Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Stalingrad

When I first heard about the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, I was happy.

I swear ! Finally, the American people getting on their feet and protesting. Finally America waking up.

Enough of the so called free trade we are the only ones to apply.
Enough of the government not understanding the basics of tax distribution.
Enough of the trade deficit, caused by our free market agreements that aren't respected on the other side.
Enough of the so called "Defense" that is financing other countries with American money.
Enough of...

Oh wait, that's not what they are manifesting for.
For a split second, I thought that Americans had finally realized the real issues of their country. I guess I was too optimistic, after all we are talking about Americans.

Not only is it stupid, but it counterproductive.

Let's take a closer look at this Occupy Wall Street movement.
5,000 people according to the police are occupying Wall Street, with a subtle yet humanist message : "the rich are bad people, they stole my money, now let's take the power back".

First of all, "the rich" didn't take your money. You gave it away.
A few years ago, just before the crisis, "many" (not enough apparently) economists and organizations, including Roger Simmermaker, were warning the "middle class" about the excess of free trade and economic ultra-liberalism in our country.

As you may have seen, their warnings have not only been neglected but the middle class did the exact opposite, with some false rationalizations to excuse their behavior (which are very funny by the way) :
- "the world is a liberal place"
- "every country we import from are applying free trade"
- "it's ok to buy toyotas because they manufacture some parts here"
and my personal favorite :
- "each time we import something, we also export another product so it evens up"

After the economic crisis, caused by the combination of a huge trade deficit and excessive spending (which alone is not a problem, get that into your heads).

Now let's get back to the Americans protesting in front of Wall Street.
For some reason, they believe that they deserve the salaries of "the rich". They believe that 1% of the world are paid too much.
But the problem is that they are not complaining to the "1%" of the WORLD, they are complaining to the "1%" of AMERICA.

Otherwise it would be "occupy the world", and not just Wall Street.

They maybe believe that traders are paid too much ?

That their salaries are too low compared to those of traders ?

What they are forgetting is that we live in a capitalist society (the same on that they worshiped 20 years back when the alternative was soviet-style communism).
Capitalism is meritocratic.

The CEOs, traders are paid more than a teacher or a cab driver because they create value, and bring money into the States (for the most part).
That is the only thing stopping this economy from collapsing, and lightens A LITTLE our trade deficit.

So to sum it up, Americans want a system where their salary is not defined by how beneficial they are to our economy, but "how much they work for" ?
That is what I understood from "hardworking 99% [...]" .

So basically, even if you are only producing value in the States (market cannibalism), you want to be paid the same salary as somebody actually helping our economy ?
Well that is not liberalism. I never thought I would defend liberalism some day.

Bankers, CEOs, stock holders, "high-class",etc... they make money. Maybe a lot of them are doing it wrong, but nobody is giving it to them.
Nobody is protecting them from foreign competition (ultra-liberalism at it's best).

And you still want the same salary as them ?

Let's go back to the main point of this article.
Americans want a system where they are remunerated not according to how they help the economy, but on some subjective evenness.

That is not traditional capitalism, but socialism.
And I have nothing against socialism ! I am more right-wing that left on those issues, but I could totally accept a socialist system in our country.
The only problem is... socialism cannot work in an open economy/society.

Hitler's was closed. Castro's was closed. Stalin's was closed. Sarkozy's (although officially he is "populist") is closed.
Top of the hat examples.

Let's stay with the example of France.
Sure, teachers in France are paid more than in America. In France they are paid between 2,000€ and 3,500€ according to the level they teach in.

But France is not an open economy. Not only is the States financing nationalist propaganda (under the name "national preference", because "preference" sounds positive right ?), but they are maintaining monopolies of their major companies.

Don't you ever wonder how L'Oreal, Dannon, Michelin and all can implant themselves so easily in the rest of the world ? It's simply because they have no competition on their local markets. And that is not only applied in France, just look at the top exporters in the worlds (China, Japan, Germany,etc... they aren't up there because they are competitive or innovative).

So the American middle class sees that they are paid less than the French middle class.
Their solution ?

Take the money from the American upper class, to give it to the middle class.
The only problem is that the American upper class is ALSO PAID LESS than the French upper class.

So by taking money from the American traders and CEOs, you will only make the gap between they revenues and the ones from the European/rest-of-the-world upper class bigger.

And you can only increase this gap for so long until they decide to go to France for example. Where the French government will be more than happy to tax their AMERICAN MONEY from them (a funny French nationalist rule that implies that you are taxed double by their country when you have bi-nationality).

And that's the beauty of our ultra-liberal and ethno-masochistic system, since the American people don't favor local products over imported, the American companies/CEOs see no interests in staying here (except from low taxes), since they know that if they sell products from Kentucky or Paris, Americans will buy them both.
That is partly why there is so much de-industrialization.

So that resumes the problem with this American protesters : as always, they want everything. They want the ultra-liberal free trade system without the consequences that come with.

On a side-note, not ONE American has used his brain from the start of this Wall Street affaire. Not one.

Don't you wonder why the European (with some exceptions) media, that is 100% Anti-American and nationalist is now supporting this movement ?
Take the French newspaper Le Figaro for example.

The same ones that more or less openly celebrated 9/11 are now supporting the Wall Street movement.
Doesn't that make you think that Americans protesting against their own government and people is exactly what they want ?

To end this article I will quote myself. This is a quote I have used for the last four or five years (before the crisis, but that still applies today).

"If you are stupid enough to vote/support free trade, then you probably deserve what you will get."

Today, we have the perfect example for this quote.