I have a terrible confession to make, one that is sure to make you think less of me. For the last 20 yearsâ┚¬â€Âmy entire career reallyâ┚¬â€ÂI have drawn a salary from the US Financial Services industry.
It didn't used to be such a badge of shame. In fact, I have always felt a bit of pride in at least being in the conversation of how the financial world, or at least in my particular case its technology infrastructure, works. I never tried to obscure my affiliation with world financial markets until now.
Now when I walk to work, I don't pull out my Rockefeller Center badge until I'm inside the building. (For those of you who only think of Rock Center as the home of Matt Lauer and, fictitiously, Tina Fey and company, it is actually a working office complex, and my company occupies a full floor of 45 Rock, adjacent to the home of the Today Show and countless other cultural markers.)
I walk briskly through the burgeoning crowds of now not only those that want to see the Tree. There is always also a smattering of â┚¬Ëœprotesters' milling about the plaza. Me in my clearly business attire and laptop-filled briefcase would make me a mark if I didn't have on my headphones and a scowl.
Of course, I know they're probably not that concerned with me. Most are just taking a shopping break to hit Gucci, or the Anthropologie store across the plaza, as they consult their iPads and Droids, but hey, I'm just trying to get to work.
Let's not forget a simple tenant of American life: Capitalism is good. Capitalism, to a large degree, is the point of our democracy. It's a fully democratic playing fieldâ┚¬â€Âfor the first time in the history of the worldâ┚¬â€Âwhere hard work and excellence result in reward. Yes, dirty, monetary reward. If you don't believe in that, you don't believe in America. We are the Capitalist experiment in 3-D.
A certain amount of oversight is absolutely necessary, and I can't deny that executive salaries at the top of the house have become ridiculous, but too much regulation, or even the suggestion that we make our financial system the domain of the federal government, misses the point. Do we really want our financial experts to be public servants? Spend a day at the DMV and tell me if that is the talent pool you want managing your money.
We need the best and the brightest focused on the objective. And in this country, founded on the principal of successful competition, isn't the objective to have a healthy and robust financial system?
Do I sound a little jaded? Okay, yes. I know I'm a Democrat and, even more so, a believer in free speech and the right to assemble, but I just can't shake a central notion: what is all this Occupying about? I run creative marketing services for a technology company, and my focus is (gasp!) financial services. In that role, I run creative meetings and one thing on which I absolutely insist within my team is not having a criticism without a suggested solution. This is my central issue with the Occupy Wall Street folks. Yes, I know that our unemployment rate sucks, and that there are people in this country who are really hurting. But I have yet to hear a single progressive solution from the Occupy (fill-in-the-blank) folks.
In the absence of a solution, all we have is a gaggle of geese squawking about what is wrong. This country is based on the pulling of boot straps, not lamenting about what â┚¬Å”he hasâ┚¬Â in proportion to your bank account. The idea that America should democratize not only voice, but, as these protesters seem to be saying, wealth, is more Marxism than it is Democratic any day of the week.
In my career, I've had the opportunity to meet the CEOs of some of the largest banks in the world, and some of the smallest. To a person they've struck me as a group of people who have two goals: 1) to serve their company and shareholders to the best of their ability; and 2) to provide necessary and progressive financial services to those who require them.
That doesn't make them patriots, but it does invest them in being a part of the greatest, biggest economy in the world. The biggest, greatest economy the world has ever known. To the immeasurable benefit of every American.
So Occupy all you like, but remember how we got here, and stop being so damned spoiled. America is still largely insulated from the big bad world, filled with financial despair and the daily prospect of terrorism, and still you're not happy? This morning my cab driver told me he was a biometrical engineer in Pakistan and still makes more money as an NYC cab driver. He didn't betray the slightest bit of disappointment. He knew it was his decision and he made it. So I say, and so would he:
America in this generation may not be the financial superpower on which we've all come to depend. We might actually have to suffer a little and compete a little. So accept the new reality, and get on with it. Just like the rest of the world.
