the paychecks and tuition coming from by tax dollars.
If you want everyone to literally follow that example your basically advocating communism.
[/quote]

Eh. It's kind of valid when a bunch of recent college graduates are getting upset because they didn't get jobs the day the graduated are protesting the lack of jobs. In reality as a college graduate there's one employer that will instantly hire you, give you work experience, pay for your room and board, give you a fairly competitive salary, great benefits, great pension, and pay off your college loans. It's interesting how few people even see it as a viable option.

I say this somewhat ironically as I wouldn't have thought about it as an option either when I was post-graduation job hunting.
[/quote]

It's certainly valid. However, it's validity is degraded a bit when there are fewer job opportunities than there have been for the last couple of decades, jobs that are available have lower compensation than in the last couple of decades, current circumstances depress lifetime earning potential, and joining up with the military right now means signing up for likely serving in some wildly unpopular military actions, which a lot of those protesters also may have protested against (both the engagements at all, and also the way that they were run).

Things really are bleaker for recent graduates than they have been for their predecessors. The fact that the economy can operate as a de facto press gang to shunt people into the military, which is conveniently a black hole of government spending, doesn't really even that out. Plus the government could fund something other than the military to do the exact same thing.

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[quote name='Kaze' timestamp='1321137208' post='4883297']
[quote name='way2lazy2care' timestamp='1321133523' post='4883286']
Another good one:


Isn't that slightly undermined by the paychecks and tuition coming from by tax dollars.
If you want everyone to literally follow that example your basically advocating communism.
[/quote]

Eh. It's kind of valid when a bunch of recent college graduates are getting upset because they didn't get jobs the day the graduated are protesting the lack of jobs.[/quote]
Next day. Six months from now. What's the difference?

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[quote name='Burnt_Fyr' timestamp='1320945098' post='4882658']
To chime in with my two cents, it appears to me that capitalism is not failing. What I do see is the middle class losing ground to the upper class, and siding with their soon to be peers, the lower class. Eventually the 3 groups polarize will completely, and the paupers will oust the princes.

Marx FTW! Seriously, I can see society diverge into two truely distinct layers due to technological or economical developments, but thats not whats happening today.

[/quote]
Yet in the rest of your post, you appear to agree...


Whats happening today is in fact a massive increase in equality between the western marginally productive worker and the vast numbers of actually poor people eager to take their subsidized jobs.

See above... middle and poor becoming one.


... But this trend is probably already on the decline; now its china being asked to bail out europe. Their stocks of (human/technological) capital are growing, and its increased supply will make it relatively difficult to continue the trust-fund lifestyle that we have been enjoying; especially for those most reliant on it (the very very rich).

The rich being deposed. When you shuffle around the blocks at the bottom of the pyramid, the top comes crashing down, because it cannot support it self.

[quote name='way2lazy2care' timestamp='1321232504' post='4883597']
[quote name='Kaze' timestamp='1321137208' post='4883297']
[quote name='way2lazy2care' timestamp='1321133523' post='4883286']
Another good one:


Isn't that slightly undermined by the paychecks and tuition coming from by tax dollars.
If you want everyone to literally follow that example your basically advocating communism.
[/quote]

Eh. It's kind of valid when a bunch of recent college graduates are getting upset because they didn't get jobs the day the graduated are protesting the lack of jobs. In reality as a college graduate there's one employer that will instantly hire you, give you work experience, pay for your room and board, give you a fairly competitive salary, great benefits, great pension, and pay off your college loans. It's interesting how few people even see it as a viable option.

I say this somewhat ironically as I wouldn't have thought about it as an option either when I was post-graduation job hunting.
[/quote]

It's certainly valid. However, it's validity is degraded a bit when there are fewer job opportunities than there have been for the last couple of decades, jobs that are available have lower compensation than in the last couple of decades, current circumstances depress lifetime earning potential, and joining up with the military right now means signing up for likely serving in some wildly unpopular military actions, which a lot of those protesters also may have protested against (both the engagements at all, and also the way that they were run).

Things really are bleaker for recent graduates than they have been for their predecessors. The fact that the economy can operate as a de facto press gang to shunt people into the military, which is conveniently a black hole of government spending, doesn't really even that out. Plus the government could fund something other than the military to do the exact same thing.
[/quote]

There are enough jobs for most people, I think, but they are often mis-matched. Okay so there are some people that completely went left field and expected to find something in what they went to school for quickly. But most people took more mainstream paths that are regarded as safe, and want careers for their skills, not mere throwaway jobs that are not relevant to what they took education for.

I consider job matching to be a massive logistics problem that needs to be solved if we want our economy back on track. Employers in various cities say that there is a low supply of skilled workers, including in the programming industry. But what they really mean is it's more of a lack of skilled workers that want to work for the lower-than-average wages that they offer.

Someone told me about a story where a guy took a long hibernation and woke up in the distant future. He found out that the key to immortality has been discovered and no one dies of old age. But he discovered a large social problem behind all this. The younger generations have been complaining that they couldn't find work, because the increasingly growing older population have firmly seated themselves in the top positions and won't let go of them. A hyperbolic situation but it supports the idea that the 99% vs 1% problem is also generational.


Re: dpaek85 and government being the problem more than capitalism, this is true. But we should more evenly place blame on both parties, the government and the companies that choose to conspire with them.

Instead of being upset only at the chronic lobbyists, we should especially be upset of the fact that government is worth lobbying to. We can't get rid of lobbying completely.

If we tried to do that, corporations will switch to more overt methods of bribery, so long as members of government are willing to accept it. I refuse to believe it's impossible to fight corruption within the government.
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