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Topic: Protest Movement
There is some legitimacy to the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest movement. However, there does not seem to be, at least not yet, any strategic plan for where this is going, and no organized leadership. Given what has transpired over the past three years, with bail-outs, TARP payments, QE1 and QE2, the high and stagnant U.S. unemployment rate, and the fall-out from the PIIGS in Europe, it is not surprising that some form of civil unrest would manifest itself in America. Since 9/11, in the USA, it has been a decade of lost opportunity. The announced jobless rate of 9.1% is actually around 16% if all those who have given up, and are no longer seeking work, are factored in. So, the mass middle-class has been squeezed while the rich and uber-rich have gone from good to better.
The focus of this unrest has been on the financial sector, where regulators and elected officials are purported to have colluded to inflate, then profit from, an induced credit bubble that soon burst and caused extreme domestic hardships, including lost jobs, lost homes, and lost incomes and savings. At the same time that ordinary American suffered, the corporate bail-outs and elected officials’ unabashed courting of Wall Street for campaign monies has manifested itself in the reaffirmation of the power, both economically and politically, of the financial institutions. No wonder the OWS movement has appealed to such a diverse cross-section of the American public.
The placard signs showing 99% - 1% refer to the concentration of income in America’s now extremely unequal society. There is a lot that is wrong with America. Some of its goals should include promoting foreclosure relief, implementing a value-added tax (the USA is one of the few leading countries in the world not to have one), applying a financial services tax, and undertaking a complete and comprehensive over-haul of the U.S. tax system, to make it more progressive.
The Obama Administration needs a wholesale shift in public policy from pandering to and protecting the banks/bankers, to lowering unemployment with meaningful and lasting job growth, and to fostering a return to a healthy and profitable U.S. manufacturing industry, with unfettered job creation.
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