Latest 'Occupy' Movement Targets Goldman Sachs

Via Forbes

From the people that brought you Occupy Wall Street, comes a new chapter in American financial follies. This one targets Goldman Sachs in particular.

The Vancouver-based magazine Adbusters put out an email alert to their followers on Thursday announcing the start of what they defined as a “game” to shut down Goldman offices worldwide. “Points will be awarded for speed, spectacle, courage, and innovation,” the Adbusters email said.

Hey all you rebels, jammers and meme warriors out there Let’s play a game. Goldman Sachs, the most powerful and unrepentant of the financial fraudsters, has three offices in Canada and four in the United Kingdom; eight in China; two separate locations in Madrid and nineteen scattered across the United States. #GOLDMAN is an indefinite real-time, live-action game to have some fun while shutting down each of these locations. Points will be awarded for speed, spectacle, courage, and innovation. We take everything we learned from Cairo, Madrid and Zuccotti ... combine it with the lessons of Quebec, Pussy Riot and Idle No More ... and turn #GOLDMAN into a global moment of truth for justice. Is there a Goldman Sachs in your town? Send your stories, action photos & videos to kono@adbusters.org. And kick #GOLDMAN into facebook, twitter, and tumblr feeds. for the wild, Culture Jammers HQ

The target: three Goldman offices in Canada and four in the United Kingdom; 8 in China; two in Madrid and 19 scattered across the United States.

The Occupy Wall Street movement began in 2011. Its creator, Kalle Lasn, told Forbes in an interview in October that he was inspired by Arab Spring protesters to do something similar in the U.S.

The Young Turks - Goldman Sachs Insider Interview

http://youtu.be/e4ZhddlxS3Y

Wall St. Sets Off Controversy Claiming The Average American Household Makes $650,000

While Wall St. has been playing the victim, demanding bailouts and special treatment within the U.S. judicial system (too big to fail), they also seemed to have time to show exactly how disconnected they are to the average American. A post made January 4, 2013 on The Wall Street Journal seems to have riled up quite a few people because of it's obviously naive viewpoint on the income of the majority of Americans. Here's the infographic they posted while moaning about their unfair taxation.



The article itself has to be just sickening for someone struggling to make ends meet. I myself consider myself lucky with the job I have and yet this pic enrages me. The average American probably makes less than what this "Infographic" shows them paying in taxes, hell the average Americans income is probably closer to the "increase in taxes" than the actual income shown here.

Of course, the article in the Wall Street Journal plays it out as if the "1% of taxpayers" are the ones suffering.

In the nick of time, and amid much political drama, Congress passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act on New Year's Day—averting massive tax increases for nearly all earners that were slated to take effect Jan. 1.

Even so, millions of people soon will feel something less than relief from the new law.

The bill approved in Congress to avert the fiscal cliff would bring the first major tax increase on high earners in 20 years. Laura Saunders breaks down how new tax increases will impact across different tax brackets.

While the top 1% of taxpayers will bear the biggest burden, many other families, affluent and poor, will pay more as well.

The most immediate change affects nearly all workers: Congress allowed a two-percentage-point cut for the employee portion of the Social Security tax to expire. As a result, each will owe up to $2,425 more in payroll tax this year than in 2012.

Fortunately we have people out there like Matthew Gray [MIT] that are checking facts and calling bullshit on this.

I believe I was able to determine an answer from the 2011 American Community Survey microdata. First limiting to households composed exclusively of children and a single parent (as depicted), gets you down to 6.5 million households. (Sanity check: Wikipedia cites about 13 million single-parent households, but that includes those with other adults present, and the microdata shows an equal number of single-parent households with a single adult and multiple adults.)

Further restricting to single parent with 2 children, exactly, gets you down to 2.1 million households.

Limiting to those with an income of $260,000 or more, leaves you with 9,489 households total, or the top 0.4% of single-parent two-children household incomes. Median income for this demographic is $23,400. 90th percentile is $70k, and 95th percentile is $94k.

The internet has also been quite vocal about this spurious and offensive article

Huffington Post - The Wall Street Journal Doesn't Actually Know Any Middle-Class Americans


Esquire - LES INSUFFERABLES


American Livewire - Wall Street Journal Baffles Americans With Tax Graphic


Daily KOS - Revealed: The Wall Street Journal Has No Idea What is Happening in America