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There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Everything demanded by the Occupy Wall Streeters -- whether "free" health care, a "world-class education" or a "guaranteed living-wage income regardless of employment" status -- costs money.
When a CEO makes a lot of money in the private sector, it is because his company -- rightly or wrongly -- values that CEO's services at that price. To say it is "not right" that a CEO makes (fill in the blank) times more than the janitor is to say it is not right for the marketplace to set wages. If the marketplace ought not set wages, then who or what should?
Most people work for the private sector, which cannot exist without profit.
Is the OWS objection to bank bailouts on the grounds that government should not protect businesses from the consequences of their actions? Or is the objection that bailouts should be for everybody?
We already have a huge welfare state, with entitlements -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- the biggest expenditure of the federal budget. Europe's welfare state is larger, with a slightly smaller "gap" between the rich and the poor. Yet its citizens also take to the street to denounce inequality. Puzzling, isn't it?
No one can legally ask about the immigration status of a public school student, so Americans and non-Americans, including illegal aliens, receive a K-12 public education at taxpayers' expense.
Per-pupil spending for public education increased 49 percent from 1985 to 2005. Community colleges are cheap, and many states guarantee a junior college graduate admission to a public four-year college.
The physical advantage that men possess over women is an increasingly small advantage -- given the decline of labor-intensive jobs and the technology that makes it easier for machines to do hard, dangerous, repetitive work.
There are more tenants than landlords, which thus exemplifies the stupidity of "rent-control" laws. Rent-control laws disproportionately benefit the non-poor because the elite pull strings, work the system and are better connected than the non-poor. All of this matters when items of scarcity (in this case, apartments) are dispensed by government dictates rather than through prices.
Government possesses no money of its own. It raises money by taxing, by borrowing or by printing.
The bigger the government, the smaller the private sector.
Individuals can spend their money more wisely, efficiently and more humanely than can government.
People value and spend their money more wisely when they acquire it by their own efforts -- also known as work. There are real-world, direct consequences on you for squandering your own money, as opposed to when government squanders the money of its people.
Government employees enjoy job security unknown in the private sector and are often paid more than their private-sector counterparts. Greed?
People spend their money more humanely because they won't waste as much of it. Consider that to deal with "the poor," the federal government has a vast array of agencies, programs and policies. But only about 30 cents of each dollar designated for the poor actually gets in the hands of the recipient. Contrast this with the United Way, Salvation Army and other private charities where 90 cents of each dollar donated gets to a beneficiary.
Americans agree that some people -- whether faultless or irresponsible -- need assistance, if only occasionally. The only issue is (SET ITAL) how (END ITAL) they will be helped.
Americans are the most generous people of any industrial nation. We give more of our time and money than do the Germans, British and Japanese. Note that those states have a bigger public sector than we do. Maybe they feel they gave at the office.
The U.S. Constitution isn't just any ordinary document. It is the contract between the government and its people, the ones who empower government and who -- once upon a time -- expected the Constitution to restrain government, not empower it.
Government's involvement in housing caused the meltdown -- not greedy Wall Street bankers. The same Occupy mindset caused the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, placed on human growth hormones by President Clinton, who pushed banks into lending to poor credit risks and allowed Wall Street to play with taxpayers' money.
There is no bad guy. It's not the Koch brothers, Grover Norquist or the Maltese Falcon. There is no evil entity, snorting steam from his nose, standing in an office full of Nazi memorabilia, staring out the window with the cityscape view, laughing: "Ha! Ha! Ha! Pretty soon, all this will be mine. Mine, I say!"
Life has never been so good, with so many choices, with so many more conveniences, so much less danger of dying from disease, with so many choices for entertainment and affordable travel.
When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul. But at some point Peter begins to feel taken advantage of.
