Occupy Wall Street: News Round-Up

Here's some of what I've been reading this morning...

CNN—Unions endorse, will join Occupy Wall Street protests:

[T]he Massachusetts Nurses Association says hundreds of the city's nurses will rally with the Occupy Boston protesters on Wednesday. The association says the protest will be part of the opening day activities for a national nursing convention in Boston.

In New York, several unions endorsed the Occupy Wall Street movement and plan to join the protesters' street theater Wednesday, labor leaders said.

"It's really simple. These young people on Wall Street are giving voice to many of the problems that working people in America have been confronting over the last several years," said Larry Hanley, international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which has 20,000 members in the New York area.

"These young people are speaking for the vast majority of Americans who are frustrated by the bankers and brokers who have profited on the backs of hard-working people," Hanley added in a statement. "While we battle it out day after day, month after month, the millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street sit by -- untouched -- and lecture us on the level of our sacrifice."

CBS—Reinforcements to bolster Wall St. protests: "Among those planning to join the clamor are the liberal group MoveOn.org and community organizations like the Working Families Party and United NY. The growing crowd will also include members of the Chinatown Tenants Union and the Transit Workers Union, signaling that the protest is showing no signs of losing steam."

David Callahan at Reuters—Occupy Wall Street's message: more than a sound bite:

Pop quiz: What's so bad about the financialization of the U.S. economy over recent decades?

If you're like most people who are uneasy with the outsized power of finance, chances are you can't boil down your concerns to a pithy sound bite. So why is there such ridicule of the protesters "occupying" Wall Street for lacking a coherent message?

Three years after the 2008 financial crisis, it is still hard to neatly encapsulate the problem with letting bankers and traders dominate American economic life. Once Congress passed the Dodd-Frank reform law last year, most political leaders and commentators moved on to other issues, leaving behind an unfinished debate about Wall Street's influence.

Now, thanks to protests in New York and a growing list of other cities, this debate is percolating once more. And guess what: the supposedly incoherent protesters actually have a pretty strong critique of what is wrong with America's financialized economy.

Leo Kapakos in the Examiner—Occupy Wall Street protestors a lot smarter then portrayed:

Yesterday, this writer visited Occupy Wall Street to show support and solidarity with my fellow Americans. Hundreds of Americans from all classes and ethnicities, poor and middle-class, union workers and non-union workers were there in solidarity. They were demonstrating against an economic system in which the wealthy continue to prosper and gain power at the expense of the poor and middle-class. The common sentiment is that the current economic system and tax policies have benefited only those at the top but hasn't kept the American Dream alive for the poor and middle class who have fallen behind.

...I spoke to a college grad Jerry from Queens, New York who had a lot to say and did a great job of summarizing the general sentiments of the protesters. I asked Jerry why he was there and his thoughts of the criticism from the right that this is just class warfare and hate for the rich and the corporations?

Jerry responded, "To them it's only class warfare when it applies to us. The class warfare has been against the poor and middle class in the country since Reagan. The gap between the rich and poor (income inequality) peaked just before the New Deal. After the New Deal and World War 2 up until Ronald Reagan the gap narrowed. Since Reagan, the rich have experienced a surge of power from tax cuts and the globalization of the economy that has enriched them and their businesses. They used that power to get more tax cuts, hire the most expensive accountants to find tax loopholes, and park their cash in tax havens. Despite the Bush tax cuts did they hire U.S. workers? No they shipped jobs overseas. Meanwhile, corporate profits and CEO salaries have surged while the average salary for the working class American has stagnated. Many have lost their jobs. Trickle–down economics has not trickled down. We have been cutting taxes for the rich for the last 30 years and they have walked away with the prize."

He then pointed to a lot of the younger college –age kids in the park and said, "Do you see all these college grads in here – most of them can't find work. You're even lucky to finish school today with all the education cuts the Republicans want to make. I feel sorry for the young kids in the poor neighborhoods. My sister is a teacher in Bed Sty (Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn). They're cutting teachers and after-school programs left and right. A lot of those kids will wind up hanging out with the wrong crowd and getting into trouble and many never go back to school. Do you thing corporate CEOs think about that when they cry that they pay enough already (in taxes)? No. They care about exercising their stock options. That's all they care about."

Well-said Jerry from Queens, well-said.

Alexander Vatutin at The Voice of Russia—"American spring" on Wall Street: "Experts are at one believing that Barack Obama will lend an ear to the protesters' voices for the sake of his rating but hardly anything will change in his policy. The more so in conditions when an overwhelming majority of Americans are used to building their lives within the limits of the system and traditionally do not respond to revolutionary appeals."

Washington Post—"Occupy Wall Street" protesters sue New York City: "Wall Street protesters arrested in a march across the Brooklyn Bridge Oct. 1 filed a lawsuit claiming New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the police commissioner violated their constitutional rights. Five of the protesters, seeking to represent about 700 people arrested in the march, filed a civil rights complaint in federal court in Manhattan today. The protesters claimed officers from the New York City Police Department lured them onto the bridge's roadway to trap and arrest them."

Occupy Wall Street: How You Can Help.