Occupy Calgary/Do Not Merge

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by oldschoolcalgary

of course, you realize the irony in you statement?

The only way his statement was ironic is if people sitting in a park bitching about stuff was the reason we have those freedoms. I can't think of any case where a leaderless unfocused group of non-violent protesters caused freedom to break out in a country. That's certainly not how Canadians got all those great rights...

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

So apparently Occupy Calgary has become more of a homeless outreach centre:






http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Oc...409/story.html

So the whole thing really is a campaign for change! <rimshot>

[Cowboy89]

I kind of want to go to the Bankers Hall protest on Saturday wearing a suit and carrying a placard that says 'First World Problems, blah, blah, blah'!

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

I kind of want to go to the Bankers Hall protest on Saturday wearing a suit and carrying a placard that says 'First World Problems, blah, blah, blah'!

Perhaps a sign that reads:

"Yeah, like the guy in the $3000 suit is going to protest with these guys!"

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Perhaps a sign that reads:

"Yeah, like the guy in the $3000 suit is going to protest with these guys!"

As long as $3000 gets crossed out and then put $6000.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Perhaps a sign that reads:

"Yeah, like the guy in the $3000 suit is going to protest with these guys!"

That sounds like a good way to have someone throw crap at your expensive suit. On the other hand, it'd be funny, and I'd love to read the entry by 4X4 in the GMG thread after.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

That job is too hard. They want higherpaying easier jobs.

One of the vocalised demands in "Occupy New York" was a minimum wage of $20, with unemployment/welfare benefits equalling roughly the same thing.

Great. I'd love to pay $9 for a loaf of bread too. Or get paid $40k a year to sit on my arse. How fantastic would that be?

[Swarly]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Bah, rants of lame old men around here.

I'll talk about one reason specifically why the younger generation is pissed off and should be upset about the way things are going:

Entry level salaries for University grads are not rising proportionately to cost of living, while CEO's salaries are increasing exponentially.

Think about the cost of a house. In the 80's, you old farts probably bought your brand new baby for 2-3x your base salary (my father personally made 35K and paid 67K for his house).

Now, us on the other hand are looking at 4x-5x the amount on a normal entry level salary and that's for a ****ty condo. More people than ever are getting stuck in the renter's rut, unless they are married / have generous parents.

Without trying too hard I found at least 20 condos selling right now under $150k, and downtown for $190-210k. That is right in the 2-3x salary you talked about. Its all the people getting useless (or over populated) degrees and then not being able to afford a $1M house in mount royal.

More self entitlement, expecting to walk out of uni into your dream house. My dad bought his house in the late 70's/early 80's also. Far from the house he is living in today, but he worked hard and moved up to the house he finally wanted.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

One of the vocalised demands in "Occupy New York" was a minimum wage of $20, with unemployment/welfare benefits equalling roughly the same thing.

Great. I'd love to pay $9 for a loaf of bread too. Or get paid $40k a year to sit on my arse. How fantastic would that be?

Thats the key and I talked about it on another site.

If minimum wage bumps to $20.00/hour besides planting 90% of the small businesses who suddenly can't afford help and can't afford to expand, the ripple effect across every industry would be massive.

Suddenly your happy meal would bump from $5.00 to about $8.00, your grocery bill would go from $100.00 to $125.00. Because Minimum wage goes to $20.00 all the people that were at $20.00 would suddenly want an increase to compensate and you'd get another massive ripple through the consumer goods areas, your $20,000 car would go to $22,000.

Basically we would get minimum wage to $20.00 an hour see an explosion of unemployment and then the same people would b$tch that $20.00 isn't enough and they need $25.00 to survive.

And the whole, Unemployment should be bumped, its almost like they expect to live comfortably off of unemployment. It's kept low because A) thats all thats affordable to the goverment, and B) you should want to get off of it as fast as possible, as in f%ck I can't live on this? And how are we going to pay for that? Lets hammer on the people that are making a decent to very good to very high end livings. I get that there's this expectation that mega taxing the rich and well off is the solution, but if you punish these people or over burden these people then all of a sudden you have these people not spending money and seeing their standard of living slide.

While the left laughed and chortled at the Reagan concept of trickle down economics, there's a real problem with the idea of trickle up economics as well.

[troutman]

[VladtheImpaler]

/\
/\

... to CC, plus a huge flood of illegal immigrants who will be willing to work for less than $20/hr.

[CaptainCrunch]

I didn't even want to go into the immigration/undert the table work environment, then it gets too complex.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by 4X4

What are you hoping to accomplish? You want the government to put in more regulations so that CEOs and other rich guys can't get any more richer, while the rest of us stay not-rich?.

I want extreme punitive measures against those who defy the law for their personal gain under the cloak of "sharp business practice". I want intellectual property laws which are slanted towards encouraging creativity rather than rewarding the proprietors of content whose originators are long dead, or whose "property" is nothing but words about an obvious process. I want sustained governmental pressure against regimes like China's that care nothing for human rights, regardless of what that might do to trade with such regimes. I want the end of the apartheid-like system of reserves for Natives. I want unrestricted freedom of speech. I want privacy rights for the individual to trump the right of corporations to retain, obtain, and analyze personal data. I want the legal system to be impartial and not about who can afford the best lawyer. And that's just the start.

