I feel like some people are misunderstanding what the issues are here: 1) People chose to go into college and accept the risk of debt because the common understanding that is given, especially in high schools (or at least it was in my high school), is that you need to go to college to succeed, and that you can do so much better and make so much more money if you have a college degree than without one. The presumption presented to students who apply for financial aid and loans is that they'll be able to pay off those loans with the extra money they'll make because they have college degrees. That hasn't been the case, and graduates with debts feel like they were lied to, because in many cases, they were. 2) A similar situation applies to housing: during the housing bubble, loans were offered to people who should never have qualified for these loans, because these people were assured that with the growing economy and the growing housing market, they would eventually have enough money to pay off the loan and the house would appreciate in value enough to make it affordable. It may sound like stupidity to us now post-economic meltdown that anyone would get a loan they knew they couldn't afford, but they were being assured that one day the loans would be affordable, and remember that even economists were blindsided by the suddenness and extent of the recession. The most egregious part of all this is that the banks were encouraged to give out these “destined to fail” loans, because they were repackaged and designed to make the banks money even in the event of foreclosure, so the banks had no interest in the well-being of its clients, which is a terrible way to run any business. 3) Just because you have a job (like I do) doesn't mean that it's a simple matter of running out and getting a job if you're unemployed. The unemployment rate nationally is at about 9% right now, and that's largely because there aren't new jobs for people to be hired into. That's why “job creation” is the biggest factor in politics today, because it's the biggest need for the American economy. The problem is that politicians can't really “create” jobs other than adding more public employees, which they can't do because that requires raising taxes, which voters won't allow politicians to do, for better or worse. The power to create a significant amount of jobs that would help lower that national unemployment rate is solely in the hands of the 1%, the CEOs and executives who run the major corporations of America and who control so much of the nation's income. They have gotten so much of the nation's income because of tax breaks and policies designed to give them the extra money they need to create new jobs. The problem is that when corporations get that extra money, they aren't (and historically, have hardly ever) used that extra money to create jobs. Instead, they use it to raise the wages of those who are already employed (that's why CEO pay and bonuses at record highs now) or simply hold onto it (the biggest corporations and banks have record amounts of on-hand money now). The country has done everything to help the biggest corporations and businesses create more jobs and do more to sustain the economy, and they have thus far not kept up their end of the bargain. Thus, people who are unemployed can't simply “go out and get a job”. 4) Health insurance is ridiculously expensive, particularly because the American health system is based on rewarding doctors by the quantity of treatments instead of quality, which means more unnecessary and costly medical procedures. This wouldn't be as big of a problem if everyone in America had health insurance, because then hospitals would be guaranteed payment for every procedure they perform and could keep costs at a reasonable level, but because they have to take care of the millions of patients who don't have insurance and who can't afford care, who they know will never be able to pay their bills, they have to keep costs high to balance out and still make enough profit to run. In addition, those without insurance tend to avoid preventative medicine (regular physicals and tests) and instead go to the hospital only when they need serious medical attention, which often could have been avoided with regular visits and is much more costly in the long run. I know I'm going to get hateful responses to this, and some annoyed responses, and people saying I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, and some “tl;dr”s, which is all fine, whatever. And I'll readily admit that there is some validity to the notion that some of these protestors are to some extent to blame for their own financial troubles. But don't pretend that there aren't systematic problems that need to be addressed in order to strengthen our nation's economy, and don't think that these people's problems don't affect you, because they do. Anything that affects the economy affects you, because every American is part of the American economy. Bickering amongst each other isn't going to solve anything. If the country's gonna fix its problems, we need to figure out how to fix those problems for everybody, the 99% and the 1%, because we're all part of this. If you don't want to support the 99% movement, that's fine. Just don't be a dick about it.
