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.