There's many, many things that I want. Getting together with people that also want things, whether they be sensible things as I see them - or not - is a worthwhile thing even if all it does is signal that people are discontent and are starting to care enough about being discontented to organize. I don't deny that we live in a place that the rest of the world envies, but it didn't get that way by listening to those who felt that the status quo was just fine as it was, and it won't stay that way by sitting around grumbling at those ungrateful kids who just don't know when they've got it good.

Seriously, listen to yourselves. The bulk of you sound just like any other group of conservative elders who moan and gripe that "in my day, a little elbow grease and a chipper attitude was enough to solve any problem, by Gad!" It's easy to sit back and be cynical and to tell yourself that human nature is unchangeable, but not at all as easy to look at yourself and wonder if it's just you that is now impervious to change.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by jammies

I want extreme punitive measures against those who defy the law for their personal gain under the cloak of "sharp business practice". I want intellectual property laws which are slanted towards encouraging creativity rather than rewarding the proprietors of content whose originators are long dead, or whose "property" is nothing but words about an obvious process. I want sustained governmental pressure against regimes like China's that care nothing for human rights, regardless of what that might do to trade with such regimes. I want the end of the apartheid-like system of reserves for Natives. I want unrestricted freedom of speech. I want privacy rights for the individual to trump the right of corporations to retain, obtain, and analyze personal data. I want the legal system to be impartial and not about who can afford the best lawyer. And that's just the start.

There's many, many things that I want. Getting together with people that also want things, whether they be sensible things as I see them - or not - is a worthwhile thing even if all it does is signal that people are discontent and are starting to care enough about being discontented to organize. I don't deny that we live in a place that the rest of the world envies, but it didn't get that way by listening to those who felt that the status quo was just fine as it was, and it won't stay that way by sitting around grumbling at those ungrateful kids who just don't know when they've got it good.

Seriously, listen to yourselves. The bulk of you sound just like any other group of conservative elders who moan and gripe that "in my day, a little elbow grease and a chipper attitude was enough to solve any problem, by Gad!" It's easy to sit back and be cynical and to tell yourself that human nature is unchangeable, but not at all as easy to look at yourself and wonder if it's just you that is now impervious to change.

This one makes me raise my eyebrows. It's not that I don't think the legal system is biased, the evidence certainly tends that way, but this idea that having the best lawyer is something to be done away with confuses me. What's wrong with winning a lawsuit because you have the best lawyer? Hiring the best lawyer doesn't change the law, all it does is give you someone (or many someone's in most cases) that are able to find angles and arguments to best fit your problem within the confines of the law. It's no different than signing a great PP QB D-man, it doesn't grant you another goal a game, it simply gives you a weapon to operate more effectively within the rules of the game.

I'm a strong supporter of increased funding for public defenders on the criminal side, and increased access to strong pro bono representation on the civil side (although that's really up to the legal industry itself, and in general increased pro bono work has become a real focus), but that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with winning a case because you have a brilliant mind that comes with a $1200/hr bill.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by jammies

Seriously, listen to yourselves. The bulk of you sound just like any other group of conservative elders who moan and gripe that "in my day, a little elbow grease and a chipper attitude was enough to solve any problem, by Gad!" It's easy to sit back and be cynical and to tell yourself that human nature is unchangeable, but not at all as easy to look at yourself and wonder if it's just you that is now impervious to change.

The originator of this in 1965 . . . .



. . . . . turned 70 this year.

Your rant is as old as that hair on gramma's chest.

Cowperson

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by jammies

I want the end of the apartheid-like system of reserves for Natives.

What are you going to do instead? It's easy to be against something, but what's the solution? Kick them off the reserves and say fend for yourselves?

I think the current system with respect to Natives is completely broken, but constructive ideas are much more useful than just being "against" something.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

The originator of this in 1965 . . . .



. . . . . turned 70 this year.

Your rant is as old as that hair on gramma's chest.

Cowperson

You'd come across as a lot more clever if I wasn't 45.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by valo403

This one makes me raise my eyebrows. It's not that I don't think the legal system is biased, the evidence certainly tends that way, but this idea that having the best lawyer is something to be done away with confuses me.

Straw man. I never said anything of the kind, you've extrapolated your entire multi-paragraph argument against a single sentence that you have chosen to interpret in a way that has little relation to what was actually said.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

What are you going to do instead? It's easy to be against something, but what's the solution? Kick them off the reserves and say fend for yourselves?

Obviously it's easier to be against something than to come up with a detailed plan as to how to fix it. I have some ideas, but is this really the venue for such a discussion? My point is more along the way that not all is as well in this country as the learned elders think it is.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by jammies

Straw man. I never said anything of the kind, you've extrapolated your entire multi-paragraph argument against a single sentence that you have chosen to interpret in a way that has little relation to what was actually said.

Well you touched on a point and I wanted to discuss it. You could take this opportunity to expand on it, or you could call it a straw man and walk away. Choice is yours. If that's not the point you wanted to make then please correct me, but that's how it reads to me.