Occupying My Mind

I walked from the west side highway to chinatown yesterday in the early afternoon. I passed not one, but two marches uptown to Times Square and walked along with them for a while. New York City is in the throes of the OccupyWallStreet protests. What was most noticeable to me was not the protestors and their signs and chants. It was the amount of police accompanying them. It was a massive show of force. And it was scary to see. I just hope to god that this thing doesn't turn ugly. 

I've been thinking a lot about this movement, what it means, and what it could lead to. I talked about the inevitability of this kind of thing happening in the US last spring on stage at the Disrupt conference. I'm not the least bit surprised that it is happening. But I'm struggling to figure out how I can relate to it.

I spent a good part of thursday afternoon in Zuccotti Park. I hung out with one of the people who helped build the tech infrastructure for the occupation of the park. I walked around. I listened to the General Assembly. I talked to a few occupants. I want to understand what is on their mind. 

I empathize with the basic complaint of the #OWS movement – that the rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting poorer. It is impossible not to see that in our country. And yet I am in the 1%. How can I also be part of the 99%? 

And I've got issues with some of the subgroups in the #OWS movement. I saw a ton of union placards in the marches uptown and that bothered me. I talked to one person in Zuccotti park on Thursday. He told me how his paycheck gets cut up. After the taxes and union dues, he's left with very little. And what does he get for those union dues I asked? Not much.

Our institutions are failing us. The failing institutions are not limited to Wall Street. They are everywhere; our government, our political leadership, our unions, our health care system, our education system. The list goes on and on. 

And yet, I'm an optimist. I see a technology revolution in full force bringing much needed change to the world. It's not a coincidence that much of the success of the #OWS movement comes from their nimble use of technology to organize and get their word out.

So much depends on what we get out of this growing desire for change. It's good that people are getting angry. Whether it be the tea party on the right or the #OWS on the left, the citizens of the US are clamoring for change. I'd like to do what I can do to help make sure that change is intelligent progressive change taking us forward to a new prosperity, not backward into a false hope for a time that has passed and is not coming back. And I'm wondering if the #OWS movement is interested in that conversation.

#Politics

Comments (Archived):

  1. bernardlunn

    I have been glued to #occupwallstreet like I had been glued to #jan25. My heart is on one side of those barricades even though I have wandered those streets for decades in a suit. I think the common thread between Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street is corruption. Our corruption is more subtle, harder to see but folks can see the results. The spark that lit this was a Tunisian fruit seller fed up with police corruption and harrassment. He was an entrepreneur who just wanted to run his business in peace. I hope the American revolution will be an entrepreneurial one and not coopted by unions or establishment politicians.

    1. fredwilson

      hear hear

    2. MikeSchinkel

      “I hope the American revolution will be an entrepreneurial one and not coopted by unions or establishment politicians.”That’s why it would be best for the people of AWS to get ahead of this and collectively call for intelligent change rather than sit on the sidelines and hope that positive change occurs.  I believe that this forum, led by @fredwilson:disqus could result in some great policy recommendations after which Fred could use his star power to have taken seriously by the media, and hopefully by the #OWS movement itself.So what do you say Fred?  Another post on the subject with a goal of having commenters coalesce policy recommendations you can promote?

      1. fredwilson

        i am thinking more about infiltrating OWS

        1. Anne Libby

          Occupy OWS?

          1. Donna Brewington White

            Ha!^2

  2. larry

    Is it possible that the protester gets very little for his union dues due to 40 years of continual weakening of unions rights through legislation backed by corporate interests? I find it odd that it’s fine for corporations to pool resources for greater impact (including greater lobbying strength and bargaining power) but it’s bad when workers do it. Giant corporations manipulating legislation to pursue their own interests, or using their size to squeeze suppliers on price are no more part of a pure market economy than unions. To one-percenters and their friends in Washington, one is good and the other bad, but the only real difference is who benefits from warping the market. 

    1. fredwilson

      i am not the least bit opposed to workers organizing. i am in favor of it. what i don’t like is the corrupt unions who suck the blood and profits out of the workers and pretend they are doing something for them

      1. larry

        Do you like that less than a CEO who pays himself 400 times as much as his lowest page employees and does everything in his power to their keep wages down? How about when he justifies his giant bonus through short-term ploys that leaves his company and investors worse off in the long run? Union officials could learn a lot from corporate chiefs when it comes to blood sucking. 

        1. fredwilson

          i don’t like any of those thingsCEOs should make their money off of equity holdings not cash comp

          1. C. Moore

            Not the panacea it seems.  That has been standard advice for CEO compensation packages, but this isn’t the whole answer. It incentivizes higher stock prices, any way possible, not necessarily management for higher economic value in the long term; hence, short-termism, accounting tricks, risk-hiding…

          2. fredwilson

            truebut at least it aligns the CEO with the investors who have their capital tied up in their company

          3. Pat

            Who cares if the CEO’s interests are aligned with the banks, hedge funds and financial elites?The CEO should never make more than 150x the lowest paid worker. If they want a raise they should be forced to raise everyone else’s salary.

      2. sam

        The same can be said about VCs. There are many corrupt VCs who suck the blood and profits out of entrepreneurs and pretend they are doing something for them. But you are obviously much more thoughtful in how you behave and how you discuss the nature of VC.  It is doubtful that you would take anyone seriously who dismisses VCs in such a manner. So when you only present one side of unions, you are painting the whole thing in an unfair light. And similarly it is hard to take your position seriously.  It is a platitude or slogan rather than insight.   (I think you’re a badass, but thoughtless, reflexe union bashing in the face of the rapidly increasing inequality that you talk about makes me irate).

        1. fredwilson

          i don’t have any issue with someone calling VCs bloodsuckers. it is said all the time. and it is often true. i suspect there are decent union leaders. i just haven’t met them.

          1. sam

            Is it reasonable to dismiss entrepreneurship because there are lots of crooked VCs? Or capitalism because there are a bunch of crooked capitalists?  Yet so many people want to dismiss unions because of the canard of “union leaders.”  It’s so frustrating to see.

          2. fredwilson

            have you ever been extorted by a union leader?

          3. sam

            @fredwilson:disqus, no i’ve never been extorted by a union leader. although maybe i’ve never had the chance because i’ve worked in places where unionizing wasn’t permitted.

          4. fredwilson

            it isn’t pleasant. i’ve never been shaken down by anyone else in business. it was criminal.

          5. sam

            @fredwilson, that sucks. but i really hope it doesn’t color the way you view union membership in general, which would be terrible, dangerous thinking. i hope (and presume, frankly) that you have more thoughtful reasons for being skeptical of unions. i was once mugged in los angeles by a group of three young black men. which is also criminal.  i do not, as a result, think all black people are criminals. or all of los angeles is criminal. etc etc. obvious point. 

          6. fredwilson

            i have no beef with union membersthey are part of the 99% who are struggling

          7. MikeSchinkel

            I’m mostly against unions because of my experience as a co-op in the engineering department at an Owens-Corning manufacturing plant during the course of getting my ME degree from Georgia Tech during the 1980s. I was told by my boss that we had a “good” union, i.e. that when compared to most they were reasonable. Yet what I saw on the floor were workers who often spent most of their time waiting for someone with a different classification (i.e. mechanics vs. electricians) to come and do something trivial so that the other could get on with their work. And I saw ZERO urgency in any of these people. I made me disgusted with how incredibly inefficient the union caused the plant to be. And while I do believe strongly that companies who treat their workers in a manner that forces them to unionize deserve there unions, I think that for companies with enlightened management unions are a pox. 

          8. William Mougayar

            Agreed. Unions are the dinosaurs too. If all companies treated their employees fairly, there wouldn’t be a need for unions, and productivity would go up. I don’t want unions to be part of the OWS solutions outcome. 

          9. fredwilson

            ditto

          10. Pat

            @80909379bfc48a11ebd92ecd78a08c8c:disqus no I have never been exhorted by a union.But I have been by a bank.Unions don’t destroy economies, the financial elites destroy economies. 

      3. Pat

        The “corrupt” unions are insignificant compared to the corrupt banks. No union however corrupt has destroyed the economy as completely as the Wall Street plutocrats. Most unions are honest. At their core they are about helping the 99%. Corporations are just there to exploit for their shareholders.You are searching for how to “help”. Be willing to give up your possessions for the greater good. Be willing to sacrifice for the 99%. I don’t want a handout – I just want my kids to get an education and opportunity. Right now, it is doubtful if they will get either.

  3. William Mougayar

    I’m all for cutting corporate greed, making institutions more effective and all the bla bla non sense we know about, but there’s something about the OWS movement that I’m not comfortable with which you hinted that. It’s as if it’s being hijacked by the unions, lefties and welfare parasites. If one sees a problem, don’t just give me microscope so we can see more of it. If you see a problem, I want them to be part of the solution, and to propose one. In your conversations with them, did real solutions come out? Are there concrete steps being proposed? Is someone meeting them half-way through to make things change? I hope that Occupying Wall Street moves into a phase of “Doing stuff” and getting busy off the streets. The more they disrupt or destruct, the more they’ll lose credibility. They made the pitch and sold us on it. OK, now, let’s get to the work at hand, making changes. That’s the hard part. Going on the streets is easy. I may have missed it, but where is the OWS plan for change? I’ve been to all these OccupyXYZ blogs and they are full of pictures and soundbites, but I don’t see the – what’s next to make this better. (btw- if you want a more balanced view of news on OWS, I put this together quickly yesterday http://portal.eqentia.com/o… )

    1. andyswan

      “. It’s as if it’s being hijacked by the unions, lefties and welfare parasites.”Funny, I was under the impression that they are exactly who started the movement.

      1. William Mougayar

        I wasn’t aware of that. Nonetheless, if they did, it doesn’t seem they have the ability to take this to the next level – which is the right kind of change. The issue is that the messages coming from #OWS are very confusing and not focused, and certainly not action-oriented towards change, rather geared at getting our attention.

        1. Adrian Sanders

          the next level being a sustained protest with tens of thousands of people nationwide aware of what’s going on in spite of media blackouts?or the formation of a peaceful general assembly that votes and disseminates information in a structured and efficient fashion that complies with democratic and civil law? using words like “welfare parasites” and “lefties” is what got us into this mess.for starters, they’re all human, just like you. some of them won’t have homes next month, others will be out of jobs.not everyone can be into tech and entrepreneurial, not everyone has the same opportunities. that doesn’t make them less human, nor does it mean we should just start stereotyping who they are and what they represent. 

          1. William Mougayar

            Not trying to de-humanize anyone. I just don’t want to be led by them, or we will be in a deeper ditch.

          2. Adrian Sanders

            it’s the “them” concept that I’m talking about. there is no them. just us. we’re all in the same boat last time i checked. 

          3. William Mougayar

            Good point. But until I go there and find out for myself, it’s “them”. It becomes “us” when there is concrete action I can identify with or be a part of.

          4. ShanaC

            I tried to make this point to my friend, when she put up a photo saying that the OWS people got their political material at a bookstore in the village, called “Unoppressive, NonImperialist, Bargain Books” – she works in banking.  Her husband just graduated law school, and is jobless.  He also doesn’t seem the type to go into solo practice.  She’s also currently in business school.If she lost her job, her family joint debt load would be up the wazzoo.  As it is, she doesn’t realize her idea of being home with kids is out the door – her husband isn’t going to find anything.That’s the upper 15% today – pretending that it will all go ok.

          5. Adrian Sanders

            yeah, it’s just interesting that there is actually so much common ground for discussion and so little of it being put forward.people like sports, teams, sides, etc.the fact is, it’s really complicated. decision making is complicated because there is no “right” answer. that’s terrifying for many people. 

        2. Matt A. Myers

          They need to come together and push for the same message and that will only happen if the leaders of the groups understanding the holistic impact of certain changes (like buying/firing politicians based on if they do what you asked them to do to benefit you/your specific business).

        3. William Carleton

          “Messaging” is anti-politics. It means selling something to someone. There is no product to sell here. OWS is modeling what democracy could look like. What if everyone were included? What if decisions were made, policies taken, with consensus of everyone? You can’t attend general assemblies without being (a) frustrated by the inefficiency and (b) moved by the love.

          1. MikeSchinkel

            @William Carleton – Sorry, but messaging is not “anti-politics”, it is applying intelligence. Every successful leader in history of positive change has been great at messaging; Gandhi, MLK, Paul Revere, etc.; great messaging helps everyone get on the same page and it enables positive change.  The problem we’ve had is that the 1% have been INCREDIBLY GOOD at messaging and inciting the politically conservative to rally in support for the 1% while all the while acting against their own interests. And therein lies the problem; OWS needs to get really good at messaging, or it will be still-borne.

        4. Blsavini

          “rather geared at getting our attention.”It’s a good start point.

    2. Michael Beckner

      I agree there’s a “messaging issue” as they say. But if there’s a strategy at play, based on everything I read on #OWS, it’s similar to that of our beloved tech world — get scale first.That said, Matt Taibbi has a rather modest proposal here: http://www.rollingstone.com…There’s a follow-on discussion at places like NRO, The Daily Beast (Sully’s new haunt), The Atlantic and others.

    3. leigh

      yeah but sadly that’s what always happens at demonstrations.  The G20 in Toronto was a perfect example.  5 idiots gave an excuse to an entire police force to take the rights away from average citizens.  Just bc idiots join a movement doesn’t make the movement less important or valid.  ps. don’t disagree with now that everyone knows and they have at least good chunck of support, time to move on from protest to change and action – but i’ll tell you, if that change doesn’t happen at some point this is going to get ugly.  You don’t have to have a history degree to understand that.  

      1. William Mougayar

        Agreed, but change won’t happen from the streets. The street is for getting attention. The stakeholders that are being targeted will not change on their own just because people are on the street. The next steps are going to have to be about very concrete actions.

        1. leigh

          you’ll like this post – http://blazingcatfur.blogsp…

  4. Zoe

    Thank you, Fred. I’ve been waiting for this kind of post from you. Likely it’s one of the most important posts you’ve written. It is, in a way, very relieving to read it. For weeks I’ve been asking myself exactly this question: I’m in the 1%, how can I be in the 99%? And this overwhelming feeling that #ows is part of a larger change, in which technology plays a vital role. I fully agree that it is time to start this conversation with #ows. That said, I’m gonna now get out and go talk to people at #occupyberlin – which just started in Berlin Reichstag – to see if there is interest in this conversation.

  5. bernardlunn

    My wish is that OWS gets behind Dylan Ratigan’s movement to http://www.getmoneyout.com/Ending corruption has to start there. His simple NCAA rules are easy to get.

    1. fredwilson

      i just signed on to that petition. thanks for linking to it. i would support a constitutional amendment to get rid of money in politics. i think that’s the only way we get money out of politics

      1. Brad

        In my state, the long standing Senator raised $1.25M for re-election, only 9% came from my state…something definitely wrong with this. The rest were special interests from other states.

      2. Jenn

        Here here. Not a surprise to see on front page of NYT right now that Romney is beating Obama in a fight for Wall Street cash. But this is what really gets me going: “Mr. Obama continues to dominate Mr. Romney… in overall fundraising. He has raised close to $100 million so far this year for the campaign, three times more than Mr. Romney, as well as $65 million for the Democratic National Committee.” That means that so far this year, $200 million in political contributions have been amassed?? For what? How much more effectively could $200 million have been deployed to Americans who are truly in need of help right now? Regarding of party or viewpoint, most of us can agree that the political system is broken. It is a shame that contributors think they can affect change by injecting dollars into the campaign system. The value of those dollars is greatly decayed by when/if the “change agent” is elected. It is a true waste of money.

        1. Dave Pinsen

          $200 million isn’t that much in a country with a population of 312 million. It’s less than 66 cents per person. And I disagree that the political system is broken (see my previous comment about that). Though it certainly can be improved.

      3. christopolis

        Right, a constitutional amendment that bans freedom of speech that is a grand idea especially since it will do JACK.  The lack of understanding of the federal bureaucracy that exists is unreal.Fred you are the 1% do not forget it and I hope the 99% do not let you. Your tacit support of a group that is now wearing arm bands to signify their position is surreal. And I hope when they come to get all that wealth you accumulated through greed (that means you wanted a better life for yourself then they thought you deserved) You do not even attempt to persuade your fellow citizens to vote for a candidate that will stop it because you signed this stupid F’ing petition.

        1. fredwilson

          i don’t understand your comment

          1. kidmercury

            hahahhahaha ^2

          2. fredwilson

            there’s a reason you are the bouncer here at AVC even though you go awol from time to time

          3. christopolis

            I was just angry and venting, apologies. What I was trying to communicate is that one common theme among the OWS seems to be that “greed” is a problem. Here is the definition of greed…*:* a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is neededhttp://www.merriam-webster….Who gets to define “more than is needed”? What you consider is needed for your family is not the same as what I consider I need for my family. Neither one of us is right or wrong it is simply who we are as individuals. If the people showing up at the protests are the ones who will get to define what is enough then Fred I suggest you read “We the living” because as I mentioned in my first post you are the 1% and they have a specific plan for what to do with your wealth which I can guarantee by many of their definitions is far more than you need. This should be terrifying to all Americans. The whole foundation of this country is based on the pursuit of ones own happiness how he defines it as long as it does not forcefully take from another he is free to pursue that happiness. This world view being presented by OWS is the opposite. They believe there is a definable end to how much and what kind of happiness you can should have and in fact you can have too much which they need to take from you to redistribute to others. Someones happiness is not something we put to a vote it is an individualexperience and supreme gift we can have on this earth. when other peoplewant to start defining what I can have and how I can pursue my happiness Ido not like it. I think history shows it only leads to bad outcomes.

          4. MikeSchinkel

            I wish the #OWS crowd would refocus their anger away from “Greed” (which is too hard to pinpoint) and instead toward “Institutional Corruption” which is pretty damn easy to identify. That not “Greed,” is really what they are complaining about, IMO.

          5. aslevin

            Corruption isn’t quite right because it sounds personal, a fat cat CEO buying off a politician on the take. The problem is that corporate oligopolies buy policy that gives them business advantage.In agriculture, 4 firms control 84% of beef packing, 66% of pork production and 1 company controls more than 93% of soybeans and 80% of corn.These companies lobby for and get subsidies that keep the prices of their inputs low.  Our tax dollars go to those subsidies.In finance, tax dollars went to bail out banks too big to fail and not homeowners caught by dodgy mortgage products.In industry after industry, incumbent oligopolies buy policy to give them advantage.

          6. fredwilson

            thanksthat is helpful

      4. Dave Carvajal

        I’m concerned we are giving politicians too much power.  If we look at all this from a historical lens of ‘creative destruction’ perhaps the best we can do is to help people see a brighter future by encouraging them to build new skills.  Focused on building new skills, integrating into the creative side of the economy and experiencing the learning & growth associated with innovation can give people the optimism they need to see a better future.How do we get the entire #OWS movement focused on where we need to be in 10 yrs from now to be competitive in a global economy with new technologies and clean alternative energy?  How do we make NYC a global center of innovation?

        1. fredwilson

          yes!that’s exactly what is occupying my mind today

        2. matthughes

          Well said.This is a moral issue more than an infrastructure issue…We need accountability and integrity-based decision making in government, business and society.Changes to tax rates, the educational system or any other component of the infrastructure will not matter without honesty.No more grey area.

    2. William Mougayar

      Politics is definitely broken. This will help.

      1. Dave Pinsen

        Politics isn’t broken. The Tea Party, the Midterm elections of last year, and the debt ceiling deal of this year demonstrated that (despite some punditry to the contrary). “Politics is broken” is what people say when their side loses.Millions of people were upset about the direction the country was taking, and they worked within the political system to change it. They sent the largest number of Congressmen packing since the late 1930s, and the voted in a few members of their own movement as freshmen. Then, this summer, they demanded that an increase in the debt limit be paired with some modest steps to rein in long-term spending — and they won.I’d like to see the Occupy Wall Street crowd work within the system as well. Let them nominate candidates and contest next year’s elections. But I don’t see that happening. Incidentally, Occupy Wall Street has now been endorsed by both the Nazis and Communists.

        1. fredwilson

          i agree with Dave on this onepolitics works once people wake up from their stuporthe best thing about the tea party and OWS is that people are waking up from their stupor

          1. kidmercury

            wasn’t hope and change in 2008 supposed to be the awakening from the stupor?the real issues — debt and war — are still being largely ignored. 

        2. kidmercury

          name one political candidate who understands how to fix the global economy, and then estimate their odds of winning. the exercise will illustrate just how broken politics is. reform is beyond reach. revolution is inevitable. whether it is peaceful or violent is the only question. the larger the real issues are ignored, the more likely it becomes violent and anarchic. 

          1. Dave Pinsen

            The candidate doesn’t need to fix the global economy, just improve US policies in response to it. Of the candidates running, I’d say Mitt Romney has the best grasp of the economics involved and a good chance of winning.I don’t agree with him on everything, but he’s making more sense on trade, for example, than the incumbent or other candidates.

          2. kidmercury

            romney is a US imperialist who has said he will not cut defense spending; implicit in this is no significant reduction to fiscal spending. as such he will only add to the deficit/debt problem, which is the only problem.debt is the only economic problem, everything else  (inflation, unemployment, extreme income inequality) stems from that.  of course almost every other candidate is just like him.

          3. fredwilson

            romney is a status quo candidate even more than obama is

          4. Dave Pinsen

            As I said, I don’t agree with him on everything. I also disagree with you that the [fiscal] deficit/debt is the only problem. There’s an obvious connection between our fiscal deficit and our trade deficit.Also, a couple of points about defense spending in this context. First, athough I agree that there is plenty of room to cut it (though I would focus on cutting Defense social spending, rather than hardware), you’re not going to score a lot of points in a GOP primary running on a platform of cutting defense, since a lot of GOP voters are on dependent on defense spending for their livelihoods. That doesn’t mean Romney wouldn’t make tough decisions in office.Second, back in the ’50s, when we briefly had a surplus, we were spending even more on defense as a % of GDP.

          5. kidmercury

            trade, which is largely related to the unemployment, gets solved once the debt problem is solved. romney wants to solve it through tariffs, though that won’t work (will only have impact of higher prices for US consumers); solving the trade problem via reforming monetary policy yields a much greater output for all, although that doesn’t serve his imperialist agenda as well.

          6. Dave Pinsen

            Trade is the flip side. China’s fiscal surpluses with us finance our trade deficits with them.The best solution to the trade deficit I’ve seen is Howard Richman’s scaled tariff, which is arguably allowed via WTO rules, and disappears as our trade deficit with a country does. But Romney’s idea would work too. It was the threat of tariffs under Reagan that led to Japanese automakers building factories here.________________________________

        3. Luke Chamberlin

          I don’t identify with either side and I think the system is broken.No one won the debt debate this summer. We shaved a fraction of a % of projected long-term debt.No one had the stomach to address entitlement programs or military spending, which along with interest payments account for 70% of spending.It was a classic case of what’s wrong with the system: politicians do just enough to satiate the public without solving anything.

          1. Dave Pinsen

            The debt ceiling deal was actually a big deal, and automatic cuts will hit both entitlements and defense spending if the super committee and Congress don’t agree to targeted ones. Did it completely solve the spending problem? Of course not. But it takes a while to turn an aircraft carrier, and this was real progress.

          2. Luke Chamberlin

            I applaud your optimism but disagree on the level of progress made.Entitlements need structural reform, not trimming here and there, and no one seems to have the guts to do that.

    3. Dave Pinsen

      My wish is that people were less credulous about Dylan Ratigan’s “movement”. Here’s a multimillionaire political TV pundit railing about “getting the money out” of politics. How about “getting the money out” of TV political punditry?More to the point, think about what it means to “get the money out” of politics. Inevitably, those who argue for this say we need “public” financing of campaigns. Sounds reasonable until you stop and think that, in practice, “public” means “government”. So they’re asking for government financing of campaigns. And they want to ban non-government sources of funding.Connect the dots: “public” financing of elections means government decides who gets to run for office. That’s the way it works in Iran — why would we want that here?Our problem isn’t that there is money in politics. Our problem is two-fold: politicians have to spend too much time raising money (which discourages some good people from entering the field), and our politicians are underpaid relative to their power, which invites corruption. There are two fairly simple solutions to these problems:1) Let people and organizations make unlimited donations to politicians and candidates, as long as they are fully and immediately disclosed online. Someone wants to take $10 million from the Koch Brothers, or Ted Turner? Let him. And let him explain why he won’t be bought and paid for by them.2) Change the financial incentive structure for politicians. Instead of angling for lobbying jobs, board seats, or cushy sinecures at government sponsored entities when they retire, we need to pair that stuff back and instead give them an opportunity to earn significant variable deferred comp.Congressmen and Senators wield power out of all proportion to their official compensation. Anytime you have a disconnect like that, you are inviting corruption. Better to limit their ability to buck-rake in the private or non-elected government sector after their terms in office, and instead give them the chance to earn a fat bonus based on how the country has done in the wake of their policies. Base it on a combination of metrics: GDP growth, unemployment rate, debt as a percentage of GDP, etc. Measure it over the 5 or 10 years following the end of the politicians’ terms, to smooth out cyclical effects and take into account the lag in the impact of policies. Have the bonuses pay out after a 5 or 10 years.

      1. MikeSchinkel

        Agree with most of that, but I doubt public disclosure would be enough to discourage people from taking money from unsavory characters. $50 million from the Koch brothers would buy an enormous amount of attack ads against any candidate who might be trying to encourage change for the better. Even with #OWS, the people are not willing to pay enough attention to details for those attack ads to not be effective.

        1. Dave Pinsen

          I know the Koch Brothers are often cited on the left as an example of ‘teh evil’, but I think if you looked at the stuff they’ve actually supported, you’d probably agree with some of it. But more to the point, whatever they spend $50 million on that you don’t agree with, there would be plenty of rich folks on the opposite side of the political issue with their own $50 million.This is true of nearly any issue you can think of — the spectrum of political views of the ‘99%’ is, for the most part, represented among the 1%. In fact, the only exception to that I can think of right now is immigration. Most Americans, for example, oppose mass immigration, largely for common sense economic reasons. But most billionaires on the left and right are in favor of opening the floodgates.

          1. MikeSchinkel

            I used the Koch Brothers as a convenient example. You can search/replace my example and use “George Soros” instead, if you like.As for immigration, I think we should open up immgration to anyone who proves the can hold a job, especially younger people. The USA was founded by immigrants and I believe that we’d be better off with more, not less. It also would be one way to address the demographic age shift we are seeing today.But, unfortunately for me I guess, I’m not (yet?) a billionaire. 😉

          2. Dave Pinsen

            The USA was founded by colonists and settlers.With unemployment at post-war highs, it makes no economic sense to bring in more job seekers (a funded and talented entrepreneur who will create jobs for Americans is a different story).

          3. MikeSchinkel

            @daveinhackensack:disqus We’ll just have to agree to disagree on both those points. I was going to give you a list of links to support my beliefs, but you can easily find them via Google so I decided not to further the debate since I doubt they would change your opinion anyway.

  6. Anne Libby

    Early in this, I was dismissive because OWS didn’t have an ask.  I now see this as part of their power — nobody can tell you “no” when you don’t ask.The “power of no” is pretty evident in the behavior of our elected officials.  I’d love to see some of our leaders step into this vacuum and defining solutions.   That’s one of the places we’re 100%.   They work for all of us.(and oops, I meant this as a reply to @william mougayar…)

    1. LIAD

      I was thinking the same thing.They say Cometh the hour, Cometh the man. Who is going to lead this revolution?Who will be the MLK of this new yearning for change?

      1. Anne Libby

        Sadly, nobody comes to my mind.

        1. Donna Brewington White

          leadership crisis…I hate it

          1. Carl J. Mistlebauer

            Reality is a “leadership crisis” has probably been our fundamental problem since about 1988. The voice of reason, the one leading the way to another way….Has not been there….

          2. Donna Brewington White

            An entire generation has lived their adult life thus far without this model.  I am concerned.

          3. Carl J. Mistlebauer

            That just might explain why Occupy Wall Street is leaderless….

    2. Dave Pinsen

      They seem to have plenty of “asks” (though there is some dodge about them being “unofficial”).

      1. Anne Libby

        Thanks for posting this.  After I looked at it, I was trying to figure out how it fit in with what I saw as the “official” OWS site, which I think I found via Dave Winer’s occupyweb.org.  Official vs. unofficial is pretty blurry, isn’t it?

        1. Dave Pinsen

          No problem.The blurriness seems to be intentional, but at some point you have to be honest about what you stand for. It’s not the 99% that agree with the whole list of ‘unofficial’ demands. It’s a much smaller slice. How small we will see if and when these folks settle on and make clear a list of actionable policies they support. 

          1. Anne Libby

            Yes. Jennifer Deal out of the Center for Creative Leadership studies generational differences.  I saw her speak this past summer on how these differences manifest in the workplace.  She described a student generation raised on collaboration and consensus.  This has come to mind as I’ve been watching. If I listened well, her research shows generations with more common ground than difference, in terms of what we want.(And to comments on this thread by @donnawhite:disqus, @liad:disqus, and @tao69:disqus, we lack elected officials who can act like leaders and shine some light on the common ground.)

    1. fredwilson

      thanks for sharing that linki may go down to Zuccotti today and record some audio on my android with soundcloud

  7. jason wright

    In a capitalist society I firmly believe that the power of an individual to influence and shape the world comes from where he or she spends their money. The political process has become privately owned, and the only thing they’re selling is an illusion of democracy once every 4 years.

    1. William Carleton

      I agree with your second sentence. The first, not. The premise of OWS is, everyone should be included. That means separating money from influence over government.

  8. hixson

    Am I missing something here? The petition states that:”No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office.”Doesn’t this mean that the wealthiest politicians will always be able to outspend those that are less wealthy? 

    1. larry

      not necessarily, there could be public funding for campaigns and/or spending limits. I think some combination would be best.

      1. hixson

        right. it’s a great idea, but until they address this piece of it, it’s tough to get behind…

    2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      SIMPLE FIX: NO MORE SPEND MONEY ON POLITICS AT ALL.

  9. Glenn Nano

    Wall Street, like education, healthcare, and other institutions like corporate governance largely and social security (even more largely) are indeed are broken. Whether anger/discontent-catalyzed questions come from the Tea Party Right or the #OWS Left, these questions need to be asked. It seems that the #OWS movement (such as it is) has been clouded by on the one hand, supporters who know they feel something, but don’t express it well, or too vaguely, and on the other hand, media that often simply wants to generate easily consumable, provocative soundbites. #OWS seems to focus on:1) Taking stock (pun half-intended) of where we’ve come from since the Financial Crisis started in 20072) Revisiting what plans were put into place as triage, and what long-term plans have/have not been implemented3) What can and should be done to make things better going forward, for the greatest value to the greatest number of people.No doubt the last point has been wanting in both detail and demonstration.  I wish it were different such that your posting were an assertion, and not a question, as to whether or not #OWS has a stake in this 3rd, and most important focus.  But let’s not forget that the 1st 2 are very important as well, and ones that many people, whether chanting at Zuccotti or ruminating at the Macbooks, feel have gotten far too little attention to catalyze thoughtful, actionable debate on the 3rd point.Growth through entrepreneurship and innovation-led job creation will help.  But serious reform of structural problems needs to be implemented.  Last I checked, the biggest US banks are NO LESS leveraged (25-35x?) than in mid 2008 — the main difference is that US corporations have hoarded record levels of cash on balance sheets, ensuring their own liquidity (survival) but doing little to foster sustainable corporate health and economic expansion.Sorry for a long post.  My wish is that enough light is shed on the 1st 2 points so that we all, left, right, private/public, civic, corporate, kindred, can focus on the bigger task at hand.*For what it’s worth: I thought this was a thoughtful post that made an earnest attempt at clearing some of the clouds and forging a more unified way ahead in the conversation: http://www.dailykos.com/sto

    1. Tom Labus

      But you have to rely on Congress for 1 & 2 to enact intelligent legislation.  

      1. Glenn Nano

        “Rely” yes; “Compel” moreso.  History may very well deem the $787 Billion+ bailout(s) as saving us from the Great Depression Version 2.0.  But new standards must be implemented about:1) US Bank leverage (by every account still Too Big To Fail) — if citizens can’t borrow beyond a certain amount, why should banks be able to?2) Corporate governance (Boards of Directors accountability) — a transparent set of measures for success (and failure) and an easier voting/removing mechanism for Directors3) Balancing the still-inequitable dynamics of private-corporate-risk-taking (speculation) backed by public-taxpayer-safety-nets (Fed Reserve-printed currency to re-capitalize said corporations, bills to be paid by future generations of taxpayers) — get us to where the insolvency of one major corporate financial institution does not threaten the health and functionality of the ENTIRE financial system.  Full. Stop.

  10. tacanderson

    I too was glad when they started protesting, because at least they were doing something. I hope that they don’t think that’s the end though. I hope they realize that no amount of legislation or change will give them their jobs back. I’m glad they’re fed up. Now I just hope they’ll do something about it. I’m glad they’re voicing their unhappiness, now I hope they see that it’s in their power to fix.  

  11. Brad

    I have been thinking a lot about this as well. I live in a state where the longest sitting Senator was elected when I was 1 year old and we wonder why Washington does not listen to us. To me there is so much corruption that I am not sure where we even start to get rid of it.However, I am baffled by the inability for people to think outside the box.I am listening to Herman Cain on Meet the Press talk about 9-9-9 and I think itis an interesting idea, but it will raise taxes on a lot of the people not payingtaxes now. However, the overwhelming problem is not a new way to raise taxesbut to allocate taxes.With as easy as it is to file taxes electronically, why can’t we determinewhere the money goes?Over 75% of taxes are filed electronically, why not at the end of the tax form, we determine where our money goes to. We then have a choice how the government  budget is formed. If I want 100% of my money to go to paying off the deficit, then 100% of my money goes to paying off the deficit.This does two things: 1. Takes the focus of the special interests to the people and away from the elected officials. 2. This equalizes those that are paying taxes and makes it so that they feel that their money is almost an investment in the different parts of government.Here is a simple questionnaire; I will post the results here. You would be surprised about the results. http://freeonlinesurveys.co…Here is the facebook page. Help me spread the idea and get better results.http://www.facebook.com/the

    1. William Mougayar

      Hey Brad, Do you mind quickly fixing the extra line spaces in your comment? Perhaps due to gmail not properly formatting things. Thanks! 

      1. Brad

        I fixed it. Not sure why my computer does this sometimes.

    2. Jonathan Nation

      “will raise taxes on a lot of the people not payingtaxes now”What percent of a gallon of Gas ends up in some state agency?What percent of a gallon of milk? What percent of an order at McDonnalds?Taxes might not be directly from a purchase of an item, or out of a paycheck – but every person who ever purchses something from a business has a portion of that money end up at a government.

      1. Brad

        I am talking about income taxes. This is the hot button. We pay taxes every time we buy almost any thing. The amount of corporate taxes are insignificant in comparison to individual. Here is the breakdown -Individual  – 42%Payroll   –  40%Corporate  –  9%Customs  – 6%Excise  – 3%Estate/Gift  – 1%

        1. leigh

          agree agree agree agree – don’t know exact numbers in Canada except that our personal is at 47% i think (at top end) and corporate is at 16% and we pay 13% in Ontario most goods which basically is a tax against the poor 

          1. Brad

            These are not tax rates rather where we collect taxes from. I was shocked that the payroll taxes were so high.

          2. leigh

            oh wow.  even more surprising!

          3. Luke Chamberlin

            Remember that payroll is usually split 50/50 between the employee and the employer. It’s another form of corporate tax.

