Protest of the day

Protesters hold up a banner that reads, “Regime of the 1%, Crisis for the 99%,” during a protest marking the one-year anniversary of Spain’s Indignados (Indignant) movement in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol.

The (May) day after

Scenes of Occupy May Day in Los Angeles [ht: tm] A reader asked whether Amitai Etzioni might be right, in arguing that Occupy May Day fizzled. Here’s Etzioni: Most assuredly, a general strike that fizzles will not serve the cause of reducing inequality, or even help Occupy Wall Street find its sea legs. Occupy Wall [...]

Occupy May Day

And here’s a list of May Day events.

Protest of the day

Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators from across the country descended on San Francisco to protest the policies of banking giant Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo’s response to the charge of foreclosing on homes? [Ruben] Pulido, the Wells Fargo spokesman, defended the bank’s foreclosure policies, saying less than 2 percent of the loans Wells Fargo issued [...]

Some economist has to shill for the banks

We all know that, in the face of the Occupy Wall Street movement, somebody has to step in and serve as a shill for the banks. And who better to fill the role than Yale University economist Robert J. Shiller? The notion that businesses are prone to act immorally and aggressively, Mr. Shiller says, is [...]

99% or 99.99%?

The Occupy Handbook

I just received my copy of The Occupy Handbook, edited by Janet Byrne. Needless to say, I haven’t had the time to read it through (my plan is to post a review once I have had the time) but here are a few quick comments. . . Robin Wells is listed as a the guest [...]

From Port Huron to #OWS

Another anniversary is upon us. This one is half the age of the Titanic but remembered—perhaps because the wreckage is still in plain sight and the results far more consequential—by many fewer people. I’m referring, of course, to the Port Huron Statement. It’s clear that it was written in a different time—defined variously in terms [...]

Protest of the day

  The other day during my talk, one of the participants asked me if the Occupy Wall Street movement was still alive. I explained that the movement, as it was being forced out of the parks, had created new initiatives, such as Occupy Student Debt, Occupy the SEC, and Occupy Our Homes, but that it [...]

#OWS—in 1765

The concerns expressed in and by the Occupy Wall Street movement on behalf of the 99 percent didn’t begin in 2011. They can be traced back at least to 1765. Kara Masciangelo and Jame McAndrews, of the New York Fed, have unearthed a 1765 letter to the editor of the New-York Gazette. It reads in [...]