Occupy Movement Explained

[Islandtrader]

Originally Posted by Bigshrimpin

I suspect that is the main message of the occupy movement . . . People are pissed b/c they've lost their homes, jobs, etc. Average salaries (for 99%) have not increased over last 10 years http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...o-income-gain/, but cost of goods, education, health insurance, housing, child care, and fuel have skyrocketed. Some global corporations with US HQ's decide to keep profits oveseas to avoid being taxed . . . which dumps additional burden/costs of maintaining government on the average citizen.

You can go back and forth on what ever turns your crank...Just to give the other side of the story, that tells you anotherreason why we are over seas.

This is lifted from a WSJ article the other day.

Steve Jobs told Obama that apple employs 700,000 factory workers in China because it can't find 30,000 engineers in the U.S. that it needs on site at its plants. " If you could educate these engineers, we could move more manufacturing jobs here". Jobs was mystified by a policy that instead educates foreigner engineers at top US schools and then sends them home immediately after graduation.

For me the case is clear, too much government is not a good thing.

[McGillicuddy]

Terry, that's an excellent point from Mr Jobs, but I really doubt those engineers in China are the ones developing the i operating systems. I guess most of that is done in Cupertino. And those engineers and factory workers get paid a fraction of what US engineers or even those in Cupertino earn. And if Apple was paying those Chinese factory workers $8.75 /hr, I'm fairly sure that Apple would not be sitting on the billions in cash it holds. It would be going into the US economy and growing exponentially in other ways that benefit more than just the 1 percent at Apple

Big, good stuff. I think I'll pull all of my assets from B of A and put it in a local credit union. Too bad they hold some of my loans...

Dave, great point. One fool presented on camera is neither the the basis nor the voice for a "revolution." And indeed, the message of Occupy Wall Street is poorly presented. Their website has no mission statement that I could extrapolate, and appears little more than a schedule to incite protest.

By the way, I'm one of the 99%...what ever that means...
I bought a house in SD in '04 am $100K upside down and can't modify my loan because I pay my bills on time and I do because am not willing to break the contract on which I signed or initialed 57 pages. I can't refinance my loan because I can't show 20% equity, even though I actually put 20% down.

Regarding Ft Myers blocking these protests, the right to peaceful assembly is covered in the 1st amendment of the Bill of Rights, so why the hell a local government thinks it has the right to stop a peaceful protest on public property in the name of liability insurance or any thing else beyond the scope of my comprehension. If the cops or zealots don't beat anyone up it shouldn't be a problem.

On the other hand people should have a grip on their gripe.
Just to lighten up the mood here's a viddy that hits home while being funny. And remember gang, this is comedy not an economic-political disertation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRmZ9zH-mYM

[bbh57]

Same Story from Business Insider, Notice that the reason given here for the 700000 jobs being in China is not the shortage of engineers as WSJ states but the ease of operating in China, Which to me means cheap labor to build plants and manufacture. Although they do say that if we could train more engineers some jobs could return here. Also interesting to me are his recommendations for our education system.

Not trying to split hairs but just wanted to point out differances.




Jobs said the Obama administration was not business-friendly and said it was impossible to build a factory in the United States due to regulations and unnecessary costs. Apple had 700,000 factory workers employed in China, where it was much easier to build and run a factory, Jobs said. He said Obama was "headed for a one-term presidency" if the administration didn't improve.
Jobs also said the American education system was "hopelessly antiquated" and crippled by teachers' unions. Apple's factories, for example, needed 30,000 skilled engineers — something the U.S. education system was not producing. He suggested the President completely overhaul the system and proposed an 11-month school year with days that lasted until 6 p.m.
"You can't find that many in America to hire," he said. "If you could educate these engineers, we could move more manufacturing plants here."

[Bigshrimpin]

Originally Posted by Islandtrader

Steve Jobs told Obama that apple employs 700,000 factory workers in China because it can't find 30,000 engineers in the U.S. that it needs on site at its plants. " If you could educate these engineers, we could move more manufacturing jobs here". Jobs was mystified by a policy that instead educates foreigner engineers at top US schools and then sends them home immediately after graduation.

For me the case is clear, too much government is not a good thing.

Business spin translation . . . thanks for educating our chinese engineers on americas dime . . . Until there is legislation or tariffs preventing us from doing so we will keep opening factories in china. We can do it for far less money overseas.

80 BILLION in cash and no debt . . . wanna bet they can't find 30,000 hardware and software engineers in the USA? Steal them from Intel, EMC, etc. It about cost and it just cost less overseas . . . plain and simple.

[DonV]

That's just China.....India is following right on their rear end for American educated citizens! Having fun yet?

[Bigshrimpin]

Originally Posted by DonV

That's just China.....India is following right on their rear end for American educated citizens! Having fun yet?

I've worked at a research university (5 years) and MIT startup E Ink (4 years) and now a research institution. Ex-wife was material science engineer (phd) There is a ton of research that gets mined and piped right over to china out of universities. I've seen first hand . . . it's an HUGE issue at my current place of employment (requiring oversight from DSS and FBI). Regarding india . . . I had the pleasure of training my indian replacements from cognizant for 2 months (before our group was laid off) at John Hancock (Manulife Financial) after spending 18 months cleaning up their software packaging process. Cognizant employed my exact process using indian software packagers. Let me tell you . . . This issue gets me PO'd.

[Blue_Heron]

Originally Posted by McGillicuddy

On the other hand people should have a grip on their gripe.
Just to lighten up the mood here's a viddy that hits home while being funny. And remember gang, this is comedy not an economic-political disertation.

That's good! Maybe Felonious Monk should run for Congress. I think he's got as good a grip on the situation as Milton Friedman did. Thanks for lightening the mood.

Dave

[DonV]

I'm sure most of you have seen this, however some may have not. The interesting thing is we are $15,000,000,000,000 in the hole. WAY above my head!

http://www.slideshare.net/Ficoba/whats-a-trillion

[Bigshrimpin]

So let's continue to pay off those debts by allowing corporations to offshore jobs? and use tax havens in the cayman islands to avoid paying taxes? cut education and research funding? Maybe the plan is just to print money and devalue currency until china stops pegging their currency to the dollar? or until dollar is worthless? I think there is some strategy here that we all don't grasp.

[Islandtrader]

Originally Posted by Bigshrimpin

So let's continue to pay off those debts by allowing corporations to offshore jobs? and use tax havens in the cayman islands to avoid paying taxes? cut education and research funding? Maybe the plan is just to print money and devalue currency until china stops pegging their currency to the dollar? or until dollar is worthless? I think there is some strategy here that we all don't grasp.

Yeah the strategy is to vote for someone that will...

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