Having watched the tea party make its way from a bunch of unsophisticated people waving hate signs and ranting about Obama, Occupy Wall Street will progress and the right (just as the left did) will do its best to highlight all of the loonies of the movement to sway the press. It's the way of protests.
If people really wanted to protest, they would slow their pace of consumption (purposefully). Americans fell into a hole because they were deeply indebted to corporate America when the recession came. There is no one to blame for that except for us. That's why we can shake our fists at Wall Street but we ought to adopt a better set of values, one where we don't judge "success" based on how much money we have.
Publicly, bankers say they understand the anger at Wall Street — but believe they are misunderstood by the protesters camped on their doorstep.This is what we're up against -- a bought and paid for Congress and the wealthy elite thinking there's nothing wrong with that:
But when they speak privately, it is often a different story.
“Most people view it as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,” said one top hedge fund manager.
“It’s not a middle-class uprising,” adds another veteran bank executive. “It’s fringe groups. It’s people who have the time to do this.”
“Who do you think pays the taxes?” said one longtime money manager. “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services. This is just disgruntled people.”
He added that he was disappointed that members of Congress from New York, especially Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, had not come out swinging for an industry that donates heavily to their campaigns. “They need to understand who their constituency is,” he said. Read it all at the NYT
