Understanding the Occupy Movement

It is not my intention here to downplay or criticize a well-orchestrated movement of any type, however, I would really like to understand what specifically this Occupy Wall Street (insert your city) movement is supposed to accomplish. The message is anti-banks and anti-capitalism – okay, neat and valid message – but the question is, what are the goals or intended end results here?

I don't like most banks anymore than the rest of you, though I do like the bank I have used the last few years. They don't overcharge for anything and they're always friendly. What in the hell else does anyone want?

I have always called the creditors “predators” and that's a fact of life. The fuzzy math used by any I have encountered has you paying 100% + interest, not the 8% they claim when you get an auto loan. This is why I no longer have any auto loans. I found a solution, but I won't be able to publish it here. *smile* Beyond that, what is to protest? The obvious solution is to not use credit.

This is a request for information if any reader is participating in the Occupy movement. Please be specific and list potential goals when you respond.

I am as socialist leaning as the average person today, perhaps even more so because of my horrific ordeal over my former business. Okay, I'll admit that sometimes I want to sign-up for anything and everything the state and feds offer in the way of social programs just so I can stick it to them; my way of saying screw you all. But then reality hits me and I realize that I appreciate the capitalist system and though I have met with far more roadblocks than most, I admire the entrepreneur, the person that turns an idea into income. I don't admire the wage slaves and I won't ever be one again, but I do empathize with anyone stuck in a low-pay hourly wage job; time to do something about it.

I also do not admire anyone that sucks the state and government programs for all they're worth instead of thinking and acting in an entrepreneurial environment. These days public servants (or so they're called) are the worst. In Florida we have DROP – Deferred Retirement Option Program – which amounts to cops and teachers and prosecutors getting paid their retirement pensions and working at the same job for the same pay or more. They are collecting double + the money and doing the same job. Time for each to go ahead and really retire.

There have been changes to DROP this year, but nothing like the changes we need. It is one of many reasons that Florida is broke. Imagine my thoughts when I found out that prosecutors get to suck the state dry and plot to kill (or so it feels anyway) people like me and the 12 from Eastern Europe (most from Moldova) charged with sex trafficking that are trying to support ourselves, and they do it all on the taxpayer $s. I am referring to THIS case, and it ain't sex trafficking anymore than most other similar recent cases. I may be mentioning the case because it has had some recent movement, but more on that later.

I am all for universal healthcare; however, I am also intelligent enough to know that it will never happen in the US. Let's not spend another $billion or more pretending that it might and we need a plan in case it does, okay? When it comes to healthcare for the poor and the uninsured with pre-existing conditions, the US is no better than any third world nation and it's probably worse than many. Face it – it is what it is.

I couldn't participate in anything that claims an anti-Wall Street agenda with good conscience anyway. I traded professionally for a few years (as classified by IRS) and loved the hell out of it. It's gambling, you know, and you win some and lose some, but the game is the ride no matter how great your calculations or predictions. So now you know that I gamble, but you should have already known that as a trial is always a gamble.

So what is this anti-banks movement about? Without a bank account one cannot purchase anything online. Don't even mention PayPal to me because that dumpy outfit is the worst bank around, worse than Bank of America, and that says much. It cannot possibly be about the big real estate crash, as if anyone with brains didn't see that coming long before it actually happened. Please feel free to fill me in on the agenda that I have missed here.

Is it about corporate greed? Well, time to research your economic history because corporate greed has existed for centuries and the US is not the only culprit. If you can't beat it, explore joining it, be entrepreneurial. As a 51 year-old adult, I have no intention of ever living in a commune and sharing my toothpaste with some dolt that can no longer suck from the state and federal government because all the money is gone.

What I have experienced is people living on all sorts of government programs or taking every $ they can grab from the state and federal government while knocking me for my attempts to be entrepreneurial. Get real.

Image credit: Stock Market Data2010 © Daniel Haller / 2011 © iStockphoto.com