If the Occupiers became super rich...

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No, the person is a hard worker, I used Goldman, Deloitte and KPMG as examples, because those kind of people tend to be who gets targeted. I kind of assumed you meant the world's richest, but then it's American to be US-centered. If we're doing to deal with rich bastards, let's deal with real rich bastards. If you look at the red thread that was there before you cut the post in half at your leisure, it was "hard work and effort".

1 Bill Gates $59 B 55 Medina, Washington Microsoft
2 Warren Buffett $39 B 81 Omaha, Nebraska Berkshire Hathaway
3 Larry Ellison $33 B 67 Woodside, California Oracle
4 Charles Koch $25 B 75 Wichita, Kansas diversified
4 David Koch $25 B 71 New York, New York diversified
6 Christy Walton $24.5 B 56 Jackson, Wyoming Wal-Mart
7 George Soros $22 B 81 Katonah, New York hedge funds
8 Sheldon Adelson $21.5 B 78 Las Vegas, Nevada casinos
9 Jim Walton $21.1 B 63 Bentonville, Arkansas Wal-Mart
10 Alice Walton $20.9 B 61 Fort Worth, Texas Wal-Mart

So, this is about 6-4 self-made and inherited. Depending on if you count Charles Koch or not given that he started with a medium sized oil company. The Walton's inherited Wal-mart money and David Koch arguably entered into Charles' empire at an early time. All of the self-mades on that list has worked for someone at some point, then decided to take the risk and become their own boss in exchange for a potentially bigger return.

I guess it depends on your definition of "work hard" I don't define "work hard" as using a shovel or working in a coal mine, because if anyone can do it, it's not hard. It's exhausting, it's dangerous and so on, but it's not difficult to do. Now, doing what Buffett did and take a small textile mill and turn it into the highest return investment company in the world, now that's difficult. If you disagree, take $50.000 of your own money, invest it and let me know how you did in 5 years.

The hard worker should share.

Nice to see those Waltons spreading it around.

This is a ridiculous argument. What qualifies as "hard work" is subjective to say the least. But sweeping that under the rug for a moment, in most cases I'd say "hard work" in the form of ambition is often necessary but hardly sufficient. It's also funny to me how many great achievers have been labelled "lazy" at one time or another (Albert Einstein, for instance). It seems to me great talent combined with great stubbornness is the ingredient for success, NOT being a well disciplined drone with the "protestant work ethic" drilled into your head. To have true ambition you also have to love your work to the point where it doubles as a hobby. Unfortunately the reality is the real world doesn't offer this kind of fit for the majority of people. Fact is, most people hate their work and know they will never get rich from it. The "Horatio Alger" work your way out of desperate poverty through goodness of character is also a myth.

The only kind of hard work is physical labor. Everything else is easy compared to it.

Yeah... that's why I go to my home gym and move tons of iron back and forth 5 times a week to relax....

The banksters as they are now called, get a really really bad rep lazy SoB's never do anything. i really don't know how people come to the lazy banker image, intact they first year analysts earn as much as mcdonalds workers p/hour, the work environment is extremely competitive, work life balance does not exist, interns are expected to work till 4 am,, your 20's will be sat at a desk, a hundred hour work week is not unexpected. its mentally challenging emotionally draining, would you wanna do it?
Anyone can mine coal, its not exactly rocket surgery, its how capitalism works, the more people who can do a thing the less valuable that thing is.

It's also why communism tends to not work, because you end up paying those who do something just about everyone can do too much and those with special skill-sets too little. I tend to view it as the outrage of those who want to work a 35 hour work week for a Senior hedge fund manager salary. Or in other words, the "bong over brains" crowd. It reminds me of something said about the war in Iraq, it's the bottom 10% of your high school class getting shot up.

Communism =/= bong over brains

Communists believe bong and brains are equally important in society.

The definition of "hard work" is subjective so there's no sense in arguing over it. Personally, I find monotonous menial work that anyone is supposedly able to do "harder" than work that challenges me and interests me in some way. To me, a supposedly "easy" service sector job is a heck of a lot more exhausting than a higher-skill job involving writing software. Programming is a strength for me and it comes easily while a normal McJob is a form pure torture that I can't handle for more than part time. It is not that I think I am "above" such work. It's more like it would have me committing suicide if I were forced to endure it for more than a short time.

You're just massively hung up on your own sense of elitism and obsession with hierarchy. Your gross generalizations are also pretty annoying. There are lots of highly intelligent people who won't make the cut to become corporate overlords simply because they don't have the cut-throat drive to climb the ranks so they can dominate others. I don't see how rank-and-file engineers and product designers are somehow multitudes less valuable than the suits at the top managing the financial levers.

Last time I checked, I didn't see many of what appeared to be rank and file engineers and product designers in the occupy movement. Also, aren't engineers pretty well paid? Also, while I'm at it, how did we go from coal miners and ditch diggers to engineers and product designers? Engineering is hardly something anybody (a dead body, a body of water) can do. I realize it makes your argument a hell of a lot easier to make, because well, like I said anyone can pick up a shovel or a miner's helmet, so upping the ante to engineers and product designers is a natural move for the intellectually dishonest.

On a fun note, guess who hire engineers and product designers, who build the products and so on? Corporate overlords set the whole thing in motion. I don't invest my money to watch the whole return go to other people, I do it so I get a return and the fact that other's get a salary from it is a by-product. If the return isn't worth it, I'll sink it into bonds, currency and commodities instead.

What is more likely is that you have limited knowledge about what you're speaking of when it comes to the "corporate overlords" you hate so much and merely buy the hate propaganda hook, line and sinker because it confirms your subjective perception of how things work. Perhaps even validate some questionable choices in your past, which has lead to you not attaining the position or level in the hierarchy that you envision yourself being worthy of.

Last edited by TM on 01 Jul 2012, 12:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't agree with this argument that ANYONE can do physical labor.

Firstly, exercise is not like a physical labor job. It just isn't. Think about it. If it was, you'd see people in spandex jumpsuits picking the strawberries in farmer's fields.

Secondly, sure, anyone can try to do physical labor, but only some people will be able to be efficient at it, and endure it for many years. I think it would be funny if there was a reality TV show that took corporate CEOs or Hedgefund managers and dropped them into the lowest, physical labor jobs in their company (or pool of companies they invest in). Then you would see whether ANYONE can do physical labor for a job.

But I'm not saying that the richest people don't work. I'm also not going to agree that they work harder then a lot of others. I think that kind of success is usually built on ambition, some luck, hard work, and talent. Hard work alone doesn't propel someone to the upper classes.

There are talented physical laborers, just like talented and hard-working pre-school teachers, caregivers, and janitors. These people can do the jobs more efficiently then others, saving time and improving society. However, the ambitious would never stay in some of these jobs--they would rather try their hand in the jobs that pay more. So, in that way capitalism fails compared to communism (in theory) because we can't expect all talented, hard-working individuals to work jobs that won't allow them to survive in society.

Also, this is not a big point, but there are professionals in the Occupy Wallstreet movement. I personally know a Mechanical Engineer, (edit: OB-GYN--who still make lots of money) Midwife, University Professors, and retired biologists that are involved in the Occupy movement. And that's just from my own personal experience. Even Donald Trump and Stephen King (who is crazy rich) agree with taxing the rich more than Bush--and that was one of the original suggestions that Adbusters was considering to become Occupy Wallstreet's demand. So it is a very diverse group of people.

Last edited by Zinia on 01 Jul 2012, 1:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think most people agree that the U.S needs to tax people more, close loopholes and so on.

bingo.