Master Chefs Creating Unsavory Soup

To The Editor:
The United States of America is in the “soup.” Low growth, high unemployment, two protracted wars and crushing debt. The public reaction to some of this unwholesome concoction reared its head on the right with the Tea Party outrage at deficits and big government. Most recently, from the left, as the “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) movement, if it qualifies as a movement. OWS lacks the coherence of the Tea Party and perhaps wouldn’t be at all save for the level of joblessness. One might guess that all those squatting/camping protestors wouldn’t be doing so if they had decent jobs to go to.
The left likes to suggest they’re the emerging liberal cousin of the right’s Tea Party. Don’t they wish! OWS has gotten it’s share of digs. One parody has a guy with a bullhorn standing on a milk crate. Call him Mr. Bullhorn. Mr. Bullhorn to the crowd, “What do we want?” Crowd, “We don’t know.” Mr. Bullhorn, “When do we want it?” Crowd, “Now!” And interviews with some of the youthful protestors (many college grads) caused a friend and graduate school educator to observe, “Lots of schooling there but little education.” But could they gel into a movement with impact? Many doubt it but it’s alleged unions are involved as well as George Soros’ money, trying the create some sort of coherent force. One disturbing element of the “protests” is the anti-capitalism one. Even as paradoxically they surround themselves with artifacts of capitalism’s fruits: I-Pads, Smart phones etc.
Instead of screaming at Wall Street and reviling capitalism, OWS might better vent their spleens at Washington, Congress and the White House. The problem lies not with capitalism but government’s interference in free-market capitalism with its laws and regulations unfriendly to business growth. It is said too many hands spoil the broth. In this case the hands are federal hands and they are far from clean regarding the “un-tasty” soup we’re in.
So OWS rails at Wall Street and banks, the favorite villains of Democrats and Progressives even as millions pour into political campaign coffers from such sources. In a free-market system there would be no “too big to fail” entities. (The Tea Party and OWS agree on this.) Businesses in trouble through mismanagement would go bankrupt, reorganize and rebuild like a Phoenix rising from its ashes, but government bailouts and Solyndra-type subsidies undermine the free-market capitalism that made the United States the global economic powerhouse it once was and could be again. So why do they butt in? Not out of the kindness of their hearts do politicians interfere. It’s all about political power now.
In addition to power, it used to be about doing some good for the country but now it’s mostly about doing good for political parties. The political class is largely the master “chefs” creating this unsavory soup we’re in. As patrons of the national “restaurant” we have the power to fire the chefs and/or change their ways. What do some of OWS’s crowd want? More income redistribution and transfer of corporate wealth to themselves? What they don’t seem to get is that corporate wealth is the county’s wealth by payments to stockholders and private sector reinvesting in job-creating growth. Merely creating public-sector jobs (rehiring teachers and other taxpayer-funded public jobs) won’t turn things around though it helps get votes for those who advocate that kind of “stimulus.”
Obama demands Congress pass his jobs bill. Must we accept that this stimulus will not fail as its grandaddy did?
ROBERT LOVELL
Court House