6 ms·
Can someone brief me on what Occupy Wall Street is trying to do? I can't quite figure it out. If they're mad about being unemployed, marching sure isn't going
by Shenglong 15y ago
Can someone brief me on what Occupy Wall Street is trying to do? I can't quite figure it out.
If they're mad about being unemployed, marching sure isn't going to fix their situation. If they're mad about government corruption, what exactly would they like done? If they're mad about the economy in general, isn't Wall Street the worst place to be protesting? I feel like the traders on Wall Street would be the first people to want an economic bounce back. Do they just hate rich people? Hmm.
I've held back on criticizing this movement, but after all this time, I still can't figure out exactly what they want. It's seeming more and more to me, as just a way to waste peoples' times, and our tax dollars.
- jQueryIsAwesome 15y agoThey are sick about low taxes for the rich and the inequitable distribution of wealth... But being honest there is nothing they can do about those two.
- bartwe 15y agoI would guess they are searching for a more egalitarian society, looking at the specific images they but on the bills.
- gaurav_v 15y agoI agree that the movement lacks a coherent message. That being said, one of the large issues in play is that people feel slighted by rising income inequality, which they perceive to have arisen out of a sort of government-industry feedback loop. Certainly this is what the printed dollar bills seem to be about. With regard to your comments about the utility of the protest: I don't think it's a waste in any regard. If you feel something about government (in this country), you have several options: wait for an election and vote, write to your congresspeople, protest, etc. I agree that it's frustratingly difficult to figure out what the movement wants, but (even unaligned) protest is a perfectly legitimate way to express (even general) displeasure with your (perhaps even falsely perceived) current government.
- Shenglong 15y agoShouldn't you have a viable alternative solution in mind, when you express displeasure? I can understand that they're angry - I just can't understand how they want the government to fix it.
- gaurav_v 15y agoIt would definitely be a lot easier (and seemingly, effective) if they all just said we want X, where X is some not necessarily even specific reform. But maybe they just want to say 'we're angry about this rising income inequality and we want someone to do something about it.' I think that's a valid stance to have, and opinion to express. It then falls on the government to either: 1. Do something about income inequality. 2. Explain why they can't or shouldn't or won't. Failing that either of these things occur, it may inspire someone to run for office with the platform of performing (1) or (2) above. Any of these outcomes seem like a 'successful' outcome of the protest.
- mgunes 15y agoShouldn't you have a viable alternative solution in mind, when you express displeasure? Not necessarily; there are times when it's more fit to just walk out into the street, meet others who are as displeased as you are, and try to figure out what to do about it on the spot.
- nhaehnle 15y agoCodeMage provided an excellent analogy to answer this question some time ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080440 - you should check it out. Another way to look at it is this: The grievances of the protesters cannot be fixed by individual action. They require a change of the rules, i.e. political action. When such grievances become large enough, you (i.e. the people) use progressively stronger methods to try to tell politicians that you're serious about it. If the political system is flexible and effective enough to react and address the grievances, then the movement succeeds, e.g. the civil rights movement in the US in the 1960s. If the political system is too rigid and unable or unwilling to react, and the grievances remain, then the state will ultimately fail, e.g. East Germany in the 1980s.
- Daishiman 15y agoOWS appears to be a concentration of several basic grievances held against the financial industry's control of the government. It attempts to raise awareness to the fact that income inequality is increasing, and that the accumulation of capital does not seem to be benefiting the large majority of society. It complains about the fact that the mistakes of the financial industry are being paid by the whole of society. It raises more questions than it attempts to solve, but has some basic tenets in favor of restoring the regulations of financial markets that have been lost in the last 20 years. Here's a random link I pulled that attempts to explain some issues: http://blog.pfaw.org/content/the-media-way-occupy-wall-street http://blog.pfaw.org/content/the-media-way-occupy-wall-stree... It seems interesting to note that, from what I've heard from people working in the media industry, there's a directive to paint the OWS as having no purpose, however many of the critiques that are being leveled towards it are just as valid, if not more, again the Tea Party movement, yet such comments were never made in mainstream media. It's also worth noting that there were some very powerful interests funding the Tea Party. Finally, many people within OWS have concrete propostitions, such as restoring the Glass-Steagall Act, changing the capital gains tax, introducing the Tobin Tax, etc. Of course, that would actually imply knowing a thing or two about political science, so most people can't be bothered to research that.