  12. andyswan

    I want to ask the OWS crowd:  What is the negative effect on you when another man earns much more money than you do?  Why do you care?  Why do you not applaud his success?Almost every answer can be dismissed as jealousy, greed or ignorance of the fact that wealth is created (and destroyed), not finite.The ONLY logical reason is because the rich man then has more influence over the monopoly of violence that is the government.   So I would then ask:  Why do you protest against the thousands of individuals and organizations that are legally taking advantage of the system, rather than protesting the SOURCE which is the system itself?I have a feeling that if it weren’t one of their fellow community organizers in the White House, the location and target of these protests would be VERY different.To get the money out of government you have to get the government out of money.   End all federal redistribution (both to/from individuals as well as corporations.)  Note this would NOT preclude individual states or locales from implementing their own schemes.Establish a separation of finance and State at the federal level.Move to a gold currency and eliminate the federal reserve.Completely flatten all tax rates.Return to the principles of a Constitutionally limited federal government and return the power of experimentation to the States, where it belongs….and where individuals enjoy the greatest check on government power possible:  Mobility.You’ll be surprised how quickly corporations and unions stop influencing government when it is no longer possible for them to profit by doing so.I am the 0.0000003125%

    1. fredwilson

      you have more in common with them than you think andythe most common complaint is the bailout of the banks by the taxpayers

      1. andyswan

        Then this would have been an extremely effective protest 3 years ago.Oh wait, it was.  And it was called the Tea Party.  Hopefully Herman Cain can complete the sweep 🙂

        1. fredwilson

          it would please me to see Herman win the GOP nominationi don’t agree with many of his positions, but he is authentic and real and proposing creative solutions

          1. kidmercury

            federal reserve candidate, supprots the whole “we need a strong natl defense to protect us against terrorists” ideology. that ideology is false in a factual sense, as 9/11 being an inside job illustrates, though the larger point is that if one believes a large military budget is necessary than they implicitly believe government must be big. whether this is financed through direct taxation or inflation is the only remaining issue. from a kook perspective cain’s national sales tax plan is a setup to enable greater federal tracking of all transactions. 

          2. fredwilson

            i kind of like your man ron paul too

          3. andyswan

            Agree with Fred.  I like Ron Paul too.  I like his son even more.

          4. Dave Pinsen

            Cain’s a likable guy, but he’d get rolled in DC, because he has zero experience in elected office. And his tax proposal may be creative, but it would never pass. A better thought-out plan, The Fair Tax, has been languishing in Congress for years.Every other election cycle there’s a long-shot candidate who says he wants to toss the tax code. Steve Forbes said that, and so did the once and current governor of California, Jerry Brown, when he ran against Clinton in the primary in ’92.I respected Romney’s response to Cain in the last debate, when Cain implied that Romney’s 59-point economic plan was too complicated, and inferior to his “9-9-9” plan. Romney said, “Simple answers are always very helpful, but oftentimes inadequate”.

          5. Jonathan Nation

            Cain’s goal is The Fair Tax (see Phase 2 here: http://www.hermancain.com/9… ) From what I understand the reason he is not pushing striaght for The Fair Tax is because “The Fair Tax, has been languishing in Congress for years”.He came up with a way to push us towards The Fair Tax that he sees is more likely to get passed in the short term. I’m not sure how I view it, but my goal is also The Fair tax.

          6. Dave Pinsen

            I wasn’t aware of that, so thanks for pointing it out.I still think Cain’s 9-9-9 plan has even less chance of passing.Interestingly, Huckabee made the Fair Tax part of his platform last time around. And now he’s got his own Fox News show. I predict Cain will too next year.________________________________

          7. JLM

            The electorate needs a slogan — Hope & Change, anyone?Of course, Romney is right.Cain has better messaging.  Right now.

          8. C. Moore

            You and the Koch Brothers.  Seems to be standard far-right, know-nothing ideas in a new wrapper.Herman Cain’s long ties to the Koch Brothers: CBS News”Cain’s campaign manager and a number of aides have worked for Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, the advocacy group founded with support from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which lobbies for lower taxes and less government regulation and spending. Cain credits a businessman who served on an AFP advisory board with helping devise his “9-9-9″ plan to rewrite the nation’s tax code.” http://www.cbsnews.com/stor…”Creative Soultion #2″: Blame Yourself”Herman Cain accused the OWS movement of being “anti-capitalist” and argued “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!” “Herman Cain Tells Occupy Wall Street Protesters to ‘Blame Yourself'” ABC News””Authentic and Real” …just like everyone’s crackpot uncle:”In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Cain also expressed his belief that Occupation Wall Street was “planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration”, but admitted that he “[didn’t’] have facts” to back up his accusation. ^ “Herman Cain: I’m More Than the ‘Anti-Romney'”. Wall Street Journal. October 5, 2011.”

          9. fredwilson

            he shoots from the hip. that’s going to hurt his chances of getting elected but i like his willingness to be candid and not just listen to his handlers and speak nonsense.

          10. MikeSchinkel

            @fredwilson:disqus  – I listened to Herman Cain’s talk radio show while driving in Atlanta for several years. He is one of the most vitriolic, disrespectful, and intellectually dishonest people I’ve ever heard speak; worse than Sarah Palin even. Compared to Herman his time-slot replacement at WSB Radio Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.com, has a paragon of non-partisan lucidity (imagine that!)I beg of you, please learn more about Herman Cain before you seek to support him.

          11. fredwilson

            i didn’t say i support himi don’t support anyone in the GOPi like independents or conservative democrats

          12. MikeSchinkel

            @fredwilson:disqus Whew! You had me worried there for a minute. 😉

        2. Dave W Baldwin

          For someone age of my son, you have good political pov.

      2. Brad

        That is actually the problem, the tea party and the ows are very similar. We just have two parties that have decided to adopt them. I can not see a big difference between the two’s ideology…..

        1. fredwilson

          what they both (TP and OWS) fail to see is that allowing the GOP and the Dems to adopt them is the exact opposite of what they should be doing

          1. Brad

            agreed!

          2. Dave Pinsen

            The Tea Party members have already said that if GOP politicians they elect don’t fulfill their campaign promises, they will organize primary challenges against them, or vote for Dems. There are enough conservative Dems (think of the ones who were elected in ’06) for that threat to be credible. 

          3. fredwilson

            that is good

          4. Dave Pinsen

            Sure. Just like in business: iterate.

          5. kidmercury

            ^2

          6. William Carleton

            My impression is that OWS is strongly aware of the danger of the Democratic party trying to coopt them. I think they see and appreciate how the Tea Party made a mistake.

          7. fredwilson

            good

          8. Derick Rhodes

            I agree absolutely.

          9. JLM

            I think the TP has infiltrated the GOP and put up and elected candidates.  Won elections.  Delivered office holders.It remains to be seen whether the OWS movement accomplishes anything.The OWS has folks in place — Nancy Pelosi — who are alread sympathetic, they just can’t deliver the results.

          10. fredwilson

            i didn’t see Nancy in Zuccotti Park today

          11. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            TP NOT ALLOW GOP TAKE CONTROL.IT HAVE CONTROL FROM FOUNDING.

          12. sachmo

            I think they both recognize the same problem but have come to radically different conclusions about who is to blame and what should be done… 

        2. andyswan

          The difference in ideology comes not from identifying the problem, but in implementing the solution.The Tea Party wants to reduce the power of the Federal Government, while (I think) OWS wants to expand it.We’ll see if OWS truly represents the 99% at the ballot box.

          1. JLM

            If anyone actually represents 5% of independent voters in the electorate, they will control the outcome of the elections.We are that close.

          2. zoeadamovicz

            I doubt that #OWS sees the hope in expanding the power of Federal Government. What I heard at #occupyberlin gathering today is calling for some type of system which empowers individuals, and better distributes opportunity. Some media call it leftist, or even marxist claims, but I think it’s a superficial classification. What I hear is expressing the need of business models based on social impact. Like the platform businesses, or community models made possible by technology. The power of such collaborative platforms is in their ability to make businesses grow by empowering individuals: I give you tools to help you grow, the more you grow, the more my platform grows and I get richer. And in the end the business that distributes opportunity best is most rewarded. Deep integration of such models into society would be a radical, systemic change in economy.

          3. andyswan

            I cannot tell if you are being sarcastic or not…..but what you are describing is exactly what exists today in a free market economy.If that is truly what OWS is calling for, I suggest that instead of protesting, these people get busy building platforms and creating wealth.

          4. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            WORD “BETTER” NOT SAME AS WORD “MORE”.

          5. andyswan

            Agree.When it comes to federal govt, word “better” is same as word “less”.

          6. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            ME SAY OWS WANT BETTER, NOT MORE.YOU SAY THING IN YOUR HEAD, NOT GRIMLOCK’S.

          7. andyswan

            It seems that both the Nazi and Communist parties of the United States agree that OWS is looking for a more powerful government. I suppose they just disagree on which kind of tyranny it should end up as.

          8. andyswan

            DEM POLLSTER SAY OWS HAVE”deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.” http://online.wsj.com/artic… ME SAY GRIMLOCK PROJECT OWN HOPE ON OWS, NOT SEE REALITY

          9. fredwilson

            so my teachin on capitalism is going to be interesting then

          10. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            ME, GRIMLOCK, MISS WHOLE THING WHERE U.S. NAZI AND COMMUNIST PARTY DECLARED MOST RELIABLE SOURCE OF DATA IN UNIVERSE.YOU WAIT FEW MINUTES. ME NEED CALL UP FLAT EARTH SOCIETY AND ELVIS LIVES CLUB TO SEE WHAT THEM OPINION IS.

          11. andyswan

            Lol

        3. JLM

          Tea Party wants to reduce the size of gov’t.OWS seems to want the gov’t to be THEIR agent of change.

          1. MikeSchinkel

            So both Tea Party and #OWS are misguided. Whoudathunkit? Solution is not to take pots shots but to help identify and enable the best solutions. Condescension helps no one.

          2. JLM

            What are you talking about?There is no pot shot at anyone, just an observation or two.”seems” is subjunctive and not condescending.

          3. MikeSchinkel

            @JLM Taking your one comment by itself, you are probably right. Taken with all your other comments on this page, collectively your comments “seem” to be pot shots (pun intended.)

      3. Kate

        @andyswan:disqus @fredwilson:disqus I agree with much of what you said, Andy.  Fred hits the nail on the head with the comment of the bank bailout.Look, I worked hard in school.  Worked for the man.  Saved my pennies.  Took the risk, started my own company.  It’s not huge, but I turned a profit in a year, reinvested it in the company, and hired others.Now, two years later, I want to hire more.  And I need more money to do that–I’d like $$ from a bank.  My business plan obviously works, and has worked.  They’re sitting on record profits.  I can’t get a loan.  My credit score?  730.  My rejection reason?  Because my student loans are too high (relative to my income).So, here’s where I sit: I run a profitable company.  I want to create more jobs.  I can’t get outside funding to do this because I went to school and am still paying those loans back.  I could pay myself more and the company could stay at this level for a while, or I could hire, grow the company, and hire more.My $.02.

        1. andyswan

          Congratulations on your success so far Kate!   It sounds like you may want to explore other financing options.  There are tons out there that won’t give a funk about your student loans.

          1. ShanaC

            But doesn’t this bother you- this is a fundamental betrayal of why we have banks. They are supposed to be allocating capital to businesses and people so that we grow as an economyThe system is broken…banks find doing ultra-risky, internal hedge funds, more appealing than doing what they are supposed to be doing – semi-low risk people building.

          2. andyswan

            Banks were forced to loan to people that didn’t qualify and pass those loans to the greater fool with unlimited taxpayer funds….Fannie and Freddie….Now they are blamed for the woes of the economy AND blamed for not lending to those who do not qualify?Madness.

          3. ShanaC

            @andyswan:disqus (because we are out of space).  No one forces banks to lend.  Even if you cite the Community Reinvesment Act, (serving the US people since 1977) which was designed to prevent redlining, you still can’t say it was the government’s fault.We held interest rates down for way too long.  We created something known as NINA loans, and because of the way mortgage debt is restructured into CDOs, it didn’t matter for a bit, because of the fee structure afforded to them.Which still points out the banks have problems – they are doing the ultra-risky when they should be doing the somewhat-riskyAnd another note: Fannie and Freddie did extremely well for the first thirty years of their existence, when they were under more gov’t regulation.I feel like I am crazy for being critical of banks that play speculator instead of investor…

          4. calabs

            Andy is simply wrong in this thread, and you are right. He seems to be arguing to maintain some lasaize-faire capitalism ideal that we’ve never, ever had.

          5. sachmo

            Um… who FORCED the poor hapless banks to loan money to uncreditworthy borrowers?Yeah, Fannie and Freddie were basically forced to INSURE the loans, but no one forced the banks to lend… 

        2. fredwilson

          that is nutsyou have a profitable business and you can’t borrow to grow it?

          1. ShanaC

            Banking is broken, otherwise VCs wouldn’t be funding lifestyle businesses.  There is no where to go

          2. Derick Rhodes

            Yep, I have the same problem: profitable business, solid credit score, and can’t get a loan – even a smallish loan – to reinvest in my business.  Banking is broken in this country.

          3. maverickny

            That is also my issue; a profitable business, FICO score over 700 and 4 banks turned me down because they didn’t want to take the risk.That’s the big problem many hard working 99%ers are currently facing and the economy suffers due to lack of small business growth from entrepreneurs.It’s no surprise that people are despising the banks and Obama’s weakness in kowtowing to them. Until that gets fixed, many small business people will continue to suffer in silence.

          4. jimbrowski

            question to you and others who can’t get loans for profitable businesses: have you tried the online loan maretplaces?

          5. Dave W Baldwin

            @kate illustrates an important point to this debate.  Without going into debate below, @jlm is right, but to put more simply… the banks are not going to do anything with risk.  Unless there is the backer who can afford to pay the bill in event of problem.During the past few years, banks have been writing off a lot of business loans (yes, many were stupid) and have to balance things to Fed Auditors.No matter what, it is a sleazy game to get money going after connection to big guv and/or big corp. with all of those that try to act big (about bankrupt).In meantime, we can just market to those of lower knowledge for votes by establishing my wife as straw (mortgage) to blame… so the public sees Low Interest requiring Higher Credit Score.

          6. calabs

            It is not nuts.The risk of making a lot of small loans is huge.The risk of making loans to large “too big to fail” organizations is small to non-existent: the US Government has assured even the wealthiest bondholders that they are able and willing to cover their bad bets.The situation is fucked.

        3. john

          Sorry, but I don’t actually believe this story.  If you are getting a loan for an actual company — let alone one that “obviously works” and is “sitting on record profits,” the loan would be in the name of the company, not in your name. They look at the financials of the company, not yours.  A corporation is a separate legal entity from its owners/managers. It’s the whole legal advantage of incorporating.  So you’re either not running a profitable company, or you’re just sending out anti-tax blog comments masked as poor me small businessperson shtick.

          1. BillSeitz

            Banks want believably-recurring profits at the same scale you’re aiming for (e.g. incremental). If you don’t pass that test (e.g. most small startups), then they want good-guy  (e.g. personal) loans. Just like you can’t sign a lease for commercial space in NYC without taking it on as a personal liability.

          2. C.Moore

            I’m sorry john, but most small businesses are an “LLC” or S Corp where if there is only one member in the company, the LLC is treated as a “disregarded entity” for tax purposes, and an individual owner would report the LLC’s income on his or her individual tax return.  I believe in this situation, the individual’s credit would be taken into consideration.  You are talking about an incorporated company, which most small businesses are not.

          3. john

            Sorry, C. Moore, I’m talking personal liability, not taxes.  And at any rate, S Corp’s — that’s corp for corporation — faces that same legal separation between owners/managers as all corporations.  The same legal separation applies to LLCs is almost all — if not, in fact, all — jurisdictions in the U.S. Sorry, but try again.

          4. Willan Johnson

            John – you need to start a business to see how it works.  I own a business, set up as a Delaware C Corp,  with 50+ employees.   The company is two years old.  And it doesn’t matter if I am applying for a bank loan or a vendor credit line, all they care about is personal credit.   Now, I imagine at some point the company can develop its own credit rating through Dun & Bradstreet, but at this point every loan / credit doc requires a) my personal SS # and b) a personal guaranty.

          5. john

            Nope, actually you don’t need to start a business to see how it works.  The economy is littered with companies that were started by founders with perfect credit that nevertheless never made a dime in revenue. What recourse does a bank have against a founder  with perfect credit whose  Delaware C Corp defaults on that loan? Zero.  What incentive does a founder have in taking out a loan for his/her company, if he/she is solely, personally liable for that loan? Zero.Sprry to have to say it, but I don’t believe your story either.

          6. Willan Johnson

            John – I am sure you are right legally, but practically I think this is somewhat analogous to the co-signer concept for loans or credit cards. In this environment, banks are looking for more leverage in the case a business fails. What incentive does the founder have in taking out a loan with a personal guarantee? The same incentive they have when signing such guarantees for commercial lease and supplier credit agreements – the opportunity to actually get the credit.And you need to look no further than the banks themselves. Here is a link to BofA’s business credit FAQ’s where they clearly state the requirement for personal guarantees.http://www.bankofamerica.co

          7. john

            John: This is the relevant portion of the FAQ you provide:”Will I need to personally guarantee the credit request?Personal guarantees are typically required for business owners. Exceptions can be made depending on the type of entity or other additional factors.”Needless to say,  the holes are so big that you can drive a truck through the “exceptions” and “additional factors.” 

          8. MikeSchinkel

            @d9f97878c2ada9f6651294eb4d3a389b:disqus Based on your comments it’s very clear you’ve never run a business before, right? Your perspective of a company being different from the individual is wishful thinking. Yes, they are legally different a bank is under no obligation to view them that way when it comes to a lending decision.Unless the business is significant in size (probably hundreds of employees) with significant history (probably 5+ years  consistently profitable) a bank won’t even consider giving a loan without a personal guarantee. And that means they view the loan based on the individual’s personal credit.Welcome to reality.

          9. john

            Nope, have never run a business. I’m just a lawyer. (You know lawyers, they are the people who get you out of trouble when the shit hits the fan after you entered into that misguided personal guarantee that you never needed to sign in the first place.)

          10. MikeSchinkel

            John: I’ve worked with some really excellent business lawyers, but many I’ve met are more interested in following rules, trying to eliminate risk and running up large bills regardless of business value than in really understanding business reality. Please run a business for a while (and not just a small law firm) and then let me know if you still feel the same. Also John, how does a startup business owner get a major credit card without a “misguided” personal guarantee that “they never needed to sign?”

          11. john

            Mike: it’s curious that you fault lawyers for “trying to eliminate risks” while you’re apparently out there signing personal guarantees all willy nilly. You probably need a lawyer even more than you realize.

          12. JLM

            There is basically no cash flow lending in the US today.  All lending is asset based and secured by at least two alternative forms of repayment.Any loan to a closely held company will require the personal guaranty of the principals.

          13. MikeSchinkel

            John – Who said I did not need a lawyer? Besides, why do you assume I’m signing personal guarantees? I’m currently operating my business debt-free and completely out of cash flow. I’m using a debit card for purchases that require a card so I don’t have to sign a personal guarantee on a credit card.

        4. Matt A. Myers

          Clearly you’re just going to take the lumpsum of money and go on vacation instead of growing long-term recurring profits. 😉

        5. JLM

          I have borrowed over $1B in my business career.The banks are frozen solid not by policy but by the Examiners.This is the worst environment I have ever seen.

      4. Tom Bakalis

        I don’t want to sound as if I’m defending the banks but why did they do what they did? Repealing Glass-Steagall (Clinton Administration) and keeping interest rates artificially low for too long (Bush Administration) allowed and in some ways forced the banks to do what they did. Ask yourselves if you were running any of these banks would you have been able to do differently? Not an easy question to answer.

        1. Tom Labus

          There were other ways of making money other than synthetic CDOs.

          1. BillSeitz

            But not as *much*  money. Investment banks have been playing games ever since the rates on their initial core services were deregulated.

          2. Tom Labus

            So why should they stop now?

        2. fredwilson

          it is too hard for me to put myself in those shoesit’s not something i’d ever want to do

        3. LE

           “would you have been able to do differently?”You can only be as honest as your competitors or your industry.When I’ve stated this before I’ve always gotten  idealistic “it’s possible to…”  type comments.Possible and reasonably attainable are different things.  It’s possible to climb Mt. Everest and it’s possible to run the NYC Marathon but both are not reasonably attainable. 

      5. AgeOfSophizm

        Fred, you are both the 99% and the 1% because you are not part of the kleptocracy.  The majority of the banksters, lawyers who are employed by banksters, and legislators that are funded by banksters are the 1%.  Wealthy VCs/Entrepreneurs are not the 1%.  We need to qualify the 1%.  

        1. fredwilson

          we are and we aren’tit’s more complicated i think

          1. AgeOfSophizm

            I wholeheartedly agree that it is much more complicated.  I just think that large movements need a simple message – employ the 80/20 rule.

    2. steve

      Can’t the same question be asked of you? Why do you give a shit why people are protesting?  What is the negative effect of people thinking differently than you?Is the ONLY logical reason that those people then might someday have more influence than you?

      1. andyswan

        Your premise is incorrect.  I SUPPORT their right to protest.

        1. steve

          I didn’t ask whether you support people’s right to protest. I asked the same question you asked: why do you care?

          1. andyswan

            Because I reject their goal of limiting my liberty.

          2. steve

            Interesting. So you are, indeed, answering the question the same way that you presume the protesters would hypothetically answer your hypothetical question; i.e., that these people will somebody gain influence at your expense. Like William Gibson once (purportedly) wrote: the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed. 

          3. andyswan

            Yes, and I followed with recognition that thsi answer as THE logical answer.  So I agreed with the logical protester on the problem, and then I laid out my case for the solution.  Now let him lay out his.

          4. steve

            My William Gibson quote was an attempt at the “protestor’s solution.”  There are lots of people in this country who do not think like you do.  The country is changing more and more every day.  The white man is increasingly the minority (Even radical lefty Tom Friedman recently put out a book bemoaning this fact).  Some things, like manufacturing, or union jobs, are “gone and aren’t coming back.” Same with the influence of people like you.  Get used to it, my friend.

          5. andyswan

            Lol keep putting people in little identification boxes, bigot.

          6. steve

            “bigot” is just the name the losers in society give to the winners, isn’t that right?  

          7. MikeSchinkel

            @andyswan:disqus – I would challenge you to consider if in fact your reaction is because you are feeling persecuted?  Their goals are not to limit your liberty; hell, #OWS are not politically sophisticated enough to even articulate clear and focused goals. The fact some may mention things you find threatening shouldn’t concern you because they are grasping at straws.What they are identifying, however is that there are serious legitimate issues in our country with “the system”, and they are not being addressed because the people with power and influence benefit (in the short term) from the status-quo. But ironically the issues are not even in their long-term best interests. If our economy is 70% consumer spending but our policies continue to shrink the buying power of consumers, what does that do to our economy and to the 1%? I’m pretty sure @fredwilson:disqus sees this problem for what it is worth.So why throw stones? Just because the targets are easy? Rather than picking apart #OWS’ lack of ability to articulate the issues and identify solutions I’d recommend we align with them and help them identify what the real problems are and propose real solutions. History is filled with societies that had serious issues where those in power dismissed the concerns with ridicule (“Let them eat cake?”) Yet it is usually the young adults that recognized the inequities who drive  change, often via revolution. In my ~30 years of adult life I’ve never seen such a real opportunity for positive change in the USA. We can be the Nicolae Ceauşescu’s of the #OWS movement, or we can get in front of it and help enable real change that would benefit everyone, even the collective 1%. You decide.

          8. Matt A. Myers

            They limit your liberty and safety via increased crime (etc). It’s one of those subtle things you can’t see- but it’s apart of the whole.

          9. Mario S

            You have to be more specific. Which liberty are they seeking to limit?Freedom of speech, assembly, religion, bear arms, due process, etc. Seems like they are against bank bailouts and if I’m not mistaken, so are you.

          10. Blsavini

            Seems to me that  OWS is regecting the goals that have limited “their” liberties.

          11. andyswan

            I sure hope so. Looking forward to coherent statements to back that up.

          12. sachmo

            How is your liberty limited?Let me guess, they want to punish you for being rich…?I would argue that this is not their goal at all but a cynical misconstruction of some people trying to effect social change…

          13. andyswan

            They want to lay claim to my labor and earnings. They are greedy, radical redistributionists.

          14. MikeSchinkel

            @andyswan:disqus Lay claim to your labor and earnings?  Oh, you tug at my heartstrings, you George Will fan you:http://www.huffingtonpost.c

    3. hixson

      at that %, you are technically the only person in America who believes what you wrote. i think there a quite a few more who think like you do..

      1. andyswan

        You are the 0.0000003125% as well.

    4. Dan T

      you had me at “end all federal redistribution”.the states abilities to compete is not significant enough.unfortunately, there are way too many people sucking off the teet of the federal government – some of the 1% AND a lot of the 99%.too many people are looking for and expecting the federal government to contribute to the solution when the federal government IS the source of the problem.

    5. Aaron Klein

      There is a very fine distinction here and you’ve articulated it well.It does not bother me in the least that Fred has made more money than I have (so far…I’m working hard to change that, Fred).It does bother me when prosperity is having trouble reaching people willing to work hard to get it.But the blame for that lies squarely with our government and its continual attempts to use regulations and taxes to pick winners and losers.

      1. Tom Labus

        It’s more then Fed interference.  It’s a complex mess,

        1. Aaron Klein

          True. I call it the Big Government + Big Business Cartel, but it often includes big unions, and state and local governments too.

          1. BillSeitz

            Yes, but most of those other Bigs rely on the power of BigGov to do their work. Politicians are cheaper than Pinkertons.

          2. Aaron Klein

            +1 exactly

      2. andyswan

        I am looking forward to hearing the OWS proposed solutions.

        1. LE

          How democratic will the proposed solutions be? Are they going to hold a vote and elect people to represent what the people who are protesting  want? And what about what the people who are not protesting want? Or are only the vocal members going to decide what is best and what should be done.  Like when a neighborhood group decides to fight zoning and a motivated group gets to decide what happens (which becomes a power play in itself).A protest like this is not exactly a blue ribbon panel.http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

        2. zoeadamovicz

          I don’t think we should expect #ows to identify solutions. The point is not about fixes in our tax system, or about  proposing a few minor reforms. The point is that people and governments start to understand that financial focus on maximising profits is NOT what drives competition and growth. And that realization means that what’s needed is a deep change in how economy, politics and society works.Fred writes that he sees technology revolution as having the potential of bringing that change. I could not agree more. If the change is about redefining the economic system by developing business models based on social impact, empowering individual, distribution of opportunity and transparency, than I cannot see a better starting point than collaborative platforms and community models. All of these are offsprings of technology entrepreneurship. And I’m sure we can invent more different ones.I think that us – technology entrepreneurs – should help #OWS formulate the claims, rather than pick on their lack of ability to articulate them.

          1. MikeSchinkel

            “I think that us – technology entrepreneurs – should help #OWS formulate the claims, rather than pick on their lack of ability to articulate them.”Exactly!

      3. Matt A. Myers

        Governments are made up of politicians which get money from corporations and their intent is influenced by them.Their intent currently isn’t aimed at taking care of people.They aim to take care of people well enough as to not reach mass revolting – which clearly they failed because they never had control – nor could they.P.S. Made me giggle: “It does not bother me in the least that Fred has made more money than I have (so far…I’m working hard to change that, Fred).”

        1. Aaron Klein

          Let’s be fair…corporations and unions. Unions are nothing more than businesses at this point.And that’s what I mean by the Big Government + Big Business Cartel. It’s all about self protection and self perpetuation.

          1. Matt A. Myers

            Sure, some unions certainly. Unions can work properly though. In certain European countries the unions are actually reasonable and try to genuinely be fair.

          2. David Semeria

            Seriously? Which ones?It just like George Orwell predicted so elegantly in Animal Farm.It makes little difference how they get there. Most people, once in the club, start behaving differently.It’s just basic human nature.

          3. JLM

            Unions take dues — funded BTW by employers — from their workers whose only common trait is their craft.They completely disregard the political diversity of their members.  They thumb their nose at the employers.They singularly deploy that capital to support only Democratic candidates thereby breaking faith with the diversity of the political view of their members.It is simply extortion.There is a reason why both ACORN and SEIU were founded by the same guy.

          4. Aaron Klein

            By “like any other business” I simply mean that unions don’t have the altruistic motive they claim but are entities with a profit motive.And unlike real businesses, they don’t create value…they just extract and redistribute it.

          5. MikeSchinkel

            On this point we do agree (although the references to ACORN and SEIU are a bit too baiting for my tastes.)

          6. JLM

            @mikeschinkel:disqus Wade Rathke and his brother are evil geniuses.Don’t get what you about “baiting?.

          7. fredwilson

            sadly, i agree with JLM on this

          8. MikeSchinkel

            @JLM:twitter  – RE “Baiting”: Right-wing pundits beat the drum to a deafening level about ACORN in an attempt to discredit Obama. Best I could tell from my research on the subject ACORN is not that much different from any organization with an agenda, and every article I could find about them has been written by someone who can be directly identified as having a right-wing agenda of sorts such as[1] written by the senior editor of The American Spectator John Fund[2]. So basically what I’m ACORN is a right-wing punching bag and bringing it up can call into question the level of intellectual honesty in a debate (even if no dishonesty were intended.) That’s what I meant by “baiting.”[1] http://online.wsj.com/artic…[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

          9. sachmo

            I actually agree as well… unions as I have seen them are just as corrupt as gov’t – perhaps even more so…And Gov’t Unions are probably the 2nd gigantic problem of government after corporate money….

    6. Tom Labus

      I believe FDR took us off the Gold Standard (along with most of Europe) to start getting out of the Depression.

    7. Lenny Grover

      Andy,A large portion of one’s future earning potential is influenced by their parents’ means and their own education level. As a result of the a tax code that favors the already rich, the achievement gap, and high cost of university education, class mobility in the US is actually lower than many other nations around the world. We have exported the American Dream, and free trade has lifted hundreds of millions of people in developing countries out of poverty, but we have neglected our own people. I do not think there would be as much anger about income and wealth disparities if the game wasn’t so thoroughly rigged against those who are born poor. Their hopelessness about the loss of the American Dream is fueling their justifiable anger.Access to basic healthcare, quality and affordable education opportunities based on merit, and a fairer tax code, that does not allow for the generational accumulation of what Warren Buffet once called “dynastic wealth,” are very reasonable demands.Getting the government out of markets will only allow market failures to persist and monopolies to form. Pollution, and other negative externalities, would be rampant and the vast majority of people would be left far worse off. The solution to a broken government is not no government but rather a government that works.I support the OWS movement. They are bringing the suffering of the poor (and the middle class) to the forefront of our national dialogue. Their needs have been ignored for too long.

      1. JLM

        Seizing the wealth of the top 1% will not provide any stairway out of poverty.It will make you feel good.  Real good.But what happens when the poor guy becomes rich?Do we eat him also?

        1. William Mougayar

          Yup. The missing link is how punishing the 1% automatically helps the 99%. There’s a lot that has to happen in-between. The devil is in the details would be an understatement. 

          1. SubstrateUndertow

            I don’t thing it is a matter of punishing the 1%.It is more a matter of questioning the wealth apportioning value system that underpins such distorted wealth outcomes.Concentration of wealth is not so much immoral as it is unsustainable in complex system. Such gradients undermine long term homeostasis.Any system as complex as human commerce abhors poor distribution in the same fashion that space abhors a vacuum.

          2. William Mougayar

            The “punishing the 1%” statement was directed at the OWS. I’m saying that it’s not enough to just focus on that, so we agree generally.

        2. MikeSchinkel

          That’s completely a straw man argument.  While a few may advocate seizing wealth that’s not going to happen; most are advocating for rebalancing our system, not destroying it.

          1. JLM

            Mike, there is no “argument” there at all.  There is a question?  A rhetorical question.How much does the top 1% pay now? Makes 20% of income, pays 38% of all taxes.Top 10%Makes 35% of income , pays 59% of all taxesBottom 50%Makes 13% of income, pays 3% of all taxes.The top 1% already pay enough.How much more progressive should it be?

          2. MikeSchinkel

            It’s such a fallacy to trot out these statistics; liars, damn liars and statisticians, right? Here are some other stats: The top 10% gain 47.2% of income (and 73.1% of net worth) and are only paying 38% of all taxes[1]. Clearly the top 10% are underpaying.But the problem is not really that the top 10% are under taxed, the problem is that they are over-influencial in how they can use their money to get favorable (short-term) policy treatment resulting in the lower 90% being much less able to generate the income so that it can pay a higher percentage of total taxes.If you want the economy to be healthy, it has to start by creating a healthy middle class, not by letting the top 1% dictate policy.[1] http://www.irle.berkeley.ed… (see table 1) 

          3. JLM

            @mikeschinkel:disqus That is a great document but it is about “wealth” and I was speaking to income.It is difficult to see the call to action to tax the top 1% more — on their income — when they are already paying 38% of all the taxes.Is there ever enough of a burden for the top 1%?

          4. gorbachev

            You still continue parroting that line, do you?Last time I asked you about why do you that is, you managed to completely avoid the question.Let’s spell it out for you this time:The 1% pay 38% of the taxes, because their income make something like half of all income in this country.For heaven’s sake.The top 1% have a tax rate of something like 20%, while the bottom 99% have something like 30%.THAT is the issue.You don’t seem to have even a fundamental understanding of what progressive means.

          5. MikeSchinkel

            @JLM:disqus  The table I directed you to listed *income* in addition to wealth and my comment first focused on income.Why is it difficult to see taxing the top 1% more? They pay 38% of taxes, but they make 47% of income. Sounds like, because of tax loopholes they are effectively being under-taxed in comparison. So the burden really falls on the 99%.As far as I can see, the top 1% haven’t been burdened in years:  http://bit.ly/n7zODM

          6. JLM

            @gorbachev:disqus I think you will find (2009 CBO numbers) that the top 1% make 16.9% of the income and pay 37% of the taxes.We should at least be able to agree on the numbers as a basis for argument.The rates are not as important because the top 1% are paying taxes at capital gains rates (15%) for which there are no deductions.

          7. Luke Chamberlin

            I’m going to comment because this is something that bugs me.The top 1% pay 37% of FEDERAL INCOME taxes. But federal income taxes are only 40% of total US revenue. Payroll tax is another 40%. Corporate and various other taxes make up the rest. And then there’s the state level: property taxes, sales taxes and other local taxes.When you factor in these other taxes, the top 1% make 20% of the income and pay 21% of the taxes.source: http://www.factcheck.org/20…source: http://www.csmonitor.com/US

          8. Carl J. Mistlebauer

            No deductions on capital gains? Don’t you harvest your investment losses?

          9. sachmo

            This is a widely quoted statistic, but a completely misleading one.The top 1% own 42% of the entire financial wealth of the country.  I’m not sure about their direct income but you must acknowledge that most of the wealth of the top 1% accrues from capital gains or investments. So really they should be paying at least 42% of all taxes, which they are not. Looking percentage-wise, the RATE that they are taxed is less than middle class people who actually WORK for their money. This is deeply unfair because for a middle class person, the extra 4 – 12 % will be felt much more personally than for the Ultra Rich person who would experience no loss of his or her ability to educate their family, pay for healthcare, pay off debt, go on extravagant vacations, retire, etc etc…

          10. sachmo

            Read your counter-arguments below… You have to account for Wealth because of the way in which capital gains comes into the picture. The Ultra-Rich don’t make their money from income primarily but rather from investing. Total BS, they can easily afford to pay more without experiencing any appreciable loss in their lifestyle.And proportionately, the people that actually WORK for their money pay more… 

        3. sachmo

          I don’t think this movement is about seizing wealth at all… What makes you think its about seizing wealth?

      2. Aaron Klein

        With all due respect, that’s one of the most ridiculous things ever spoken in this bar.America is about the idea that it doesn’t matter who your parents are or what your last name sounds like. If you work hard, you can succeed.This is the country where the half-Syrian son of a single mother, adopted by a middle class engineer and his wife, dropped out of college and used his talents to become a billionaire. (His name was Steve Jobs.)You will not solve the problems of the poor by tearing down the wealth creators we should all be proud of.

