I just came back from a month in the U.S. where they have some real problems.
I saw lots of these gatherings throughout my journey. It's ridiculous that this movement has spread to Australia - we have none of the problems, that the average US citizen is experiencing now.
My take on it is that they were protesting about being treated unfairly by the government. The banks, who caused the problems in the first place, and big business were bailed out by the government, and the rest of the population has to pay. Australia is still a pretty fair country IMO.
All I heard from the prostesters was a pretty boring chant that went something like this:
We are the 99%
You are the 99%
We are the 99%
You are the 99%
We are the 99%
You are the 99%
Parts of the US are doing it pretty tough, this has nothing to do with Australia....
YET
After seeing the news tonight, the occupy Melbourne movement lacks a credible direction and argument and the concept has been hijacked by elements of protesters simply there because of peer group pressure. Unemployment is about 5% in Australia, double digit in many countries overseas eg youth unemployment 40% in Spain, we are fortunate.
Regulations do need to be enforced against White collar crime, but the protesters hanging out in some side street in Melbourne are going to achieve nothing, apart from alienating themselves, this 99% thingo is a load of codswallop, they don't represent me, its just another cause/ protest overun by mistaken ideals
In Aus, I think we are a little bit lucky to have all that mineral wealth. The mining companies spend up pretty big... Drops some big coins into lots of different pockets.
We were originally "built on the sheep's back" as they say.
I'm no master of commerce, but mining infrastructure projects are huge. A half decent operation costs $1B to set up, and cost another $10B (NPV) over 20-30 years to run it. Plenty of that money stays here. Up to half of those costs will be direct Labour / Salary Costs going to Australian's mainly.
