>>It sounds to me like you believe that we should allow ourselves to be blackmailed into giving our resources away to the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd because eventually they will come and take it away by force. Nice.

That's one construction. Another would be that in 2012 there is no excuse not to predict how human beings behave if they have nothing to lose and are able to mobilize. If you're worried about cost, bringing in the troops is an even more expensive way to prevent revolt (as well as eroding the loyalty of the troops if they are asked to stand against their own more than once) but the most expensive of all would be refusing to acknowledge the lessons of history at all.

>>Been there. Done that. Pulled myself up by my bootstraps.

You were able to find a job, so your shoes and your bootstraps were already better than people for whom there is no work in 2012. Even the sorts of jobs that used to be available for students when we were young, these days are crucial for families' wellbeing and are fiercely defended. I'm sure you had plenty of attributes that might make a bar owner prefer you to a mother desperate for work to buy food for her kids, but even you might notice a difference today.

>>I also see pages and pages of jobs in the want ads that remain unfilled because some of these people who are having their self-respect stomped into the dirt don't want to take them because they can make almost as much money on the dole as they can by working for a living. I have seen business owners being interviewed on TV complaining about this very thing.

There's good science on this: US businesses increasingly are looking for people who can hit the ground running. IOW to get a job you need to already have a job so you can turn up with experience. As a result, those who can afford it are willing to undertake free internships or even pay for job experience to get their feet in the door. Plus employers have higher expectations. For example, during the DotCom boom only 10% of IT workers in Silicon valley had tech degrees: now it goes without saying. And US employers are less willing than their European counterparts to offer training, citing difficult times as one of their reasons. If you check Scandinavia and Switzerland which have mandatory training programs, you will not find these skill shortages.

>>Profit is not a dirty word. Tightline is in business to make money. I am certain that you are in business to make a profit - or do you give away your services for free?

Nobody said profit is a dirty word... but excess of anything is a vice. As it says in Proverbs, "If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it." A wise man also once said that "the excess of one is the shortage of another".

For the purposes of argument: consider that it used to be thought uncouth for aristocrats to talk about money. Instead people aspired to be like Darwin or Lindbergh or Eleanor Roosevelt to earn acclaim through service for which wealth becomes an enabler and therefore has a purpose. In 2012 the nouveau riche have a different view: size of bank balance is a purpose of itself, so sharing with muppets reduces your own worth. Ultimately there is no happiness to be found in this, especially when it brings people smack up against the observation that the love of money is the root of all evil.

>>The United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Perhaps we could create more jobs here if we had a more business-firendly environment.

I agree that targeted assistance for small business is a good idea, since small business is the powerhouse for new jobs in the US. If Obama doesn't come up with something soon, he'll have dropped in my estimation- though I would not put it past others to propose more benefits for large business "in the interests of employment" blithely ignoring responsibility for the emasculation of many US industries in the first place by handing the jobs to the Chinese and ignoring figures that clearly show that small business is where it's at.