Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Wall Street Protestors

You just knew that it couldn't be confined to Greece. The US has more than its share of folks that feel entitled and now they are congregating daily on Wall Street. Students, having spent four years boozing it up and studying sociology, now wonder where are the jobs?

Corporate greed, huh? Who owns corporations? Workers mainly...in their pension funds. So, if you can destroy corporations, you are basically destroying the savings and the economic future of the average worker -- union worker, state and local public employee worker, anyone with an IRA. There isn't some rich guy out there that owns Big Oil. The average worker owns Big Oil in his pension fund.

So, we come full circle. The attack on greed is really an attack on the retirement hopes and dreams of the average American. They have been so greedy as to plan for retirement or to work for an employer that provides a pension fund. By all means, lets destroy it in a war on "corporate greed."

We are no longer debating policies; we are now debating "sharing burdens." "Sharing" means I want what is yours. That is sharing. The idea is that we no longer intend to see the pie grow, so let's start cutting the pie up and sharing it. Forget about the idea that America can be a properous and growing country. That's so....Reagan-like.

This is what happens when the highest levels of government no longer have any policy prescriptions other than demonizing rich people. It catches on. Pretty soon rich people are really the middle class and the working classes. They are all greedy when compared to a bunch of students used to cutting classes (which they are doing now), and wondering why the world isn't beating a path to their door.

There isn't much of a labor market for empty political rhetoric. These protestors are going to be out there for a long time. They represent the new normal in the Obama economy.