Hey, Wall Street protesters ... get a job, already!

David Freddoso, the Washington Examiner's online opinion editor, has written an open letter to the protesters currently causing chaos in New York City as they protest Wall Street and the fact that, you know, people and corporations actually make money to keep this country going.

When interviewed by a reporter, one youthful protester was asked if she would take a job if a CEO walked up at that moment and offered it. "No way!" she disdainfully retorted.

And therein is the crux of the problem.

Freddoso's letter, that has generated over 150 comments so far, begins:

You are not 99 percent of America. I don't mean that in the obvious numerical sense. If 99 percent of Americans had actually joined your march, Manhattan would have flipped over by now.

What I mean is that if 99 percent of Americans actually sympathized with your cause, the entire nation's economy would have collapsed long ago -- apparently to the delight of the organizers of this current protest.

What I mean to say is, you have a marketing problem.

When you decided to sit in traffic and block the Brooklyn Bridge a few days ago, with that blazing pink "SMASH PATRIARCHY-SMASH CAPITALISM" sign in hand, you probably didn't see the regular people you stranded in traffic.

You know, the ones with real-world concerns, business to attend to, families to go home to, et cetera. You may have read about such people during college in a book called "The Petit Bourgeoisie," or something like that. Many of us grew up calling them "the middle class."

Whatever you call them, they are hurting badly in this economy, probably more than you are. (I'm just judging by that sweet digital video camera I see you holding out in front of the cops, in hopes of provoking them into a viral-video police brutality incident.)

Those people you left stuck in traffic have a hard time paying their bills and rents and health insurance and mortgages. They worry about things like finding decent schools for their children to attend and making sure they don't get fired at work, and fixing leaking roofs and chimneys.

You know what they don't worry about, ever? Smashing patriarchy and capitalism.

You have to read the rest of his letter ... he nails it.

Shaun Kenney, Bearing Drift contributor and Fluvanna County supervisor, came up with a list of thirteen counter-demands  that he calls the "Restore America Movement." Included are such radical -- gasp! -- suggestions as restoration of the free market, tort reform, and personal responsibility.

While the protesters proclaim themselves "the 99 percent," Redstate's Erick Erickson responds, "If you want to see how foolish these people are, consider their demands, which range from nuts to pure insanity." His accompanying photo, mimicking the protesters, notes, "I am the 53% subsidizing you so you can hang out on Wall Street and complain."

With unemployment over 9%, many are concerned that America is not creating jobs and that subsidies are growing by leaps and bounds on the backs of hard-working Americans who were raised to work hard, pay their bills on time, buy a house, raise their families, and help their neighbors. Why aren't there more jobs in our country at this time?

A clue may be found in the current leadership at the White House. "You don’t have some inherent right just to– you know, get a certain amount of profit," is what President Barack Obama told George Stephanoupolos in a recent interview. Indeed, one of the protester demands is $20-an-hour minimum wage for everyone, whether working or unemployed. No problem worrying about a profit with that kind of mismanagement.

So the New York protests continue for a third week. How many people with a mortgage hanging over their heads can afford to take three weeks out of their lives to hang out on the street and hold a protest sign? How many people even have three weeks of vacation to frivolously fritter away? How many people would want to fritter away their vacation in such squalor instead of heading for the mountains or the beach?

As a matter of fact, how many of those hard-working Americans are even paying attention to this kindergarten charade? The ones stuck in already-horrific New York City traffic are ticked off at youthful shenanigans that block the streets and bridges, and the rest of America is going about the business of earning a living.

Hey, Wall Street protesters, get a job, already!

Cross-posted at Bearing Drift

Part 5: "The mother of bubbles ... real estate bubble & tax appraisal"

Guest Financial Post
by D. Sherman Okst


Look, I’m not an economist, I’m not a financial planner so don’t go out and sell your stocks based on what I said or am going to say. But I do follow the economy closely. I have only seen a handful of economists calling this thing what it really is -- an insolvency crisis.

The USA is in debt for about $10.8 trillion ($10,800,000,000,000.00.) We have earnings/GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of about $12 trillion pre meltdown. That GDP figure is about as cooked as Enron’s books. Clinton implemented the Boskin Commission Findings, which used Hedonics (Greek for feels good) to adjust GDP. They use a bogus deflation factor and imputations. Let’s talk imputations here, if you own a house they calculate what you would pay in rent and then add that rent figure to GDP, even though you don’t pay rent.

Basically, GDP is off by almost 40%.

Now you don’t have consumers, which account for 70% of GDP borrowing like they did. In 2008 consumers put 9 billion dollars on their credit cards to buy coffee at Starbucks.

Take all this away from GDP and I’d estimate you are down at about 6 trillion in GDP. Now lets look at off balance USA debt. Roughly, according to the book I.O.U.S.A. we have liabilities/obligations for Social Security, Medicare Parts A & D that amount to about $53,000,000,000,000.00 ($53 trillion).

Add all this up and we have about $65,000,000,000,000.00 and we “make” $6,000,000,000,000.00.

Those, to me, are Enron numbers.

So basically I see the insolvent giving money to the insolvent and I ask myself how on God’s earth is this going to work?

Something tells me it won’t work and that the next 10 or 20 years aren’t going to look like the past 10 or 20 years. I think this county will really need to pull together. I’m talking neighbor helping neighbor, county helping citizen and citizen helping county. I don’t see how paying more than a home is worth, or, will be worth, in taxes will help anyone.

One thing is certain: We aren’t in Kansas anymore, these are different times. And please, don’t look at the guy sitting in the car that is doing 120 mph and headed for a brick wall as a pessimist because he is yelling, “Swerve or slow down.” He isn’t the one driving, but we ALL need to be driving our Congressional leaders to realize, at the very least, that this is an insolvency crisis and the credit crisis is a symptom of insolvency and you have to treat the disease, not the symptom and giving the symptom what got it sick will only make things worse.

This is the last in a five-part series. Previous: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
---
D. Sherman Okst is an Augusta County resident who with his wife runs a small technology business. He reads extensively and studies the economy blogging as "Davos" at the Daily Digest, a column for Chris Martenson, which gets 1.5+ million reads a year. Sherman writes code, was a high school computer science teacher, and ex-airline captain with 15,000 hours and 18 years of service. He was a builder, managed a lumber yard and as a kid was a mate on a fishing boat. Sherman has also had work published in a few magazines.

Saxman: "What were they thinking?"

[From Del. Chris Saxman, R-20th House]

Over the past week, I have watched the news from Wall Street and from Washington, as both have scrambled to try and resolve the current economic crisis. Like you, I have wondered if Congress will simply "bail out" Wall Street with billions of taxpayer dollars, or whether they would try to get to the heart of the issue and take action that would help to resolve the real problems that are affecting those of us on Main Street.

Many of you have contacted me to ask how this could have happened and to share your frustration with the current proposals on the table in D.C.

I wanted to take a moment to share with you a video that was forwarded to me that I found to be quite interesting. The video runs a little over 8 minutes, but it is well worth watching. It is sad when many of the politicians who are complaining the loudest now were the same ones who stood in the way when reformers in Washington were trying to act to prevent the exact situation we have now.

For more on this situation, another video worth watching can be found here. It highlights some of the political connections to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac leading up to their collapse.

These are very serious times for our economy and our country. We deserve leaders who have the experience to reform Washington and Wall Street, not stand in the way and protect corrupt individuals and organizations.

Sincerely,

Chris Saxman

PS- For a shorter video, check out the one of the latest ads from Senator John McCain.