Wall Street Protesting Nonsense

In the past couple of weeks there have been protests going on across cities nationwide. It seems as if the protests started in New York and spread to other cities like Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and Houston. The one small point I agree with the protesters is the crony capitalism when major banks got bailed out. Everything else these people are talking about is utter nonsense. The people claim they are the bottom 99% and are complaining about the top 1%. Of course, people are okay with the top 1% who claim they want to pay higher taxes (but don’t voluntary do so). Presidential candidate Herman Cain said, “If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich blame yourself”. I partially agree with Cain. However, government legislation and regulation have been putting people out of work. The protesters claim that corporations have power. I find this interesting since no company has ever forced me to buy any of their products. I voluntary got out of my chair, voluntary drove to the store, and voluntary handed the cashier money to purchase that product. The main complaint is that corporations have large lobbying power. What the protestors forget is that corporations want lobbying power because the federal government hands out valuable goodies. The government spent over $3.5 trillion last year. If companies could get any part of that federal money through contracts or through specialized legislation they are willing to spend money to get favors. The protestors have the cause and effect backwards. The power of government is causing corporations to spend money to get favors granted. If the scope and size of the government was limited politicians wouldn’t have as many goodies to hand out which would put the lobbyists out of business.

If the protestors think they have it that bad they should take a visit down south to Cuba. Economics is the studying of allocating resources and considering alternatives. The last time people are not trying to break out of the United States to flew to Cuba. Rewarding people for hard work and punishing people who make bad decisions sounds pretty fair to me. No economic system is perfect. The question is what system has lifted more people out of poverty. The answer to that question I would say is free market capitalism.