A funny thing happened to Matt Yglesias last week:
Last week I was outside my office and I saw a $5 bill on the ground. Famously, economists say you never see a $5 bill on the ground because someone would pick it up. But instead of picking it up, I stood around watching to see if anyone else would. A bunch of people walked by not noticing it. Then one guy saw it, saw me, and asked if it was mine. I said no it wasn’t, I was just curious what would happen. He laughed and made a joke about economists. Then a second guy came by, picked it up, and said I’d dropped five dollars. I said no, actually it was there before me. He looked around, noticed a homeless guy across the street, said “I think he needs it more than me,” walked over and gave it to him.
I think he's right. Who knows if he was one of the 1%, but he had the right idea.
The homeless guy does need it more than the 1%. And the family being foreclosed on needs it more than the 1%. The person in bankruptcy because of medical bills needs it more than the 1%. And the laid-off single mom trying to feed her kids needs it more than the 1%.
Is this message, the message of Occupy Wall Street, really so hard for the media to grasp?