This is a pretty good article describing the problems with the “Occupy Wall Street” protest.
I watched some of the videos of the speakers that have visited Occupy Wall Street , Stiglitz and Dylan Rattigan, etc. I started to get a glimpse into the sentiment of the group. The talk of the students started to bother me, one because it sounded like the same old rhetoric, and two because it was general and based on false notions, uneducated ones. In one video a student rants to a “well dressed Wall Street type woman” about how he cannot compete against someone in a foreign country to make jeans for $8 an hour versus them making jeans for .25 cents a day. Worse yet, she nods in agreement. It’s the simple way out, the simple argument and it’s not true.
This is a classic misguided, non-critical thinking statement and belief among many. The person in China is making their money in Yuan and the person in America is making money in the Dollar. They do not equate. The person in China does not have the buying power of a dollar with their Yuan wages. It’s all relative. They are just as poor and living paycheck to paycheck as someone would be making jeans @ $8 an hour in this country. And “cheap” labor is only a small part of the equation why US companies leave this country.
It is the trade tariffs, regulations, taxes, and unions that make it more profitable for a company to take their product overseas to manufacture and return it to this country. I don’t hear anyone complaining their jeans cost too less – only that companies make too much.
We have to start distinguishing between business and monopolies, between business and banking, between business and wall street. They are not the same. Business is someone you know trying to make a living and provide a service or goods and employing others. Monopolies, banking, and wall street are machines that were once businesses that evolved into a selfish gene and need to devour in order to survive.
We need regulation. Thoughtful, purposeful, non-purchased regulation to keep businesses from becoming bohemoth machines. (Actually, we have those regulations but they are ignored). That brings us back to Rule of Law. But that’s another rant.
It’s all a big system that runs on a cycle. It is nature because humans are nature. Understanding the system and the larger picture can make for better debates on which direction to go because we do have choices and we should exercise them as long as we have the freedom to do so.
Anyway, I thought it was a good article that makes the point it’s not enough to protest the symptoms – we need to cooperate to design the future.
Let's start by voting all the incumbants out for all elected offices, federal, state, local and then chisel away at the bigger problems.
