Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
19 October 2011
Wall Street Occupations Go Global
Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to
the streets worldwide to protest against the
behaviour of financial institutions and the
governments they say enabled their activity
Based in Vancouver, Adbusters is a counter-
In July 2011, its editors came up with the idea that citizens should occupy Wall Street as a protest against corporate greed. The editors drew their inspiration from the Arab Spring protests earlier in the year that had toppled several dictatorships.
Three months later, on September 17, 2011, about 1,000 people held a demonstration on Wall Street in New York City. The Occupy Wall Street campaign was the start of a protest against the financial institutions that participants believe caused the Great Recession.
David Shankbone
Will slogans and placards be enough to cause change?
Despite the peaceful nature of the demonstrators there have been numerous scuffles
with police in America’s financial capital. Some protesters have been beaten with
nightsticks or pepper-
The New York protests gathered momentum and, by mid-
Focus on Inequality
Early criticism of the “occupation movement” is that it lacks a central message and
clear objectives. However, the core of the discontent is that while vast numbers
of people have seen their incomes and savings decline executives in the financial
industry have been getting multi-
As Antonia Zerbisias reports in the Toronto Star (September 2011) the occupiers are angry “that 40 percent of the wealth in the U.S. is held by one percent of the people, and a record one in seven Americans live in poverty, the highest rate in the industrialized world.”
A year after the financial crisis started compensation for bank executives in the U.S. was rising. Louise North reported in the New York Times (November 2009) that the Goldman Sachs “bonus pool last year (2008) was $4.82 billion, according to the New York attorney general’s office, but because about half of that was paid in stock, it is now worth upwards of $7.8 billion.” It was the same story at JPMorgan Chase where bonuses increased by “at least $3 billion.”
Meanwhile, millions of Americans are losing their homes because they can’t keep up
with their mortgage payments.
Bloomberg News reported in January 2011 that, “Banks seized more than one million homes in 2010, according to RealtyTrac. That was up 14 percent from a year earlier.”
By 2013, it’s predicted that six million homes in the U.S. will have been taken from families that could not keep up their payments.
As Ms. Zerbisias notes, people are disgusted that, “the banks get bailouts [and] bankers get bonuses while ordinary citizens are losing their homes and jobs.”
Growing Rich/Poor Gap
America is not alone. In most industrialized countries the very rich have been getting richer while everybody else is facing a harder struggle to stay afloat financially.
In Canada, the top one percent of the population has 14 percent of the income; that’s up from about eight percent in 1980. Income inequality is growing in many rich countries. The gap between rich and poor is widest in the United States, followed by Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, France, and Germany.
And, writes Eric Lam in the Financial Post (September 2011), “Anne Golden, chief
executive with the Conference 
Board, said the Canadian rich-
Ms. Golden is quoted as saying that, “High inequality both raises a moral question about fairness and can contribute to social tensions.”
Reaction
to Occupiers
Political reaction to the occupation movement ranges from support from the left-
U.S. President Barack Obama said he understands the protesters reflect a “broad-
At an October 6, 2011 press conference he added that, “American people understand that not everybody’s been following the rules. These days, a lot of folks doing the right thing are not rewarded. A lot of folks who are not doing the right thing are rewarded.”
Toronto investment advisor Gavin Graham commented on the radio station 680 News (October 15, 2011) that the protesters had a point. He said banks and governments had behaved badly and little reform had taken place since the 2008 credit crisis
The right-
Conservative media host Erick Erickson was more graphic, telling occupiers to “Suck it up you whiners. I am [paying taxes to subsidize] you so you can hang out on Wall Street and complain.”
Canadian Response
In Canada, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada and a former Goldman Sachs banker, said he considered the occupy movement to be a “democratic expression of views” and “entirely constructive.”
In an October 2011 interview with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge Mr. Carney added, “There’s a frustration with policy and a frustration that, ‘are things going back to business as usual?’ If I may say, that is not going to happen, but I can understand the frustrations.”
Mr. Carney has been prominent in calling for more regulation of financial institutions. However, writing for the Globe and Mail (October 2011) Jeremy Torobin comments that as time passes “the tougher it will be to muster political enthusiasm for reforms, against which the financial industry is lobbying furiously.”
Campbell Clark in the Globe and Mail (October 2011) also comments that leaders in Ottawa have offered a muted response: “Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have not condemned the protests, but neither have the New Democrats nor the Liberals wholly endorsed them. No one is ignoring them, though.”
Politicians want to find out if the movement has legs before offering enthusiastic support. If the occupations fizzle out elected leaders don’t want to be seen as having been part of a failure.
Image credits
Colleen Lane
SamPac
Sjoerd van Oosten
Sources
“Protests Dwindle in Attempt to Occupy Wall Street.” Antonia Zerbisias, Toronto Star, September 20, 2011.
“Windfall Seen as Bank Bonuses Paid in Stock.” Louise Story, New York Times, November 7, 2009.
“Foreclosure Filings in U.S. In May Jump 20% from Record from 2010 as Crisis Peaks.” Dan Levy and Prashant Gopal, Bloomberg News, January 13, 2011.
“Gap between Rich and Poor Growing Faster in Canada than U.S.” Eric Lam, Financial Post, September 13, 2011.
“Herman Cain Steps up Attacks on Occupy Wall Street Protests.” James Oliphant, L.A. Times, October 9, 2011.
“Bank of Canada Head Calls Occupy Protests ‘Entirely Constructive.’ ”Jeremy Torobin, Globe and Mail, October 14, 2011.
“Occupy Protests a Movement no Politician Can Afford to Ignore, Campbell Clark, Globe and Mail, October 16, 2011.
© Canada and the World, October 2011
All rights reserved
The New York-
BANK TRANSFER DAY
The Bank of America (BoA) is the biggest bank in the United States. It got itself into a mess in 2008 and received $20 billion of aid from taxpayers.
When BoA announced in September 2011 that it would begin charging a $5 monthly fee for debit cards Kristen Christian hit the roof.
The Los Angeles art dealer created a Facebook page titled Bank Transfer Day calling on people to close their accounts with financial institutions whose practices they don’t respect.
She chose November 5 as the day of action. That date is marked in Britain as Guy Fawkes Day to commemorate a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.
Ms. Christian is moving her business and personal banking from BoA to a credit union and suggests others do the same. (Credit unions are cooperative financial institutions that are owned and operated by the people who deposit money in them).
Ms. Christian started her Facebook page in early October 2011, within two weeks it had gathered more than 50,000 rsvps.
Michael Kelly of Public Service Credit Union is quoted by Credit Union Times as saying “As banks respond to regulations imposed upon them, many plan to recoup lost income by squeezing the consumer. Credit unions allow consumers to keep more of their own money, especially in these tough economic times. Consumers have the choice – pay the fees or move your business.”
A poll conducted for NBC and the Wall Street Journal in October 2011 showed that twice as many Americans support the Occupy Wall Street movement as oppose it.