For the past few days I have been reading the official blog of the Occupy Wall Street crowd called We Are the 99 Percent.  The problem I see is that the blog doesn’t actually represent the 99% percent of society.  Virtually all of the stories that are being sent in are of people who rank firmly in the bottom 10% to 20% of household income.  They spend their time writing about the horrors of the top 1% of wealth in the United States.  To reach that level of net worth takes only $ 1.2 million.  That’s not annual income, that is total assets minus total liabilities.  Taking it even further, making the top 0.10%, or one-tenth-of-one-percent, of wealth in the United States takes a net worth of $ 5 million.  Yet, these folks are writing about private jets and yachts, butlers and mansions.  It’s absurd.  They have no idea what the actual economic data is, all of which is available for free from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the IRS, the Census, and other departments.

As I explained in an essay on my personal blog, these people think Wall Street is the enemy and cause of their plight.  It is not.  What they are experiencing was predicted decades ago by one of the greatest business thinkers of all time, who believed society was going to split into knowledge workers and manual workers.  The result would be widespread social unrest and a divide in income and wealth inequality that most likely could not be redressed.  I then followed that up by explaining the role of money in the new knowledge economy and the influence on the liberal arts.

Part of the problem is the mindset of the people posting on the “We Are the 99 Percent” site.  Most borrowed enormous sums of money relative to their income potential to go to school for degree programs that generate very low incomes.  That is their own fault.  You cannot borrow $ 100,000 for graphic design or art – both of which, by the way, are not necessary if you are truly talented – and expect to ever have anything more than a meager existence unless you are exceptional.  Virtually all of your income is going to go to pay the bank!  This isn’t rocket science.

When a brave soul dares to post that he or she lived below their means, saved their money, chose a lucrative degree, and paid off their debt, they are attacked, vilified, called evil, and mocked.  That is the reason this cycle continues. The attitude of entitlement is just staggering.  It’s as if these people were told all their lives that all they had to do was get a college degree and work hard and all of their problems would be solved!  No.  You must give society something it wants.  A good heart surgeon makes a lot of money because people want their lives saved.  A good criminal lawyer makes a lot of money because people don’t want to go to prison.  You cannot take on a six-figure debt load and expect to have a decent life if you are pursuing a field such as special education, where the best you can do is $ 30,000 to $ 40,000 per year.  This is especially true if you live in an expensive area of the country!

Then, there is the anger about the “bailout” of the banking sector.  Leaving aside for a moment that had it not occurred, we would now be in the midst of a second Great Depression, I want to ask them if they realize that it is estimated we, the taxpayer, will make roughly $ 108 billion in profit off the bailouts.  Do they realize that the equity holders of Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, AIG, Wachovia, and Washington Mutual, just to name a few, were either totally or partially wiped out as a result?  Furthermore, I want to know if they realize that 1 out of 3 homeowners has no mortgage and 1 out of 2 Americans have no credit card debt.  I want to know if they understand the average 401(k) participant has more money in their account today than when the crash occurred, not less, and that it only took them barely more than one year to reach that point!