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Occupy Wall Street - Winter is Coming Edition


Relic

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So is it time to start stocking up on weapons, ammo and canned goods?

I still work for the Air Force. Technically military or something like it. I think I'm good. Though I AM very grateful that what I do these days doesn't involve me directing the placement of bullets anymore.

And I do think that sanity will win out far before anything so drastic as a violent revolution occurs here. But even I can be guilty of believing the "Unique Snowflake" argument, to my own chagrin.

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Economic mobility tends to stagnate as wealth accumulates at the top....Just having money makes you money.

This is where I get confused. I have looked at some of the articles and charts and I just don't see how wealth at the top prevents me from moving.

Since wealth increases on a logarithmic curve, it makes sense to me that wealth disparity will tend to increase over time. It's not because evil is afoot, it's because of the laws of math and physics.

The evil afoot is the gaming of the system, not the 1%.

I would be willing to hear a plan which involves raising taxes on the rich and/or corporate taxes and/or capital gains taxes but I want a cogent plan like 'we are going to raise X tax and use the money to pay for Y.'

Any general 'tax the rich to pay for schools' bs does not fly. We have schools. The only thing I'm really interested in doing with increased tax revenue is paying down the national debt or saving Social Security.

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I still work for the Air Force. Technically military or something like it. I think I'm good. Though I AM very grateful that what I do these days doesn't involve me directing the placement of bullets anymore.

And I do think that sanity will win out far before anything so drastic as a violent revolution occurs here. But even I can be guilty of believing the "Unique Snowflake" argument, to my own chagrin.

I was teasing. :) I have neighbors who believe in conspiricy therories and are preparing for what will come in 2012. I can easily see what comes as not being meteorlogical but political/revolutionary.

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This is where I get confused. I have looked at some of the articles and charts and I just don't see how wealth at the top prevents me from moving.

Since wealth increases on a logarithmic curve, it makes sense to me that wealth disparity will tend to increase over time. It's not because evil is afoot, it's because of the laws of math and physics.

Except it's not always been that way. Here's a couple of quick graphs from the US:

http://graphics8.nyt...an3-blog480.jpg

And an even more interesting one from the UK:

http://www.nytimes.c...an2-blog480.jpg

You get the same thing across most of the developed world. The last few decades have seen most of the economic gains swallowed by the top 1%.

The really amazing part of the whole wealth capture of the past few decades is it doesn't have to be that way.

The evil afoot is the gaming of the system, not the 1%.

These 2 groups are not exactly mutually exclusive.

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