The Occupy Wall Street Model: Greece or Israel

Protests, as with other social phenomena, can vary in form and outcome. Reading our newspapers we see Greeks rioting. Entitlements given them by previous governments are now suddenly being torn away. The age for collecting retirement insurance is going up. Tuition subsidies are a thing of the past. In short, the Greek standard of living is dropping like a stone.

The Greek situation is relatively easy to explain, but difficult for Greeks to accept. The Greek people through their various unions and political parties had been able to wrest entitlements from politicians that simply could not be sustained by their economy.

The Greece story is easily explained with numbers and a rudimentary understanding of bookkeepin. But, it's not a story the Greeks want to hear. So what do they do? They burn cars, break store windows, and assault their police. They find it intolerable that their national budget is now being supervised by outsiders; most notably, the Germans, a past enemy. But, hey, that's what happens when you spend more than you collect.

Israel's Social Protesters are also unhappy with economic matters, but their target has been narrower. They wanted more affordable housing and lower food prices -- most notably for milk products. And, here the government was able to respond in a fairly reasonable manner. They set up a commission that explained what most already knew; namely, that housing was in short supply and that dairy prices were high, in large part, because of monopolies that had arisen in this particular market. The Israeli government then proceeded to take steps designed to alleviate both these conditions.

Has this ended social protests in Israel? Not quite. The ranks of protesters has fallen drastically. Only a remnant remains. But the storm seems over.

There are today many other protest movements through out the world -- Tahrir Square in Egypt and the Arab Spring, in general, being prime examples. But, in many of the middle east protests, civil rights and freedom from institutionalized corruption have been the primary targets.

It should be noted, that we in America have had protest movements that have been enormously constructive; most notably, the civil rights march in Birmingham. But the impetus for this and other civil rights protests in this period of American history are quite clear. Young African-Americans were no longer going to tolerate Jim Crow; not when they were dying in Vietnam for a misguided military effort. In Rev. Martin Luther King, these protestors had a preacher who could articulate with crystal clarity what their protest was all about.

The Occupy Wall Street kids have no message other than that they are unhappy with the American economy. Well, who is? But, like the Greeks, they find it either too difficult, or too painful to sit down and figure out where this country has gone wrong. Fortunately, as disruptive as they've managed to be, they've largely avoided the damaging behavior of the Greeks.

I imagine that the leaders of our Occupy Wall Street crowd are well versed in Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals." And, that's good. But, neither the protestors nor their leaders have managed to articulate their goals or objectives other than their wish to tear down American banks, send to prison bankers who took their cues from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and take money from the rich and redistribute it to the poor.

The one real success achieved by the Occupy Wall Street has been in raising money, which by todays count as reported in the press has reached over $500,000. Excuse my skepticism when the protesters tell me the money has come from widows and orphans.

Gilad Schallit: The Choice

To ransom the IDF soldier held by Hamas or not -- to exchange him for Arab terrorists or not -- that was the subject of our rabbi's sermon. He concluded that there was no proper answer. I listened and thought to myself: There may be no proper answer, but when your the leader of a nation, you must decide.

I further thought that the choice hinged not so much on whether to exchange Schallit for the terrorists, but whether this was the proper exchange; namely, 1027 terrorists for one soldier. The principal of exchange had already been established through earlier exchanges made by Israel. The only real question, it seemed to me, was whether the number of terrorists exchanged for Schallit was reasonable. (As it turned out, the only reason that the deal was consummated was because Hamas wanted to one-up Fatah's Abbas.)

I shared these thoughts with a young man who once served in the IDF. "What do you think of the exchange," I asked.

"They should never have made the trade," he told me.

"Not made the trade? Schallit might have died in a Hamas dungeon," I said.

"Maybe," responded the young man, "but there were other options."

"Really? Like what?" I asked.

"When a soldier is taken by the Arabs, the IDF should go in after them and do what they have to do. Anything standing between them and the captured soldier must be flattened. Nothing should be left undone until such time as the soldier is retrieved."

"But, wouldn't the chances be quite considerable that the IDF soldier would be killed in the process" I asked.

"Sure," he replied, "but, that's what it means to be a soldier; your life is on the line. Every soldier knows that."