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Larry Elder is a best-selling author and radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an "Elderado," visit www.LarryElder.com. COPYRIGHT 2011 LAURENCE A. ELDER
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November 28, 2011 @ 9:06 am
I doubt if I could say anything more about this uncivilized mob that I haven’t said before, and in my opinion the White House and all these officials that allow this to continue are responsible for the filth, drugs, crime and deaths that have occurred since this mob took over our country. Without intelligent and morally sound leadership, no nation can survive.
November 28, 2011 @ 2:04 pm
And now we have at least 16 donkeycrats that will NOT seek re-election in 2012….could they finally be seeing the truth? We really do need a LEADERSHIP change from the prez down to all the congress members that have been in office more than one term.
November 28, 2011 @ 9:41 am
While I agree that wealth is not a right, I do believe that the profits of a corporation belongs to the investors, the stockholders in a company, not the executives who are contracted to do a job for a certain amount of money, with perhaps a bonus for excellent performance. However, when the executives take the majority of the profits for themselves, and the stockholders aren’t receiving aren’t receiving a fair return on their money, that is wrong. Without the investors, the corporations would not have the resources to operate the company, and that deserves as much compensation as the brains of the COEs. When people entrust their retirement savings to the management of a company, they have a right to expect that their money earn a decent percentage of the profits, not a few pennies a share.
I don’t think anyone has a right to expect something for nothing, and that includes corporate executives. They get a very hefty paycheck to begin with, and the corporate earnings rightfully belong to the investors, not them. Who’s protecting the investors?
November 28, 2011 @ 11:05 am
If the Wall Street investors are fortunate enough to have any brains, they will not be investing in the “Corporations” which are the abusive ones! Try using your brains and doing a bit of homework before you put your investment allowance anywhere. Try looking at past investor return and dividends paid before you jump at whatever your “financial adviser” suggests!
And you might also make sure your vote is counted when you are invited to approve or disapprove of the board members.
November 29, 2011 @ 12:45 pm
Profits belong to the corporation. Whether they choose to distribute them to investors or re-invest them in the company towards further growth is a management decision. If as an investor you don’t agree with corporate/management policy you can vote with your feet and sell the stock. If you invest only in mutual funds, you have to do a little digging to see what company stocks you own through the funds and make sure the fund’s investment strategy/philosophy matches yours.
Buyer beware. Agencies like the SEC and FINRA attempt to protect investors from outright fraud and abuse, but no one can protect investors from being stupid…least of all the investment banks and their brokerage arms who are pushing their stocks. Keep in mind…if a broker is telling you to buy, whether it’s stocks, bonds, or gold, it is because his firm is selling.
November 28, 2011 @ 9:56 am
Lot of truth in this article, but not complete picture. The primary goal of Global Industrialists is to maximize profit. If profits can be increased by using cheap foreign labor, they will and do move industrial sites elsewhere to take advantage. To sweeten the pot, they bribe politicians to obtain Free Trade thus eliminating any chance of domestic competition.
In the past we had trade restrictions which guaranteed available employment to US workers, today jobs are scarce due to overseas industrial movement and foreign outsourcing. It was just a matter of time before the US economic engine crashed, credit has limits.
The OWS group is a product of a global socialistic educational system that has been put in place by our own government. They aren’t taught the true history of a world defiant, self reliant, and self sustaining America, but instead told a big government with global ties is necessary. As government increases, it is true it gobbles up the private sector and destroys Free Enterprise (a necessary element in sustaining a Free Society).
The educationally programmed useful OWS idiots, don’t understand that the only way for individual prosperity is through a Free Enterprise system with a Free Society. Big government is a conflict and destroys these elements. A Free Market self corrects through some losing and some gaining. To exist it most be closed or protected, because wage earners are more expensive than the slave or near slave labor that exists elsewhere throughout the world.
November 28, 2011 @ 3:04 pm
I have questions. If the US puts trade restrictions on goods coming into this country, where do we sell our goods? If memory serves, Canada is our biggest trading partner. What will they do if we put restrictions on trade between our countries?
