#occupy<insertlocalehere>

[Devils'Advocate]

Typically, when I talk to other activists, we talk about the disparity of net worth, rather than yearly income. And I think that is where the gross inequality lies.

I don't know where the line is in Canada. However, I can state that the 62 Canadian billionaires in Canada own 1/6th of the country's net worth. We're talking the Weston's, Arthur Irving, David Thomson, Frank Sobey, Edward Rogers III, etc.. That puts a sixth of the country's wealth in the hands of .00002% of the people. I don't care how hard they work - and most of them hardly work at all - they inherited most of that money and have others do the hard work for them - there is no way that so much money should be concentrated in the hands of so few.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Typically, when I talk to other activists, we talk about the disparity of net worth, rather than yearly income. And I think that is where the gross inequality lies.

I don't know where the line is in Canada. However, I can state that the 62 Canadian billionaires in Canada own 1/6th of the country's net worth. We're talking the Weston's, Arthur Irving, David Thomson, Frank Sobey, Edward Rogers III, etc.. That puts a sixth of the country's wealth in the hands of .00002% of the people. I don't care how hard they work - and most of them hardly work at all - they inherited most of that money and have others do the hard work for them - there is no way that so much money should be concentrated in the hands of so few.

What do you propose is the solution? Robin Hood? I don't see any conceivable way to strip wealth from those who have amassed a fortune. You can tax their gains from investment perhaps, but you're not getting at the billions of dollars they're sitting on without some sort of wealth redistribution plan, and I for one am not comfortable with anything remotely close to that.

[CaptainCrunch]

Not that I want to sound like an evil capitalist running pig dog. But I have questions.

I get that the so called one percent should have their tax loopholes closed, I'm fine with that, even though from my understanding the wealthy in Canada pay far more taxes then the U.S for example.

But when people are talking about things like Wealth Distribution, are we talking about wage caping the top earnings in the country, because I really don't think that this is something that the government of a psuedo market economy like Canada should be involved in. And if you suddenly start talking about wage caping then why would the people that for example earn over $170,000.00 want to stay here?

On the other side, I keep hearing about bumping up wages for the so called 99%, but if you bump up the wages won't the price of consumer goods go up as well to cover that increase in payroll and taxation expenses, and wouldn't that make our goods even less competitive not only on the world market. but in our own markets that are being flooded by cheaper internation goods? Or are you mandating that the government set pricing levels?

I don't truly understand the whole idea of closing the earning gap and how it can be executed without wrecking the economy.

I think that some people are really losing perspective on the whole CEO top earners are evil and corrupt and screwing the little guy mentality. Are there bad CEO's, sure but out of all the CEO's in the country how many are completely incompetant, or corrupt, and I'm not talking the U.S. here, I'm talking Canada. I mean bottom line is if you look at the executives running the banks they are running incredibly profitable organizations, so why punish them for generating that wealth, or the CEO's that run major Oil in this country, they're generating amazing wealth and they answer not to the 99%, but to their shareholders.

There's a reason why the CEO's of the world get paid what they do, while manual laborers and entry to mid level workers get paid what they do. Wealth gap, there's also a massive skills gap and responsibility gap and that has to be addressed in any debate.

I've heard about criminally prosecuting CEO's who oversee organizations that go bankrupt for example, last time I checked being incompetant or making stupid decisions is not a criminal offense, and if it was the jail would be full of 99%ers who can't hold a job. Maybe the solution is enacting an 80% tax on golden parachute deals.

I think the only thing that you can do to close the so called wealth gap is to close tap loopholes, tax heavily on executive benefits and payouts and reduce the tax boundry on what low income people pay.

But when you have the government jumping in a trying to do wealth distribution beyond social programs all your going to do is gut the economy and chase away the people that have a higher earning level.

I just want to see how these 99%ers believe that wealth distribution should work, show me something, otherwise its just another empty mantra.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Typically, when I talk to other activists, we talk about the disparity of net worth, rather than yearly income. And I think that is where the gross inequality lies.

