Last night I heard a story on NPR about the Wall St. protest that is now spreading to other cities. The gist of the story was: "what are these protests really about? What do they want?"
I'm sorry, but that's just not a head scratcher. Do these news analysts think it's a coincidence that they're occupying Wall St. as opposed to Columbus Ave north of 79th?
As Andrew Sorkin put it today (after writing that the message was "at times...hard to discern"):
... the demonstrators are seeking accountability for Wall Street and corporate America for the financial crisis and the growing economic inequality gap.
I'm not saying everyone down there is ready to give a clear exposition of the facts of the case, but commentators can stop scratching their heads now.
I've been writing about these problems for decades. Sometimes they've gotten a little better, but mostly they've gotten worse. Before the downturn, the share of income held by the top 1% was 23.5%, the highest since 1928 and more than twice the 10% level of the late 1970s.
These are growth shares, as in they have to sum to 100%-when one group's share goes up like that, everybody else's has to shrink.
That doesn't mean real income values can't rise for other groups, of course (though it does imply slower relative growth, compared to the high end). But in fact, the middle class and the poor haven't seen that either... the decade of the 2000s saw middle-incomes decline in real terms for working-age households. The recession just made those incomes fall faster.
Protest movements are often born of two interacting injustices: the lack of opportunity and the lack of accountability by the persons perceived to be blocking that opportunity.
Given the facts of the income distribution, the trends in real middle-class incomes and poverty, the failure of policy to do much to change these trends, the government bailouts of the only class that's benefited from the recovery so far, the absence of clear punishment/accountability for the financial and political institutions that helped inflate the debt bubble that continues to squeeze economies across the globe, and the dysfunctionality of the current political system (they're arguing more about whether they can keep the lights on than whether they can help solve the economic problems), the more interesting question is what took so long for such protests to show up?
Update: A colleague sends me to this site which puts a face on much of the above (hat tip: HS).
This post originally appeared at Jared Bernstein's On The Economy blog.
Kelly Cogswell: So You Want to Be an Activist?
Will Bunch: What I Saw at the Revolution
Suzanne O'Keeffe: American Autumn in Los Angeles -- OccupyWallSt Joins Main Street
The reason I said "most Americans" is that if about 40% of Americans would vote, and about 50% of these voting Americans would vote Republican, then 20% of all Americans firmly believe in the Republican agenda.
Now, the Republican agenda has been blatantly and shamelessly for the benefit of the Rich. If we consider making $250,000 a year as rich, then the Rich is only about 3% of all Americans. The 17% of Americans who are NOT rich at all -- like the infamous and laughable Joe the Plumber -- strongly believe in their fate and fortune to become rich one day.
This brain-washed idea that every American can become fabulously wealthy is fraudulent and impossible, because the seats are already taken by the top 3% and they have bought enough politicians to make sure that they stay in their seats for eternity to come.
Unlike the lottery, most Americans, say 90% of them, do NOT have an actual chance of becoming wealthy like the top 3%. But like the lottery, most Americans, say 97% of them, would always LOSE.
So let the 17% continue to believe in their pipedream. But the rest of us, the 80% Americans, should stand up, take power, and change how America fundamentally operates. Go march on the streets. Because the next best thing will be a
The protest went peacefully for me. When we returned to the plaza where the people are camping out, everyone was excited with the progress we'd made, and I there were much more people than we'd started out with. There was talk of marching on Wall Street again, but I didn't see anyone go, and I went home since I was tired. Now I'm hearing there's been some police brutality there. Reports of mounted horses, batons, and pepper spray. See this video taken from the protest site:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW6HUf9cLt4&feature=youtu.be
I'm amazed, and I wish I'd stayed to help my brothers and sisters.
What will be the fabric of this country when fewer and fewer people believe that the American Dream is an anachronism that applies to a very small percentage of the population? By the way I am not an unhappy, 'unknowing' young person or a someone who feels a sense of entitlement. I am an upper income male in my mid-60's with a substantial net worth.
Their lies are vertically integrated starting with the phony-baloney Koch-funded think tanks parading as academic institutions. Output from the think tanks feeds Fox News and the screeching mouthpieces like Colter, Limbaugh and Beck. Plus they own puppets like Justice Roberts who deliberately reached down into the lower courts to bring the Citizens United case to the Supreme Court.
Uneducated christians and the angry and confused rural working class have been voting GOP ever since Reagan because they hear the word 'tax cuts' without ever pausing to ask 'tax cuts for whom?' or 'for how much?'. And now the TeaParty astroturf is the crowning achievement - their biggest lie of all. It's warfare, folks, sorry, no other way around it.
Wallstreet wrote intentionally bad loans(paid mortgage brokers 2.5Times as much to write them), so they could unload them with the promise of subrpimes, their higher interest rates, hired property appriasers who drove up/appraised high the real estate market, bought naked insurance (CDS) on the bad loans they sold while then shorting the market they had inflated... and using our own deposits to speculate on commodities with 20 to one leveraging(and still doing this as repub block reregulation)....
The real problem is when the credit bubble burst/trained the swamp, it revealed a nonexistant real economy creating no jobs, 60,000 factories outsourced,no job creation in 8 years other than government. The killer was the outsourcing of 30 million jobs under repub free trade.. thats doesnt exist!.
Regards
No doubt their parents also complained about the "troublemakers" during the civil rights era. Again, they don't acknowledge that the protests accomplished great good.
Regards
But they will not succeed, something much greater is underway.
Those who have destroyed our economy...the "sh!tty deal" makers, speculators and hedge funders, the let-them-eat-cake creeps...they are the ones who have NOTHING to add to our economy...in fact they are the ones who do nothing but take from it.