OCCUPY WALL STREET: QUICK FACTS
Occupy Wall Street? What’s that about?
It’s easy to be out of the loop on this one.
The protests about the greed, excess and incompetence of the global financial system only began on September 17 this year in Canada and the US.
Since then they have spread across the world to Rome, London, Berlin, Zurich, Madrid, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and right into the heart of Sydney this past weekend.
The latest demonstration saw 20,000 people gather in New York’s Times Square.
Protest placards read: “Nationalise the Banks”; “CEO pay up 444 per cent in 12 years”; “Bankers are the Real Looters” and “No Bulls, No Bears, Just Pigs”. “Economic Royalists.”
It’s said the protestors are mimicking the “Arab Spring” uprisings when people power revolted against the corrupt regimes of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and across the wider Arab world. One characteristic of these (continued) protests is the use of social media to communicate and organise which means they can be spontaneous and leaderless – thereby frustrating attempts of Governments to control them.
At a gathering in Chicago, a speaker shouted: “Look at what we did! The corporations control the government and the wealth but we have the greatest power of all: the power of the people!”
“This is our Tahrir Square,” said another speaker, referencing the protests in Egypt. ”We’re not going to take it anymore! We’re going to take these streets!”
The Occupy Wall Street movement began with the Canadian Adbusters Media Foundation which calls itself a not-for-profit, anti-consumerist and pro-environment group.
The protestors style themselves as the “99 percent-ers” – a reference to the study by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz showing the top one per cent of Americans control 40 percent of US wealth.
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3 Responses to this article
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Lesley Palma October 17, 2011
I am the first to admit that domestic and global economics, apart from doing my head in, is way above my head. And like everyone else these days (who happen to be in that 99%), just balancing the household budget is fraught with danger in the form of that -$XX amount in red which occurs in your spreadsheet when you total your outgoings as against your incomings. In my household, which is a small one of 2 adults, 1 dog and 3 cats, I have noticed particularly in the past 12 months that this balancing act is becoming more difficult and much scarier. Fixing the economic problems of the world? I would not know where to begin so I guess global protests such as this are a good start. It was pointed out to me this morning, by a very wise young man, my son, who seems to have more of a handle on this situation than I, that, yes, the banks are to be held accountable, and that yes, Wall Street, being at the top of the totem pole, should be held accountable also. However, he also pointed out that compounding the problem is the issue of the increase in population around the world. Sounds logical to me, but as he was about to head off out the door to work, that was as far as the discussion went. Now I am not going to delve any further into this subject because I am already getting a headache. I will say this in closing however, that given the revelation in the last day or so that all our major banks now expect their staff to act like street hawkers in a middle east bazaar by promoting one of the worst products in this economic climate, the plastic fantastic, I sat with my mouth wide open on that one! Hell, what are they thinking!? When hundreds, soon to be thousands by the sound of it, are camping outside their doors in Martin Place, trying to get the message across that we, the citizens of the world, are in dire straits financially, they come up with yet another example of money grabbing. Hello, King Glen of the Rural Bank, your subjects are not listening to you.
