What is Occupy Wallstreet?

[kandrathe]

I have always felt that each institution should do on the job training internship. Once that level of education has been completed, the trainee gets hired at the bottom level tier and can work their way up by taking paid for classes that come directly out of their paycheck. The training classes would be offered through the company and focus primarily on the role the position requires, thus training the student would cost the company nothing, and the student, having such personalized and direct instruction, could learn what they needed to know is less than a years time, perhaps even just a couple months.

We don't promote vocational education much anymore, and it's relegated to what I would consider the more "blood sucking" private schools. It is hard to work full-time and take schooling part-time, so I guess I'm fine with the concept of schooling full-time, then work after schooling.

A BA/BS - 4 year, college education is often confused with a vocational training program. Ultimately the aims should be slightly different, and the BA/BS route has been over sold. There are more good paying jobs available in directed vocational studies, such as CNC programmers, manufacturing robotics, etc. These positions require less than an engineering degree, but much more than a high school diploma. In the US, the typical high school student is much more likely to attempt college, but much less likely to complete it. This results in a waste of resources, and a frustrated student who now has debt they counted on having the credential of a degree to help pay off. For many students, it's just a bad fit, and they should be steered into a vocation and training for that vocation that will be a good fit for them.

And, I would add that companies do not help by requiring a college degree for entry level work that doesn't require a college degree. It causes a high school graduate to believe that not having a college degree is a barrier to the world of work, and so prepared or not, they hurl themselves into academia and often fail.

I never thought this was a good idea [low interest rate]. The fed trying to stir the populace into spending money, the populace trying to get loans to stir the economy, the banks saying NO because they aren't making any money on the deal because the interest rates are too low. Makes no sense! But this is a problem brought on by the Obama administration, why bring protest against the system as a whole?

People will tend to do what they get incentives to do. For policy makers, its the unintended consequences that nail us every time. Every law gives incentives or disincentives for people or companies which creates an unnatural tension in the system. This can be good if you know what you are doing, but extremely bad when its done haphazardly or based purely on emotion or unfounded beliefs. Ethanol subsidies sounded good for the environment, until you dig into who gets them, the lack of efficiency of the fuel produced, and ultimately what they are doing bad to the environment.

I've heard bankers call for a floor to the Fed rate of 1%. It leaves just a little room for loan profit, and would be in a better position to curb inflation once it inevitably rears its ugly head again. The rate paid for excess reserves should be well below the fed rate if not zero.

Are you serious or being sarcastic?

No, I'm not serious about storming the castle. I think we all need to have serious discussions about what we think is good for the economy, and I think we need to start removing the barriers that the lower and middle classes face in upward mobility. But, to do that, we need to get the government to face up to some of the statistics that Quark's BI article posted.

The unemployment rate is not just the rate of those actively seeking a job, it includes all the people who would work if given the chance to work.

The CPI is not a good predictor of the inflation that we are experiencing. Yes, I can buy a Chinese toaster for a 1$, but my health care, tuition, and fresh produce are too expensive.

The unprecedented increase in productivity since the 1970's has left more and more workers unemployed, or under-employed. And, it has consolidated more and more wealth into the pockets of fewer and fewer people, relegating the bulk of society to entitlement programs. How can we create a new vision for our society where more people are allowed to participate, and are expected to shoulder more of a burden and reap more of a reward? What corporations are really saying to workers is... we don't need you (at least not 20% of you). Most of the companies I've worked with in the past 10 years have used logistics, computers and the Internet to move quite a number of skilled and professional jobs to less expensive workers in other countries.

Do you see any other way? Everyone cannot be equal!

Yes, and no. Everyone is not equal in abilities, and so even if we leveled the playing field, within months it'd be uneven again. We can create a more equal rulebook. I think where Obama and Congress blew it, was in failing to communicate on what they were doing for the average person. The financial and corporate bailouts were spectacularly over blown, and probably important in slowing down the crash. My reaction at the time was that I argued against them, saying that failures should fail, but Jester partially convinced me they may have been a little necessary to avoid a worldwide economic collapse. I'm still a little half-heartedly against them for principles sake.

Even now, we outsource as many jobs as we can to countries where the minimum wage is less than a dollar an hour to save money!

That was an inevitability after WWII, that eventually the rest of the world would recover and begin to compete with the US for the production of everything. Some day, wages and prices will equalize around the globe. Some day, if given the same set of laws to abide by (environmental, labor, safety, etc.) things would equalize around the globe. Until then, the US will need to compromise some to maintain whatever it can of it's dwindling market share. But, the heydays of being the only undamaged production economy are over.

If suddenly there became a one-world government ...

Yes, but, if the Euro crisis has taught us anything... Unity is not that easy. It is in fact, much easier to break apart into smaller and smaller factions.

There HAS to be a lower-class for the world to move. It sucks, but it's true!

Actually, Puerto Rico is a good example of a mini-nation state that has traditionally maintained mostly a middle and upper middle class. They have an unusually high GDP per capita, compared with other similar nation-states. I don't really believe in the class system... I used to be unskilled, then I went to school, and became a professional, then I went into management and I became wealthy, now I've decided get my life back, and so I'm in academia giving back a little to humanity, but I don't make as much so I'm back to professional, but I've got a life... so I'm happier.

You may have unskilled, skilled, professional, and wealthy, all in the same family. Consider an unskilled high school graduate who runs a lawn service, living with a highly paid union machinist, and his wife the dentist, and they built their home on the property bought from and adjacent to grandpa and grandma who are retired professionals who made good investments for 40 years.