What the Occupy Movement is about and why I support it
by Scott Squires
updated 12-14-11

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Media ‘journalists’ would like you to think those in the occupy movement are lazy college students. They are not. Nor are they hippies. Nor are they simply people who are jealous of the rich.

They are people who are taking a stand in an attempt to wake up the silent majority to the many injustices that have occurred in the last few years and some that have been radically changing this country for the past 20-30 years.

If this is all news to you then you haven’t been paying attention or have not been getting actual facts from reliable sources.


Intro
I don’t speak for the Occupy Wall Street movement. No individual does.

I'm not camped out in NY although I did march with OccupyLA. I'm an older than middle age professional guy who is paid very well when working on projects. I'm not a hippie. I don't have student loans to pay off and am not homeless.

And that's the first step in understanding the movement. Unlike the select images and sound bites the media may choose to use, the movement is made up of a diverse range of people of different ages and backgrounds and situations. They represent a proxy for all those Americans who are unable or unwilling to come forward and make a visible stand.

Why?
Many ask why these people are protesting. Why don't they simply get a job?

This last question is asked by those ignorant of the mass unemployment in this country, much of it caused by the world recession. Current unemployment runs at 9% or more. 13.9 million people are officially listed as unemployed. 24 million people can’t find full time jobs.

McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the U.S. after receiving more than one million applications. That’s more than 15 applicants per opening. Many of these jobs are part time, minimum wage and with no benefits. And yet people make flippant remarks about those who are unemployed and can’t find jobs.

The number of reasons why the Occupy Movement is occurring could easily fill a book but I'll focus on the main ones. Frankly I'm surprised something like this didn't start sooner.

I’m simplifying in some cases but have links on another page for details. Hopefully it will give you some insight to what’s happened and what’s at stake. Most likely your future and the future of your children will be impacted by what is taking place now in Wall Street and Washington D.C. And why there are occupy movements around the world, why they're important and why you should be angry as well.


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Issue 1 - Wall Street gambling

It's important to remember that in 2008 Wall Street collapsed and brought down the entire world economy. Wall Street, the media and the politicians have tried to ignore that fact and had hoped everyone else had as well. Many of those responsible had started rewriting history to erase any memory of this. And up until the occupy movement occurred, they were getting away with it. They were ignoring the average citizen, the hard working middle class that makes up the majority of this country. The politicians were (and are) focusing on the unimportant and continue to act like children instead of taking leadership roles to help the people they are supposed to represent.

The 2008 Wall Street crash was not the fault of nature or an accident. It was man made and created knowingly by those in financial power for the pure sake of greed. As someone stated: “It was a form of legalized gambling”.

The banks decided that the housing bubble would last forever. They paid their reps to find more potential homeowners who they could sign up for loans because that was a lucrative market. In many cases the reps modified the documents and the banks not only looked the other way, they didn’t run them through their standard credit check reviews. (Laziness, too much time, trouble and money to be bothered) They simply stamped them as good and sold them to other companies. The thought was if a homeowner defaulted they could still sell the house for more money and besides, they’d sold the loan so it was no longer their problem. And they could keep the profit. (It gets even better for the banks)

And the clever people on Wall Street devised some complicated math formulas (once again with the assumption the housing market would never go down) so they could take this large batch of mortgages and slice and dice them up into packages (derivatives) that they would resell to banks and other companies throughout the world. And they encouraged ($) the various credit ratings companies (S&P, etc) to give these mixed (toxic) packages the highest quality ratings. And these derivatives were unregulated so everything was great for the banks. (It gets even better for the banks)

As it turns out many of these banks and financial institutions knew that there were bad loans in the mix. And yet they knowingly represented and sold these as being of the highest quality. The law in most countries would consider this fraud. Certainly if you or I did it we’d be tried for fraud. But no matter, this was Wall Street. It would seem they are above the law. (It gets even better for the banks)

Some of these financial institutions weren’t satisfied to simply make big money for knowingly selling toxic packages to dupes. (Unknowing banks and companies in other countries) How else could they make even more money? Why of course, they would bet against those other companies they sold their problems to. It was a win-win situation. The more bad stuff they sold, they’d profit not only from the direct sale but from the other institution doing poorly. Imagine someone selling feed for a race horse knowing that it would make the horse sick. And then turning around and betting against the horse with this insider trading information.

