Occupy Together: The Kids are Alright

By Jeralyn, Section Economy
Posted on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:02:22 PM EST
Tags: Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Together (all tags)

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At Daily Kos, Big Tent Democrat interviews his 17 year old daughter about why she joined Occupy Wall Street. What a smart, articulate young woman.

Q: What do you think the goals of Occupy Are?
A: To help wake America up to the fact that the country can't go on focused on the needs of the few over the needs of the many.

The movement has passed its one month anniversary, raised $300,000.00 and grown globally into Occupy Together. Reuters reports a new poll shows most New Yorkers support the protest. [More...]

Protesters in Greensboro voted and are asking President Obama to meet with them. It would be a great chance for added media attention to his pitch for the American Jobs Act. And it would be interesting to see if the Secret Service under Obama is any different than that for Bush when it comes to handling hecklers.

< Monday Morning Open Thread | Slate: Protests Are "Anti-Democracy" >

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Occupy Together: The Kids are Alright | 62 comments (62 topical)

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She is a lot smarter (5.00 / 2) (#1)
by Edger on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:12:07 PM EST

than I was at 17. Way smarter!

BTD should be very, very proud of her. And probably is.

She would have made a good hippie 45 years ago. ;-)

NYPD hassled them so they (5.00 / 3) (#2)
by oculus on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:14:01 PM EST

decided to check out OWS. Hear that, kdog?

I like this kid:) (5.00 / 3) (#8)
by kdog on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:34:54 PM EST

But asking a cop for directions? Never me! I'd attempt to navigate by the North Star to the nearest slice first.


: Plus there's gotta be a pizza app for NYC. (none / 0) (#9)
by oculus on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:43:51 PM EST

NYPD maybe (none / 0) (#3)
by Edger on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:16:51 PM EST

is really on OWS side, and this is the only way they can help grow the movement while at the same time making Bloomberg think they are really crackin' down?


Ha. Reverse psychology or something. (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by oculus on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:20:34 PM EST

Well, (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by Edger on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:22:52 PM EST

I'm sure they're getting a least a little concerned about their pensions by now... and the protesters keep reminding them of it.


The people they have to fear on that (none / 0) (#10)
by tigercourse on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:43:53 PM EST

score are the voters, not Wall Street.


Not sure about that. Public pension funds (5.00 / 2) (#11)
by oculus on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:46:37 PM EST

lost a ton of money invested via Wall Street.


The New York City pension funds (none / 0) (#13)
by tigercourse on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:52:55 PM EST

have a 10 year annualized return of about 5.5 percent. They had a nearly 25% return last year.

It's a very well run fund.


after a crash like that (5.00 / 1) (#18)
by CST on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 03:09:37 PM EST

the whole stock market had nowhere to go but up, way up.

My 401k went up like crazy last year too, shoot I did better than 25%. Of course the year before that it lost about 50% of it's value and this year it is back down again. You just described what happened to the entire market.

They have plenty to worry about.


nice link........... (none / 0) (#15)
by Edger on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 03:01:07 PM EST

n/t


Here, (none / 0) (#16)
by tigercourse on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 03:01:52 PM EST

http://www.pionline.com/article/20110926/DAILYREG/110929919


: That was not only (none / 0) (#17)
by Edger on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 03:09:32 PM EST

for only one of NYC's FIVE pensions funds, it was also last month.
Try a little honesty and something a little more current...

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- New York's 8 percent assumed rate of return on its pension investments is so unrealistic that the city may have to spend even more than the $1 billion it has in reserve for its retirement plans, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
Officials are waiting for chief actuary Robert North to recommend how much the city can expect to reap on its pension assets, which were valued at $120 billion as of June 30. North hasn't issued a recommendation in more than a year. A lower assumed rate would mean the city would have to contribute more to shore up its five pension plans.
"We keep talking to the actuary; I would have thought by now he would have made a decision," Bloomberg told reporters during a news conference in Manhattan today. "The more you see returns in the stock market or in the debt market being negative or zero, the more unrealistic an 8 percent assumption is."
[snip]
U.S. public pension funds have 76.1 percent of the assets required to pay retirement benefits, according to a survey of 215 plans by the Washington-based National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems released in June. The plans surveyed held about $900 billion and covered 7.6 million workers.

LOL. (none / 0) (#12)
by Edger on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:46:49 PM EST

: On second thought, they don't have much to (none / 0) (#14)
by tigercourse on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 02:53:51 PM EST

fear from voters either.

I think the majority of the cops (5.00 / 3) (#28)
by Militarytracy on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 04:17:17 PM EST

are on the side of the OWS. I saw the video of the Iraq veteran yelling at them, you can clearly see their faces....and they know. There is always at least one sociopath in uniform out there though. They are in a difficult spot, that's for sure. Constantly addressing them as the protesters have as well as the 1,000+ sitting down when the cops were getting all fried and freaky Saturday is a thing of beauty in dealing with all of this. DKos put a photo up of the people sitting, I thought it was truly beautiful. Up to that point I had only read about it happening in nyceve's diary.


I would think (5.00 / 1) (#30)
by Edger on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 04:52:30 PM EST

that that most of them are, yes. The ones that did the caging and pepper spraying last week were probably a "special" unit of wannabe Luca Brasi's...


Leadership is in white shirts (5.00 / 1) (#31)
by Militarytracy on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 05:01:08 PM EST

That much has been made obvious to me watching all the vids. The police all in blues are taking orders, I saw that in eve's vids and it was the white shirts that ramped up and calmed the forces down and ordered them to back away from the barricades. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Pepperspray was in a crisp white shirt. Don't have his name on the tip of my tongue but he has been named. He has a history of police brutality complaints against him. I think it is safe to say there are some cops that the protesters will face that are obviously part of a certain 1% too.


: Good call (5.00 / 1) (#33)
by Edger on Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 05:07:33 PM EST

No reason the police wouldn't have the same - or probably slightly higher - percentage of socio/psycho paths that general society has.

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