Zuccotti Park: The World’s Largest Complaint Box

Despite clogging up the commute to and from Wall Street with NYC’s Finest and crowd barricades as far as the eye can see; we’ve only seen one real-life Wall Street Occupier:

Hoping that the media wasn’t propping up a “movement” represented by this individual, we began reading up on “Occupy Wall Street” to see what it was all about. We’ve read the Occupy Wall Street website, right leaning opinions (and here) in the Wall Street Journal, left leaning opinions in the New York Times, and other opinions from outlets like CNN.

Based on these accounts, Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan has turned into the world’s largest complaint box.

Occupy Wall Street is basically a giant sea of people complaining about anything and everything. Just like the complaint box you might find at your local McDonalds or Wal-Mart, Occupy Wall Street is a place to register complaints of all shapes, sizes and relevance. Some of the complaints are legitimate, however, the vast majority are based on incomplete or wholly inaccurate facts, are incredibly hypocritical, are mind-numbingly trivial, or are just downright loony and extreme.

Not only are the complaints misplaced, but the complaint box itself is in the wrong place. You wouldn’t expect a complaint card about your cold Big Mac Extra Value Meal to change anything at McDonalds if you dropped it in the complaint box at the Starbucks down the street, would you?

Aided in large part by the media, Congress and most importantly (and most disappointingly) President Obama, the Occupiers and many others believe that “Wall Street” has somehow stolen or otherwise illegally obtained everyone’s money, house, car, education, dog, goldfish and Big Mac. The narrative explains that the taxpayers bailed out “Wall Street” and received nothing in return, while the “Fat Cats” were given large bonuses for making “illegal” profits on “derivatives” and other dangerous sounding products like “credit default swaps.”

We suggest that anyone making these claims do some homework.

All of the major “Wall Street” banks have already paid back their TARP bailout money (some of which they never wanted in the first place) in full, with interest, and in most cases, a lucrative kicker for the taxpayer relating to gains on warrants the banks were required to provide to the Treasury. In fact, not only will the Treasury get all its money back, it has estimated it will earn about $20 billion in profits from the bank portion of TARP. Seems like a pretty good deal for the taxpayer. We are by no means advocating for bailouts of failing institutions, but the TARP program was a necessary and hopefully one-time program that has proven its worth by avoiding a complete and total financial meltdown, while ultimately providing the taxpayer with a profit.

Until such time that wide spread corruption or other illegal activities by large banks, “the rich,” oil companies, or any other Occupy Wall Street target have been proven, complaints focused solely on specific actors in the drama are misplaced. These complaints should be focused on the producer, director and writers of the drama - the elected representatives in your state house and in Washington D.C.

The most relevant and legitimate complaint that the Occupy Wall Street movement makes is that the actors have become the de-facto producers, directors and writers due to their influence and power in Washington, bought and paid for through campaign contributions and slick lobbyists. However, this focus on the “1%’s” grip on Washington is ill-informed as for every Wall Street or Big Business contribution and lobbyist, there are even more from Big Labor and Trial Lawyers.

It’s our elected members of Congress, with the approval of our elected President, who cast the votes that determine the laws and regulations of which every citizen and corporation must abide. This includes how much money the country raises through taxes and from whom, how much money the country borrows, how all that money is spent, and the rules and regulations under which every individual and business must operate.

Last we checked, neither Goldman Sachs nor JPMorgan, or any other “Wall Street” bank or other “big corporation” has ever cast a vote on any legislation at any state assembly hall or in either chamber of the U.S. Capitol. The politicians we elect are ultimately responsible for the legislation, not those who try and influence them. If we don’t like our representatives so easily influenced, it’s up to us to remove those representatives and replace them with someone who will place the needs of the citizens above the needs of those with the resources to contribute and lobby effectively.

To paraphrase the great Ice-T, “don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

We’re not giving Wall Street a pass on playing a part in the crisis, but they were far from the only actor in this hugely complex and intertwined drama. Everyone played their role - the banks, the mortgage brokers, the individuals who lied on their mortgage applications and/or signed contracts they couldn’t understand or afford, the pension funds and governments who had an insatiable demand for subprime mortgage backed bonds but couldn't be bothered to analyze them, the credit rating agencies for blindly slapping AAA ratings on those bonds, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Federal Home Loan Bank, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, Congress (both D’s and R’s) and the Fed for actively promoting the real estate binge and everyone in-between.

To lay the blame for our complex economic situation on 1% of the population is lazy and ignorant. Protests make everyone feel loved and important, but as the immortal James Brown once said, they’re “just talking loud and saying nothing.” Real progress and change is made at the ballot box. Only our elected representatives can change the game, in the meantime, criticizing those playing the game is a waste of time and resources, and is ultimately unhelpful in getting our economy, and therefore America, back on its feet.

The Big Bad Berkeley Bake Sale

On Tuesday, students at UC Berkeley protested proposed legislation that would explicitly incorporate race and gender preferences into the university admissions process by holding a bake sale that explicitly incorporates race and gender preferences into the price charged for a cupcake.

The group organizing the bake sale said on their Facebook page “Just like the CA Senate Bills 185 and 387 the phone bank supports, we will be considering race, gender, ethnicity, national/geographic origin and other relevant factors to ensure the equitable distribution of baked goods to our diverse student body."

