What Does OWS Want? Part 2

     While there is debate about what their demands are or whether they have made any coherent demands, this link contains 13 clear demands of Occupy Wall Street.

     http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/

      This is as promised my part 2 for What Does OWS Want. For part 1 please see

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-does-occupy-wall-st-want-part-1.html

     I deliberately phrase it like this as a kind of variation of "What Do Women Want" as it is as we learn from Lacan-Zizek what we always ask the Other. The Other is always a mystery to us and until they make clear demands they are a ceaseless subject of anxiety for us. Ultimately we need the Other to want something from us, if they truly wanted nothing that would make them all-powerful.

    For that reason many want to be able to get a handle on Occupy Wall Street and the best way for this is for them to make demands. Of course when they make huge "meta-political" demands like End Consumer Culture! and We Can Do Better Than Capitalism! it further increases our anxiety for such demands are so intangible, so bottomless they are hardly something that can simply be voted for by Congress next week.

    Here though they have made some demands that are possible to analyze and don't seem unreachable or so huge that they will swallow everything up. So that's one other thing we need from the Other. We need for her-I deliberately refer to the Other as her as I think on a more primeval level our real Other is a Her, our first Other which is true whether we are male or female-to make demands but not ones that are so big that they will swallow us up.

    So having these clear demands are a relief. Here we go. First of all they start the list by a disclaimer. Let me not be remiss in recording it.

   Admin note: This is not an official list of demands. This is a forum post submitted by a single user and hyped by irresponsible news/commentary agencies like Fox News and Mises.org. This content was not published by the OccupyWallSt.org collective, nor was it ever proposed or agreed to on a consensus basis with the NYC General Assembly. There is NO official list of demands.

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   Yes Administrator! Whatever you say. See what I mean about making demands? On some level they know we want them to make demands so they have to warn us that these demands are not official, that there is NO list of official demands.

    With that said we are ready for prime time!

    Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Free trade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.
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    Restoration of the living wage I can't agree more with and they are correct that 20 dollars is about the minimum of a truly living wage. $20 an hour assuming a 40 hour work week is about $800 a week and $3,200 per month. I have often said myself that what I really need-been unemployed on and off for last 2 years-is at least $750 a week take home to really be in decent shape and I'm a single guy. Even before I was unemployed back when I lived in Mass I was making only $2000 a month yet I figured out that my expenses were about $2,250 a month so that every month I was really falling a little further behind which I was.

    In this sense $20 an hour which comes to $800 a week isn't even enough as it's before taxes. If you make $800 in a week by the time they're finished taking out-the highly regressive-payroll taxes-you will be lucky to have $600 left. If you have low rent and not too many bills this may be enough to get you through the month but you will have nothing left after. Unless  you are able to save anything you are poor pure and simple. So in truth I would argue that a living wage is about $800 a week per person after taxes.

    That doing this requires ending free trade and reinstating tariffs for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing is an interesting claim. I don't know if it's true or not,  For one thing, though it's the lesser point perhaps, I don't know how important family farming is in the U.S. today. In addition I'm not sure how much we do want to restrict trade between nations. Indeed though this may prove to just be a hiccup, it does seem that in the last 2 years of the fragile recovery our export manufacturing has started to come back a little. And there is the new trending story of "reshoring" that many multi nationals are returning to the U.S. now because China for example is starting to raise its wages, etc.

   While there is-or perhaps has been a situation where "most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages." it may somewhat be changing. I'm not at all sure how far you want to restrict free trade even knowing it's problems. But if tariffs are the way to go then maybe that recent bill in the Senate to sanction China with a tariff if they don't let their currency appreciate against the dollar is in this direction. Having said that I'm far from sure about that legislation either.

    Demand two calls for single payer. I don't know if this is the most pressing demand right now, I myself would have preferred the public option during the debate; now that AHA has passed I think that once it gets past the judicial hurdles-I'm being optimistic and guessing it will-there really are a lot of benefits to it. Just for starters it will do more for cutting the deficit than any of these GOP plans.

   The reason for my optimism is largely the history of FDR's Social Security bill. He had to fight many legal challenges too so there's nothing unusual or surprising that Obama has had to and I suspect that like FDR he will win eventually, even if FDR did have a much more sympathetic Supreme Court to deal with. What I never did get is the categorical dismissal of AHA by many left-liberals. There were complaints about having to wait "all the way till 2014"-apparently they don't know the history of SS where FDR initially passed the Social Security Act in 1935 and it wasn't slated to take effect till 1942, eventually he bumped the time up to 1940, ie the same time AHA is taking to implement.

   There were also complaints that it didn't go far enough that it left too many of the uninsured out. Nevertheless 60% of the uninsured will be covered and again this is its initial stages. If 60% are covered that is a much higher percentage covered than SS initially covered-only about 5% and public employees were not eligible.

   Isn't it possible that AHA which in terms of coverage is much wider than SS initially was will be expanded and improved upon as time goes on? Sorry this is a pet peeve of mine... LOL

   Demand three calls for a guaranteed living wage regardless of employment. This is interesting. In places like Germany or France they more or less have this. In Germany unemployment benefits are much more generous and longer than here, they actually keep up with the cost of living-as someone who is on unemployment myself currently I can tell you U.S. unemployment comes nowhere close to this. Effectively you get about half of what you earned while at work but the fine print is that whatever that is you are capped out at only $405 per week hardly a living wage for anyone-here in NY the $1620 a month that gives you is lower than the median price of rent. While all these demands would of course get major opposition right now, this would really be controversial.