- Jgrubb 15y ago"It's also worth noting that there were some very powerful interests funding the Tea Party." You said it. The Tea Party is/was essentially a media fabrication. There's obviously a lot of middle class dissatisfaction out there to be mobilized and the right wing tried to co-opt it for their agenda. OWS, on the other hand, is an actual grass roots movement. Furthermore, when I listen to NPR (of all media outlets) continually doing their very best to interview every fumbling 22-year old and make the entire movement look stupid it makes me think that OWS has some very powerful people genuinely worried. Thanksgiving with my entire Republican family is going to be a blast this year.
- AndrewMoffat 15y agoi think the majority of people protesting see many interconnected problems that they know deep down there's no silver bullet for. they're not knowledgeable enough to know all the ins and outs of how they're being fucked, but they know what it feels like, and they know they don't like it. that's my take on it. i think it's important to respect the passion of this movement, whether you agree with it or not, because it's real, because it comes from real causes, and because it won't go away until it's addressed
- potatolicious 15y agoThe OWS movement is certainly pretty confused and vague when it comes to demands. It would be a mistake, IMO, to use this to dismiss the reasons why people have chosen this time to protest. If you look at the people and signs at a #Occupy protest, you will find a familiar theme: income disparity and unemployment. People are running scared in an economy where social mobility has been utterly destroyed, unemployment runs at an all-time high, and the gap between rich and poor continues to widen unabated. Some people have chosen to blame corporations, some people pin it on banks, some are angry at the government. In the end though, the theme is the same. OWS protesters clearly have no clue how to fix it, but they are correct that something is fundamentally broken, and it would be a mistake to sweep this all away because the protesters can't put together a solid fix. There are, of course, also the piggy-back causes. Environmentalists, educational reformers, health care reformers, and all manners of all side-issue protesters are out in force at the #occupy protests, and that really does hurt the main message.
- jforman 15y agoOne of the common outcomes I've heard called for is a "separation of corporation and state," in response to what people feel is an outsized voice in the democratic process for corporations at the expense of individual citizens. The backlash against TARP is a good example of fairly broad sentiment that federal policy favors financial institutions and high-value investors over "Main Street." Lawrence Lessig has spoken rather extensively about campaign finance reform in this vein. His latest campaign is for the Fair Elections Now Act, which would encourage small donation-powered campaigns. He's also often argued for a constitutional convention that would address these concerns without needing to stay within the current legal boundaries...that seems to have fizzled a bit, though, I assume because it's so hard to pull off.
- epscylonb 15y agoI am convinced that that in the same vein as america pioneering the separation of church and state, the next big government evolution will be the separation of state and business. It will be extremely hard to accomplish though because historically money and power have always been bedfellows. The real problem is the people are complacent, most of what western governments legislate is in the interests of lobbyists, but people only care about lawmaking when they are personally poor or if it concerns foreign policy (TERRORISM). I have always thought a jury system for legislation might be a good idea, get the sponsor of a bill to stand in front of 12 randomly picked citizens and have them explain what the bill will do, and most importantly, why they are trying to pass the bill.
- JoshTriplett 15y agoThat would turn legislation into marketing. We have a bad enough problem already with knee-jerk legislation passed because it sounds shiny. Now, as a filter, introduced in addition to umpteen other ways to prevent legislation from passing, it sounds potentially helpful. Anything that makes legislation fail by default without an exceptionally good reason to pass would improve matters.
