“They need to understand who their constituency is...”

From a very revealing NYTimes article Saturday in the Business section:

“Most people view [the Occupy Wall Street movement] 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.”

Right (/sarcasm).  Ever since the 60's the right has characterized young people marching or demonstrating for a better world as a bunch of dirty hippies, and it seems to resonate in the heartland where criticism of America (from the left, mind you. It's okay if the right calls Democrats vile names) as traitorous.

However, it is true that those occupying Wall Street (and other cities in the U.S.) are the fringe.  For now.  But isn't that how big movements almost always begin?  The most angry and motivated make a lot of noise and it resonates with more and more people, and as more people join, it becomes less fringy and more focused.  I'm not sure if this movement will survive the winter months, but if they do, watch out this spring!

But lets look closer at what some on Wall Street are saying:

...people should show some gratitude. 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.”

Doesn't this sound like a baron of old threatening their peons that if they don't stop complaining about the maggots in their gruel that maybe they won't get any gruel at all in the future?

[The money manager] 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.

Whoa.  Senators Schumer and Gillibrand represent New York.  New York state has over 19 million people.  But this money manager seems to believe that the Senators only represent the few thousand New York bankers and money managers!  These assholes really do believe they are the only people in the country who matter!  Talk about entitled.

--Trakker

Comments

[horsec]

Because the DOJ didn't act

Because the Dept of Justice decided it would be too hard to convict the malefactors on Wall Street, they decided not to prosecute anyone. Had the DOJ tried putting some of the fat cats on a diet of bread and water, http://www.occupywallst.org/ and http://www.occupytogether.org/ wouldn't exist.

[Trakker]

I don't know what DOJ's problem is but they sure don't seem to be very aggressive any more. Or maybe they are severely understaffed.