A Small-Business Owner's Message to "Occupy Wall Street"

Romina Boccia
October 19, 2011 at 10:19 am

Camping out for nearly a month, yelling, chanting, and painting signs is apparently some people’s idea of a good time. But given all this time on their hands, and with just a little guidance, “Occupy Wall Street” protestors might really make a difference. They could, for example, help out this small-business owner.

Gene Mark has some creative action items for the protestors of “Occupy Wall Street.” In his witty Huffington Post piece, filled with good-natured sarcasm, Mark calls on the protestors to help his small business during protest down time. Trying to stay afloat in this low-growth economy and burdened with regulations, a complicated tax structure, and strong competition, his business would really appreciate a helping hand from this energetic group. He has jobs to fill and academic fat cats to slaughter, among other requests:

“…can you maybe study up on a couple of programming languages like C Sharp or Visual Basic?…The reason why I ask this is that my company does a lot of work with technology and we can’t seem to find skilled people to do the work that we have.…Would you mind dropping in on John Sexton, the President of NYU, who earns $1.3 million a year? I mean, if you’re going to protest greed, you might as well protest the higher education industry’s greed too. Because of the bloated administrations and tenured professors that have created this system, it’s going to cost me upwards of $55,000 per year to send each of my three kids to college.”

“Occupy Wall Street” protestors have an entirely different notion—giving more power to the government that bailed out the financial sector with taxpayer money and continues to generously distribute corporate welfare. According to Democratic pollster Doug Schoen,

“What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.”

Wall Street is the wrong place to occupy if they’re truly concerned with corporate influence over government. The bloated government that has overstepped its constitutional boundaries is at the source of the crony capitalism they decry.