November 28, 2011 @ 10:02 am
Great article.Larry never disappoints. It puzzles me, however that people want to talk so much about “Occupy Wall Street” movement endorsing Socialism and no one seems interested in the recent Congressional Resolution endorsing the superiority of Capitalism.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.res.422:
Maybe the Capitalists need to start pitching tents…but then again, who would save the world.
November 28, 2011 @ 3:23 pm
Sorry, but you came to a wrong conclusion. Dana Rohrabacher, CA proposed this resolution with NO co-sponsors and it was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services where it will die.
November 28, 2011 @ 4:29 pm
I don’t doubt that resolutions often die in committee. However if this resolution had as much awareness as the Occupy movement, it wouldn’t. Co-Sponsors would join the effort and it would be brought to the House floor for a vote. It would start a debate in which I believe the left does not want to engage.
November 28, 2011 @ 10:11 am
i receive medicare, i tried not to sign up, but finally, was threaten by our wonderful govt by naming the felonies i would commit by not joining, i also pay for supplemental health care from my x-employer. last year i received a lot of mail, emails, and phone calls, from major healthcare organizations, informing me, that they will give me improved supplemental coverage without any cost to me. my monthly cost would be zero. i know nothing is ever free, i ignored all the offers. this year i received the same info, i called to ask questions. they said my x-employer is paying for it so my monthly cost is zero. i asked if our fed govt contributes anything, the person hedged around the answer, but finally admitted the fed govt pays the majority of my cost.
i reluctantly signed up, saving cash every month, to put gas in my car.
thank you, mr and mrs taxpayer for my free supplemental healthcare. this is the beginning of our govt taking over everything. limits on private salaries are next.
November 28, 2011 @ 10:43 am
This bunch of whiny, “gimme, gimme” people are the direct result of an attitude what has been stewing for years. I’m sure you’ll recognize the sentiment…………..
“My kid is going to have it better than me….”
I wondered how long that attitude was going to last. I tend to favor a different quote, from Forrest Gump……….”Stupid is as stupid does.”
November 28, 2011 @ 10:45 am
The Japanese successfully copied many of our work processes and methods of manufacturing. I think we should copy one of theirs, they limit the highest paid executive of a corporation to 400 times the lowest paid employee of the company, all “excess” money goes back into the company. They also guarantee an employee “employment” for life, they look at it as they are a family, and they will go down together if the company fails. I do not agree with the employment for life, but I do like the limits on the top pay for executives.
November 28, 2011 @ 3:24 pm
Japan has also had a stagnant economy for 20 years. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
November 30, 2011 @ 2:37 pm
Japan has had a stagnant economy because they epitomize a socialist pseudo-capitalist society, the economy is capitalist but is forced to fuel a massive socialist machine. Japan is where we will be in the next couple decades if we aren’t careful. Their industry had the upper hand for a while, its only the massive taxation and reliance on trade deficits and lack of internal self-sustainability that tore them down. Not to mention their GROSS overvaluation of property for their house-of-cards capital run-up to jump start a lot of their industry.
All of their mistakes we have been making, and we should really know better.
November 28, 2011 @ 11:05 am
Only for elected officials is wealth a ‘right’ since they set their own pay scale and have tweaked in recent years so they get auto, cost of living raises, unless of all things, they vote not to get it. This of course lifts all govt workers, union employees for the most part, who also get cola raises. All this is inflationary, so more cola raises are the result. This is a vicious cycle of expanding govt! And the pathetic thing is most of them, including union members, relly do not need the money to live a reasonably comfortable lifetyle. And I’ll bet not a single one of them is homeless, except if they are an incredibly poor manager of their personal finances! We all know how poorly they manage the taxpayers funds.
Actually no one owns money. It is yours while you or the govt possess it, but once spent it belongs to someone else.
November 28, 2011 @ 11:33 am
I really enjoyed Larry Elder’s article because, unlike so many commentators, he is willing to connect the dots in the flawed scheme to move everyone who is poor into the Middle Class by giving them massive entitlements of free food, free housing, free education, free money and free medical care, all paid for by those who work and pay taxes, on borrowed money or on printed paper. At the other end of the economic scale this scheme allowed the rich salesmen and sales organizations to become obscenely rich by peddling leveraged debt and insured junk to the world created by these entitlements.
