What Are Occupy Wall Street Protestors Really Protesting?

Even though most of the occupy wall street protestors can’t articulate their thoughts on why they are protesting, the answer to this question is quite simple. They want more. More social security, more money for education, more health care, more unemployment, more money from their employers, more of everything. They point to a percentage as their rallying cry: 99%. This means that 1% of the population controls a significant portion of the worlds wealth and they are part of the 99% who don’t. The protestors think that this implies a fundamental problem with the system. The few who choose to come up with a solution to this problem often point to Socialism, which the European experiment has shown to be about as unsustainable as Communism. Redistribution of wealth has been proven conclusively by history to be a net negative for the economy. It takes money out of innovators, entrepreneurs, and job creators’ hands and gives it to consumers. This may provide a short term boost for certain companies, but simple logic should tell us that it is not economically sustainable. By limiting the rewards for the successful we discourage people from taking risks, which is what has differentiated the American economy from the rest of the world and has in large part been responsible for America’s economic dominance over the last century. Why on earth would Americans want to imitate a European model that they have consistently outperformed for almost a century?