"Occupy" Is No Tea Party

Billie Tucker and Edwin Feulner at RealCLearPolitics:

President Obama this week compared the Tea Party to the Occupy Wall Street protests, telling ABC News’ Jake Tapper, “in some ways they’re not that different.” We beg to differ. The Tea Party and the protestors are almost exact opposites.

We understand that the President is in a dilemma. He sympathizes with the protesters because many if not most of their goals are also Mr. Obama’s. He thus wants to associate the Occupiers with the Tea Party, a movement that has resonated with the American people.

But there’s the rub. Barack Obama identifies with the Occupiers because, as pollster Doug Schoen put it this week, they reflect “values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people … and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies.”

That’s not the Tea Party. That’s the opposite.

It is hard to generalize about the Tea Party. One of its major strengths, however, is that it is a mass movement that eschews central control; it is propelled from the ground-up. Indeed, its structure reflects its philosophy of respect for the wisdom and freedom of the American people and their traditions.
Unlike the Occupiers, the Tea Party has a unifying set of principles. Those are articulated clearly in America’s founding document, the Constitution. It lays out a system for limited government, delegating specific powers to elected leaders and prohibiting them from exercising responsibilities beyond these enumerated powers.

The Tea Party’s heroes are therefore the Founding Fathers (as you may have noticed from the three-cornered hats some of the most colorful Tea Partiers wore). The Tea Party is all about the small-government, personal responsibility and conservative philosophies espoused by Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk and Milton Friedman.

The Tea Party is not an anarchist, anti-government group. We agree with Barry Goldwater that “the legitimate functions of government are actually conducive to freedom. Maintaining internal order, keeping foreign foes at bay, administering justice, removing obstacles to the free interchange of goods-the exercise of these powers makes it possible for men to follow their chosen pursuits with maximum freedom.”
The Tea Party, lastly, reveres the values of this country, which are respect for the law and private property, freedom of expression, assembly and religion, self-government, self-sufficiency, hard work, and the belief that the family is the major institution in society, not the federal government. We know America’s success has stemmed directly from these values. It’s what sets America apart from all others.

The Occupiers want many things, and the vast majority of the ones we’ve heard would deviate America from its historic course. Their hero, by the look of their tee-shirts at least, seems to be more Che Guevara, a psychopathic killer, than Madison, Jefferson and Franklin.

Let’s analyze how the protesters’ demands would make our country less free and more dependent on an ever-growing government.

Heading this week’s “99 percent declaration” (and virtually all previous lists of grievances emanating from this group) is the demand for a ban on political contributions by individuals and political speech by associations and groups, including companies and unions.

This is no apple pie proposal. Such a change would leave us less free and show a woeful contempt for the First Amendment. As the Supreme Court rightly found in the Citizens United case, this is about the right to engage in free speech, particularly political speech, and the right to freely associate. The Court rejected the very idea that the government can decide who gets to speak, and ban some from speaking at all, particularly those doing their speaking through associations of members who share their beliefs. This is about one of the fundamental freedoms in the Bill of Rights.

The Occupiers decry bailouts, but they seem to reject them only for companies and industries they don’t like. Their grab-bag of special interests looks like Mr. Obama’s, including a special exemption for any corporation that claims to be “green.” Meanwhile they want to give authoritarian powers to the Environmental Protection Agency “to shut down corporations, businesses or any entities that intentionally or recklessly damage the environment.”

The list of baddies is long, and recognizable: the pharmaceutical industry, “corporations engaged in perpetual war for profit,” the “fossil fuel industry.” Sound familiar?

And by the way, the Tea Party was repeatedly, and quite libelously, portrayed in the media as racist, unruly and rabble-like. Never was any proof of this shown. On the contrary, Tea Partiers brought their own trash bags and cleaned up for themselves after every protest, and then went home to their jobs and families. Has anyone seen the anti-Semitic signs and comments many of these protesters are making—the violence, arrests, park occupation, police car defecation and store vandalism?

We could go on, but we think our case is made. The Tea Party represents (and respects) America. The Occupiers may be well intended, but their demands would be very different from what the Founding Fathers gave us and would dramatically change America.

