Occupy Wall Street Pt. 2

I may have found an answer to some of my earlier questions about Occupy Wall Street. I thought I would share the immediate brain short circuit that this list has spawned in everyone I have sent it to.

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

Quick note, the admin of Occupy Wall Street have distanced themselves from this list, saying there is no official list, but it's disturbing in any case that at least one person things that this is what the movement is about. Also interesting, said admin have refused to make any list of their own, so their official goals are still nebulous.

So, let's see about this list.

Demand 1: Reinstate tariffs. I have no philosophical problem with this other than the fact that those tariffs are not going to be paid by the other nations or corporations out of pocket. The added costs will be met by increasing costs for the consumer. And second... 20$/hr minimum wage? What are you smoking? Remember the "radical wage and environmental advantages" bit? That's because they don't have 20$/hr wages. Also, inflation would quite quickly make that sum of money worthless, as well as shutting down hiring. No company is going to pay that.

Demand 2: Single Payer Insurance... nonononononono. This probably warrants a full post at some point, but in short, the problems with this are that the government is absolutely incompetent, the economics just don't work, the government is incompetent, abuses quickly run rampant in any situation of mandated health care, it all but enslaves doctors, and the government is incompetent.

Demand 3: Paying people to exist. If there's a living wage regardless of employment, why bother with employment? Also, who is paying for this? Are you telling me that I am going to pay taxes on my income such that you can sit around the house smoking pot and listening to radiohead? Why then would I work? Lazing about doing nothing and getting paid for it sounds pretty easy.

Demand 4: If all college education is free, then the degree is worth precisely what you paid for it.

Demand 5: How do you intend to fast track alternative energy? We are working on it. The only reason it isn't up now is because alternatives just plain aren't as good as conventional, with the exception of nuclear, which some consider conventional anyway.

Demand 6: Spending more money. Who is paying for it? Do you have ANY idea how much money a trillion dollars is? Going back to an earlier point that I believe I mentioned briefly, government is incompetent. They can't do anything reasonably. A trillion dollars at this point might be a new manhole cover.

Demand 7: Greenspeak and... oh. Decomming Nuke plants. There goes #5.

Demand 8: This one is interesting. Last time I checked, people of all races and genders are allowed to be citizens, yes? Correct me if I'm wrong there. There's a handy little section of the constitution that says "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprice any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Now, it seems to me that that means there is already equality regardless of Race or Gender in the constitution. It is true that there are times where it isn't always enforced right, see affirmative action, but that's not the fault of there not being constitutional provision, that's just unconstitutional law.

Demand 9: Open borders? Not particularly problematic until the 'live' bit. In order to really function well living in society, you need to abide by the social contract of government. When it comes to non-citizens though, they will get the benefits of without the responsibilities. They become parasitic. It's frequently not malicious, but there are costs that they don't pay. Before they can live here, they must buy into the social contract.

Demand 10: This is more amusing than stupid. This may just be representative of my lack of election knowledge, but whose standard is this? It seems woefully inefficient, and still subject to the same problems as everything else. Considering also how the democratic party is the one famous for vote fraud, and this one may not work out to their liking.

Demand 11: And here we have the big one. Immediate global debt forgiveness, also known as immediate global economic and societal collapse. 65 trillion dollars is a mindboggling sum of money, and deleting it from the record is easily enough to collapse the world. Add to that a truce with China predicated on their owning US debt, and two superpowers could be at each other's throats again soon. Every dollar in a bank is also technically debt on the part of the banks, so everything but the cash you have on you is gone.

See, most of the circulation of funds in our economy is not actually liquidity but debt. We have a fiat currency even, which can be seen as a form of debt. When you pay by card, you become indebted to the creditor, who in turn is indebted to the payee. The payee then doesn't get paid cash, the creditor shuffles some of their monetary holders debt to that of the payee's account, and everyone is satisfied. Unless you pay cash, there is debt, and even when you do, the nature of the currency makes it somewhat hazy.

Taking away debt takes away the entire basis of the economy. So all you crazy people out there at Occupy Wall Street are just gonna have to live with the fact that you are in debt. No it's not fun, but that's no excuse to wreck the world.

Demand 12: Credit reporting agencies report your bad decisions, yes. No, people should not give you a loan you won't pay back. Yes, you are expected to be held accountable for your actions. Where else is the problem?

Demand 13: I'm not entirely sure what this is meant to do. I read it as an escape clause from the creepiness that is the modern union, but that seems contrary to the rest of their goals. As is, you can join a union and get the collective bargaining benefits. Whether you can hold certain jobs without joining a union is occasionally dubious. So, sure. Allow people to turn down union membership at no penalty. (If I've missed the point of this one, let me know)

All this seems so juvenile. For whatever reason, these people are dissatisfied with their lot in life, and are looking to the rest of the world to care for them. So, you who call yourselves the 99%? Shut up and stop your whining. You don't stand for the majority against the silent exploiters. You stand for the few who never cared to grow up and accept responsibility for yourselves. Stop pretending to represent me.