This is the ethics of the executives at the very financial institutions we’ve placed our hard earned money and pensions into. This is the ethics of people who control billions and trillions of dollars. Greed above and beyond any common sense of decency. (It gets even better for the banks)

So how could these financial institutions make even more money, because billions in profit wasn’t enough anymore? They could sell insurance for these derivatives since they knew some might go bad. But they wouldn’t call them insurance because that would require them to actually have funds to cover any losses that might occur. It would also mean that it would fall under U.S. Regulation. That damn regulation thing kept them from making more profits so let’s just call them Credit Default Swaps instead. Another brilliant plan by people with pure greed on the brain. And they proceeded to leverage all of this to the very max ($60 trillion worth of credit default swaps, $6-10 trillion in potential risks. Yes, trillions of dollars worth and at least 6 times the value). What could possibly go wrong?

Well it finally started to unravel. The house of cards that Wall Street had created and sold many times over was now collapsing big time. It wasn't the fact that some people couldn't pay their mortgage. It was the fact the banks and others leveraged them so high, that caused the collapse. They gambled with their clients money (pensions, investments, etc) and they lost. They rushed to the U.S. Government. “What are we to do? Oh my! Heaven help us!” And their buddies in the government (because most of the fed financial people had previously worked for these same Wall Street firms) said no problem. “We can’t let you all collapse since that would definitely tank the entire world economy (it would make today’s economy look like paradise). You’ve grown too big because we have removed many regulations over the years so you’re too big to fail. Tell you what, we’ll give you free money. Minimal, if any, interest. Even better, we won’t attach any strings to any of this. Feel free to do what you want.”

And so the big Bail Out happened. The U.S. Government turned over our hard earned tax dollars to people and companies that had made incredibly bad business and ethical decisions and that had broken a number of potential laws and regulations. And so Wall Street and the banks were happy with their bail out. Their world was fine for them again. They continued on as if nothing had happened and continued to lavish large, unearned bonuses on their people. No executives were fired for creating these problems. Should any executive be laid off they were awarded with more money than most Americans make in their lifetime.

So Wall Street dodged the bullet of their own making and created a world wide financial catastrophe in their gamble to make even more profit by avoiding any kind of supervision or regulation. They make Scrooge look like Mother Teresa.

If you made a major screw up at work causing untold losses, it would be hard to imagine not only keeping your job but getting a bonus. And yet that’s how Wall Street works.

Meanwhile:


Notice that most of the people negatively affected by Wall Street’s poor gambling habits were hard working people. Many were middle class people doing what they were supposed to be doing. Doing what they had been told to do. Getting educated, getting jobs, working hard for years, earning money, buying a home that they could afford when working and saving their money. They did not create the problem they were now experiencing and that caught them unaware. That was created specifically by Wall Street. (It gets even better for the banks)

So how could the banks make money off of these foreclosures? The banks were given federal money (our tax dollars) and a mandate to help people refinance their home loans. No, that’s too much trouble so the banks are simply keeping the money for themselves. It turns out many banks had been so sloppy at generating and tracking the original mortgage paperwork that the banks had no idea how to even prepare proper legal foreclosure documents. (Remember that slicing and dicing earlier? Oops.) There have been cases of banks trying to foreclose on homeowners who didn’t even have a loan with the bank! The banks were flustered and in some cases turned it over to third party companies to do their bidding.