Any comparisons between the Tea Party which desires to liberate We the People from big government and the Wall Street Occupiers who want more government regulation is either misguided or made to intentionally confuse Americans. 

Ms. Tucker is co-founder of the First Coast Tea Party and Dr. Feulner is President of The Heritage Foundation.

For liberals, income inequality is the new global warming

James Pethokoukis at The Enterprise Blog:

Liberals think there are lots of ideas that intelligent Americans just aren’t supposed to challenge. If they do, they’ll be labeled “deniers,” intentionally raising a nasty comparison to Holocaust rejectionists. It’s politics at its absolute lowest.

Among the unchallengeable dogmata: the Obama stimulus created millions of jobs, Obamacare will save trillions of dollars, Dodd-Frank prevents future bank bailouts, and policy uncertainty isn’t an issue hampering the recovery. And, of course, global warming poses an existential threat to civilization and humanity. Make that an “undeniable” threat.

You can now add “income inequality” to the list, thanks to New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait. In a column headlined “The Ideological Fantasies of Inequality Deniers,” Chait writes: “Rising income inequality, like climate change, is an ideologically inconvenient issue for conservatives. … The underlying facts, like the facts of climate change, are stark. Over the last few decades, income growth for most Americans has slowed to a crawl, while income for the very rich has exploded.”

In a way, Chait is correct that income inequality really resembled global warming. Both are issues that, to the extent they are even problems, could be be fixed though faster economic growth. And both serve as handy excuses for the Left to raise taxes and expand government.

The reality about “exploding income inequality” and wage stagnation is far different than what Chait, the Obama White House, and Elizabeth Warren (D-Occupy Wall Street) contend. One example: Brand new research from the University of Chicago’s Bruce Meyer and Notre Dame’s James Sullivan finds “median income and consumption both rose by more than 50 percent in real terms between 1980 and 2009. … Our results provide strong evidence that the well-being of the middle class and the poor has improved considerably over the past thirty years.”

Those results aren’t above challenge. But there certainly seems to be legitimate counter-arguments and evidence to the “exploding income inequality” meme. Indeed, differing household demographics and differing inflation measures between incomes levels means the “rise in American inequality has been exaggerated both in magnitude and timing,” according to Northwestern University’s Robert Gordon. That and other studies undercut a new CBO analysis showing massive income gains for the “1 percent” at the expense of everyone else. But maybe Gordon is a denier, too; another guy on the Koch-RNC payroll. Except Gordon is an Obama supporter.

America needs an informed debate on how the American middle class can prosper in the future the way it has in the past—even if it is ideologically inconvenient for Chait and other liberals.

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Four Reasons Keynesians Keep Getting It Wrong

Concern over future tax rates is one of the main reasons for reduced investor confidence.

Allen Meltzer at The Wall Street Journal:

Those who heaped high praise on Keynesian policies have grown silent as government spending has failed to bring an economic recovery. Except for a few diehards who want still more government spending, and those who make the unverifiable claim that the economy would have collapsed without it, most now recognize that more than a trillion dollars of spending by the Bush and Obama administrations has left the economy in a slump and unemployment hovering above 9%.

Why is the economic response to increased government spending so different from the response predicted by Keynesian models? What is missing from the models that makes their forecasts so inaccurate? Those should be the questions asked by both proponents and opponents of more government spending. Allow me to suggest four major omissions from Keynesian models:

First, big increases in spending and government deficits raise the prospect of future tax increases. Many people understand that increased spending must be paid for sooner or later. Meanwhile, President Obama makes certain that many more will reach that conclusion by continuing to demand permanent tax increases. His demands are a deterrent for those who do most of the saving and investing. Concern over future tax rates is one of the main reasons for heightened uncertainty and reduced confidence. Potential investors hold cash and wait.

