In the wake of all the ‘OCCUPY’ protests popping up in major centres, I see that people ponder and question whether it is a valuable and reasonable solution to what most perceive as a problem. That problem is the ever-widening gap between the extremely wealthy and the increasingly poorer poor and working population. Also, in Canada we haven’t bailed any banks or corporations out, have we?
Watching and hearing these people protest is tiring. In Canada I feel that there is a sense of protesting and being part of a movement just because others are doing it. Without fully educating oneself, I see individuals being interviewed with no valuable information to add to why they are protesting. What is going to be garnered by freezing their ass off and sleeping in a tent day and night?? What about being a part of society and contributing by going to work each day? Is it not questionable that maybe protesting in this current movement and not being employed does not really give a person the right to protest in the first place? In most cases, these protests are costing the cites money for damage and daily clean-up that would otherwise not be necessary. Are these people paying taxes in the city they are making a mess of? Wouldn’t it be a little off since it’s the 99% that are paying for their cause?
On a side note, for those that live in BC, Vancouver and Victoria in particular, many will be familiar with the movement to stop oil tankers from traveling up the coast of BC for fear of an oil spill. I guess the massive blowout in the Gulf last year and recent pipeline bursts haven’t exactly helped the cause for tanker transport. I personally watch the petitioners standing outside MEC in Victoria with a biased voice. I bet they get into a car and drive away after they are all done protesting though. Or maybe they use a petroleum derivative every few minutes of their life. Either way, we are all hypocrites if we decide to petition and protest. Each of us to be a true protester has to, in my opinion, be fully engulfed in their view and opinion. Part of that embodies living it every day. In BC, the resource sector is huge. In Canada it is huge. As much as we all might try to convince ourselves otherwise, we as a county need oil, gas, gold, copper, lead, zinc, and many other industrial metals, to export as part of basic economics. Without those basic economics, we wouldn’t have the luxury of living in a developed county with access to amenities, healthcare, etc.
Back on track…
I agree, there are far too many CEOs being paid far too much for what they do. Let’s take a look at what they actually do. A CEO is the face behind a company, the one that takes the rap for what goes wrong, the person (along with the board) that is accountable to the shareholders. Some might say that it is a highly stressful job. Look at those guys, they all have grey hair, from age or stress (let’s leave genetics out for now)! I think if they are running a company well then they should be compensated, however the converse is also true. Example: Research In Motion – 2 CEO’s that should see their compensation packages decrease in the wake of the continuing negativity towards a valuable business. How about CEO’s that are a director, at the very least, of a number of corporations? Maybe there should be a limit to the number of corporations any one person can be a director of. Maybe that would aid in limiting the amount of conflict of interest that goes on repeatedly in publicly traded corporations.
At the end of the day what gets me the most is the media. Sure, CEO’s make a lot, give themselves huge bonuses in cash or stock options, but we are all kept on our toes by the media – the newpapers, the news on tv, radio, the internet. With their input of countering stories on a daily basis the equity markets, for instance, turn into a landslide one day and then a Himalayan climb the next. This benefits the wealthy in every sense possible. I’m sure they have insight into where the news is going before the rest of us do, and even if they don’t they are still the ones that are able to manipulate the market by basically monopolizing the gains by ousting investors that are planning for their retirement. It all comes back to media and the frenzy they create. Just look back to 2008 – the ‘R’ word (recession) was spoken every single day just to make sure we all knew what was going on, because we forgot from the day before. Today it is Greece, tomorrow it is Italy, the next day it will be somebody else.
Just spitballing, but is there any correlation between the amount of debt and when that debt was created with the hosting of the Olympics? It would be interesting to see when Italy and Greece took on most of their debt that is in the face of default.
At the end of the day, I believe that our days on this earth and becoming increasingly directed by media and the fear-mongering that is instilled by it. This whole OCCUPY movement is a joke in my view. They might have good intentions, but they probably shouldn’t be eating and drinking Starbucks if they are protesting such corporations…

