I think it's time for the Occupy Wall Street people to declare victory and go home. They have illustrated their anger and their passionate desire for a more equitable America. I would not insult their integrity by asking any of them what they want to change, although it is hard to get a sense of specifics from their signs and snippets of interviews reported in newspapers, television and offered on the social networking sites.
Their anger undoubtedly reflects a general frustration with inequities, real and perceived, the uncertainty of our economic future, the absence of talented political leadership, and a sense of being overwhelmed by man-made and natural impediments.
Some are angry because they are unemployed and can't get jobs. Some are angry because people who have jobs are making too much money and others aren't making enough. Others are angry over the high cost of tuition and the fact that they must borrow money to get an education and be strapped to pay it back just when they're starting their careers.
Still, others are angry because they can't pay their mortgages and have to go into foreclosure or personal bankruptcy. Many are angry over what they observe as a trashing of our environment or racial inequity or capital punishment. Many are against war, hunger, profit, conglomerates and corruption in general. They want the rich to pay more taxes, which they call "their fair share."
Note that I am not challenging the things they are angry about. I am angry about some of them myself. But I do think it's time for a bit of reflection, time perhaps, to get off the soapbox and reflect about all the possibilities that might in some way temper their anger with a bit of wisdom.
Most of what they are angry about is the result of good intentions gone awry or were distorted by what is best described as unintended consequences. Those who are, for example, angry about school loans should understand that Congress in 1965, out of a desire to give everyone a chance to go to college, passed a student loan law whereby students could borrow money to pay tuition and pay it back when they began to earn their own money.
What they did not foresee was all that money going into private colleges encouraged some of them to expand into giant enterprises that required more and more tuition money to feed the maws of their ambition. After all, the burden of payback was on the student not on the educational institutions and the banks got the interest.
And what of the mortgage debacle? It has always been cited as the American dream to own your own home and all politicians encouraged programs to make it easy for Americans to buy homes. They set up Fannie and Freddie to help Americans do just that. After all, it was an act of faith that real estate would continue to go up, up and up.
In fact, they made it so easy to get a mortgage that people following the good intentions of the political class rushed to buy homes. They couldn't build them fast enough and many bought homes they could not afford.
What they did not understand was that the real estate market, like all markets, has financial bumps. But the good intentions of the politicians opened the doors to mortgages that were so easy to obtain that everybody who could took advantage of the programs and, as was inevitable, there was a comeuppance. Can one blame the politicians for their good intentions? And who was the greedier, the buyers or the lenders?
The irony is that people who are paying their mortgages with their homes worth less than the mortgages, are seeking relief because their homes are "under water." What they should understand is that once the market stabilizes and the laws of supply and demand kick in, the chances are that their homes will eventually rise and be worth considerably more than they are today.
Then there is health care, which politicians told us, with good intentions, that everyone is "entitled" to health care from the cradle to the grave. Did they realize that the cost of exotic diagnosis machines and the effect on the income of doctors, the cost of medical malpractice insurance, the temptation to defraud, the cost of regulating and policing and the demand for more and more services in a rising population would make it impossible to fund forever? Good intentions certainly, but where were their adding machines?
I do think the protesters should think twice about their definition of corporate greed. I believe they mean profit which, when all is said and done, is the ultimate objective of a private corporation and determines how much their shares are worth. Wall Street is merely a marketplace for these shares and a mechanism to fund corporations to create and expand businesses.
When the brave kids of "Occupy" pound their computer keyboards or text their messages, they should understand that these devices were created and funded by Wall Street firms. I wonder how far Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and hundreds of others with ideas to create products useful to all of us would fare if they did not have the mechanism of Wall Street.
Indeed, it is ironic that the Occupiers call to arms has been carried out on the backs of Wall Street funded corporations, their alleged enemy.
I could go on and on. Yes, some people have not played by the rules, both in the private and public sector. Nor is it a secret that government programs are often wasteful, too bureaucratic and often temptations for corruption and overspending.
Democracy, after all, has its blind spots and the desire of politicians to help as many of their constituents as possible is essential to the process. But blanket generosity often gets the recipient used to dependency, hence the misnomer "entitlements," which eventually morphs into either "giveaway" or "broken promises."
Yes there are unnatural inequities, government programs that need to be tweaked and corrected, politicians who overpromise and can't envision things beyond their own need to be re-elected.
No, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds and greed is only one of our numerous deadly flaws. Nevertheless, we Americans, do exist in a world of possibilities created by a governmental experiment that has managed to survive for more than a couple hundred years and has opened up channels of opportunities that have resulted in the realization of hopes and dreams for millions. As they say, we can't throw out the baby with the bath water.
The worst thing that could happen is for us to lose the sense of optimism which has sustained us since our founding. We are, indeed, like all humans, imperfect and vastly flawed. We are also remarkably self-corrective and resilient.
Let's call the Wall Street protests a wake up call, a point well taken and an expression of anger worth our ardent and immediate attention. It is time, too, to heed the danger signals spawned by the gathering clouds of violence and aimless disruption.
Contact made. Message delivered. It's time for those on the protest line to go on home, get on with productive lives and take their anger to the ballot box.
