The Economist Does Bank Stocks

Via this Daily Chart at The Economist comes an interesting (and, more importantly, very frightening) way to look at the condition of the world’s biggest banks – comparing how close their current share price is to the lows seen during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

As should be clear after looking at the bottom of the graphic, broad stock market indexes are nowhere near their early-2009 lows and traders all over the world are now wondering whether they should buy bank stocks or sell short the rest of the market.

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Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi talks to Keith Olberman about the Occupy Wall Street protest that appears to be gathering national attention at a blistering pace, not yet rising to Tea Party status in the eyes of the mainstream media, but possibly on its way to doing so.

In Griftopia, Taibbi lamented the “hijacking” of the Tea Party movement by the Republican party that shifted the focus to government spending and taxes, rather than the more fundamental problems that have resulted from the financialization of America.

Though criticized for a lack of focus or clear demands, one thing seems certain, the Occupy Wall Street crowd at least has their fingers pointed at the right group of people.

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Hey, A Girl’s Gotta Live

There’s an interesting collection of pictures from the ever-expanding Occupy Wall Street protest over at The Atlantic (hat tip Patrick.net), one of my favorites shown below.

With the mass arrest on Saturday, this story has really gained a lot of traction in just the last few days, a simple Google News search on “Wall Street Protest” now turning up such names as The Washington Post, CBS News, and the New York Times rather than just the Guardian, as was the case for much of the first ten days or so.

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A Liberal Version of the Tea Party?

It would appear as though the two-week long Occupy Wall Street protest is gathering momentum after some 700 people were arrested yesterday after they blocked traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge as detailed in this report at Fox Business News.

Based on the video above – now with their own food kitchen and media center in New York City – it looks as though they’re planning to hang around for a while, some now thinking that the group could have an impact on the 2012 elections.

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I have no idea who this guy is, but he ties together a few timely news items – the budget debate, class warfare, and the effort to occupy Wall Street that he dubs the “American Spring” – before inviting President Obama to participate.

In related news, it’s not clear if this will help or hurt (my guess is the latter), but Roseanne Barr just made a surprise appearance at the protest, apparently not having anything good to say about either Ayn Rand or Rush Limbaugh – here’s a link.

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The U.K.’s Guardian newspaper files this report on the effort to occupy Wall Street over the weekend, a move that extended into the workweek earlier today.

On Saturday 17 September, many of us watched in awe as 5,000 Americans descended on to the financial district of lower Manhattan, waved signs, unfurled banners, beat drums, chanted slogans and proceeded to walk towards the “financial Gomorrah” of the nation. They vowed to “occupy Wall Street” and to “bring justice to the bankers”, but the New York police thwarted their efforts temporarily, locking down the symbolic street with barricades and checkpoints.

Undeterred, protesters walked laps around the area before holding a people’s assembly and setting up a semi-permanent protest encampment in a park on Liberty Street, a stone’s throw from Wall Street and a block from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Three hundred spent the night, several hundred reinforcements arrived the next day and as we write this article, the encampment is rolling out sleeping bags once again. When they tweeted to the world that they were hungry, a nearby pizzeria received $2,800 in orders for delivery in a single hour. Emboldened by an outpouring of international solidarity, these American indignados said they’d be there to greet the bankers when the stock market opened on Monday. It looks like, for now, the police don’t think they can stop them. ABC News reports that “even though the demonstrators don’t have a permit for the protest, [the New York police department says that] they have no plans to remove those protesters who seem determined to stay on the streets.” Organisers on the ground say, “we’re digging in for a long-term occupation”.

There is much more in this piece and via a related Google News search. While I’m not holding my breath, we can at least hope that this might lead to an awakening of some sort in the U.S., akin to the Arab Spring. Then again, there’s probably little chance of that happening – at least not until the economy gets much, much worse.

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