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I am late to this parody by Andy Borowitz, but if I missed it, then perhaps some of you did too.
Like all good satire, it makes an important point. Occupy Wall Street is railing about the 1%, but the truth is that the 1% will always take care of itself.
Regardless of what happens, the 1% will find a way to make money. That’s how they got to be the 1%.
OWS may well be aiming at the hyper-rich, but even if you confiscate 99% of the wealth of the 1% who voted for Obama—seems fair to me—you will still not make a dent in America’s fiscal problems.
If the redistributionist mania becomes tax policy, it will hit the middle class especially hard. The rich will stay rich, the poor will stay poor, and the middle class will lose out. That’s what’s happening under Obama and that’s what has happened in all enlightened socialist countries.
Without further ado, here’s the Borowitz parody, in the form of a letter to investors from Goldman Sachs president, Lloyd Blankfein:
Dear Investor:
Up until now, Goldman Sachs has been silent on the subject of the protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street. That does not mean, however, that it has not been very much on our minds. As thousands have gathered in Lower Manhattan, passionately expressing their deep discontent with the status quo, we have taken note of these protests. And we have asked ourselves this question:
How can we make money off them?
The answer is the newly launched Goldman Sachs Global Rage Fund, whose investment objective is to monetize the Occupy Wall Street protests as they spread around the world. At Goldman, we recognize that the capitalist system as we know it is circling the drain – but there’s plenty of money to be made on the way down.
The Rage Fund will seek out opportunities to invest in products that are poised to benefit from the spreading protests, from police batons and barricades to stun guns and forehead bandages. Furthermore, as clashes between police and protesters turn ever more violent, we are making significant bets on companies that manufacture replacements for broken windows and overturned cars, as well as the raw materials necessary for the construction and incineration of effigies.
It would be tempting, at a time like this, to say “Let them eat cake.” But at Goldman, we are actively seeking to corner the market in cake futures. We project that through our aggressive market manipulation, the price of a piece of cake will quadruple by the end of 2011.
Please contact your Goldman representative for a full prospectus. As the world descends into a Darwinian free-for-all, the Goldman Sachs Rage Fund is a great way to tell the protesters, “Occupy this.” We haven’t felt so good about something we’ve sold since our souls.
Sincerely,
Lloyd Blankfein
Chairman, Goldman Sachs
4 comments:
Have you ever noticed that almost all so called movements almost always redounds to the people it is meant to hurt? The feminist movement devalued and debased women to the point that men get what they want without any of the responsibility.
There will always be those who will make money at the expense of those who think they are going to do damage to the rich. Groups like the Communists wait until the revolution is almost over to take over as in Nicaragua. The "rich" unions take over OWS.
The way to win is to not make every body poorer. It is to help every body to become richer.
It is amazing, Dennis, that so many people have not figured out that just because feminists, for example, say they are pro-women, their policies benefit women.
I also agree that the OWS demonstrators are doing the bidding of the unions. As these same unions collude with politicians to put up barriers that make it impossible for young people to find their first jobs.
Hi,
It is still amazing that 90% of the americans are missing the point of OWA: the return of the protest in the american culture. I discussed this with people at work, and everybody seems to agree: there is not in the american culture to protest anymore.
All arguments against OWS are exactly the same as arguments of communist regimes against protests: sex, rape, violence, drugs.
It is obvious that the OWS protesters are not organized and most of them dont know what they are doing, but come on, it should be OK to protest in a country that the main idea of existence is freedom. Ort maybe is it just an empire like any other, Russia for example....
Thanks for the comment, Volar.
No one is against protest. After all, the Tea Party was a protest movement. So I am not so sure what you mean when you say that it's not alright to protest any more.
As for the charges of rape, drugs, larceny and violence, it's one thing if they are fabricated by the propaganda ministry and quite another when they are really happening.
There is plenty of evidence that these things are happening. Along with them is anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and the like... also fully documented.
The OWS protesters have every right to inveigh against whomever they wish. That does not seem to include the right to shut down the city or the subway and to burn down Macys.
Freedom is not the same things as license, and free and open protest is really not the same thing as becoming a menace to public health.
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