OWS: "You may be passionate but it is not enough to resolve the crisis"

Some dude from the UK put it best, and I think every American should be embarrassed of this.  Education is the best start to figuring out a solution, not just protesting with a vague list of demands.  The wealthy know that the middle class and poor are dumb about money and the economy (and it's true).  Once we figure this out, we can have an intelligent conversation about this and find solutions.  In the meantime, I'm getting back to work. 

This is taken from the comments section of the article "Here's What the Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About," in reference to a slew of charts depicting what the OWS are protesting (even though they don't really know it?) 

Jatin Luthia · Ealing, United Kingdom

Though the data is correct, the context of analysis is definitely incorrect. American labor has been winning compared to the rest of the world for a long time. The current disparity has largely risen from the fact that while capital has largely stayed in the US and labor has partially equalised over the rest of the world. Bear in mind though that wages in India and China are indeed less. With businesses getting more complex and global, CEOs are likely to get paid more (Though some amounts are obnoxious). It is businesses job to be competitive and make profits and it is labor's job to be competitive. If it is too costly to hire someone, economics will dictate that labor will move elsewhere. If wall street protests do make wall street dysfunctional, then capital will move away too and it will just be a double-whammy for labor as capital is a very competitive resource that US has especially as the Dollar holds out as a currency of choice. Such simplistic graphs and comments distort long-term economic realities and the result of years of trade and labour barriers followed by the developed world. Once the barriers started lifting, economic reality became different. I think more people need to understand economics than simply blame capital as capital has no direct social commitment. Its commitment to society is more indirect and derivative.

Reply ·  1 · Like · Follow Post · 15 hours ago

• Henry Harvey
  So what you're saying is that it's the job of business to be competitive and make profit, even if it means throwing out of work the people that live in the country where that business originated.
  
  
  The inherent unfairness in globalization is that a company can relocate whereas I can't realistically move my family to another country.
  
  
  I don't think one could be seen as opposed to capital per se if the wish is only to see a situation in which the people who manage corporations invest capital in the countries and the people who have helped them to get so rich and powerful.
  
  
  Much of the rage in the Occupy Wall Street movement comes from the realization that the multinational corporations and the financial institutions are selling us short, both literally and figuratively.
  Reply ·  1 · Like · 11 hours ago
  
  
  
• Jatin Luthia · Ealing, United Kingdom
  Henry Harvey Your comments are not economically driven. I am saying what incents each section of business. It is definitely the job of business to be competitive and make profits. Origination of business is very relative. Most American conglomerates earn more revenues overseas. How do you define "Origination"? Incorporation is not sufficient to define origination. You may be passionate but it is not enough to resolve the crisis. I think a matured response combining passion, economics and politics would be more useful. Otherwise, it may sound like irrational rabble-rousing and leave the US insular and lagging. The key to success of the US economy has been its adaptability.
  Reply · Like · 6 hours ago
  
  

Halloween Currency Frights

So, today I was at the bank because I couldn't access my savings account online.  I had transferred the rest of the money out of the account to cover a bill, but when I tried to put some back in, poof - no savings account.  I tried to make a deposit through the ATM.  Denied.

*Stomping feet to the car*  Fine, I'll bite.  Off to the bank branch in person.  I gave them my check and asked them to deposit it into my savings account, and... it's not open any more.  A manager came over to try to re-open it, but she couldn't, and so our conversation went:

Me: "So, the account is closed?  There is a minimum balance?"
Manager:  "No.  It was just at zero too long."
Me:  "But there's no minimum balance?'
Manager:  "No."

She was very helpful in opening a new one for me and depositing my check, but now I have a PayPal transaction that's going to have a big, fat FAIL on it when they eventually figure out my savings account had been buried without a proper memorial service.  How does an account close itself if there is no minimum balance?  How does my account cause the bank any grief if it just sits idle for a few weeks?  I think it was at zero for 30 days or so when I realized that I couldn't transfer money to it any more.  Does an empty savings account REALLY cause that much overhead that they have to close it?  It's just a virtual placeholder, for criminy's sake.  Maybe they closed it because they were afraid I was going to use it again and gather that 0.000000001% interest on the balance every quarter.  A penny for your savings, please.

You'd think between the precarious position of the dollar and numerous bank failures, Citizens Bank would at least want to keep the option open for me to put money back into the bank.  Although, Bank of America has no problem with keeping my credit account open after declining an APR increase, just in case I use the card one day, so they have the option of raising my APR to 14% on one card and 25% on the other.  The timeframe for what Obama and his administration signed for the credit laws is simply too long - they should have done a sting operation so the credit companies don't have several months to milk their customers of sinfully high APR percentages, making up new fees and increasing existing ones.  I don't know why they look so pleased when we're still hurting.

Oh dear.  Between a screaming, colicky baby who is teething at four months old and the general state of our economy, I believe I have turned into an unreasonable nitpicker whose foray into this blog has lost a bit of focus.  But what better way to find out what's going on in the national news that to actually live it?  Credit used to be cheap, but when it was made available to every person whose credit score was less than perfect, it spiraled out of control.  Similarly, when every person could get a mortgage regardless of their income or credit history, those who usually could not afford owning a home are now paying dearly for it.

What does this have to do with my closed savings account?  No clue.  Not much about this economy or money in general makes sense these days.  In order to "save" this economy, everyone has a different theory:  Is it spreading the wealth?  Spreading opportunity?  Trade allies?  Ugh, who knows.  All I know is that banks are failing and I didn't have a place to rest the money I DO have.  If anyone can make sense of that knotty mess, I'd be much obliged.