The Echo Boomers are out in (less than) full force this week in the financial district in lower Manhattan.  They are here to remind us of the evils of corporate and Wall St. greed.  For those of you older folk, like me, note that proponents of socialism did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union or the impending implosion of the Europe welfare state.  Undaunted by history, these kids, self-anointed experts in everything from economics to human nature, are determined to make their point, whatever that may be.

As with most revolutionaries, their identity is more of what they are against, than what they stand for.  Wall St. and Corporate America were the main target of their crankiness.

But this is not your father’s 1960s protest.  These kids come prepared with coffee from Starbucks (Nasdaq symbol: SBUX ), footwear by Birkenstock (incorporated in 1972), guitars by Fender (100+ million in revenues) to take their minds off of the depressing thought of corporate oppression of the masses, and blue jeans by Levi’s (55,000 retail locations worldwide).

If these children only realized that they’d have to remain naked and without caffeine to stay true to their anti-corporate trope, perhaps the current state of affairs would not seem as dismal to them.

But the best, and most entertaining part of their carnival, is their posters.  I offer some of their missives and, being a weak person, my comments that I can’t resist giving:

• “FIX ARE SKOOLZ”: Given the byproducts I’ve seen from our educational system, I’m not sure if this was intentionally written incorrectly or not. Enough said.
• “WE ARE THE WINDS OF CHANGE”: Correct: you are windy, and, out of semi-respect, I won’t analogize you to another bodily-function wind.
• “SUPPLY-SIDE ECONOMICS: PONZI SCHEME”: This is a tough one as most credible voices agree that supply-side economics is a reality: the less money (taxes) taken out of private industry, the more private industry produces and benefits everyone.  As this has been generally working since the Pilgrims landed here several hundred years ago, I would hate to have to dig up every generation and tell them they were wrong.  Let’s shelf this one for now.
• “MY CHILD AND I ARE HOMELESS AND IN POVERTY BECAUSE OF THE GREED OF WALL ST. AND CORPORATE AMERICA”: I don’t disbelieve it but all of my schooling and business experience just doesn’t allow me to understand a post-slavery business model that prospers when people are made poor. Quite the opposite, in fact.
• “BAIL OUT STUDENT LOANS”: This one is a slam dunk as I am swimming in such debt myself: GET A JOB!!  That is the best way to address student loans and all other debt, for that matter.  (My apologies for the insensitive forthrightness [read: honesty]).
• “AMERICAN JOBS IN CHINA :(” - Forgive me for my brutal honesty, but most of this guitar-playing, granola-crunching, Kumbaya crowd would be averse to jobs no matter where such are on the globe; and the closer jobs are to them, the more they would be put off: this is not a w-2 crowd.
• “PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS”: Sounds nifty, but if you start issuing financial statements in terms of human bodies, there is a slight ethical problem; tough to do.
• “ENDING AMERICAN IMPERIALISM IS OUR ONE DEMAND”: What, pray tell, would you suggest take the place of the American lead in this world?

There is much more blather but above gives a flavor of the situation.  And somehow I must believe, given my own early adulthood experiences as well as observing these children, that ignorance is a rite of passage in youth.

Or to put it as Churchill did: “if you are young and not a liberal you have no heart. And if you are old and not a conservative you have no brain.”

-I.M. Windee

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 8:07 pm and is filed under Ruminations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.