        1. Lenny Grover

          Aaron, a single anecdotal example does not measure up to the mounting research analyzing statistically the lieklihood of people of different income levels experiencing upward mobility. There are always outlers, which Steve Jobs certainly is. I certainly do not advocate “tearing down” anybody, but rather better living up to our ideal of “equal opportunity.”What particularly bothers me is the lack of empathy of many in the tech community for the protesters. They naively assume that the rest of the economy shares the same meritocratic dynamics as the tech industry, where innovative upstarts can challenge industry leaders and a college degree is not a prerequisite for success. But, higher barriers to entry, rigid hiring criteria, and, in some cases, the market power of the incumbents make that a very faulty and unfair assumption.Personally, I feel an obligation to stand in solidarity which those who are treated unjustly.

          1. Aaron Klein

            Lenny, I stand in solidarity against injustice every day. You don’t have to dig deep on my Twitter feed to learn about my advocacy for the global orphan crisis and the root causes in poverty.I have stood in the mud hut in a tiny village in Ethiopia where my daughter was born and I assure you…every #OWS protestor is wealthy relatively speaking.But this is an important distinction: I firmly stand on the side of equality in opportunity, not equality of outcome.One delivers wealth to most; the other stagnation and mediocrity.

          2. Lenny Grover

            For the most part, it sounds like we are in violent agreement. The only areas I would argue for more equality of outcome is health care (which I see as a basic human right) and that there be enough of a social welfare system in place to provide for the basic needs of the poor (nobody in the world’s wealthiest country should die of hunger, treatable illnesses, or face old age without some safety net in place to prevent those who can no longer work from being indigent).

          3. LE

            “lack of empathy of many in the tech community for the protesters.”I think people in the tech community put tomuch weight on their own initiative asthe reason why they are where they areas opposed to how much luck was (also) involved.As a result they think that anyone can doit if they try hard enough because they don’twant to admit the degree to which luckplayed a role in their outsized success.Luck in tech is a little like beingdiscovered in entertainment. Out of a groupof people with the same abilities trying andworking hard every day only a certain subgroup willalso have luck that gets them where theywant to be. In tech of course even among thegroup that realizes that it would be betterto be in the Valley/Alley only a subset of thosepeople are able, for a variety of reasons,to get out there.”They naively assume that the rest of the economy shares the same meritocratic dynamics as the tech industry, where innovative upstarts can challenge industry leaders and a college degree is not a prerequisite for success”Agree. As only one example many people will getan MBA from “any college USA” is because it’sa requirement to be promoted in theirparticular corporation. 

          4. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            EVERY SUCCESSFUL PERSON HAVE 3 THINGS.TALENT, HARD WORK, LUCKNONE OF THEM EVER ADMIT 3RD ONE.

          5. fredwilson

            UntrueGoogle avc.com i got luckyOur familys first dog was named luckyFortunately my luck survived his passing

          6. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            @fredwilson:disqus  YOU EXCEPTION TO RULE.THAT WHY YOU FRED.

        2. MikeSchinkel

          Steve Jobs?  Two problems with that example:  1.) Steve was born 56 years ago, not 26 years ago, and 2.) there are extreme outliers in all statistical distributions. So how many *other* Steve Jobs are there?And this is not about tearing down the wealth creators, this is about fixing the rules that make it easier for the wealthy to get much wealthier while making it very difficult for most people to even maintain status quo.

          1. Aaron Klein

            I certainly agree that we should repeal any government rules that are giving wealthy people money they don’t earn (e.g. corporate welfare).

          2. JLM

            If one has more capital to start w/ aren’t they going to up w/ more capital at the end if they are prudent about their investments?  Especially if the playing field is leveled?

          3. MikeSchinkel

            Yes they are going to be more successful, especially if their investments are in buying public policy that is favorable to them growing their capital and unfavorable to those without as much capital.  But I do digress…

          4. JamesHRH

            There are 0 in Syria, which is the point.America is an idea. It needs new execution, as the last 20 years the execution of the idea has gotten off track.In a sense, American capitalism has been gamed. It just needs to be reset.

          5. MikeSchinkel

            Agreed.

          6. Donna Brewington White

            “American capitalism has been gamed. It just needs to be reset.”Well said, James.  Let’s fix democracy while we’re at it.

          7. JamesHRH

            @donnawhite:disqus I see capitalism and democracy as inseparable, so I see fixing one as fixing the other.I believe I have mentioned this before, but capitalism / democracy in Canada is not broken: our banks are regulated far more effectively and financial contributions do not effect politics to any degree.

        3. ErikSchwartz

          I’ll make the same comment here as I did to JLM.The legacy admission rates at Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford are ~40%. For non-legacy admission rates are ~5%.

          1. Aaron Klein

            I’ve half written five replies but then I can’t quite figure out your point.If you see that as a problem to be solved, what’s your solution?

          2. ErikSchwartz

            The point is it is not a level playing field. If you have Stanford on your resume you will get VC meetings in the valley no matter how bad your plan is. If you went to Fresno state it will be an uphill battle. The first filter at Google and many other companies is where you went to school.I’m not sure there’s anything to be done, for personal reasons, I’m not sure I want anything done (my kids will be 4th generation Stanford). The schools are private institutions, they can do what they want, but you’re kidding yourself if you think this is a level playing field.

          3. Aaron Klein

            The playing field is what you choose to make of it.If you can’t compete with the advantages some have, change the rules.I don’t have a piece of paper from Harvard or Stanford, but I’ve talked and worked my way into six figure jobs, sold companies and raised financing.I’m quite certain that it took me a lot more work and a lot more time and a lot more hustle than it might have taken the Winklevoss brothers of Harvard.But I’ve worked hard for everything I’ve earned, and I have only gratitude for what this great country has given to me.

          4. JLM

            There is no question that your later comment is correct but it is woefully superficial of those who make those judgments.Nonetheless, you are absolutely correct.I have a degree in engineering from VMI, a trade school, and a thrift store Ivy League MBA bought w/ a GI Bill coupon book.I am personally prouder of my VMI degree. 

          5. Bill Davenport

            I went to an Ivy league college and was not a legacy.  So lots of people do get in, in fact it’s the majority of new freshmen.  And this past year a friend and classmate of mine had his oldest child rejected from our alma mater — although he was a standout student / athlete.I don’t really see a problem with legacy preferences.  These schools get a ton of qualified candidates (both legancy and non-legacy) and if they favor legacies as a way of both having stronger and longer lasting alumni connections (and fundraising reach), that makes perfect economic sense to me.  Without it they’d likely have smaller endowments and tuition would be even more expensive than it already is.That said, there are schools that have ended preferences as well — I read about CalTech in this article — http://abcnews.go.com/Busin… so they can do what they want.

        4. SubstrateUndertow

          With all due respect, that’s one of the most ridiculous things ever spoken in this bar ;o)America is not just about the IDEA of a MERITOCRACYAmerica is abouta rule of lawa social contracta social platforma commitment to team Americathat can MAKE IT SO !IDEAS are a dime a dozenIMPLEMENTATION is the heavy liftingwealth distribution has its own substrate undertowthe value systems used when apportioning wealth to the team members who have participated in generating said wealththis is where big $ spent on Public Perception Management firms followed by big $ spent on lobbying Congress can socially legitimize and legislatively sanctify an otherwise twisted and counterproductive set of value-allocation memes.

        5. Keenan

          Aaron, Yes, if you work hard, you can succeed.  That being said, it is a FACT that the default position for NOT working hard is very different for the rich than the poor. A poor kid who doesn’t work hard, is fucked.  A rich kid who doesn’t work hard,not so much. Research shows the probability of success is substantially diminished if you come from a poor, uneducated family than if you come from a rich, educated family.  It’s a fact. Any discussion about inequities and an equal playing field HAS to start from that fact. Regardless of the end position, regardless of the recommended solution, any minimizing or ignoring of that reality undermines the discussion. Legacy, wealth and education provides access. Access is the foundation of opportunity.  Without access opportunity doesn’t exist. For the people born to or from poverty, they not only have to work hard at improving the skills, education, etc, but also have to work twice, three times, shit 10 times as hard to get access.  Access is a game changer.  

          1. Aaron Klein

            It’s all a matter of perspective, my friend.I was born to two parents who worked hard, never went to college and still don’t have much saved for retirement. So I didn’t start with any kind of built in advantages. I had to work hard in just the way you wrote to get to where I’m at.But as I wrote earlier, I stood in the mud hut where my daughter was born in a tiny village in Ethiopia. There wasn’t a person in that village who wouldn’t trade anything to live in America…simply so they could have the chance to do that hard work. To pull themselves out of poverty and build a better life for their kids.So I don’t understand the goal behind your words. I don’t see the profit in creating victims by convincing people they are better off protesting. I’d rather point to the other path you outlined and say “you can be successful too. All you have to do is work at it hard enough.”I’m not going to play the victim just because some trust fund kid has a trust fund.I’ll beat him with hard work any day of the week.

          2. Keenan

            Aaron, I slept on the roof of a hospital, when I was 18 because I had no where to go. I put my self through school. BUT, i also had family and friends who were educated and upper-middle class who helped me out when i slipped. U and I are outliers. My point is focusing on the outliers is fruitless. The norm and majority aren’t playing from an equal playing field. Therefore any discussion, position, recommendation or solution must be reconciled with that reality. Without reconciling that fact, the discussion, position, solution, etc. has little merit. My point, YES work hard and anyone can make it. BUT, the journey is NOT the same or equitable and it becomes increasingly less equitable as you go down the economic ladder. That fact can not be dismissed and must be built into any solution.

          3. Aaron Klein

            Congrats on making it. The great photos of you and your family are proof. But I still can’t figure out where you’re coming from with the rest of what you wrote. “The majority aren’t playing from an equal playing field.” If that’s the definition of opportunity, is your plan to require that Harvard accept everyone, or require that Harvard accept no one?

          4. Keenan

            OK, no. Harvard shouldn’t accept everyone. Where I’m coming from is that I believe the role of the government is to ensure opportunity OR prevent it from being taken away. I.E. access to a good education, access to healthcare, protection from destructive elements, access to productive environments, etc. My other point however is strictly about the debate. When talking about opportunity, it’s not accurate or genuine to say everyone has an equal opportunity. Everyone has an opportunity, YES! That’s what makes the country so great. However, when faced with the challenges of today, it’s disingenuous to operate from the expectation that the poor just aren’t trying enough, or that they have the same opportunities as the rich. They don’t! Therefore by simple math, more poor will fallout of the system, have less, and achieve less and that fact has to be part of the narrative. The narrative doesn’t have to change. Someone can say, and be OK with the, there is opportunity for everyone in this country so the government has to stay out and stop taxing the rich argument. But, they can’t express that argument on the premise that it’s equal opportunity. That’s not fair. Simply put, I want narrative to embrace the reality of this country as it currently is, not on false hyperbole that says everyone has equal opportunity. //keenan

          5. Aaron Klein

            Well, we profoundly disagree. This country’s history is full of stories of people who rejected the victim mentality, worked hard and made a better life for themselves.Part of this is what I’ve seen already in my life. Serving on the board of a community college, which serves the “top 100% of students,” it doesn’t take a doctorate in pattern recognition to figure out who is going to succeed…and socioeconomic status isn’t anywhere close to the deciding factor.I spoke at our commencement ceremonies this past May and my speech was entitled “Don’t Wait for Permission to Do Exceptional Work.” It summarizes what I think the #OWS people should do pretty well. http://www.aaronklein.com/2

          6. Keenan

            What do we disagree on?

          7. Aaron Klein

            That to have equal opportunity, everyone has to have equal resources.That focusing on what poor people don’t have is somehow helpful to getting them to succeed.That the “outliers” argument has any validity and that my son and daugher can’t grow up to be anything they want to be.

          8. Keenan

            “to have equal opportunity, everyone has to have equal resources” that’s is a fact. By the sheer nature of the phrase, “equal resources, equal opportunity.” Aaron, if you and I are about to climb Mnt Everest, and you have a sherpa, oxygen, and a map outlining where to go, the opportunity for you to be successful is fare greater than I do with none of those things. I’m just not sure how anyone can argue that isn’t an advantage or creates greater opportunity. The world I come from and where I agree with you is; fair or not, the person without those things can and has the ability to A) start climbing without all that stuff and through pure grit and determination attempt to make it to the top or B) take the extra time to go find the resources and then tackle the climb. Either way they have a choice and can do it. Understanding this, It’s not an excuse not to try. There is little preventing them from doing heading to the top. BUT, to expect equal outcomes from those who start with the sherpa, oxygen, map etc. to be the same as those with out being given them is disingenuous.

          9. Aaron Klein

            If having equal opportunity means equal resources, then I guess we can abolish the words “equal opportunity” because it has been long proven that there is no way to truly equalize resources. It has NEVER worked.But I believe equal opportunity has nothing to do with equal resources. Let’s just take college opportunity as an example. We provide free counseling, free assessment, free tutoring, free writing lab, free reading lab, free tuition and in many cases, free books to students who don’t have many resources.Now, after giving them all that, they still don’t have “equal resources” to those who drive up in their Mustang convertibles as fifth generation college students.But they sure as heck do have equal opportunity. They’ve been given oxygen and a map and a sherpa and they’ve got every chance in the world if they want to take it.It doesn’t mean the climb won’t be harder.But that is the difference between equal resources and equal opportunity.And America is the land of equal opportunity for all. Not equal resources. Not equal outcomes. Not equal “ease” of the journey. But yes…an equal chance to make it if you want to work for it.(I’m going to bow out now, go seize some opportunity, and let you have the last word, my friend.)

          10. MikeSchinkel

            @Keenan:twitter  – In my experience people with greater access and resources often significantly discount the effect that access and those resources had on their success and instead attribute their success to their own abilities. For example, just living in the USA vs. many other countries has been a significant advantage in the past.Much like how people do not appreciate what they have until they loose it, people with greater access and resources usually just don’t even recognize the effects of what they had and just how much on an enabler it was for them. And that is unfortunate, especially in debates like these because it causes many people to believe all others could do the same, regardless of their circumstances.FWIW, I account the success that I have had mostly to my access and my resources and not so much to my own abilities. Said another way, I’m my biggest critic; I’m not nearly as awesome as I wish I were.

          11. sachmo

            What does your daughter being born in a village in Ethiopia have to do with anything?The people of the OWS movement are fed up with the fact that the gov’t bailed out large financial institutions with political connections, and not middle class americans that need and deserved a bail out more…Who is saying that these people want to trade places with the rich?  Maybe they want social change.

    8. Matt A. Myers

      There’s too much uncertainty with completely doing what you said above; Sure, it eventually *maybe* could have the wanted effects but there’s no managing of things then and people with more power could still pool their money. You need a pool of money that society can determine how the money is used. And not for things like no-bidding military contracts for $X billion. Things will shift too quickly if you don’t have a hand in managing, and then chaos will ensue and people will likely be hurt worse when there’s chaos.What can work and create a trickle effect will allow people’s votes to actually matter and for politicians not to be elected based on getting money. That’s just one of many things mind you.Why do people care at the base? Survival. If you struggle or worry about survival you have fear. Fear is a very nasty thing. Fear for their own survival or even more so for their children. Will they have food tomorrow? What if they get sick? Once you have money the fear that makes money valuable lessens (money becomes an exciting thing then). People are fighting to not be fearful, for survival, for safety – that is the root. The effects of taking care of everyone are beneficial to the whole.

    9. ErikSchwartz

      The idealist in me wants this theory to work.The realist in me suspects it can’t happen in real life.

    10. 99%er

      Hi Andy,I find your first paragraph to be an inflammatory straw man argument.  You know as well as anyone else that the OWS movement isn’t a cohesive entity with a single voice, so why do you paint everyone in it as jealous of the wealthy?It makes it difficult to read the rest of your post, despite the fact that I may agree with some of your points.  Obviously we should return to a gold standard, since it is constitutionally mandated.I also agree that having the federal government use fiat money to redistribute the wealth of the many to the hands of a few via inflation and ‘bailouts’ is wrong.But having a gold standard is not enough.  The current crisis is no different in that respect from the Great Depression.  The root of the problem is the practice of fractional reserve lending.  The federal reserve should not exist. Banks should not be allowed to loan money that doesn’t belong to them.On the other hand, I have to disagree with one of your points.  Flattening taxes does nothing.  The problem is the tax evasion practiced by wealthy individuals and corporations. Flat taxes don’t fix this.Fred seems genuinely interested in solving these problems. You seem more interested in poking an angry dog with a sharp stick.Having said all that, if you were on fire, and I had a glass of water… I would drink it.

      1. andyswan

        Nice to meet you too!

      2. JLM

        The real question is not would you use the glass of water to save the burning Andy, it is would you piss on Andy to put the fire out?Kidding.Andy, I would do both.  But, hell, I like you, man.

        1. fredwilson

          humor puts out the fire of a nasty comment so well

        2. ShanaC

          Thanks.

      3. Gwar

        I happen to think Andy Swan is a dickhead, but if you truly think “the root of the problem is the practice of fractional reserve lending” I hope the water you drink while Andy is on fire is contained in a glass.  Because I will take the glass out of your hand and hit you over the head with it (hopefully reducing the gene pool).  Do you understand what “fractional reserve lending” is? Do you understand what banks do?Short answer: no, no.

        1. ShanaC

          dude, i realize this is a hot topic.  I disagree often with Andy.  I also respect him as a person.We’ll get more done without calling people curses.

        2. fredwilson

          Andy Swan is not a dickheadHes a very decent guy who has strong beliefs that i dont totally agree with On Oct 16, 2011 10:09 PM, “Disqus” <>

    11. Austin Clements

      I completely disagree with your initial statement here Andy. You’re assuming that the 99% don’t applaud success in this country. They do. The issue is more about the lack of fairness in the distribution of the wealth that has been created. Your assumption is that wealth is distributed in proportion to how it was created. That has never been the case, but now it is so disproportionate that the people who never took the time to notice can’t ignore it anymore.Protesters have a very logical reason to bring attention to this fact and it has little to do with their level of influence over the government. Many of these people work for some of the same companies that they are protesting against. The issue, simply put, is people at the top are paid while the rest are not. Executives are free to make the rules however they see fit (as they should be), but the prevailing perception is that they are not looking out for the people at the bottom or the everyday customer that utilizes their services. Just because their actions are allowable by law does not make them ethical. This is a free market economy. In theory, any one of the protesters could start his or her own bank, grow it to be the size of Citi and then enjoy all of the spoils afforded to the large banks and bankers. All of this is technically possible but let’s be practical here, most of the 99% don’t have access to the resources to begin to consider that as an option. And not everybody wants to be a CEO. The 99% are simply looking to have their leaders recognize and respond to the growing disparity. They helped plan the dinner party, they just want a seat at the table.

      1. MikeSchinkel

        @aclements18:disqus Brilliantly stated! I have not been able to put into words what you just said with: “the lack of fairness in the distribution of the wealth that has been created.” Thanks for showing me a way to frame the issue even better.

        1. JLM

          The notion that wealth should be distributed, redistributed or fairness therein is a fairy tale.Opportunity should be fairly distributed.

          1. Austin Clements

            I would agree, but are you suggesting that opportunity is actually fairly distributed? The opportunities seem to be different depending on your socioeconomic standing in this country. 

          2. JLM

            Austin, of course not.  Opportunity is sometimes the product of luck.The focus should be on opportunity not wealth.Give everyone a fair chance to get rich.Destroy the barriers to opportunity.An ideal, not real.  Yet.

          3. MikeSchinkel

            You are parsing words too literally yet you know what I mean. Fairness in opportunity distribution is an equally acceptable replacement.

          4. JLM

            There is a huge literal difference between wealth and opportunity.I have been the benefactor of extraordinary opportunity distribution and capitalized upon it.GI BillWealth, not so much.Handout v hand up?

          5. MikeSchinkel

            @JLM:disqus Parsing words is not helpful. Focus on intent.

          6. Harry W

            Opportunity without wealth is like work without pay.

          7. Aaron Klein

            Opportunity without wealth is usually what happens when you try to get paid without work.cc / @JLM:disqus 

          8. ErikSchwartz

            The legacy admission rates at Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford are ~40%. For non-legacy admission rates are ~5%.

          9. Rob K

            Totally agree it should be, but it isn’t. Income inequality is at near historic levels, but more importantly, social mobility is at the lowest level in history. I assume you have seen Blodget’s charts. http://read.bi/omdmNq

          10. sachmo

            Ok, fine…But what about a multi-trillion dollar government bail out…? why wasn’t there something even remotely similar for distressed homeowners?  Doesn’t seem like equal opportunity to help out the lenders at the expense of the borrowers at all… 

          11. JLM

            Actually HASP was to have been the homeowner bailout through the banks themselves.  So the program was there.It was a good program.The banks — surprise — care only about themselves and once saved they had no real impetus to use the provisions of HASP and the Administration did not enforce it.Your complaint is well made and, in my view, completely correct but the beef is with the Administration which pretended to help — HASP — and then essentially did nothing.Approximately 3-4% of HASP funds were ever deployed and that is a tragedy.

    12. tomwatson

      This is a recipe for oligarchy, massive economic depression, starvation, a Mad Max vision for the future, and eventually, violent sectarian revolution. It’s neither serious nor in any way related to our American cultural and political values (post Civil War, that is). Non-starter extremism.

      1. Tom Labus

        Nicely said. 

      2. JLM

        For almost a quarter of a millennium, our government has changed hands without a shot being fired and without a tank engine being turned over.We will have riots but we will not have violent revolution.That is what makes the US different.

        1. jason wright

          That’s 250 years. What was the American Civil War? Some have argued that America’s domestic tensions have always been exported in the form of foreign conflicts, economic and military.Yvon Chouinard argues that America geographically and economically is too big, and that it needs dividing.   

        2. tomwatson

          You may have missed that little 1861-65 kerfuffle …

          1. JLM

            Point made.YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT AND I AM WRONG.I am technically right as the Union continued to exist but you are intellectually 100% correct.And I went to VMI.  War of Northern Aggression anyone?Sorry.

          2. tomwatson

            Capitalists vs. Agrarians!

          3. fredwilson

            one of my favorite characteristics in a person is the ability to admit they were wrongwell played

        3. Matt A. Myers

          How many citizens were/are left behind though (died or have to live miserably their lives)?

        4. MikeSchinkel

          No empire in history has lasted forever. Vested interests accumulate over time and corrupt. How many of the world’s largest businesses from 100 years ago are still in the top 10 today? Do you really think the USA will still be in its same place 200 years from now? Time conquers all.

          1. JLM

            Don’t quite get your point.We are not an empire.Yes, I do suspect the USA will be in generally the same position in 200 years from today — an influential Superpower w/ an enormous impact on the world and an incredible market for goods and services.I wish I would be there to see it.

          2. MikeSchinkel

            We are not an empire?  From Wikipedia (with the “or”s parsed out)[1]: “Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled by an oligarchy.”That sounds pretty much like what the USA has become, and the oligarchy is what is at the core of the #OWS’ grievance.[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

          3. MikeSchinkel

            Also from http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…Empire from 1945 to the present========================American Empire. Characterizing some aspects of American foreign policy and international behavior “American Empire” is controversial but not uncommon. Stuart Creighton Miller posits that the public’s sense of innocence about Realpolitik (cf. American Exceptionalism) impairs popular recognition of US imperial conduct. Since it governed other countries via surrogates — domestically-weak, right-wing governments that collapse without US support. G.W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: “We don’t seek empires. We’re not imperialistic; we never have been” — directly contradicts Thomas Jefferson, in the 1780s, awaiting the fall of the Spanish empire: “. . . till our population can be sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece”. This indicates that countries’ goals can change over 200 years. In turn, historian Sidney Lens argues that from its inception the US has used every means to dominate other nations.

          4. JLM

            @mikeschinkel:disqus I was thinking of an “empire” in the context of the British Empire — an aggressively expansive enterprise.I hope for a lasting republic or democracy as an alternative?

          5. Matt A. Myers

            @JLM:disqusNot an aggressive expansion empire? What’s going into other countries for oil, etc? It may not be “we are your new masters” expansion, but business expansion as businesses are the new rulers – as we know with bought politcians. 🙂

          6. MikeSchinkel

            With this list of US military businesses across the world, we do effectively have “an aggressively expansive enterprise.”[1] The USA attempts to take control unilaterally whenever it thinks it has “strategic interests” in a location assuming our politicians are not afraid of the country in question (i.e. we have no bases in China AFAIK.) We attempt to “export democracy” whenever and wherever we think we can get away with it. To slightly paraphrase what someone so famously said not too long ago: “Our chickens are gonna come home to roost one day…”[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

          7. Druce

            Every time I hear on the Super Bowl how armed forces in 170 countries are watching, I think ‘no empire to see here…move along’

          8. jason wright

            200 years ago China had the largest economy in the world. In about 30 years from now it will do so again. In written Chinese ‘China’ is formed with two characters. The first equates to ‘middle’ and the second ‘country’, and the essentially meaning in the minds of the Chinese is ‘the country at the center of the world’. China is an internal empire. It has about 50 distinct ethnic groups. There has never been an external Chinese empire. That could change.I wonder what America would be like today if during its 250 history it had sourced its needs from only its own territorial resources? It would not have become the world’s largest economy, and might not even be the single unified continental country it is presently. 

        5. Mitchn

          I guess that agreement to disagree called the Civil War doesn’t count.

    13. ShanaC

      We’re in William Jenning Bryant’s Cross of Gold all over again – adding in an actually gold currency would not help.People still believe our money is worth something, it is more like why if people work, they don’t get paid.

    14. andyidsinga

      I heard on radio the other day ago that most americans admire people who are very successful and wealthy because of it.The pissed off part occurs when hard working people start loosing their jobs, …then their cars and eventually their homes.When they loose their jobs they were told it was no fault of theirs ..’its the economic situation’…which begs all the questions : why did this happen? who was involved? how is this situation being fixed?people dont give a rip about gold currency and flat tax and financial separation when they’re deciding how many ramen noodles to eat today.

      1. JLM

        We define ourselves by our work.We become our work.When we are out of work or doing the wrong work, we are uneasy.When we cannot find new work, we lash out.  At each and every element in society which has stolen our work.The US got sloppy and allowed good jobs to be shoplifted and go overseas.  Colossally bad decisions one after another.You and I share a secret — we are both wood butchers.Is there anything more satisfying than a day filled with the smell of sawdust, the cutting of boards and the operation of a nail gun?  For me, it is like crack.Even our avocations — work — define us.

        1. andyidsinga

          ha! well put – there are very few things better than a day in the shop making/fixing something …anything! getting ‘help’ from the kids – even better 🙂

    15. JLM

      Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

    16. Michele Clarke

      No one begrudges hardworking people the right to make money. The problem here is that the doors have been shut on that possibility for too many people. That’s the issue. And that’s what needs to be fixed. It’s simple really, isn’t it?

    17. Druce

      Ridiculous straw man.No one is against free markets and their outcomes, including the occasional billionaire.A lot of people are against the part where Wall Street millionaires cause hundreds of billions of dollars of losses on bad loans, crash financial markets and create a recession; then get bailed out by taxpayers; then foreclose on homeowners with shoddy paperwork, because they broke the system for keeping track of mortgages and notes; then pay self billions in bonuses while extending the tax cuts for the rich but fighting against unemployment and disaster relief; and now that the country’s in the recession they caused and running massive deficits due to that recession plus the tax cuts, tell everyone we need to cut Social Security and Medicare.Then, if anyone suggests it’s a s*** sandwich and everyone needs to take a bite, including bankers paying more taxes, cry class warfare and socialism.Take the sob story (won’t SOMEONE please think of the billionaires!), and the cartoon economics, somewhere else.  Tech and globalization are making everyone more interdependent. We have to find ways to solve more and bigger problems together, not go back to a Wild West frontier economy that never existed outside of the imagination.

      1. Druce

        blogged a bit further here – http://blog.streeteye.com/b…

        1. Druce

          These guys have started an ‘I support the occupy movement’ badge for websites – http://jeffcouturier.com/20…

    18. Harry W

      If somebody dies in a gunfight, are you the type that blames the gun? Government is nothing more than a TOOL. The #1 problem is the USER of the tool namely the 1%ers. OWS so far is right in pinpointing the SOURCE of the problem, not the symptom which is where you seem to be heading. In a representative democracy there will always be one group that is a little bit closer to the levers in government than the rest of us (banks, military-industrial companies, big corporations, politically motivated moneyed elites, etc). Its our job as citizens to make sure they do the least harm (you know, checks and balances). Your eat-the-rich straw man is laughable. You do realize this is a venture CAPITALIST’s blog do you?I have a few suggestions to OWS. Push for more transparency and push for an open source government. This is the 21st century. With our technology we should be able to track every last dime the govt spends. We need a constitutional convention to break the two-party duopoly by removing the winner-takes-all style elections we have now. If a third party wins 15% of the vote, they should be represented as much in say the House. and not be dismissed entirely the way we do now. Winner-takes-all almost always leads to choosing the lesser of two evils.

    19. Jon Knight

      “when another man earns much more”That’s the thing, and Fred nails it in the comment. It’s not when you EARN that cash that it bothers folks, it’s when the cash is handed out for a failure.That’s our cash. As a matter of fact, more of it came from you than from me. I don’t want it just handed out to idiots who can’t manage their own companies to the point of needing a bailout. That’s not capitalism. And as most folks here would agree, Capitalism sometimes hurts. That’s a good thing.

      1. andyswan

        Agree and have for 3 years. But that money has been paid back (except GM)…why are they protesting it NOW?

        1. sachmo

          Because there was an expectation that follow up policies would directly assist distressed homeowners, and people who lost their jobs…No such policies materialized in the three years… People got pissed that the gov’t bailed out large banks and corporations and did nothing for the larger group of middle (perhaps now lower) class people that needed the money more…Why now?  Because across the Atlantic, young people taking to the streets in Athens, London, and the Middle East galvanized young people to take to the streets here… 

    20. Gartdavis

      Andy,This is silly.  I’m glad you’ve had success.  Kudos.  And you’re not 100% wrong.  However, as Mr. .0000003125%, I’d say your 99.9999997985% wrong.You’ve sidestepped the entire notion of morality.  Capitalism.  Morality.  Capitalism.  Morality. Moralism. Capitality.  Morcapitalismality.  I think you are confused. What about shame?  The culture of this country, not just the government, is due for a re-adjustment. Capitalism != Morality.  Wake up!

    21. sachmo

      Dude, the Supreme Court under Alito (who was put in place by Bush) has made this all but impossible by giving corporations unlimited license to hand out $$ to whomever they feel like. There is no line between the rich guy / corporate entity that corrupts gov’t and gov’t. And the reason this happened is because a rich idiot gamed the system, got into power, ran our country into the ground, and in the process put in place Supreme Court justices that take a similar, staunchly Republican view, that corporations are the equivalent of people.If you actually felt that the government should cut out the influence of corporate power, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t support the OWS movement.  That’s exactly what it’s about… 

      1. andyswan

        Corporations cannot donate to political campaigns. Please learn the law.

        1. MikeSchinkel

          1.) Corporations can hire lobbyists and spend billions on doing so. Not even most in the 1% can do that.2.) Many laws to restrain corporate influence cannot be enacted because that would violate “their rights to free speech” since corporations are legally consider to be “a person” in the Supreme court’s eyes.

          1. andyswan

            No, they are considered a “group of persons”. Just as a union, a non-profit, or any other voluntary group YOU want to start.And yes, all of the above have a right to free speech.

          2. MikeSchinkel

            That is an interpretation you are free to make, as some have, but it is not a universally agreed interpretation. See the Wikipedia link below.So do you (really?) think it’s a good for our economy to allow “groups of people” who generate their funding not from donations to support advocacy but from commerce unrelated to political advocacy to have effectively an unlimited right to influence policy? Do you think that this is best for our society, to keep it healthy, stable, educated, infra-structurally connected and employed?  If you say yes, are you not familiar with that old saw “Power corrupts?”From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…Corporate personhood refers to the question of which subset, if any, of rights afforded under the law to natural persons should also be afforded to corporations as legal persons.In the United States, corporations were recognized as having rights to contract, and to have those contracts honored the same as contracts entered into by natural persons, in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, decided in 1819. In the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394, the Supreme Court recognized that corporations were recognized as persons for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.

          3. sachmo

            Bullshit… then put in limits to contributions so that a 300 billion pound gorilla (i.e. walmart) doesn’t have 300 billion times the amount of say that i do in terms of it’s ability to advocate for a political candidate… And by the way, I’m anti-unions too…. NO MONEY to influence outcomes of political elections… 

        2. sachmo

          uh, maybe you need to learn the law – http://www.nytimes.com/2010…and http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…The decision allows corporations to directly endorse candidates in advertisements, and also allows corporations to anonymously donate as much money as they choose to non-profit advocacy groups (read shadow organization to hide corporate donor) that can again run advertisements for whomever they like.Most importantly, there are no limits to the amount of cash the corporation can donate. So to my original point – which by the way wasn’t about direct political campaign contributions – the Supreme Court ruling allowed for even further corporate influence into elections. And it happened because a rich connected idiot got to the white house… 

  13. alexisgo

    You ask “…I am in the 1%. How can I also be part of the 99%?” It is an important question.The fact that you are discussing this at all is an important step. Much of the success this movement has already gleaned is in changing the conversation.I worked on Wall Street for 7 years. I was there in 2008. And we were all very, very worried about the bailout and public sentiment. One of my colleagues said, “The people will forget. The people have short memories. They forgot about the Savings & Loan crisis. They forgot about LTCM. They will forget about this.”And were it not for this prolonged economic downturn that has hurt so many, the people may indeed have forgotten. We would have returned to our “Empire of Illusion” that Chris Hedges so brilliantly describes in his book. Returned to our TVs and our cult of the self, where we believe nothing should get in the way of our desires.#OWS is absolutely interested in the conversation of how to go toward a new prosperity. I am glad you have spent time in Zuccotti and with the marches, and hope you come back. Your voice is important there. Perhaps you would even consider doing a teach in? I am doing one myself Monday at 2pm on Wall Street basics and a history of crisis and regulation. You could bring your knowledge and thoughts to Zuccotti: http://nycga.cc/groups/comm…

    1. fredwilson

      i would love to do a teachin, but i cannot do it on mondayi’m likely to be down there this afternoon though

      1. alexisgo

        You would set the time and date. If you have an idea of anything you’d like to teach, you simply reach out to Education & Empowerment and they can get you on the calendar at a time agreeable to you. “[email protected] – Workshop submissions. Please write a tiny blurb and title your ideal workshop”

        1. fredwilson

          can i see a teachin in action today in Zuccotti park? i’d like to see what it is like before volunteering to do it. i’d like to do one on capitalism and when and where it is a good thing.

          1. alexisgo

            I don’t see any on the calendar for today (gray events are all offsite): http://nycga.cc/calendar/That said, I know Education has had trouble getting their events on the main calendar. An unsolved tech coordination problem, actually! When you arrive today, ask at any of the three info booths if there are teach-ins, and if they don’t know, see if they can’t point you to someone from Education. I believe they do have paper schedules.

          2. fredwilson

            thanksi will do thatgood luck with your teachinwhat are you teaching?

          3. alexisgo

            Scratch that, I was looking at Monday, not today. Seems there is an Open Forum talk “all day” with Doug  Henwood. I’d ask to be pointed to that to get an idea of how these work. It’s listed as “Talk on Economy” on the calendar. 

          4. alexisgo

            Thank you! Here’s my class:Behind the Wall: Crises, Regulations and DerivativesIt behooves Occupy Wall St to know as much as we can about the force we are fighting. Come learn what happens behind the scenes onWall St from an ex-banker-turned-occupier. This workshop will cover four main topics: A brief history of financial crises, the structure of Wall Street, Regulations past and present and an overview of Derivatives. Bring your questions!

          5. kidmercury

            your class sounds awesome! *claps*

          6. aslevin

            @alexisgo do you have slides or other content online?

