In its fourth week now, the Occupy Wall Street protest has gained substantial momentum since its beginning. It began a month ago with just a small group of college students but now has gained thousands of demonstrators. A group of mostly liberal young people, these protestors parade the streets holding signs and shouting anti-capitalist jabs at the “evil empire” Wall Street. Despite the support from the Democratic Party, these protestors are misinformed and wrong.
First of all talk about biting the hand that feeds you. These people are extremely critical of capitalism; some of them even demanding that it be demolished altogether. Chants such as “Down with capitalism” and signs reading “Tax Wall Street, not us” are a common sight. A group of radical protesters even vandalized the actual Wall Street street sign, spray-painting one word over it: Occupy. And that’s exactly what they’ve done. More than 5,000 protesters crowded Wall Street literally occupying the territory, often times in illegal places. What these people don’t understand is that the very idea of capitalism mixed with democracy is what gives them the right to protest. The flow of money due to the free market is putting more people back in the workforce than any regulation of the system by the President. The freer the market, the freer the people. It worked for our parents’ generation in the 80’s with Reagan’s policies and was stable in the 90’s as well. What changed? Regulation, that’s what. We have a country that is in debt over 14 trillion dollars, families across the country struggling to make ends meet, and yet we have a president who wants to tax the rich and corporations more. This simply doesn’t work. Corporations and businesses are what puts people to work; taxing them only decreases their confidence to hire, and in most cases causes companies to force mass cuts in employees. That means even fewer jobs. The “Occupy Wall Street” protesters are proposing that we do exactly that. True, the bailout of big business is usually not a good thing and some regulation is required to avoid corruption. But a complete overhaul of the economic system? This would surely cause a government run economy with high taxes and limited rights. Is this really what Americans want? Apparently some do.