Observations from the Edge 10.17

Liberty Square turned one month old today and in that month Occupy Wall Street has received over $300,000 in donations to it's website. Some randomness.

I stopped at home lunch today and caught some of Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC. What is so ridiculous about most media coverage of Occupy Wall Street is they just don't seem to get it at all. Before going to a commercial Mitchell said the next report was on OWS, basically she said it's getting too big to ignore but is it drawing the right kind of attention. Well no, not when your 5 minute OWS report is following a 15 minute report on the record money being raised for the next presidential election and your “expert” for the OWS report is Jim Kramer from CNBC. Unreal.

Did you ever want a pen pal? A pen pal to share your problems with, your hopes and dreams, that can help when you lose your job or home? Thanks to a website called Occupy the Boardroom now you can. From here you can send an email to all the top execs at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo. Alas they can't release the email addresses because of the Computer Fraud and Abuse act, funny how your bank can sell your email address though.

This is just a follow up to the previous post on the message of OWS and is from a post on their website marking the one month anniversary of Liberty Square. “Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally. #OWS is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.”

However there are problems with not having a central demand. In today's New York Times there was an article titled “Protesters Debate What Demands, if Any, to Make.” The article talks with and about the Demands Working Group which was formed over a week ago. The problem is the group was self formed by its members, not by OWS itself, and I have heard it's being called a hijack attempt. Another group has formed to formulate a response to the demands group and talk about principals not demands.

Finally today Citigroup announced a third quarter profit of $3.8 billion, its seventh consecutive quarterly profit, and a 74% increase from last year.

Is it any wonder people are pissed off?