    2. Dave Pinsen

      “They forgot about LCTM.”Your colleague seems to have forgotten that it was LTCM, not LCTM. And, if memory serves, the money to bail it out came from Wall Street.”And were it not for this prolonged economic downturn that has hurt so many, the people would have forgotten. We would have returned to our “Empire of Illusion” that Chris Hedges so brilliantly describes in his book.”Judging from some of the demands of the OWS crowd (a trillion dollars for this, a trillion for that, free college for everyone, etc.) many of them are still living in an “Empire of Illusion”. Where do they think the money will come from to pay for all that? The government’s already borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar it spends. You could tax 100% of the earnings of the top 1% on not come close to funding these innumerate demands.

      1. alexisgo

        Dave, come on, it was a typo and I edited the typo. The money did indeed come from Wall Street, but at the BEHEST of the Federal Reserve. Barry Ritholtz wrote about it in Bailout Nation, and makes the point that this was the real start of moral hazard and the “Greenspan put.”I think you are confusing what you see as demands “free education, free college” and the reality of what’s happening down there. They are ALREADY providing free education in Liberty Square. They have given up on the system and are creating their own little micro-economy down there, that is primarily a gift economy. They’re saying, “the system is broken, so we’re creating our own system!” I know how you like to argue, so how about we agree to disagree and not conduct a flame war on Fred’s blog? 

        1. Dave Pinsen

          Fair enough about LCTM/LTCM.The moral hazard of LTCM might not have been the bailout as much as the ability of the LTCM partners to walk way from the disaster into new seven-figure gigs. I recall Roger Lowenstein quoting one of them essentially bragging about that in “When Genius Failed”.I am not confusing anything with respect to the OWS demands. They are what they are. And the reality of what’s happening down there is that they resisted the City’s efforts to restore some hygienic conditions on Friday.Realistically (as I’m sure you know), if you want to create your own economy off-the-grid, the place to do that is on your own land, not in downtown Manhattan. They could buy or rent some land cheaply out in the sticks and do just that, and I’d say more power to them.I am not trying to “flame” you, just questioning your point of view. If you don’t want it to be questioned, this isn’t the comment thread for you.

    3. Derick Rhodes

      I totally agree.  My feeling is that, while you’re primarily an investor (and thereby mostly concerned with making money, at the end of the day) USV has a track record of investing in companies that have helped people to get connected with others, establish their own voice, and feel empowered (I have Twitter and tumblr in mind here, especially).  I think these are positive things – potentially transformative things – and as a result, even if they are making you wealthy, help to encourage free speech and community building.  Otherwise – the fact that you’re in the postion you occupy (sorry!) and still make time to engage/learn/understand is great, and to be applauded.

  14. Fred H.

    It is indeed an interesting time summed up properly by your succinct thought that *Our institutions are failing us.* Since graduating from the ‘Tute in 1975, I have been either working for the Congress or trying to influence it. Sadly, the current state of our political institutions is MUCH worse (believe it or not) than most people realize (or maybe they do). The root causes are many and the solutions are not obvious.What is SO frustrating to watch up close is the inability of our political leaders to produce the kind of long-term, common-sense solutions that will produce a better future for our progeny.We desperately need a greatly simplified / fairer tax code, a stable energy policy, a comprehensive, long-term effort to restore and upgrade the nation’s physical infrastructure, and an immigration policy that encourages the best and brightest minds from around the world to stay right here after they’ve finished their educations.Right now I don’t see a path forward that produces these kind of changes. I wish I did. But, I don’t. Hopefully a path will emerge, but I certainly wouldn’t predict WHEN.While I’m at it… THANK you for sharing Carlota Perez’s Triple Helix Conference presentation. I understand why you consider her a primary mentor. One of her final slides really sums up the challenge that lies ahead… “The technological stage is set today for the Global Golden Age of the 21st Century… It’s up to business, government, and society to agree on the convergent actions for making it a reality.”Fred H.

    1. fredwilson

      fred, i agree 100% with all of these things:We desperately need a greatly simplified / fairer tax code, a stable energy policy, a comprehensive, long-term effort to restore and upgrade the nation’s physical infrastructure, and an immigration policy that encourages the best and brightest minds from around the world to stay right here after they’ve finished their educations.

  15. William Mougayar

    This hits it on the nail: “I’d like to do what I can do to help make sure that change is intelligent progressive change taking us forward to a new prosperity, not backward into a false hope for a time that has passed and is not coming back”. Me too. What you are calling for is an intelligent dialogue for change. This #OWS has to move now into town meetings or online forums where REAL solutions are proposed OFF the streets. Technology can help today by providing this forum and accelerating the bubbling-up of real solutions. Look at how quickly in 24 hours 200 dedicated AVC’ers dissect any given issue and analyze/discuss all angles to it. Where is the #OWS wiki that has intelligent conversations and propositions that are tallied-up and voted for, and passed on for action, by country, by state/province, by city, by neighborhood. 

    1. William Carleton

      The AVC community is awesome, but many of the comments today proceed from mistaken assumptions about OWS and the occupation that would not be so, were folks to have spent time in the park, on the street. There are people there who live life offline, and there are facets of human interaction that are yet analog.

      1. William Mougayar

        I am going to find out for myself like Fred, by going there tomorrow and talking with them.

  16. Aaron Klein

    There is a simple way to get money out of politics.End the Big Business / Big Government Cartel that passes self protecting regulations with the purported goal of “protecting” us, but if we’re honest, are really all about perpetuating the cartel.I’ll say again: it would be fascinating to rewind back to 1991 and replay the last 20 years under the following regulatory framework:1. Everybody has to tell the truth2. Everybody has to do what they said they would3. Violate #1 and you go to jail4. Violate #2 and there are no bailouts – see you in bankruptcyArguably, we’d have no mortgage crisis, no toxic CDOs, no shattering of confidence in our financial system, and no Great Recession.

    1. Matt A. Myers

      That would have prevented a lot of what happened, however it wouldn’t necessarily lead to everyone getting a minimum quality of life.

      1. Aaron Klein

        How so?I think my quality of life would have been enhanced without a housing values crash…

        1. Matt A. Myers

          I guess I am referring to the bottom 40 million people.

          1. Aaron Klein

            They wouldn’t have bought homes they couldn’t afford and then been foreclosed on and had their credit ruined.Again – what is it that government has supposedly done with its boatloads of taxes and regulations to make their lives better?Welfare? Life sucks on welfare. Best welfare program is a job.

          2. MikeSchinkel

            I seem to remember Marie Antoinette felt similarly about those damnable peasants who hadn’t provided for themselves when they obviously should have.

          3. Aaron Klein

            You know, if you knew anything about my roots or background, that statement would seem awfully silly to you. 🙂

          4. MikeSchinkel

            BTW @aaronklein:disqus  are you aware your site has a database error? http://www.riskalyze.com/==============A Database Error OccurredUnable to connect to your database server using the provided settings.Filename: core/Loader.phpLine Number: 242

          5. Aaron Klein

            We’re right in the middle of a database server transition, but that’s not what the “scheduled maintenance” page is supposed to look like! Thanks.

          6. ShanaC

            You know, I’ve met people where getting out of welfare and onto a job made them poorer.  They did it, but it speaks to the problem of where we are now.

          7. MikeSchinkel

            Silly? No, I’m paying attention to your words, not your background. Of course I could very well have misread your words. I thought you were saying that people “weren’t taking responsibility” which is what right leaning people are often laser-focused on, irregardless of any other considerations. And it usually comes across to me as me as myopic, arrogant and self-righteous. However, if I misread your intentions, which is entirely possible, I do sincerely apologize.That said, you might find this post on the subject of values left vs. right very interesting. It’s one of my favorite essays on the respective values of liberals and conservatives. FWIW, I don’t see myself in either camp given then analysis, but if I lean I definitely lean more left than right:http://www.press.uchicago.e

          8. Aaron Klein

            My dad was unemployed for a time when I was a kid. We lived on beans and salt. Literally.

  17. Tom Labus

    I was really concerned with Mayor Bloomberg’s initial comments about OWS being a protest against workers making 50K a year.He should go down there first.  He’s usually better than this.This isn’t rage against those that did well but rage that there isn’t sufficient capital in the economy to provide jobs that allow people to proceed in life.  The inequity of income started a long time ago. My parents entered the economic stream without college but were able to send 4 kids to college, have a summer home and a great retirement.  Today they would be going backwards.There’s something really wrong and DC is just so out of it, it makes me puke.I’m reading Tom Friedman’s book and it gives me hope.

    1. fredwilson

      yes. mike needs to spend some time in the park listening

      1. BillSeitz

        Bloomberg has continued Giuliani’s “Free Speech Zone” model. He is no friend of freedom.

        1. fredwilson

          i wish he wasthere is much to like about mike

          1. Cam MacRae

            Yes. Why won’t he hurry up and run for President already?

    2. Dave Pinsen

      How is Tom Friedman giving you hope? He’s part of the problem. He’s been enormously influential for years, and most of his ideas are banal or completely wrong if you think about them critically. 

      1. Tom Labus

        I guess I’ll have to ask for my money back!!

  18. Adrian Sanders

    “I’d like to do what I can do to help make sure that change is intelligent progressive change taking us forward to a new prosperity, not backward into a false hope for a time that has passed and is not coming back. And I’m wondering if the #OWS movement is interested in that conversation.”Right now there are “two sides” (gross simplification to be sure) – consensus building is crucial.Not consensus on the way forward, but consensus on where we should start the discussion.I think @jason:twitter  mentioned this, but the tech revolution may save the future, it won’t save 50 year old’s without jobs, and families to provide for. There really should be representation from the government, from wall street, from “the 1%” and from the 99% to begin focusing on the first problem to tackle – which is the major communication breakdown.We all agree there is a problem – but beginning to define the problem from various angles will be the only way to bring about consensus. 

    1. William Carleton

      Wall Street participating is a good idea, but government is too polluted and corrupted, in my personal opinion. People in government might better wait for instructions from the governed.

    2. ShanaC

      I have (older that 50) parents, both work in technology.  There is something fundamentally wrong with technologists if we can’t support training the over 50 crowd to support a technology driven world.  Many over 50s have plenty of skills that can be cross applied. And there is a shortage of people.  What gives?

      1. Adrian Sanders

        Oh, I’m definitely in favor of adding more training programs and initiatives to the tech world. I’m a big fan of that other General Assembly in Manhattan :)I’m saying that there is more to the solution than just “everyone start working in tech and becoming an entrepreneur.”i think the tech community is a little isolated sometimes with those perceptions.as amazing as Facebook or Google are, they aren’t nearly as life changing or world shaping as say, the high paced production of concrete or water filtration systems. tech is a terrific backbone to shape industries for years to come, but it’s not the only answer, and shouldn’t be our sole focus. 

        1. ShanaC

          never understood that isolation myself.  The best tech solve real world, real people problems.  best way to find those problems are to hang around non-tech people.

  19. leigh

    The stats that 1 out of every 8 American’s are on Foodstamps shocked me.  At some point it becomes a human rights issue.  We have to collectively change the minds of the 1% to stop pointing to the American/Canadian dream of individual power and understand there is something more sinister going on.If we see Capitalism as a poker game that everyone is invited to play – that’s all fine and well – but when the people (corporations) constantly winning are stacking the deck in their favour — that’s the point where something has got to change.I believe in responsible capitalism and those with influence in the 1% have to start making the change from the top down while the 99% push from the bottom up.(ps. reference for the foodstamp http://www.bloomberg.com/ne… )

    1. Matt A. Myers

      I believe we all know this. I believe the majority wants this but the majority don’t believe or trust any political party or person (yet) to do this properly.Corporations cheating in the poker game of life is a problem – and the macro results of that are now coming to light, however the micro affects have impacting those at the lowest level of income severely since the beginning; This is why countries with socialized healthcare are doing better off as a population, though their economies are still in trouble because of the worldwide financial crisis caused by a small few.

      1. leigh

        I don’t believe we all know this at all.  You live in Ontario – did you see the crackpot who just became the Mayor of the City of Toronto?  He cuts a bunch of taxes and then tries to cut a bunch of services most of which service the poor and elderly (like Libraries) and then tries to do a secret deal to turn the Waterfront into a Corporate mall and Ferris wheel.And if you ask all the people who voted for this guy, why they voted for him – they will say that are “tired of paying taxes” – they want to stop the gravy train blah blah.  I worked with behavioural kids in the jane finch corridor when i was in my teen years — we had one basketball for 60 kids to play with.  And that’s when the funding was good.  Most programs have been severly cut or even cancelled even though there is concrete proof that they save money over the long term.  But long term doesn’t get pple elected.  And frankly getting people to not only see the issues but chose to spend THEIR OWN money and THEIR OWN TIME to make a change happen isn’t happening at a scale that is required.  

    2. kidmercury

      some reports say one in 7: http://money.cnn.com/2010/1…

      1. leigh

        frightening. 

        1. Auklet

          Do you also know that those same people on food stamps have 3 or 4 kids by age 25 while they are still on food stamps?

          1. leigh

            yes but you know that many of the systemic issues related to that have to do with education, income, opportunity – you have to start change with those kids not their parents and stop focusing on the 1 person in a million who makes it out of the slums as our marker for whether or not the American dream works.  It doesn’t.  Everyone deserves hope and a chance to live a decent life.  Those kids are screwed from day 1.  That’s what we have to change.  

    3. William Carleton

      The premise, I think, is that those holding power today can sit on their hands today and do nothing. The 99% are reasserting sovereignty and are not asking for charity. Though the 1% are welcome to come and participate in general assemblies.

    4. ShanaC

      Why are you surprised.  One of the failures of Hedonics is that it can disguise inflation.  That is now catching up with us.

      1. leigh

        I think it’s one thing to know the gap between rich and poor is getting wider, it’s another to see a statistic like that and realize the magnitude of it.  

        1. ShanaC

          Truth is, we still don’t see it.  There are no breadlines.  As a society, we’ve gotten very good at hiding poverty.

    5. jason wright

      1 in 8?! I wonder what it was like during the 1930s. Is Foodstamps the modern equivalent of the FSA?

  20. Kate

    Nice post.  To your point of wondering if the OWS folks are interested in that conversation, I think most are. The key point to this protest (disclaimer: I am interested in, have followed, but not actively marched) is not soaking the rich 1%.  And the key point to the Tea Party is not just throwing everyone out of government and living in a libertarian utopia.The thrust of the argument is this: most Americans feel that they have lost the opportunity for a SHOT at success.  There are fringe elements, sure, but the bulk of the people are protesting because they’ve realized that the story they’ve been told (go to school, get good grades, get a job/start a company, work hard, and have a decent life) is becoming increasingly impossible.Writing a post on this today.  Hopefully it’ll further the conversation!  Great 1% post to start.  Thanks.

    1. William Carleton

      Where will your post be?

  21. Rohan

    It’s amazing how quickly this is spreading. I walked past a whole march yesterday here in London and I hear it’s all over the place – Hong Kong, Sydney etc.Hopeful it will clean some of the dirt up – especially the dirt in banks that were surprisingly not cleaned post Lehmann.

    1. Matt A. Myers

      There was an #Occupy in my city yesterday! Pop. 120k. I didn’t know it was happening until after though.

      1. Rohan

        Hey Matthew, which city was this? It was getting a bit rowdy when I was passing by here. The cops were having their hands full.The irony is that many protests are about cuts in public sector jobs. And guess who has to work overtime to help calm protests for their jobs – the cop! 🙂

  22. Dan Cornish

    A rational discussion with a mob is not possible. Of course there are many sincere people in these protests, but why is no one looking at who the leaders and organizers are? These are NOT organic.   The revolution I fear they are pushing will be more like the French Revolution as opposed to the American. Many of the cheerleaders should be mindful of what happened to Robespierre.

    1. William Carleton

      “Mob” is the very last word one can use to describe the occupiers. Could not be a more conventional bunch, when it comes to order and deliberate process.

      1. fredwilson

        that was my takethey are being villified in the right wing mediai saw none of the stuff they are being accused of when i was down there

        1. Zoe

          had exactly the same thought today when i went to see #occupyberlin

      2. Dan Cornish

        The word Occupiers defines mob like behavior. Arrests and lawlessness define a mob (many arrests over the past few weeks and public display of breaking laws such as indecency, litter, refusing police orders or threatening violence in return.) I could go on and on. As I said, most people are peaceful and thoughtful, but how about the leaders? I hope I am wrong, but in Europe these sorts of protests bring about violence. My wish here is a discussion starts, my fear is good people are co-opted by the political parties for dubious or dangerous reasons.http://www.greenleft.org.au

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          WORDS NOT SAME AS TRUTH.

  23. Wmjcollins

    Have you seen any evidence of people registering to vote at the rally’s ?

    1. fredwilson

      no, but that’s a good idea

      1. leigh

        i want to do an app for whatever the next election will be up here that geolocates your postal code to your location and reminds you to vote and the easiest way to get to the polling station.I swear most under 24 yr olds i speak to say “i forgot” or “i didn’t know where” when asked if they voted.  Could you imagine how the world would change if all the students actually voted?

        1. fredwilson

          we should require people to vote to keep things like a drivers license and a library card

          1. leigh

            ???

        2. matthughes

          I love the app idea.Still, what does it say about people that ‘forgot’ or ‘didn’t know where’?No excuses.

          1. Matt A. Myers

            The options for who to vote for are so shitty, so people aren’t excited. No one’s offering real change. Politicians mainly target the baby boomers still too since they’re the biggest demographic (afaik).

          2. matthughes

            Good point but voting is a privilege. It’s sad that people take it granted.

        3. Matt A. Myers

          I want to create a system that allows you to vote via your mobile device and use real-time video verification (face + showing IDs). The number of votes from under 30 year old crowd would be substantially increased.

        4. Cam MacRae

          Australia has a neat system for dealing with this: compulsory voting. You can guarantee that if “you forgot” the electoral office won’t forget to mail your fine :)Edit: Technically you don’t have to vote, but you must attend a place of polling, sign in, and deposit your ballot papers in the ballot box.

  24. kidmercury

    OWS is skilled at complaining though there is no solution being offered. in that regard:1. the only problem is debt. demand debt cancellation for poor people. focus on debt. demand debt cancellation. solving the debt problem is the most important step to getting the economy on the right track. 2. this is an international issue and requires a new internatioanl monetary agreement. this is most clearly being seen through the eurozone at the moment. 3. ron paul is the only political candidate interested in solving this problem with some ideas as to how it can be done. people who don’t like ron paul because of the lunatics like me who support him will find this very unpleasant. alas, the truth often is. 4. of course america is a country with 300+ million people, half of them vote in national elections, and of that half the majority will be distracted by issues besides debt and thus will vote for one of the banker candidates (anyone but ron paul or gary johnson). factor in election fraud and rigged diebold machines and the futility of the situation becomes much clearer. the real solution is to build local economies and prepare to utilize civil disobedience (i.e. ignoring laws, breaking them, planning to defend against their enforcement). the way to fix the global economy is to solve the global debt problem.

    1. William Mougayar

      Agreed about the debt. Governments that are in debt are totally crippled, helpless and ineffective. That’s what we are seeing now.

    2. William Carleton

      There are Ron Paul advocates occupying Zuccotti Park. No shortage of people with ideas.

      1. kidmercury

        in instances of when the group is acting as a whole and voicing a singular ideology, such as their lists of political changes they are demanding, the group does not exhibit the ron paul/conspiracy ideology, which can be characterized by:1. criminal investigation of 9/11 (never been done before)2. monetary policy reform (more specifically, a policy designed to resolve international monetary crisis and establish new international monetary agreement)3. end all wars, bring troops home, close military basesit is more about taxing the rich and empowering government to regulate corporations. 

        1. Blsavini

          Regarding # 3, What do you do with all the newly unemployed soldiers, alot of whom come from poverty and joined to have a job and to gain some level of useful future training?

    3. MikeSchinkel

      Debt is symptom, not the problem, at least not in the USA. The first two problems to fix are 1.) how political campaigns are funded by those looking for influence (corporations and the wealthy) and  2.) the fact that corporations are legally viewed as people and hence are given free speech (this would take a constitutional amendment to correct.)  Fix those two problems and then we’ll have the chance to solve other problems as well.

      1. kidmercury

        the crisis is international, and the problem is that there is too much debt in the whole world, the reason is that virtually all forms of nation-state currencies are loaned into existence. change the way currency is created and removing debt from this process is really the only problem; solve it and everything else falls into place. 

        1. MikeSchinkel

          I don’t have any expertise on currency so can’t comment on that. Debt? “Erasing debate” is about as easy as me saying “I’m feeling old, time to get a new replacement body that is 21 years of age.” And debt can’t just be “erased” without huge unintended consequences. Sorry, no easy answers to that one, or at least none that I can think of.

          1. kidmercury

            the last one holding the nation-state currencies pays the bill via inflation, let’s hope it ends up being the banks and war corporations unable to remove themselves from this dying system.  

      2. fredwilson

        it may have been a symptom at one timebut it is the problem nowwe can’t move. we can’t adapt. we are stuck.

        1. MikeSchinkel

          True, but I have no idea how to solve that problem.  Do you (or does anyone else here?)

      3. JLM

        Reversing 150 years of corporate law is not the issue, the issue is that politicians do not WANT to get lobbyists and their corporate masters out of the money pig trough.

        1. MikeSchinkel

          Sorry, but I’m going to have to call you “Captain Obvious” on that one. 😉

    4. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      ME, GRIMLOCK, LIKE IDEA OF MASS ISSUANCE OF LOCAL NON-CONVERTABLE CURRENCY.IF MONEY PROBLEM, THE 99% INVENT NEW MONEY. MONEY THAT 1% CANNOT TAKE.

      1. fredwilson

        Invent new moneyFuck yeahBitcoin is a good alpha versionWe can and will do better

      2. Tom Labus

        In the 1880’s each State had their own currency.

  25. James Ferguson @kWIQly

    Fred  As I mentioned before, those that are changing society for the better are not the same as those entrenched in their 1% position. So is it a division by wealth or attitude ?This week I will be seeing some startups @Seedcamp:disqus  Prague  – This does not mean I am wealthy (in fact I am safely in the 99% and maybe permanently) , but it may mean I can help others to see the path ahead.Are you motivated by easy money ?  – If so why do you do what you do ?The 1% I see in my mind are behind battlements hunkered down and resisting change. In that picture though you may own a castle or two, you are building the seige towers of change and are thus of the 100%  – to take down barriers of patents, walled gardens and maybe even of the non-innovative 1% who strive to retain their limited world view, and of the 99% that might happily change place with them.Change is surely coming, just as surely, we best embrace it and find a way forward. The alternative is too ugly, and was practised again and again around the world in the 20th Century. 

  26. David de Weerdt

    Fred, from the peanut gallery: I always though you were one of the good guys. You and Tim O’Reilly have both spoken out about OWS in the same fair-minded way.  Whatever the message might be that comes out of the OWS groundswell coming up everywhere, there is one thing we should all be absolutely clear about. Law enforcement and their elected masters must *actually defend* OWS protestors’ right to freely speak their minds. Anything else would bode very badly here in Canada, down there in the USA, and elsewhere. This is what we expect given our Constitutions, which largely agree on citizen rights. We obviously have some great bumps in the road ahead. (Europe, anyone?)  We can get through them with innovation, hard work and cooperation, but a loss of civility will make that much harder, if not impossible. What you did is the right thing: talk to people.  There is tremendous energy latent for positive change.  Working with it… well, we can achieve amazing things together.

  27. Ed Mullen

    Your talk with Carlota Perez at Web 2.0 Expo was so amazing. I wanted it to go on and on. It zoomed from the ten foot to ten thousand foot view of all the issues relating to #ows.What stood out most in mind my is that it is up to those of us in the emerging technologies — the emerging businesses that are building a new economy — to propose new, sustainable, attactive models for what “the good life” looks like in the future.The legacy industries are not going to solve the problems of our day. Our future needs to be more connected, more satisifying, less consumptive, more fun, more lean.What worries me is the time it will take for this transformation to take place, all the people who won’t easily migrate to this phase, and the bad decisions we’ll make in the interim.

  28. shashank_ps

    We have what is called a Right to Information (RTI) act in India which empowers citizens to ask questions of all government agencies. From its inception in 2005, it has proved to be a powerful tool and has fueled many grassroots movements. We have already witnessed a cultural revolution of sorts in recent times against wide ranging topics including red tape/corruption in the bureaucracy.Is there anything similar in the US? I believe there is a lot to learn from other countries as well. Would love to share more if someone is interested in specific details

    1. kidmercury

      yes there is something called the freedom of information act (FOIA). it has been around for over 30 years in the US; it was much more useful in the 70s, but since then, the US government has put in all sorts of rules that limit the effectivness of getting real information via FOIA requests. most americans don’t know about FOIA and fewer care. 

  29. Jill

    On an entirely emotional level, I felt energized when I went down to see the protesters.  I have been feeling edgy and angry(possibly a lot of americans feel this way at this point?) so seeing others doing something,even if it is just protesting at this point, felt right.  I,too, hope this goes well:-)

    1. JLM

      I feel edgy and angry.I gave 6 years of my life to defend the country.  My father gave 35.  My mother gave 5.  Skin in the game is a family trait.I swore an oath to defend the country against all enemies foreign and domestic.I want a shot (figuratively mind you) at the domestic ones right about now.My/our country is being wrecked.But it will still ultimately prevail and it is still the best hope for mankind.  I am ever hopeful.

      1. Tom Labus

        It will prevail.And we’ll all look like idiots because it will be something out of left field that moves us on.

        1. JLM

          When the recovery finally comes, it will be like a rocket.I remember the 30-year supply of single family lots from the S & L crisis in Austin TX which were absorbed in 18 months.

      2. terrycojones

        Hi JLMI find it really weird that Americans are so often moved to declare their country the greatest in the world, or “the best hope for mankind” etc. That’s not a criticism, I have always just found it very odd.Another thought that occurred to me while reading (most of) the above is that the OWS movement (I guess that’s not the word you’d choose!) may appear so chaotic and unfocused partly because there are, IMO of course, multiple deep-seated and malignant conditions of the US today. I.e., because there are a variety of things that seem fundamentally broken the protesters don’t have a single clear point.I think it’s a mistake and underestimating how deep this runs to write off how upset people are. Also, consider that there were protests (again in a somewhat apparently unfocused way) in 1000 cities around the world just the other day. There is more going on than just a bunch of rag tag kids, anarchists, jealous poor, etc., taking to the streets.I find this sort of thing fascinating to observe and think about. I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that it takes quite a lot to get US citizens out into the street – life in the US is very comfortable for many people, there is so much space that there is less urban density (almost said “dentistry”), many people get in their cars and drive to malls rather than interacting more closely in neighborhoods, etc. I’ve spent many years living in Barcelona and have seen many, many street protests over many issues. Getting out onto the street to express serious discontent is a good and healthy thing. To see this going on in the US is absolutely fascinating – and I don’t mean that in a bad way.Sorry for such a rambling comment!

        1. leigh

          lol it doesn’t bother me at all that American’s feel that way.  i think everyone should feel that way about the community they live in.  I know i do most days and when i don’t, it just motivates me to make it better.  

        2. JLM

          The fact that there are a 1000 such protests shows how broad freedom has spread.The US is rubbed raw just now.  Everywhere and about everything.This is the worst economy with no recovery in sight since the Great Depression.Everyone is pissed off w/ Pres Obama about something.  He is a fabulous candidate and a lousy executive.We NEED an election to resolve things.

          1. MikeSchinkel

            Many people are less pissed off w/Obama then there were with GW Bush.  I don’t think the fundamental issues that were created during Bush & Cheney’s rule can be over-emphasized.

          2. JLM

            I just don’t get the Obama “good” if Bush “bad” argument and linkage.One can be silent on Bush and express a criticism about Obama.  He is well into his term.  He owns the economy.  He is on his second economic team already.Likewise I don’t get the Bush “bad too” argument being a salve for anything.  Obama has followed the Bush war policies to a “t” — he must think they make sense.  No credit to Bush.I remember the “Iraq oil is going to pay for everything” utterance as being hopeless naive.I remember the promise to close down Gitmo being clear and unequivocal.I don’t get the linkage.

          3. JLM

            As I noodle about it a bit deeper, I am always drawn to note who controlled the Congress at a given instant in a President’s tenure.Most good legislation is the product of divided government.

          4. MikeSchinkel

            @JLM:disqus  – The linkage is simple: it is chronological.If Obama had succeeded Clinton (assuming he had the same age/experience in 2000 vs. 2008) I think we’d have a VERY different situation. For one, he would probably have heeded the warnings about Al Queda and the 9/11 might not have happened as it did. Had Obama been in office he would have probably vetoed the Phil Gramm’s Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. And he would not have had to continue the TARP that Bush started. Plus he would not have the legacy of two wars to continue to pay for. I do believe that given the circumstances of 2000 instead of the circumstances of 2008 that Obama would have had a much different presidency. As in business, it’s much harder to be a turnaround expert than it is to be a successful businessman from scratch.

          5. MikeSchinkel

            @JLM:disqus +1 on divided government.  While I don’t usually look to the Cato Institute for pearls of wisdom I think that this applies:http://www.cato.org/pub_dis

          6. fredwilson

            i’m not sure how an election between to status quo candidates (Obama and Romney) solves anything

          7. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            BEST HOPE IS ELECTION REPLACE MOST OF CONGRESS.THEN US MAYBE SEE SOMETHING HAPPEN.

          8. MikeSchinkel

            Have you seen American’s Elect? http://www.americanselect.org/I’m cautiously optimistic that it might represent a new way to nominate a candidate that needs to appeal to the middle.OTOH, I am a bit concerned that it might be a ploy by a conservative group to target progressives to split the vote and thus enable a pro status-quo Republican to get elected.Would love to know your take on it…

          9. fredwilson

            I love itI think it may take time to work wellBut it is the right idea

  30. christopolis

    Jenn,Do not worry Obama has his share of friends on Wall Street.http://www.zerohedge.com/si…That is why he supported mutiple bailouts.

  31. Jonathan Nation

    This video is what I thought of when I read “I empathize with the basis complaint of the #OWS movement – that the rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting poorer.”Specifically the part about the Cell Phone in the middle:http://youtu.be/0FB0EhPM_M4

  32. Sunil Gunderia

    Really good post Fred. It is hard not to feel empathy for the OWS crowd. Things just seem so broken and there is not a single ask that solves the problem. The issues in the US are completely at odds with the amazing trajectory of progress that is being spurred by technology.  We need great thinkers like yourself to be identifying the countries core problems, backing the right teams and supporting them to find success. That’s how you become a part of the 99%.

  33. Luke Toland

    The protests are copping a lot of flak because unfortunately they made a stark and arbitrary income distribution cutoff.Most people earning an income in the top 1% are not the cause of perceived or realized problems. The biggest statement that OWS wants to spread is the undue influence that corporations and the mega-rich can have over campaigns. Thanks to the Citizens United decision, money is now accepted as free speech which can now lead to perverse consequences. No amount of transparency in the donation process can remove the apparent bias that politicians have towards those that contribute to their campaign the hardest.If you want a demonstration on the efficacy of lobbying, read “Investment and lobbying” at the Economist. It details that companies who spend the most money on lobbying relative to their asset base wildly outperform their peers, presumably because they win the most corporate subsidies – http://www.economist.com/no…Suggestions made by @andyswan:disqus which appear to be an extension of the Herman Cain policy, are disingenuous and ill-considered. Regressive taxation disadvantages the poor significantly. Consider that a person on $20,000 income and $100,000 income would pay the same percentage of tax yet the former would clearly struggle more.The OWS protests want to see a Constitutional Amendment removing corporate influence from the State decision making process. Ideally, no person or corporate body should be allowed to raise unlimited funds from any party. It should be hard-capped and indexed to inflation.One thing that strikes me the most about these protests is how many, or rather, how few of them probably voted. If you want change, you have to fight for it. And if you want to limit corporate spending, paradoxically, you need to raise a lot of money to lobby for a change to limited corporate spending.The whims of the people aren’t ignored. As the Declaration of Independence states, “that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive… it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”. It’s called voting.

    1. MikeSchinkel

      @BitofByte – It’s called “voting” if the system works, “revolution” if the system doesn’t work. The USA is looking more and more like its system doesn’t work. You do the math…

  34. Davealevine

    It seems like the OWS marches might be as much a sign of pent up demand and frustration as they are standing for any one thing in particular. By demand, I mean a desire for change.When Obama was elected in 2008, I remember the thousands of students that marched in Cambridge MA to celebrate his victory because they thought “change” had arrived. Years later, everyone can see that we have not achieved “change” in a way that seems satisfying.These two groups of marchers – the Obama celebrants and the OWS group today – stand for the same thing in my mind: people are frustrated with the status quo for a number of reasons and our leaders aren’t doing enough about it.What troubles me about these marches is that people like you and I, who are in the so-called 1% but can sympathize with the truth behind that feeling, are lumped in with the “enemy” because we have a certain profession or background. That just seems wrong.I think these marches, and the Tea Party, point to a deeper splintering – that of our overly-simplistic two-party system. Hopefully, these cracks will result in a more diverse end result, where nuance besides “99 vs1” can find airtime and we can begin to address the underlying frustrations many of us share about the failures of our current government.

    1. MikeSchinkel

      I could be wrong but I don’t think #OWS would be against any of the 1% that sympathize with their plight, especially if those same people helped them achieve meaningful positive change as it’s not a zero-sum game.

  35. Doug Davis

    I am far from the 1% but I am far from destitute either. I am a mid level IT person making a decent low 6 figure income (in va.) with a graduate level l education. The biggest issues I see as the root of the issue are:1. Current policy is letting capitalists see the upside of investments but protects them from large scale losses. I believe you should be able to win big but don’t expect a bailout if you lose. 2. There is a huge opportunity loss by not having a system for providing a basic services like healthcare at an affordable cost. I would love to work at a startup rather than a Fortune 500 but the cost of health care deter me3. Everyone gets a government subsidy of some sort. Some people are stating they “do it all on their own ” and that people should not need a handout. At the same time they have part of their mortgage and their company insurance are subsidized by reducing their tax bill.Jjust my $0. 02

    1. Tom Labus

      Nice .02

      1. fredwilson

        i liked it too

    2. andyidsinga

      especially like #2 🙂

      1. Walter

        I personally know five people who elected to stay at a large company rather than work at a startup because of the healthcare benefits.Many of the people that I know that are in startups are there because their healthcare benefits are being covered by their spouse’s plan. I personally fall into that category.

        1. andyidsinga

          I know of some too. Its really unfortunate that basic healthcare isnt universally available and/or affordable.Good that some are able to make the choice to stay in startup land without having to drop healthcare.

        2. andyidsinga

          BTW – my folks live up in BC Canada and own a small consulting business.They pay for the basic provincial health insurance. ( i believe on a sliding scale based on income. Canadian residents – help me out here? ).I dont fully understand how it works but my point is healthcare doesnt enter the equation up there like it does here.Their society has decided that provinces provide a basic health insurance, everyone buys in and everyone gets a basic benefit.IMHO a basic benefit that is good for business because talent doesnt have health-handcuffs.

    3. MikeSchinkel

      YES to #2, especially.

  36. Michael F. Martin

    We are watching the slow death of methodological individualism, which more than any other bad economic theory is to blame for our current crisis. We need economic theory, organizational management, and public policy to acknowledge and account for how each of us is a member of many different bodies, whose health depends on balancing self-interest narrowly conceived against group interest in a broader but no less tangible sense. Technology has made tangible what was difficult for nearly any to even imagine.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      TOO JARGONY. NEED MORE NORMAL HUMAN WORDS.

  37. tomwatson

    Fred, two points (I’m deliberately ignoring the hard-core libertarians here – their views are deeply at odds with American history and our communitarian society):1. Your point about the NYPD presence is a good one. I was out last night in Times Square (dinner, concert at Town Hall) and the police basically stopped traffic on Sixth Avenue and had hundreds of officers in riot gear, dozens of vans, horses, scooters, and a few automatic weapons. They were the more aggressive party. I don’t get it. I admire the NYPD but they seem – I don’t any other way to put this – just a hair out of control in all this. Like they’re responding to a mortal terrorist threat instead of a few hundred un-armed marchers with cardboard signs. They need to back it down.2. Not sure why you’d include a throw-away anti-union line. I’m for a resurgence in organized labor. It’s be good for the country, good the imbalance in public life. Sure, there are union abuses. But we need more, not less. Occupy may indeed bring back more grassroots union organizing – maybe it’ll spread to Amazon and Google.

