OWS

I have had a lot of people ask my opinion of the OWS movement. This week, several people, up to and including the President, likened OWS to the Tea Party. This has had some wide-spread and varying levels of both acceptance and anger. The pic that I have attached, which may or may not be readable, had some good points (and some arrogant points) that I thought deserved some attention. So, here goes:

The original outcry of the Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party was against the over-taxation of the citizens to pay for the gluttony of the government. The Tea Party voiced opposition to 'favored' businesses (aka businesses that were giving millions of dollars in lobby money in exchange for special treatment) receiving "special treatment." The Tea Party opposed laying the price of the failed banking industry on the backs of the tax-payers.
Ironically, I could remove the words "Tea Party" from that entire paragraph and replace it with "OWS movement" and be completely correct. As is often true in politics, the goals are similar...it's the application that is different. Both groups had similar goals but launched into completely different directions. The Tea Party took the approach of infilitrating the Government and fixing it. OWS took the approach of taking the streets to make the Government listen. I'm not defending or attacking either approach, as both have had success in our country as well as others. The problems always come in when a group loses focus of it's goals and objectives. The Tea Party made waves about "special treatment" for businesses and "too much federal government" and then (as soon as they had the nation stage) proclaimed that raising any tax on the "specially treated" businesses was wrong, and that part of "limiting" the federal government should be by GIVING the government power over social issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc). They lost their effectiveness because they lost sight of their primary objective.
Conversely, OWS started marching for the same goals. But their protests are aimed at people who not only aren't listening, but at people who don't HAVE to listen. I doubt that there is a single billionaire investor on the planet that sets his own feet in the NYSE to do trading. He doesn't care if the streets are filled with protestors. In fact, he is dining sumptuously because all of the protesters are buying food and supplies from companies that he has invested in. If their presence causes a ripple in the banking industry, he doesn't care. He's invested for the long haul. The ripples across the banking industry and stock market only affect those people who have smaller investments...like 401K's. If the industies collapsed, the people hurt the most (percentage wise) would not be the billionaires, it would be the middle-class who have saved their entire lives to be able to retire.
To me, both movements are spinning their wheels. If OWS truly wants to make an impact, they should learn a couple of lessons from the Tea Party. Stop protesting on Wall Street. Go protest in front of the Governor's mansion and the State Building. Demand that a constitutional convention be called to stop lobby-money bribes. Demand that an amendments be drawn up and ratified. In order to be effective, one has to realize where differences can be made. The local and state officials need to be re-elected to survive. The Wall Street billionaires don't. The time and energy is being mis-directed.
Truthfully, I'm scared of the misdirection. As these mobs grow, and the clashes increase, eventually mass rioting will ensue. Mobs are not known for making great, rational decisions. They generally lead to destruction, followed by looting and chaos. These will never be good for our country, especially when we have enemies who would love an opportunity to catch us unaware.
My advice for the day:
Tea Party: Get your morality out of your politics. 'Adam and Steve' have NOTHING to do with limited federal government and fixing out-of-control spending. At some point, you may have to give up one to achieve the other. Make your choice now. If you continue to push candidates who are socially conservative in a country that is NOT socially conservative anymore, you will end up giving the election to people wha are socially liberal AND economically liberal. By trying to tack-on morality, you are puching moderates into the liberal camp.
OWS: Direct your efforts to get things changed at the people who can actually change them. It's ok to be angry. It's ok to recognize that things aren't fair. It's better to do something constructive about it. Blocking the common man from getting to work or getting on the subway is not helping your cause. Go cause friction with the people who need your votes.

Now, let's see if I can get myself detained by the new powers that the government is voting itself....

Todays rant.

Angry Rant

I have suddenly been pushed to my limits of annoyance. I am secretly hoping for subzero temps so that the “Occupiers” will go home. They are nothing but an angry mob of idiots. While I understand the anger of taking billions of dollars in bailout money and then giving themselves millions in bonuses, I find the anger to be mis-placed. If the government walked up to the average citizen and offered them a million dollars for no really good reason, I wonder how many would turn it down. Most of us would take it...which makes us hypocrits. Wall Street is as much a victim of the government welfare as the “welfare class” is.
Ultimately, what irritates me about the protesters is that they have no demands. They have no rallying point about what they hope to accomplish. When there ceases to be a point of concession, they cease to be a hopeful rally and become nothing more than an angry mob.
Well, guess what? I’m angry as well. Only I’m not angry at a Free-Market System, because I have a CHOICE when it comes to where and when I spend my money. I’m angry at a Government that taxes the hell out of me and gives the money *to* the system. “Too big to fail” is a problem. And the problem is that we allowed a few businesses to become the cornerstone of our economy, so we CAN’T let them fail without causing a major depression. And so the GOVERNMENT, NOT WALL STREET, takes my money and bails them out. The company recovers, but the new-found recovery money NEVER makes its way back to the taxpayers who LOANED them the recovery money…it goes back into the pockets of the very men who caused the failure to begin with…followed by a pat on the back from the Government, who incidentally happened to get a little lobby-money on the side.
My anger is about CHOICE. The government has taken my choices away. I choose to buy a product because it has higher quality and is less expensive. How DARE our government then tax me to prop up the crappy company? Let them succeed on their own merits or let them fail in their incompetence!
“Too big to fail” happened BECAUSE of our OWN laziness and greed, NOT Wall Street’s. We stopped buying that microwave at Ma & Pa’s electric shop because Walmart was cheaper. We stopped buying that Stove from Ma & Pa’s appliance store because Home Depot was cheaper. We stopped buying our textiles from the local variety store because Target was cheaper. We stopped buying meat from the local butcher because Jewel’s imported beef is cheaper. WE bankrupted the middle class away and now complain that CApitalism is making the rich, richer and the poor, poorer. WE’RE the ones who made the poor, poorer and the rich, richer EVERY time we spent a dollar at the conglomerates instead of in our neighborhood shops. STOP blaming Capitalism, we did this to ourselves! These Ma & Pa shops that used to have 5 or 6 middle-class employees closed down, bankrupt. Their employees end up working for minimum wage at Menard’s (that’s WHY their products are so cheap, BTW), and we complain that the rich guy is oppressing the poor. No, my friend, WE did this TO them!
So now where are we? We are a country full of consumers, in bondage to the corporations that we built by our petty greed…and now we’re pissed off at them. As the old saying goes, ‘you made your bed, now lie in it.’ But that’s not what we want to do. We want to “Occupy Wall Street” and blame them for taking the money that we threw to them.
Knock it off. If you don’t like Wall Street, stop giving them your money. Buy local, stop using credit cards, stop second-mortgaging your life away. Learn to live within your means. And if you’re going to protest, protest the Government’s involvement in giving away your hard-earned tax dollars.