- seabee 15y ago
- iskander 15y agoIt's a lot of different people with different beliefs. The majority seem upset about some combination of: 1) growing income disparity (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_great_divergence/features/2010/the_united_states_of_inequality/introducing_the_great_divergence.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_great_di...) 2) regulatory capture by financial institutions (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=892925 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=892925) 3) the use of public funds to subsidize risky investment (http://www.thenation.com/article/153929/aig-bailout-scandal http://www.thenation.com/article/153929/aig-bailout-scandal) 4) apparent double standards for the rich (you certainly face more jail time for robbing a bank than for ruining one) I think that most people can agree that these are significant problems. It's actually amazing how little has changed since the 2007 mortgage crash.
- maximusprime 15y agoThey're angry that success is rewarded with money. They'd rather failure also be rewarded with money.
- nhebb 15y agoActually, many are angry because failure was rewarded with money. The core issue was that the financial sector took huge risks with mortgage backed securities, which weren't properly rated by firms like S&P, and when that lead to the financial meltdown, the government bailed them out. Other than Lehman, Wall Street firms weathered the meltdown fine but the people of the US - and other countries - felt the brunt of the downturn. Since the beginning, many groups with different goals have been attracted onto the OWS movement, and the message has been scattered. My bet is that the movement will peter out due to lack of focus and won't have a lasting impact on politics or policy. Meanwhile, the mortgage industry is still partying it up on your dime: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/business/fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac-still-the-socialites.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/business/fannie-mae-and-fr...
- Jgrubb 15y agoCome on, seriously?
- jamieb 15y agoI feel like the traders on Wall Street would be the first people to want an economic bounce back. Hence your failure to understand OWS. Wall Street's job is to make money. Period. If it happens that it is effective to make money by repeatedly crashing and booming the stock market, then that is exactly what they will do. Well, it turns out that it is extremely effective to make money by repeatedly crashing and booming the stock market. If it happens that it is legal to pay government officials to pass laws covering your losses, and if it can be done for a reasonable cost, then they will do that too. Well, it turns out that yes, this can be done for a very reasonable cost! I find it amazing that any person on HN - HACKER news - is unable to imagine of hundreds of different ways to hack the government-economic system for fun and profit, or once having imagined them, to imagine that people with the necessary money would then not do so. Our economy has been rooted.
- mappu 15y agoI find the most interesting part of this 'hack' is how it's next to impossible to pull off a successful protest in civilised society: The greatest trick the upper echelon have pulled, is convincing the masses that using violence to achieve your ends is uncivilised. As a non-US-er, we sometimes look down on the US for having a gun obsession, but there's no way anything OWS does would escalate to the point of seriously grabbing everyone's attention like, say, building an army, storming a building and forcibly arresting a CEO. They say OWS is inspired by the Arab Spring[1][2], but that would be a pretty tame example compared to the revolutions in Egypt and Libya. The people in OWS are upset, but not desperate, and I'm not sure this can lead to any sort of radical change unless the 1% agree voluntarily, which is obviously unlikely. It's very hard to think of a non-violent way to actually incite some change. "The USA should invade the USA and win the hearts and minds of the population by building roads, bridges and putting locals to work." - Paul Myers As a postscript, the amount of copycat protests are also slightly embarrassing. It's great to show solidarity, but for instance I don't think there needs to be one for my town. It's just awkward and trivialises the situation, since our economic problems are negligible compared to the US. ________ 1. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Arab_Spring https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Arab_Spring 2. http://occupywallst.org/about/ http://occupywallst.org/about/
- yosheryosh 15y agoGoing to march is better than sitting at home saying "marching sure isn't going to fix my situation."
- JoshTriplett 15y agoOnly if that statement is false.
- georgemcbay 15y agoThe action itself (en masse) defines whether the statement is true or false, much in the way of "my vote does/doesn't count".
