The Occupy Wall Streeters should put down their copies of Das Kapital and pick up this year's Forbes 400

Back in 2000 or 2001 I read a piece in Newsweek or TIME that discussed flyers whining that they didn’t have enough storage space in the overhead compartment bins on airplanes. I remember writing a letter to the editor saying that the only reason that people had the luxury of being able to whine about such things was that flying had become so safe that flyers could shift their focus to the more mundane. Then of course September 11th came along and people started focusing on the basic reason planes exist… to get them from point A to point B in one piece.

The Occupy Wall Streeters are just like the people whining about the overhead compartments. These are the people who enjoy the fruits of the capitalist system in which they live – iPhones, Starbucks, Facebook, Twitter, Twinkies, Nikes, ATMs, MSNBC, not to mention adequate food, shelter, and transportation, yet want to destroy that very system. They vote for economic dolts in the Democrat party like Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama and then blame capitalism when they screw it up.

Not only do they have no clarity about what they want, but they are wrong about most of those claims they are making. Bankers may be SOBs, but they didn’t cause the financial meltdown, Congress did. Their college loans are so heavy because government drove up college costs faster even than the rise in health care costs, not because of the 1%. The fact that with degrees in hand they can’t find jobs is because of government regulation and tax policy, not because of big corporations.

These people could benefit from putting down their copy of Das Kapital and ask their local banker for his copy of the Forbes 400.

The annual Forbes 400 issue lists the 400 richest people in the United States, the uber 1-percenters if you will. Just to make it on the list this year you had to have a net worth of slightly over $1 billion. Strangely, this list of the most hated of the really hated 1%, includes stars in the Democratic constellation like George Soros sitting at number 7 with a net worth of $22 billion and Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and Larry Page sitting at positions 14-16. Oh, and of course there’s also Mr. Solyndra, George Kaiser, at # 31 with $10 billion and President Clinton’s buddy, Ron Burkle, at 107 with his $3.2 billion.

When you hear the Occupiers talk about the 1%, it brings to mind a banker or industrialist sitting in his office gleefully writing pink slips just before Christmas so that he can improve the bottom line and buy another Gulfstream with his bonus money. Of course at the same time he’ll find some loopholes through which he can avoid paying any taxes on the bonus he earned for firing all of those workers. As he walks to the limousine that takes him to his Connecticut estate each night, he doesn’t even deign to make eye contact with the passing workers upon whose backs his fortune was made, at least the part that wasn’t left to him by his father and grandfather.

It’s of course possible that that caricature could be found amongst the people who make up the Forbes 400. That, however, is not the story of the list. What is the single most important thing about the list? The fact that 278 of them are self made. Think about that. While you’ll still find a Rockefeller and a Ford on the list, 70% of the richest of the rich in the United States are self made. That doesn’t mean that all of them were born into poverty like Oprah Winfrey or started selling shoes out of the trunk of their cars like Phil Knight, but 278 of the 400 started out in families that would never have made it anywhere near this list.

And the question is, how did those people make their money? Did they steal it from hard working Americans in some dark alley somewhere? No. Did they set up a high tech printing press and start forging bearer bonds? No. Did they use the police power of the state to jail competitors and take their money? No. Most of those people made their money the old fashioned American way, they earned it. They figured out how to provide a good or service to Americans and people around the world at a price they were willing to exchange their money for.

Obviously, if you listen to the Occupiers, all of those services must have been in banking, where the little guy has no alternative but to put their money in Wall Street banks. Not quite true. While 95 of the 400 made their fortunes in finance of one sort or another, there is a wide spectrum of other areas from which the fortunes came…

• 17 made their money in manufacturing… like Jim David of New Balance Shoes, a company that manufactures 25% of their shoes in the United States.


• 27 made their money in real estate… Like Bradley Hughes who built Public Storage into a $19 billion behemoth from a single self storage facility.


• 30 made their money in food and beverage… like Truett Cathy, who started Chic-Fil-A with one restaurant after getting out of the Army in 1946.


• 24 made their money in retail… like Bernie Marcus & Arthur Blank who started Home Depot (a company that employs 190,000 people) after getting fired for disagreeing with their boss at Handy Dan.


• 40 made their money in energy… like Harold Hamm of Continental Resources who started off pumping gas and working on cars.


• Then of course there are the 49 who made their money in technology… like Zuckerberg, Moskovitz and Saverin of Facebook or Scott Cook who created Quicken after his wife complained about balancing the checkbook.

The members of the Forbes 400 made their fortunes by giving consumers, businesses and governments goods or services they were willing, if not happy, to pay for. They delivered food to stores and pizza to homes, they made shoes, software and toys, they built roads, bridges and buildings, and they entertained with movies, music and video games. And the funny thing about those 400 people is that they are only a fraction of the entrepreneurs and businesspeople in the United States who are providing those services. There are 22 million small businesses in the United States headed by people who are trying to become successful enough to make that exclusive club, and virtually every one of them understands that the way to get there is to provide customers with sufficient value to convince them to willingly exchange their hard earned dollars for their particular good or service.