Banks and the companies they had hired started to create totally fictional documents. They would modify documents and use what was called Robo-signing. They hired people to forge these documents with other signatures. And these were for documents for houses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now if you or I started making up fake legal documents worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each and forging other peoples signatures we’d be put in jail for forgery and a long list of crimes. But if you’re the large banks then you can get the federal government to slap your hand with a minor fine and continue on your merry way. If you were a hard worker and tried to get refinancing while the banks thumbed their noses at you and evicted you illegally? Well if you’re lucky the government might make the banks reimburse you for $1500. This is an agreement currently before congress and the president. The hope would be they deny it but since the politicians are being bought and paid for, it’s questionable if this terrible deal will be denied the banks. (It gets even better for the banks)

The banks are now in charge of making payments for some state governments to the unemployed. And the banks can’t help themselves. They charge fees to those unemployed. Money the governments was suppose to supply these people. It’s easy to make profits when you have no soul and your victims have no choice.

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Summary of issue 1
Wall Street was saved by the federal government using taxes paid in large part by the working people. This was the biggest heist the world has ever known. Billions & trillions of dollars and value. Much of it with illegal processes and the parts that weren't, should be. And yet not a single person has been prosecuted or even investigated regarding this. The rich and powerful have each been given a government issued Get Out of Jail Free card. We saved them yet the people who thought up these schemes and pushed them, still have their jobs. Not only that, they've been vastly rewarded with bonuses. Billions of dollars of bonuses. Over 3000 peaceful demonstrators have been jailed. The number of people from Wall Street jailed for this? 0. The mind boggles.

The SEC was supposed to monitor Wall Street and the banks on what few regulations remained yet they were asleep at the wheel. Many of the people move freely between Wall Street institutions and the SEC. Might as well invite the fox into the hen house.

Chances of this happening again? Very high. Very few real regulations have been put into place. Any regulations currently in place are being implemented by people dragging their feet and being fought tooth and nail by those who stand to gain the most from no regulation. With no investigations, no jail time and no loss of their own jobs, Wall Street will repeat itself again. The banks have gotten even bigger since 2008, when they were already too big to fail. Let the looting continue.

How Credit Default Swaps Spread Financial Rot
Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating
Real size of the Bail Out - $14.4 trillion

Issue 2 - No jobs
Because of the mess Wall Street created, jobs are very scarce and difficult to get. Current unemployment runs at 9% or more. 13.9 million people are officially listed as unemployed. 24 million people can’t find full time jobs. Which in turn makes for a poor economy, which in turn makes for more unemployed people in an endless cycle.

Lowering minimum wage and increasing the number of hours minors can work is not a cure for the job market. Having everyone work for half or a quarter of their previous wages does not help.

Those in Wall Street and the politicians are so far out of touch with reality they don't even think there is a job problem. The politicians are doing all they can to avoid even talking about jobs. The Republicans have strived to stop anything that would help the job situation. The only job most politicians care about is their own and in that case they will stop at nothing. They will gladly sell out the people they are supposed to represent. Their focus is on who gets the political jobs in 2012. They could give a rat’s *ss about the millions of people they represent as long as they themselves get the job they want and their party gets the positions they want.

The Job Killers

Issue 3 - Mortgages
Many homeowners who have been paying off their home mortgages are finding the value of their homes has been decimated by the free falling economy. 15 million families now owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. These homes are worth much less now because of what Wall Street and the banks have done. For those people still working, the banks have failed to allow refinancing. The banks have literally forced people from their homes that could have been able to pay if the banks had allowed them to refinance. And of course with massive layoffs, rampant unemployment and medical costs, many other are simply unable to pay their mortgages.

Mortgage crisis, occupy foreclosures

Issue 4 - Control of the country by a few - companies and billionaires
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This country is founded on the idea of democracy and freedom. Yet the supreme court ruled that corporations are now considered citizens so most restrictions are out the window. Corporations have been spending millions of dollars lobbying politicians for their benefit. Many politicians leave congress for lobbying firms when their terms run out so they get even more money. Corporations can contribute to campaigns and recall elections with minimal regulation. Some billionaires such as the Koch brothers expect to invest over $200 million dollars in political campaigns over the next year. Karl Rove’s group is looking at spending over $240 million. Note that most of this last figure is made up just by 3 individuals. And of course they’re anonymous because regulations now let them be so.

