I'm Not Listening

"Banks got bailed out, we got sold out."

There's a lot to be angry about:

1) the banks, both commercial and investment, reaped enormous profits during the go-go years by taking risks that we now know to be reckless;

2) if the bankers had paid up or had gone out of business when the deals went bad, the system would have seemed fairer. But, we, the taxpayers, footed the bill.

3) now that conditions are better, bankers have resumed paying themselves handsomely and congratulating themselves on their smarts.

Reprehensible.

But:

1) The Occupy protesters want to seize the "one-percent's" property because the rich got that way immorally according to the protestors' standards (but not illegally--go get them, I say, if laws have been broken);

2) The abrogation of property rights affects us all. I don't want someone taking away my 401(k) or my house because I meet someone's definition of being rich. "First, they came for the billionaires, then the millionaires, and then they came for me."

3) Filth--if any business operated under those conditions it would have been closed immediately by public health authorities--and violence--rape, murder, assault, robbery, and drug use--are rampant. [Update: here's a list of over 70 incidents - a few are speech "crimes" for which a Tea Partier would be pilloried, but most are actual crimes.] The banks may be bad, but I'll take that world over the one the protestors are offering. People admire, then follow, those who lead admirable lives.

4) Don't youngsters bear any responsibility for the choices they made in their education? In 2011 graduates who majored in computer science, mathematics, and the hard sciences have no lack of job offers in the Bay Area and are well able to service their student loans. Decades ago, in a bad economy, I took courses then a job in the non-fulfilling field of accounting. I had bills to pay. Following my passion when I didn't have any money seemed awfully self-indulgent.

5) If a protestor claims "we got sold out", I sympathize completely if she pays income taxes. But if she doesn't pay anything and the protest is about her government goodies getting cut, then I'm not listening.