    1. fredwilson

      #2 got cut off tom

      1. tomwatson

        Fixed!

    2. fredwilson

      union leaders are friction in the system. they get in the way of much needed change. they are not progressives. they are reactionaries.

      1. tomwatson

        Hmmm – that seems a bit harsh, Fred. I’ve known a bunch of union leaders, and many rank and file. Yeah they may be ‘friction’ but that friction benefits their members and increases the size of the middle class. It may occasionally bring some distress to big business, but that distress is needed – workers should be represented at the big bargaining table in all cases, don’t you think?Plus, I’ve been “shaken down” by many non-union actors in the capitalist system – commercial property owners, banks, fortune 500 companies, insurers. Some would simply call it “leverage.”Does that excuse corrupt unions? Hell no – same way that a healthy capitalist system,shouldn’t excuse insider trading, exotic unregulated deritivites etc.

        1. Eric Page

          I might argue that just about any leader of any large organization is a reactionary, not a progressive. People in power react, people out of power (entrepreneurs, etc.) are progressive.I agree with Tom that all large organizations continually “shake down” their opponents. A large health care system (purportedly a non-profit operated by nuns!) proclaimed they were going to crush our fledgling start up because we are keeping people healthier (hence fewer ER and hospital visits). I”m sure just about every other health care entrepreneur who is actually improving the health care system has the same issue.

          1. MikeSchinkel

            Interesting. What’s the startup?

        2. MikeSchinkel

          The problem with unions is they are by-design not partners in a business’ success. They are a reaction to short-sighted abuses by management but they counter with short-sighted abuses by labor. Unions are adversarial by nature, much like a competitors with an aggressive lawyer trying to negotiate a joint venture; much of the value is consumed by the negotiation.  I agree that unions arise from a legitimate need but I disagree that they are a good solution to address that need. Though I don’t know the right solution I believe a vibrant economy with strong demand for qualified workers is what we should focus on, and not on creating more friction.

        3. fredwilson

          we need to make a lot of changes quickly to move into a post manufacturing, post mass consumption world and i just don’t see union leaders agreeing to make those choices

          1. aslevin

            I wonder what the opportunity is for innovation in union organizing.  A new kind of union that bargained for working conditions but saw its mission as keeping people employable rather than keeping people in jobs as they were defined 30 years ago. 

          2. MikeSchinkel

            +1 to that. Sounds a bit like a “guild” in concept.

          3. aslevin

            one key difference is that guilds were about protecting process IP, and a modern guild would focus on mentoring and shared hack space and gear.

          4. MikeSchinkel

            @aslevin:disqus Of course. An older concept reworked for modern day realities.

          5. tomwatson

            Not sure we’ll ever be post-consumption (or that it’s cool to offshore sub-human manufacturing conditions to Asian countries like our tech companies do) – and the service industries are increasingly unionized any way.I’d throw out this story on Amazon’s warehouse conditions: http://articles.mcall.com/2… Clearly, a well-run union would help this situation – and might actually be good for Amazon as well by encouraging a stable, long-term, healthy work-force. I like Amazon, but this makes me feel lousy about their brand and wonder whether I should continue my long-term relationship with them. Any group of workers should have the right to organize and bargain collectively, right?

          6. Blsavini

            No, we need to figure out how to restore our manufacturing capabilities.

      2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        UNION NEED VERSION 2.0 SAME AS GOVERNMENT.

      3. sachmo

        Agree 100%… Unions suck.

    3. matthughes

      Aren’t members of the NYPD counted among the 99%, not to mention members of a union?

      1. tomwatson

        Absolutely, right on both counts – as many of the signs and chants point out. Will be interesting to see long-term if all the cops follow orders from the top…

  38. Roi Carthy

    Fred–This movement actually began in Israel and there has been zero violence of the like you’ve seen on your streets. Wrote it up for TechCrunch a couple of months ago: http://techcrunch.com/2011/…

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      ROI, EVERYONE KNOW AVC.COM PEOPLE NO READ TECHCRUNCH.THEM COMPUTERS BURST INTO FLAME IF GO TO LINK. ^<

  39. Ed Mullen

    Your talk with Carlota Perez at Web 2.0 Expo was so informative on all the issues related to #OWS. It laid out the context of technological revolutions so well.My takeaway was this: It is indisputable that the current systems aren’t quite working for a lot of the world. Finance has spent too much time in the casino and less time serving the real economy. And now, as the industries and business of previous age fade (and the world and methods of consumption they created) and are supplanted by a new age and type of economy, it is up to those of us in the new economy to establish and develop a vision of “the good life” that is different from how it has been. It will need to be leaner, more energy efficient, and less materially consumptive, but it should also be richer, more satisfying, more connected, more fun, more services, etc.Pretending there is nothing wrong with the system and blaming people who don’t thrive under it is like blaming Windows users for not understanding how to get their printer to work. There are winners and losers, and a whole lot of people on both sides trying to game the system in their favor.The smart money realizes “negative user feedback” is worth listening to.

  40. laurie kalmanson

    my .02: those of us who are fortunate enough to make a living with our passions and our ideas are in the 1% regardless of income — we can carve out a place for ourselvesnot everyone can50 years ago, having a strong back and being willing to work was enough — there were jobs in factories that paid wages you could live on, raise a family, buy a house, take vacations and be a proud member of your community.for blue collar people, that has been gone for two generationsfor white collars, iti s vanishing.  those situations are unsustainable for the country.not everyone can dream stuff up — most people need a job they can go to and get paid for.

    1. MikeSchinkel

      @lauriekalmanson:disqus While the %1 does refer to money, it also more importantly points to power and influence. Yes, we can carve out a place for ourselves (assuming the 1% doesn’t change the rules for us, i.e. such as software patents and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) but the people are still powerless to influence the laws that affect us.

    2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      END GAME OF AUTOMATION AND GLOBALIZATION IS 80% UNEMPLOYMENT.OCCUPYWALLSTREET IS NATION REALIZING THIS.

      1. laurie kalmanson

        it’s been a long time comingtwo eras, two versions of dystopian scifi– old era, after the nuclear war, people struggling in the glowing rubble– new era, after the enviro/econ meltdown, people living in villages as artisans

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          ME, GRIMLOCK, SAY CLOSER WORLD GET TO THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN, BETTER IT IS!LINK FOR PUNY NOT-NERDS: http://youtu.be/LhAobPugvsk

      2. sachmo

        hmmm, don’t agree with that… maybe temporarily… but eventually i think it will be more along the lines of Gandhi – ‘production by the masses, not mass production’  – in a decentralized form. This occurs after a massive population crash of course sometime in the next 20-30 years : )

  41. ErikSchwartz

    I actually don’t have a problem with spending (and losses) on solar R&D. The entire energy as an industry is HUGELY subsidized.How much did the government spend through DoD and AEC to do all the R&D on nuclear power? Edit: this was supposed to be a reply to @aaron klein

    1. Matt A. Myers

      I’ll just leave this here..Energy Subsidies Infographichttp://awesome.good.is/tran…

      1. JLM

        Love the infographic but it fails to contain one important fact — domestic energy market is $1.1T.The amounts shown as “subsidies” are postage machine rounding errors.Agree completely w/ the grain subsidy nonsense.Otherwise this is all about “oil depletion allowance” which is simply an amortization/depreciation GAAP concept applied to oil reserves based upon actual sales.

    2. MikeSchinkel

      @ErikSchwartz:disqus – Further, in support of your premise, so what if Solyndra failed? Viewed from a VC perspective, most investments fail but a few hit knock it out of the park. The question is, on balance, “How much value has been created?” not “Did one of the investments fail?”I don’t know the answer but I expected we are ahead of the game given the investments made, or at least we should be thinking about it this way.

      1. JLM

        Commercialization of government research has been a big winner but direct investments have been a big and perennial loser.Why?Market decides what technology to commercialize — flows from free market THROUGH government.  GPS, Internet, nuclear power.  Huge winners.Gov’t picks winners and losers — becomes a political wrestling match rewarding political supporters.  Huge losers.Worse, takes a “green field” approach rather than a “production foundry” approach.Worse still, investment size is too large thus killing opportunity to diversify risk.

        1. Matt A. Myers

          In certain areas it would be better if government help direct who the winner is — for the reason that some of the pros of a technology may be more in line with what is good for society as a whole.One example perhaps will be implement rewards / subsidies to those who don’t produced “planned obsolesense” products.

        2. JamesHRH

          Could not agree more.I live in the most prosperous jurisdiction in NA (Alberta). Our prosperity has been created through exactly the process you have described:- there is more oil in the oil sands of West Canada than all of Saudi Arabia (it just costs $40-50 a barrel, not $8, to produce) and it has been known to exist for 100 years, just as background.- in the last 1/4 of the last century, after the Oil Crisis, the federal government sponsored an oil sands company (Suncor).- during the government’s involvement, it was wacky experimental, futuristic and unprofitable.- its mandate was basically production research on oil sands- when oils sands production became an economic reality in the first part of this century, the federal government had long sold its stake- Suncor is massively profitable and successful, as an independent business.- over $100B (roughly) of free market capital is currently allocated to oil sand projects in AB/Saskatchewan.Subsidized research by government to unlock whole new industries does work. Disincentives / incentives by government (tax / tax credits) to balance the dynamics of capitalism does work.Government participation in the economy does not work.

        3. MikeSchinkel

          You are arguing a different point, and it’s one I probably agree with. But I don’t think your point discredits mine, i.e. that not all investments can be good investments, or you are investing too conservatively. I’m mainly trying to give counter-point to those who point to Solyndra as if it were a scandal; AFAICS it was not.  Bad judgement? Maybe.  Scandal? Probably not.Of course we can discuss HOW they are investing, and that’s a worthy discussion.

          1. JLM

            Theoretically anything is possible but this puppy looks like a scandal from sponsorship to due diligence to timing to structure to forebearance to priority of repayment.

          2. MikeSchinkel

            Well, not being in the 1%, I don’t think I can ever know for sure. 😉

          3. JLM

            @mikeschinkel:disqus I suspect that in the next 12 months, we will know everything ever known about Solyndra and a few others.This is going to be the nastiest election ever.Ever.

        4. sachmo

          Agreed, but fundamental research in alternative energy is almost non-existent… 

    3. JLM

      How is energy “subsidized” other than the oil depletion allowance?Energy pays huge taxes and offers lots of employment and delivers a very cheap commodity.I have a huge problem w/ anointing solar as a “winner” when it is one of the most expensive alternatives.

      1. ErikSchwartz

        Who paid for all the R&D for nuclear power? The federal government.Do we get fair market value for energy leases on public land?

        1. JLM

          The gov’t should hire someone to conduct their leases and then actually allow them to be explored and developed.

          1. ErikSchwartz

            They do, on huge tracts of federal land. The lease price is often ~$3 per year per acre.That’s corporate welfare.

          2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            POLLUTE WATER AND AIR FOR FREE ALSO WELFARE.REST OF COUNTRY PAY FOR WITH HEALTH.

          3. JLM

            If this is the result of competitive bidding and it contains a royalty right how can this be corporate welfare?

      2. sachmo

        Ethanol productions gets 6 billion a year….Solar gets about 1 billion for the first time this year… Solar got about 600 million from the fed gov’t in 09 i think.  Solyandra (terrible investment I agree) was a *huge* exception.  We really don’t subsidize solar much at all. 

  42. andyidsinga

    re “And yet I am in the 1%. How can I also be part of the 99%”Hey Fred, you dont need to be a part of the 99% to be a part of the solution.You’re already doing exactly the right thing by walking around down there, listening to people. you’ll pull together what you learn into a solution that makes a differrence for the 99% :). You’re in discovery mode ..just go with the flow.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      IT SIMPLE:IF MONEY COME FROM BENEFIT WORLD, IN 99%.IF MONEY COME FROM SCREWING WORLD, IN 1%.ME PRETTY SURE FRED 1ST ONE.

      1. William Mougayar

        Exactly. Well said.

      2. andyidsinga

        Make no mistake, I certainly think Fred and Albert ( shout out to Albert ) are part of the solution.Shit – I was really just trying to make a point about him being himself and yada yada use the force Fred and so on and so forth.FG – i think youre wrong about the 1% and 99% definition. i think 1% really are those who are very wealthy and influential and the 99% not so much.hey now, just because someone is a 1%er doesnt mean they’re automagically a dick. They gotta earn that title 🙂

        1. Donna Brewington White

          and conversely being in the 99% does not automatically make one noble or benevolent

          1. Carl J. Mistlebauer

            No, but there sure is safety in numbers! :)When all of the sudden everyone who has lost a job, can’t find a job, is burden with medical bills, and or has lost their home, finds out that they are not alone, then it quits being about “what did I do wrong” and becomes “where have we been wronged?”Then the power of numbers becomes theirs and they can write history anyway they want…..

          2. Donna Brewington White

            Let democracy do its work.  

          3. Carl J. Mistlebauer

            That is exactly what the Tea Party and OWS represent; democracy!We talk about our two party system as right, left, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, or independent….we talk about “bases” but when you look at the numbers neither party has a base, and both parties together can barely draw the interest of 50% of the population.Just look at the presidential elections from the 1960’s vs those today….even 2008 was a dismal turnout compared to the 1960’s.So, democracy is working, finally….

      3. Aaron Klein

        That’s not what the #OWS people are saying. They are saying income levels, plain and simple. Money=Bad.But you’re raising the point which needs to be raised. There are two classes of wealthy people in this world.The ones who CREATED wealth through their contributions to the world.And the ones who inherited or extracted wealth.The guy who gets his pal in Congress to get a regulation slipped into the Federal Register, and then makes $8 million a year as a compliance consultant is not a wealth creator.All wealth is not equal.

        1. ShanaC

          My friends down there are not saying that.  Their saying they want a chance to make money too.

          1. Aaron Klein

            I am living proof that you don’t need someone else’s permission to make money. The victim mentality has never helped anyone get ahead.Seth Godin’s should go down there and give every protester a copy of Poke the Box.

          2. ShanaC

            I promise it is not about permission either. It is about looking around for opportunity. Not everyone is going to run their own business, and even then, the barriers seem to be higher than previously due to debt. I have a very entrepreneurial friend thinking of going down. I know the girl who runs the gallery down there (yes, they have a gallery), she actively freelances. Still, both worry about settling down long term, and they both definitely worry about health care, if something happens.That’s really it

          3. Aaron Klein

            Here’s the speech I delivered at commencement for the community college I serve on the board for. It’s great advice for your friends down there. http://www.aaronklein.com/2

          4. ShanaC

            They’re not asking for permission. They did what you said, and now they are on the streets when that failed.

          5. calabs

            Uh, that’s not what this is about. It’s about the outrageous unfairness of covering the debts of the wealthiest Americans, and then ignoring the needs of the poorest.If the US Government hadn’t have bailed out Wall Street, we wouldn’t be seeing this.If the US Government had bailed out Wall Street, but convicted and jailed some of the worst offenders, we wouldn’t be seeing this.If the US Government had bailed out Wall Street, not convicted or jailed anyone, but still done something to ease the growing pain of every day Americans, we wouldn’t be seeing this.It’s not that people expect that wrongs will not be done. But when they are done flagrantly, without regard to the will of the people, you get widespread anger.It’s about time!

          6. Aaron Klein

            Wow, I think we agree more than you know.Government shouldn’t be covering the debts of anyone. When government does that, everyone naturally starts taking greater risks and spending like drunken sailors because the risk of loss won’t affect them personally. Hence, where are today. That’s what happened with Fannie and Freddie. That’s what happened with loan guarantees trying to drive homeownership up and lend to people who couldn’t afford what they were buying. Now everybody goes belly up, thousands of houses go up for sale, there are more sellers than buyers, and we’re shocked that the real estate market is frozen solid. All three of your points started with “If the US Government had…” and I agree with your premise. So if that’s REALLY the message of the #OWS protestors, then they have chosen the wrong wording on their signs (the anti-capitalism messages aren’t in line with what you wrote). And they’ve also chosen the wrong location. Go occupy the Federal Reserve, the White House and Congress.

          7. calabs

            Perhaps that is the difference between the Tea Party and OWS: the former blames the hand that gives, the later blames the hand that takes.

          8. Aaron Klein

            You can’t take from government if it won’t give.

        2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          HOW YOU SURE? YOU DOWN THERE ON STREET?ME NOT POINT FORECLAW. ME JUST SAY KNOW FACTS GOOD IDEA BEFORE TALK ABOUT THEM.

          1. Aaron Klein

            That’s my impression from media coverage and person-on-the-street interviews. And no, I don’t watch Fox News.

          2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            BEST WAY TO NOT UNDERSTAND #OWS IS LISTEN TO MEDIA.MEDIA HATE THING NO UNDERSTAND. THEM TRY VERY HARD MAKE IT SOMETHING ELSE.

          3. MikeSchinkel

            Today’s media coverage and interviews are mostly provided by organizations interested in protecting their advertising revenues generated from exactly the companies that #OWS is complaining about, so they (evidently) think it is in their best interest to marginalize the protests by portraying the protesters as unrealistic and disorganized fringe elements. That’s exactly what Congressman Alan Grayson is saying: http://congressmanwithguts…. (thanks to @leigh:disqus for another link to a video that had Grayson in it.)If you are really as open-minded as you claim I would say you should first go down to a protest and talk with the protestors before passing judgement on them based on the news media’s spin regarding the protests.

          4. Aaron Klein

            Uh, I don’t live in New York, Mike, so that’s a little tough. There haven’t been any “occupiers” in my area that I’ve run into or noticed. If former Congressman Grayson is the spokesman for #OWS, that speaks volumes. He’s full of baloney and I was happy to see him lose last year. One less wing nut in Congress.

          5. MikeSchinkel

            I guess since you don’t live near a protest you can only pick and choose from the media coverage that supports your pre-existing bias. Or you can wait until the protest comes to a town near you; I’m pretty sure it will considering how legitimate and widespread are the issues are that are being protested.BTW, did you actually watch the video I linked or did you just assume the message was “full of baloney” ad-hominem, i.e. because you don’t like the politics of the person delivering the message?FWIW, the person who beat Grayson for his congressional seat was a member of my fraternity (TKE) and graduated from my university (Ga Tech.)  I really wish he hadn’t won.

          6. Aaron Klein

            So just out of curiosity, did you see the Tea Party’s issues as equally “legitimate and widespread”?I saved the video to watch. I didn’t say it was full of baloney. I said Grayson was full of baloney. I don’t like corrosive politicians on either side of the aisle, and he is a poster boy for that kind of behavior.As for media, I generally watch CNN, and read the NYT and WSJ. I prefer my news opinion-free, which apparently isn’t that popular these days.

          7. MikeSchinkel

            Initially I felt about the Tea Party like youmay  feel about #OWS, in part because I am socially liberal, believe our foreign policy is oppressive and our military spending is out of control. AFAICT most in the Tea Party believe the exact opposite to me on those issues, and those are very most important issues to me. Further, I find their self-proclaimed “leaders” to be very intellectually dishonest as well as very caustic and condescending and towards people who are not self-described “conservatives”: Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachman and so on. I great direspect politicians who throw red meat to their base by name calling and demonizing others. So I was completely turned off by how the Tea Party has been positioning itself.Note that #OWS hasn’t really positioned itself, the media has done that for them. Social conservatives are much, much better at messaging than progressives or liberals, and I think we see this in the difference between the positioning of the Tea Party vs. #OWS. But lack of good positioning does not mean that #OWS does not have very legitimate concerns.Anyway, I’ve since had a chance to listen to some of the less inflamatory Tea Party people when they have been discussing policy and I’ve come to realize that I have common ground with them in a lot of ways when it comes to fiscal issues. Not in all ways, mind you, but enough.And since I’ve paid attention to #OWS I’ve realized that a lot of the #OWS greviances are Tea Party greviances too (assuming we can set aside social, foreign and miltary policy for a while) and that together we might actually be able to get something positive done IF we quit name calling and IF we quit ridculing the other side.   So yes, I think a lot of the Tea Party’s issues are equally “legitimate and widespread” because I think many of them are actually the same as the issues that #OWS are complaining about.As for Grayson, I can see your bias are very different than mine. I watched the video and didn’t hear anything at all corrosive. All I heard were what seemed like lucid statement of fact. I’m completely at a loss as to why you dislike him (other than he is not a conservative?)As for media on my end, I think almost all of it is suspect these days. Thanks to learning from Fox CNN is seeing how bias-regardless-of-fact can generate more ad dollars because people would rather listen to something that confirms rather than challenges their beliefs so reporting facts are no longer in vogue at CNN. These days their budget is mostly to showcase talking heads to debate things in a partisan manner, and investigative reporting is nowhere to be found. These days the only media I even reasonably believe is accurate is The Economist Magazine, BBC News and Al Jazeera (because they are trying hard to be viewed by the world as a legitimate news source so they are the most balanced.) Unfortunately I don’t get Al Jazeera so I rarely see it.

  43. RV

    To me it’s not only the income disparity but also that our govt corrupted by money has produced an unfair advantage in society that benefits the rich and powerful. 

  44. ErikSchwartz

    Great, a politics conversation isn’t contentious enough, let’s add religion.edit: OK I know I replied to @JLM this time. Am I having a @disqus bug?

    1. Anne Libby

      (I had the same thing happen with a reply earlier today…)

  45. JLM

    Yesterday 101,101 spectators watched the Ohio State University beat the snot out of the University of Texas.It was a nice hot sunny Texas afternoon.  Shorts, polo shirt and topsiders; or, jeans, boots and a polo w/ a cowboy hat — take your pick.The whole OWS movement is so overblown and self importunated as to be totally meaningless other than to the behind the scenes political puppet masters, the punditry, the MSM and the blogosphere.10,000 people is not a movement — it is a traffic jam and no more.The ideas being “debated” mean a bit but nobody really wants to voice the basic truths.A handful of young MBAs w/ mousse in their hair wrecked a huge amount of wealth and have never been held accountable.  People are pissed off.Derivatives are obscenely egregious.  Nobody understands them.  They are based upon the absurd notion that a substandard credit can be dissected into a AAA and a ZZZ credit thereby averaging “substandard” and the AAA is real and can be sold as such.  Huh?A handful of political operatives and their lobbyists allowed the mousse men to rig the game and  allowed every deadbeat in America to buy an expensive home and then to refinance them and drag out phantom equity.If you have read the book The Help (Jackson, Mississippi maids story of Old South before integration and a hoot) or seen the movie, you will understand the chocolate pie analogy.  Go see it.WE ARE EATING THEIR SHIT!Nobody was prepared to “walk the cat backwards” if they failed.  It was a worse financial fraud than Madoff.  Wall Street — the insiders — never really got hurt because they control the US Treasury.  They have returned to milking the sugar tit and they are getting record bonuses.Four branches of US Gov’t ?  Executive, legislative, judicial and Goldman.It is all sound and fury signifying nothing.The OWS is not the Tea Party.  The Tea Party has already turned a trick in the last election. The OWS movement will deliver nothing but riots.The lightning rod for all of this — Barack H Obama, the Perfect Storm candidate who is incapable of governing.  I will concede you ANY reason why that has happened. It changes nothing.It’s W’s fault, it’s the Republicans, it’s BHO’s fault, he is inexperienced — take your pick because all have the same result.  He has not delivered the goods and frankly is not ever going to be able to.When Pres Obama was elected, I said in this venue that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would be his undoing — bingo — I was right.THE CANDIDATE has gone back to campaigning and the Oval Office stands untended.Barack/Jack squandered his beans for a beanstalk to nowhere.

    1. MikeSchinkel

      Nice rant, but not terribly helpful. What’s your proposed solution?

      1. JLM

        Everybody needs to enforce and respect the rules as they existed.The WS guys who created those derivatives need to be perp walked out of their offices particularly when they were “long” on the third floor and “short” on the tenth floor.The entire business of stock markets as casinos and automated trading of all kinds needs to be eliminated as well as “shorting” of all kinds.If you cannot explain a financial instrument on a single index card, if the Chmn of the Fed cannot understand it, if it cannot be physically foreclosed upon and it cannot be repossessed, it has to be disapproved.Underwriting for real estate needs to be conforming.Banks who created this mess and have received gov’t assistance have to “work out” every single mortgage they made.  There is really something obscene about “marking to market” their borrowers while getting gov’t assistance.HASP has not been made to work like TARP.The banks have to comply w/ the CRA by making loans.  Particularly SBA loans.The top 25% of SBA loan originators (based upon their success rate at year 5) should receive unlimited loan guaranties and 100% gov’t guaranty.Starter set only.

        1. MikeSchinkel

          Much better. I can agree with all that.

    2. fredwilson

      there are way more supporters of the OWS movement than the number of people who went to that football game yesterday. and it was oklahoma state not ohio state that beat the crap out of Texas

      1. JLM

        Haha, I was at the game yesterday and was dazed enough to get the wrong OSU.  Now that was an ass whipping!Yes, the Horns have now been beaten senseless by all the schools in Oklahoma.  It is humiliating and painful.I was just walking around Town Lake here in Austin and went by the OWS “riot” at the Austin City Hall and the line for nachos in section 3 at the game yesterday was bigger.  Of course, those are some damn good nachos.The signs were better in Austin.  My favorite was the one that said:  “Corporations, I will be YOUR bitch for a job!”Also, the face painted “corporate zombies” were a big hit.The riot is across the street from Three Forks which makes it the first riot with valet parking.Austin is not really a very good riot town.  The cops — two of them — were wearing shorts.

        1. William Mougayar

          That is funny. You’re a master story teller.

    3. sachmo

      Dude, the OWS movement got 1000 people right here TALKING… and probably tens of thousands more, reading.And in downtowns all over – i.e. here in Miami – similar Occupy movements have sprung up… I’d estimate that easily 100k people have participated in some form or another in supporting the movement…And watching football is a relatively relaxing activity, that makes sense in the context every day life.Protesting – doing something that requires some sacrifice – writing on this blog, talking to people about it (and I don’t mean random gossip, I mean convincing people of the cause), goes against the grain.  Its remarkable – yes just like the Tea Party in some respects – because it requires effort. I also doubt that this movement will be as big as the Tea Party was – which I also happen to think was overblown – but I’m glad that it exists, and I think their overall message is positive – get money out of politics… If direct injections of capital happen to anymore, they should go DIRECTLY to the middle class, not large corporations. 

  46. Adrian Sanders

    @fredwilson:disqus I’m curious to see how things go at #OWS and moreso, your thoughts on your own position and place. I think it’s pretty incredible how reflective OWS has made some people, myself included.You’ve got this AVC crowd, you’re interested in creating some action in the greater community, what’s the next move?

    1. fredwilson

      i don’t knowbut it will reveal itself to meit always does

      1. ShanaC

        how about a pac

        1. Tom Labus

          Something completely new, please.

          1. ShanaC

            New political party? We’re working with a broke system.Sent from a phone, forwarned

    2. William Mougayar

      I agree that a lot of good ideas were tossed around, but change will only come from action. One suggestion is to have a follow-on post that is exclusively focused on actionable ideas. 

  47. ShanaC

    This video is going viral among friends of mine – http://youtu.be/TH3kiaJ1-c820 some odd people arrested for wanting to close out their accounts at Citi in protest.  I have a problem with so little regulation that people can’t take their cash out of a bank because they don’t like a bank.  I have a problem that small businesses can’t get loans (including web businesses). And I have a problem that we ignore the workers, their saving rates, their debt rates, and their medical care/basic health, who tend to buy stuff, and save money, and really underpin the economy.  If you undercut them, you undercut overall wealth creation in an economy.  And we undercut people who work hard by a huge amount.Capitalism needs some regulation, to make sure that self interest actually works.  De Toqueville made an excellent point – rational self interest includes supporting the others around you, because if you fall, you will have to lean on others to get you up.  We’re interconnected that way.  There is something wrong if we’ve forgotten that in the US.What happened to us?

    1. Emil Sotirov

      Some of the stuff that happened to us – idiocies like Ayn Rand (the “Lenin” of capitalism), false ideas about what “individualism” means, an “elite” of i-People hooked on shiny i-Things, lack of existential threats (after the fall of communism) which would remind us that there is such a thing like “us” or “we”… as in the 100% of us.

    2. Anne Libby

      I think that some of what happened has to do with the increasing minority of people who have been in the service.  As an older Gen x-er, I grew up hearing stories about rationing and other sacrifices of World War II.   My dad, and most of my friend’s fathers, served in the military (as did their brothers and fathers before them.)   Most of the men who were my early bosses and mentors were Vietnam veterans.My observation is that the service offered a shared culture, and the notion of service to a greater good.   More practically, participants were required to deal with a range of people, and to make things work under many different circumstances.  This culture came back with them, and became part of our society.Today, we don’t seem to have institutions that inculcate shared values, or leaders who know how to articulate them.   Or who can even start an effective conversation about them.  This is where the Tea Party and OWS overlap, in creating conversation about what we believe.  It’s down to leaders to translate the conversation into action, hopefully for the benefit of the 100%.   I hope that this is what emerges.

  48. Esayas Gebremedhin

    “I’d like to do what I can do to help make sure that change is intelligent progressive change taking us forward to a new prosperity,”It’s a hot topic for thursday 🙂 The anarchical structure of the www inspires a radical democratic movement in the context of society, environment, culture and economy. The voice is getting slowly louder but the ear and reaction is totally missing. Here lies the chance.Difference makers thrive on chaos.

  49. dave

    Fred, I think the reason there are so much police when the demonstrators go on the march is that they’re afraid another park will get occupied. That’s why the crowd has to keep moving when it’s on the move.

    1. fredwilson

      hmmthat makes perfect sense

    2. Anne Libby

      I also think that they worry about actual terrorists infiltrating the group and using it as a Trojan horse for something more dangerous.(This perspective from some experience/training I’ve had with a lower Manhattan Community Emergency Response Team, and other connections with people in our first responder community.)

      1. dave

        I hadn’t thought of that.

        1. Anne Libby

          From what I’ve seen, some of feels a bit overdone.   But that’s another whole conversation!

  50. kris

    Throughout history, whenever there has been a revolution, it has almost always been about people wanting a true democracy.We didn’t have that in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, … and it’s no different in the US.That may not yet be obvious to a lot of us but those who truly believe voting for Herman or Obama is going to make a difference; come back in 10 years and then write another blogpost.People are slowly starting to realize it won’t make a difference.This movement ain’t about the left or the right. It ain’t about Obama, Herman or any other politician. If they think it’s about them & their ideas & their promises, then they got another thing coming! It’s about a true democracy.Go ahead, teach. Teaching is fundamental to our future. Some people don’t understand capitalism. And we should give them the facts and let each person decide what’s best for him or her.But by all means, don’t act like the people don’t understand or don’t want capitalism.This movement ain’t about capitalism. There’s a possibility this movement is going to come to an early stop.And it will either be because new promises are being made and we believe in it, or because the media makes it look like the movement belongs to the left or the right, or because we act like it’s about something that it is not, like capitalism.We lost our vote. That didn’t happen yesterday. It started happening decades ago.The debt crisis and the way it’s being handled is the icing on the cake that should be obvious to everyone, but for some reason isn’t just yet. More & better transparency makes it visible. More & better communication makes it spread.And to Italy I would like to say: You lost your vote as well, but not only does an eye for an eye make the world go blind, it plays right into the politicians’ hands. You may have been provoked. If so, make it visible. Educate us. Proceed with caution. Do so in a non-violent way and on a massive scale.

  51. JamesHRH

    Fred, using Carlota’s elegant framework:- the innovation continues unabated (you cannot stop the human spirit)- the fundamentals of economics remain unchanging (you cannot change human nature)- so the institutions must changeThe problem at the moment is that government and banking leadership think that their institutions need some repair.They need to be rethought and rebuilt.A political candidate who brought that message to the market would be elected easily.

    1. fredwilson

      agreed

    2. Matt A. Myers

      James for Prime Minister! 🙂

  52. Renee

    You can be in both the 99% and the 1% because this isn’t about salaries, it’s about power. Athletes & actresses are in the top few basis points of earners but aren’t the target here because although they have cultural influence, they aren’t power players in the system that really matters.

    1. MikeSchinkel

      @noupside:disqus You nailed it; it’s the power 1%, not the monied 1%.

  53. jason wright

    Would people be willing to pay for a political product worth having? Do they value a healthy political landscape enough to spend money on it?

  54. DonRyan

    Best post on this I have read. Are there some legitimate issues here? Yes. Are they being co-opted by other entrenched parties? Absolutely. I’m interested to see how this all shakes out. 

  55. Michael Beckner

    Henry Blodget posted a pretty great backgrounder on what all the fuss is about here: http://www.businessinsider….

    1. William Mougayar

      That’s a very good link. Thanks. 

  56. William Mougayar

    Right now, the OWS looks like the 2nd 1% of the remaining 99%.The OWS has started this revolution, but they will not be able to realize its aspiration on their own, unless they get the other 98% (us) to get into action. That missing link is where the hard work is. I think it is just starting. 

  57. Gary Secondino

    While I agree with the comment from Charlie Crystie it would be better as a blog post. I had my first encounter with occupy Boston yesterday and just posted it up on my blog. http://webstir.com/opmlblog… are angry but they are expressing it with action in line with our Constitutional Democracy.

  58. Glen Hellman

    Is it about class warfare. Do they begrudge Bill Gates or the people who are actual wealth creators and job creators or is the movement taking issue with the arbitragers.  Corporate America, big pharma, insurance, big oil, have purchased our democracy and influence our politics for the good of the Corpacracy at the expense of the people. Democracy was not meant to be bought and paid for by the selfish interest of the few. Un fortunately for the corporations, the Halliburton’s, the Exxon’s, the Nationwide’s and Bank of America’s, social media is democratizing the voice of the people and just as Qaddafi lost the ability to control and shape the message, the corporations are losing the stranglehold on shaping the message. The corporations can’t pretend that they are producing oil for our own good, that a profit driven insurance actuary is a better middleman between me and my doctor than a government bureaucrat who serves at the will of the people.It’s OK to make money, it’s great to build a great business, it sucks to use your power and influence against the good of the people in pursuit of selfish needs.People want their government back.  Not much different then the french revolution except the people don’t want the Koch Brother’s heads, they just want 1 vote to equal 1 unit of influence, versus our elected officials serving in proportion to dollars and not votes.

    1. MikeSchinkel

      While I complete agree with the rest of your comment I think that “class warfare” is a canard and your use of the phrase detracts from your otherwise cogent argument.

      1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        “CLASS WARFARE” EASIER TO SAY THAN “UH OH, AVERAGE PEOPLE TIRE OF RICH PEOPLE SCREWING THEM”

        1. MikeSchinkel

          LOL!  I thought “Class Warfare” was “Jealous that you have more than me.”  :-)Ya know, it’s really really hard to get worked up when debating Grimmy…

        2. sachmo

          lol

  59. Gary Secondino

    Sorry about double comment. Nube error.I had my first encounter with occupy Boston yesterday and just posted it up on my blog. http://webstir.com/opmlblog/People are angry but they are expressing it with action in line with our Constitutional Democracy.

    1. fredwilson

      no worrieswe have mods here to clean up the bar after a spill

  60. Ryan

    We are talking. More than people online might realize.

  61. John

    If the protesters had a more defined cause it would reduce the risk of something bad happening. People are showing up with their own personal causes. Whatever “injustice” they claim is happening to them is being attached to this protest. That increases the chances of anarchy and chaos.Too many are making insane requests looking for free government hand outs. After the London riots I’m happy to know their is a strong police presence. It only takes a few to turn this ugly and I’m glad the NYPD are ready.Unfortunately, it seems like too many protesters are trying to lure police into making one small mistake that they can exploit and that concerns me more than anything.As part of the 99% these people do not represent me. Perhaps with a more defined purpose I wouldnt be as frustrated by the tax payer money they are wasting in police overtime pay.

