Chances are, you've seen these people around your city, dear reader. They hold signs saying that they are part of some sort of thing called the 99%. They look like they're protesting business, or the government, or...hell, I don't know, unicorns?
I am speaking of none other than the demonstrations that have sprung up around the nation after the phenomenon known as "Occupy Wall Street."
Here's a few of the "demands" that were gathered by Reason magazine (http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/03/occupy-wall-street-ghosts-of-s)
"Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.
Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.
Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.
Demand four: Free college education.
Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.
Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now."
Okay, so, it looks like someone didn't pay attention in their economics class because these demands are fucking impossible. I'll break it down by demand:
1. Okay, seriously? Tariffs haven't been the primary source of income for the United States government since World War I. In addition to that, countries that we have entered into free trade agreements with (NAFTA, etc.) are not only not going to send more products to the U.S., but it may cause political backlash as well. Let's talk a little more about that, shall we? There's a reason why we rely on products that are imported to the United States, and that's because we have what is called a "specialized economy." We live in an era where we don't have to be completely self-sustaining; for instance, in the amount of time and manpower that it would take to grow a decent yield of crops, the same amount of manpower, resources, and energy could be used to produce motherboards for computers. We've proven in the past that isolationism doesn't work, and that rings even truer today with our emphasis on internationalism. As far as the whole "family farming" thing goes, if you want to buy from "small family farms," good luck finding one. Nowadays, farmers are subsidized by the government to NOT produce food to prevent flooding of the market. Chances are, you're going to have to find a farmer's market or a co-op or something. Either way, most of the food that you're eating comes from large farms. I'm not even going to get started on the last portion of that demand for a $20 an hour minimum wage because that is completely ridiculous. Businesses will implode upon themselves and will be forced to raise the price of their goods and services in order to accomodate for the money that is being spent on labor.
2. Conspiracy theory much? I mean, I've taken a psychology course in which the foundation of the guy's lectures were that private insurance companies were nothing short of the mafia and essentially bully doctors and psychiatrists to give out medication that really shouldn't be prescribed in the first place, and that seems a bit more feasible in comparison to this. Let's see some facts that these insurance companies are, indeed, taking money from the people and throwing it at Wall street bankers to do whatever satanic ritual you think they do.
3. By and large, see my explanation of how raising the minimum wage to $20 is ridiculous. As a point of extension, each city has a different standard of living; ergo, there is no universal way of determining what kind of wage qualifies as a "living" wage. In addition to that, we've more or less set the standards as far as what kind of work qualifies for a certain wage. You shouldn't have the expectation that you'll be making bank at a job that requires little training and is not as specialized.
4. First of all, there's no such thing as "free." That is a fallacy and a flaw in logic in and of itself. Second, staff, faculty, and other university employees need to earn wages as well, and a large part of that is derived from tuition money. Also, the fact that it costs money to attend classes is more or less an incentive for students to do well; if they fuck up for any reason, then that means that they have not only wasted their time, but have also wasted their money as well. Also, this will end up costing the people in the end as, I assume, the government will be covering the costs of attendance out of the tax revenue. That's one more thing that the government has to pay for, and that's one more tax that the government has to levy.
5. This demand is rooted in the idealistic thought that alternative energy is on the same level of efficiency, both for the consumer and producer. There's a reason why fossil fuel is the predominately the most widely-used fuel today: it's cheap. It's cheap to produce, and it's cheap to utilize for fuel. It costs between $175 and $457 per kilowatt hour to produce electricity by wind (source: http://www.mnforsustain.org/windpower_schleede_costs_of_electricity.htm). Comparatively speaking, it costs $7.39 per kWh to use coal (source: http://205.254.135.24/electricity/monthly/). The numbers are staggering, and its easy to see why companies are more apt to utilize fossil fuels as opposed to the alternative fields that are either unreliable or too expensive. As far as car fuel goes, the energy it requires to produce a single gallon of E-85 far exceeds the amount of energy that it output by the combustion of fuel.
6. One trillion dollars in infrastructure?!? Are you fucking kidding me?!? That would practically mean that every single person in America would get their own bridge named after them, AND they'd have to pay for the privilege. This is a taxation nightmare. We're reeling from the debt that we've already incurred upon ourselves; this is going to be no better. I'm sure whoever thought up this demand ascribes to the mentality that "if you want more money, all you have to do is print more." Really, dumbass. If it were that easy, then we could print our way out of debt.
Meet the protestor.
This is the person who's carrying the signs. The person speaking buzzwords until you get tired of hearing them. The "individual" that is asking people if they know what democracy looks like. The person who wants people to take them seriously. The supposed member of the 99% that is speaking for all of us.
People's hearts are in the right place, don't get me wrong. That's cool that they're actually going out to do something about the crisis that has befallen America today. They just need to get a bit more direction and a little closer to earth.
