A letter to the New York City protestors

A copy of the OWS ten commandments:

1) The government is supposed to supply all my needs. A job, health benefits,disaster relief, etc. Truth: The government has been and will always be the worse provider for anything. Inefficient and bloated they will waste money every time. The governments main job is to provide an environment where people will be left to their own devices to succeed or fail. The more the government is involved with anything the greater the likelihood of failure. Our government should provide a limited safety net of last resort..not a hammock. 2) The government should pay my student loans. Reality: Choosing an expensive college is a personal decision. If you choose to take on the debt it's your burden not societies.  3) We represent the 99%. Reality: More like less than 1%. 4) Redistribution of wealth is the answer. Reality: redistribution is already happening. Our jobs and oil money are headed overseas and the tax man takes it away from the wealthy when they die.  5) The American dream is dead.  Reality: Creativity, hard work, a passion and acuity in delivering a needed good or service will be rewarded. Take a look at Steve Jobs life. Why do you think so many people want to come here? 6) Banks are responsible for the economic crisis. Reality: people over extended themselves, falsified mortgage applications omitting debt and inflating salaries.  Many people had skin in the failure. Greed absolutely!  but was Everywhere! 7) The rich are keeping the masses down.  Reality: The  rich aren't hoarding a finite supply of food in their basements. Their money is on the stock market, their businesses and the economy.  They employ. It's easy to envy their successes... 8) Capitalism/profits  are dirty words.  Reality: Capitalism brought us the iPad, 40 mpg cars and a million things we all take for granted. The other forms of government were tried and failed miserably. 9) They are responsible for my situation.  Reality: Count how often OWS speakers use the word they.  While some people clearly have had challenges (health, etc.)  Many of us are the masters of our own destiny.  Have you lived a simple life or have you been chasing the ever bigger toy? Have you truly taken advantage of every opportunity available to you? It's often about taking responsibility for you choices. 10) In our new paradigm there will be jobs for everyone,  healthcare and it will be better. Reality: Look at Greece and the former Soviet Union.  The result will be either misery and/or unsustainable.

As I mentioned before, the protests are justified but most seem misguided.  Bailed out banks/corporations would be gone if not for big government.

It becomes a mad circle...the government intervenes, which leads either to unintended or intended consequences, which leads the government to intervene again to "fix" the problem of the previous government intervention.

Bank of America charging its debit card users a $5 monthly fee is as a result of the Durbin Amendment in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that set limits on the fees banks could charge retailers for swiping their debit cards.

President Obama signed the legislation and is now critizing banks for instituting the fee, which was caused by the legislation he signed.  The legislation also created the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau...just what we need (he writes sarcastically) more bureaucracy...

Well, yes according to the president:

"This is exactly why we need this Consumer Finance Protection Bureau that we set up that is ready to go. This is exactly why we need somebody who's sole job it is to prevent this kind of stuff from happening. ... You can stop it because if you say to the banks, ‘You don't have some inherent right just to – you know, get a certain amount of profit. If your customers – are being mistreated. That you have to treat them fairly and transparently."

Did you get that? Regulation has resulted in the $5.00 fee, now Obama wants even more micromanagement and regulation in response to the initial regulation.

It's a never ending cycle perpetrated by government and politically connected business...it's crony capitalism, corporatism...what we used to refer to as fascism.

Whatever it is, it is not free market capitalism.

Free marekt capitalism will be found in the millions of customers that leave BoA for their local credit union. 

 Propie's post:

As I have posted in the past, "Wealth destruction probably doesn’t adequately capture what happened in the early stages of the crisis. Wealth was vaporized at a breathtaking, eye-popping speed. American families lost a total of $19.4 trillion (in 2010 dollars) in household wealth from June 2007 to March 2009."

If he is living in "in momma and daddy's basement eating Cheetos and watching television" it's because he lost his job and then his house. And if momma and daddy lose their jobs and then their house, all of them will be living in a cardboard box under a bridge.

Tell Wall Street to give that money back. 

Propie,

As you've well explained in other posts, capital gains aren't realized until cashed in.  The lost wealth was capital gains.  Few profited unless, they sold short.  Benefit from your own words!

I like credit unions for my personal use.  But, if you think they aren't having problems, you haven't been following the financial news. Guy Fawkes was a supporter of the old establishment.  Careful of the symbols you use. 

The 30% of homeowners that are now upside down on their mortgages would disagree with you. 

Not, part of Wall St, proper. Suggest the DC protestors proceed to Fannie/Freddie and their improvident schemes.

The MSM flubs it again. Are all their employees suffering from liberal education syndrome

"So enthused about promoting the far-left protests, ABC anchor Diane Sawyer on Monday night's World News championed “the Occupy Wall Street movement” by ludicrously claiming that “as of tonight, it has spread to more than 250 American cities, more than a thousand countries -- every continent but Antarctica.”

Protests against the wealthy in “thousands of countries,” including Cuba, China and every country in Africa? Per the U.S. State Department, however, there are only 195 nation states in the world, so Sawyer imagined five times as many protests as could possibly have occurred."

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/b...d-coun#ixzz1aUQ7kYXy

I think the present count is 196.