"Well, son," I said, "I'm sure glad, I never had to face those prospects when you were in the uniform."

Occupy Wall Street: Some Sympathy for the Protestors, Please

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) people are part of a larger phenomena; namely, the I'm-mad-as-hell-and-I-won't-take-it-anymore people. There's a long history of such demonstrators. Usually, they know what they're mad about. The Selma March people were protesting against Jim Crow. The Hooverville protestors, largely WW I veterans, were expressing their anger at having fought in a terrible war and then finding themselves made paupers by a failed economy. The Vietnam protesters were largely young people of draft age expressing their anger at a war they were being forced to fight -- a war whose best explanation was a ridiculous domino theory.

Now let's look at the Tea Party. They're people, largely Republicans, who feel that the policies of the Democrats have been ruining the country through bad economics and because of bad social policies. But, more than that -- they feel that the Republican leadership became no better than Democrats. They felt that the Republican leaders had been in cahoots with the Democrats in sending the economy down a path of ruin, and in not fighting harder for such social issues as right-to-life and against gay life style.

The Tea Party continues as a force because they got the argument half right. Past Republican leaders had indeed failed to fight with sufficient vigor against overspending and a tax policy riddled with special favors to big campaign contributors. This argument is winning supporters from both the left and the right.

It's in their social policy issues that give the Tea Party its Archilles heel. These positions are positions held through faith. They can't be proven, and most Americas -- especially independents -- don't support them. Americans, in great numbers feel a woman must be the final arbiter of her own body. By the standards of most Americans, birth begins when the baby is born, not when it's conceived. But what will be the consequences of the Tea Party positions on these issues. Will the Tea Partiers refuse to support a moderate Republican candidate even if it means returning Obama to the White House? That remains to be seen.

The Tea Party has to a large extent played down the social issues and focused on the country's economy and that, as far as I'm concerned, is as it should be.

The OWS people have no discernable policy other than to tax the rich and redistribute the wealth. And, that's not a surprising position to take when a nation's economy goes into a dive. The general attitude is that this-shouldn't-be-happening. And, it shouldn't. But, since it has happened, you've got to seriously analyze how we got here. And, then, and only then, can you plan appropriate corrections. And, that's where the OWS people are failing the county. They are not focusing on how we got here. When, and if, they do, they might find that the Tea Party people and they, the OWS, are actually brothers in arms.

A Tribute To Men With Foresight -- Something Woefully Lacking In The Wall Street Protesters

Let me give you three names: Harry Markopolos, John Paulson, and George Soros. It's not my affection for these men that has me listing them here. (Soros, in particular, is a jerk.) But, in matters of money and finance all have displayed that rarest of qualities; namely, vision.

Harry Markopolos was the fellow who spotted Madoff's Ponsi scheme, reported it to the SEC and encountered a wall of ignorance. Despite Markopolos's best efforts to alert the SEC to this on going crime, it was not until years later, after the scheme had collapsed, that all could see what should have been obvious long before.

John Paulson, the hedge fund manager, spotted what should have been evident to our major banks, not to mention the Federal Reserve; namely, that the mortgage market was resting on quicksand. Unlike, Markopolos, he didn't trumpet his insights. He just sold short -- cleaning up hugely when the inevitable collapse occurred.

George Soros did pretty much what John Paulson did. But, he did it with the Bank of England, instead of a dodgy mortgage market. The Bank of England claimed they wouldn't devalue the pound sterling. Soros knew that conditions were such that, regardless of what the Bank said, devaluation was inevitable. Realizing this, he did what Paulson had done. He sold short.

Understanding our current economic mess doesn't require any special insight. It's been analyzed quite thorougly. Books -- good books -- have been written about it. And, yet our younger citizens go about mindlessly marching on Wall Street screaming about the evil banks. And, if they want to rant about Goldman Sacks and other major banks that's fine. But, how can they overlook the banks that were at the heart of the problem; namely, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Why don't they go after the people charged with overseeing them; namely, the Congressional banking committees headed by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.

So why don't the protesters target these malefactors? Could it be because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are run by the government? Could it be that the protesters find it impossible to imagine that anything managed by the government could go terribly wrong?