<p>Especially for points 4 and 5.</p>
<p>5</a> Ways We Ruined the Occupy Wall Street Generation | Cracked.com</p>
<p>occupy wall street is a protest? I thought it was just what my fraternity brothers did after graduation. TFM</p>
<p>That’s not funny. You don’t compare successful people to dirty hippies.</p>
<p>^ Hates extremist opinion. Makes extremist opinion. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Love Cracked. DOB and Soren are my favorite writers, but John Cheese is somewhere on the top five list. </p>
<p>He’s right too. People ARE ashamed to take any kind of manual labor job because it’s been used as a threat for so long.</p>
<p>Some people may be ashamed to take manual labor jobs, but I can guarantee you that there is a sizable working class with no other choice, and that their hard labor for a barely livable wage is what props up the system that allows rich men who sit in large corporate offices and do paperwork to live in decadence.</p>
<p>Never had a problem stocking dog food for a living, until they took my job away after 7 years of working my way up to finally making a whopping $12 an hour only to have them offer me my job back 60 days later at minimum wage. Store manager got a killer bonus though and that CEO raked in several more billion by raking us useless peasantry over the coals.
Had absolutely no problem doing a manual labor job, would’ve rather done that forever. Just can’t pay rent and eat on minimum wage no matter how tight of a financial ship your running. So, I’m back in school. When I finally finish, I will make sure that the people under me make a wage they can live on, not the least I can legally pay them.
There’s many, many, many people like me. We’re the ones who get shuffled around like pawns whenever the crap hits the fan. When the Walmarts, Targets, Kmarts, Home Depots and other similar blood suckers realize they can lay everyone off and rehire at minimum wage and they know there’s not a dang thing we can do about it.
There’s no shame in a manual labor job, it’s great for your health and once you know what your doing you can let your mind go anywhere else. I honestly can’t think of a job I’d rather be doing than working in a frozen foods warehouse somewhere stacking up pallets of fish sticks. Too bad everyone else thinks that the person who works that job deserves to be starving and homeless.
I won’t shop at any chain store now. I buy everything used if I can’t find it made in the USA at a locally owned shop. It’s crazy looking at the labels on things. Even back in the 90’s a lot of our school supplies were still made in the US. I’ve bought all kinds of 3 ring binders for class at the local Goodwill that were stamped “Made in the US”. Good luck finding anything today that doesn’t say China on the back of it. </p>
<p>I don’t protest, or hold up a sign. That doesn’t mean anything to the guy in the office somewhere making the decisions. As a population, we have to make the decision that we just won’t buy as many things made in China. That we won’t go to the large chain to buy our goods. I’d rather buy a 20 year old Jansport backpack that was made in the US from some Ebay seller in hicktown nowhereville then go to another bloodsucking chain and buy another product with made in China on the back. </p>
<p>That’s how I occupy Wallstreet. None of them will ever get another dollar from me. If enough people did that, maybe some jobs would come back for our working class.</p>
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<p>Well, I’m not quite sure how an anti-Chinese-importation fits your narrative. Let’s face it - China is still a poor country; however bad the conditions are for the underclass in the United States, the average Chinese person is far worse off. To refuse to import Chinese products would be to simply consign more Chinese people to lives of grinding poverty. Heck, we might even see an “Occupy America” movement in the developing world, for they represent the true 99%.</p>
<p>Trying to hurt China will only result in hurting ourselves. Plus, it makes us look like whiners.</p>
<p>I’m not convinced that the author is not being sarcastic, and I don’t see how the last two points relate at all to Occupy Wall Street.</p>
<p>This reminds me of a recent story about labor shortages in Georgian grape vineyards. The owners put out ads for workers, and yet despite the high unemployment in the area, less than 5 white workers came out to pick grapes.</p>
<p>Sakky, you couldn’t buy all American products if you tried. Most things are now made in China. My suggestion would be that you buy the few American made products that remain. </p>
<p>The goods made in China aren’t benefiting the working class of China. We’re still paying em peanuts so the CEO at Walmart can make more bank. It’s just got a lower minimum wage, that’s it. Oh yeah, and children can work to make your goods. [IHS</a> Child Slave Labor News :: Child Slave Labor in China](<a href=“http://ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=57]IHS”>http://ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=57)