    1. fredwilson

      i saw some of that todayi bugged me

  62. jason wright

    H.G. Wells and The Time Machine, Edward Bellamy and Looking Backward. First you have to know what you want a future to be like before you set about changing to it from the here and now. If you don’t know where you want to get to you’ve no idea which direction to take and you remain forever at the crossroads.     

  63. gregorylent

    #ows is the surface, and only the bare beginning. Deep transformation is under way on earth, everywhere, and it is unstoppable. The energy field that the earth nests within has evolved faster than existing institutions can adapt to, so they fall apart.And yes, there will be violence, the USA Internet will be censored, the system will thrash as it tries to avoid annihilation.There is a birth happening, if one is able to look with those eyes. The dying that is happening is of course obvious.We were born for now.

    1. kidmercury

      absolutely. agree 100%, great comment ^2

    2. RichardF

      Your right about online censorship. The UK government are already making inroads on this.  They eavesdrop on all electronic communications, they have just made the four largest ISP’s in the UK agree to censor the internet from pornography (unless you want to ‘opt in’) and they have tried hard in the past to get ISPs to block torrent traffic. I’ll bet the next time we have civil unrest that they have put the ability in place to take down the BBM network as it played a major communication role in the last riots in London. (The Indian government already take down the ability to send sms when there is a politically sensitive moment in the country)

    3. fredwilson

      they are trying to censor the internet in the US congress right nowit is called PIPA and we are fighting it with all the heat we can bring

    4. gorbachev

      I so wish you’re right. Not about the violence, but about OWS being the beginning.

  64. jason wright

    H.G. Wells and The Time Machine, Edward Bellamy and Looking Backward. First you have to know what you want a future to be like before you set about changing to it from the here and now. If you don’t know where you want to get to you’ve no idea which direction to take and you remain forever at the crossroads.

    1. leigh

      i just saw that too – it’s a great post 

    2. Bruce Wayne

      I agree with most of what Mark Cuban says….However I do not think that our current political leaders will push for any them…these type of changes take time and can be easily sidelined and diluted through the the antiquated legislative process…It also interesting that a lot of the possible solutions that I have read about seem to want to continue with the current system of capitalism with some slight changing of the rules….it does not seem that many solutions for a new system are receiving much attention… 

      1. fredwilson

        but we should tax tradinghigh frequency trading increases market volatilitymarket volatility increases the required rate of return on equities because it increases riskwe should not allow anything that makes equity capital more expensive than it already is

        1. MikeSchinkel

          Makes huge sense.  Is there anyone besides @mcuban:twitter publicly proposing this?

          1. fredwilson

            I might jump on tbat bandwagonI need to do my homework on it first

        2. kidmercury

          the true cause of market volatility is inflationary monetary policy, stop the inflation tax and you take away the fuel for high frequency trading and the market volatility it causes. i think it will prove to be much more advantageous to address the market volatility problem via monetary policy. also, i think we are transitioning to a world where stability of capital is associated with mobility of capital. taxation on capital flows impedes this process. 

    3. fredwilson

      a lot of good ideas in there from the current reigning champion of the NBA

      1. LE

        “Talk to your parents, uncles/aunts, cousins, friends who own shares of stocks either directly or indirectly and have them state loudly and clearly that they would rather have a higher Price to Earnings Ratio and even a lower stock price than have their TAXES increase in order to support all the people laid off from their jobs in the name of shareholders !”I normally agree with Mark on many things but I wonder how he would feel if his fans told him that winning wasn’t everything and that they cared more about (insert whatever you want here) than about his team winning a championship.

        1. aslevin

          or, ask him if he’d rather have his team win a championship or have most kids not learn to read and have most old folk be hungry, and have everyone but the rich have dirt roads and open sewers.    Many sane successful people don’t just want to win, they want to win in a society they want to live in.

    4. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      ME, GRIMLOCK, SUPPORT TAX ON EVERY SHARE TRANSACTION.SHARES SHOULD BE THING BUY AND HOLD. NOT TRADED IN MILLIONTH OF SECOND BY COMPUTER TO SCREW MONEY OUT OF FLAWS IN ECONOMY.

  65. Michele Clarke

    You may not be able to relate to the 99% (unless you worked your way up to the 1% from the lower-middle class and come from a family where the parents will never be part of the 1%). That shouldn’t stop you from using your influence – and it’s considerable – to effect real change in the way those institutions are funded and governed. Because you don’t have to come from that place to understand what’s happening here. And here’s something else to know: being part of the solution won’t make you money. Know that going in. And then go in anyway.

    1. fredwilson

      i’m an army brat. i paid my way through college and graduate school working two or three jobs at both. i was basically broke until age 38.

      1. matthughes

        Being the bacon. 

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          BE THE BACON IMPORTANT.SO IS RECOGNIZE MOST PEOPLE BREAD, AND THAT OK.

          1. matthughes

            I like that. 

      2. LE

        “i was basically broke until age 38″I suspect that many of the (young) protesters don’t realize that rome wasn’t built in a day and that is part of the problem.

      3. kidmercury

        damn that sucks

        1. fredwilson

          it does not suck. it is awesome.

  66. Frame

    This post reminded me of a poignant WIRED article from 2000. Long read, but worth it:Why the Future Doesn’t Need Ushttp://www.wired.com/wired/…It is particularly relevant to the technology industry, and the impacts our industry has on the economy. The article does a good job of laying out the idea that tech progressively automates jobs that used to be manual, and allows the few who control technology to amass incredible wealth as a result.

  67. Alan Wilensky

    “The sun is gonna come out…..tomorrow…….”

  68. Alan Wilensky

    There is nothing worse than indebting our graduates. Oh, giving trillions to corrupt banks, handed out by the “reformer progressive” president we hired. Ugh….  

    1. MikeSchinkel

      Yes, I didn’t realize how bad it was until I started researching, triggered by something sending me a link to this:http://defaultmovie.com/

  69. crunkykd

    The current administration spent billions when Detroit came calling for help. Their companies were failing from years of mismanagement and a final descent as the economy tanked. Their companies were central to the economy and needed to be fixed. Obama spent the money, but insisted on management and new leadership in those companies that came from outside of the automotive industry. The realization was that solutions would not come from those same people who got the industry into trouble in the first place. It worked, the auto companies recovered.Fast forward to the Wall Street meltdown. It too occupied a central place in our economy and needed to be fixed. Obama again spent the money, but in this case he used management and leadership taken from multi-millionaire Wall Street insiders to steer the recovery. They restored corporate financial wealth but did not restore the core function of providing capital and liquidity to the private economy. It still has no functioning credit markets and the economy is in tatters. You can’t use insiders to fix the problems they caused, you have to use industry outsiders.

    1. MikeSchinkel

      Spot on!

  70. Donna Brewington White

    Daunting to approach AVC midday (Pacific) today with already 398 comments and counting.  Two of the 3 comments I’ve already “liked” represent different points of view. While economically I am the 99% many of the people in my life are the 1%. The 1% are not the enemy of the 99%.I won’t be able to read through this in one sitting, but I will read through the comments because I can’t think of a better place I’d rather “hear” this discussion.  Looking forward to “hearing” some new voices, against the backdrop of those voices that I’ve come to know and trust whether or not I always agree.  Off topic, but perhaps not:  Today my sixth grade son, feeling empowered by earning $43 selling lemonade yesterday, said these words:  “I am an entrepreneur.” Okay, I will admit that this brought tears to my eyes.This particular son (for reasons I won’t go into here) is the least likely of my kids to have said these words.  But he said them, and believed them. I am not part of the 1%.  But I can raise kids who naturally think in terms of creating their own opportunities which I can only hope turns into creating wealth at some level, creating jobs and helping those who truly need help.  I can do that.

    1. MikeSchinkel

      Just don’t let them take out student loans that, because of unregulated interest rates, will take them most of their lives to repay…

      1. Donna Brewington White

        I’d rather they spend their lives paying student loans than not getting an education at all.But, hopefully, if scholarships are not an option, with some creative thinking, resourcefulness and sacrifice we can avoid or at least mitigate that.Or maybe things will change.

        1. Luke Chamberlin

          Don’t believe the lie that those are their only two options.

          1. Donna Brewington White

            Thanks, Luke.  No worries.  I believe our options are only as limited as our imaginations.  

        2. MikeSchinkel

          Read these [1][2] and let me know if you are still nonchalant about letting your children take out student loans with unregulated interest rates potentially turning them into indentured servants for decades to the finance industry:[1] http://www.thenation.com/bl…[2] http://motherjones.com/poli…And as @twitter-41899343:disqus says, don’t believe that it is a binary choice.

          1. John Rorick

            Whenever the obscene expense of college and the loan issue is discussed one item seems to get overlooked: It should not COST that much. As a refugee from the university admin world I can tell you that most colleges could run at 1/5 the cost if they either imploded their outdated financial model and/or acknowledged and addressed the inefficiencies of an overstaffed, overextended, and overly-unionized employee base.There will be an acceleration in the higher education community of what has already happened in the citizenry…the gap between the haves and have nots will widen exponentially, but with one difference. Those overpriced nondescript liberal arts colleges that have failed to change their ways will fail, and they deserve to…the elites that are primarily tuition revenue driven (think an NYU rather than a Harvard/Princeton) will continue to charge thousands per credit as the paying crowd is there…but their day will come as well. I wish those in the OWS crowd lamenting student loans would get busy “hacking” education. That is a huge root cause of our present day issues.

          2. MikeSchinkel

            “It should not COST that much.”100% agreed.  I look at my alma mater Georgia Tech and what I see is an obscene amount of expenditures and I often question “What for?”

          3. calabs

            Agreed. What on earth does it take to educate people but to agree on a time and a place, and meet there from time to time?

          4. Donna Brewington White

            You are passionate about this.  Thanks for the links.I am not nonchalant; I just refuse to panic. I’ve overcome too many obstacles to be deterred by this or to accept limited alternatives.  That’s all. 

    2. fredwilson

      i am committed to getting through all of them before i go to bed

      1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        ME, GRIMLOCK, TOO. ‘<

        1. William Mougayar

          Hey GRIMLOCK, this post has broken your previous record of 550 comments from your guest post a few days ago 😉 You’ll have to top it off to reclaim your throne.

          1. fredwilson

            Twitter breaks its tweets per second records regularlyA post here will get to 1000 soonDisqus needs to help us parse 1000 comments

          2. ShanaC

            You’re telling me – also, this post has unusual qualities, despite having over 700 comments, there was only one accidental flag. And only maybe three or four posts that needed to be bounced.I’m proud of y’all

          3. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            @DISQUS:disqus  DO SOME IT WITH GRIMLOCK TONIGHT, CHANGE SETTINGS FOR NO BREAK OVER 500 POSTS.STILL NEED FIX UX. ME HAVE SOME IDEAS.

          4. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            ME LIKE CHALLENGE.

        2. Donna Brewington White

          This is going to be a long night.  Hope your barista is on duty. 

          1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            SHE WAS DELICIOUS.

      2. Donna Brewington White

        Well, if you ever got to bed, when you came back there were probably 70 more.  Good Monday for a MMBA guest post.  But of course you didn’t plan that timing right? You opened a great forum here Fred, thanks.

        1. fredwilson

          i’m still going through them!

          1. William Mougayar

            No comments 🙂

    3. calabs

      I am very sorry to point this out, but..If your son does not declare that $43 as income, and provide receipts, then he is a criminal. He also violated local law by selling food without a health permit and, depending on where he set up, he probably needed a vending license and a business license.The lesson is simple: your son is much better off taking a job with a large employer who can afford the lawyers and accountants to comply with the rules, and the lobbyists to change the rules when it doesn’t suit them. There is *no way* for a kid to sell lemonade legally in the US anymore.

      1. Donna Brewington White

        We are trying to help our son experience what it feels like to make plans and accomplish goals. He has some health issues that could make him feel defeated, but we are working against that. Someday, he will do something extraordinary.For now, let’s just get him through the 6th grade and the next trip to Disneyland that he’s saving up for with his sense of empowerment intact.Meanwhile, I am less concerned about the “authorities” that might try to take his $43 than I am about the fatalists who might try to take away his dreams. BTW, he found some other opportunities and is now up to $69!(FWIW, I am not insensitive to those whose sense of hope and ability to control their future has been demolished. I’ve had to fight pretty hard to hold onto mine in spite of the heartbreak of watching neighbors in an affluent neighborhood lose their homes and having to work hard to rebuild my business in a field hit hard by the recession. If I gave into the tone of thinking and limited possibilities that you have suggested, it would have destroyed me.)

        1. Cam MacRae

          Without wanting to come down too heavily on calabs’ demonstration of the idiocy of the state, in the 6th grade your son would make a defence of infancy and therefore cannot be criminally liable for a lemonade stand.Why are we trying to have our kids grow up so fast? Geez.

  71. stevenwillmott

    A couple of people called out your interview with Carlota Perez at Web 2.0 – I was there two and one of the biggest things which stood out for me was her statement (paraphrased): “Move the opportunity for financial gain from where much of it is concentrated now – in purely financial instruments – to where it should be – in financing innovation and useful production”. An that innovation should stretch from parts in which undoubtedly government plays a role in laying the groundwork – education, core science to those where private enterprise takes over (from startups to big company R&D). If there is more money to be made, more quickly in clever debt swaps, risk hedging etc. than funding new knowledge creation, funding solutions for energy, health, life etc. and ultimately creating jobs – then not only does that keep us in the same downward spiral but it pumps up the sense of injustice we have now.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      IF BEST PLACE TO MAKE MONEY IS EXPLOIT FLAWS IN SYSTEM, LOOP CREATED THAT DRAIN MONEY FROM SYSTEM UNTIL SYSTEM COLLAPSE.IT PROBABLY GOOD IDEA CHANGE SYSTEM BEFORE THAT LAST PART HAPPEN.

      1. stevenwillmott

        I think that pretty much sums it up!

    2. fredwilson

      i’m thinking of doing a teachin at Zuccotti Park on this issue

      1. stevenwillmott

        I think that would be a great contribution. Snapshoting parts of the interview with Carlota would give you lots of supporting material!

      2. andyidsinga

        if possible capture audio and video and post – thanks

    3. laurie kalmanson

      DARPANet was a government program

  72. CJ

    The issue isn’t as much about taxes as I’ve seen most people talk about here.  It’s also not as much about how much money you earn or your net worth either.  It’s about how money creates power in our system and how that power is used.  Once you strip away both the jealousy and defensiveness you can see that the rich (in general) don’t just earn a lot of money, they use that money to create political policy.  The money they possess allows them to amplify their voice so the thoughts of the 1% become the policy that governs the 99%.  That never works, in countries other than the USA we call that totalitarianism, monarchy, communism or something similarly ‘evil’.  Here we call it capitalism and democracy and call anyone who questions it ‘unpatriotic’, another evil word if you ask me.’Tell you what though, if we can keep the money out of politics, I’m sure we can keep the 99% from caring about the 1%’s bank records. But as long as the 1% use their influence to provide bailouts for their fellows while the 99% struggle with healthcare, underwater mortgages and a lack of jobs, you’re going to see that 99% pissed off about how many zeros are in your bank account and how many zeros aren’t in the number you paid in taxes.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      AMERICA FOUNDED ON IDEA MONEY NO SHOULD BE POWER. DESTROY POWER OF MONEY MOST PATRIOTIC THING OF ALL. #OWS

  73. Luke Chamberlin

    Douglas Rushkoff wrote a piece called “Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don’t get it” that offers an explanation for why the media is having such a difficult time understanding a decentralized movement.Basically, it’s a generation that grew up with top-down editorial authority versus a generation that grew up with peer-to-peer and Wikipedia. The divide will continue to grow.One of the best pieces I’ve read about OWS: http://www.rushkoff.com/blo

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      IT GOOD ARTICLE.

  74. Todd

    I like Lawrence Lessig’s position: Congress is corrupted by a system of privately funded elections.

    1. MikeSchinkel

      Yes. This is a recent editorial by @lessig:disqus that talks about the cross-partisanship that is needed: http://www.huffingtonpost.c…Even more interesting is the video of Lessig and Mark Meckler of the Tea Party jointly opening a conference to discuss the potential for a constitutional convention where Mark said “we have to find a way to resist the business model that depends upon making us hate each other.”: http://vimeo.com/30205199

      1. fredwilson

        Thanks for the linkCant wait to read it

      2. Tom Labus

        The hate part, that will be hard to do especially if TV is involved.

  75. Mark

    Fred, don’t have 1% guilt. Despite some of the rhetoric, this isn’t about the 1%; it’s about the 99%. The 99% have been disenfranchised. Their cities and schools have been dismantled, and the specter of a medical disaster threatens to wipe out everything they have. Many many people are living on the edge. Being middle class means living on the edge now. And yet, they get 3 credit card offers a day, bank and cable companies treat them like garbage, and their employer cuts their retirement and medical benefits year by year. At the same time, corporate profits soar, subsidization of profitable industries continues, and M&As continually reduce their options as a consumer.The writing has been on the wall for a long time, but now it’s very hard to ignore. The government does not serve the majority of its people. Left or right, it’s unjust and unsustainable.I don’t think technology is going to get us to a better place. Not when we don’t nurture the fundamentals of a healthy society. Something like Khan Academy doesn’t mean something to Detroit. To think it might is a bad joke. Those kids are living in a hostile wasteland. There’s a lot of ugly in this country and it has everything to do with us looking the other way.It’s not about whether unions are good, or if hedge funds are bad. OWS is about seeing that our government learns to give a damn about its people again. Not because someone has the right politics, or the solution you like, but because that’s democracy.It doesn’t matter that you are in the 1%. You can care about the 99%. You can care about their loss of democracy.That said, I am worried. Like Charlie said (in that kick-ass comment) neither Obama or any of the GOP hopefuls come close to being able to address this problem. IMO Obama passed on a huge opportunity and now neither party has the solution or can have it.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      GENERATION OF STARTUP PEOPLE WILL BUILD OWN NEW SYSTEM.BUT THAT GOING TO BE BIG PROBLEM FOR 90% LEFT BEHIND IN OLD, FAILING SYSTEM.

  76. FAKE GRIMLOCK

    MUSIC INDUSTRY DIE BECAUSE PEOPLE WANT CONTROL OF THEIR MUSIC.CURRENT SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT FACE SAME THING.

    1. fredwilson

      ^2

    2. LE

      Music industry died because it can die because technological advancements provide an alternative.

    3. jason wright

      I just want to ask if it is possible for you to write in lower case? Reading upper case text is less ‘fluid’ with no up or down strokes in the letters. Just a polite ‘wish’. It’s your call though. 

      1. William Mougayar

        Hi Jason,We’re very tolerant of Grimlock’s style. That’s part of what defines his identity. Pls don’t take personal offense by the caps. Thanks

        1. jason wright

          Hello William.I’m not offended in any way and I don’t take the style as being an indication of the author’s mood or tone. I just find it slower and clunky to read upper case text blocks. It just inhibits the flow of the dialogue a little. Each to their own though. Just politely askin’ :-). atb.

          1. William Mougayar

            You’ll get used to it…trust me 🙂

          2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            EVENTUALLY EVERYONE BRAIN SHAPE LIKE GRIMLOCK.FUTURE GENERATION NAME THAT “AWESOME DAY”. 

      2. fredwilson

        I am opposed to that suggestionAll caps is his signature

        1. jason wright

          it isn’t a consensus thing. he decides. it’s my reflex from a previous life teaching english. i must amend my signature.

          1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            ME, GRIMLOCK, SAY ON INTERNET HAVE RIGHT TO OWN OPINION, NO MATTER HOW WRONG IT AM!

          2. kidmercury

            jason, here is a link to a chrome extension that will downcase comments in disqus. i used this to solve the grimlock problem. https://chrome.google.com/w…

          3. MikeSchinkel

            “Solve the grimlock problem?”  YOU MEAN EXTENSION HELP MAKE COMMENTS MORE LIKE GRIMMY’S?  WE NEEDS MORE GRIMLOCK, NO NEED LESS! 😉

  77. William Mougayar

    Just curious…is there a country/government out there that is doing the right thing and where citizens aren’t protesting or joining OWS? Would be interesting to learn something from them. 

    1. gorbachev

      I’m not 100% on this, but I would suspect the Scandinavian countries probably fit the bill.

      1. Donna Brewington White

        That agrees with the article I referred to from Biz Insider.

      2. William Mougayar

        You’re probably right. See the list the Donna provided.

      3. leigh

        total aside, but i was doing work with Nokia in Finland when i was pregnant – lost 5 lbs in one week. herring tempura?  no matter what the political system is, blech!  

    2. Donna Brewington White

      I took a very quick glance at an article on Biz Insider entitled  “The Most Satisfied Countries in the World”  http://read.bi/q4PL9rProbably not the most reliable source for any type of critical analysis, but could be indicative.Canada was listed as #2 but didn’t you say there was an Occupy Toronto?So maybe “satisfied” is relative or has different definitions.

      1. leigh

        Canada is heading in the wrong direction.  Just a silly example but i heard a guy quoted on the radio about #OWS who was more annoyed that “his tax dollars” were going to have to go to clean the mess up. People aren’t thinking in the long term – more poverty leads to more social issues, leading to more crime, leading to more tax dollars going to jails, police, welfare etc etc. We all do better when our society and greater community do better.  But that means you have to create the social infrastructure and that costs money and someone has to pay for it.Our Federal gov’t has focused on cutting taxes.  I don’t want them to cut my taxes.  If the public schools suck, then I gotta send my kid to private school – that will cost me way more in the long run.  People just have this idea that taxes are bad and we pay too much.  They just aren’t thinking holistically (i know i’m repeating myself sorry)

        1. William Mougayar

          The problem in Canada is that there is too much government spending and meddling in places that should be left alone. Don’t get me started there. Schools and healthcare aren’t one of them. 

          1. leigh

            lol u sound like my older brother – he can’t stand how much gov’t there is in Canada – anarchist and community development in the best way for him – he left in his twenties and is now is a water resource engineer in SE Asia (and has a mapping start up: http://www.mangomap.com/ ) …. he’s brilliant.  if you are ever in Cambodia i’ll send you to meet him 🙂

          2. William Mougayar

            Interesting. So now I’ve got to meet your husband and brother! Lol…looking forward. Let’s have coffee this week. Come over to King/Yonge where OWS will be. Let’s go talk to them.

        2. William Mougayar

          Ask me about my drive downtown tomorrow, 2 blocks from the protesters. I’ll be in the office at 6am before they even wake-up hee hee. I wonder who works harder.From this evening TV reports:TV reporter: “The protestors are struggling with their message.”OWS protester: “Everybody is upset about something but we’re not sure.” Gimme a break. If the OWS doesn’t get focused on their message and their action items, it will be a big missed opportunity for change. Those on the street have raised the attention. They aren’t the same ones that will make things happen. Fred’s message is very telling- he’s asking, as we all should, for a dialogue, for an understanding, for a conversation.

      2. William Mougayar

        I didn’t get why Canada was on the OWS list, and still don’t. Perhaps there are a few things that could change, but they pale in comparison to the US situation. That said, I was looking for countries that aren’t participating in the OWS movement. I think that list you provided is pretty close probably. Countries like Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, etc….are probably OK.

  78. Joel

    If you want to support change, don’t support Adbusters (.org) who founded this movement. They are anti semetic vermin. Search “Isreal” or “Isreali Protest” and find which protest is the only one they are not ‘inspired by’.Read their 2008 Archives. Seriously, go there and see what I am talking about. They are slime and are not about helping American workers. Their start, in 2008, shows who they are; an ant-capitalist fringe extremist group who wants subscribers to their magazine. See for yourself. They are frauds just like those in Washington, like Obama, who gets a free pass for bailing out these companies and being buddies with the world’s greatest stock holder (Warren Buffet).So, no, this is not the movement to popularize when it comes to representing the ‘99%’. This is a political movement – wake up, guys. Seriously, this is embarrassing.

  79. Greg Athas

    I don’t think most American’s resent the wealthy and successful. They resent those who gain wealth by gaming the system.  The feeling is that many on Wall St. are nothing more than leeches or professional gamblers who don’t contribute to growth of the economy.  They become powerful and then further tilt the rules to protect themselves.  There’s an important and essential role played by financial institutions, but it’s become seriously out of balance.  

  80. Saul Hansell

    Fred- For most of my time at the NYT, I grumbled about about having to pay Newspaper Guild dues. We writers were professionals and it seemed like the needs of the mailroom clerks and such were put above our own.But as the newspaper industry fell on hard times, like so many other industries have, I came to see how the union had value for me. The health plan, which seemed inbred bureaucratic and perhaps a little corrupt, became far more attractive compared to the mainstream. And all sorts of arcane work rules helped create a balance of power that allowed the union workers on balance to be treated more fairly than those without union contracts.Don’t get me wrong. There are lots of problems in theory and especially in practice with unions. But there are even more problems that individuals and the entire country face as a result of how nonunion workers are often treated. The unions, for better and for worse, slow down change. And since individuals and their families can’t reconfigure themselves as fast as economic conditions, some buffers and safety nets, are important. More broadly, I think the value of OWS, as you said,  is not the individual agendas of the various participants. It is in fact the understanding that transcending so many narrower issues and groups is a need to restore a balance of fairness in the nationCheers, Saul

    1. laurie kalmanson

      The Newspaper Guild: the organization that, faced with a declining industry, chose to draw the circle more tightly around its existing members, protecting their wages and benefits, and offer tiered wages to future generations.Not the first union to do so, but one that in theory had more of an obligation to tell the truth about the choices made.Unions exist because management failed to provide decent wages and conditions.Then unions became corrupt.There are no institutions for the next generation looking out for them — hence the people in the streets now, attempting to fix what is broken.

  81. Strutte2

    Fred, I don’t know you personally but my impression is that you straddle the line between the 1% and the 99%. As a venture capitalist, you’re ultimately investing in products and creating jobs along the way. The out-sized money you make in return supposedly represents the “risk” you’ve taken investing in your money. What 99% of people wouldn’t give for the opportunity to take that risk. America is supposedly the land of opportunity, but in reality those opportunities are tightly controlled. Despite my interest in following technological advances, I don’t have the opportunity to invest in exciting new products because I’m not already one of the 1%. There are many high-return funds the average schmuck can’t invest in because they don’t have liquid assets that exceed X amount of $. You can’t even buy many franchise restaurants without first proving that you have a considerable net worth. So the 1% defends their astronomical share of the take because of all their risk, without giving any credit for the risk of anyone else in the logistics chain that hasn’t been indentured into our modernized take on Feudalism where Lords and Vassals are replaced by CEOs and Executives. What about the millions of workers who risked their very health in the factories and ghettos to support the infrastructure and economies needed to support such ridiculous profit margins? What about the risk of being born in the working class when inflation has outpaced real wage growth for the past 6 decades? The risks the average working class has at our disposal are being systemically eliminated. I don’t read your MBA Monday posts because I don’t need to. I studied those charts and figures as an undergraduate until they made sense. What nobody taught me in school is that I shouldn’t bother. There are no jobs that require that kind of knowledge for people who go to small state schools instead of Wharton or other CEO-farms. There are millions of others like me, who took the risk of going to college and graduated without any real prospects. Most of us also have a sizable portion of debt to go along with that useless certificate. The reason you’re still the 1% at heart is because you don’t understand the difference between us and yourself. I wrote you an email a couple of months ago expressing frustration and your response was if I don’t feel I’m living up to my potential I need to go out and take a risk. Because that’s how the world works for the 1%. You take a little risk with your huge wads of cash and you’re rewarded with more cash. If I had access to some capital I wouldn’t need your help because I would have already invested it somewhere. There are no real risks for the 1%. Those that fail are more often than not rewarded with a golden parachute. In your case, your children are not faced with any real risk. If they decided to be a painter they will go to the best painting school where they will meet the children of the other elite who will buy their paintings and hang them in their galleries. If they want to go into business they’ll no doubt have a job waiting for them at your company. The most the 99% can hope for is to be chosen as one of the comparatively few cronies needed to prop up a system of inequality. Cronies like the NYPD who continue to see decent wages and benefits when compared to teachers. Middle management is the best most of the 99% can ever hope for; the modern day slave drivers who enforce the cost cutting measures passed down to the front-line employees as a result of inept executive management. Profits maintained at the expense of workers aren’t real profits, but the media is reluctant to point out their emperors naked bodies. What the Occupy movements are demanding is a fair wage system where one can provide for themselves and their families and still have something left to save for retirement, and accountable leaders who do not manipulate them as means to their own ends. Most of all, we want opportunities to take risks. The system is rigged in your favor and the other 1%. Whether you aid directly in the systematic oppression and controls that keep the scales tipped in your favor or profit merely by keeping your head turned in the other direction, the fact remains that you profit at the expense of others. Now in a true capitalist system, there is going to be inequality, but that inequality is supposed to be determined by merit, not by aristocratic plutocracy or cronyism.   

  82. Brandon Burns

    the #osm crowds are a great opportunity for good consumer validation testing if you’ve got a mass market social media tool idea. or maybe any tech startup idea. i spent the weekend at the lean startup machine (#lsmnyc), and my biggest regret is not following through on the original plan to tap into the group for knowledge. i will certainly redeem that mistake by hitting the streets with them tomorrow.  

  83. Michael

    How do you define a flat income for the middle class for the last 30 (I’ve also seen 50 quoted) years? Look at the goods that our middle class enjoys today: Air conditioning, orthodontics, more eating out, computers, cell phones, Internet access, larger houses, bigger tvs with Hd, new medical treatments, fruits/vegetables available year round instead of just in-season. I could fill an entire page.I suspect most millionaires of past years would be happy to have the level of luxury enjoyed by today’s average citizen. If your argument is that the rich people received even more, why does that matter if your situation has also improved?I do agree that there shouldn’t be corporate or farm subsidies or bailouts. However, I don’t see a reason to penalize the rich for helping to raise the standard of living fo all of us.

    1. Luke Chamberlin

      I don’t think OWS wants to punish restaurant owners or the dentist who invented orthodontics.They’re upset with bankers who invented complex financial instruments and made a ton of money and then got bailed out by the government when their risky experiment went haywire.The contribution that derivatives trading made to anyone’s standard of living beyond the traders themselves is very questionable.

  84. Jay Janney

    Wow!This is a really emotional post; sadly,  many of the posts read like debate cards from days of old–I see the same arguments trotted out, not much effort made to see the other person’s POV.  BTW, how do debaters organize their notes today: is there an App for that?This is strictly my own opinion, but I am optimistc about the future;  I think I have seen this movie before, and it has a happy ending, well, for many people.  I think we hve been through this before; not exactly the same as before (it never is), but similar.The reality is, we’re in an economic down cycle.  It might not technically be a recession, but it isn’t a good news economy.  I was graduated into one of those–made $5 per hour at my first post-college job  (when minimum wage was $3.35).  And felt lucky to have the job, with unemployment hovering at 18% in my hometown.  And a lot of college grads back then were angry that their degree didn’t buy them a good paying job right away, like it did sometime in the past.  In talking to young graduates,  that seems similar to today. We had a tech revolution back then–these new gadgets with a whopping 256k of ram memory, that could process at a blistering 4.77 mgh clock speed.  I got lucky–I fell into a grad asst. job in an IT dept (as a liberal arts undergrad), and they didn’t know what to do with me (I got the job because a chinese student had visa problems, and they were afraid the school would eliminate the GA line if it went unfilled.  They needed someone who a) was enrolled, B) didn’t need a visa, c) could breathe.  I met all three quals, and got hired.  I ended up learning how to do Lotus 1-2-3, and taught some CE courses in using it.  I turned that into a skill on my resume that led to a career job, and then another.     I think i see that happening today with social media, and internet stuff.Most of my friends back then had a rough start like me, but within five years were doing fine.  A few didn’t.  They continue to struggle. Many of them quit learning, and became as obsolete as my old IBM XT ‘puter (with the 50 pin10mb external hard drive).   I caught a break;  entering into a rough work environment, I never learned that I had a good paying job until retirement;  I’ve always had to think about where I’ll be in 5-10 years, still do.I remember thinking back then that “this time is different”, and at 100ft it is different, but at 30,000 feet it is much less so.  I caught a break having parents from the depression era;  my dad grew up in a household without a father, living on handouts.  He told me late in life that kids came to school without shoes, but you never made fun of them because it might be you that had a growth spurt next year when there wa sno money for shoes that fit.  He never told me growing up that he had a rough life, it was only as an adult that I learned how bad he had it.  And he turned out okay.Some of us posting are doing well currently, and it would be best not to get defensive about how great we have it.  The people struggling likely will not care how rough we had it growing up and entering the work force.  The fact that we survived doesn’t reassure them.  It is best to de-escalate the conflict; let them rant; show them you really care.  After awhile they’ll figure it ot, and they’ll do okay.  it’s not a bad idea not to flaunt your wealth, and to lower your profile for awhile.  Help them network, and maybe they won’t be so quick to put you out to pasture when they finally arrive in Corp HQ.To those of you who are anxious–take one lesson from my (deceased in 2009, age 81) Dad.  he survived a rough depression era childhood,  serving in two wars,  being electrocuted at work, numerous car accidents, raising 5 kids, an Irish red-headed wife, being burnt (industrial accident) and off work six months in a burn unit, but never losing his sense of humor through it all.  His last day with me was spent planning the future; he was optimistic and curious about what would happen next. But, I survived,  moved about a bit,  got into a good paying job,  and then got into a good career, where I am now. I also went back and got more schooling along the way, and changed job areas.   A lot of my classmates who had those lousy jobs  turned out alright as well.  It just took a few years.  I was annoyed with engineers back then, they got jobs quick, and weren’t afraid to rub our noses in it. So what is different today? 

      1. Dave Pinsen

        Jay left a long and thoughtful post. Would have been nice if you gave him a more thoughtful response. 

    1. ShanaC

      debt load when you graduate?

    2. Cam MacRae

      I’m optimistic about the future too, albeit on a 20 year horizon. When I had a day job I employed quite a few very young people and found them to be a mix of those who’d been told they were special little snowflakes their entire lives and thus wanted everything on a platter, and those who whose upbringing was a little more traditional and who, like we did, worked their guts out to get a leg up.I feel for those who are working their guts out and don’t get that leg up, but great nations have always been built on the backs of those who do, and if they’re worth their salt they pull a lot of people along with them.And therein lies the problem I think: A big chunk of our best and brightest stopped pulling, and started concentrating both power and money.

      1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        WORLD CHANGE.WORK GUTS OUT NOT ENOUGH ANY MORE.IF HAVE WRONG TALENTS, CONNECTIONS, NO AMOUNT OF WORK GET UP.THAT WHAT #OWS ANGRY ABOUT.

        1. Cam MacRae

          I think it’s always been that way – you never hear of anyone gaining employment as a leaf beater today, do you? – but having the right connections plays a disproportionately large part in the modern era. This is to our peril.

          1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            WHEN 4% NO HAVE TALENTS FOR WORK, THAT OK FOR MOST PEOPLE.20% IS DIFFERENT THING.

          2. Cam MacRae

            Which brings us back to the point that we’re concentrating power and wealth instead of pulling people along with us.

    3. sachmo

      great post, thanks for sharing

  85. Aaron J. Ruckman

    Here’s the real problem:  The U.S. is now a country where millions of people at the bottom of the wealth ladder are net economic takers.  They have low skills and low motivation.  Because of technology and globalization, they are now competing with low skill labor in the developing world that is highly motivated.Wall Street has its problems and those problems should be addressed.  However, the real problem is as stated above combined with (and largely because of) an ever-expanding welfare state (in all its MANY forms – food assistance, housing assistance, etc.) 

    1. Luke Chamberlin

      The US welfare state (all numbers 2010):social security – $724Bmedicare – $462B…food stamps – $67Bsection 8 rental assistance – $27BRetired people, not poor people, are the ones taxing the system.

      1. Dave Pinsen

        You left out Medicaid ($280 billion), which is for the poor (though eligibility is set by the states) and unemployment insurance (which was part of the $571 billion in “Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending” in 2010). 