The rich fund think tanks whose only task is to figure out how to get more money through political means. How can the poor and sick be squeezed even more to benefit billionaires?

So why would the incredibly wealthy be so concerned about the elections? So they can have the politicians do their bidding. So they can remove regulations on things like water quality, air quality and other environmental and health concerns. They also reduce working conditions for their workers. People lives mean nothing to these people. Squeezing a few dollars more for billionaires is what they’re after.

Wisconsin has created a no bid setup where they can privatize (sell) power plants and other things to these same billionaires and corporations for cheap.

All these corporations and billionaires need to do is run enough ads, print enough incorrect information to confuse a majority of people in a given area and they win the politicians of their choice. The Fox network (and it’s news) is controlled by a billionaire who also owns newspapers and stations world wide so he cannot only make money but slant its coverage to help him and his friends.

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Abramoff: Ban Legislators, Staff From Ever Working For Lobbyists. He Should Know!

Covert Operations - The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama

Issue 5 - Inequality
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The rigged system has caused inequality which has gotten out of control. If people do well in this country then good for them. Many of us believed we all get a chance to do the best we can and have opportunities to do well. And for years that was in fact the case. Earnings of everyone were going up about the same rate. It turns out for the last 30 years the game has been rigged. Regulation after regulation was changed to favor the top 1%. Taxes were reduced enough to these 1% to cause a major shift in values held by the top 1%. 400 americans have more wealth than 150 million people at the bottom.

Workers wages - For the past 20-30 years workers continued to hear that things were tight and they couldn’t possibly provide much of a raise. Most were limited to less than 2%. Typical Hourly Wage Went Up Just $1.23 in the Last 36 Years. This while the companies continued to rake in enough profits to increase the CEO's salary from 30x the average worker to over 350x the average worker. A typical American CEO makes in 1 day what an average worker makes in the full year. No other nation on earth has anywhere near this ratio. All the developed nations are 30x - 40x for their CEOs (England, France, Germany, Japan, etc). American production has continued to rise but this is based on their workers, not the CEOs and other executives. These companies themselves did not increase profits more than enough to cover their excesses. Why have the boards of companies and their shareholders continued with this scam of grossly over paying their executives?

Last year 2.6 million more people lived in poverty. Over 1 out of every 5 children in now live in poverty.
47 million people now depend on some type of government support.

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It's the Inequality, Stupid

The top 1% widen the gap


Issue 6 - Taxes
Today taxes are the lowest they’ve been for decades, especially for the rich.

The Republican’s are now calling the rich the ‘job creators’. And as such they are not only retaining tax cuts for the rich but are pushing for even lower taxes for the rich. The rich do not create jobs. A company only increases employees when there is demand, not when there is extra money. Any extra money is being used to pay off the executives, shareholders and possibly to try to export even more jobs overseas.
A hedge fund manager who makes 100’s of millions of dollars or more has a tax rate of 15%. Warren Buffet’s tax rate is less than his secretary. Yet the politicians want to increase the tax on the poor and middle class with additional special taxes.

Corporate taxes. corporate-taxes-smaller
GE, Bank of American and a number of other companies made billions of profits yet aren't paying a dime in federal taxes because of loopholes and off shore tax havens. Exxon Mobile made $19 billion in 2009. They not only didn’t pay taxes, they received a tax rebate of $156 million.
Bank of America has 115 offshore tax havens and received $1.9 billion in tax rebates even though it made $4.9 billion in profits. GE made $14.2 billion in profit, paid no taxes and received $3 billion in tax credit.

Many corporations are holding money earned outside the U.S. which amounts to about $3 trillion dollars.
Republicans want them to be able to bring the money back tax free on the promise it would create new jobs and boost productivity. The problem is when this was done in 2004 the companies took the money and ran. No significant new jobs resulted. Most large corporations are already sitting on a pile of money.