Warren Adler is the author of 32 novels and short story collections published in numerous languages. Films adapted from his books include "The War of the Roses," "Random Hearts" and the PBS trilogy "The Sunset Gang." He is a pioneer in digital publishing. For more information visit Warren's Website at www.warrenadler.com.
Follow Warren Adler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/warrenadler
Occupy Wall Street | NYC Protest for American Revolution
Occupy Wall Street | World news | The Guardian
Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don't get it - CNN.com
When you get rich by utilizing the infrastructure that our taxes pay for and then buy the politicians that are supposed to represent us to lower your taxes, and let that infrastructure crumble, you have usurped again and your taxes must be raised to compensate us.
And finally, get over calling Social Security and Medicare "entitlements" in quotes, as if we are not entitled to them. On the contrary, they are called entitlements precisely because we ARE entitled to them. We paid for them with some of the most regressive taxes (payroll taxes), and we are entitled to them more than you are. So stop with the lies, the working poor pay more than their fair share of taxes, even if they are not Federal Income taxes.
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" -- Mario Savio 1964
OCCUPY EVERYWHERE!!
Original intention or unintended consequence is immaterial to OWS anger. What people are angry about are the actions taken, the choices deliberately made, and the apparent lack of good intention for anyone below a certain level of donor capacity. Also, I do not believe that a moneyed interest coercing lawful changes through financial clout is anything other than an entity acting in self-interest (not good intention, and not with external consequence in mind).
Second, Wall Street (and banking) is not "merely" a marketplace mechanism. It is also a symbol of the financial system, symbolism that keeps getting forgotten when it serves an argument to describe Wall Street on “merely” a technical level, as though it carried no other meaning in the public conscience. Even as a mechanism, its impacts go far, far beyond itself. It is not some sort of innocent, self-contained, helpless construct that "really has nothing to do with any of this."
Finally, some people who have not played by the rules get to live and work to this day without consequence or restriction, while rule-breakers and rule-followers on lower socio-economic stratums get their backsides handed to them without mercy. This occurs officially, legally, and as a result of that oh-so-whitewashed description of “unintended consequence” that tends to constantly consequence itself all over the lower percentile.
I wrote about "Occupiers Of Wall Street - Listening - And Educating" on October 18th.
Yes, they are expressing their free speech rights, but does that include hurting others and running up big bills?
They are asking for benefits and compassion, yet hurting businesses and costing them and the cities hundreds of thousands of dollars.
They even shut down the Port of Oakland, depriving fellow "99%ers" from their daily wages.
Yes, there must be listened to and there must be free speech, but we must draw the line at other people being hurt and the damage that is being caused.
I believe that a true leader is needed here, who will be the compassionate but wise adult in the room. We should have a President who steps up to the plate, even if there is political advantage for him in repeating his 1% against the 99% theme and inciting voters to go to him.
The Rational NonPolitician
(www.thenonpolitician.homestead.com )
I voted for Obama (see the site for why) and I had hoped he would do what he said he would do. But now all fact finding points to his not following through on his promises plus being unable to govern nor to have the perspective to be able to make the right choices. Unfortunately, "on the job training" is not effective for a President.
And please... PLEASE give me a comprehensive list of "promises" that the President has failed to keep and examples of his inability to govern. Will you do that for me? If not, I will consider you a non-politician who does non-research on non-facts learned from the non-newsblowhards on Fox Non-News Channel..
Mr. Adler:
I am 57 years old and have voted in every election (except one) since becoming eligible and, yet... here I am. Unemployed for two years, paying bills thanks to the kindness of family and friends, a single dad with a 17 year old daughter.
How am I to live a productive life when it requires almost every moment of every day to fill out an endless number of job applications in the vague hopes of landing a minimum wage job? We have been forced into lives of despair and disillusionment, yet you want us to "go home". And do WHAT, sir? Go home and wait for an election while more and more states make it even harder for the downtrodden and disenfranchised to vote in those elections?
Your spirited defense of Wall Street shows how out of touch with reality you are, Mr. Adler. I am glad that life has treated you well and that you are among the very fortunate few who have been able to capitalize on your considerable talent. However, for you to lecture me on behavior is insulting and patronizing.
The message is not that the protesters are angry. The message is that they are not going to take it anymore. To deliver that message they must persist.
Everything you write is true, and reasonable, but does not address the issues of the protesters.
You are also writing from the perspective of someone who is fortunate to work at something whose value is greatly multiplied by the proliferation of your work afforded by various media technologies. Most people do not enjoy this advantage in their work. The people who build your car, your house, who grow your food, who work the stores you buy it in, can only earn as long as they produce. Their work produces no leverage.
Authors do not abuse leverage, but many people on Wall Street do.
Capitalism needs to be restored, and it will not be restored by people sitting at home, not at this point. People say at home for 8 years during the Bush administration, and for the last three years of the Obama administration. And they have already spend a lot of time doing what you advise them to do now, thinking. That does not seem to have produced good results, has it?
No, I am afraid it is far from time for the protesters to go home.
The ballot? Seriously?
That's already been bought, paid for, and corrupted.
OCCUPY EVERYWHERE!!