AS I write this the “Occupy Wall Street” movement continues. This movement, in case you have not noticed, is a vague protest against the “1%.” That is, the members hold that the top one percent, financially, of the country should not be allowed to retain their wealth. That is, this is the best any one can figure out as to what their goal is. When interviewed on TV they are incapable of specifying their goals. One problem with such a characteristic is that the members will not be able to know when they have “won,” and that they can then occupy themselves with something else, such as a working at a job, or learning something worthwhile, or helping someone who needs it.
The concept of the top one percent is easy to grasp, as long as there is no intention of true comprehension. The problem is that mathematical value has been applied to something that can not be measured mathematically. Of course, there IS a “top one percent” of the population. Actually, no there is not. I explain.
Let us suppose, simply to make thing simpler, that there is an amount of money that only this one percent of the people earn. There is no way to determine what this is. Is this to be measured annually, or semi-annually, or daily, or hourly? Is it determined on one particular day? Why then, and not another? Is the amount to include income only? Does it include all wealth? If a rich person acquires a work of art, and its value goes up, has he gained “income,” even though he had not (yet) received it? Suppose that he buys the same work, and its value goes down, is he now poorer? Do the protestors take into account daily (yearly) fluctuation of the stock market? Suppose that a guy owned a 5 million dollar house. Because of the housing market crash it is now worth only 2 million. Is he still among the one percent? What if he gives the house to his son for a Christmas present? Is he now poorer? I could give, literally, hundreds of examples of why this percentage can not be determined. So could you. So could anyone.
This is one reason why the tax code is so complex. Earning money, receiving income, and increasing wealth are NOT the same. And none of these is the same as being rich. When a movement has an enemy if helps, a lot, if the enemy can actually be identified. One problem with the treasonous protestors of the 1960’s, who opposed the Viet-Nam War, was precisely this. They simply were “against.” When asked what their program was they answered as follows. “The alternative to war is no war.”
The alternative to a nihilistic and self-contradictory protest movement is intelligence. We should not expect it to break out any time soon.
A number of the author’s books are available directly via the Internet. Go to Lulu.com or Createspace.com (Amazon), and search by author’s name Vincent P Lewis.
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