Wall Street Speaks

A friend sent me the "We are Wall Street" email that's apparently been going viral.  Here's a taste:

Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We’re used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don’t take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don’t demand a union. We don’t retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we’ll eat that.

You can read the full letter here.  My friend thought I'd hate it, but I think it's terrific.  The issue of whether capitalism is indeed the least worst system (or, perhaps more importantly, how to best leverage capitalism so as to lift the most ships and provide some floor of subsistence to distinguish us from barbarians, while at the same time incentivizing the "frontrunners" maximally) is a complicated one.  I am not inclined to dismiss the Occupy protesters because I believe they represent a meaningful discontentment with what many perceive to be a corrupt system rigged to benefit the few at the expense of the many.  At the same time, I'm not going to dismiss the ideas represented in this letter either because I believe there is a great deal of truth represented therein as well.

SJP