What is striking is how the coverage and reaction to this event is focused on the “racist” aspects of the bake sale prices and is completely oblivious to the underlying purpose of the event. A CNN.com article notes that the Berkeley student body President Vishalli Loomba said many students who attended a community meeting Monday night expressed disgust that the bake sale would take place. She goes on to say, "as a woman of color, when I first saw the event, I was appalled someone would post something like this on the Internet -- not only a different pay structure, but also to rank the races," she said. "It trivializes the struggles that people have been through and their histories.”

They must not teach satire or irony at Berkeley.

Stating what should be the obvious, Shawn Lewis, the bake sale organizer, completely agrees with Ms. Loomba, "the event is inherently racist, but that is the point.”

To be clear, we’re not equating the historic struggle for racial and gender equality to the struggle of white dudes trying to get into Berkeley, but we are pointing out that CNN and others continue to focus on the headline grabbing aspects of a news event while completely ignoring the real substantive issues.

The CNN article successfully establishes that everyone, including the organizer, agrees that the pricing at the bake sale is “inherently racist.” Crack reporting. What’s missing is any discussion of the real, substantive issue – whether, and how, race, gender and/or ethnicity should factor into university admissions.

For example, if they spent more than 12 minutes on the story, we’re positive they could have found quotes such as these (all made up by us, by the way):

“UC schools, including Berkeley, should have the ability to compose a student body in the way that they see fit in order to provide the best educational experience for its customers (i.e. the students and their parents).”

“I’ve been part of incredibly homogenous groups as well as incredibly diverse groups, and I absolutely believe that diversity of people, cultures and thought is a huge net benefit to any organization, group or society.”

“Diversity is a ‘sum of the whole, is better than the sum of the parts’ argument, and it’s every bit as applicable to the composition of an incoming freshman class as it would be to the composition of a project team in business, or a sports team. Just look at the diverse set of role players on the Tampa Bay Rays ($41 million in payroll) who last night beat out the superstar-laden Boston Red Sox ($162 million in payroll) for the last American League playoff spot.”

“Blindly insisting on various racial and gender quotas and requirements is the wrong approach to diversity. Instead of forcing “preference” to specific races or genders, universities should have the freedom to look at multiple factors when selecting the 18 year olds that will make up their next incoming class – factors that may include race, gender and culture, but should also include GPA, SAT scores, writing ability, athletic ability, extracurricular activities, motivations, life experiences, etc.. Selecting students solely by their race or gender is bad, but it’s just as bad as selecting students solely by their GPAs and SAT scores.”

Quotes like these would add some much needed depth to the discussion and debate, moving it past the easy and predicable “racism” slant and more towards a nuanced and informative news article that addresses the substantive issues surrounding the debate. This is just one example of our media’s disturbing preference to focus on the headline grabbing aspects of a news story, even if it’s a secondary or even totally irrelevant aspect of that story.

Another high profile example of this behavior was when Gov. Rick Perry called Social Security a “Ponzi Scheme” during a recent debate. The media spend more time debating whether Social Security met the Webster's Dictionary definition of a “Ponzi Scheme” than it did discussing the fundamental substance of the comment – i.e. Social Security is broken and needs to be fixed.

It’s a disease that’s spreading quickly – the media and government continue to focus their limited attention spans on the sensational, yet relatively unimportant, issues of the day, while the important and substantive issues get ignored and continue to fester.

"Country Before Party"

No phrase in the public discourse infuriates us more than “country before party.”

Over and over again (including yesterday in his campaign stop in Detroit) we hear President Obama ask “if congressional Republicans will put country before party”, followed up swiftly as #countrybeforeparty in White House tweets.

What exactly does President Obama mean by this? Is he suggesting that Republicans are purposefully making decisions that they know will harm the country? Does he really believe that before a vote, Congressman Joe Republican is sitting at his desk debating between a “yea” vote that is best for the country and a “nay” vote that is bad for the country but somehow best for his party?

We’d urge the Obama administration to provide an example of a decision that hurt the country but served to advance the political party that made that decision. They can’t because it defies logic. The successes and failures of a political party are inextricably linked to the successes and failures of the country as a whole. President Obama only has to look back to the election results in 2010 for a perfect example of this relationship. A Democratic super-majority failed the country, and as a result, suffered huge electoral losses en route to losing control of the House. As the country goes, so goes the political party in charge.

Therefore, it sounds like “country before party” is really just code for “do what we say, we know best.”

As difficult as it might be for President Obama and his fellow Democrats to accept (despite the glaring evidence of two and a half years of legislative and executive ineptitude), they don’t have all the answers. In reality, Joe Republican disagrees with Democrats simply because he doesn’t believe their approach will help the country. Joe Republican does not disagree with the Democrats just because he’s a Republican, he disagrees because he doesn’t believe in, or subscribe to, the specific ideals and principles encapsulated in the Democrats’ proposals.

Suggesting that politicians, not to mention the country as a whole, blindly follow their President at the expense of standing up for their ideals and principles reeks of desperation with hints of dictatorship. This strain of thought, while perhaps a convenient excuse for an unsuccessful President, is neither reality nor democratic (note the lower case “d”). If anything, the passionate debate in Washington, while not very efficient in addressing our problems, is a sign that our democracy is alive and well. We have faith (perhaps naively) that the primary motivation for any politician, whether Republican, Democrat or Independent, is to govern in a way that best promotes a safe and prosperous country.

Time will tell which party, or group of individuals (e.g. Independents), usher in growth and prosperity. However, we know for certain that whomever the public see as the usher will be in a position for huge gains in electoral influence.