Occupy Wall Street

In case you've had your head in the sand the past couple weeks, the "Occupy Wall Street" movement is the new media sensation.

CNN compares the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Tea Party movement.  So does Jon Stewart.  And, writing for the Washington Post, David Meyer argues that the movement learned a lot from the Tea Party.

On many levels, the comparison makes sense.  Read the beginning lyrics to this newly popular anthem and try to decide for which movement it was written:

Pay no attention to the people in the street,
Crying out for accountability.
Make a joke of what we believe;
Say we don't matter 'cuz you disagree.
Pretend you're kings, sit on your throne;
Look down your noses at the peasants below.



Here's the back story on the song

Who are the Protesters?

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) first expressed his concern about the "growing mobs" of OWS protesters, but later expressed some empathy, saying that "people are upset and they're justifiably frustrated."

Though unpopular in many places, most New York residents approve of the protesters.  Writing for the NY Times, Nick Kristof compares the OWS folks to those who protested in Egypt.


But, counter to conventional wisdom, Nate Silver points out that protests had larger turnouts in the West than in the East, and argues that the movement is much more popular in places with lots of self-identified liberals than registered Democrats.


The NY Times asked bankers privately what they thought of the protests, and the reaction wasn't too kind.

“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.”

What do They Want?

Many protesters cite economic inequality and disproportionate accrual of wealth by the top 1%: the upstart website New Bottom Line has the simple tagline "fighting for an economy that works for all of us".  Business Insider posts four charts that might explain the movement, which focus on the fortunes of corporations and the wealthiest Americans relative to the country as a whole.

Here's an updated version of the chart that we discussed in class, which displays the median income of each quintile plus the top 5% from 1966-2010 in addition to the median income of the top 1%, 0.1% and .001% from 1966-2008.  From 1966-1979, all grew relatively equally (between 6 and 25% total), while from 1980-2008, growth ranged from 0% for the bottom quintile to 641% for the top .001%.

Sources: Current Population Survey posted by the U.S. Census Bureau and IRS calculations posted by Emmanuel Saez

What will Happen?

Nobody's quite sure whether the protests will strengthen or fizzle out or whether they'll bring about any policy changes.  Indeed, many of the protesters seem rather unsure exactly what type of policy changes they want.

Robert Samuelson says that while "inequality is a new fault line . . . the backlash against the rich is the start of debate, not the end".

David Brooks seems unimpressed. He writes that "The Occupy Wall Street movement may look radical, but its members’ ideas are less radical than those you might hear at your average Rotary Club" and refers to them as "small thinkers"

Don’t be fooled by the clichés of protest movements past. The most radical people today are the ones that look the most boring. It’s not about declaring war on some nefarious elite. It’s about changing behavior from top to bottom.