At the Attention of Zero Fortitude! On the Occupy Movement and Economy!

Yo, guys, just wanted to talk about the "rant" about the Occupy movement in your last episode. First off, I want to say that I REALLY really like you guys, have been listening to your podcast for at least 5 months and I have always enjoyed your episodes.
But I have to say that I have been a bit saddened by this rant in your last episode, I know it's your opinion and I actually agree with some stuffs you said (liberal arts are super effective!! *sarcasm*) but they are some stuffs I think you should realize about this whole Occupy Movement.




The guys out there are indeed protesting Wall Street and big corporations, and you would understand if you realized that unlike what you think, big corporations do not give back to society, I will explain why and try to make it as simple as I can:

- It all start with the money being printed and released in the economy.
- this money is supposed to reward and encourage work, and give value to things and promote exchange.
- this money is given to banks as reserve, and banks have this special ability to create more money from the money they keep in reserve, (check "fractional reserve banking"). The extra money is used to create the debts you can take to finance your enterprise, or buy your car.
- Much of the economy become debts circulating among people, the money created from the reserve circulating in the economy, the key here is realizing that this money is created out of thin air, literally. This create an economy whose blood is debt.
- Now that's where Wall Street enter, debts can be financial products, simply you can make money out of a debt (in a sense making money out of money), your mortgage can be sold for example.
- Wall Street (and universities on a small scale) created an unimaginable amount of debts, and made an incredible amount of money, this is what powered the US for more than a decade (I could go deeper in that).
- Now, today the money is so badly distributed that most people can't pay their debts back, which ruined a lot of debt products Wall Street created, THAT is the origin of the financial crisis. The world economy based on debts pretty much had a cog that broke down.
- Now the most important thing, Wall Street created this mess while investing in big companies whose focus is not their employees but their investors. The example of Target you guys gave in the last episode is a good example of a company that makes tons of profits but treat its people like crap. The company profits only goes to the top investors, and are not invested back in the company itself and its people but on either paying more dividends to investors, or creating financial products that . That explains why salaries in the US has been stagnant for more than a decade, while at the top they soared.
- Wall Street only create jobs in the financial sector, jobs that then create more of the financial products that proved to be worthless, and mostly investing in ALREADY big companies. And those big companies are more prone to outsource jobs and fire people than actually create jobs, which is why unemployment is so high right now. (I ought you to think about it, a big company make more money the less people it has to pay and the less they have to pay them).
- Despite wrecking the economy as I explained, Wall Street and Banks received a bailout.... financed by YOUR taxes, in essence that's Socialism at its finest.
- And while the financial sector gained more and more money out of essentially thin air, they bought political power through lobbyists. Is it really surprising that the people with the most money would want to protect their interest and make sure they don't lose it?? Think about it.

- Now the endpoint, Occupy Wall Street is protesting that those who wrecked the economy and in a sense started the decline of the US --STATE-- and its people, are unpunished and are even thriving (some people in Wall Street actually speculated against the crisis, making money FROM it), while the people have to suffer the consequences with an economic system whose foundations have been destroyed.
- In a sense, Occupy is protesting the Rich getting Richer while the majority is left struggling.

Now I will agree with you that some people in the movement are asking for too much babysitting by the government, we are in agreement here, but I just want you to consider that they are doing it because they have nothing else to look for, The economy is crushed, small businesses, which were the true recruiters of the economy and the symbol of the American dream are struggling. In such a situation, where people think even working is not going to get them out of trouble, people foolishly think the government only will be the solution. And yes they are some hippies in it, but trust me they are not the majority, most are people who are realizing the deep injustice that is going on right now, but unfortunately probably don't have the right solutions to solve it.

I presume that since I'm not American my opinion might be worthless to you, however I have been in America, and what I will always remember from it is a country of hard-workers and truly AWESOME people. And it pains me to see so much of those people getting screwed by their own elites.

Woooh, that's one hell of a wall of text, I'm deeply sorry for that. Again, I LOVE you guys, I don't mean to bash anyone, I just want you guys to know and maybe get rid of a bit of this hate I could sense in you about this whole thing. Again it just show how politics only end up with bad things happening. I hope I didn't bore you to death, and you are free to tell me my opinion is BS, I'm fine with it, as long as you can tell me why and share your own take on the whole thing.

I would love to have you guys discuss what you think about this whole thing in an another episode, maybe one that would be focused on discussing the economy and everything that is going on out there. In any case, take care.

Oh and the sound quality was good!