Second, most of the government spending programs redistribute income from workers to the unemployed. This, Keynesians argue, increases the welfare of many hurt by the recession. What their models ignore, however, is the reduced productivity that follows a shift of resources toward redistribution and away from productive investment. Keynesian theory argues that each dollar of government spending has a larger effect on output than a dollar of tax reduction. But in reality the reverse has proven true. Permanent tax reduction generates more expansion than increased government spending of the same dollars. I believe that the resulting difference in productivity is a main reason for the difference in results.

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Corbis

Third, Keynesian models totally ignore the negative effects of the stream of costly new regulations that pour out of the Obama bureaucracy. Who can guess the size of the cost increases required by these programs? ObamaCare is not the only source of this uncertainty, though it makes a large contribution. We also have an excessively eager group of environmental regulators, protectors of labor unions, and financial regulators. Their decisions raise future costs and increase uncertainty. How can a corporate staff hope to estimate future return on new investment when tax rates and costs are unknowable? Holding cash and waiting for less uncertainty is the principal response. Thus, the recession drags on.

Fourth, U.S. fiscal and monetary policies are mainly directed at getting a near-term result. The estimated cost of new jobs in President Obama's latest jobs bill is at least $200,000 per job, based on administration estimates of the number of jobs and their cost. How can that appeal to the taxpayers who will pay those costs? Once the subsidies end, the jobs disappear—but the bonds that financed them remain and must be serviced. These medium and long-term effects are ignored in Keynesian models. Perhaps that's why estimates of the additional spending generated by Keynesian stimulus—the "multiplier effect"—have failed to live up to expectations.

The Federal Reserve, too, has long been overly concerned about the next quarter, never more than in the current downturn. Fears of a double-dip recession, fanned by Wall Street, have led to continued easing and seemingly endless near-zero interest rates. Here, too, uncertainty abounds. When will the Fed tell us how and when it is going to sell more than $1 trillion of mortgage-related securities? Will Fannie Mae, for example, have to buy them to hold down mortgage interest rates?

By now even the Fed should understand that we do not have a liquidity shortage. It has done more than enough by adding excess reserves beyond any reasonable amount. Instead of more short-term tinkering, it's time for a coherent program to start gradually reducing excess reserves.

Clearly, a more effective economic policy would aim at restoring the long-term growth rate by reducing uncertainty and restoring investor and consumer confidence. Here are four proposals to help get us there:

First, Congress and the administration should agree on a 10-year program of government spending cuts to reduce the deficit. The Ryan and Simpson-Bowles budget proposals are a constructive start. (Note to Republican presidential candidates: Permanent tax reduction can only be achieved by reducing government spending.)

Second, reduce corporate tax rates and expense capital investment by closing loopholes.

Third, announce a five-year moratorium on new regulations.

Fourth, adopt an enforceable 0%-2% inflation target to allay fears of future high inflation.

Now that the Keynesian euphoria has again faded, perhaps this administration—or more likely the next—will recognize the reasons for the failure and stop asking for more of the same.

Mr. Meltzer, a professor of public policy at the Tepper School, Carnegie Mellon University and a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, is the author most recently of "Why Capitalism?" forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

VIDEO: Rep. Paul Ryan on Saving the American Idea

From Heritage.org:

The Divider vs. the Thinker

While Obama readies an ugly campaign, Paul Ryan gives a serious account of what ails America.

People are increasingly fearing the divisions within, even the potential coming apart of, our country. Rich/poor, black/white, young/old, red/blue: The things that divide us are not new, yet there's a sense now that the glue that held us together for more than two centuries has thinned and cracked with age. That it was allowed to thin and crack, that the modern era wore it out.

What was the glue? A love of country based on a shared knowledge of how and why it began; a broad feeling among our citizens that there was something providential in our beginnings; a gratitude that left us with a sense that we should comport ourselves in a way unlike the other nations of the world, that more was expected of us, and not unjustly—"To whom much is given much is expected"; a general understanding that we were something new in history, a nation founded on ideals and aspirations—liberty, equality—and not mere grunting tribal wants. We were from Europe but would not be European: No formal class structure here, no limits, from the time you touched ground all roads would lead forward. You would be treated not as your father was but as you deserved. That's from "The Killer Angels," a historical novel about the civil war fought to right a wrong the Founders didn't right. We did in time, and at great cost. What a country.