Many went to the absurd movie “The Manchurian Candidate” of 40 years ago and saw a “brainwashed individual” being pushed by “World Communism” for the US presidency. It was absurd because it wasn’t a scheme based on our national weaknesses and flaws; these are what any bright enemy would exploit. For example, when Mr. Elder mentions President Carter’s scheme to force banks to loan money for compassionate reasons rather than using normal banking practices, we would never question his very idealistic motives, but we might question the motives of those who gave him campaign contributions to set our nation on this economically disastrous path where banks made junk loans, Freddie bought them, AIG insured a bundle of them and subsequently sold them as investment-grade bonds paying higher than normal interest. From the poisoned trunk stream created by Carter the poison flowed into those distributaries we now see as Freddie, Fannie, AIG and a hundred other greed-driven opportunities for hedge funders to peddle the debt and encourage worldwide speculation using highly leveraged derivatives only one step removed from the highly leveraged stocks of 1929.
We may be appalled that some in Wall Street found a way to get rich using the Clinton Administration’s repeal of banking and investment laws to establish unregulated funds where GREED could develop unfettered and well hidden; but during the same time period we’ve allowed HATE and ENVY to drive campaign rhetoric and actions (e.g. the attacks on Cain and the OWS movement supporters); we’ve created SLOTH in two generations of our youth who don’t want to work in the same manner as previous generations of Americans and we’ve subsidized LUST with entitlements to only those 40% who are unwed mothers. An economy that consumes rather than creates is actually based on GLUTTONY and we in the West are certainly living a life where we somehow think we are better than others in human history and that is PRIDE. Throw is the growth of societal divisions based on RACE, GENDER, ECONOMIC STATUS, UNION, ETHNIC BACKGROUND and LANGUAGE in place of our “MELTING POT” traditions and you have an integrated scheme to DIVIDE and MAKE IRRELEVANT this nation as a dynamic force standing against World Communism.
The attack is real, it is just indirect and based on our society’s weaknesses.
November 28, 2011 @ 11:58 am
I would propose two pieces of legislation when we cast out the current Communist leadership in Washington. First, the ‘Taxpayer Empowerment Act’ which would have all polling places run the voter’s ID through a national database. Only ‘makers’ would be extended the privilege to vote, as it is their money that the candidates and issues will be spending. ‘Takers,’ those who are not productive and contribute nothing would not be able to vote themselves more and more ‘free stuff’ or benefits.
The second law, ‘ Fiscal Responsibility in Federal Government’ would be quite simple. Each Congress would be charged with operating the federal government with NO DEFICIT. Failing to do so would result in the recall of every single Representative and Senator to be replaced by special election in which the recalled incumbent is ineligible to run
‘We the People’ will once again have a government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people’
November 28, 2011 @ 12:11 pm
All these miscreants taking issue with corporate America certainly have a strange philosophy. I have worked hard my whole life and have earned every ***** I’ve made. I worked part time while going to school and was able to achieve a Master’s Degree in Public Administration. I owned a business that employed as many as 22 employees. But, enough about me.
The “Occupy” group want everything handed to them, without self determination or self-effort to achieve whatever they want. They hate corporate America and want to bring it down…yet, expect corporate America to pay for their every whim. What? If they are successful in bring down our capitalist system…who will pay for them? Do they not realize that if the capitalist go away the meal ticket will end? They will find themselves in the same precarious condition because, at that point, government will not find it necessary to continue to cater to them.
They hate people like me that love this country. I’m white, senior citizen, and with no nagging disabilities. I am “the enemy”….according to our Poser-in-chief. I support defending our borders from the continuing insurgence of illegal aliens. They tag me a racist. I believe in GOD and believe our country was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs. They hate me for that. I own several guns…more hatred. They want to intimidate me from voting….like they did in Philadelphia.
