My friend
Naomi* in the hills of Hollywood, California posted a comment to my previous entry, asking me why I used the term "morons" to describe the participants in the various Occupy! protests. Frankly, it's a good question and deserves a response from me.
BTW, I certainly do not mind comments which disagree with any post on these pages. I do not take them personally, and never have. Rather, I like to see these pages as a place of friendly conversation. It's not an echo chamber. That would bore me to death.
The question that immediately arises when I'm confronted with those who are protesting is simply, "Against what precisely?" I've yet to discern any specifics, beyond, "Some people have too much" and "Capitalism Sucks." Wrapped up in that are the usual progressive boogie men of "Bankers," "Jews," "big business," "corporations" and such. Stated differently, they are protesting against a caricature of their own making.
What makes it especially silly, is that these people in reality are part of the one percent, they ostensibly malign. Compared to other people on the planet, citizens of the United States, have the highest standard of living that's ever existed. Consider: the vast majority of the people on earth exist on
less than one Dollar per day. These Occupiers are the beneficiaries of the system they seek to tear down. In point of fact, they are virtually all the products of an Upper Middle Class upbringing and they have all the trapping of the bourgeoisie they ostensibly abhor, from the clothes down to the Ipads.
Secondly, to the extent the Occupiers have some legitimate beefs, they are misdirecting their anger to the wrong targets. Simply put, the problems existing in our current situation can and should be laid at the feet of a government, which insists upon diddling with the market, whether that be for homes, student loans or whatnot. (See also,
this from
Newsweek about Congressional pursuit of individual wealth. Politicians of all persuasions are guilty. That's what politicians do, actually.)
Specifically, bankers did not cause people to buy homes they couldn't afford in the first place. I say this from having represented banks over the years and having sat in on meetings discussing the impact of various regulations on housing costs. Suffice it to say, I started hearing about the ludicrous rise home prices back in the mid Nineties. What do I mean?
Until say 1990 or so, in order to buy a home, a person had to have 20% of the purchase price up front. The remaining 80% could be financed, if you had a good credit rating and a job. The monthly payment on that financed portion, including prorated property taxes, if any, and casualty insurance, could be no more and 28% of one's monthly gross salary. Further, one's total debt load, including house payments, could not exceed 35% of one's monthly income. These were not government imposed rules, but were standards across the industry based upon studies by loan underwriters, which determined the above were best to allow the repayment of the loan and minimize defaults.
In the early Nineties, the government decided that virtually everyone should own a house. Thus, the above underwriting standards went out the window, to the point where banks could loan up to 120% of the sale price and the requirements for getting a loan in that amount consisted of breathing. Not only were these new requirements mandated, but government regulators threatened to sue reluctant bankers for discrimination. Finally, to sweeten the pot, the government started guaranteeing more and more mortgages, the "Fannie" and "Freddie" you've heard about. There were other things, as well, but the above were the big ticket changes. With all that essentially free money around, home prices went through the roof, no pun intended. Eventually, we had an economic downturn, the notes became due and hundreds of thousands defaulted on loans they should've never received in the first instance, which the rest of us are forced to pay, thanks to the government guarantees that should have never been granted. See, e.g.
this for a readable, if rage-inducing discussion of the topic.
As for the problem of student loans, with which, by the way, I agree with the protesters, again the problem is government interference, not greedy bankers. See,
this post from last year or go over to
Instapundit and search "Education Bubble" for many more examples. The proper focus of the protesters' ire should be those individuals who convinced them that six figure, non-dischargeable student debt incurred in pursuing a B.A. in "Ethnic Studies" or "World Cultures" as opposed to Engineering, Math or heaven forbid, not going to college at all. In other words, they ought to be occupying their college's Financial Aid Office or Academic Counseling Department, not city parks.
With respect to some of the more general gripes of the Occupiers, I would note, that most boil down to "Life's not fair" and "Somebody's got more stuff than I do." True enough. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter what system you pick, capitalism, socialism, communism, whatever, it will be run by humans, who are by definition flawed. Stated differently, somebody will always have the vacation home on the lake or the corner office or the limo ride or the trip to St. Barts. Google the phrase "Soviet Leadership Dacha" for examples. Indeed, the Wall Street occupiers discovered this when a cadre of five or six of their number seized control of $500,000 of common funds from donations and deposited them in a bank. Or, consider that the occupiers have now become angry over "freeloaders" eating "their" food. Delicious, delicious irony. As Orwell said, "Some animals are more equal than others."
Finally, the methods employed by these people are, to be charitable, less than ideal. A complete, encyclopedic list of crimes committed from murder to rape to armed robbery, would make this already insufferably long post even more narcolepsy-inducing, so I'll leave it to
David Thompson to provide a summary. Read his post and the links cited. See also, this, for more gobsmacking moments. As someone else noted, these aren't protesters as much as "protest reenactors" trying to conjure up the 1960's.
The bottom line to all of this is that I have no beef with people who wish to
peaceably assemble and petition for the redress of grievances. To do that, one should identify the problem, identify the locus of the problem and have a plan to fix it. As indicated, the Occupiers have failed in the first two, their methods are flawed, and finally, they have no plan. Nihilism and the destruction of what exists isn't a plan. It's a mob riot which seeks to destroy both society as well as the rights which everyone has, including the right to the fruits of his/her own labors. Pursuing such a course of conduct immediately forfeits one's right to the intellectual or moral high ground, in my view.
Cheers.
R. Sherman
Update: Apparently, some have interpreted this entry as somehow decrying the First Amendment rights of the protesters. I thought the last paragraph made clear,
I have no problem with peaceable assembly and speaking one's mind. I may agree or disagree. If the latter, we can have a discussion and make our respective cases. It's called, "the marketplace of ideas," to quote Justice Holmes. That said, my right to freely express myself does not mean I have a right to cause harm to you or your property.
NBC New York:
Angry over all-day drumming, people urinating and defecating on the streets and verbal attacks from protesters, organizers say they will rally at City Hall Monday to send officials a message.
"Laws are clearly being violated and we simply want them enforced," Lower Manhattan resident Linda Gertsman told NBC New York. (My emphasis)
The protesters lose me with the above highlighted behaviors. Under no circumstances, would such be deemed appropriate. Methinks, the protesters need to bone up on their history, starting with "Selma, Alabama" to get an idea about a)what to protest and B)how to do it.--RDS
*Naomi is a lovely person whose entries I never fail to enjoy. Please visit her and say "Hi." Her most recent essay, a review of Joan Didion's Blue Nights
is especially thought provoking and worth your time.