I don't know where the line is in Canada. However, I can state that the 62 Canadian billionaires in Canada own 1/6th of the country's net worth. We're talking the Weston's, Arthur Irving, David Thomson, Frank Sobey, Edward Rogers III, etc.. That puts a sixth of the country's wealth in the hands of .00002% of the people. I don't care how hard they work - and most of them hardly work at all - they inherited most of that money and have others do the hard work for them - there is no way that so much money should be concentrated in the hands of so few.

If everyone else has a reasonably comfortable life, as they do in Canada, why do you care?

[MarchHare]

Maybe the solution is enacting an 80% tax on golden parachute deals.

I'd be ok with that. Personally, I think golden parachutes are ethically abhorrent and a sign of poor corporate governorship by the board of directors. I'll never forget an interview of Charlie Fischer I read when he retired as CEO of Nexen in 2008. He said, (paraphrasing) "If you voluntarily retire as CEO after substantially increasing shareholder value, you receive a handshake and a pat on the back. If you're fired as CEO for destroying shareholder value, you receive a multi-million dollar golden parachute. Businesses should not be run that way."

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

If everyone else has a reasonably comfortable life, as they do in Canada, why do you care?

I won't speak for DA, but I think one of the biggest complaints of the Occupy movement is that an incredibly tiny percentage of the population can use their vast wealth to buy political influence, which has the effect of subverting democracy.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I won't speak for DA, but I think one of the biggest complaints of the Occupy movement is that an incredibly tiny percentage of the population can use their vast wealth to buy political influence, which has the effect of subverting democracy.

Maybe, but don't the 99% have 99% of the vote?

Maybe if they actually took part in the process, we would have a NDP government (god forbid)

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

If everyone else has a reasonably comfortable life, as they do in Canada, why do you care?

Are you in Calgary? That seems like a very Calgarian thing to say.

As someone that has worked with food banks and soup kitchens from Halifax to Toronto, I can say that there are a *lot* of people - including the working poor - that do not have a reasonably comfortable life. What particularly pisses me off is our horrible ranking in terms of child poverty:
http://www.campaign2000.ca/resources...rtyTooHigh.pdf

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Maybe, but don't the 99% have 99% of the vote?

Maybe if they actually took part in the process, we would have a NDP government (god forbid)

And again the thread goes around in circles. As I said before. In this thread. Running a campaign means raising money. Many people look at the candidates available to them and believe all of them to be in the pocket of big business and stay home rather than vote for someone that is going to represent the interests of the already rich.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

And again the thread goes around in circles. As I said before. In this thread. Running a campaign means raising money. Many people look at the candidates available to them and believe all of them to be in the pocket of big business and stay home rather than vote for someone that is going to represent the interests of the already rich.

That to me is no excuse. Sorry DA, but you can raise money in a grass roots motion, and volunteering for a candidate costs no money. If you look at the successes of the NDP for example in Quebec you can argue that they got in because they were the ultimate protest vote.

I get that people complain that all candidates are in the pocket of big business, but how can you say that when for example the NDP almost run a anti big business platform which includes wealth distribution to the poor for example.

[burn_this_city]

I really don't see how big money can influence elections that greatly in Canada.

[V]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

That to me is no excuse. Sorry DA, but you can raise money in a grass roots motion, and volunteering for a candidate costs no money. If you look at the successes of the NDP for example in Quebec you can argue that they got in because they were the ultimate protest vote.

I get that people complain that all candidates are in the pocket of big business, but how can you say that when for example the NDP almost run a anti big business platform which includes wealth distribution to the poor for example.

Isn't this kind of the point of why the Occupy is such a joke in Canada compared to the States? I'm no political junkie, but aren't the donation rules in American vastly different to those in Canada? I don't get the sense that the Canadian is in the big corp's pocket like in the States.