- rajivrnair 15y agohttp://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/the-occupation/246755/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/the-occu... I think this article summarizes the point of the "Occupation" well.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- wisty 15y agoMy theory is that they all object to socializing losses, and privatizing gains. Bailing out big corporations (while their CEOs and shareholders purportedly make out like bandits) pisses off socialists, social democrats, and libertarians alike, and they won't all agree on what should be done. But they are all pissed off, and that's what unifies them.
- johncoltrane 15y agoThere are other good replies here. But one of the reasons you can't figure this movement is because it's a grass roots movement. There is no central body defining agendas, goals and slogans. Only thousands of people fed up by what they see going on above them. 30 years ago, you could probably see the hand of Moscow in this. Last year, the involvement of the christian right and at least some members of the republican party was very clear when looking at the Tea Party. OWS appears to be something else.
- tjmc 15y agoSome illustrative charts from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-a...
- guelo 15y agoInequality has hit a level that has been seen only once in the nation's history, and unemployment has reached a level that has been seen only once since the Great Depression. And, at the same time, corporate profits are at a record high. If you're not mad you're not paying attention.
- CWuestefeld 15y agoThe meme that "the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer" means that today, the poor must have a worse situation than ever before. So let's do a thought experiment: suppose that you can choose to go back in time. You can enjoy the 1% level of income at any point in history prior to, say, 1950. What era will you choose? Do you want to go to 1950, or some point in antiquity, or stay with your current income in the present? Remember, even in 1950, there are no antibiotics, for practical purposes, civil rights are only slightly better than medieval levels, and so on. You won't have access to instant communications, and only through difficulty, to the greatest works of art, music, and literature. And so forth. So, if you don't want to go back to those times -- even at the top of the economic heap -- can we really say that today's poor are finding their plight worse and worse?
- guelo 15y agoIts not only about the poor its about the 99% who's wages have stagnated over the last 30 years. The current generation under 25 is the first american generation that will be worse off than their parents.
- CWuestefeld 15y agoIt's true that the gap between rich and poor is greater today than in recent history. But I don't think that it's entirely correct to say that wealth has been redistributed to the wealthy. In fact, to a significant extent, people have redistributed themselves away from the wealth. These wealth numbers are presented as household income. But this increasing disparity closely tracks the rise since the 70s of single-parent households. Divorce, and more recently the trend to have children without being married at all (in certain demographics, this is now the norm), mean that people are deciding on their own to arrange themselves into units having less earning power. Even when single-parent households aren't the explanation, the idea of "sortative mating" amplifies differences in income. People tend pair off with similar people. Thus, well-educated people (who tend to have higher income potential) marry each other; uneducated people also tend to marry. So if two people, each with income potential of 2X, marry; while two others, each with income potential of 1X, also marry, then the resulting differential across households is 2X. The sortative effect has, in this example, doubled the apparent difference between people. Neither of these effects can be attributed to corporate behavior in any way. Obviously, some of the difference simply reflects the difference in productivity between different people. We tend to dislike thinking of things in these terms, but people doing certain kinds of jobs are far more productive than people in other jobs. In particular, the skills we've learned in wielding technology, or medicine, etc., benefit people to a much greater degree than, say, an individual McDonald's worker or miner or the like. And the fact that one is producing more leads to being able to demand greater income. We also err in considering people (or households) as being high-income or low-income, as if this were a static condition. In fact, at least in America, there is pretty good opportunity for income mobility. I don't have stats at my fingertips, but a really large portion of those in the top quintile have spent time near the bottom. It's a mistake to believe that someone is just "a rich person" or just "a poor person", since there's significant migration between those groups (at least relative to much of the rest of the world). You'll note that the rise in income inequality seems correlated with the rise in the power of the federal government (as opposed to the state and local authorities). I assume you've heard Lord Acton's Dictum: "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Well, he said another interesting thing. He said (sorry that I don't have the actual text here) that democracy tends to concentrate power into the hands of an elite few, and that the only known solution is a strong federalist system, in which the central government is kept weak by power residing in the hands of the states. Thus, it seems that the rise of a strong central government that we've seen over the past, say, 3/4 century, may be related to the rise of a privileged oligopoly. If so, it's clear that looking for a solution by giving that central government additional power is the opposite of the best answer.
