Michael Hudson explains why the OWSers are not making specific, piecemeal-demands. He also discusses a public option in banking as a structural answer to the power of finance. Wild guess – many here may agree with some of Michael’s assessments, but take issue with his public option proposal. ~ Ilene
Occupy Wall St. to a Bank in the Public Interest
Courtesy of Michael Hudson
Michael discusses the growing Occupy Wall St movement and the opportunities for banking reform.
Excerpt (paraphrasing Michael Hudson slightly):
I think it’s a very strong point that they haven’t made specific demands… Their worry is that if they make specific demands, then the media and other people will make these particular demands the issue. That’s not the issue. The sense is that the financial system is dysfunctional as a system. That means that you can’t make a technocratic demand like “fix this,” or give a consumer protection law, or appoint Elizabeth Warren to the commission.
It’s much bigger than that. There’s an awareness that the whole financial system is dysfunctional… The government is in the hands of the financial lobbyists. That’s why it’s called Occupy Wall Street, because [Wall Street] essentially bought the electoral campaigns and bought the Obama administration. And I can tell you that there was an absolute disgust yesterday and today after Mr. Obama’s attempt to hijack the Occupy Wall Street demonstration by saying “here’s what I’m trying to do to help,” and then he gave a couple of lobbying statements written by his Wall Street financial lobbies…
They’re disgusted with the Obama administration, they’re disgusted with the Bush administration and the republicans, they’re disgusted with politics being for sale to the highest lobbyists. And they’re disgusted with the debt overhead… The system doesn’t work, and they don’t want to reduce this to a set of technocratic little fix its and paste-its.
