Occupy Wall Street – The 53% Guy is Right

The Marine that Has the Left Up in Arms

Since Occupy Wall Street seems to be getting all of the press (other than Herman Cain’s surging polling numbers), I thought I’d address some of the issues at play here and with the masses in New York.  This morning, my friend Gary Alamin sent me an article that seems to have gone viral on the net entitled:  ”An Open Letter to that 53% Guy.”  I suggest you review this article before you read any further.

In that article, a confessed liberal states his reasons for joining the Occupy Wall Street movement and is clearly trying to convince the ex-Marine, who definitely disagrees with the movement, on the issues.

However, the confessed liberal is missing the point.  The things the liberal discusses involve spending lots of money which no one has right now.  It involves the belief that a Utopian Society can exist and that basic human greed can be suppressed.  I have seen on, one of the many Occupy Wall Street (OWS) web sites, that one of their demands is for a $20.00 per hour minimum wage.  Do any of these protesters realize what this will do to small business?  The economy is already on the brink of a major depression.  Imagine if every fast food restaurant, deli, card shop or other small business suddenly had to pay everyone 20.00 per hour.  Their profits would be cut in half.

I have a friend who owns four small restaurants.  He told me a few weeks ago that his monthly payroll in one of the restaurants is approximately $70,000.  Now, granted, not everyone there is making minimum wage so lets just assume that half of the payroll is minimum wage and another 20% is still under 20.00 per hour.  My friend’s payroll would increase approximately $40,000 per month before payroll taxes.  If the business is operating at a margin of 15% which is good for restaurants, his profit is now pretty much gone and he is heading right to bankruptcy court.  The same could be said for everyone across the board in the mom and pop business world.  If you additionally force them to give health insurance to the hourly (mostly part-time) employee, you would most assuredly put them out of business.

Another comment by the confessed liberal is that unions created the 40 hour work week and that was based upon eight hours for work, 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours to yourself.  The liberal writer claims that the ex-marine should be applauded for working excessive hours, but that is not the way it is supposed to be.  I don’t know about you, but I haven’t worked a 40 hour week in years and I don’t know anyone who does.  Granted, I’m an executive at a small corporation, but it doesn’t matter.  Anyone in the State of California that is an executive is an exempt employee.  We do not get overtime.  We are paid a flat salary for however many hours it takes to get the job done.  Accordingly, we are on 24 hour per day call.  I usually work 60 hours and never even get thanked.

This is the same for the restaurant and or small business owner.  These people who risk their own money and who employ people usually work seven days a week with no less than 10 hours per day.  In fact, the food industry often demands even more hours from the proprietor.  It is just a fact of life.  There is no 40 hour work week for a business owner.

Non-exempt employees, i.e. hourly wage earners, in the State of California are paid by law 1.5 time their hourly wage for any day in which they work more than eight hours or for any week in which they work more than 40 hours.  Employers cannot by law take advantage of wage earners.  These hourly employees are being compensated for their time based upon their agree upon hourly wage with extra pay for any time the 8/40 hour rule is exceeded.  I don’t know about other states, but I’m sure there are similar laws in most, if not, all of them.

Another portion of the cited article deals with health insurance.  The Utopian liberal believes that everyone is entitled to health insurance.  I am a staunch conservative as you know and I believe the same thing.  I just have one question for the writer of that article,  where is the money coming from?  The general consensus of the protesters is to tax the rich.  In fact, the author of the article says that in the halcyon days of the 1950s, the marginal tax rate was 90%.  It may have been, but not too many people in the 1950s were paying anywhere near that, as our tax code back then had many more “loopholes” than it does now.  And, remember, the so called loopholes are really stimulus built into the tax code, i.e. the deduction for home interest is to encourage home ownership.

Assuming that we all feel the rich should be taxed more, let’s just analyze the whole situation a little.  We are going to make some assumptions here.  For one, we are living in California which is one of the highest taxed states and the homes of a large majority of the rich that would be effected by a tax increase.  Two, we are going to assume that the average person in has taxable income of 250,000 per year. (I know I’m being generous with the word average, but this is to make a point and we must have them in a high marginal tax rate).  Three, we are going to assume they spend only 75% of their after tax income.  Four, we are going to assume that you are married and have no children.

Keep in mind, this does not include any federal excise taxes, gasoline taxes, import duties, etc.  It also does not include the employer side of FICA which really should be factored in because the general theory is that employers would pay this money to employees if it wasn’t going to the Federal Government.  Accordingly, these are just the basic taxes.  The actual number is probably 3-5% higher.  So, at what point is it enough?  Is this couple rich?  What is your definition of rich?  Does the writer of the cited article want all of their money to pay for his Utopian society?

Listen, like the protestors on Wall Street, I don’t believe the bailouts were proper.  I believe that TARP was a waste of money.  I believe that GM and Chrysler should both have gone bankrupt.  I believe that the stimulus was a waste of money and that the proposed stimulus will be a waste of money, but I still believe in capitalism.  I believe in a free market.  Maybe what the OWS people should be protesting is the destruction of the free market.  Maybe they should be protesting the destruction of the anti-trust principles.  Maybe they should force the big banks to be broken up to create competition.  Maybe, no one should be too big to fail.

But, they shouldn’t be protesting hard working Americans.  Especially those that work to support their families, unlike the majority of the people out their on the streets.

Tags: Class warfare, Economy, employment, Frank Demartini, Occupy Wall Street, OWS, Progressive Taxes, Taxes

This entry was posted on October 14, 2011 at 5:30 am and is filed under Domestic Policy, Economy, Frank DeMartini. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.