- ArchD 15y agoIf you are a really good or lucky trader, you can make money in any kind of market. Some banks made up the dubious CDS from questionable house loans, making tons from selling them, and then made money again by shorting them. AIG was one of the poor fools that was left hanging the bag when the housing bubble burst. So, I wouldn't say Wall Street is the worst place to be protesting.
- leot 15y ago> I feel like the traders on Wall Street would be the first people to want an economic bounce back. This lies near the crux of the widespread belief that wealth merely lets you buy more stuff. Currency is the formalization of power, which is intrinsically relative: you have more power when the people near you have less. Imagine a village of 10 people, where 9 have $20k in wealth and one has $80k. This relative difference in capital allows the wealthy person to earn more than 4x more income. This means he can easily outbid everyone else for, say, the choicest cuts of meat at the deli; the best investment opportunities; the dinner with a visiting performer; the nicest house on the block; the flattering stares of the village's prettiest dame. Let's pretend a car costs $90k, so that it's not affordable to any one person in the village. One day, a car manufacturer contacts Mr. 80k to ask him whether he thinks his village would be a good place for a marketing stunt in which everyone was given a $90k car, which they could choose to sell if they really wanted to. Since this is a small village in a big economy, it's not as though all this extra wealth will cause serious inflation. The question is, how should Mr. 80k respond? If Mr. 80k is a homebody only interested in absolute wealth -- having more things for him to play with on his own -- then he should go for it! He'll finally have a car! But it might be in his interest to say "no": sure, at $170k he'll still be the richest, but now the ratio of his wealth to the wealth of his friends will have gone from 4x to 1.5x. Could this have a materially negative effect on his current standard of living and his economic security? Well for one, while he'll be able to afford better investments, there will be more people to compete with for them. If everyone has a car then Mr. 170k will no longer be able to loan out his horse and buggy in exchange for favors and status. The previously receptive dame might start to notice Mr. 170k's bald spot, and spend more time staring at a younger prospect. When the local celebrity comes to village, Mr. 170k will have to bid higher to taken them to dinner. Mr. 170k will no longer be a crucial lynchpin of local politics, so the village alderman might no longer call on him as often. And Mr $170k will no longer be treated with the same reverence while on his evening walks as he had previously received. So while Mr. 170k could nearly double his wealth, if the marketing promotion were to happen, Mr. 80k might perceive the decline in relative status as costing him far more. So, no: depending on the kind of rich person you are, you might prefer for other people to stay poor. Unethical and immoral? Maybe. Rational? Certainly.
- philwelch 15y ago" Do they just hate rich people?" Yes. More precisely, they're angry about recent economic stagnation and unemployment and are scapegoating the rich. Economic difficulties leading to mass populist movements with a defined, minority scapegoat (especially the rich, or the bankers) is a dangerous pattern. Even in this thread you see people calling for violence. The last element--a charismatic leader--is historically all that is needed for something like this to turn very ugly, very fast.
- tripzilch 15y agoIn a nutshell: Corruption and fraud in the banking system causing global economy collapse, the vast disparity in wealth, rampant corruption in politics and big corporations buying politicians with money, not democratic votes. For concrete ideas, Matt Taibbi as usual really knows what he's talking about: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-o... However, it's important to remember that coming up with good solutions as well as figuring out what it really is the people want is really the job of the politicians. And just because they're failing miserably at that job, doesn't mean the general population suddenly has to know all the answers. I think the general message of discontent is very clear.
- bdunbar 15y agoCan someone brief me on what Occupy Wall Street is trying to do? I can't quite figure it out. I think Jerry Pournelle said it best "They don’t really know what they want, but they really don’t want more of what they’re getting." http://jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=2487 http://jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=2487
- pohl 15y agoChris Hedges says it pretty well in this interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAhHPIuTQ5k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAhHPIuTQ5k