   Why? Because many Americans too would feel that this is wrong, on some level they believe "he who does not work neither shall he eat.' Even more fundamentallly they think: why should my hard earned money support you? In the case of the unemployed it's not really a "handout" as they were working and did pay for their benefits in reality. This was how FDR designed social insurance: not as a welfare progam.

   If by "welfare" or the "dole" you have in mind people who "get something for nothing" from the government then there is very little welfare in the U.S. There is food stamps-which have recently been cut I've been told by people who get them. They were paying $188 a month they have now been cut to something like $168 a month. It's not a lot of food you can get with that and in any case if you truly are in need of assistance how does it help you if you need a place to live? Where are you going to collect these stamps if you live on a park bench? How can you refrigerate or cook the meager food allowance?

   The only meaningful history we have a federal welfare assistance program in our country is Aid For Families With Dependent Children which under the welfare reform act of 1996-The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act-has been watered down to TANF-Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

    TANF and its predecessor are in any case only for women with children-in the 60s they added the word "families" under the dubious premise that it discriminated against married couples. But bottom line if you are a single guy- or woman without kids- there is no welfare for you unless you have a handicap.

   If this demand is suggesting that people who don't work at all should be assured a living wage then that would be real controversial. What is a "wage" outside of employment? Wage for what exactly? It's an interesting subject to broach but a minefield.

   Demand four is for free college education. An interesting idea. I don't know if I agree with making it wholly free for everyone but the idea of means tested assistance I definitely support. You have the "school choice" movement that Milton Friedman was already pushing in the 60s that goes in the opposite direction-vouchers, charter schools, etc, all meant to weaken the public school system. Obama's recent reform of No Child Left Behind was a welcome step in the right direction.

    I'm not saying I oppose universal free education like we now have for primary and secondary education just am not sure yet. Certainly though I'd like to make education much more affordable and accessible for those with modest means. Even if you don;t support it, the case could be made that if you want reform you might get more using it as on opening demand-don't want to negotiate with yourself as Obama has been accused of.

    Still can't but notice though that recent years have unfortunately given us the opposite tendency, where even the free education of the primary years has been attacked. Many parents today have to pay for many school items that were once free like gym equipment, buses, etc. With all the talk of "double taxation" where is the concern here? The recent property tax cap in NY may be looked at as a stealth cut in education funding.

    Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

     Whether or not the fossil fuel economy must be entirely ended is up for some debate but that the alternative energy economy needs a jump is undeniable. In Germany they already have a very bold alternative energy plan that by 2050 if not earlier will make them mostly alternative energy.

    When trying to figure out where all these millions of jobs the U.S. economy needs will be created, it is clear that alternative energy will be a major job creator. But we are lagging behind.

     Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

     Amen.

     Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

     I like the idea of one trillion dollars being put to use in terms of stimulus. How much if this ecological project I agree with I'm not sure. Don't know about decommissioning all nuclear power plants. Need more info to take a real position. But government spending is for the most part good just on general principle that we need lots and lots of stimulus.

    Demand eight calls for a gender and racial equality act. I don't know that such a thing is necessary.

    Demand nine calls for open borders migration so anyone can travel anywhere who wants to work and live. This arguably is in some tension with demand one that ends free trade and imposes tariffs. While I abhor the draconian immigration laws they have had in places like Arizona and Alabama, etc. and would like to see it much more free and open I don't necessarily agree that there be limitless immigration from anywhere at any time. The idea that you can simply erase national borders is an illusion,

    Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

   Whether or not that's the best or only solution the election system definitely needs to be shored up against fraud an abuse. This year already many states with Republican legislatures are making the election laws more onerous.

    Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

   I thought I hated creditors! "All debt on the entire planet" is a little out there. Many of the other things we want to do on this list would not being possible if you committed this level of liquidation. If you did where would the money come from to pay everyone  a $20 hourly wage even those who don't work?

    Certainly there should be large write downs but literally ripping up all deht would have surreal negative effects. Still the point of these demands is to open up conversations. In negotiations it makes sense not to meet to close in the middle in the preliminary stages That there needs to be large scale debt forgiveness is unquestionable, though not every debt anyone ever had.

    Demand twelve is to outlaw all credit reporting agencies. Well if we have ripped up every debt in the world already what would these agencies have to report on anyway? I'm wondering if eleven means that there will never be any loans of any sort made ever again?

     The one group of loans I would agree ripping up are student loans. Those are truly the most oppressive ones today.

      Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

      I don't entirely get the punchline of this one. I don't know whose power it is meant to curb or what it's meant to achieve. I also don't know about this "right to sing a ballot at any time" for their "yay" or "nay". It seems to want to mean you can back out-or in-to anything at any time, that people have to be afforded the right to anytime be able to change their mind and the world take noitce: that I don't think is reality. There is a time to commit to a course of action and once done you can't always just say "I change my mind! Stop the train!"

      They finish off by stating that, "These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

       Ok I guess that's a good rationale for the borders policy. Still not sure that all of them would create jobs. Certainly the stimulus would as would growing the alternative energy economy. Many of them would I think though I don't know about all debts being ripped up everywhere. That would actually bankrupt so many banks and businesses and governments it would be highly counter productive

      Overall though the demands are pointing in the right direction and if they do succeed in making just a few of these demands a reality it will be a great movement.