|
Spotted over at Barry’s Big Picture blog is this comparison of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Tea Party. I can’t say that there was anything really surprising in it, however, they may have taken the “hipster” stereotype a bit too far when they said “unemployed and looking to live off government aid”. At least I hope they did…
Image Source: Accelerated Degree Programs
The Occupy Wall Street crowd should probably look more closely at the relationship between these two key data points – rising income inequality (via this item at the Economic Policy Institute) and who Americans blame for their economic woes (via this Gallup survey).
Yes, Occupy Washington would likely be a better approach as many are now suggesting. Also see Occupy DC and, one with real potential – Occupy K Street.
Wells Fargo just reported its third-quarter earnings and, apparently, all is not well at the nation’s fourth-largest bank, as revenue and earnings came in at $19.6 billion and $4.1 billion, respectively, short of analysts’ estimates.
Too bad.
Don’t look for any help from me in doing better in the fourth quarter.
It really does seem to be the “least bad” of the Too-Big-To-Fail banks in the U.S. – far better than Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and the other organizations the government has bailed out before, and will bail out again when the time comes. But I’m still closing my account with them and moving my money back to a credit union or elsewhere.
To date, the bank has been pretty good about not nickel-and-diming its customers (or at least not nickel-and-diming the customers who pay close enough attention), but the recent change of terms it announced for checking accounts was a step too far, and now I’m voting with my feet.
On November 5, there will be a nationwide effort to move money away from the TBFT banks and into smaller banks and credit unions, so it’s probably not a bad idea to beat the rush.
(Continue reading this article at Seeking Alpha.)
Lawyer, academic, author, and former banking regulator (that is, from back in a different era before the financial industry had bought Congress) William Black was on the Dylan Ratigan show yesterday with an exhausted David DeGraw of AmpedStatus.com to talk about the relationship between the Occupy Wall Street protest and political parties.
Black would certainly be a good choice as their spokesman – he’s been talking about these issues since way back before the housing bubble had started to burst.
It was a busy weekend for protesters in the growing Occupy Wall Street movement all around the world with violence in Europe and hundreds of arrests in the U.S. The video below about someone getting arrested as they try to close their Citibank account is getting a lot of attention, though it’s hard to figure out exactly what’s going on.
The idea that OWS protestors could spur a run on the Too Big To Fail banks is examined in this article by David Schawel at Economic Musings. In short, it’s not likely.
The Sunday political shows were jam-packed with talking heads talking about Occupy Wall Street and earlier, on Friday, former U.S. Representative from Florida Alan Grayson appeared on the Bill Maher show to succinctly explain what it is they’re complaining about.
Greyson says, “They’re upset about the fact that Wall Street has iron control over the economic policies of this country and that one party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street and the other party caters to them as well.” Well put.
Also see this clip of Fox News’ Heraldo Rivera attempting to broadcast from the protest site.
By Tim Iacono, Since 2005
![[Most Recent USD from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/indexes/idx24_usd_en_2.gif)
Recent Comments