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Why the Occupy Movement Skipped Silicon Valley

Posted by Soulskill on from the still-occupying-jobs-there dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Eric Schmidt says what we all suspected: Silicon Valley has largely been immune to the Great Recession. He said, 'Occupy Wall Street isn’t really something that comes up in daily discussion, because their issues are not our daily reality. We live in a bubble, and I don’t mean a tech bubble or a valuation bubble. I mean a bubble as in our own little world.... Companies can’t hire people fast enough. Young people can work hard and make a fortune. Homes hold their value.'"

3 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Valued by Results by DeadlyBattleRobot · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is a quote out of
    http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/25-7

    The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.

            The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act â" the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.

            No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

            When I saw this list â" and especially the last agenda item â" the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.

  2. Re:Simple answer... by MtViewGuy · · Score: 3, Informative

    The same applies for the Seattle, WA metroplex: Amazon.com, Boeing, Microsoft and Starbucks are doing quite well financially, and as such the unemployment rate in the Seattle area is not that bad.

    Indeed, I see the following areas booming over the next decade:

    San Francisco Bay Area
    Seattle, WA metroplex
    Minneapolis-St. Paul metroplex
    Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex
    Austin, TX
    The "Research Triangle" of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, NC

    These areas are on the cutting edge of technology, biotechnology and increasingly "green" technology research.

  3. Re:yes by DrEldarion · · Score: 3, Informative

    and furthermore, 'getting rich' by 'hard work' is the biggest piece of fraud that is perpetrated by current system. can you think that someone who is owning majority or even noticeable share on a megacorporation, got rich through 'hard work' ?

    A few, actually. The pattern with them, though, is that they're all older (60+) and have been with the companies for a loooooong time.

    I think the difference is that many companies in the past would promote from within, and the best workers would rise to the top. Nowadays, this seems to not be the case - workers who do well are kept in their positions and the top level is hired from the outside.