Many states are slashing any types of programs that help the working people, the poor, the sick and the children and simply providing this money to corporations for tax reductions. All in the hope that some of that money may eventually trickle down to the people who actually need it. Or at least into the politicians campaign funds.

This summer there was the big debate to balance the budget. For decades that process involved trimming some programs and increasing certain taxes. A little give and a little take. Yet the Republicans do not want to even consider restoring the tax on the rich to where it was a few years ago when this ‘temporary reduction’ was put into place.

Imagine if that money was actually used for some good instead of strictly to line the pockets of those who are already rich.

You Paid More in Taxes than America's Largest Corporation

Issue 7 - Health Care
The U.S. health care system is a for profit business. It’s largely unregulated in terms of pricing and the health insurance companies are free to increase their costs as they choose. The U.S. has the highest health care costs in the world and yet falls low in the quality of health care. 50 million people in the U.S. can not afford basic health care insurance. 1 million people a year go into personal bankruptcy because they can’t cover their medical costs. Over half of the foreclosures are caused by the inability to cover medical costs. 45,000 people die a year because they couldn’t afford health care.

Professor Warren Debunks a few Heathcare Myths

Issue 8 - Medicare and Social Security
Medicare and social security are two the areas the politicians and rich are trying to get access to.
Both of these are paid into by people who work and who have paid into them for years. Social security is fine for at least the next 20 years. Both Social Security and Medicare make it even possible for many people to retire. Medicare is an attempt to try to make up for unregulated medical and insurance costs.

Issue 9 - Draconian measures
Many of the new Republican governors have made huge power grabs. Under false pretense of saving money they have eliminated collective bargaining for unions and slashed education. The governor of Florida slashed education by $1.7 billion and then turned around and gave that money as tax reductions to corporations and the rich. Michigan did basically the same thing and increased taxes on the poor and sick. Because, after all, where else would you try to get more money but from the poor and sick? Michigan has also made it possible to force state control of towns as the govenor deems fit, despite who the people have elected.

In Ohio they slashed collective bargaining for all public employees. Teachers, police, fireman, nurses, etc. This was supposed to be a way of saving money. It didn’t. These politicians try to pit one group (non-union) against another group (union) to distract what they’re actually doing (doling money to corporations and special interests). And they do this by making a practice of providing misleading and incorrect figures.

The unions are the ones who won all workers a base 40 hr week in the U.S. and a 5 day regular week. They’re the ones who have pushed for being paid overtime and for having safe work environments. All workers in the U.S. should be thankful that these things exist. Politicians know that unions are the only group of regular citizens that are united and provide the working class with a voice. And the corporations know that if they can eliminate the unions then they can roll back wages and working conditions for everyone. And that they won’t have to answer to anyone since they know the politicians are on their side.

The people of Ohio have now spoken and re-instated collective bargaining.

Scott Walker of Wisconsin started his term by providing over $100 million in tax cuts to corporations and then claimed that the state was in dire straits (it wasn’t). Once again collective bargaining was removed in an attempt to destroy the unions and provide his corporate backers such as the Koch brothers with what they want. Walker implemented several things that were not discussed when he campaigned because he knew he wouldn’t win if he had. These governors seem to be doing the most for the few rather than represent their own people who voted them in. Walker is now up for recall and again money from outside the state is flowing in from the Koch brothers and other groups to exert their efforts for their own gain.

Many in congress have signed pledges to third parties such as not raising taxes. Shouldn’t any politician be pledging to do what’s best for the people they’re supposed to represent rather than someone who isn’t even one of their voters?