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Martin Kozlowski

But there is a broad fear out there that we are coming apart, or rather living through the moment we'll look back on as the beginning of the Great Coming Apart. Economic crisis, cultural stresses: "Half the country isn't speaking to the other half," a moderate Democrat said the other day. She was referring to liberals of her acquaintance who know little of the South and who don't wish to know of it, who write it off as apart from them, maybe beneath them.

To add to the unease, in New York at least, there's a lot of cognitive dissonance. If you are a New Yorker, chances are pretty high you hate what the great investment firms did the past 15 years or so to upend the economy. Yet you feel on some level like you have to be protective of them, because Wall Street pays the bills of the City of New York. Wall Street tax receipts and Wall Street business—restaurants, stores—keep the city afloat. So you want them up and operating and vital, you don't want them to leave—that would only make things worse for people in trouble, people just getting by, and young people starting out. You know you have to preserve them just when you'd most like to deck them.

***

Where is the president in all this? He doesn't seem to be as worried about his country's continuance as his own. He's out campaigning and talking of our problems, but he seems oddly oblivious to or detached from America's deeper fears. And so he feels free to exploit divisions. It's all the rich versus the rest, and there are a lot more of the latter.

Twenty twelve won't be "as sexy" as 2008, he said this week. It will be all brute force. Which will only add to the feeling of unease.

Occupy Wall Street makes an economic critique that echoes the president's, though more bluntly: the rich are bad, down with the elites. It's all ad hoc, more poetry slam than platform. Too bad it's not serious in its substance.

There's a lot to rebel against, to want to throw off. If they want to make a serious economic and political critique, they should make the one Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner make in "Reckless Endangerment": that real elites in Washington rigged the system for themselves and their friends, became rich and powerful, caused the great catering, and then "slipped quietly from the scene."

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It is a blow-by-blow recounting of how politicians—Democrats and Republicans—passed the laws that encouraged the banks to make the loans that would never be repaid, and that would result in your lost job. Specifically it is the story of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage insurers, and how their politically connected CEOs, especially Fannie's Franklin Raines and James Johnson, took actions that tanked the American economy and walked away rich. It began in the early 1990s, in the Clinton administration, and continued under the Bush administration, with the help of an entrenched Congress that wanted only two things: to receive campaign contributions and to be re-elected.

The story is a scandal, and the book should be the bible of Occupy Wall Street. But they seem as incapable of seeing government as part of the problem as Republicans seem of seeing business as part of the problem.

Which gets us to Rep. Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan receives much praise, but I don't think his role in the current moment has been fully recognized. He is doing something unique in national politics. He thinks. He studies. He reads. Then he comes forward to speak, calmly and at some length, about what he believes to be true. He defines a problem and offers solutions, often providing the intellectual and philosophical rationale behind them. Conservatives naturally like him—they agree with him—but liberals and journalists inclined to disagree with him take him seriously and treat him with respect.

This week he spoke on "The American Idea" at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. He scored the president as too small for the moment, as "petty" in his arguments and avoidant of the decisions entailed in leadership. At times like this, he said, "the temptation to exploit fear and envy returns." Politicians divide in order to "evade responsibility for their failures" and to advance their interests.

The president, he said, has made a shift in his appeal to the electorate. "Instead of appealing to the hope and optimism that were hallmarks of his first campaign, he has launched his second campaign by preying on the emotions of fear, envy and resentment."

But Republicans, in their desire to defend free economic activity, shouldn't be snookered by unthinking fealty to big business. They should never defend—they should actively oppose—the kind of economic activity that has contributed so heavily to the crisis. Here Mr. Ryan slammed "corporate welfare and crony capitalism."

"Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?" Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically connected solar energy firms like Solyndra? "Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?"

Rather than raise taxes on individuals, we should "lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive." The "true sources of inequity in this country," he continued, are policies "that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless." The real class warfare that threatens us is "a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society."

If more Republicans thought—and spoke—like this, the party would flourish. People would be less fearful for the future. And Mr. Obama wouldn't be seeing his numbers go up.