As these sheeple continue to fall into Communist control…and, that is what it is….they will soon realize how duped they really were. Blacks and Latinos will realize the party of “hope and change” has suckered them relentlessly. Many would benefit by reading Karl Marx or Mao. Their ideal worlds were ones of total control over the peasants.
November 28, 2011 @ 1:55 pm
Hey, GOPERS! Wall Street doesn’t have CIVIL RIGHTS when it comes to OWNING Legislatures to pass laws only FAVORABLE to THEIR profits – and not COMPETITIVE FREE MARKETS.
If Wall Street CEO’s are so smart and American True Capitalists, why even the NEED for LOBBYISTS to pursue special protection laws, tax loopholes, creation of phantom monopolies, and 2BIG2FAIL protection?
GOPERS don’t understand that OWS is not against OLD SCHOOL CAPITALISM….just this CRONY CAPITALISM where CERTAIN CEO’s and Industries get special interest treatment, seriously hampering SMALL COMPETITIVE BUSINESSES, and allowing them to treat the American consumer as the ENEMY, not a customer.
Any GOPER that believes that OWS is “against all corporations, all of Wall Street” and looking for “welfare handouts”, are either dumbed down to reality or stuck in a FOX HOLE somewhere.
Want to see a REAL 99Percenter?? Look in a mirror, or look at your kids – the future 99Percenter population.
November 28, 2011 @ 3:47 pm
I know who I am and it’s not one of these protesters who are claiming to be among the 99%. My husband and I worked hard all our lives and paid taxes as part of the lower Middle Class. I don’t mind being pretty much where we started out because we managed to pay off our house and have a fairly new car. If we care to go out for dinner we do. We’re not big spenders but if we want to buy something we do.
I don’t see anyone like me in this bunch. Probably 80% of them don’t know what it is to work at a job.They’ve allowed Communists, Fascists, Nazis, Socialists and other groups to infiltrate them without any apparent effort to dislodge them.
I’d like to see what kind of degrees many of them have. Are they for useful jobs or are they things like Ancient History, Gender Studies, etc.?
Of course they’re trying to make a profit. Everyone is. I had my own small (tiny) business for many years and that was my aim – to make a profit! Whether you’re a corporation or a small business that is what your aim is.
I think you take a lot for granted that OWS is only against the crony capitalism. From the signs I’ve seen they’re against and for everything. This is not a cohesive group. I think the few who started out have been joined by most of the riffraff in this country.
If they want to protest they should be in Washington D.C. in front of the Capitol. That’s where the crony capitalists are. Wall Street is only aiding and abetting.
Pingback: Elder: Hey, Occupy Wall Street; Wealth Isn’t a Civil Right | JamesCatledge.net
November 28, 2011 @ 4:21 pm
“When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul. But at some point Peter begins to feel taken advantage of.”
Or Peter runs out of money and can no longer be robbed. But more likely to happen is that Peter notes that beyond getting a certain amount he doesn’t robbed any more so he limits his production to that. And/or Peter keeps money earned offshore offshore and doesn’t bring it home where it would build up his local economy.
November 28, 2011 @ 5:07 pm
I am afraid dingbat is rather misinformed. The stockholders in most, if not all, major corporations are effectively disenfranchised. If their holdings are by mutual funds, they get zero voting rights. In many corporations, the vast majority of the stocks are owned by institutionals, who place their people on the boards, and control the shareholder votes. When you lokk closer you find many interlocking board members, ‘you wash my back, and I wwill wash yours’. If your 401K includes corporate stock, it does not include voting rights.
While I hate to propose any laws, perhaps there should be a law that re-enfranchises ALL who have a fiducial interest in any corporation. Perhaps then executive compensation, including the golden parachute, would come back to earth.
November 28, 2011 @ 9:56 pm
Elder says “We already have a huge welfare state, with entitlements — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — the biggest expenditure of the federal budget” I say to that! I payed every working day of my life for those “entitlements”. What politican has ever paid for his “entitlements:?