        1. Luke Chamberlin

          I left out a lot of things (it’s a big budget).I was replying to the two examples at the end of his comment – food assistance and housing assistance.

          1. Dave Pinsen

            OK, fair enough.

    2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      30 YEARS AGO THOSE SKILLS NOT “LOW.”

      1. ShanaC

        There is something wrong with the way we train people if they can’y catch up…

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          PERSON THAT NOT HAVE COMPUTER BRAIN NEVER BECOME PROGRAMMER.PERSON THAT NOT HAVE DESIGN BRAIN NEVER BECOME DESIGNER.PERSON THAT NOT HAVE ART BRAIN NEVER BECOME ARTIST.PROBLEM NOT SKILLS.PROBLEM IS JOBS NOW REQUIRE TALENT. THAT THING BORN WITH.IT GUARANTEE MOST PEOPLE OUT OF LUCK.THAT BROKEN.

  86. Ajay

    I think this video, “Money as debt” explains many misconceptions about money.  It also explains the flaw in our monetary system.  One key thing is, that for loans, banks only have loaned the prinicipal amount.  Where has the interest come from?  This difference has caused problems when the economy doesn’t expand!http://www.youtube.com/watchttp://www.youtube.com/watchttp://www.monetary.org/int

  87. Carl J. Mistlebauer

    Hmm, we are having a discussion involving “techies” and basically, “investors”  Any comments here from anyone who manufactures anything?  Maybe someone from the “old” economy?Looks like a rather lopsided conversation….

  88. Dellas

    You’ll be surprised how quickly corporations and unions stop influencing government when it is no longer possible for them to profit by doing so.

  89. Tereza

    This is a really hard topic for me.  What I’ve struggled with for a long time is that I went to grad school, sat next to, performed the same or better than the ones who went into finance and ultimately move numbers around on paper for a living.  I went to try to work in real businesses and create real things and be part of real disruption….the good kind.  These were among my very closest friends.  But they’ve changed.  They complain against entitlements but at the same time truly believe that “bonuses” are guaranteed.  (Sounds like an entitlement to me)  We’ve landed in totally different places and don’t have much to talk about.  It’s just too upsetting.  Not because I’m upset at where I am — I’m cool with who we are and we are really very lucky people.  I invested years in these friendships so it’s been very sad to watch it devolved in the last three from mildly uncomfortable to intolerable.  We cannot afford to live in NYC and educate our kids there.  Fine, whatever.  We moved to different towns vs. these friends because of different affordability levels.  So we have the longer commute, which means less time with our kids.  Over time, our kids — who were born the same year — don’t relate to each other very well, as they live a completely different lifestyle.  Their kids are even rude to my kids. (e.g. asking why we have ‘such a small house’, they criticize our trips, etc.).  Um, WTF?Years ago we went on trips together, dinner together.  We gave it up, it’s just not fun anymore.  Several families each complain to us that they have no friends.  They offer to pay for us to go on trips with them.  My hub and I look at each other an are like, “OK, it’s ‘rent out the fun friends week”.  On one hand it’s a nice gesture, on the other we’re like — wow, how degrading.  And I can’t imagine a less relaxing vacation — e.g. listening to people who *fly private jets* (no joke), complaining about their ‘exorbitant’ tax levels, particularly since my husband and I pay A HIGHER RATE THAN THEY DO.  And listen to them smugly talk about how awful public school is…for a whole week?  Thanks but no thanks.  Not in the mood.  All the business discussions are about size. Not about quality. What I do is “quaint”, at best.So we finally decided to decline these get-togethers.  Gonna mosey over to our lane and swim in it.  We like who we are. That’s polarized wealth in action, coming from my front-row seat.  Sad, but happening in neighborhoods near you.  And, no, I haven’t been down to OWS yet.  Too busy trying to create jobs.I don’t even like putting these sentiments of mine to print as I think jealousy is unbecoming and frankly destructive. I’m an incredibly fortunate person.  But I don’t like the arrogance one bit and if I feel it, then I’m pretty sure that millions of Americans feel it too.  I do wish they’d define their issues more tightly.

    1. LE

       Tereza I really liked your comment and I was glad to read it.  It left me a little speechless actually.

    2. Gabriel Griego

      Tereza, What great insights. Your comment about friends “complaining against entitlements, while believing their bonuses are guaranteed” really hits home. I have buddies who sound like that, despite the fact that they are already in (or close to) the 1%. Makes it hard to hang with them like we used to. 

    3. Anne Libby

      Oh, dear. As I’ve cycled in my career, it has been interesting to see who sticks around in all weather.   From what I’ve seen, these friends share some, but not all, key values with me, even when other external factors change.  

    4. Dave Pinsen

      I’ve experienced some of the divergences you describe. It helps to remind yourself to look down as well as up (as you implicitly have, in describing yourself as incredibly fortunate). That goes for all of us. If your wealthy friends did that, they wouldn’t have been so insufferable.In the big picture though, there are dangers in envy that go beyond concerns of it being unbecoming. Here’s a brief quote from a much longer post (“Why Envy Dominates Greed”) by economist Eric Falkenstein, followed by a comment by me:After 200 plus years of the Industrial Revolution it is easy to simply assume we are going to grow at 2% GDP/capita forever, neglecting the fall of great civilizations that built the pyramids, Cuzco, or the Pantheon. Perhaps civilizations implode because they are made of people driven by envy that inevitably pulls down the talented tenth that create everything that great societies cumulate upon in art, science, and technology. Such a scenario was scarily recounted in Amy Chua’s World On Fire, which noted that one commonality of genocide is the extermination of elites, who are always in the minority, and appeals to the envy, not the greed, of the masses (Jews in Germany, Kulaks by Stalin, Tutsi’s in Rwanda, Armenians in Turkey, educated Cambodians by Pol Pot).Elsewhere in that post, Falkenstein quotes Mickey Kaus, who has wrestled with how a society can remain healthy with large economic equality. His proposed solution, which I don’t have the space to due justice to here, is that we can still have “social equality” despite wealth inequality. I think our proximate problem is neither wealth inequality nor social inequality, but, specifically, the ongoing decline of the middle class.Think back to the late 1990s, when there was broad-based prosperity felt by the middle class (in the form of low unemployment, low gas prices, rising 401k balances, etc.). There were still out-sized returns to winners on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, but it didn’t seem to threaten social cohesion. That makes me think the salient issue is the hollowing out of the middle class, rather than the wealth of the top 1% or .01% or whatever.What troubles me is the sense that some protesters think the middle class is doing poorly because the super rich are doing so well. Rather than one causing the other, I think both are epiphenomena of larger trends (outsourcing and insourcing, for example, which reduce returns to labor, raise returns to capital, and reduce the number of decent paying middle class jobs in the US). So, I think the proper approach is to counter those trends with intelligent policies.

      1. Tereza

        Thanks Dave.  Yes, my point is not to complain about where I am, because I’m really thankful.  And we work hard to instill that in my kids in a variety of ways, and expose them to how other people live.Greed and envy indeed are two sides of the same coin.  This is America and we’re free to do what we want.  But human nature is human nature.  Ostentatiousness, platitudes and lack of generosity makes people angry.  Especially scared people.  So while the trends may be separate, they aggravate each other and this is the core of the problem.  The middle class is scared shitless.  Not about going from 60% to 55%, but from 60% to 10%.  These things happen in large steps down, not a slow slide.  They thought at least they could get their kids thru college but now probably not.  And the amount of income loss it takes to drop from 60% to 10% is a fraction of what it takes to get from 99.4% to 99.5%.  Not being able to give your kids what you see as the basics (education) is paralyzing.What does get my goat is that I don’t see Wall St. types investing in startups or job-creating of any kind.  They’re not innovative and they’re too conservative.  This is totally unrealistic, but I’d love to see some kind of tax credit or just social pressure/transparency that encourages channeling a slice of outsized investment income toward job-creating, innovation-creating, or local small businesses.  Carving out at-risk capital for this stuff needs to become “cool”.  What if banks and hedge fund bonus-getters were required to set aside a slice of it for angel investments (e.g. $20k/year)?  They could manage it themselves, or if they don’t have the time/inclination can throw it into a fund that does it for them.  Whatever way, they’d have a front-row seat to small business and how hard it is but important it is.  Connect to the people.  Which I think is what they’re totally out of touch with.  That benevolent cycle needs to be turned ON in a much bigger more meaningful way.  The next wave of wealth won’t be on paper, it needs to be REAL business.

        1. markslater

          they are the great parasites of our generation Tereza. And thanks for your candid and honest thought stream – i’ll guess this story relates to a great deal of people in this community. For me – i see people getting so drunk on the “score” as measured by wealth, that they forget to realize or appreciate the journey. 

        2. COMRADITY

          Teresa, absolutely, I’ve wondered why capital gains aren’t taxed differently for a business person who invested time and money to create jobs vs. a business person who makes money trading paper on the short term. (these days short term is day to day!)Separately, on the subject of the intent of OWS, I do think there is some typical media generalizing going on which is missing an important distinction. At least I hope so. This isn’t about all business or class warfare. This is about too big to fail global financial companies who have taken our politicians hostage. I’ve moved to from a glabal bank to a local community bank and it is such so nice to feel like a customer again.It sure would be great if some politicians emerged from this movement and people turned out to vote.

          1. Dotzero

            K. Warman Kern,Trading paper on the short term is regular income. Capital gains requires that you hold the asset for a minimum amount of time (for example a year and a day.

        3. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          IT EASY.35% TAX ON CAPITAL GAINS.SUDDENLY REINVEST MONEY SO NO HAVE PROFIT VERY APPEALING AGAIN.

          1. BillSeitz

            Unfortunately I think you get hit with the tax on the gain regardless of what you do with the gains (buy yacht vs reinvest).But I agree it’s cleaner to tax for externalities (imagine if we taxed gas enough to pay for the War budget) than to create new subsidies for things we want to encourage (oy synfuel).

      2. Tereza

        Hey Dave — one extra point on the middle class and their being able to hold their position there during the 90’s and 00’s.I’ve read in a couple of sources — and I’d have to find it — is that it’s a red herring because what was really happening is that many 1-income families became 2-income families.  Of course mom going back to work leads to many other costs incurred (daycare, babysitters, after-school activities, restaurants and fast food instead of family-cooked meals).  There’s also a vicious cycle because money stress is a major root cause of divorce and at the same time divorce is a substantial financial drag on all parties involved.  (Obviously there are many other reasons for divorce but, seriously, you can appreciate that when you’re both stressed to the hilt, bad things happen.)One very good friend of mine likes to say, the ultimate status symbol today is a wife who stays home.

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          EVEN DINO-SIZE BRAIN KNOW 1 JOB + 1 JOB NOT EQUAL 1 JOB.1950S 1 PARENT WORK AT GROCERY STORE = MIDDLE CLASS.2011 THAT EQUAL BELOW POVERTY LINE.THAT NOT OK.

        2. Dave Pinsen

          A mark of even higher status is for your wife to dabble in angel investing, a culture-oriented business or a social venture.________________________________

          1. Tereza

            Status — or a belief that it’s the right thing to do?More people in the top brackets should.Affluent women tend to do only philanthropy.  They should be involved in angel investing, too, in the sectors they know.Gotham Gal is at the cutting edge of something very important.

          2. ShanaC

            Why is that, that women seem to be focused on charity more than helping each other grow businesses (note; I think the charitable sphere is very important, a third rail in society, but I also think it isn’t just women’s work, it is everyone’s work)

          3. fredwilson

            i agree tereza

          4. Dave Pinsen

            “Status — or a belief that it’s the right thing to do?”Both, probably, in most cases. Belief about one is usually tied up with another (e.g, when you recycle, you probably feel it’s the right thing to do, and you also feel superior to those who don’t, no?).I’m not aware of a comprehensive survey, but from what I can tell, affluent women are also involved in politics, advocacy, writing, etc.

          5. Gotham Gal

            Is that a stab at me?  You have absolutely no idea what we came from, the decisions we made for both of our careers based on raising a family.  I find it offensive that you are passing that judgement on me.  When you become a mom come talk to me.  I could have easily made a decision to eat bon-bons all day and go shopping but instead I am putting money back into the economy to help entrepreneurs, particularly women, grow their businesses.  Money didn’t grow on a tree that I happened to wake up one morning and go pluck in the backyard.  I’d like to see more women support other women entrepreneurs.  Women who choose to take their (that would be their) money and put it into angel investing or culture-oriented business or social ventures is a bonus for all of us. 

          6. Dave Pinsen

            No, it wasn’t a “a stab” at you. I happened to have others in mind when I wrote that. But since you’ve jumped in here:1) I do have an idea of where you and Fred came from, since you’ve both written about that.2) I haven’t passed judgment on anyone.3) If you ate bon-bons and shopped, presumably, that would have put money back into the economy as well (more business for the bon-bon manufacturers, no?).4) Women are free to do whatever they like, so if they want to invest in culture-oriented business, social ventures, or invest as angels, I have no problem with it. Nevertheless, my response to Tereza stands, that being able to do so is a mark of higher status than simply being affluent enough to afford to not work. That seems as if it should be as uncontroversial as it is obvious.As for why that statement has gotten you so riled up, that’s a question only you can answer. Perhaps you are imputing more to this thread than is there.

          7. fredwilson

            As jess would say, word

        3. Guest

          Tereza-  Everything you’ve said hits so close to home, way too close actually.  I believe the ultimate status symbol is being able to do whatever you want with your life.   

          1. Francesca Krihely

            So true. Privilege is having options and access

        4. BillSeitz

          One of the many things I like about the movement toward a Network Economy is the greater potential for fractional and home-based employment, so that it’s not a binary “stay home” vs “have a job” decision.

          1. Tereza

            I agree 100%

    5. fredwilson

      So much to say about this comment Tereza but unlike you I dont have the courage to say it in public. But it rings so true it hurts. Lets find some for coffee next time you are in NYC.

      1. Tereza

        I’m in the city most days now.  We picked up an office that’s right near you.  Just DM me and we’ll find time.

        1. Donna Brewington White

          Oooh — if I come for the meetup (which so far I am planning on)  I want to come see your new space!

          1. William Mougayar

            So its gonna be a Cheers kind of moment on Nov 8th. Let’s have a few of us hardcore AVC’ers go for dinner afterwards.

          2. Donna Brewington White

            I would be so up for that!!!But…wait…I thought it was the 9th!Is there anyone on that end who can coordinate? Do we need to create a separate meetup?I’m very willing to help put the word out but we need a place and time.

          3. William Mougayar

            You’re right- the 9th. I was coming on the 8th. @awaldstein:twitter  and I will co-ordinate. We’ll email.

          4. Tereza

            Crazily I’m double-booked for that evening but if we book a dinner I’d def join you.  Not sure yet if i can make it to the core party.

      2. Tom

        It’s actually technology causing OWS.The internet amplifies everything, so these protests would not happen prior to the information age.There has ALWAYS been a huge gap between wealthy and middle class.

        1. Tereza

          Not that big.  I should dig them up but have seen recent analyses about how the variance is as bad now as it was going into the Great Depression.Let me give you a pedestrian example.  I have a very good friend who grew up in one of the gold coast towns in Fairfield County, CT.  {Sorry I’m trying to skirt around identifying details here}.  Very wealthy town.  Her dad was an ad sales exec for one of the major TV networks.  Affluent family, but not crazy.  We’re not talking waterfront property or anything.  They lived in a 3500 sqft house in a great neighborhood.  Quietly affluent.  The daughter was in pubic school then plugged into private for a few years then back to public.  Belonged to the main country club in town for decades — dad was on the board.  Its membership was a varied mix of well-to-do people (doctors, lawyers, etc.) who loved their golf, tennis and beachfront recreation.  But all in all, modest facilities.Hedge fund mania hits in the last 7-10 years.  House pricing goes nuts, all the houses built are 6,000-10,000 sqft houses.  It gets extremely difficult to get into private schools if you wanted (and you can probably imagine that someone who buys a house like that does not expect themselves to put their kids in Public).  The waiting list for the country club now was a 8 years (initiation fee of $150k).  The newbies had so much more money than the legacies, they push for a radical upgrade to the facility and a universal assessment (fee increase) to the entire membership.  This was for 24/7 access gym, this kind of stuff.Anyway, a couple years ago, my friend’s mom was at an evening mixer event at the club.  She’s like the Grande Dame of the place, since she’s widow of the former board member.She slips on the rug and breaks her arm.  Everyone looks around for someone to help her.  Silence.  THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE.   They haven’t let a doctor in in a few years.  How could a doctor afford it?Meanwhile, economy turns, lots of members withdraw because they can’t afford the assessed fees for the overbuilt clubhouse.  No more waitlist, openings are quietly available.I hardly think that complaining about the state of country clubs is the point of #OWS.  Yes, there’s always been a large wealth gap in the U.S.  But it’s the biggest today that it’s been in post-WWII America.

          1. Dave W Baldwin

            The original message of OWS was ‘No More Bailouts, You’re On Your Own’… that was good, succinct and an achievable message.  Then came the politicians and 5 minute fame people.On the note of stupid home construction, they will get stuck with that stupid house in a no where district.  The lower income can look at square footage more fitting the new world of tech that doesn’t require the same space.As we move into that time frame where folks realize what is needed for the staple, maybe television will be past current ‘I’ll buy my wife/gal airtime on show that promotes greed, vanity and so on’.But, maybe that is up to the 1%.

          2. JLM

            Just read this but what a damn interesting comment and analysis.  Well played!

      3. calabs

        This the time to put your money where your mouth is, Fred. Grow a pair and speak out!

        1. fredwilson

          i don’t think it makes sense to speak out publicly about personal issues with friends

    6. Tom Labus

      Class structure is very real in America. Unspoken of but very real and weird.

    7. RichardF

      I don’t read jealously in any of your comment Tereza.  I appreciate your candour.I think it’s a sad fact of life that spending your life chasing the dollar and the lifestyle that goes with it can make people very dull to be around and the longer they do it, the more dull they become. For me life’s about having fun, having cash to oil the wheel can help but for me the best times are had when I’m spending time with the people I love and that probably involves eating a good meal!

      1. Tereza

        Thanks.  I’m so with you.  Great food, great trips, great friends great convo — what’s better than that?

        1. RichardF

          +1 (I’m still old skool)

    8. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      SOME NO CAN MAKE ENOUGH MONEY FOR GOOD LIFE.SOME MAKE SO MUCH MONEY NO CAN HAVE GOOD LIFE.BOTH PART OF WHAT #OWS REALLY ABOUT.

      1. calabs

        I swear, if one day I find out your real identity is the Dalai Lama I will not be surprised one bit.

        1. sachmo

          Lol…

    9. Prokofy

      I’ve always found being poor to be a kind of a great hobby, too. It gives me lots to talk about and complain about.We had tomato soup for dinner. What did you have?The last ten days of the month are so hard, so hard to stretch that paycheck. The decent bread is $3.59! I do try to get the 99 cent loaves they throw out at 9:00 pm tho.

  90. Robert Thuston

    Fred, I agree with you… we need entrepreneurial minds involved in rethinking government…”By now it has become clear that a developed country can neither extend big government, as the (so-called) liberals want, nor abolish it and go back to nineteenth-century innocence, as the (so-called) conservatives want.  The government we need will have to transcend both groups.  The megastate that this century built is bankrupt, morally as well as financially.  It has not delivered.  But its successor cannot be “small government”.  There are far too many tasks, domestically and internationally.  We need effective government – and that is what the voters in all developed countries are actually clamoring for.For this, however, we need something we do not have:  a theory of what government can do.  No political thinker – at least not since Machiavelli, almost five hundred years ago – has addressed this question….”Peter Drucker (1995), management and society author @fakegrimlock:disqus I see you answering comments.  what you think about this?

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      HMMM… ME TYPE REPLY. IT GO AWAY. ME BLAME INTERNET.ME SAY TIME FOR BITS REVOLUTION.GOVERNMENT JUST SYSTEM FOR GROUP ACTION. US CAN BUILD BETTER.USE STARTUP MODEL. BUILD NEW TOWNS, NEW TYPE OF GOVERNMENT. SEE WHAT WORK. PROVE NEW MODEL.SCALE UP.

      1. Robert Thuston

        Completely agree.  Experimentation is key.I’ll have to study up on this “bits revolution” you speak of.  That something you can sum up in a few word to get me started?  Not to say you’ve ever had trouble with too many words.

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          POWER NOT IN OWN THINGS NOW.IS IN OWN BITS.THINGS EASY TO HORDE. EASY TO CONTROL. EASY TO TURN INTO POWER FOR FEW.BITS IMPOSSIBLE TO HORDE. IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTROL. NEVER RUN OUT. CREATE POWER FOR ALL. 

    2. sachmo

      Wow… On the subject of Peter Drucker, I was reading his book Innovation and Entrepreneurship (written in 1985!) in the last week.  Intro reads as follows – crazy similar to today:”In the two decades 1965 to 1985… the number of Americans in paid jobs grew in the same period by one-half, from 71 million to 106 million.  The labor force growth was fastest in the second decade of that period, the decade from 1974 to 1984, when total jobs in the American economy grew by a full 24 million.In no other peacetime period has the United States created as many new jobs, whether measured in percentages or in absolute numbers.  And yet the ten years that began with “oil shock” in the late fall of 1973 were years of extreme turbulence, of “energy crises,” of the near-collapse of the “smokestack” industries, and of two sizeable recessions.The American economy is unique.  Nothing like it has happened yet in any other country. Western Europe during the period 1970 to 1984 actually lost jobs, 3 to 4 million of them. In 1970, western Europe still had 20 million more jobs than the United States; in 1984, it had almost 10 million less.  Even Japan did far less well in job creation than the United States….And yet “everyone knows” that the seventies and early eighties were periods of “no growth,” of stagnation and decline, of a “deindustrializing America,” because everyone still focuses on what were the growth areas in the twenty-five years after World War II, the years that came to an end around 1970….By 1984, the Fortune 500 had lost permanently at least 4 to 6 million jobs.  And governments in America, too, now employ fewer people than they did ten to fifteen years ago…  In other words, we have not created 35 million new jobs; we have created 40 million or more, since we had to offset a permanent job shrinkage of at least 5 million jobs in the traditional employing institutions.  And all these new jobs must have been created by small and medium-sized institutions, most of them small and medium-sized businesses, and a great many of them, if not the majority, new businesses that did not even exist twenty years ago….”Ah,” everybody will say immediately, “high-tech.”  But things are not quite that simple.  Of the 40 million jobs created since 1965 in the economy, high techonology did not contribute more than 5 or 6 million…  All the additional jobs in the economy were created elsewhere…We are indeed in the early stages of a major technological transformation, one that is far more sweeping than the most ecstatic of the “futurologists” yet realize… Where did all the new jobs come from?  The answer is from anywhere and nowhere; in other words, from no single source. The magazine Inc., published in Boston, has printed each year since 1982 a list of the one hundred fastest growing, publicly owned American companies more than five years and less than fifteen years old…In 1982, for instance, there were five restaurant chains, two women’s wear manufacturer’s, and twenty health-care providers, but only twenty to thirty high-tech companies.  And whilst America’s newspapers in 1982 ran one article after the other bemoaning the “deindustrialization of America,” a full half of the Inc. firms were manufacturing companies; only one-third were in services.  Although word had it in 1982 that the Frost Belt was dying, with the Sun Belt the only possible growth area, only one one-third of the “Inc 100″ that year were in the Sun Belt…  The Inc. lists for 1983 and 1984 showed a very similar distribution, in respect both to industry and to geography….Management is the new technology (rather than any specific new science or invention) that is making the American economy into an entrepreneurial economy.  It is also about to make America into an entrepreneurial society…”     I’m struck by how similar the tone sounded to today.  I wonder how many traditional jobs have been permanently lost and how many non-traditional jobs are being created to fill their place that are never spoken about by the media, because all we here is doom and gloom…   I think what Drucker talked about is only accelerating… The people that create value will be rewarded handsomely coming out of this.  And hopefully they’ll create enough jobs to drag everyone else along with them…

      1. Robert Thuston

        I think you’re right.  Drucker would be proud of the Lean Start up methodology… “Management is the new technology (rather than any specific new science or invention) that is making the American economy into an entrepreneurial economy.  It is also about to make America into an entrepreneurial society…”

  91. SubstrateUndertow

    552 comments so far.WOW!Zen master taps into an emotional substrate undertowEven link bait doesn’t usually get this much action.

  92. Gabriel Griego

    Fred et al,As a long time reader of this blog, but rarely a commenter, I’m compelled to say that this community gives me hope. The fact that some of the 1% cares (as represented by so many here), gives me hope. I’d like to see my kids inherit a better country, but the way we’ve been going for the past 10 years has been so discouraging.I love the thought of an “actionable ideas” post Fred. I’d like to know what I can do to help.

    1. ShanaC

      Gabriel – thanks. I realized very late tonight no matter how hard these discussions are, y’all give me hope that things will get better. Thanks for putting it into better words.

  93. Gabriel Griego

    LE, The part of Cuban’s post that I was thought was insightful was to challenge the notion that increasing shareholder value by laying off workers was not actually increasing shareholder value in the long run. I think he’s right on about that. We need people to be employed. We’re all so intertwined now that collectively we’re better off if corporate profits aren’t as high, but unemployment is low. Wall St. may not be as happy about that, but then I guess that’s what OWS is about … that what makes Wall St. happy is not necessarily good for our country as a whole.

  94. Gabriel Griego

    Thanks Shana.

  95. paramendra

    Occupy http://goo.gl/fb/cEZ2D

    1. Dave Pinsen

      Why not have enough respect for other members of this community to describe what you are linking to? Posting one word followed by a link to your blog is lame.

  96. bernardlunn

    What impresses me is the entrepreneurial energy of many of the OWS folks. They self organize, create systems and processes, get the message out by savvy use of media. You hear that story all the time from Israeli entrepreneurs who had forged bonds and learned skills in the military. I hope/predict that at some point in the not too distant future, Fred will meet a founding team and ask “how did you meet?” and they will say they met and learned to trust and respect each other at OWS.

    1. Dave Pinsen

      And then maybe their company will be a huge success, and will become a target of future OWS protests as a corporation that’s part of the “plutocracy”. The circle of life. 

      1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        GET MONEY BY CREATE VALUE?NOT TARGET. #OWS LOVE YOU.TARGET ONLY IF GET MONEY BY DESTROY VALUE.

        1. Dave Pinsen

          That’s what the Communists said, and they proceeded to eliminate everyone who “didn’t create value”, in their estimation: middlemen, bankers, etc. And when they were done, everyone was worse off. No surprise that the Communist party of America supports the OWS protests. The Nazi party does too, which might be the first time those groups agreed on anything since the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.________________________________

          1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            GIANT CHIP ON SHOULDER BLOCK VISION, CAN ONLY SEE ONE SIDE.

          2. Dave Pinsen

            No chip on my shoulder, Grim, just some familiarity with history.________________________________

          3. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            ALL POSTS ON PAGE BITTER, ANGRY, DESCRIBE ANYONE THAT DISAGREE IN DEHUMANIZING, BELITTLING TERMS.IT COMMON SYMPTOMS OF SHOULDER-MOUNTED CHIP.MAYBE SHOULD TAKE SICK DAY, RELAX, SEE IF IT CLEAR UP?

          4. Dave Pinsen

            Accusing others, absent evidence, of bitterness, anger, and having chips on their shoulders, etc., is itself belittling. Perhaps you should take your own advice and take a day off?________________________________

  97. 4thaugust1932

    US companies are evading taxes by opening/operating an office in Ireland.But US citizens must pay income tax to US Gov while working in Ireland.Insider trading is legal to US Congress members.And insider trading is illegal to US Citizens.How long this hypocrisy will continue?http://www.cnbc.com/id/4347

  98. Mark Essel

    Great discussions all around this post. Not enough time to comment on (nor read) them all, but I’m not in the 1% nor the 99% (bad math).I recognize a globe of monolithic governments and banks struggling to remain relevant to rapidly changing economies and societies which are quick to adapt new norms. The world I was born into is no longer recognizable.It’s a new world with new rules. We can begin to affect positive change by supporting new investment and lending models. Pooling capital to lend to entrepreneurs works when banks fail.

  99. Carl J. Mistlebauer

    Since the repeal of Glass Steagall Act we have gone from one bubble to the next; now you can gyrate yourself into all sorts of positions on government regulation that you want to but the reality is bubbles are not healthy.It is predicted that the next bubble will be student loans.  Every place you look there is pressure to lower costs, except in the “industries” of healthcare and higher education.  We have raced to promote free markets and pass trade legislation that opens up vast markets and we are still, as of last week promoting them on the idea that we will be able to buy even cheaper goods and that these laws will create jobs and a higher standard of living in our country through the creation of higher paying jobs.The reality is the opposite.  Yes, we have access to cheaper goods but wages have not kept up with inflation and thus we are buying cheaper goods with less dollars.  Globalization and free markets has led to nothing more than our labor must compete with foreign labor thus our economy is in a race to the bottom.Then of course you have the issue of a slow growing economy attempting to maintain its self as a military superpower http://www.businessinsider….The reality is that you cannot maintain social order, which benefits everyone, when the benefits of the social order are limited to only a few.  http://www.businessinsider….Supply side economics and the concept of a rising tide raising all ships has not happened.At one time this country glorified a job well done, we respected work.  We believed that with success came a responsibility and an obligation.  Now we have gated communities and we mock the OWS for starting a class war….I always believed that those with the most to lose had the greatest obligation to ensure that the system benefited everyone.  Now those with the most to lose believe that it is time that the poor pay taxes…..Personally, I think more people need to read John Steinbeck’s “Grapes Of Wrath” rather than Ayn Rand.If I was in the 1% I would take the protests on Wall Street very seriously, its better to be safe than sorry….I spent a lot of time in the Philippines during the Marcos years and I cannot help but notice a glaring similarity between our economic system and theirs, our beacon of capitalism and a corrupt, vile third world economy.  For a little history, in the 50’s and 60’s the Philippines were viewed as the next economic powerhouse in Asia, and their economy was actually ahead of the Japanese but they never achieved their potential….I cannot help but notice the similarities with the United States today.The real issue is not why the OWS is in the street but rather what took them so long….   

  100. Rick Star

    Mixed feelings. On the one hand,  the time is ripe for changes. And the protests – a signal not only economic but also political elite about necessity of changes. On the other hand – do not want to protest turned into vandalism and entertainment centers of hooligans. As it was summer in England, for example.Well, in general, end up in a bad way for politicians. The problem of “the rich get richer and the rest – get poorer” loomed and discussed a long time ago. Different governments, different presidents decided it the same way – not at all. Face it was terrible in terms of funding cuts in the election campaign, and in terms of difficulties in the fundamental change in the political and economic systems. Now, according to the mind, the resolution of this problem looks like a treatment for late-stage disease. With all the consequences. Waited, damn.

  101. Stevengermain1

    During the Eisenhower administration (1953 – 1961), the tax rate on the richest Americans was 91 percent. With tax rates high, the wealthy built factories and bought new equipment and hired workers. The economy boomed. High tax rates on the wealthy seem to have turned them into better job creators then than the low tax rates we have now.Just to be clear:Earned income is income made from a job.Capital gains, in contrast, is money made from the appreciation in value of something one owns (assets such as stocks, property, art, …), rather than money earned from a job.Average families gets most of their income from their jobs, and thus the tax rate on earned income is most important to them. The wealthy get most of their income from the appreciation of assets, and thus the tax rate on capital gains is more important to them. (Side Note: salaries paid to managers of Venture Capital Funds, Hedge Funds, and Private Equity Funds are classified as “carried interest” and taxed at the lower capital gains rate. There is no justification for this and it amazes me. PS – a lot of corporations structure their executive compensation in ways that enable them to also pay tax at the lower rate or in tax deferred retirement accounts (neither of which are available to non-executive salaried employees).It is considered to be almost gospel today that capital gains should be taxed at the far lower rate of 15%. This is why the middle and working class, who are dependant on earned income, effectively pay taxes at a higher rate than do the wealthy. By the way, a higher capital gains rate would encourage long term investment because capital gains tax is not paid until the sale of the asset.In 1953 – 1961, capital gains were not treated differently from earned income, so the rich paid 91% tax on capital gains. Since then the rate has dropped from 91% to 15% – makes no sense – but if you earned most of your money from investment income – it sure is favorable to your personal pocketbook. If most of your income is from your job – it sure seems unfair that you pay a higher rate on your income than a wealthy person does on their income.

  102. William Mougayar

    Update from Occupy Bay street this morning. 6am – Radio reports were told that protesters will gather at 7am & start moving towards Bay street 7am – “No sign of movement. They appear to be still sleeping in their tents.”:)

    1. William Mougayar

      I went to Bay/King, the epicenter of the gathering this morning at 8AM, and there were 4 protesters, 6 TV vans, and 12 policemen. Either the Canada OWS doesn’t have any legs, or they are still sleeping and late to work. 

      1. Tom Labus

        Is it cold?

        1. William Mougayar

          Not really. 10C / 50F.

  103. Tom Labus

    What an extraordinary day for the AVC community.Thanks Fred and and everyone here.  I don’t know what just happened over the last 24 hrs but this is no longer a blog.  

    1. fredwilson

      It hasnt been for a whileAnd im so happy about that

    2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      ^DINO UP!

      1. William Mougayar

        Good morning 🙂

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          IT NO MORNING! IT NIGHT!ME KNOW, BECAUSE IT NOT FULL OF GRIMLOCK FIX IMPOSSIBLE PROBLEMS STUPID PERSON IN SUIT MAKE.

          1. William Mougayar

            I know. Was just teasing you :)Super Dino Grimlock

          2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            WHAT? TEASE? ME SMASH!……MAYBE AFTER MORE COFFEE. 

  104. anonymos

    The Kakapo Effect”Around 70 million years ago, the kakapo diverged from the genus Nestor. In the absence of mammalian predators, it lost the ability to fly. Because of Polynesian and European colonisation and the introduction of predators such ascats, rats, ferrets, and stoats, the Kakapo was almost wiped out. Conservation efforts began in the 1890s, but they were not very successful until the implementation of the Kakapo Recovery Plan in the 1980s” – Wikipedia”Perceptions vary as to the specific goals of the movement.[36] According to Adbusters, a primary protest organizer, the central demand of the protest is that President Obama “ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington”.[18] Liberal commentator Michael Moore had suggested that this is not like any other protest but this protest represents a variety of demands with a common statement about government corruption and the excessive influence of big business and the wealthiest 1% of Americans on U.S. laws and policies.[37] The belief is held by some protesters that the President has become irrelevant, stressing the importance for the 99% to lead and inspire change”  

  105. WA

    So there is the 1%. And then there is the 99%? There seems to be a bell curve argument somewhere in there.

    1. Cam MacRae

      More like chi-squared distribution with 4 degrees of freedom.

  106. Bala

    Give free WiFi access to everyone in the protest and let them get occupied with doing something worthwhile. It is very easy to sucked into a movement when there is energy but what is the purpose and where is the dialogue going to come from?IMHO, I don’t believe even one of the protestors fall in the entrepreneur category as we don’t have time to complain about what is wrong with the system as we are busy changing our state and the system.

  107. Akira Hirai

    I’m sure many others have said this before, but one of the root causes of all of the failed institutions and imbalances is the effect of money in politics. Simply getting money out of politics would go a long way towards shifting from a plutocracy towards a meritocracy.

  108. 4thaugust1932

    Print/circulate/use your own banknotes exclusively among your communityhttp://goo.gl/YSuTF

  109. Eric Brooke

    I often think people divide themselves unhelpfully into political camps/dimensions e.g. right or left. Governance and humans interact in a much more complex manner.  The fact you have some affinity puts you into the 99% e.g. I care about the 99% and I want to help.  For me the 1% is about the people yes who are rich but don’t care about 99%.

  110. ceonyc

    It *kills* me that the unions are marching with them.  It’s no wonder the union leaders are pointing at CEOs, while at the same time negotiating ever increasing and financially unsustainable pension benefits. 