“Imports of apparel and textiles from China to the U.S. market are reaching beyond $4.5 billion each year. It was reported that China’s number one textile firm at Qingpu employs children aged 12 to 15 years old that recruited were from the neighboring province of Anhui. In Chungsan City, a foreign textile enterprise employed about 160 child laborers and a 14 year old was killed after her hair became tangled in her machine. Journalists also found 12 year-old children sleeping two to three in a bed in dorms and working 15 hours a day for $10 per month”</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m sure we’re really helping the Chinese people out by paying their 12 year olds $10 a month to make our clothing and knickknacks. Oh wait, nope, just helping a few government officials, a few on the top of the company, and the CEO’s at the big retail giants. It would be one thing if we were helping to lift a substantial portion of China’s population out of poverty, but all we’re doing is tossing our own further into poverty and making a select few in China rich and a few here even richer.</p>
<p>That link was just a long rant about how the world has changed in the last couple of decades. It doesn’t really address the problems of Occupy Wall Street, and how current government regulations were major contributors to why our economy is in the toilet right now.</p>
<p>The Chinese government is not going to change the way they abuse their working class. The US could try to save some of its manufacturing jobs by imposing tariffs, but that might screw up US’ relation with China, as well as force China to further lower the cost of their exports. Also, I think it’s really unfair how China is being portrayed in the media. Ultimately, though, China is not the answer. Politicians point their fingers at China for their own incompetence.</p>
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<p>Wait a minute here, let’s not get carried away. According to recent United Nations data, the U.S. is still the largest manufacturing country in the world. In 2009, American manufacturing output was nearly $2.2 trillion. That’s about 45% larger than China’s, at just under $1.5 trillion. The U.S. has also maintained its global share of manufacturing, at 20% in 2009 compared to just over 22% in 1980. What’s more, American manufacturing is becoming more productive. In 2009, productivity in U.S. manufacturing increased by 7.7%, more than any other country followed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.</p>
<p>Please check your facts before making statements that can not be supported. It is true that we here in America do not make low end products as we once did, but to say “most things” are made in China when the truth is America makes 1/5 of everything made in the world? Get real.</p>
<p>get real? seriously? go to walmart and find something made in the US (excluding the stove section, probably)</p>
<p>US manufacturing focuses more on higher tech products, the ones that require higher production cost, skilled engineers, and the ones that cost more money. That means for average consumer goods, like the kind of goods that would provide jobs or lower skilled Americans, those jobs are hindered by Chinese products. Yes, America is still number one, but that doesn’t mean China isn’t going to be the new number one. Let’s not forget the big picture. China’s work force is roughly 10 times that of the US. You should expect that China’s 10% annual GDP growth has something more to do with its government’s ignorance of unethical practices.</p>
<p>Oh, and do you realize where the US ranks in terms of secondary education amongst industrialized nations? Sure, these data is based on high school drop out rates, but it’s not like these kids are dropping out of high school and college to pursue entrepreneurship and starting the next Facebook, or the next Microsoft. The smartest people in this country are not Americans, they’re foreigners with H1-b Visas. And these PhD’s, well these are just the people who will be designing the next gen technologies.</p>
<p>I think it’s time for America to stop playing the sheriff, and start worrying about its internal welfare.</p>
<p>Don’t go to Walmart. There, I solved the problem of not finding American products there.</p>
<p>Of course it’s difficult to find American products at Walmart, it’s what they’re notorious for. They are the worst of the worst when it comes to Chinese products.</p>
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<p>LOL, you beat me to it. I don’t know if I’ve ever stepped into a WalMart. I think when I was a toddler my parents took me to Sam’s Club but never WalMart. 
I own very little that was made in China. (my computer and minifridge come to mind) None of my clothes, shoes, supplies, etc. were made in China. (in the case of my shoes, they are all made in the USA, Munro, NewBalance, etc.)</p>
<p>Cheap Chinese products make both Americans and the Chinese better off. I thought this debate was settled in the 1800s…[obviously not relating to China specifically]</p>
<p>no offense, but nobody cares where you do your shopping. The fact is that Walmart provides cheap goods, and that’s what the consumers ultimately want. That’s why your boycott walmart campaign wouldn’t hold any water.</p>
<p>Can we please diverge from China? They’re not the the ones causing the problems, it’s the freaking government…</p>