The Wall Street Protests Are Justified

"Wall Street Protests are protesting the very concept that has given them their fortune today: Capitalism."

A statement written on the Occupy Wall Street Website reads, "Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%."[1] Their statement and Cons statement seem to contradict given that con claims Occupy Wall Street is protesting capitalism and Occupy Wall Street claims that the one thing everyone in the movement agrees on is ending the corruption of the 1%. I think it is highly irrational to believe that a group protesting would lie about what they are protesting because it would defeat the purpose of protesting in the first place.

"Secondly, the goals of the Wall Street Protests are not economically sound.
According to Citizen.org, a rallying point for the protest, these are the goals of the movement in the United States:
-Immediate Withdraw from Iraq/Afghanistan
-Fix Chinese Currency Manipulation
-Immigration Policy Reform, including Amnesty"

Citizen.org, as con points out, is a rallying point, not Occupy Wall Street. If you visit occupywallst.org you will not find any of these goals. Some Wall Street protesters my have these goals but they are not the official goals of the movement. Once again you are either very misinformed or are flat out lying about the Occupy Wall Street movement.

There is no doubt that the Wall Street Protests are justified in protesting the corruption of the 1%. The Federal Reserve is a private institution and is the worst of the 1% because the Federal Reserve is the enabler of the rest of the 1%. The Federal Reserve has the ability to create money out of nowhere and loan it out. This manipulation of money is pure fraud. Every new dollar created out of thin air devalues the overall worth of our money. This is, in essence, stealing from every person using the dollar as currency. [2] If this is not corruption I don't know what is. Another side effect of the Federal Reserve printing money is, it artificially lowers interest rates. Ron Paul explained the effects of artificially low interest rates best when he wrote, "Lower interest rates affect the allocation of resources, causing capital to be malinvested throughout the economy. So certain projects and ventures that appear profitable when funded at artificially low interest rates are not in fact the best use of those resources. Eventually, the economic boom created by the Fed's actions is found to be unsustainable, and the bust ensues as this malinvested capital manifests itself in a surplus of capital goods, inventory overhangs, etc. Until these misdirected resources are put to a more productive use—the uses the free market actually desires—the economy stagnates."[3]

Not only is the Federal Reserve (part of the 1% being protested by OWS) stealing from every person who uses the dollar but it is also the root of our economic problems. Occupy Wall Street couldn’t be more justified.

1]http://occupywallst.org...
[2]http://mises.org...
[3]://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204346104576637290931614006.html?KEYWORDS=Blame+the+Fed+for+the+Financial+Crisis

The goal of printing this money is to lessen the actual value of U.S. debt's held by China and Japan

This sounds reasonable but con left out the fact that the notes printed by the Federal Reserve (Fed) are not just given to the government, they are loaned with interest. [1] Any person who would advise more borrowing to fix a debt problem is delusional. That just shifts the debt to another holder and creates an endless cycle. The number 1 step to eliminating debt is to stop borrowing! [2]

The printing of this money is absolutely imperative in order to keep our 15 trillion dollar deficit under control

The Fed was created in 1913[3] and at the time the U.S. had a national debt of 2.9 billion. [4] Today our debt is 14.9 trillion. I think those numbers clearly show that the Fed has not kept the debt under control and there is no reason to believe that now will be any different.

The Fed Board is not acting to simply enable the "wealthy" but rather to save the nation's financial system and currency

Since the Fed has come into existence the U.S. has added over 14 trillion dollars in debt. The U.S. could not have accumulated this much debt without the Fed printing money and to say that the Fed is acting to save the currency is as much of a contradiction as catching yourself on fire to get rid of your burns. 1 dollar in 1913 is equivalent to $22.92 in 2011. [5]

The supposed "stealing from the people" is utterly false. Despite the printing of large quantities of money to offset United States debt, inflation has risen at a healthy pace.

Con points out that, inflation has steadily increased. This is the devaluation of money. If a person put 1,000 dollars in a box in 1913 and finally decided to use it in 2011, their spending power would be equivalent to $43.63 in 1913. That is 96% devaluation in the dollar since the creation of the Fed. [5] This is obvious theft.

According to the Economist, the United States should shoot for "the target rate from 2% to around 3% or 4%, the debt effect should be a salutary one".("http://www.economist.com......)
This target rate is the percentage of increased inflation each year; it does not represent the true percentage of inflation which is about 96% [5]

The lowering of interest rates was not an artificial act.It was a direct act.

A direct act by the Federal Reserve and not the market; therefore, it was artificial.

You lower interest rates, more people buy, you heighten interest rates, the more people don't buy.The lowering of interest rates is a successful tool (in most cases) to combat sluggish economic growth and revitalize the economy.

In pure market conditions, low interest rates do help to boost the economy but when interest rates are artificially lowered by the Fed it sends a false signal and there is massive malinvestment. An example of this is the housing crises. The Fed printed money and loaned it out to banks. Then, due to the lowered interest rates and pressure on the banks to loan by the U.S. government, a lot of people borrowed to pay for housing. Eventually many of these people could no longer afford to pay off their loans and lost their homes. Then banks began to close do to the inability of many borrowers to pay off their loans. When the banks and the financials began to fail, the government and the Fed jumped in to bail out Wall Street and the big banks with tax payer money.

We're talking about Capital Hill here, their solutions are not always logical.

Does this not justify protest?

The debt problems were caused be frivolous federal spending over decades, not because of the United States Mint or the Federal Reserve Board.

I agree that the debt problems were caused by frivolous spending but that spending could not take place without the Fed giving the government an endless supply of money.

As I pointed out, a rate of 3-4% inflation is a healthy rate. Your entire rebuttal rests on the fact that income levels have remained the same. If inflation goes up without a increase in income, then yes it would be stealing from the people. But the simple fact of the matter is the amount of income for nearly all Americans has increased over the past decades along with inflation. I checked out his source, and in fact it says right on the side of the page "Annual Inflation: 3.9%", that is perfectly within the target range according to my economist evidence.

My rebuttal, in fact, does not rest on income levels remaining the same. Con is correct that income has risen with inflation but what is directly stolen is savings and money being held. The longer you hold your money, the less it is worth when you spend it. Let’s say your grandmother saved 1,000 dollars in 1913, and finally spent it in 2011. What she would get in return for the thousand dollars in 2011 would be the equivalent of $43.63 in 1913.

Actually, it was a direct act, by the Federal Reserve Board. I never said the lowering of interest rates was a result of the market.

I apologize for the confusion. In my statement, “A direct act by the Federal Reserve and not the market; therefore, it was artificial,” I was not claiming that you claimed it was the market. I agreed with you that the Fed lowered the rates but since it was the Fed, and not the market that decided interest rates, interest rates were artificially lowered.

We don't have a purely capitalistic economy, obviously. What we do have is a mostly free economy, in a pure capitalistic economy such greed and corruption as the likes of Bernie Madoff never would have happened. Government distortions allowed corruption and greed to occur.