The following is the response to Harvard Business School alumnus posting in repsonse to Occupy Wall Street demonstrations forwarded by a NewsLanc reader:
“Ideology cannot fix labor and customer markets.
“I remember my father in the 1960’s lamenting that we were a society that was losing our manufacturing sector. At that time he was talking about steel and Japan. The opening of China and India as a labor source has dramatically accelerated the trend across other products and services, turning our country into the financial broker of the world — that is where we are now the experts, but it is a narrow employment opportunity. Pitching the tent in NY or Washington is not going to change the fact that today’s educated youth no longer have a clear path to financial success. And Washington or NY can’t fix that — only the growth in wages and benefits in these other markets, that will make us more competitive in labor and products, will bring back multiple success paths in this country. And that is years a way.
“In the short term, the opportunity is in the financial sector or those who serve the people and companies in the financial sector. The exception to the above are the innovators who have always been successful.”
NEWSLANC EDITOR:
Obviously the opening of opportunities for cheap labor abroad puts pressure on domestic wages for the unskilled. But that is no excuse for our country allowing special interest groups to enrich themselves at the expense of the general public and for refusing to enact the same progressive forms of taxation as existed during much of the 20th century and eroded since the time of the attack on government by Ronald Reagan and his cohorts.
We pay 35% in federal income tax over $250,000. Past generations paid twice that amount.
We allow large segments of the wealthy to avoid paying taxes either through special treatments such as capital gains, other favored tax treatment, hoarding profits abroad to avoid taxation, or pretending they are based on some Caribbean island.
We waste 6% of our Gross National Product (GNP) on a exploitive and an inefficient health care system.
We waste 3% of our GNP on excessive military spending.
Largely due to the lame brain and ‘Jim Crow’ War on Drugs, we have incarcerated a huge amount of our population and created a criminal justice system with prisons being one of our few growth industries over the past three decades.
Through outsourcing government services, we have created private industry monopolies without competition and appropriate controls.
By eliminating the “Fairness doctrine” for media, we have allowed our cable companies and newspapers to feed the prejudices of their audiences rather than to perform investigatory reporting. As a result, there is no media check on our public officials. Where newspapers used to vie to expose malfeasance, even the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and Los Angeles Times no longer fund significant investigatory reporting.
By allowing the raising of vast sums of money necessary to win public office, we have turned our two party system into a duopoly which serves only Wall Street, the oil companies, the military industrial complex, the health care industry, and all of the other special interest, social parasites that have been bleeding our nation dry
We have systematically deprived our government of the funds needed to invest in basic research, infrastructure and education. We fell victim to Reagan and those who would have us believe that “Government is the problem” when indeed government in partnership with the private economy was always the solution,
Yes, the less skilled among us will not earn as much as in the past. But through reforms, starting with how political campaigns are funded, increasing governmental revenues, a ‘single payer’ health system, avoidance of senseless wars, more revenue through progressive taxation, standing up to powerful interest groups, and regulating and control of most illegal drugs as we do alcoholic beverages, we can regain world leadership in many areas through expertise and competition and also assure all of our young people a good and affordable education, protection from exploitation, fair laws, good health care, and favorable prospects for their children and future generations.
I could not have said it better!
KZ
EDITOR: Considering the source, that is a high compliment!
I agree – a thorough list of our troubles and potential improvements. Now how do we regain control of our society for those with endless greed and put it in the hands of leaders with a long view of our needs? Unfortunately not by camping out in public parks like depression era hobos.
Well said, indeed! I agree with the spirit of everything you are saying.
However, I don’t understand how picketing on Wall Street addresses the issues of government tax policy, government spending policy or government election finance reform, not to mention all the other aspects of reform needed for a more socially just and equitable society. That’s the disconnect for me. How does picketing bond salesmen lead to avoiding senseless wars or lead to more inclusive healthcare? I think that all of OWS need to collectively (no pun intended) take the bus to Washington.
To the extent those on Wall Street are culpable of financial crime and corruption – and I can think of many, many specific examples – by all means we should be picketing for enforcement and justice. But why picket the criminals? They should be picketing the State Attorney General’s office and/or the Department of Justice.
I spent several years living overseas, and I see no difference between the systematic, official corruption here and the systematic, official corruption I saw in other countries. But I also know this is not the first time we have faced this corruption as a nation. As the progressive movement from the 1890s-1920s showed, wide scale changes in suffrage and tax policy are possible. It can be done. Laws can be passed against the financial interest of ‘rent-seeking* legislators. Amendments to the constitution can be made. However, all the wealth redistribution in the world, regardless of the progressiveness of tax rates, will not be able to reverse the impact of global economic forces. So the occupiers might feel that conditions are more fair – which I certainly support – but such action won’t address their underlying economic complaints (as I understand them). I agree with Dr. Swift – the money is simply not there, even at 100% taxation.
My great-great grandfather was a wheelwright at the turn of the 20th century. He had spent years learning to be a master in art of crafting wagon wheels out of wood, but the introduction of the internal combustion engine rendered his skill worthless in the marketplace. My grandfather started his career as an architectural draftsman, and the job he did then doesn’t even exist anymore. 99% of the work my dad’s printing company used to manufacture has moved online. When was the last time you called a travel agent or a stock broker?
So, yes, let’s fix these inequities in government policy. Let’s demand enforcement of our existing laws. Let’s demand inclusion, more meritocracy and less rent-seeking. But even once all the political loopholes are fixed, the underlying economic complaints with still remain (and probably will be getting worse) In the end, I can’t see any alternative to learning to adapt to a changing economic landscape.
*EDITOR: “rent” in this context is an economic term for taking advantage of a situation. The writer is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School.