the 99% have spoken! <object width="640" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6WlvoVJ4sUY&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6WlvoVJ4sUY&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></embed></object>
If every American spent $64 this year on holiday gifts made in America, it would create 200,000 domestic jobs, economists say. The average American spends $700 on holiday shopping each year, and a big chunk of it goes overseas. http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/christmas-shopping-made-in-america-27428565.html
which economists? where's their data? if i buy a poorly made american product at a local store, will the target employee down the block get laid off?
The message is growing! How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street ORLANDO, Fla. -- The Republican Governor's Association met this week in Florida to give GOP state executives a chance to rejuvenate, strategize and team-build. But during a plenary session on Wednesday, one question kept coming up: How can Republicans do a better job of talking about Occupy Wall Street? "I'm so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I'm frightened to death," said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation's foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message. "They're having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism." Luntz offered tips on how Republicans could discuss the grievances of the Occupiers, and help the governors better handle all these new questions from constituents about "income inequality" and "paying your fair share." Yahoo News sat in on the session, and counted 10 do's and don'ts from Luntz covering how Republicans should fight back by changing the way they discuss the movement. 1. Don't say 'capitalism.' "I'm trying to get that word removed and we're replacing it with either 'economic freedom' or 'free market,' " Luntz said. "The public . . . still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral. And if we're seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we've got a problem." 2. Don't say that the government 'taxes the rich.' Instead, tell them that the government 'takes from the rich.' "If you talk about raising taxes on the rich," the public responds favorably, Luntz cautioned. But "if you talk about government taking the money from hardworking Americans, the public says no. Taxing, the public will say yes." 3. Republicans should forget about winning the battle over the 'middle class.' Call them 'hardworking taxpayers.' "They cannot win if the fight is on hardworking taxpayers. We can say we defend the 'middle class' and the public will say, I'm not sure about that. But defending 'hardworking taxpayers' and Republicans have the advantage." 4. Don't talk about 'jobs.' Talk about 'careers.' "Everyone in this room talks about 'jobs,'" Luntz said. "Watch this." He then asked everyone to raise their hand if they want a "job." Few hands went up. Then he asked who wants a "career." Almost every hand was raised. "So why are we talking about jobs?" 5. Don't say 'government spending.' Call it 'waste.' "It's not about 'government spending.' It's about 'waste.' That's what makes people angry." 6. Don't ever say you're willing to 'compromise.' "If you talk about 'compromise,' they'll say you're selling out. Your side doesn't want you to 'compromise.' What you use in that to replace it with is 'cooperation.' It means the same thing. But cooperation means you stick to your principles but still get the job done. Compromise says that you're selling out those principles." 7. The three most important words you can say to an Occupier: 'I get it.' "First off, here are three words for you all: 'I get it.' . . . 'I get that you're. I get that you've seen inequality. I get that you want to fix the system." Then, he instructed, offer Republican solutions to the problem. 8. Out: 'Entrepreneur.' In: 'Job creator.' Use the phrases "small business owners" and "job creators" instead of "entrepreneurs" and "innovators." 9. Don't ever ask anyone you want them to 'sacrifice.' "There isn't an America today in November of 2011 who doesn't think they've already sacrificed. If you tell them you want them to 'sacrifice,' they're going to be be pretty angry at you. You talk about how 'we're all in this together.' We either succeed together or we fail together." 10. Always blame Washington. Tell them, "You shouldn't be occupying Wall Street, you should be occupying Washington. You should occupy the White House because it's the policies over the past few years that have created this problem." BONUS: Don't say 'bonus!' Luntz advised that if they give their employees an income boost during the holiday season, they should never refer to it as a "bonus." "If you give out a bonus at a time of financial hardship, you're going to make people angry. It's 'pay for performance.'"
