I wrote this over the last few days, and after going back and forth on if I should blog or not, I decided that wordpress is free, and so am I, to write whatever it is I feel on this subject, even if it is mostly mumbling and run on thoughts.  So here are a few thoughts that the Occupy Wallstreet movement left me with.  I started with the question……

Why am I mad?

99% and all that junk.  I’m one of them I guess since I don’t reside in the 1% they are villifying.  Do I agree with all of their arguments?  No.  I don’t hate profit.  I work for profit at my job.  The company that pays me needs profit to justify my work and pay.  I would love to own a company that makes lots of profit and not hate myself for doing it.

I don’t like money in politics.  I know, a naieve thought.  I do believe that taking money from people who help you get places puts you in a position of having to owe them something.  As companies and CEOs are able to give as much money as they want to politicians, it’s creates a situation where politicians are put into a weird situation:

-Before the election, take as much money from the rich as you can to run for office with, and say whatever it takes to get elected.

-Then after you are elected, answer to those who you took money from and make sure they are taken care of.  Vote along the lines of those who elected you so long as it doesn’t interfere with the interests of those who paid your way.

Probably a pretty sad outlook on our system, right?  Unfortunately I feel this is what really happens.  I would venture to say it’s more a republican thing than democrats, not to say it doesn’t or couldn’t happen on both sides.  It’s just that with repubs being heavily pro industry focused, they are already pre disposed to leaning in that direction and taking money from those industries to carry out what they preach to begin with.  Dems do the same, but being that they are generally carried by large metropolitan cities and regions, looking out for those masses that vote them in is their predisposition for the most part.

Again, overgeneralizations but I’m not sure I’m off the mark by much.

Really my whole point over the last few paragraphs is that taking money out of the equation would make it so that those with principals would run on those, and not having to pander to those with money would make it less likely that you would have to bend or break those principals for the sake of more money.

Yes, there are those that are crooked and would do so anyways.  But, taking the money to run for office out of it would avoid putting politicans in any one corporation/lobbiests/rich person’s back pocket and allow them to govern on what they believe and not who they owe.  So I’m mad that profits are being abused to manipulate the government.  Again, and naieve notion and thought.  This will happen no matter what.  I think this change would help curb the problem.

 

Why am I mad?

 

Government makes the wrong decisions for the sake of being reelected.  Bail outs should not have happened.  Do you know what happens when a house is about to fall down?  People move out for their safety.  Banks/GM/Chrysler/housing market etc. were like a old house about to fall down.  We added some 2x4s and hoped it would stay up.  Then they built up around the old house, meaning it still has the crappy underlying house, but now it is stronger by applying a ton of 2x4s and called it good.  It would have been much better for the house to fall, clear away the rubble and rebuild.  I firmly believe in 98% of the pricipals of capitalism.

This was not capitalism.  GW Bush voted for the first bail outs.  I don’t understand how that happened, but then it comes down to him having friends in places I supposed, which is the problem to address above.  Obama was always going to do bailouts since that’s kind of his thing, helping people out.  Socialism, wealth distribution and all that junk.  Do I think CEOs get paid too much?  Yes.  Do I think that is their fault?  No.  Do I deserve part of his pay?  No.  Corporations run as they do, most of them are run pretty poorly at this point, I believe we can all agree to that for the most part, as it seems as though they are the reason we are in this mess.  Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should (derivitive markets, bad home loans).

Why am I mad?

I don’t have a solution, I don’t have a voice.  I have to make a living, I’m not so unlucky to not have a job and be out there actively protesting.  I work and complain, I know there is an issue, I don’t know how to solve it.  I don’t know who can solve it.  I’m not sure America is in a position to solve it.

Too divided, too corporatized, too much money on the line.  It’s frustrating to not have any answers to a problem I see.  Not to get all conspiracy theory on it, but those with money have the power to influence those who make the rules.  Generally that’s going to be making the rules in their favor.

I guess I feel a sense of injustice in that sense.  It would be nice if those with money were able to stay out of the way of how the country is run.  Not leverage their assets for their own continued gain.  Supporting a candidate on principal, believing in their cause is always great.  But it doesn’t seem to be for those honorable purposes.

If I were to speak with a senator/governor/representative, I feel like it would be one of those photo op moments, where they’re walking by and I get a handshake and a smile, a thank you and god bless.  Even if I got 15 minutes, what would it do?  I feel like it would be no different than I see on TV.  “I’m all for the american people/american dream/live, liberty, pursuit of happiness etc.”  Would I accomplish anything?  Could I?  Do the occupy wallstreet movements accomplish anything?

I’ve always thought, things really need to get worse before they get better.  For me, it comes down to the housing analogy I used earlier.  When something is beyond repair, you have to remove the old and rebuild.  I don’t wish for the destruction of the economy, but I do wish for the removal of the current system.

No more allowing banks to make insane loans.  No more allowing them to bet on their own demise with toxic mortgages and mortage backed securities.  No more companies so big they aren’t allowed to fail.  We should never bail out a failed company.  But this has little to do with companies themselves, that has everything to do with the government not doing it’s job.  Tighter regulation on the financial industry.  Get rid of the current rules, replace them with ones that make sense, ones that won’t allow for what has occured.

Of course hindsight 20/20 right?  Easy to call this out now.  I remember when I was 19 or 20, looking at buying a condo, sure that in 3-4 years I would be selling it and/or renting it out and moving into a house.  Good thing that didn’t work out.  I would have been one of the many with a ARM loan, paying something like 17% on my condo right now.I was this close to being one of the many.  I am lucky for now.  But I am still frustrated.  I am still confused.  Who to blame?  Who will fix it?  Who can I believe?