OWS HAS A WIKI PAGE

There is now a Wikipedia page for OWS. It's interesting. Most Americans have had a rising income since 1979 but the top 1% has gained 275% while the middle class has only gained 40%. Many of the protesters want socialism and are prepared to use violence to get it (31% think violence is acceptable). 98% think that civil disobedience is acceptable.

"On Oct. 10 and 11, the polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland interviewed nearly 200 protesters.[43] Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, 98% would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and 31% would support violence to advance their agenda. Most are employed; 15% are unemployed. Most had supported Obama; now they are evenly divided. 65% say government has a responsibility to guarantee access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement. They support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and are divided on whether the bank bailouts were necessary.[43]

In the Wall Street Journal, Fox News political analyst and Clinton administration pollster Douglas Schoen wrote that the protesters reflect "values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people" and have "a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas," and that politicians who support them will be hurt in the 2012 elections.[43]"

It's hard to know what to do with all this information except to file it under part of the growing gap between opinions of America's future. I personally am for private enterprise and private property and don't think others should either be able to seize it or to occupy it. The whole movement was apparently started by a Canadian activist group.

I do think the richest people should help the poorest, but on the other hand they are already doing so. Only 53% of people pay taxes at all in this country. I think even the poorest person in America has access to food and shelter (there are people who don't get enough calories but that is a voluntary thing called anorexia). In general, we are eating too many calories. I know I am. I do look for artificial sweeteners such as Sucralose, aspartame, and Nutrasweet, and love them all, but some people claim they cause cancer.

As I see it, life is a gamble from beginning to end. You hope when you get out of bed to have a good day. You hope to eat something that's decent and won't make you sick. You hope when you open Facebook to be amused. You hope when you open any book to be entertained and hopefully enlightened. You hope when you start a business to have a profit. You hope when you invest in a company that there will be a return on the investment. It seems to me that OWS is about dissatisfied people who want government to take all the gambles/gambols out of life, and make government into a nanny that will never forget your meal or to wipe your butt and face (hopefully not with the same napkin).

There is a certain level of risk when you make a decision to get married or to take a job or to hire someone. You never know if your partner will cheat, or die, or get cancer, or turn mean and spend the whole day screaming at you in public. A boss might fire you or harass you or never give you any raise, and then suddenly you're old and stuck. In Lois Lowry's The Giver she posits a society in which all risk has been removed. People are basically zombies. Inconvenient children (children who cannot produce, or aren't smart) are killed off (released).

In a game such as basketball the top 1% produce all the baskets in the NBA. Very few of the country's basketball players ever make it to the NBA. Those few who can get in (probably less than 600 players at any one time) score almost all of the baskets. And they also make almost all of the money to be made. But if you say that everyone in America should split the baskets then it's hard to see how the competition would be improved, or the game itself would be improved. It's frustrating for some to think that they are not succeeding. Excellent businessmen like Donald Trump aren't made overnight. Most can't cut it. And yet people envy them, and think that it's easy. Writing is also a competitive enterprise. Many start blogs, and few are read. Few get comments. Most fold in a certain amount of time. Most writers will never have a book and if they do the book won't pay for itself, much less make a profit or a name for its author. Is this fair? It's a risk that almost everyone will fail at. Life itself is a risk from the inception (billions of sperm cells but only one arrives at the egg first). Life is risk.

Risk is the main problem perhaps. The protesters want to limit the profits of the upper classes in order to make their own lives risk-free by creating a better tax base. However, without companies that are producing profits, there are no taxes. So, it would seem that free enterprise would work better for everyone. But the enterprises would have to be free to fail, too. The Fannie and Freddie debacle in which loans were given out but in which there was no risk is what ruined the economy. The government bailout of Fannie and Freddie created an enormous tsunami of debt that wiped out many companies and threatened to take the US under. It damaged our credit rating. The government has to let businesses fail, and businesses have got to get back to taking risks. Insurance companies have to be free to set their own risk levels. If they screw up, they go under. Government should get out of business altogether and simply regulate and make sure that businesses are safe for the environment and that they are not unfairly creating monopolies, or cutting the actual throats of other businessmen and businesswomen.

It's not as if I myself love risk. I find it unnerving. When I eat I want maximum enjoyment with minimum calories. So I drink iced tea with aspartame. This means I get a sweet drink but also the risk of cancer. The risk I do without is the calories. The best bet is to stay within the recommended BMI. The iced tea companies are betting that I will bet in this way: drink sweet beverages without calories. I should resist, but I willingly for for this risk. I shouldn't, but I do.

If I started to bet another way, so would they. This proves that capitalism is a democracy, and I am in control. Under communism, there would only be one drink, and everyone would be forced to drink it, or die.