Protesters’ corporate pals

CEOs clapping loudly for OWS

Charles Gasparino at The New York Post:

The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements were both born out of the despair following the 2008 financial crisis, and both have tapped into the public’s anger over the unfairness of bank bailouts and huge bonuses for the risk takers while the rest of the country has struggled with unemployment, falling home prices and anemic economic growth.

Yet the elite media has constantly vilified the peaceful Tea Party as right-wing rabble for prodding politicians to do nothing more than reduce the bloat of government.

Meanwhile, politicians, the press -- and now CEOs -- have generally celebrated Occupy Wall Street as the second coming of the civil-rights movement -- no matter how many times its followers have clashed with police in the name of Mao and Che Guevara.

AP

Civil: Occupy Wall Street’s rowdies contrast sharply with peaceful Tea Partiers like this one.

And the worst part about these unfair depictions of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street?

There’s no end in sight.

I can’t remember a single instance in which the chief executive of a major bank or conglomerate has said something nice about the Tea Party’s goals of limited government, lower taxes and free markets -- the very things upon which this country was founded.

But such business leaders as GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt and Blackrock chief Larry Fink have been falling all over themselves trying to say nice things about the OWS protesters, their grievances and rants against capitalism -- even while the unwashed mob is nearly rioting not far from their corporate headquarters.

Even worse is the political correctness of the warped media coverage. Reporters covering the Tea Party, no doubt in hopes of delegitimizing its goals, have almost never missed an opportunity to point out that the majority of its followers were older, “angry” white men.

But when was the last time you heard them describe the squatters in Zuccotti Park as young and white?

By any objective measure, that’s what the protesters are -- but somehow that’s missing from the coverage.

Also missing is some real, in-depth reporting on the protests. While the media couldn’t wait to find out which conservative kingpins allegedly were behind the Tea Party rallies, they have almost no interest in describing how organized labor is arguably becoming the largest backer of Occupy Wall Street.

New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, for instance, is donating tens of thousands of dollars in office space and food to make life easier for the protesters -- but that somehow doesn’t qualify as front-page news.

What does is pretty much a joke. Reporters from such respected business publications as the Financial Times and the Economist are demanding to know from Goldman Sachs, a firm high on Occupy Wall Street’s list of evil-doers, whether its CEO Lloyd Blankfein will join Immelt and Fink in supporting the movement, I am told.

Goldman so far is staying quiet, but given the pressure to say something positive about the protests, it’s anyone’s guess how long Blankfein will hold out.

Maybe the biggest irony in all of this is that while Occupy Wall Street demands justice in the name of Mao and turns Zuccotti Park into a cesspool, one of the biggest achievements of the Tea Party is that it has long stopped being solely a “protest” movement. There are now Tea Party members of Congress, and both parties have been forced to consider fiscal restraint because of the power of the Tea Party message.

Imagine how much the Tea Party would have achieved if it had even half of the media support of Occupy Wall Street.

Charles Gasparino is a Fox Business Network senior correspondent.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/protesters_corporate_pals_YSeKmHfaTc3K6k9tuDvOZM#ixzz1c4bZtOEU

Flashback: Obama’s Failed Stimulus Cost More than 9 Year Iraq War

Jim Hoft at The Gateway Pundit:

Just in case you forgot.

As the War in Iraq winds down remember…
The entire cost of the Iraq War was less than Barack Obama’s failed stimulus bill.
Nice work, champ!
FOX News reported:

As President Obama prepares to tie a bow on U.S. combat operations in Iraq, Congressional Budget Office numbers show that the total cost of the eight-year war was less than the stimulus bill passed by the Democratic-led Congress in 2009.

According to CBO numbers in its Budget and Economic Outlook published this month, the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom was $709 billion for military and related activities, including training of Iraqi forces and diplomatic operations.

The projected cost of the stimulus, which passed in February 2009, and is expected to have a shelf life of two years, was $862 billion.