[CaptainCrunch]

I don't see it either, we do see some spending decisions especially around the Stimulus programs that benefited big business, but government has to fine line balance things, merely being an advocate for the poor and downtrodden for example like the NDP wants to be would lead to economic devestation.

Plus more on the whole fundraising movement, didn't the Occupy WS movement fundraise over half a million dollars in a few short weeks?

Maybe the next step for the occupy movement is to run independant candidates in the next federal or provincial elections as a protest vote, but they would then have to come up with platform.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by V

Isn't this kind of the point of why the Occupy is such a joke in Canada compared to the States? I'm no political junkie, but aren't the donation rules in American vastly different to those in Canada? I don't get the sense that the Canadian is in the big corp's pocket like in the States.

Yeah, they are, basically in the States and my understanding of U.S. politics and campaign rules is weak, but they're driving massive donations out of big business through lobby groups, and getting around campaign donation limits by encouraging their employees to name themselves as contributors.

The Conservatives did incredibly well at rebuilding their war chest by going after individual campaign doners and taking everything from $10.00 to the maximum.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Yeah, they are, basically in the States and my understanding of U.S. politics and campaign rules is weak, but they're driving massive donations out of big business through lobby groups, and getting around campaign donation limits by encouraging their employees to name themselves as contributors.

The Conservatives did incredibly well at rebuilding their war chest by going after individual campaign doners and taking everything from $10.00 to the maximum.

The US Supreme Court has also held that corporations can't have their political contributions capped. A horrible decision.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by valo403

The US Supreme Court has also held that corporations can't have their political contributions capped. A horrible decision.

Even if they did cap it the lobby groups would find another way.

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by valo403

That's where my disappointment lies as well, but I saw it form day one. The whole way this movement was established was ripe for the idiot fringe to become the voice, at least to the general public. There are so many good points, but they're lost due to the unwillingness to establish any sort of leadership based around actual intelligent points. The people and the ideas to do so are there, for some reason rejecting those at the edges isn't seen as an option and because of that the whole thing is undermining those points.

Oddly enough Bloomberg has been one of the view people to actually point this out. He had a statement today about the majority of the OWS protesters not being dirtbags. The OWS movement itself needs to find a way to separate itself from those people.

I couldn't agree with this post more. The focus in the media is almost exclusively on the fringe loons. There really needs to be a concerted effort by those who really want to make a positive change and make the intelligent contributions to organize and cut loose the idiot fringe.

[Devils'Advocate]

And how does one "cut loose" the idiot fringe? Heck, for years most progressives have been trying to chase off the Black Bloc from most G8 protests and the like and they don't go. Put up signs that say "People who want to stop all oil production please go across the street"?

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

And how does one "cut loose" the idiot fringe? Heck, for years most progressives have been trying to chase off the Black Bloc from most G8 protests and the like and they don't go. Put up signs that say "People who want to stop all oil production please go across the street"?

Well a good first step would be to organize a movement with actual leadership, as opposed to the gaggle of misfits we currently have. If there's no formed voice bringing issues to the forefront the media is going to naturally gravitate towards the zany things on the edges, the people who are actually saying something.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

*snip*
I mean bottom line is if you look at the executives running the banks they are running incredibly profitable organizations, so why punish them for generating that wealth, or the CEO's that run major Oil in this country, they're generating amazing wealth and they answer not to the 99%, but to their shareholders.
*snip*

The extent to which businesses should be responsible to the 99% is a good question though. It seems to have become taken for granted that big business should be run with responsibility to shareholders only and that if any business acts responsibly towards the communities they operate in that should be thought of as a bonus. That does seem twisted to me. It seems very reasonable that businesses should be thought of as having responsibility to the communities in which they operate and that this should be expected, just as we expect other legal persons in our communities to share some responsibility for the community.

When it becomes taken for granted that members of the community should only act for themselves, even if this may be knowingly screwing over other people in the community in order to benefit from them, then the community has a problem.