Occupy K Street

Occupy K Street
By Jeff Carter
10/3/2011

There is a movement to occupy Wall Street. Sorry, Wall Street is already occupied. The upcoming week might be hazardous to many Wall Streeters health if the technicians are correct.

Generally it’s best to be suspicious of big movements that become a media spectacle. Was Code Pink anti-war, or were they just anti-Republican party? I haven’t seen them marching on the streets or creating disturbances since November 2008 and the last I checked our military and anti-terror operations were expanded not disbanded.

In addition, there was a rag tag sympathetic movement in Chicago, Occupy LaSalle Street. The signs at each place were anti-capitalism signs.

That’s a movement that we really shouldn’t get behind. Capitalism is responsible for lifting more poor people out of poverty, and lifting the standards of living for more individuals around the world than any other economic system.

However, there are some concepts that I am empathetic to when it comes to their movement. They actually have a lot in common with the Tea Party.

They are highly critical of big corporations lobbying Congress and Washington DC regulatory agencies to tilt the playing field in big business favor. It sounds like they don’t appreciate the virtues of crony capitalism, otherwise known as “The Chicago Way”.

Well guess what?

Companies that are successful lobbying the Washington DC apparatus are simply playing off big government. To kill the effect of lobbying, skewer the beast and make government smaller.

Allowing companies to stay alive with government support also empowers big government. Allowing the capitalistic force of creative destruction is something the Tea Party is behind. What about Occupy Wall Street?

There are some troubling signs with Occupy Wall Street. The SEIU is busing people to join the marches. Other unions, and socialist Senator Sanders are supporting the cause.

Members of up to five powerful unions, rights defenders in dozens of cities, plus Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Roseanne Barr, Dr. Cornell West and other celebrities have joined the protesters who intend to occupy the Wall Street area indefinitely, until change occurs in the financial situation that Olbermann and Sanders concur is being demanded by an overdue, active, motivated, American Left coalition forming for betterment of the United States

My gut tells me at the root of this, you will find an Obama administration operative. They want to coopt some of the Tea Party themes into Occupy Wall Street and divert attention from the really poor job they have done on the economy. It’s a re-election strategy.

Sorry, I don’t think this is a small government movement. Whatever the original intentions of the founders were, Occupy Wall Street has become a hard leftist movement. All the above mentioned people are determined to end the American capitalist system. Of course, they all have benefited from it and are so wealthy, any abrupt change to socialism won’t affect them or their lifestyle. Social justice and fairness are not a strategy to level the playing field.

I do understand their frustration with Big Government, with the bank bailouts, with the lobbying, with the revolving door between industry, unions, and Washington DC. There is one sure fire way to end all of that. Shrink the size and scope of government, not increase it.

The Occupy Wall Street crowd, or at least the new public backers that have joined them, put their faith in government. I can’t rebut them any better than this:

There are lots of ideas to accomplish the task of reducing the governments influence. I know of only one sure fire way to do it. Starve the beast. Flat tax, and end all write offs. Cut millions of regulations. Then there is nothing to lobby for. Allow Coase Theorem to work.

Milton Friedman - Greed

The celebrities joining forces with the “working class” on Wall Street and the media that is giving it publicity don’t trust the individual. Economic systems that don’t trust individuals are commonly called socialism, or at an extreme, communism. We know they don’t work and are bad for “working people”.

Instead of occupying Wall Street, maybe they ought to occupy K Street.