Rage against the machine

I thought the formulation of the OWS's protests was both succinct and accurate:<p><i>The Anglo-Saxon model claimed that free markets would create prosperity; many voters feel instead that they got a series of debt-fuelled asset bubbles and an economy that was rigged in favour of a financial elite, who took all the proceeds in the good times and then left everybody else with no alternative other than to bail them out.</i><p>But it's painful to see The Economist recasting the problem along the lines of state interference (especially at the end of the article: <i>Western governments have failed their citizens once</i>) whereas the issue here is the co-optation of the political sphere by the financial sphere (the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act under Clinton in 1993 being only one example).

"It is worth remembering that the epicentre of the 2008 disaster was American property, hardly a free market undistorted by government. "<p>This was the line of the piece for me.<p>CWuestefeld gets a +1 for mentioning regulatory capture, which, in our current system, is the actual status quo.<p>Government will be unable to fix the various financial and regulatory problems we're facing so long as corruption continues to run as deep. There is no major industry in the country that doesn't have the lobbying and campaign finance dollars to capture its own regulatory bodies. Until we can solve this problem, any government led effort to regulate our marketplace will fail.<p>Taxing the rich is also something that only appeals to the ignorant. You can raise the taxes on the rich all you want, but the rich aren't going to pay more taxes. Complicating the tax code actually empowers the rich because they have armies of lawyers and accountants at their disposal. Complicating tax codes just creates a glass ceiling for the middle class.<p>Given the level of corruption and the services that the wealthy have at their disposal, the best we can hope for now is a level playing field. Get government out of the way, weaken it, starve the beast, whatever. The idea is not so much to deregulate, but to make the return on investment for serving the American people ( or at least customers! ) greater than that of buying lobbyists and politicians.

OWS anger at corporate bailouts, lack of work, and wealth inequality. Economist's answer? Lower marginal tax for the rich and higher retirement age for workers.<p>Would you expect anything less?

&#62; In Seattle, for instance, the last big protests (against the World Trade Organisation, in 1999) looked mindless. If they had a goal, it was selfish—an attempt to impoverish the emerging world through protectionism.<p>Wow. While a case can be made that the anti-globalization movement would of had that effect, that was not its goal. I really should stop reading the Economist.

The Economist makes a great point in noting the over-simplification of macro-economic policies and the danger of populism, fears that seems justified when you read people saying that "society can afford a hell of a lot if managed correctly": what does exactly means "afford"? Must the society write a check to anyone who needs it? is the objective of the protest to create spaces where people can work and get themselves out of the whole or is to get the government to bail everyone out? Are western citizens entitled to more and more benefits that will definitively be paid by our sons or grandsons, or are we entitled to clean governments and smart politics?

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