NYC protesters don’t get how the world “works” or where wealth comes from: Check it out for yourself.

Most people are familiar with the widely read book, Barbarians at the Gate, which chronicles the take-over of RJR Nabisco; hence, the familiarity in modern times of the term itself.  The reference really derives from the fall of the Roman Empire when the uncivilized and ungoverned rabble around and beyond Rome began to threaten an increasingly lax and complacent civilization centered in Rome.  Today the term could aptly apply to those recent Wall Street protesters who—if they could only have their way--bring down an amazing way of life for the preponderance of people in the western world. 

[Incidently, if by chance you have any inkling of sympathy for these college-degreed protestors, let me remind you of a current factoid that virtually all reports on their marches overlook:  Unemployment among college graduates today in the U.S. is at what economists consider full employment—4.3%.  In other words, no one protesting need wait long to be on their way to creating wealth for themselves, just like the rest of the workforce in the U.S.]

I am certain they are very misguided, but I maybe a captive of a limited understanding of how the world works that comes from being a business school professor.  So here’s what I propose:  You be the judge of whether what these economic barbarians want make sense to you—in whole or part.  What follows is the definitive list of their demands—in their own words.  Read it and then tell me if you think they’ve got better way of civic and commercial life figured out than—albeit imperfect—the one we have today:

[1] Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

[2] Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to Wall Street investors.

[3] Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

[4] Free college education.

[5] Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

[6] One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

[7] One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

[8] Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

[9] Open borders migration.  Anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

[10] Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

[11] Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

[12] Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

[14] Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

Obviously, if the economic barbarians demands were adopted, they would make extinct what disciplined, hard-working people have created in terms of the most prosperous and generous society in world history.  There is little doubt we would live in a very different world, and not much like the one we know and value today. 

Since there’s no Santa or Tooth Fairy, I vote for the following…

Americans—and many others around the world—are amazingly ignorant of the ways of real-world economics and human behavior.  In many ways it is exactly that condition—of people failing to understand and appreciate how the world of commerce creates and fosters wealth for many, not just a few--which poses the real threat to all of us in terms of how seriously these protesters demands are entertained or taken seriously. 

As for me, I’m prepared to take this approach:  After reading the barbarians’ list of demands, I'm ready—categorically—to await a likely more promising set of counter proposals to come from an ad hoc panel of inmates selected at random from the Massachusetts state hospital system.  Yes, I would vastly prefer to take seriously the economic prescriptions of institutionalized patients, for I have little doubt that the proposals from that crowd--the inmates--would almost certainly be far more positive and likely less antithetical than those of the economic barbarians in NYC a few days ago.  I don't think it would even be a close call.  
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