Occupy Wall Street and greed

The Occupy Wall Street (OW) movement is indeed about greed, but it is not about the supposed greed of the wealthy or the Wall Street bankers as the supporters want us to believe. It is really about the greed of the occupy movement supporters. It’s about the jealousy and greed of people who have not, or could not realize the amazing opportunity of this great country.


OW would have us believe that the success of the wealthy somehow prevents the rest of us from getting ahead. But did Bill Gates having billions prevent Michael Dell from inventing the Dell computer? Did the domination of Sears stop Sam Walton from building the largest store chain in the world? The fact is as long as we maintain the level of individual freedom we have enjoy in the past and we are not strangled by government rules and regulations, there is nothing institutionally stopping anyone from any level of economic success.

Somehow this group thinks occupying public property and preventing other citizens from using it will solve income disparity.

Somehow this group thinks trying to prevent citizens from going to work because they don’t like the work they do will lift poor people out of poverty.

Somehow this group thinks breaking the law, injuring police officers, destroying other citizen’s personal property and defacing public property will level a playing field they think is tilted towards the wealthy.

I cannot help but think of all the good these thousands of people across the US could have accomplished in the same amount of time as they have been “occupying” public spaces.

If all the food and money that well meaning but miss guided people have donated had been sent to food pantry’s or programs to help the poor.

If all the time spent protesting had been put to use helping habitat for humanity or the United Way.

If all this effort was put toward promoting political candidates that would make a difference.

If all those people had just worked a job, paid taxes and then donated their earnings to the less fortunate.

The so called wealth disparity OW says they are protesting against is an example of miss-use of statistics. The census data that is quoted to prove the great income disparity breaks income in the US down to five quintiles, each quintile represents 20% of the income ladder. So as an example say the top wage earner made $100, each quintile would represent $20, the lowest people making 0-$20, the next $20-$40 and so on.

In the latest census numbers from 2010 we find that households in the top 20% of income bracket (wages over $116,000) receive 50% of the income paid out overall, a number absolutely unchanged for the last 10 years! And a number only changed about .1% since 1993. So the income disparity was about the same during the Clinton administration as it is today, I just don’t remember mobs of citizens complaining during the tech bubble of the 1990’s. Even more deceiving, the census numbers do not take into account the number of households in each income group. In looking at the numbers we find that not only is there a higher % of the population making over $100,000 a year than under $24,000 but the over $100,000 group (corrected 2010 dollars) has been getting bigger in the last 45 years!

So really to have a truly equal society as the liberals define it we need a lot of poor people and not very many rich people, is that what we really want? In order to have true income balance in these types of statistics you need a lot of poor people to make up the income of one rich person. So we have more rich people making more money than fewer poor people, is that really a surprise? Also not reflected is the census data is many kinds of government assistance that raises the standard of living for the bottom quintile. We are taxing the rich to transfer that wealth to the poor but we do not count that transfer wealth in the equation. Even the top 1% number often referred to by occupy Wall Street is misleading; the households in the top 1% wage bracket represent 3% of the total households!

The Occupy Wall Street movement offers no solutions, does nothing to help the low wage earners move up the income ladder. Just a group of jealous greedy citizens that think they deserve something that they have not paid for or earned. Just misguided people who think you can make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.