They’re Representing

The Occupy Wall Street movement is a response to the growing political influence exerted by corporate America, of which the financial meltdown is but a symptom.

We’ve all heard about the predatory lending, the buying on massive margin, the deliberate deception of investors, the paying off of rating agencies, the insider trading, the unearned bonuses, the bailout, and the golden parachutes. Watch Inside Job if you haven’t yet – watch it twice and take notes. Recently it’s come out that Hank Paulson held a secret meeting with his old friends, the board members of Goldman Sachs, in Moscow, during which he shared his intentions as Secretary of the Treasury. Wow.

What’s most striking about all this is not the fact that these extremely unethical practices took place but the fact that in most cases these practices were perfectly legal. They are legal because over the course of 30 years a self-interested Wall Street has been able to exert disproportionate political influence (money) to chip away at the laws and regulations that kept the American economy relatively stable.