The U.S. deficit for fiscal year 2010 is expected to be $1.3 trillion, according to CBO. That compares to a 2007 deficit of $160.7 billion and a 2008 deficit of $458.6 billion, according to data provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Dear Occupy Wall Street ... A Message From Dave Ramsey

You gotta love this:

“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Yeah, that’s great. But what do you want? What are your goals? What are your demands? What result are you looking for?

The beauty of being vague is that anyone who has any emotion can get caught up in the excitement and join your crusade. They’ll just get mad at something and assume that you’re both mad about the same thing. Put a few hundred of these people together, and boom. You’ve got a crowd, a headline and a lot of attention … but no message.

A lot of people on Twitter are saying I totally agree with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demands and goals. The only problem is that I have no idea what their demands and goals are. And neither does anyone else. If all you ever do is stomp around, yell and hold up signs protesting a million different things, sure you’ll get some attention, but over time, you’ll just look foolish. You end up coming across like a three-year-old having a temper tantrum.

This is what’s happening to the OWS movement. They’re being discredited because no one has stepped forward and really stated what it is they’re after. The whole group is just coming across like a bunch of jacked-up, jobless, wannabe hippies. That’s not going to change anything in this country. You’ve got to state your goals clearly if you want to accomplish something.

So in the absence of any clear goals, let me comment and offer some helpful advice in some areas that seem to be getting a lot of disorganized OWS attention.

“No Government Bailouts!”

Banks and big companies should not receive taxpayer money for a bailout while their CEOs are making hundreds of millions of dollars. If that’s your gripe, then you’re protesting in the wrong location. Pack up and head to Washington, D.C., to deliver your message to the current administration. Don’t get me wrong—I totally support a company’s freedom to pay their leaders well. I just don’t believe that I, as a taxpayer, should subsidize those huge salaries in the form of taxpayer bailouts. I pay my own team members; I don’t need to pay everyone else’s too.

By the way, you may be shocked to learn that the Tea Party agrees with you on this one—and so do I.

“Down With Corporate Greed!”

Gordon Gekko was wrong. Greed is not good. Greed is bad—very bad. It’s a spiritual disease, and it is a disease that sadly affects a lot of companies across the country. If you believe a specific company is acting purely out of greed, then don’t just get mad—do something. Point out where and how they’re greedy and let the world know. Stop doing business with them. If enough people listen to you, the company will get the message because you’ll hit them where it hurts: the bottom line. If they don’t get their act together, then they’ll go out of business and another business will take their place.

But if you’re saying that all businesses are greedy and that capitalism itself is evil and ineffective, then I’m sorry—you’re just being stupid. You’re being misled and misinformed by some of the louder voices around you. Are you wearing clothes? Have you eaten any food lately? Do you have an iPhone in your pocket to check in with Twitter and Facebook while you’re out marching around? Good. All of those products and services are brought to you by quality companies dedicated to serving you well in a capitalistic system that works just fine.

“Wall Street Is Evil!”

If you have this painted on a sign, well, now you just look ignorant. Wall Street is a street that people drive on. The New York Stock Exchange is a building where people exchange stocks in New York. This is the flea market of the financial world. Don’t turn Wall Street into some terrible monster attacking American citizens. It’s just a road with some buildings on it.

But here’s what happens. Sometimes when people don’t understand something, they start to fear it. And as the fear grows, it turns into anger. But just because you don’t understand something, you shouldn’t see it as bad or frightening or a conspiracy. You should just think of it as an opportunity to learn something new—something that could actually be a blessing to you.

For example, imagine a group of natives out in the jungle in the farthest part of the world. I mean, picture a group of people who have never seen anyone outside of their tribe and have certainly never seen any kind of machine. What would they think if they saw a Red Cross helicopter land near them? And what would they think of the strange-looking men and women who jump out of the chopper and start walking toward them? They’d be freaked out! They wouldn’t know or care if the Red Cross was there to help them with food or medicine. They’d think it was the end of the world or something because their minds would be totally blown!

I hate to say it, but a lot of OWS protestors are just about as uninformed as those jungle natives when it comes to how the American financial system works. A road and an office building. That’s Wall Street.

