I make more than $34K a year. Does this mean I’m taking advantage of the other 99%? Am I (part of the reason) the rest of the world is poor/struggling?
If I say you are, will you care?
This looks like a lazy attempt to change the subject. In every single Occupy protest that I ever saw, the references to “The 1%” and “The 99%” referred to income in the United States, and 99% of Americans definitely do not make less than $34,000 per year. I realize there were Occupy protests in other countries and I don’t know what terms those protesters used, but this wasn’t exactly ambiguous.
Surely you aren’t seriously thinking that the high standards of Western living have no negative impact on any other person on earth… or are you?
In other words, shut up, peasants. Though I must admit his kind is doing the best they can to solve this “problem” by sending the jobs over there to equalize things.
Telling the people to not complain, because the lowlifes over the border have it worse has been a tactic of incompetent dictators for a long time. The Soviets used to run documentaries about the poor in America, IIRC.
There’s no reason to assume that the rhetoric behind the “99% vs. 1%” can’t be applied to a broader audience.
Oh, I’m perfectly willing to grant that the high standards of living within the West have negative impacts elsewhere. Those damn one percenters!
That’s a fair point: the use of resources in the West and the economic system that exists certainly affects other countries. On the other hand it has nothing to do with issues like financial reform and economic inequality in the U.S. - those are either problems or they aren’t regardless of how median income in the U.S. compares to income in other countries.
You can apply it however you want, but that doesn’t respond to what I said.
You aren’t seriously proposing they don’t, are you? Our lifestyle is made possible by taking advantage of low cost labor and cheap imports, by other countries lax environmental regulations where we don’t worry (too much) about our water and air quality.
Of course the lifestyles of the world’s richest 1% have impacts on the rest of the world. Sometimes those impacts are pretty bad – blood diamonds, environmental damage, CO2 emissions, and so on. One would have to be incredibly daft not to think that our lifestyle doesn’t come at some kind of cost.
So, what does the OP think about efforts to eliminate illegal trafficking of diamonds, requirements to include environmental and labor protections in free trade agreements, or reductions in US CO2 emissions? Because it seems that the whole Occupy Wall Street crowd that claim to speak for the world’s top .99% are quite in favor of such things.
Is the OP in favor of addressing the harm that we do to other people because of our fabulous lifestyles?
It’s all about fruitbats, pancakes, shoe horns, the letter “J”, the last tear of a child, and lipstick… Frankly, I think Santorum helps make a shoehorn turn the bottlecap forward and around back to me. If you can help me by cashing a check, I can give you 50%.
Oh, we were talking about a specific case and circumstances and not just pulling facts and figures and randomness from wherever? Oh, then nevermind because those would make as much sense as this argument.
The Occupy movement in the USA is concerned with the top one percent within the USA. To make it into the top one percent, your income must be greater than $386K.
Yes, yes you are. So now that I’ve answered your question, are you going to feel any remorse for it?
Let me answer for you: No, you’re not. You’re going to continue to play up some angle about how the 1% perfectly deserves what they get and that the 99% should just shut up. That was the whole point of your topic.
So this means the downfall of the US, since the US is mainly the 1%, it is time for their power to end.
Well looks like it’s happening, so I guess your right.
BTW, I’m fully behind an Occupy Rangoon or Occupy Addis Ababa movement which tries to get the corrupt rich and political leaders in this country to stop sending money to Swiss Banks and start supporting the poor. Are you? That would help reduce global inequality too.
Ah, so because 70% of Utah is Mormon I can apply that to a broader audience and see that 70% of the world is Mormon.
Good to know.
Just because it may be applied to a broader audience doesn’t mean that all attributes must be applied to a broader audience.
Also, just because 1% has been used to describe A doesn’t mean you can’t use it to define B, C, D, E or Z.
Hope that helps.
Helps me understand you don’t know a blatant strawman argument when you see one.
No. Economics is not a zero sum game.
But you’ve distorted the message, such as it is, that the Occupiers are trying to get out there. They are concerned with the ability of the 1-percenters to influence the political process and get more of the goodies, including tax breaks and other economic benefits, for themselves.
I would say that was a nice try at a “gotcha” if it was, but it wasn’t.
The OP is a black conservative.
Therefore in a broader sense, all OPs are black conservatives.
Not one iota.
Well, no. What I would say is that the bottom 99% are not poor or suffering because of the top 1%. But that’s not really important, since you’ve already deduced what my “actual” argument is.
Which I already know, henceforth the asked rhetorical question.
How have I distorted the message? I don’t think so. The argument-- or, really, I should say-- claim that has been made is that the top 1% take advantage of the bottom 99% and that most (any) ill that befalls the bottom 99% is because of the top 1% acting in their own self-interests. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.