What is Occupy Wallstreet?

[eppie]

I understand being angry about specific policies and those who brought them about, but one of my "radical" friends who supports the "occupy" movement said, "Corporations are just the head of the snake." So, yup, I think it's time to gather the villagers and march on the castle. Dr. Frankenstein is up to his old tricks messing up the laws of the economy again.

The whole thing is that these banks don't play by the rules.
You alwasy say that people should take care of their own business and be smart and not greedy so they will not take out too high houseloans etc. etc.
However, if a person saves a lot of money and tries to invest this on the stock exchange. True it has risks but can we agree it is a good thing to do? (especially compared to spending it all on consumer goods).

However smart this person is he will never be able to 'win' from the big banks. Big banks always know earlier what is going to happen (and a private person with a job doesn't even have the time to be updated).
Big banks even manipulate share prices by having their computers buy and sell huge amounts of shares multiple times in seconds etc.
This is legal, but is it fair?
And if fair, is it still a system where a private person (smart) can really have a fair chance of responsibly trying to increase his wealth in order just to pay for his pension?

I can very well imagine people being pissed at the government and the banks. Why didn't they bail out private persons? Give them enough cash to pay off their mortgage so that they didn't have to sell their house.

I totally agree that you should act responsible and not start protesting after you lost your house because you go a much to high mortgage. But.....in many countries you don't have a chance of buying a house when you don't get a mortgage. And even if you took a not too big mortgage, if you loose your job because the economy is bad because other morons have loaned to much and can't pay, you are still in trouble.