Links:

The video at right is an early video description of the Occupy WS depicting a collections of frustrations.

According to entries in Wikipedia:   Link

 Occupy movement is:

The Occupy movement is an international protest movement which is primarily directed against economic and social inequality.[7][8] The first Occupy protest to receive wide coverage was Occupy Wall Street in New York City, which began on September 17, 2011. By October 9, Occupy protests had taken place or were ongoing in over 95 cities across 82 countries, and over 600 communities in the United States.[9][10][11][12][13] As of December 20 the Meetup page "Occupy Together" listed 2,751 Occupy communities worldwide.[1]

The people vs profits theme comes across in many ways here.  It is an age old theme certainly, taking the basic model of a zero-sum-game as the assumption.   And of course there has to be something given or taken away from the rich and given somehow effectively to the poor.   The argument works well in times like these when the economy is not growing and the jobless rate in youth, etc. is quite high.    

The Washington Post chimes in:   Link      Compared to the rest of the world the 99% is the 1%.  Did Acorn fund some of the early demonstrations?

AmeraPac

The House Oversight Committee Chairman and leading investigator for the House of Representatives said ACORN is "Engaged in fraud through its participation in the Occupy Wall Street protests. [And may have] solicited donations from union members under false pretenses and misappropriated funds to support the protestors."

ACORN of course denies this but the evidence tells a very different story. FrontPage Mag (a publication run by conservative David Horowitz) reported, "At an emergency meeting NYCC organizing director Jonathan Westin played semantic games...

The video at right is a pro-labor and OWS account of the connection between Labor Unions and OWS.

According to a source:

"It was pretty funny. Jonathan told staff they don't pay for protesters, but the people in the meeting who work there objected and said, "Wait, you pay us to go to the protests every day?" Then Jonathan said "No, but that's your job," and staffers were like, "Yeah, our job is to protest," and Westin said, "No your job is to fight for economic and social justice. We just send you to protest." Staff said, "Yes, you pay us to carry signs." Then Jonathan says, "That's your job." It went on like that back and forth for a while."

After Fox News revealed that ACORN was behind the Occupy Wall Street protests, the group is frantically shredding documents and urging their members not to speak to the media. ACORN, operating as New York Communities for Change, is doing everything they can to cover their dirty tracks.

The radical rabble rousers clearly have something to hide. New York Communities for Change has ordered their employees not to use their cell phones, text or make landline calls in their NYC headquarters.

The liberal community organizers have even installed high tech security cameras to monitor the perimeter outside their building. Their paranoid security measures make organized crime compounds look easily assailable.

Remember back in 2010 when ACORN was supposedly de-funded? WE WERE LIED TO! ACORN is still alive and well - they just splintered into smaller organizations and changed their names. The ACORN offshoots are like cockroaches, when you destroy one faction... dozens more pop up.

College costs and indebtedness:    Link

One way to view the cost of college is to see what the average debt is by State:  

College seniors who graduated in 2010 carried an average of $25,250 in student loan debt.  Meanwhile, unemployment for recent college graduates climbed from 8.7% in 2009 to 9.1% in 2010 — the highest annual rate on record for college graduates aged 20 to 24.

Interesting data point:  Calif is one of the lowest in the country.

Occupy Time Machine: Income inequality now back to where it was 15 years ago   By James Pethokoukis

February 11, 2012

The Great Recession dramatically reduced U.S. income inequality, according to a new analysis from the Tax Foundation. In fact, income inequality—at least as measured by the income share of the top 1 percent of earners—is back to where it was in 1996-1997. A few observations based on the above chart:

1. Inequality surged during the 1990s when tax rates where raised. As the Tax Foundation notes, George H.W. Bush in 1991 raised the top marginal rate to 31 percent from 28 percent, and in 1993 Bill Clinton raised it further to 39.6 percent.

2. Yet there was no Occupy movement in the 1990s. Why not? Because incomes were rising across the board during that period. As the Economic Policy Institute notes, over the 1990s (1989-2000) real median income was up almost 10 percent, or about $5,200. And those numbers probably understate things given typical mis-measurements in inflation. So rather than worry about inequality, we should worry about economic growth.

3. Blame the temporary rise in inequality during the 2000s on the business cycle, not the Bush tax cuts. Here’s the Tax Foundation: