[hkmurakami]

This is alarming to me, because this particular act is appears to be pure sensationalism to me. It also takes the numbers grossly out of context.

When I saw the "Richest 400 vs Bottom 150,000,000" 50/50 split on one of the bills, my immediate thought was the following:

__Do these people consider how many jobs these top 400 people created over the last decades, and how much better off the world is because they existed?__

Yes, the US tax structure is flawed. Yes, there are some truly corrupt things going on. But depicting the situation as a "me vs you" situation rather than presenting the situation as a structural issue seems very alarming to me. I know I'm sounding like a lot of random Republican talking heads when criticizing the "class divide" issue of this movement, but why on earth would you classify a man like Bill Gates, who created tens of thousands of jobs for this economy and continues to do great deeds for humanity through his foundation, along with the truly corrupt?

Generalizations are dangerous, and I'm concerned.

[jamieb]

Do these people consider how many jobs these top 400 people created over the last decades

You seem to be claiming that these people actually create jobs. That they have some magical power, or even non-magical power. Some economic something. Some accumen. Whatever. You are saying jobs were created and these people are responsible. Great. If that is the case, may I ask "Why have the stopped now?"

It turns out that jobs are actually created most by small businesses.

http://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html

[duck]

It turns out that jobs are actually created most by small businesses.

Which many have been able to grow or start due to Microsoft and Bill Gates.

[josefresco]

Replace "due to" with "despite" and you're closer to the mark.

[ericd]

They haven't stopped, many thousands of people still work for them.

And please don't downplay what Gates has done. He may have been a ruthlessly competitive businessman, but he has had a larger positive impact on the world than almost anyone else alive.

[jamieb]

My point is, if these people are magically special, why are they not able to create more jobs now? How come they stopped creating jobs? How come 50 million americans are without jobs?

Is it not, perhaps, the case that the situation was such that these jobs would have been created anyway? My complaint is this.

There are 400 rich people. There are jobs. You attribute a causal relationship.

I say, you could have killed every one of these 400 at birth, and we would still have the jobs (and to be clear I am not advocating doing that at all, I'm just making a hypothetical argument)

Now you might say that it is not these 400 individuals that matter, but that in any system with jobs, there would be 400 people at the top, and these people would have more wealth.

However, it is the "how much more wealth" that is the complaint. Not that there are 400 of them. The complaint is not that these specific 400 people are the problem. Nor that any such 400 would be the problem. The complaint is that a system that allows for the top 400 people to have such a disparate amount of wealth compared to the other 300 million is a fucked system.

To argue that without these 400 people, or any such 400 people, there would be higher unemployment is rubbish. That "we are better off because they existed".

Fuck you, frankly.

Indeed, its more likely that the richest 400 actively act to prevent individuals from gaining wealth and power that can threaten their own. As the feudal system collapsed, small businesses flourished. In order to maintain control, the ruling classes established laws requiring tradesmen to join guilds and pay fees. In the UK for example, guilds had to be recognized by the monarch.

In modern times, these guilds have been replaced by rules and regulations that have the same effect, but their justification is the same: "its in the public interest". Just as you couldn't buy cloth from a non-guild weaver in the 15th century - because it might not be good quality - so now you can't buy a car from Tesla unless Tesla pays millions of dollars for crash testing, or buys a design from an incumbent.

Similarly, patent lawyers. Accountants. That new iPhone app that records your heart rate? Want FDA approval for that? Want to be hit with a lawsuit for a covered medical device that you released without FDA approval? (because they are covered).

I'm not saying that a capitalist world run by a species that is happy to bomb its own offspring could be any different. I'm just saying don't fucking pretend that we owe them any praise. They get away with as much as they can just short of us rising up and killing them.

[danso]

Well, many of the jobs that have been lost are of the legacy type: jobs in which the creations of Gates, Jobs, et al. have made obsolete. At a previous company I worked for, each executive had his/her own scheduling and appointment secretary. While that may have been necessary back in the day before easy-to-use, syncable-with-your-mobile-device calendars were developed, the jobs that managed such tasks were the first on the chopping block. In fact, those jobs only continued to exist because it was more of a (emotional/sentimental) cost to cut them than to just keep them.

