On Monday, west coast occupiers shut down at least two terminals in a shipping harbor in Portland, Oregon as a way to protest corporate greed and wealth inequality. The reason, according to protestor Kari Koch, was because the brokerage firm Goldman Sachs is a stakeholder in one of the companies that frequently uses the port. Appearing on Your World With Neil Cavuto yesterday, Koch argued that the “one percent” uses these shipping harbors to exploit the working class and profit from their labor. What she fails to mention or recognize, however, is that everyday Americans actually benefit from trade and commerce.
Cavuto’s main point, which he emphasizes repeatedly, is that the actions of the Occupy Portland protestors are preventing businesses from attaining the goods they need – and in many cases already purchased – to stay solvent. In effect, the occupiers are inhibiting trade, killing small businesses, and offending the people they ostensibly represent. What’s more, as a result of the demonstrations, the port was shutdown and closed until this morning. Thus, hundreds of workers employed in the harbor, including third shift personnel turned away earlier today, were temporarily out of a job.
The problem with liberals, as Milton Friedman once observed, is that the policies they implement – and the causes they champion – almost always hurt the people they intend to help. And after watching and listening to the following interview, I couldn’t agree more.
(H/T The Right Scoop)