by Roland Hulme
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| OWS need to realize that their "enemy" and their "solution" arethe same entity |
An Open Letter from a Rational American.
Dear Occupy Wall Street,
I, like millions of Americans, are torn between support for what you're trying to achieve, in your ramshackle camps in Zucotti Park and elsewhere across the United States, and contempt for both your ideology and your methods.
We can all agree that the current system of "American capitalism" is all screwed up; but your ideas towards fixing it (and your squalid camp outs -filled with rapes, shootings and crime) are totally lopsided.
So here's the skinny, from somebody who is not blindsided by political allegiance or partisan dogma. Here's where you're going wrong; and here's where you're going absolutely right.
First off, your primary concern that corporate America has too much influence in American politics is half right. Almost every single problem that we are enduring - from nearly 20% real unemployment, to the 2008 housing crisis and beyond - can be laid at the doorstop of American politicians working in conspiracy with American business.
But here's when you're wrong - asking government to fix it.
Because this is the kicker you Occupy folks haven't seemed to get your head around yet: Corporations interfering with the government is not the problem. It's the government interfering with corporations that caused this mess. Every time you wave a placard proclaiming that "capitalism is the enemy" you seem to be unaware of the fact that the system we live in - even in America, the most capitalist society on earth - is very far from true capitalism.
We live in a society of crony capitalism; in which instead of competing on the open market, businesses one-up their rivals through the work of lobbyists and legislation.
The evidence is everywhere.
You Occupy types would like to blame the 2008 housing market collapse on the banks; but that's simply not true. 80% of all mortgages in this country are backed by Freddie Mac and Frannie Mae; which are essentially government bodies even if the paperwork claims they're not. The housing crisis was caused by lawmakers passing regulations to force banks into lending money to bad risk investments; investments which later failed to pay up and sank the industry.
The reason nobody can get a loan today is not because banks don't have any money (they do - they're sitting on trillions of dollars) but because they're looking at these potential loans as business investments; not required action by the government (for which lobbyists and lawmakers enjoyed a commission kickback.)
This abuse goes still further.
Just look at how Governor Rick Perry 'mandated' vaccinations for teenage girls not because he believed HPV was a potential risk for them growing up, but because he was getting kickbacks from the only company that produced the vaccine.
When I worked for SIRIUS Satellite Radio, our merger with XM was nearly nobbled by lobbyists from the terrestrial radio business; who used their influence to drag a "yay or nay" out interminably not for the benefit of the radio consumer - but to try and force both companies into bankruptcy before they could consolidate.
A similar example occurred recently, when wireless companies AT&T and T-Mobile were refused permission to merger. Was this to prevent them from creating a "monopoly"? Very far from it - even as a single company, they'd still face fierce competition from Verizon and Sprint.
No, the truth was that lobbyists from these rival companies pressured lawmakers to deny the merger because they knew that a combined AT&T and T-Mobile would present more serious competition; and so instead of beating them on the open market, they hammered the nail into their coffin in the back rooms of Washington instead.
Now reading this, you might think that I'm validating everything the Occupy Wall Street crowd is going on about; that business should get out of government.
But I believe very strongly that it's the other way around.
When it comes to issues like wireless companies combining, or whether or not the impoverished should be trusted to manage variable rate mortgages, you have to ask yourself whether this is the business of government at all.
Deciding whether I have commercials or not during my radio listening was certainly not amongst the roles and responsibilities set out for government by the Founding Fathers.
The simple fact is; capitalism is the greatest and fairest system of economy in the world, and we have traditionally done 'capitalism' best in America - but we're screwing it royally up.
And the problem isn't that business is intruding into government - although it is, inexcusably.
It's that government has maneuvered itself into areas which were traditionally dictated only by the forces of the free market; and that has enabled unscrupulous businessmen to gain the upper hand over rival business not by offering better services, or cheaper rates, or any of the other things that cause one company to win out over the other, but by bribing the elected officials who are unfairly in control of such things.
Yes, Occupy Wall Street, it's true that American business today has the country in a stranglehold - but don't blame capitalism. True capitalism - unfettered by corruption, graft, greed, bribery and vice - could never have led us here without the knowing compliance of the corrupt, crooked, unscrupulous bastards who we unwittingly elected into power to "protect us."
Government poisons business; not the other way around.
Sincerely,
Roland Hulme
excellent letter
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