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That seems awfully dismissive of the situation and people's frustrations with it. Wall Street greed and political corruption do have a lot to do with it. For ex

That seems awfully dismissive of the situation and people's frustrations with it. Wall Street greed and political corruption do have a lot to do with it. For example, here's an article from Rolling Stone that's probably partly responsible for unleashing a lot of the frustration towards Wall Street: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-stre... Whenever the subject of Wall Street's participation in our economic woes comes up, a few people show up and try to attribute it largely to normal growth/recession cycles, but that doesn't explain why so many of the figures that we're seeing now more closely resemble trends from 70 or more years ago. Lastly: those "couple thousand college-aged leftists" have recently been receiving support from a wide variety of other groups. About the best thing you can do for their cause is to continue underestimating them.

acslater00 15y ago
I'm being intentionally dismissive of the notion that America is on the cusp of a popular revolt against "the rich", at least to the extent such a revolt takes the form of the occupy wall street movement. I think various establishment Democrat-affiliated groups have taken an obvious interest, since they're hoping (against hope, I'd say) that this will become a counter-balance to the Tea Party. I will happily continue to underestimate them, despite the risk that it will somehow make them stronger. Also, I'm not saying that our recession is a normal growth/recession cycle. The 'standard' business cycle is (usually) inventory driven and the economy quickly recovers once inventories drain. This is a "balance-sheet" recession. It's driven by excessive consumer (and public) debt, and only goes away once that debt clears the system. "Wall Street" is to blame for excessive debt in the same way that McDonalds is to blame for obesity. They're one side of a two-sided transaction that was taken to excess, and now we have to patiently wait for the consequences to play out.

acslater00 15y ago

I'm being intentionally dismissive of the notion that America is on the cusp of a popular revolt against "the rich", at least to the extent such a revolt takes the form of the occupy wall street movement. I think various establishment Democrat-affiliated groups have taken an obvious interest, since they're hoping (against hope, I'd say) that this will become a counter-balance to the Tea Party. I will happily continue to underestimate them, despite the risk that it will somehow make them stronger. Also, I'm not saying that our recession is a normal growth/recession cycle. The 'standard' business cycle is (usually) inventory driven and the economy quickly recovers once inventories drain. This is a "balance-sheet" recession. It's driven by excessive consumer (and public) debt, and only goes away once that debt clears the system. "Wall Street" is to blame for excessive debt in the same way that McDonalds is to blame for obesity. They're one side of a two-sided transaction that was taken to excess, and now we have to patiently wait for the consequences to play out.