Occupy Grandpa's House!

A recent report from the US Department of Commerce paints a sad, sad picture of the wealth gap in America.  As those learned folks representing OWS have told us, the young are getting by with less-and-less.  And is it the greedy, corrupt 1 percent who have absconded with the nation's wealth who are to blame?  Nope. The same report from the Commerce Department indicates that households headed by those 65 and older have on average 47 times the net worth of those headed by people 35 and younger.

This should come as no surprise.  Our parents and their parents were much better savers and typically bought only that which they could afford.  Of course, one could argue that there was nowhere near the amount of temptation then as there is today to fuel a consumer-driven economy and certainly not the ease of access to the great enabler--easy credit--to make it all happen.

Nowadays, the average-income, thirty-something North American walks about with a credit card that could buy them a mid-sized car.  And when those who are tempted have the means to act upon it, the results could be tragic, as housing bubbles and stock market corrections have so eloquently shown.

Assuming our brains are wired to be defenceless against resisting temptation (cue Genesis, chapter 3) and we cannot remove that which tempts us, it would stand to reason that a suitable solution would be to remove access to credit. Many of those "occupiers" living in tents on parkland in [insert you favorite metropolitan City here] are staring at 50K college tuition loan paybacks that they perhaps should have never received in the first place.

Governments look good making and guaranteeing college loans to all and everyone associated with that gets a warm fuzzy feeling; that needs to stop. Raising interest rates over time is critical, too.  This will make saving more attractive and consuming, less so.  There's a reason grandpa is sitting on a fortune and it's not by living a consumption lifestyle.

So, let's give the 99 percent a hand up by helping them go through life debt free. This starts by eliminating the access to cheap and easy credit for the masses.

An Anarchist By Any Other Name Would Still Stink The Same

Lately I've been occupied with the Occupy movement that has swept across North America and Europe.  From what I've gathered from their incoherent hodge-podge of arguments, I've concluded that the collective is simply disenchanted with their prospects in life.

I wonder how many of these "occupiers" bothered to vote in their last election or would even consider the democratic process as a means to exact the change they seek?

"...a cacophony of random rhetoric blather..."

Don't be fooled.  This is nothing more than another group of anarchists, their enablers, interlopers, and hangers-on who want something, but don't feel particularly compelled to work for it.

Demands posted on a website mention irrelevant arguments about better bank lending practices and prosecution of corrupt corporate fraudsters.  These "fixes" from the last economic meltdown are already in place.  Yes, it may still seem unjust that the CEO of Bank X earns 100 times more than the employees, but that's called supply and demand; something leftists and children don't comprehend.  Moreover, what do CEOs' compensations have to do with anyone else's lot in life?  Has a disproportionate increase in CEOs' earnings ever prevented anyone from carving out a life for themselves?  Of course not.  It's just a talking point and fodder for a group that isn't quite sure of what their goal actually is.

Other demands include:  better health care, employment, education, immigration, racial and gender equality, or in other words, the same things "the people" have sought for generations.   These changes, when sought by the majority, have occurred and will continue to do so through the democratic process.  Yes indeed, in the same democracies that afford these malcontents the opportunity to "occupy" in the first place.

These demands should be tabled and lobbied for in Washington, not on our downtown streets.  Preventing us from getting to work while subjecting us to a cacophony of random rhetoric blather does nothing for anyone's "cause".

I suspect that the only winds of change upcoming for the occupiers are winter's chill.  Grounding them once and for all, at home, snug in their beds, asleep 'til noon, while the real 99% remain hard at it.

Damnation!