What is Occupy Wallstreet?

[kandrathe]

I've heard you make this argument dozens of times, and it still makes no sense to me. It seems to run like so:

1) People on a low-middling salary earn barely enough to scrape by.
2) This leaves little surplus to invest with for future wealth.
3) Government helps out poor people.
4) Poor people become trapped in poverty.

I do not comprehend. Number three sounds, if anything, like a potential solution to problems 1 and 2 - and a counter to 4. How does giving poor people more money, make them poorer? Anyone living in situation 1 and 2 is surely not doing so because of how incredibly comfortable it is. Poverty sucks, and people work damn hard just to get by.

I think your reading is good up to #3.

I'm not so sure #3 is really working in the US as planned. Whether it be government, non-profits, or even for-profit businesses, such as banks. As noted by the Occupy Wall Street folks, wages (+ benefits) have increased much slower than the overall GDP creating a growing wealth gap between those in the top 5% to 10% and most everyone else. Some of this is due to the lack of scarcity of labor. Both productivity improvements in processing, automation, and moving things off shore to be done by cheaper labor has affected the demand for US based labor. Wages reflect our diminishing value. That pretty much sums up the employment situation, although I'm hopeful that the retiring boomers will increase the demand for labor, both in replacements and in providing them with services.

Then, there is entrepreneurship. It's damn hard to start a small business, and keep it running in the US. The government makes that harder. Even in the non-profit I'm working with now, the government reporting makes things very difficult for us (and is very time consuming i.e. costly).

I've heard that in other industries as well. For example, in science, I've heard people avoid embryonic stem cell research because of the red-tape, or working with certain types of organisms (e.g. poison ivy) will bring in DOD oversight and reporting (ostensibly to ensure you aren't making any type of biologic or chemical weapon, or if you are, that they are involved).

I've already beat the drum on the CPSIA, and how over board it has become. And, then... Don't get me started on the FCC, or net neutrality... And, the Patriot Act, and how it affects any business in the financial industry. So, I feel over regulation at both the state and federal level is a problem which disenfranchises many potential entrepreneurs. There are others...

Finally, there is education... Whose inflation rate is 6 times higher than the CPI. In the last 20 years, adjusted for inflation, the cost of college has tripled. It's beginning to make little sense for some people to pursue higher education at all, and for all but the rich, jeopardizing the concept of a non-vocationally based liberal art education entirely.

I could probably come up with more barriers, but those three are the biggest off the top of my head.

On #4, see below.

Or, put another way, in countries where they have very generous social security nets, they also have fewer people "trapped" in poverty. Why is that true, if your argument is sensible? Are only Americans affected by this particular trap?

Maybe not trapped in poverty, but trapped with no way to improve their station. Then, any disruption/emergency in their lives, such as the loss of a job for a few months, would be enough to move them back into poverty again, albeit temporarily until they climb out once again. So, I'm looking at saving rates, and how they've affected the recent foreclosure rates. Also, telling are the number of people who file for bankruptcy due to medical issues (or another way to look at it is the amount of bad debt write offs at major hospitals).