

The Occupy Economy  - lambtron
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204002304576631084250433462.html

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willidiots
"The whole operation runs on donations, of course."

You're not really "living" on $10 / day if your necessities are donated and
you're occupying a public space. The costs of supporting you are borne by the
donators and the taxpayers, respectively. EDIT: Turns out the park is
privately owned by Brookfield Properties, and was created by US Steel.

An amazing spectacle, absolutely. Our generation's Woodstock, perhaps. But the
title's misleading.

~~~
stdbrouw
If you only spend $10 a day and manage to survive with that expenditure then
you're living on $10 a day in a very straightforward sense of that word. As
far as misleading headlines go, this one's rather mild :-)

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ddw
Amazing how quickly the msm has flipped on OWS. This article contained
information!

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palish
What's "msm"?

~~~
AdamTReineke
Mainstream media.

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runn1ng
It's not entirely news that if you live with shared resources, costs per one
person goes down.

Unfortunately, as 20th century showed us, it doesn't scale well. At all.

~~~
Raphael
Communism is the answer!

~~~
scq
If communism is the answer, you're asking the wrong question.

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dtf
_The Occupied lifestyle, says Mr. Knowles, is a lot cheaper than real life: "I
might go home with more money than I had."_

So they're actually _all_ just doing it for the money. I'd got the impression
they were protesting about the mechanics of the world's financial markets, but
actually they're just all just opportunistic capitalists looking for a quick
buck. Thanks for clearing that one up, WSJ.

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fleitz
They're onto something here, they should add dust and dubstep and charge
people $300 for a ticket.

edit: s/sand/dust/

~~~
SkyMarshal
Same thought occured to me. My first thought was it sounds like these people
essentially set up Burning Man on Wall Street. I haven't been to the former,
new to the Bay Area, but got real curious when it was held a few weeks ago and
read up as much as I could about it. This article sounded very similar to the
ones I read describing BM.

Makes me wonder what cross section of OWS are also burners, especially among
the OWS organizers. Is that where they learned how to pull off something like
this massive temporary settlement?

~~~
da_dude4242
I think a big part of BM culture is bringing BM home with you. Building "local
burns" and building local networks. I don't think this behavior is unique to
BM though. Watching documentaries on hippies flooding California you see
stands for free food, clothes, etc...

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LogoBids
completely mis-titled headline. These people are living on $10/day (with
help), but their permanent living expenses are not $10/day.

I can eat, Drive (pay for gas) and entertain myself for $10/day. But I can not
shower, keep warm and shelter myself within good standards for $10/day....new
title?

~~~
maximusprime
Or just get rid of these type of stories. Personally I don't think they're
something that should be on HN. But then HN is not what it used to be. It's
more of a "Reddit Lite" now sadly :/

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peterwwillis
First thing I thought: holy shit, if we did this kind of stuff for those
living below the poverty line, they would have enough resources to pick
themselves up and get new jobs (after showers, job interview supplies,
counseling, etc etc). At the very least the 22% of American children living in
poverty would have a meal and clean clothes.

Second thought: if this was Orlando most of the donators would be arrested.

Third thought: This is the perfect time to backpack up to New York and have a
week-long vacation for super cheap. Swing a protest sign for long enough to
get a free meal, then move on to sightseeing.

~~~
jballanc
Actually, in New York you pretty much have to _try_ to be homeless. I'm not
going to say that being hard-on-your-luck is a breeze in New York, but with
things like City Harvest (a truly brilliant concept --
<http://www.cityharvest.org/>), the anual coat drive, and the city's homeless
outreach programs, it's certainly a lot better than many places. There was a
good story a while back on "This American Life" that talked about this subject
([http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/358/s...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/358/social-engineering?act=1)). Additionally, you have
Geoffrey Canada doing his thing up in Harlem...one of the true innovators in
social reform. If you haven't heard of him, go read everything about him that
you can _now_!

Honestly, the biggest gap in the city is caring for the mentally disabled. A
large portion of the city's homeless population are schizophrenics, and they
will effectively never be able to be productive members of society. For them,
the only solution is long term care, but the city's mental facilities are
really horrible. Unfortunately, the public's views on mental illness are still
stuck in the 1890s...

~~~
lucasjung
The major cities of the Pacific Northwest actually have at least one serious
problem that stems from making the homeless lifestyle _too_ easy: too many
runaway teens. One of my sisters lives in Portland, and for several years she
worked as a social worker for teenage girls. The network of shelters,
kitchens, and other services for the homeless is so extensive there that a lot
of teens choose to leave home and just live on the streets. It is (or was, at
least) so pervasive that there was actually some name for the phenomenon
(can't remember what it was, off the top of my head), and it was a major
concern to the organizations my sister worked with. Part of the problem is
that there are policies in place that made it extremely difficult for parents
to find their kids and bring them home. These policies exist for good reasons
(e.g. abused children who _shouldn't_ be found and brought home), but they are
so one-sided that kids can just choose to run away because they feel like it,
and their parents have no recourse if the kids are in the city's shelter
system.

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meatsock
lets hope it scales well!

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rsanchez1
They definitely save money on cleaning.

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zmitri
And yet she packed a make-up kit. For someone who is "protesting" corporate
greed it seems contradictory to wear cosmetics from a protestor's
perspective-- they have a gigantic profit margin.

As a male, I'll never understand how cosmetics are so entrenched in the lives
of females.

~~~
jonknee
Gigantic profit margins? Estee Lauder had a 2.1% profit margin last quarter.

[http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:EL](http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:EL)

Cosmetics are entrenched because beautiful women are sought after. It's not
very complicated.

~~~
zmitri
Make-up itself costs very little to produce, so I suppose I could have just
said mark up.

I'm not an equity expert, but I have the feeling that how that one specific
company has performed over one quarter isn't a great indicator. They still had
double digit EBITD margins last year, and I know L'Oreal had double digit
margins for something like 20 years in a row.

Out of interest, do you personally think cosmetics make someone "beautiful"?

~~~
jonknee
There are a lot more costs than what it took to purchase the raw materials. It
wasn't one specific quarter, it was simply the last quarter. And they were the
first large cosmetics company I could think of.

I have no strong opinion on cosmetics either way, but it would be hypocritical
for me to hate on someone for buying something with large profit margins. I'm
typing this on a Macbook Pro attached to a 27" Cinema Display. Apple's margins
last quarter? 25.58%. Their Return on average equity was a staggering 44.81%.
Now that's fat.

~~~
zmitri
I wasn't hating, I'm a free market capitalist. I was suggesting it was
contradictory of the protestor.