Rick Scott’s Guide to Unpopularity

WMC Gave $1 Million to Elect Walker, Legislative Action Includes WMC Agenda of Deregulation, Privatization, $2.3 Billion in Tax Breaks for Corporations, Wealthy

SB 397 Poised to Give $100 Million Handout to Wealthiest Corporations in Illinois

Voting
Many politicians act as spoiled children and attempt very childish maneuvers to get their way.
In Wisconsin they tried to lure the Democratic congress back under false pretenses. In Ohio and WIsconsin there have been both fliers and phone calls that provide misinformation to voters, including providing the wrong date for voting. For the Walker recall election some people have announced they plan to collect the recall documents and destroy them. In school, we would have called thee people jerks and bullies. Now they’re in charge.

Many Republicans have also placed absurd voting restrictions in place to try to limit the number of people who can vote. They use the ruse that voter fraud is an issue. We live in America, a democracy where people are allowed to vote but states are now making it very difficult for college students, minorities and the elderly to vote. All so they can win. Do you really want to elect a public official that behaves like this and that goes to such lengths to win? If they can’t win based on the facts and their abilities, do you really want them?

Issue 9 - Shared sacrifice
This is the term politicians use when they say we have to tighten our belts. But it wasn’t the working people or the poor that created this problem. It was Wall Street. And this shared sacrifice request does not include the rich or politicians. Shared sacrifice means the poor, sick and working people will have less benefits and end up paying more. So much for shared sacrifices.


Summary
These are just some of the reasons the protestors are protesting. They are angry about many things and rightly so. They are sick and tired of seeing major corruption of our entire political and financial institutions. They’re angry seeing the wealthy and powerful of this country controlling everything for their own benefit and overriding the majority. They’re tired of these same people not only getting away with illegal activities but getting bonuses for doing so. And no, it’s not just the Republicans that are to blame. The Democrats have their have their fair share of blame and of being asleep to let this happen and continue to happen.

And you should be getting tired and angry as well. A fitting sentiment is from the movie NETWORK: ‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’

In the end millions of people have had their world turned upside down and are suffering because of the greed and manipulation of the few. The response from these few seems to be ‘Let them eat cake.’ Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.


What has happened to freedom of speech?
Why are the police beating peaceful citizens in a land that was founded on Freedom of Speech?
When was freedom of speech determined to only be possible during specific hours in restricted public areas? When did it become policy to pepper spray, beat, tear gas and shoot your own peaceful protestors? Why are they able to ignore all training and fire teargas weapons at people’s heads? Why do they shoot video taping camera people? Why do they cover their badges and run over people with their motorcycles and horses? When did it become lawful to run over people without question? When did the U.S. become a police state and when did beating and monitoring peaceful protestors become more important than the fight on terror?

It’s because of tiny minded mayors and police chiefs who seem to be getting direction from others. They using the excuse of health and safety problems when none exist. A few square yards of public park have now become the most critical problem for these cities. Real crime and many other problems are put on the back burner while the mayors and the police focus their attention on peaceful protestors. Really? Peaceful protestors who must be beaten and terrorized for merely occupying a public place? Who’s actually manipulating these mayors and police chiefs? Why can’t they control their own police force? These are citizens they supposedly were sworn to protect. Do the mayors and police not have any decency? Will there ever be any true justice?

Police officer pepper-sprays seated, non-violent students at UC Davis

MSNBC Reporter SLAMS NYC Police Brutality! • Occupy Wall Street YouTube

The world is watching.

Thank you
Thank you to the occupiers for forcing mainstream media and the general public to finally wake up. Thank you for calling out these egregious injustices and demanding better. Demanding this country be restored to the democracy and freedom we're supposed to have.

It’s supposed to be ‘We the People’, not we the ultra-rich, not we the corporations.

It’s time to re-balance this country and allow citizens the right to vote for people who will truly represent them. People who are not hired hands of the corporations and billionaires but true leaders helping to make America great again. It’s time to regulate Wall Street and close the loopholes.


Please see the references page for videos and details of what it’s really about.

righttoremainposter

Sites to visit:
OccupyWallSt
OccupyTogether
New York City General Assembly

Poster images from: OWSPosters and Daily Kos

Twitter hash tags
#ows
#occupywallstreet
#occupytogether