After the company trimmed heavily during recession and bosses got used to doing their own calendars there was no justifying hiring for these secretarial positions again. Sure, talented young out-of-college kids may have found new types of work, but not these former secretaries.

[ericd]

Wow. Way to keep it civil. Thanks for cursing me out.

I had written up a long response trying to explain how much the large companies these people have founded have helped the American economy compete and people prosper. Then I got to your section implying that crash testing was primarily a way for incumbents to keep startups down rather than being for the public good and I realized that you were either trolling me or are so unreasonable right now that it's pointless trying to argue with you.

[jamieb]

To which I would have asked "compete against who?" And you would have said "china etc" and I would have said, "Who the fuck do you think let these cheap chinese goods in here in the first place"?

You would have then started talking about how economists have proved that international trade is good for jobs.

To which I would have replied that americans leading economist said that in 2005 we should all be using ARMs to buy houses.

You believe the bullshit. I don't.

You get upset when people type characters like 'f' 'u' 'c' and 'k' in sequence.

I get upset when people justify a government-economic-hierarchy that kills fucking children with bombs because of oil and tell us "we're better off for it".

Yes it is pointless trying to argue with me. Enjoy your flat earth. I must be the crazy one.

[ericd]

No, not China, that's recent history. We sell our electronics, software, and services to the world. That's competition.

Go to a bar and tell a few people you don't know "Frankly, fuck you" and see if they get annoyed with you.

You're conflating lots of of only slightly related things. I don't remember any economists saying that taking an ARM was a good idea.

I agree that the current state of the govt. is more than a little messed up and outrage is overdue, but you're doing the cause a disservice by talking about the wrong things and generally sounding like a conspiracy theorist. Public-only campaign financing is a good thing to talk about. Talking about how crash testing for cars is used to keep the good guys down is going to get you ridiculed by the opposition, and whatever movement you're associated with will be ridiculed by association.

[sixtofour]

How many jobs do those 400 create? Who are they, actually? Are they generally captains of industry, steering the ship of employment? Or are they generally trustafarians, doing whatever?

[robryan]

Also would be interesting to know their hiring practices, are they paying the least they can get away with and no job security or are they creating sustainable jobs?

[georgemcbay]

"How many jobs do those 400 create?"

As few as possible... the shareholders demand it!

[nknight]

Let's assume for a moment that the richest 400 people in the US "create jobs" in some reasonable proportion to their personal wealth.

Let's also assume that all of them disappeared tomorrow.

Do you believe that half the jobs in the US would go away?

Let's assume none of them were ever born.

Do you believe the US would have half the jobs it does today?

I hope you can see what I'm getting at.

That aside, take a look at who the 400 are:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/

Just go down the list. Google them and their companies. Take a look at how many people they actually employ.

Some of them you might argue made significant contributions to the creation of entire industries, but many are just investors. Hedge fund managers. Bankers.

OWS isn't pissed about Bill Gates or Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos or Michael Dell. They're not looking at the guys who started value-creating businesses and contributed directly to their success. That's not who this is about, and it never has been.

[hkmurakami]

If OWS isn't outraged at the Tech Leaders, then they shouldn't generalize "the top 400" in this manner. When you abstract "the ultra-rich" into the symbolic cause of America's current woes, you're going to automatically incriminate those who do drive value-creating businesses as well.

I don't think OWS's purpose or message or mantra is wrong. However, if they continue down this path of generalization and polarization for the sake of PR impact, I'm afraid they're going to become even more unfocused in their messaging.

[nknight]

It's a combination of political slogans/rallying cries and observations about wealth distribution problems in general. The former will always be wider than they ought to be, the latter can't exclude the "good guys" from the conversation entirely, because they have benefited to some degree from the broken system, even if they don't intend to perpetuate it.

But the name is "Occupy Wall Street". They know who their opponents are. They know who screwed with their mortgages and retirements. They know who paid off the politicians. They're out there with MacBooks and iPhones, tweeting and facebook-ing. Silicon Valley isn't their problem, and they know it.

(Edit: They're not even hammering Wal-Mart, and it'd be so easy. I think that says something.)