"(CBS/AP) LOWELL, Mass. - An online poll released Sunday of Americans' views of groups in the news shows Occupy Wall Street conjuring more favorable impressions among the public than their wealthy corporate targets. Among 1,005 adults surveyed, 35 percent had a favorable impression of the protest movement that began in New York City and gained support worldwide. Only 16 percent could say the same for Wall Street and large corporations.
Twenty-nine percent had a favorable impression of the Tea Party movement, and 21 percent of government in Washington.
Knowledge Networks conducted the survey, asking participants their impressions of the four groups.
The poll was conducted for the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and the Boston Herald.
In terms of unpopularity, Wall Street/large corporations tied with Washington government, with 71 percent of those polled saying they had an unfavorable impression of them. The Tea Party movement got a 50 percent unfavorable response, and Occupy Wall Street protesters 40 percent."
The only problem is that these Occupy protesters aren't very informed. Check out this debate between someone who is actually familiar with economics as he takes on a whole crowd of protesters simultaneously:
He made good points that yes capitalism is better than socialism, but they are both failed systems when it comes to the value of life.
That depends on who you ask. In countries where capitalism is implemented, a reduction of life expectancy of a worker, an increase in crime and other social ills are a direct result of unemployment. Marxists insist that socialism would eliminate unemployment in a more effective manner than capitalism--especially during times of severe recession. So if both capitalism and socialism are both flawed--then what form of government would you suggest? Merely pointing out flaws of various economic theories doesn't solve anything either.
For you to hate profits and expect the government to employ socialist programs and regulations, yet still be pro-capitalism is completely devoid of any intellectual capacity.
In my opinion this isn't about choosing one form of economic theory over the other--but has much more to do with timing--so I believe the answer isn't a one-sized-fits-all proposition. Neither can the answer be found in taking an extreme position of supply-side policies such as completely opposing all forms of intervention--including tax policy , minimum wage laws, unionization--which will maximize profits for corporations yet conversely cause downward pressure on wages. Let's just say we got rid of all unions and the minimum wage--what good would that do for working-class Americans. Sure there would be more jobs and corporations would become more profitable--but to who's benefit? Here in Hawai'i, companies are becoming dead beat as far as providing their workers with adequate wages, health insurance and retirement benefits. So who do you suppose is picking up the tab? You guessed it--the government in the form of skyrocketing entitlement programs for workers in the private sector who either just got laid off or got their pay and benefits drastically reduced.
In bull markets and when the economy is booming--there is little need for the government to employ socialist programs except for the benefit of those on or near the bottom of the economic rung. However, when the economy is in a prolonged recession and is faced with a seemingly endless array of supply shocks, the livelihood of millions of middle-class/working-class Americans are directly affected like we've experienced over the past years. The Keynesian economic theory would encourage government intervention such as job creation and stimulus packages in efforts to jump-start the economy.
In this day and age globalization and disruptive technologies further complicate addressing the needs of workers.
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The OWS protesters have very little knowledge in macroeconomics and it is evident. The problem with what that 1% guy said is that there is a inherited flaw in the marriage between deregulation and human greed. Deregulation creates "real" capitalism where the invisible hand takes care of EVERYTHING, but deregulation also creates a bigger playing field for human greed to take over (as evident by the crisis).
His suggestion is MORE deregulation, in that the govt shouldn't have bailed out the banks. The problem with that is that way, waaay too many people would have been affected and the macro-economical problems would have been much more severe than with the bailouts. The affects on GDP and unemployment were huge just by letting Lehman Brothers sink, imagine a world where that would've happen with ALL the culprits in the securization food chain.
The problem from the beginning is actually consolidation. Consolidation that through DEREGULATION made the few big banks so extremely powerful that when it all boiled down, they HAD to be bailed out. Had they not been allowed to get so big, the impact from their collapse would be much less severe. The beginning of the movie actually explains this quite well when they go through the structure of these few banks THEN and NOW. The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act simply made everything that much worse.