http://www.nytimes.com/...
It wouldn't be Saturday morning without another New York Times hit piece on the OWS protests, but today's offering is actually fairly balanced, and quite revealing insofar as it profiles the attitudes of individual Bankers and financial services Executives towards not only the protests themselves, but also as to their own crucial role in the U.S. economy as the driving engines of prosperity.
“Most people view [#occupywallstreet] as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,” said one top hedge fund manager.
“It’s not a middle-class uprising,” adds another veteran bank executive. “It’s fringe groups. It’s people who have the time to do this.”
Some of the well-heeled parrot the "Bloomberg Doctrine":
“Who do you think pays the taxes?” said one longtime money manager. “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services. This is just disgruntled people.”
In other words, the patriotic financial service sector is perfectly prepared to high-tail it to India if you suggest regulating their freewheeling behavior, cutting their taxpayer-supported salaries or (gasp) impose some sort of Draconian financial transactions tax. One wonders whether the speaker has ever contemplated the reasons why he thinks "financial services are one of the "last things we do in this country and do well." But that would require accepting his original premise as true--which it's not. In fact, based on objective, current economic data, we apparently do not do "financial services" very well at all. In fact, "financial services" have cost US taxpayers several trillion dollars in lost worth and costly financial bailouts, leaving a wrecked world economy and literally tens of millions of irreparably shattered lives in their wake. In fact, were it not for the reckless disregard of the "financial services" industry most of us would be better off right now.
But back to the "longtime money manager:"
He added that he was disappointed that members of Congress from New York, especially Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, had not come out swinging for an industry that donates heavily to their campaigns. “They need to understand who their constituency is,” he said.
Stark reality from the longtime money manager. He is their constituent, and no one else. Definitely not the million or so unemployed or underemployed in the greater New York area.
Notably missing from any of these interviews of financial services executives is any acknowledgement of responsibility or culpability of the industry for the current Economic Crisis. Instead, the argument goes, "look at all we do for the City":
“The top 1 percent of New Yorkers pay over 40 percent of all income taxes, providing huge benefits to everyone in our city and state,” he said in a statement. “Paulson & Company and its employees have paid hundreds of millions in New York City and New York State taxes in recent years and have created over 100 high-paying jobs in New York City since its formation.”
The argument seems to be that because their colossal incomes produce colossal taxes, they can do no wrong and should be left alone. But that argument misses the point. The City was not designed for several million serfs to enjoy the benefits that trickle down to the city due to their Lord's outsize income. It was designed for the serfs to have jobs that permit them to live in the city. Under the U.S. tax system, it's understood that higher earners pay a higher percentage of taxes, at least theoretically. But in the case of the financial services sector in New York City the amount of taxes they pay pales in comparison to the damage that they have caused, as well as the amount of money that was necessary to correct their malfeasance. And then there's the minor issue of what they actually do to deserve their astronomical salaries to begin with.
The article itself provides a good illustration:
Just last week, Bank of America disclosed it was paying a total of $11 million in severance to two executives forced out in a management reshuffle, Sallie Krawcheck and Joe Price, even as the company said it would begin laying off roughly 30,000 employees over the next few years.
With 30,000 laid off from their company, really, what good could these people have possibly done to deserve that severance package?
The article sums up the attitude of Wall Street towards OWS: it'll all blow over.
Without a coherent message, the crowds will ultimately thin out, Wall Street types insist — especially when the weather turns colder. They see the protesters as an entertaining sideshow, little more than flash mobs of slackers, seeking to lock arms with Kanye West or get a whiff of the antiestablishment politics that defined their parents’ generation.
In the meantime, for these folks, it's just business as usual. Just remember not to draw attention to yourself.
Generally, bankers dismiss the protesters as gullible and unsophisticated. Not many are willing to say this out loud, for fear of drawing public ire — or the masses to their doorsteps. “Anybody who dismisses them publicly is putting a bull’s-eye on their back,” the hedge fund manager said.
In other words--it's all a silly joke--but keep your head down.