Why Wall Street?
by digby
Alternet has published a very useful little primer on why Wall Street is the target for the current protests. If you are having any arguments about this, I urge you to read the whole thing, which fully expands on all the following 10 points.
The movement that's building is somewhat amorphous, to be sure, but the target, boith in practical and symbolic terms, is common to everyone.
1. Wall Street caused the crash
2. The Wall Street crash directly caused the gravest unemployment crisis since the Great Depression
3. Wall Street profited from the bailouts and remains unaccountable
4. The super-rich are getting richer
5. The super-rich are paying lower and lower taxes
6. Financial elites pay lower taxes than their secretaries
7. None of those who caused the crash have been prosecuted
8. Wall Street is much too big and its salaries are much too high
9. Wall Street still owns the regulators
10. Financial innovation is a joke
Does Wall Street pay or do we? In the end, it comes down to a clear-cut struggle between the few and the many. (There’s that 99 percent again.) Who is going to pay for the jobs we need? Who is going to pay for the debt that was created to bail out Wall Street and prevent another Great Depression? Wall Street wants us to pay in the form of cuts in Social Security and medical coverage, reduced wages and higher taxes (for everyone but them). In fact, they want the kids to pay by working longer before they retire (if they can ever find a job), paying higher medical costs as they grow older, and turning their Social Security accounts into Wall Street playthings no one can rely on. At the same time financial elites are arguing for fewer regulations and lower taxes on themselves and their fellow millionaires and billionaires. Financial interests are hoping we’ll simply forget who caused what and instead focus on debt, more debt and still more debt. They’re hoping we’ll blame government, regulations and taxes, while they laugh all the way to the bank – their banks. Some of us may be old and tired and fatalistic about all this looting, and sour about the chances for change. Thank god the kids still have their wits about them—and a fighting spirit.
Get out there and join them. And if you’re too old to stay overnight (like me), visit often and urge your unions, churches and community groups to join the fray. A progressive populist uprising only works when it’s large, vocal and full of spunk.
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