Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Occupy Wall Street Continued

The Occupy Wall Street movement has more legs than I originally gave them credit for. The protests have spread to an increasing number of cities, including a number of international sites. There are clearly a lot of people out there who both feel disenfranchised from the current economic system, and have too much time on their hands.

But I still don’t see any evidence of a coherent program of policy demands coming out of the protests. The op-ed writer Tina Depuy has put out a column that claims there is a demand: economic justice. In fact, she repeats the term “economic justice” five or six times in the course of the column. To me, trying to figure out what “economic justice” means is like looking at a Rorshach blot test. You can read anything into it that you want to see.

If you have $100,000 in student loans, maybe economic justice is having the debt written off by the bank. But if you are a stockholder in a bank, why should you write off those loans? Wouldn’t that make you poorer? What if you are a pension fund that has invested in student loans? Don’t you need the students to repay their loans so you can continue making payments to retirees who are depending on those checks? Writing off the debts of 20 somethings and sticking it to 70 somethings doesn’t seem very just to me.

How about the money paid to Wall Street bankers? You could consider it economically unjust that they are making such huge bonuses. But is bankers are going to have their incomes cut, shouldn’t we look at other highly paid individuals, like movie stars and athletes? Take the Yankee player A-Rod, for example. His salary alone is more than the total payroll of half the teams in Major League Baseball, yet the Yankees got eliminated early this year. Paying somebody that much for losing doesn’t seem very just to me.

Then there is joblessness. People need jobs! Of course, the last time I checked, the military was still recruiting. But the folks of OWS probably don’t want those jobs. They want the jobs they want.

Now, if you want to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, I could see how that could be a useful policy to advocate for. But I would bet that not one in a thousand of the OWS protestors world-wide could tell you what the original Glass-Steagall Act did, so somehow I doubt that is driving the train.

The problem with fuzzy concepts like “economic justice” is that they mean something different to almost everyone, which is like saying that they mean nothing at all.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Occupy Wall Street vs. Tea Party

Much comparison has been made between the Occupy Wall Street protestors and the tea party movement. The commentary is that even as the tea partiers are a grassroots movement espousing a varied, but generally conservative agenda, so the OWS crew is the left wing equivalent. The laundry list of desired policies from the Occupiers runs the gamut, from calls to intensively regulate the capital markets, to a push for some sort of government jobs program that will put large numbers of the unemployed back to work.

But I see far more structural and philosophical distinctions than similarities between the tea party and OWS, even taking their policy differences into account.

The tea party protests were geographically far flung, and were most effective by working within the democratic system. At literally hundreds of town hall meetings, all across the country, citizens came forward to meet with their elected representatives and express displeasure over government’s increasing reach. The same groups that showed up to protest went on to push for candidates who believed in limited government, and helped get a number elected.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are (so far) an exclusively urban phenomena, and do not seem to be spreading beyond a handful of cities. New York, Washington, Boston, Seattle and Chicago are the one’s I have heard of. No Occupy San Diego, or Occupy Indianapolis has made the news yet.

Also, while both Occupiers and tea partiers are activated by a sense that the government is no longer working for their interests, on the tea party side the theme is generally for a smaller government, and particularly an opposition to tax increases. Of course, many tea partiers are drawing plenty of government benefits already. A more nuanced statement of their position would be that the government is just big enough. Any benefit cuts should come out of programs they don’t use. The real desire is to oppose tax increases.

In a hyper-partisan political environment, saying no to taxes seems to be a strategy that is winning.

The Occupiers want a bigger government, or at least a government that is just enough bigger to give them something. Taken collectively, there would be quite a smorgasbord of increased spending to make all of them happy. To pay for their increased benefits, they want somebody else to foot the bill.

When the Federal government is already running a 40% deficit, expansion doesn’t seem like a good idea, even if you do get to soak the rich to help.

So you’ve got one movement that is geographically diverse, is focused on a primary objective, and is meeting the lawmakers in their districts. You’ve got another movement that is geographically restricted, wants lawmakers to come to them, and has a laundry list of demands.

Advantage, tea party.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Occupy Wall Street?

I confess I am absolutely mystified by the Occupy Wall Street protests. There doesn’t seem to be any coherent theme or agenda behind the protestors.

Are they advocating specific regulation in the financial industry? I certainly can’t tell that from the news coverage. Are they attempting to disrupt operations on Wall Street? If so, the organizers flunked out of protestor camp, because it is business as usual.

Now the labor unions are getting involved. Several unions have announced plans to join the Occupy Wall Street protests. The unions appear to be supporting the idea that union members should be getting higher wages and better benefits. What this has to do with credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations is anybody’s guess.

The most recent stunt was for some of the protestors to wear zombie makeup and pretend to be zombie corporate workers. I’m just not sure what that is supposed to symbolize.

Lots of questions, and not very many answers. I know why the protestors are getting on the news every day. Protests make for great television visuals. But if you cannot articulate what you stand for, don’t be surprised when you don’t get what you want.

Unless you want to be an extra for the TV show The Living Dead. Because the protestors are getting great training for that.