Moderation Blog: Occupy, and the 99%

This is a topic covered by every blogger at the moment, no need to depilate opinions or steal others' ideas.

My thoughts:

No, banks and insurance companies should not have been bailed out. Corporate welfare is the worst kind of welfare and saving failing businesses is the most timid, anti-capitalist, waste of money and discriminating cop-out. The whole concept is wrong. Left up to me; I would enjoy watching big inefficient businesses fail while listening to 'Ha Ha You're Dead' by Green Day.
Protestors have no idea what power they actually have in a market. While they hate big corporations, guarantee they're all there with the latest smartphones, cameras, computers, luxury clothing, processed food, and the like. Especially the spoilt brats with iPhones, Abercrombie & Fitch, and MacBook Air notebooks. If they hate big companies so much, stop buying from them - that simple. If all 20 000 protestors didn't buy McDonald's for lunch for one day, they could have spent their collective $100 000 at various smaller, better, more honest businesses.
Lefties just love to protest. I laugh every time they do as they can finally organize collectives, make placards, shout abuse, and get media attention. Any excuse will do for most of these people, as I have already covered.
Wall Street, Queen Street, Threadneedle Street - wherever these protestors are rallying, the people they are targeting are not going to listen. I highly doubt a stocks trader or investment banker is going to do anything about whatever the Occupy protestors want.
Which brings me to the other point - they need clear objectives. Without any goals, there is no option to engage in dialogue, the protest loses validity, and it just looks like a bunch of overeducated or uneducated socialists hanging out in the city center. A group of BA graduates are about as boring and useless as sheep in a paddock, and deserve to be left alone in the same way.
The richest 1% may be the target of their anger, but they'll achieve nothing without going to government, who has more power to redistribute that wealth. Otherwise essentially all the protestors are doing is begging outside the stock exchange, knowing there's rich people inside.
They all think it's capitalism that's put them where they are, when really they are poor and broke largely on their own achievement; with the flaws in government and economy they cite as failures with large companies, not the capitalist system. As a staunch capitalist, I couldn't give a poo about Google or DuPont or Bank of America falling apart; the hole they leave in the market can only be filled by better companies. Holding on to companies and favoring some over others ruins the capitalist system, and is the fault of government more than anything.
I do have to say, I laugh that they think government is the answer. Little do they know of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Soviet Union, the Great Leap Forward, Juche, or Karl Marx. Government is more than likely the fault behind all the economic problems they cite, yet they want more of it. Go figure…
The economic right has retaliated with its own idea: Occupy A Job!

At the Occupy Auckland in Aotea Square (a large public space next to mid Queen Street, just in the city center), the hippies have set up rosters for communal responsibilities, created a drug and alcohol free zone, made a swathe of signs and banners, and allowed Penny Bright to take part.

I took some photos on Sunday when my friend and I went to have a look...