“Wealth Redistribution Is the Answer!”

I’ve heard a lot about wealth redistribution over the past few years, and I’m sure you’ve heard it too. Call it whatever you want, but this is how it usually sounds to most Americans: “We are the 99% of Americans who don’t have as much as the 1%, so we’re mad and think the government should take their wealth and property away so that I can have a piece of it. Wealth inequality is a moral breakdown! We should all spread the money around so everyone gets a fair share!”

I have my toughest critique for those who believe this: You are a thief. When someone takes my money and gives me no say in the matter, that’s called theft—whether they’re using a gun or the government. At the core of this demand is envy. And that’s not the same as jealousy. Jealousy just says, “I want what you have.” Envy is a different beast. Envy says, “I don’t think I can ever have what you have, so you shouldn’t have it either.” Decades of horrible economic teaching and the politics of envy have kept this monster alive and growing and moving forward.

This way of thinking makes you assume that all rich people are evil and have scammed their way into wealth. That may be true in the tale of Robin Hood, but I choose to live in the real world. Sure, there are some scoundrels, but the vast majority of successful men and women got that way by working hard and serving people—lots of people. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates changed the world in ways we’re just now starting to realize. Their positive impact on the world has helped all of us live better lives, and they made fortunes for themselves by doing so. Why is it that you’re holy if you help one person but evil if you help a million? That’s just stupid.

A good friend of mine is a country music legend. He’s made a bazillion dollars over his career, and he just bought a $400,000 car. He’s worked like a crazy person his whole life, spending decades in tour buses, writing songs in the middle of the night, and entertaining enormous crowds of cheering fans. He paid a price to get there, and I’m happy for his success. Would it be right for me to walk into his house and demand my “fair share” of his wealth? Heck no! I’m a terrible singer! I didn’t do one thing to contribute to his success, so why would I be entitled to a share of his wealth?He’s given me years of entertainment through his music. That’s my fair share of his hard work.

My problems aren’t his fault. And my problems aren’t McDonald’s fault or Home Depot’s fault or Walmart’s fault, either. My problems are my fault! And the more people these companies serve, the more money they make—and that’s none of my business! If you don’t like McDonald’s, then here’s an idea: Don’t eat there. But don’t walk into the restaurant and demand a portion of their proceeds for the day.

When you scream, “I’m in the 99%!” you just look like a whiner. Those of us willing to pay the price to win look at you and shrug. Heck, when it comes to the music business, I’m in the 99% myself! But that doesn’t mean I have to tear Toby Keith, Brad Paisley or even Kanye down.Oh, and a special note just for Kanye: Capitalism has been pretty good to you. I celebrate your success, but you look a little hypocritical protesting capitalism while wearing a $50,000 watch.

Celebrate the Land of Opportunity

This is the greatest country on the planet, but even here, you’re not guaranteed wealth, talent, fame, a full head of hair or six-pack abs. Those things are not in the Constitution. You are, however, guaranteed the freedom to make your life what you want it to be. And when you do that, when you build your life around your dreams and passions and hard work, you’re guaranteed the right to keep it. No one has the right to take it away from you.

So to summarize, I’m not very impressed at the moment. I’m not impressed by your temper fit. I’m not impressed at your lack of goals and focus. I’m not impressed by the fact that the only thing I see about your movement is ignorance, immaturity and envy. Grow up—and get a job.

Yes, there are jobs out there. There are jobs out there that haven’t even been invented yet. Go create the next Facebook or Weed Eater. Go pick up so much dog poop that you can start your own fertilizer company. And stop complaining that companies are TOO RICH while also complaining that they aren’t RICH ENOUGH to hire you! I’ve seen a lot of you guys. I wouldn’t hire you, either. But if you take all of that energy and excitement and pour it into something new and creative, you’ll get the chance to serve a whole lot of people really well, and over a decade or two, you’ll get to become the very thing you’re now protesting: rich people who actually earned their money.

Read more:

• A Message From Occupied Wall Street
• 2010 Poverty Thresholds
• I Do Not Choose to be a Common Man