They have Luntz on Colbert all the time and just make a fool out of him. If that guy is a strategist, I'm a nucular scientist. Really is that the best billionaires can buy? Focus group speak? Are there no real policy ideas?
in the LA Times, three inconvenient truths for OWS: -- By Nick Schulz November 30, 2011 Occupy Wall Street supporters are claiming credit for at least one political accomplishment: elevating the issue of income inequality to the top of the national conversation. The Occupiers are right about American incomes: They've definitely grown more unequal. But this fact presents three inconvenient truths for the Occupy Wall Street movement. First, let's look at the top end of the income ladder. It's true that the rich — especially the top 1% — are getting richer, widening the gap between the top earners and everyone else. So why are earners at the top doing so well lately? Two forces — globalization and advanced technology — have combined to heap enormous rewards on the top of the income distribution. We can see the effect most clearly on display in the bluest parts of the country: in the financial corridor that runs from Boston through New York and Philadelphia to Washington and includes outposts like Chicago and Santa Monica; in the technology clusters of deep blue Seattle, San Francisco and the Silicon Valley; and in the entertainment hubs of Hollywood, Nashville and Manhattan. Expanding global markets for financial services mean the rewards for those at the top of the Wall Street heap are much larger than they were a generation or two ago. The same goes for gigantic worldwide markets for technology products such as software and computers, and entertainment goods such as music and movies. The phenomena driving this wealth explosion go by various names — "winner-take-all markets," "superstar economies" and the like. Spend time in Greenwich or Chevy Chase or Portola Valley or Malibu and it is impossible to deny that thanks to these effects, the top 1% is doing spectacularly well. What makes this truth inconvenient is that the proposed remedy — tax these haves and redistribute that income to the have-nots — has an upper boundary. Indeed, blue states such as California and New York, where these superstar effects are most pronounced, are already trying to remedy inequality with some of the highest state income taxes in the country, and they have bumped up against the limits of economic reality. It's telling that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been a staunch critic of new tax increases, including on the wealthy, saying recently that "you are kidding yourself if you think you can be one of the highest-taxed states in the nation, have a reputation for being anti-business — and have a rosy economic future." What about at the lower end of the income distribution? Here too, some hard truths complicate matters for liberal supporters of the Occupy movement. Consider immigration. There is little doubt that adding lots of unskilled immigrants to the labor pool depresses the wages of the native born at the low end of the income distribution. Reasonable people can disagree about how many immigrants the country should welcome (I'm in the pro-immigration camp). But liberal supporters of Occupy Wall Street, many of whom have expressed solidarity with undocumented workers, must reconcile the fact that their embrace of large-scale immigration of unskilled workers is a driver of the inequality they denounce. A third dynamic widening income disparities is in some ways the most inconvenient of all: the collapse of intact families. The explosion of out-of-wedlock births and of children living outside of two-parent households has widened economic disparities of all kinds, including income. The reason is straightforward. The role that human and social capital plays in helping a person generate income in an advanced economy has increased over the last half a century. And over that same time, the primary institution for inculcating human and social capital has badly weakened. Social scientists routinely find that individuals raised in intact families are generally better equipped to thrive in the economy. Today's 99% is teeming with tens of millions of Americans who were not raised in a stable home environment, and their earnings potential is compromised as a result. The problem of family breakdown doesn't lend itself to easy fixes. And its cultural roots run quite deep at this point. But it's a safe bet that in the several months they occupied Zuccotti Park and other public spaces, not one new idea was raised by Occupiers that would help arrest this driver of increasing income inequality. Nick Schulz is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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WTF you talkin' about Willis? It's about TRANSPARENCY, that's all. Maybe you missed the first 99 pages when everybody else dispelled all the red herrings you keep harping on. Maybe I should cut paste all them for you again.
nice! Smithsonian museum collects Occupy Wall Street memorabilia Early in October, staffers from the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History went through the Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York’s Zucotti Park collecting hand-made posters and other material to build up a record of the embryonic movement in case the protesters end up in the history books — and not just in jail for unlawful assembly and messing up public spaces.
Poorly made? It's usually just the opposite. I can think of many products that have seen a huge drop in quality since manufacturing was outsourced to Asia, home appliances being one example, power tools being another.
obviously, not all american products are poorly made- but the "buy local products" movement misses a lot. for instance, should i buy a car from GM or Chrysler, both of which were bailed out, or a Hyundai or BMW, made in the US?
"So why are earners at the top doing so well lately? Two forces — the new legality of leveraging risk at up to 40:1 with little consequence for falure and an advanced network of cronyism that allows outrageous compensation levels through incestuous boards of directors — have combined to heap enormous rewards on the top of the income distribution." Fixed that for Mr. Shulz.
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