The existence of guys like Bernie Madoff, Dennis Kozlowski or Kenneth Lay in no way diminishes the benefits that Americans (and people around the world) have enjoyed as a result of the efforts of the people in the Forbes 400 or the hated 1%. They may have been thieves and con artists, but none of them did a fraction of the damage done by Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick or Chris Dodd.

The question of the day is, would you rather have unaccountable bureaucrats and politicians using the police power of the government to decide the fate of the economy or would you rather let companies and entrepreneurs compete for your interest and money in a free market? While the Occupiers and their union and Democrat comrades would prefer the former, I'd take the latter 10 times out of 10. Things might not work perfectly, but they’d certainly work far better than if they were run by government apparatchiks.

10 for 12 - How the GOP can win the Presidency and bring back liberty and prosperity

One of the challenges in politics is going from the general to the specific. Practically every American wants the things most politicians promise they’ll deliver: more jobs, economic growth, good schools, less poverty, freedom, a coherent foreign policy, etc.

The more opaque a politician gets the better voters seem to like it. The poster child for this was of course Barack Obama in 2008. What in the world does Hope and Change actually mean? Virtually every American hopes for the things listed above, but in terms of a plan for actually addressing any of them, what does Hope and Change really mean?

Maybe this is it. From the leadership of the “leaderless” Occupy Wall Street movement we get some clarity: Free college tuition; open borders; a trillion dollars each spent on infrastructure and environmental repair; higher taxes on the rich; guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment; immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all; universal healthcare; and of course, prosecution of the ubiquitous Wall Street criminals. That sounds about right.

Hope and Change, whether the opaque 2008 version or the more clearly defined version above will probably not work in 2012. Not only does President Obama have an actual record to run against, but more importantly, voters realize that 2012 may be the most important election of their lifetime. As a result they are actually paying attention to issues and are curious about exactly what policies a politician will implement when they take office.

As such, Newt Gingrich is trying to resurrect the success he had 17 years ago with his new 21st Century Contract with America. Good luck to him. Noticing that few of the other GOP candidates have been as straightforward, I would like to help out in case they still looking for the right set of ideas.

Here is a list of the ten specific things a candidate could promise he or she will do out of the gate that will result in the economy turning around and subsequently taking off like a rocket as it ushers in a dramatic increase in jobs, productivity and prosperity. I call them 10 for 12…

1. Sunset all Federal legislation on the books (along with any consequent regulations) in eight years unless specifically reauthorized by Congress. Require every reauthorized and new piece of legislation to cite where in the Constitution Congress is given the power to pass such a law. All new legislation will automatically sunset in ten years unless reauthorized by Congress. Set this in stone by Constitutional Amendment if necessary.

2. Build a wall from Brownsville, TX to San Diego, CA. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a lot easier to police than thousands of miles of open land. Reform the immigration system to favor those with the skills, education and resources to find gainful employment or start a business. Allow any student who graduates from an accredited college to remain in the United States indefinitely if they either start a business or find employment.

3. Repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments. Eliminate the IRS and implement the Fair Tax. Close the Departments of Energy and Education, the FCC, the NLRB, NEA, PBS, Amtrak and dramatically slash the budget and power of the EPA. Outsource the operations of the Post Office. Sell or shutter Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Sallie Mae and get the government out of the home and student lending business. Sell stakes in GM and any other private sector entities.

4. Repeal Obamacare. Encourage states to allow interstate competition for health insurance and to experiment with a variety of health delivery systems. Repeal any federal legislation that hinders such competition.

5. Begin the process of eliminating all welfare programs. Set a four year timetable after which the federal government will be out of the welfare business. Provide job training for long term welfare participants to prepare them to stand on their own feet. Create a plan to empower churches and other organizations to provide assistance to those in need.

6. Implement loser pays n the federal court system and encourage states to do the same.

7. Open all unused federal lands, other than those designated as National Parks, to bidding for the purposes of exploration for and extraction of natural resources, or for conservation or development. Allow winning bidders to execute the contracts they paid for.

8. Curtail all federal subsidies. Farming, corporate, etc.

9. Eliminate Social Security for persons under 50. Establish self directed funds for individuals equal to their accrued contributions to date into the program. Introduce market competition into Medicare by creating a system similar to the one available to federal employees.

10. Define specific objectives to evaluate the continued presence of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once defined, either provide the necessary resources to accomplish such objectives or curtail the effort. Such objectives should take into consideration not only conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan, but regional objectives and national defense needs.

The consequence of these policies would be to throw the federal government into something of a whirlwind. At a minimum it would result in a flurry of activity by bureaucrats seeking to justify their continued employment... which means they could not spend much time writing new regulations. More importantly, Congress and the President would by design be forced to enter into a discussion as to the correct role of government. No longer would their hands be tied by laws that could never pass today. No longer would agencies be allowed to metastasize into a cancer on the economic freedom of Americans. At some point equilibrium would set in which balanced government rule making with forced re-evaluation of existing legislation.

The most important outcome, however, would be that Americans would once again understand they are free to focus on the pursuit of happiness without the constant fear of an ever encroaching federal government strangling their liberty while they are on that quest.