I'm thinking most would not comment.

I've actually seen it first hand. Not great but they don't seem to have as much steam in person as they do in news reports where angles and scenes were chosen very carefully.

 

You left out that most of the people in the South, West and Mid-West have a small arsenal in their closets. If things get ugly they could get very ugly quickly. In my travels around the country there seems to be a huge disconnect between the coasts + Great Lakes areas vs. the rest of the place. Two totally opposite view points on most every issue.

 

This is that same economic terrorist Stephen Lerner ( seems his outed from the SEIU was short lived ) from a few months back ( might recall some campaign to stop paying student loans, mortgages and CC bills, everyone at once ).

Monday's take back Chicago rally was a joke. Who are they taking Chicago back from ? The Machine politics that have been operational for decades, the Democratic party that runs the city of Chicago, Cook County and the state ( as well as the Attorney General ( the daughter of the Democratic Party chairman and state speaker of the house ) ?

Got to love the comments by the protesters "We are here to restore economic equality" Wow..

The 25% tax the organizers of the rally want put on the CBOT & CME will just drive them out of the state. Bet WI would be more than willing to let the 2 exchanges into the state. Want to see how many jobs leave with that ?

It is interesting to see what mob mentality will do to people.

 

I'm well aware of the fact that many people in parts of this country exercise their right to keep an bear arms. I've never understood the necessity to do so more than I do now. That doesn't make the situation any less tense though. While I hope to someday soon exercise my 2nd amendment rights, bloodshed is bloodshed, even if it is a little bit of mine and a little bit of thiers.

Just so you folks out there in the rest of the country know, while there are huge concentrations of the progressive mindset in the areas of the country mentioned, there is not complete saturation. I am an example of that. There are pockets of reasoned, common sense citizens out here, who though outnumbered, continue to work for equal justice, rather than "social justice".

 

I dont think we are outnumbered. We just dont openly advertise to the same extremes. A rich man is gonna keep making money and approach politicians like a businessman, not sit in the street like a bum crying for attention.

People are tricked into thinking these "progressives" are a majority by the news companies out trying to sell a story.

 

I read in a news report yesterday that one of the protesters said, "I eat better here than at my parent's house" in reference to the free food that was being given out. That should be a huge clue as to who is protesting.

 

Unfortunately, I have to agree with you here. This is going to continue to escalate and will get very ugly - probably just in time for the 2012 elections. And who said it was going to be a natural disaster that was going to destroy the place in 2012?

 

These protests are fascinating. Basically what we have is a bunch of well intentioned forks protesting against “greedy corporations.” OK, sounds good on the surface. So what is greed anyway? A quick check in Wikipedia shows the following:

Greed: An excessive desire to possess wealth, goods, or abstract things of value with the intention to keep it for one's self. Greed is inappropriate expectation. However, greed is applied to a very excessive or rapacious desire and pursuit of wealth, status, and power.

So when is a corporation greedy and when is it merely profitable? When is it “excessive?” Who gets to make that determination? Is making money as a business bad? It would appear that these protesters are saying that they (or somebody) should be able to make those decisions. That’s a very scary path that I for one don’t want to go down. Let me explain.

I have a friend who ran a number of restaurants for years and never quite got it right. He just wasn’t making any money. Then, about 25 years ago, he opened what we would now call a sports bar in town in what turned out to be a perfect location. He focused relentlessly on great food and service and continuous improvement. He now owns four of these places and is very, very successful. To say that he and everybody that works for him worked their asses off to get where they are today would be an understatement. This guy deserves every penny he gets in my mind. So is he greedy because he’s (finally) wealthy? Some of these protesters would say so – and I don’t agree at all.

Then there’s everybody’s 401k. When I asked my mom a number of years ago how here investments (mostly stocks) were doing, she just about gushed over how well they were doing. (I also proposed at the time that the level of growth she was seeing was unsustainable.) I think it’s safe to say everybody else was in pretty much the same position with their investments.

Fast forward to today. The bubble finally burst as I predicted – because it was unsustainable. So now the protesters – who probably made lots of money at the time – are against the same greed that made them (and then lost them) lots of money. Weren’t they just as greedy when they were making money? Who was really driving the greedy corporations to make money at any cost and by any means? Greedy stock holders maybe?

Fundamentally, all of this does come back to greed. I’d propose that the folks protesting corporate greed actually want that money to be in their pockets instead. So, isn’t that greed in a slightly different costume?

 

I find it interesting watching the new lately and seeing these protests, then I really look closely at the picture on my TV screen and see these protestors walking around with Starbucks coffee, iPhones, Nike shoes, and all sorts of other name brand cloething and electronics. If they really want to protest the greedy corporations stop buying there products or use small home town banks or hoard there cash in a matress instead of using BofA, Wells Fargo and the other major banks hit them where it hurts the most in the pocket book. The other thing that I find a little humorous is that the profits they see are a huge number but dig deeper and I would be willing to bet that the annual profit of these large corporations are only 5%-10% of the annual revenue they take in which in turn is a very large number compared to the profits they show.