    1. Tereza

      I agree, Charlie.They’re killing the industries they’re in, and can’t get started in the industries where they could actually provide benefit (fast food, slaughterhouses). 

  111. NYMarKon

    OWS is asking questions, it’s the human condition – answers arenot. Now, how loudly OWS asks is my question. All great revolutions start withthe questions. Fred, you run a good show here thanks. Tereza, Smokin hot site you’vegot too…[email protected]

    1. Tereza

      Thanks!

  112. markslater

    i say – stop your urban camping and pull a james clavelle.withdraw your money.you will get a reaction.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      NO LIKE BIG EVIL BANK? TAKE ALL MONEY OUT, GIVE TO LOCAL LITTLE BANK. OR SHUT MOUTH, GO HOME. #OWS

      1. markslater

        if people did that GRIM – they would get a far quicker response. running a bank will get attention.I did it last week

  113. rfradin

    Personally I liked this article about Occupy Wall Street: http://www.parenting.com/bl…

    1. MikeSchinkel

      And I personally *really* liked all the most “Like”d comments on that blog post…

    2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      YOU SPELL “THOUGHT WAS TOTALLY MISINFORMED AND IGNORANT” WRONG.NO FEEL BAD, IT COMMON MISTAKE ON INTERNET.

  114. Bryan J Wilson

    Fred, I think you’re doing more than enough to ensure “intelligent progressive change” in the world. I’m a part of that 99%, yet I don’t find a whole lot in #OWS that I can relate to. I am far more interested in improving our institutions (or creating newer, better ones) than joining a massive pep rally with seemingly no direction. Maybe #OWS will find its voice and point us toward real change, but I haven’t seen that yet. It’s kind of a bummer, but that shouldn’t stop the rest of us who want to have a voice too.

  115. LJL

    Funny how there’s no Occupy American Airlines Arena, where the likes of LeBron make 24M a year salary, along with multiple millions more for their face and presence, running around and throwing a ball.That is seriously messed up.

  116. Nick

    While the OWS movement might be pigeonholed into being a leftist movement, it really isn’t. The OCCUPY movement is an idea, and we all know how dangerous those are.

  117. Locally

    Great post. The same has been occupying our minds, too. We wish we had access to the people who helped revive America after the Depression in the 1930s — to ask them what exact behavior did they really change back then.

  118. William Mougayar

    Interesting tidbit from the Eqentia Twitter Engagement Leaderboard, this Salman Rushdie’s tweet is on top and has been re-tweeted 375 times in the past 24 hours:salmanrushdie: Again:I found protesters at #OWS intelligent, caring, idealistic, thoughtful. Much of the hostility they face is the antithesis of all that.http://portal.eqentia.com/o

  119. Matt Smith

    Comments seem to be messed up in my browser, so I couldn’t follow the stream as far as I had hoped, but wanted to add my two cents.  I think the OWS crowd suffers from a lack of identity that is going to subject it to manipulation by the very forces it is protesting against. Media, unions, government – many of the current halls of power in society are looking to use this as a way of increasing their power at the expense of a rival.  No clear goals or solutions means they can appeal to a lot of varied people, with a lot of differing viewpoints, just like the early tea party movement, but it also leads to factions and manipulation by “spokespeople” who aren’t necessarily representative of the beliefs of the group as a whole, also like the tea party.

  120. Gabriel Griego

    Best comment I’ve heard about this, from a friend, who’s a Mom of a pre-schooler and a kindergartner. Her thought on the imbalances of the 1% vs. the 99%, that have spawned the OWS? “Most people never really learn how to share.” 🙂

  121. Scott

    “I’d like to do what I can do to help make sure that change is intelligent progressive change taking us forward to a new prosperity, not backward into a false hope for a time that has passed and is not coming back.”If you are serious about this in the context of OWS, I think you could help to spread the message the VCers who continue to try to heavily skew financial rewards towards the entrepreneurs in a way that is indefensible vis a vis the rest of the employees, are contributing to the gross inequality that one day will cave in on itself. 

  122. Joe Bill Schirtzinger

    I suppose I don’t see it so much as a rich vs poor problem so much as a values problem. I’ve talked a little about this on my blog, but in essence I don’t think people have a problem so much with those who EARN their money. The problem is more that beyond a certain level, it is difficult to “break through” because the values seem to favor money over people. So, if you are trying to figure out how to “bridge the divide” I think you probably already have by virtue of having some compassion for the problems they are voicing. My blog weblink is http://www.lifewisdomcorner.com in case anyone feels the need to check it out.

  123. Simple Simon

    Is it about money?  Or the GFC? Or about bankers? The movement needs a voice, it’s all over the place, but this was interesting:http://www.facebook.com/pag

  124. leigh

    Best explanation of #occupywallstreet so powerful – sorry if someone else posted (with 782 comments and counting hard to tell) but i thought i should come back and post it — Alan Grayson explains occupywallstreet in 1 minute to PJ ORourck http://www.youtube.com/watc…

    1. MikeSchinkel

      Great video, thanks for sharing it.

  125. Steven Kane

    i fear whatever good may have arisen out of this movement is in danger of being overwhelmed by the clowns and bigots and haters that are hanging out, enjoying the opportunity to openly spew bile…http://www.washingtonpost.chttp://pajamasmedia.com/tat

    1. Blsavini

      I’ve been wandering around reading and responding to alot of the articles dealing with this and there’s openly spewed bile coming from ALL sides, and very little of ANYBODY trying to look at opposing points of view.Lord knows that based upon income I AM firmly within the 99%. people are scared. People are OFFENDED when it appears that the overall advise is that the 99% are expected to adhere to higher moral, ethical, and finacially responsible decisions than is expected from the 1%I see the problems being across a plethora of areas that “may have culminated” in the need for the bailouts and the ensueing collateral damage that is our unacceptable unemployment and under employment rates.I see most people still trying to place blame, with ANYBODY that doesn’t include themselves. <—- THIS approach is going to solve NOTHING.The insurance industry has played a part in some of the out of control business and employee costs via healthcare insurance.The importance of “good numbers” within the stock market is crucial because so many people’s retirements ar tied up within un guarenteed 401K plans.The writing WAS on the wall when our housing market was the main forc behind the Stock Market numbrs, and how anyone wasn’t able to foresee a mortgage meltdown to be, as jobs were being outsourced when the conditions behind the VERY MARKETED sub prime mortgages were just about ready to shift.Tech is a double edged sword because “IT” has also played a part in job loss, and from my perspective a declining standard of true customer service.This country NEEDS to figure out how to kick start profitable manufacturing that employs American labor and figures out a way to pay wages that are capable of paying real life expences.We as a nation need to raise the standards bar on the educational process. I rturned to school in my mid 40’s, at the start of the new milenium. Personally I am appalled at what I saw, regarding actual teaching skills, and some of the practices from too many professors regarding the actual reading of test questions inlieu of a given test review.I have been self employed for over 20 years and am unwilling to hand out my credit rating or be tested to be screened for drugs, cigarettes,alcohal and more importantly PHARMACEUTICAL DRUG LEVELS. These areas were once deemed privaledged and PRIVATE information.On the flip side, it isn’t right to condemn successful people, who made choices and probably worked like dogs to achieve their success. That winds up being a form of reverse prejudice.The top tier, though needs to recognise and respect the fact that not everybody wants to be entrapreneurial, nor has the talents to do so. There needs to be a greater sense of obligation from the top towards the capabilities and mind sets of the support teams.The BLAME GAMES need to stop. Obama blames congress/republicans. The Tea Party essentially is trying to trash the democrats. There are those putting the blame on communism, hippy movements, the greed and intermingling of the money classes in conjuntion with the “paid off” government officials.The entirety of this mess was 30+ years in the making, and its going to take awhile to untangle the mess.I believe that every single person needs to rethink their given belief sets and comfort zones, and examine the parts that they may have inadvertantly played in the mess that is now AMERICA.”WE” had 1 solid generation of prosperity. <—- THAT’s SHAMEFUL.You AIN’T seen the beginnings of UGLY, yet.

  126. syntheticzero

    I think you’re an honorable man, Mr. Wilson, someone who has supported a lot of great causes,  including DonorsChoose, where I have worked in the past. I’d say a few things about your post…First, obviously no one can read the minds of everyone at the protests, but from what I’ve been reading and from my conversations with people involved, the bulk of the anger is not at wealthy people per se but at those who people perceive as wealthy but who have acquired their wealth not by helping to build real businesses (either by starting and running them, or by directly investing in them, as VCs do), but those who have profited by playing what is essentially a gambling game with the markets, taking what appears to many people to be something akin to a rake at a casino. I mean, I personally am not in favor of banning all such practices but I do think that there is very good reason to suggest that if there has to be such economic activity, it ought to be regulated to the point that it has much less chance of destabilizing the economy as a whole (Canadian banks, for instance, didn’t have the problems ours and much of Europe’s did, precisely because their banking regulations are a lot more stringent than ours.)As for unions, I don’t doubt that many unions have become corrupt and entrenched. But unions have a long history in this country and many of them were instrumental in gaining decent wages and benefits for working people. As you know, wages have stagnated or dropped for nearly everyone in the country, even as incomes for the top earners have skyrocketed as American productivity has gone up. It seems to me that there’s something fundamentally unbalanced about a system in which all the rewards for increased productivity go nearly entirely to the wealthy. Workers ought to get a cut of that.I read an article which suggested that when a reporter did an informal poll of #OWS protesters, the one industry they had at least somewhat positive feelings about was the tech industry. That’s the industry you and I both work in (I as an entrepreneur and engineer, you as a VC). That’s because I think we are building things that contribute positively to people’s lives, and in our industry we have a tradition of rewarding the people who actually build the business; if it’s successful, everyone wins, even the receptionist. That’s a model I think many other industries ought to begin to follow.The question is, should businesses exist only for the shareholders? Or for the managers? For the employees? Or for the customers? They should exist for all of them. That’s what business used to be in this country, but in recent decades “Greed is Good” has become the catch phrase. And that’s not aimed, I think, so much at people like you, it’s aimed at people who have gotten outsized rewards for productivity improvements which ought to have been shared with the employees as a whole. This is not just a matter of fairness: it’s a matter of long-term viability of the country. If workers don’t make a decent living, there won’t be anyone to buy the products we are making, and the country as a whole will slide into decline. As it seems to many it may be doing already.

    1. MikeSchinkel

      Linked elsewhere by @jameshrh:disqus, this post by @mcuban:twitter argues that focusing on shareholders only is not in the shareholder’s best interest. I think I might agree:http://blogmaverick.com/201

      1. laurie kalmanson

        shorter: if you kill the golden goose you won’t get any more golden eggs

  127. FAKE GRIMLOCK

    THREAD SO BIG, IT BREAK GRIMLOCK’S SCROLL BAR!

    1. Tom Labus

      DISQUS need your help.

      1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        THEM GETTING IT.

  128. Dave Pinsen

    The Financial Times published an analysis piece on Monday that’s relevant to this discussion and worth reading, “A Workshop on the wane”. That article describes how China’s economic model, that worked so well for it for decades, is becoming less viable, and that China’s leaders understand this and are trying to transition to a different growth model (one based less on exports and infrastructure and more on internal consumption supported by a social safety net).In contrast, there seems to be little recognition that our growth model of the last few decades is becoming less viable. To over simplify, we need to become more like the Chinese economy of the last few decades (developing infrastructure, manufacturing, and exports; saving and investing rather than borrowing), and the Chinese need to be more like us (more social welfare spending, more consumer spending, etc.).

  129. iamronen

    As usual I am late to the party … too busy preparing for winter to respond live … though I do take pleasure in having time to reflect and read comments before responding.There seems to be some kind of “current existence” in which the OWS is taking place, I am not a part of it so I can’t pretend to understand or analyze it. However there are signs of it all over the world, including where I am (actually some very interesting signs here … because its all very early stage!).My first reaction was amusement … I think that the dynamics of the comments reflect a kind of intellectual-masturbation that strengthens the “current existence”. You are allowed to feel that “you care” and you aren’t allowed to really do anything about it … its a powerfully strapped down existence.It would be great if the “current existence” could evolve into “something better” … but what if, at first, that “something better” may not appear to be “intelligent progressive change”. You Fred of all people know that sometimes a startup starts heading in a direction that seems to everyone like “intelligent progressive change” and yet it can fail but sometimes morph into something (a little or a lot different) which may even go beyond “intelligent progressive change” into a “feel good all over disruption kind of thing” success.It seems to me, from reading your last paragraph, that you are willing to take this kind of gamble with startups but not with your life. The thing is that you can choose to not take this gamble because you are in the 1% that can make that choice. You hide behind intellect by setting a precondition “intelligent progressive change” but that won’t work. The “current existence” includes you and when it changes you will too … willingly or against your will. My instincts tell me that if you actually dig into the flesh and make an honest effort to support the coming change that you may have to go down into the crawl space beneath your life and check the foundations and find that some of them are shaky. You won’t like it at first … but that’s where you will find change.Change does not discriminate. Being in the 1% may mean you can avoid it for a longer period of time … but that is just a delay tactic not a strategic move.The sun is coming out and melting the frost … looks like I’ll be able to work on our cabinets today 🙂

  130. Earbits

    I don’t have it in me to read every comment but those I have seem to be leaving out what I believe is one of the most powerful motivations of the OWS movement.  It is not just about the disparity between the 1% and the 99%, it is that while the rich complain about class warfare when it’s proposed that they pay more in taxes, they literally steal money from the hands of Americans through systemic abuse of both their position of power to influence our government and the vulnerability of our country to economic collapse, a situation they are all too smart to not have known was coming.This movement is not really about the 1%. It’s about the 0.1%. The 0.1% don’t just have an unfair advantage to profit from the American system, they lobby to avoid responsibility for how they treat resources that belong to the people.  They abuse people and animals through pollution and government supported cover ups of their practices.  They caused one of the largest economic collapses in the history of our country and, instead of having charges brought against them, were handed checks that were distributed as bonuses to the very people who caused the problem with no repercussions for that either.  The list of offenses that the super wealthy have taken against the general public in the past couple decades has become too much for anyone to ignore and it’s not about economic inequality, it’s about raiding marijuana stores for providing cancer patients with relief, while simultaneously raiding federal coffers to bail out corporations that caused more harm to the American public than any drug in history ever has.This post says “Whether it be the tea party on the right or the #OWS on the left,” but this is not a right or left movement.  OWS is every single person who is tired of watching the 0.1% not just grow wealthier, but abuse our people through manipulation of our government.  It’s everyone who’s realizing that, if we don’t do something, the power only grows, the financial inequality only helps to fuel that growth in power, and our complacence and naive hope that someone will do something on their own only further justifies the mindset that we don’t deserve to be treated any better.Financial inequality is unavoidable in a place where one can lift themselves up and create a life for themselves that is only limited by the lengths they’re willing to work to bring it to fruition.  That’s a place where most people want to live and I don’t think anybody is angry at people who have achieved more with their lives.  It is the constant efforts by, not the 1%, but the 0.1% of the super wealthy, and namely the corporations, to not just create economic inequality but to do it in such a way that it is nothing short of tyrannical fascism that the 99% have lost patience with.  The opportunity to fair treatment as part of the 99%, and the fair opportunity to become the 1% is what OWS is about – and it starts with ending abuse.  It has little or nothing to do with wages alone.  It has to do with the all-too-obvious war being waged on the 99% that the media doesn’t report on, that the government doesn’t defend us against, that the corporations continue pushing, and that has, in recent years, gone from being at least partially behind the scenes, to being so blatant and unapologetic that the people have finally had no choice but to respond to it.Wall Street should consider themselves lucky that this movement is peaceful.  The government had better realize that it is not going to stay that way when it gains too much momentum.  OWS is not about inequality, it is about systemic injustice and the refusal to take it laying down any longer.  I hope our government realizes it before it gets further out of hand.

    1. Blsavini

      Bravo!

    2. Gabriel Griego

      Well said!

  131. Blsavini

    I was wondering when “this” would be your blog entry, and have been wandering in and out of Twitter, looking for it.I’ve browsed through your original post and the comments twice, and have been reading quite a few of the online articles and ensueing commentary that is dealing with OWS.Your entry HAS been the most civilized, and the commentary has shown that thought is being given to the root problems. It is gratifying to see that the commentary has NOT STOOPED to juvenile bouts of name calling and insults, which only winds up polarising what needs to become some level of a “common goal”.I do hope that you can keep the comment opportunies open for awhile. I spent my morning coffee/online time reading, and am hoping to add some input. I need some time to reflect and to  think through what has been said.

    1. fredwilson

      comments stay open for 20 days (i think)we may hit 1000 comments before it gets closed

      1. Blsavini

        I see Etsy as having a wonderful potential towards creating some of the solutions, but feel that it would be improper to bring anything up here.I would like to send you an email with some of my, and other sellers perspectives.

        1. fredwilson

          Pls do

          1. Blsavini

            I am a HAPPY CAMPER, over this response!!!!I need some time to organise my thoughts, think through what “I” see as strengths and weaknesses of the site and would like to talk with some of the sellers, to getI see Etsy as having SO MUCH POTENTIAL in addressing some of the problems, that are plagueing America.:) I have a project with teeth in it. I am so psyched!!!

          2. Blsavini

            Inset the following after “to get”:suggestions and oppinions that didn’t make “My radar”.

  132. 4thaugust1932

    The root cause is Economic mobility and Social mobility are mutually exclusive in globalized world.

  133. Eunice Apia

    I’m currently taking Graphic and Web classes a block away from the protest on Wall Street, but I can’t say I’m interested in venturing over to the protest. For some reason, I’m on the fence about the protest. I’ve yet to decide how I feel about the poor or rich. I’m emotionally removed…why?It’s a long story. I miss the days when we had beads and maize. Oh wait! That wasn’t my ancestors.

  134. Eunice Apia

    P.S., I’m trying to figure out if the protest is about Wants or Needs? Both are important but in different ways.I wish the people who are protesting would rather go to Asia, get an education, get pointers on how to create/manage companies. Come back to America and make a sh*t load of money for America. If someone were to ask me that is what I would say.I think Americans can learn alot more from other countries. This whole 9 to 5 is not working. People work more hours but make less money. How does that make sense? Off course they would be upset. Americans need more nap time. That is the answer. More sleep, less work.

  135. Noah

    http://www.youtube.com/watc…David Suzuki’s opinion on this movement.In case you did not know he is a very intelligent man (http://www.davidsuzuki.org/)We are more interested on how this will affect employment,Jobbook.com is a employment matching app, but Jobbooknews, which brings you the video above, is focused on informing people.Which is why we love Fred and grim and fake grim and all discussions here

  136. artyowza

    On new trends…..Did you see this tumblr?We are the 1%.We stand by the 99%http://westandwiththe99perc…

  137. Dave Pinsen

    For those who missed, it President Clinton’s pollster Doug Schoen polled a random sample of 200 OWS protesters and shared what he found in this WSJ op/ed.

    1. COMRADITY

      This is action worth learning more about.  I hope the words and ideas expressed here increase the momentum for these kind of ideas.  Thanks so much for sharing this.K

      1. Carl J. Mistlebauer

        K.I am embarking on my fourth “start up” and this time I am planning ahead rather than just jumping into the most exciting opportunity. I have been seriously considering establishing it as a B Corporation; I have always been way ahead of my time in my industry and its now time to acknowledge the fact and incorporate it into the company purpose.

  138. Prokofy

    Why don’t you ask your new tech pals down there at OWS why they have to hide the name of the registrar of occupywallstreet.org What, aren’t they for, um, radical transparency and personal accountability? Doesn’t it start at home? And ask those Anonymous e-thugs coming off the Internet still wearing their masks whether they really think the rest of us in their much-ballyhooed “99 percent” are going to follow masked terrorists *anywhere*. No thank you.I’ve gone to three of their marches and also talked to them. And as I’m not looking at them through rose-coloured classes, and looking at them as a veteran of many, many nonprofit, NGO, movement groups and causes over the last 30 years, I have to say I am seriously disturbed by the rampant Bolshevism I see here.The lefty bloggers knocked Schoen’s poll, but here’s the horrible part they are mum about:31 percent of those 200 people polled were willing to use violence to get their way.31 percent want VIOLENCE, Fred.98 percent are willing to use civil disobedience — and that’s frankly violence, too.With people like *that*, yeah, you’re going to get lots of police.I’ve studied their leaked emails and signs and platforms and written a lot here:http://3dblogger.typepad.cohttp://3dblogger.typepad.co…It was the anarchist Bakunin who first thought up the term “creative destruction”. Schumpeter took it from him.

    1. fredwilson

      yeah, i don’t think you’d like their communist vibe

    2. Guest

      civil disobedience = violence?  LOL!!!!

  139. Whirled Peas

    Mr. Wilson, I think that you can relate to this movement regardless of your own personal wealth because Occupy Wall Street is about shedding light on: corruption, white collar crime, arrogance, and recklessness. It is about people benefitting from the infrastructure of our country to accumulate wealth –then using loopholes to avoid paying taxes that maintain, repair and upgrade that infrastructure for the next generations. It is also about the behavior of choosing short term profits that benefit the few and the greedy, over the long term sustainability of our culture and our resources. It’s about the creation of a system that generates and maintains dysfunction because profits can be guaranteed on both sides of the equation for investors. And finally, it’s about the kind of people and activities we value.  I have worked as a preschool/k teacher in the inner city. I have attended baptisms and birthday parties in order to be a responsible mentor and role model for younger people in my community. I work 70+ hour weeks and after 20 years, have yet to make over 30k as an annual salary. The military offer life and limb, and foster care workers have unmanageable caseloads. This country is full of talented and hardworking people who are dedicated to their careers. Unfortunately, in the current political climate, we are in the process of further de-valuing all but certain “types” of work (and people).   I recently attended a business seminar and the speaker gave instructions for legally padding expense accounts by claiming all deductions that did not require a receipt (such as for dry cleaning, etc.), as well as how to earn extra points on personal frequent flyer miles by booking more expensive flights (when the company pays the tab). Yet, these same people will talk about how they worked their way up the ladder…how they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and how they did it “all on their own.” I know for a fact that they did not sew their own clothes, build their own homes, or pave the streets they drive on.  I do not begrudge a person for their wealth. I only mind when those with wealth use their money to abuse and manipulate the system. I do not think that everyone should earn the “same” amount of money regardless of their contribution. But I don’t think that it is healthy to value only “one” kind of person in a society. Florida’s governor Rick Scott gave voice to the idea that college loans should be restricted to people in certain fields (and claimed that anthropology is a useless degree).  There is more to this country that financiers and manufacturers.  For an academic’s perspective you can listen to Harvard’s Lawrence Lessig http://thedianerehmshow.org… For a link to a FANTASTIC inner city school: http://edcschool.org/

    1. MikeSchinkel

      Wow. I just wanted to say your comment was a very powerful description of what is wrong: corruption, white collar crime, arrogance, and recklessness. Our republic currently punishes you (financially) for all your positive efforts because you don’t look to take advantage of the system. And yet it rewards the manipulators like the many people who I’m sure were in rap attention at the business seminar you mentioned, and especially the ones like that who are in the 1%.I like your link to @lessig:twitter ; I wish more people would pay attention to his proposals as I think he’s got some of the best plans for positive change.

  140. Andy

    Of the most interest to me is that your Occupy post has 1000 comments! Though I have not dived in yet, I would think that I will be able to read opinions here from BOTH sides (Those for, and those against).Fascinates me to recognize that should you ever want to, you could likely hire an editor and spin your posts+comments into books 🙂

    1. Tom Labus

      You have the full range of political thought here.

  141. pointsnfigures

    I am in the minority on this board.  I think OWS is just another left wing pablum designed to try and get Obama re-elected and divert attention from the real issue.  Big Government. I find it interesting that a bunch of entrepreneurs whines about Ap Stores not being decentralized and flat, invest their money into disruptive businesses that make distribution systems decentralized and flat-yet pour their money into Democratic campaigns that advocate for highly centralized and bureaucratic government. This is a good video explaining the fallacy of income inequality. http://bit.ly/v2qmPjBelieve me, as a market participant for over 20 years I know all is not right with our banking system, or the distribution system of Wall Street.  But most of the problem is centered in the SEC and the other regulatory agencies that write the rules.  Fannie and Freddie were the root causes of the mortgage melt down, the banks responded to incentives.  The government decided to prop up the banks-if we had true capitalism, they would have gone down and some other business would have responded to plug the hole.  If you really want to change things, change the size and scope of government and put society into the hands of entrepreneurs and the free market. Coase Theorem works.

  142. Jay S.

    Great article. I just came across this link which I thought was an interesting take on the #OWS from the flip side:http://on.fb.me/uTmhDH

  143. Kim Ann Curtin

    Fred- Thank you for this post. I believe #OWS needs to be interested in that conversation of “intelligent progressive change” as does the rest of this country as does Wall Street. This is why I began http://www.WallStreet50.com with my colleague Samir Selmanovic. We’ve begun a Quest for 50 Conscious Financiers to do just that. Would you willing to allow us to interview you for this book and blog? 

  144. Samir Selmanovic

    Thank you Fred for this positive post!  1% must be invited to become a part of the solution.  Not all might respond, but many will.  Ultimately, there will be no good business left in a failed society.  Will tweet this right away! 

  145. Aaron Klein

    If government wasn’t in the business of picking winners and losers, corporate and union interests wouldn’t have a financial incentive to ensure they end up on the winning side.Boom. Free speech AND money out of politics.

  146. JLM

    The power of money in elections is an obscenity.The Citizens United ruling turned it into cannibalism.Any major corporation can purchase its own Senators, Reps and soon, President.Can you imagine how cheap it will be to purchase a Senator from, say, Wyoming or N Dakota?The purchase of political clout will become a line item in GAAP.Purchasing coops will be formed to keep the prices down.

  147. Aaron Klein

    I’d like the feds to not declare Solyndra a winner on the basis of lobbying effectiveness, yes.There are plenty of hard details to work out for any wholesale change in our government. But change is still needed.

  148. ShanaC

    @aaronklein:disqus – I rather solyndra go under and money go to green tech overall, just like we did with nuclear and with oil, and with coal, and that we are doing now with Natural Gas Fracking….

  149. Michael Beckner

    Right. I think the answer lies at least in part in something @andyswan:twitter initially wrote, even if I disagree with his post in general: It’s the liberty differential as referenced in the “organizations that are legally taking advantage of the system”.I do applaud success and the right to it; I do not applaud a broad policy that unfairly enables the freedom of one over another. Whether Wall Street has this advantage is certainly part of the problem … But they chose to bet the farm, and that farm was everyone’s and not just theirs. Therein lies the rub.As Mom always says, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something.

  150. Aaron Klein

    Amen.

  151. fredwilson

    yeah, that and a few other things like thathttp://bit.ly/od3Ombhave really bummed me about about Obama and his team

  152. Derick Rhodes

    Best quote on this board so far, and I think sums up the entire equation/OWS nicely: “Democracy is now Capitalism’s bitch”

  153. Matt A. Myers

    CHARLIE FOR PRESIDENT!

  154. harryh

    It’s interesting that you mention Einstein in the same sentence in which you appear to complain that US immigration laws are too lax.  Einstein was, of course, an immigrant.

  155. SmokinApps.com

    test

  156. Vlad

    Why is that during every historic period people felt like the ones before them lived better, if you take for example a paper from 1830 you will be shocked to see that they also relate to things like ‘we live shallow times, it’s not like before anymore’. Can’t we involve human psychology into the equation? We always demand more by offering very little, it’s not only the government who has a problem, the individuals of the society are very much to blame.I recommend everyone reading Paul Graham’s article ‘Stuff’.

  157. gorbachev

    That piece by Bill Moyers is one of the sharpest works of real journalism in the past few decades.Fred talked about institutions failing us. Add the news media onto that list. They’ve done almost nothing to challenge the institutions failing us for decades. Instead they’ve become part of the “institution” with few notable exceptions (Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Bill Moyers to name three).

  158. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

    Really? ” they benefit the many. not the few at the expense of the many” seriously i am going ROFL…. 

  159. Tereza

    At 790 comments and counting, it took me 24 hours to find this gem.

  160. Prokofy

    Did you have a plan for dealing with the Taliban who kill 70 percent of the civilians in the war in Afghanistan?So Obama is not enough of a socialist for you, nor is Pelosi. You should then be honest about your worldview, which is indeed socialism.I honestly wonder if you wealthy liberals ever thing what it will really cost to take care of all the poor people like me.Children’s vaccinations cost ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS for the whole set for a year when they are teenagers. To cite only one huge cost.

  161. Tom Labus

    I don’t know what happened with Obama.  Things were so bad economically that he appointed some of the guys who helped create the mess.Why no one went to the can is beyond me.  Some of these companies looted the country and got a bloody huge bonus.  I’d want to do it again if I got prosecuted like that too.

  162. Matt A. Myers

    We’re close to it not being this way. With technology and everyone being accessible we can have more engagement. It won’t be easy mind you.

  163. Aaron J. Ruckman

    We democratically elect leaders who screw up capitalism.  So, I’d say the opposite is true.

  164. William Mougayar

    Yup. I think “middle” is probably where the right actions will emanate from. Time for a Middle Party to come out of this?

  165. ErikSchwartz

    I agree @JLM:disqus .But I am confused. You know I respect you enormously but your candidate Rick Perry is right in the middle of the money in politics problem.

  166. ShanaC

    If this is the case, why should I bother to vote?  It won’t matter.

  167. sachmo

    Great, so can there be some tacit acknowledgement that this is one of the aims of OWS…?  To get the corporate money out of gov’t?

  168. andyswan

    I am looking forward to hearing the OWS proposed solutions.

  169. andyidsinga

    JLMs complicated like the rest of us :).

  170. JLM

    Like golf, you must play the ball as it lies.I am willing to invest in what I truly know — Perry’s impact on the Tx business environment.Jobs, taxation, regulation, tort reform.I know the guy like a brother.  He is a good man in a shitty funding mechanism.The system of political financing is as obscene as slavery.  But it is THE system.Explain to me why men wear TIES — I really don’t get that.  But I have a closet full of ties.

  171. JLM

    @andyidsinga:disqus Not being clever or witty or self deprecating.JLM is truly a simpleton.  Honestly.  A very, very happy simpleton who has done a lot of stuff — a dazzling amount of stuff he never thought even remotely possible — and still sees the world in a very simple way.Get up early, stay late, work hard, speak the truth, learn your craft, be nice to people.  Learn, learn, learn.Remember you are not shit in the greater scheme of things and be thankful for everything including being lucky.Enjoy life.  Love people.  Love your wife and family.Laugh at yourself.  Drink life in cause you are only coming this way once.  Help every person you possibly can.  There is no downside.Take some risks and see what YOU are made of.  Enjoy the fucking ride!

  172. andyswan

    Cool. I admire their grit thusfar. I hope no one gets violent.

  173. JLM

    It is not the money, it is the mindset.

  174. MikeSchinkel

    Yes, Warren Buffet is also part of the 1%; he is not the target either.

  175. fredwilson

    i want to use our wealth to do goodi don’t want to hoard it

  176. Aaron Klein

    Putting our trust in politicians of any stripe will often result in disappointment.That’s why I think the market gets things right a lot more often than government does.It’s my hope that technology will start empowering our institutions to reflect this reality.

  177. William Mougayar

    Maybe you can help him with your soundbites for his next debate 😉

  178. fredwilson

    i gave up tiesa friend invited me and my wife to dinner this summer at his clubi said “of course”he replied “there is a dress code. coat and tie”i replied “sorry, but we can’t come. i won’t wear a tie”he was pissedbut that’s where i draw the linei’m not going to enjoy dinner and friends being choked by some strange idea of dress code

  179. Matt A. Myers

    Hehe. It’s not as hard as you think – you just surround yourself in people who have similar understanding and complimentary and overlapping skillssets – and are just as or more capable than you; Pretty much a startup. 😉

  180. harryh

    Ah.  Fair enough.  I don’t really think more money for education/schools will really fix much though.  There are systemic problems around education that touch on everything from crime to poverty to racism to family values and larger cultural ideas about the value of learning.It’s not at all clear to me that money helps much.  I don’t really know though.  It’s a hard problem (perhaps THE hard problem) for sure.

  181. Matt A. Myers

    Why do you think some would get violent?

  182. leigh

    When people feel they have no hope, they historically have turned to violence.  ‘let them eat cake’ rings a bell.  That’s the point.  They don’t have hope.  They aren’t organized in a way that can lead to effective change or solutions.  They are starving and trying to feed their families.  Everyone is talking about politics here – i get it – but politics is a conversation for the privileged… I think in many ways the true basis of this is a plea for help from the 1% and anyone who has influence, ideas and will listen.

  183. Cam MacRae

    Civil unrest is correlated with people deciding en masse that they’re not getting a fair deal.

  184. mike

    This comment is absurd.  Electricity is “technology.”  Lots of things are “technology.” Technology is just a thing. It doesn’t inherently make life any better or worse.

  185. fredwilson

    spoken like Steve Jobs

  186. SubstrateUndertow

    I’m presume Matthew was referring to internet technologies ?

  187. Matt A. Myers

    Yeah. I didn’t go into the normal depth of analysis / explanation – apparently that was a bad idea..If you attach “and everyone being accessible” it meant that before, say when there were no phones, you needed to elect people from an area to be representatives – because there’s just no way to keep track of people’s wants otherwise. Our current government voting systems are outdated because technically we could all do “micro-voting” from our mobile phones. I know the amount of people voting who are 30 years old and under would go up substantially (and make a vote actually count as a vote).

  188. Matt A. Myers

    Cultures will adapt to what tools are available to them. If you take quality education and don’t provide them with a means to be healthy then their behaviours will at least partially be shaped by this.

  189. Bill Phelan

    Actually…this is not true.  The American people elect politicians, but our two major parties select who votes for them.  Today this is referred to as “re-districting.”  Ever wonder why you show up at a certain public location to vote on election day?  It is because the parties in power in a particular area draw very unusual lines to chop up the voters into “voting bundles” that they believe will favor them in the next election.  So when democrats are in power (in a local district) they draw the lines to hoard the democrats they think will keep them in power.All you have to do is look at a map with the voting districts in any city, etc. and you will see what I am referring to. 

  190. Moses

    This is about as naive a comment about government as you’re likely to read anywhere.In the entire course of human history, no government has ever been able to avoid being influenced by powerful interest groups in the society it governs. From owners of Roman latifundia to Ottoman Janissaries to Disney to you name it, powerful interests can’t help but try to bend government to their wishes – they would be crazy not to.

  191. alphaG77

    Absolutely! You don’t have to look much further than a company like NBC (only idiots would even consider Fox to be news). On CNBC you have financial news being reported by economic illliterates touting tea-party conservative agendas; while on MSNBC you have the pro-union, bash all wall-street, rail against capital gains taxes making our tax base unfair to those that have no money to invest, left-wing liberal agenda advocates, and on NBC you have you have guys like David Gregory that pretend to be investigative, while asking the most spft-ball questions to both left and right with nothing but b.s. coming from both sides. How can you have real reporting by news media when you have one company, with 3 different properties, each appealing and catering to what different audiences want to hear, but all discussing the same topics.

  192. Dave W Baldwin

    Hang in there Charlie… it is easy for people to throw around ‘simple’ solutions, yet have nothing to offer when the actual parameters of the problem are placed in front of them.

  193. Jeff Sepp

    Before allocating more money to schools – how about curbing superintendent and administrator salaries ?  Same with colleges

  194. Mike

    Except in a startup the goal is to build something that succeeds, not just keep the CEO in his job!

  195. sachmo

    they don’t need to be organized to be taken seriously… Look at Greece, Egypt, Tunisia, London riots, etc. 

  196. JLM

    I suspect that I am “sympathetic” to almost everything that OWS appears to be on the rant about — so what?Did OWS just discover there is way too much money in politics last week?There has been for 60 years.Big revelation — the lobbyists actually write the legislation.And, no, your generation did not discover sex or drop biscuits.  Sorry.