New York Times financial writer Joe Nocera critiques Occupy movement
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The tea party and Occupy Wall Street movements sit about as far apart on the political spectrum as they can get. Certainly, their members and the American public would be surprised, if not shocked, to consider that the two grassroots movements might derive from the same source.
Yet, that is the conclusion reached by one of the country's foremost financial writers. In an interview last week with the Gazette, New York Times financial columnist Joe Nocera said he sees the country's economic situation - the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots - "at the root of both the tea party and Occupy Wall Street movements."
Nocera believes the anger caused by income inequality, a divisive issue across the country in this prolonged economic downturn, is the fuel for both popular uprisings.
"If we lived in a country that had a growing economy and where the middle class felt that they could make a good living and had a chance for advancement and a decent life, there would be no tea party or Occupy Wall Street," he said.
Nocera, a former resident of Northampton, returns to the Pioneer Valley Wednesday to discuss the financial issues underlying the Occupy Wall Street movement at a discussion and question-and-answer session at Amherst College. The event, called "#occupyRedRoom," will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the college's Converse Hall's Cole Assembly Room (also known as the Red Room). The talk is free and open to the public.
While the financial circumstances that spawned the Occupy movement may be evident, Nocera says its future is far from clear, in large part due to its own lack of leadership and direction.
He believes that for the Occupy Movement to be successful, it must frame clear demands that outline a plan for creating jobs and refashioning Wall Street to benefit the entire country and not just a select few wealthy investors.
Without a solid plan for moving forward, he said, the Occupy protestors will be continued to be viewed by Wall Street supporters as little more than "a gnat that needs to be flicked from its shoulder blades."
Nocera, who comes to Amherst College at the invitation of its debate club, the Amherst Political Union, has been a journalist for the New York Times since 2005. He has chronicled the economic downturn, the financial crisis and the shortcomings of the financial system. From 1995 to 2005, he worked at Fortune magazine in a number of positions, including as editorial director. In the 1980s, he was an editor at Newsweek and in the late 1970s he was an editor at The Washington Monthly.
His most recent book is "All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis" (Portfolio/Penguin, 2010), which he co-wrote with Bethany McLean.
A 2007 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary, Nocera has won three Gerald Loeb awards and three John Hancock awards.
Speaking earlier this week from his office in New York City, where he now lives, Nocera shared some of his opinions on the Occupy Wall Street movement, including what impact, if any, it might have on the country's financial future.
Q: What is your take on the Occupy Wall Street movement and its premise that the 99 percent versus 1 percent distribution of wealth is unfair?
A: I absolutely believe that income inequality has been hugely divisive in the United States and is a major issue. I believe that it is - although the tea party would deny this - I believe it is at the root of both the tea party and Occupy Wall Street movement. If we lived in a country that had a growing economy and where the middle class felt that they could make a good living and had a chance for advancement and a decent life, there would be no tea party or Occupy Wall Street. So the notion that there is a 1 percent and a 99 percent is in fact an issue that is creating social unrest on both the left and the right.
Q: Do you support the Occupy Wall Street movement?
A: I guess theoretically I support it. I don't have much patience for its lack of rigor and its inability to do anything besides say, "We're the 99 percent." There's a really good thing in the New Yorker. The lead comment (by Jane Mayer) in the New Yorker this week (Nov. 28) is about the difference between the way Bill McKibben organized the protesters over the Keystone XL oil pipeline and the way the Occupy movement is organized. And she makes the point that a tight-knit organization against Keystone XL and their real clear plan of action actually had a lot to do with the president deciding to punt on the issue until after the election.
She says that the "difference between the focused, agenda-driven campaign fought by the environmentalists and the free-form, leaderless one waged by the Occupiers ... is that the environmentalists grasped the famous point made by Dr. King's political forebear Frederick Douglass: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." And I think that's fundamentally what I believe about Occupy Wall Street.
Q: The problem for Occupy Wall Street seems to be trying to figure out what are they going to do now. Right?
A: Right. I think the problem is they don't know what they're going to do now.
Q: If you could suggest to them what direction they should take, what would you say?
A: One thing I would tell them is to create a political movement that backs a real jobs plan. Create a political movement that brings Wall Street back to being part of the economy that has some social utility instead of being part of the economy that's based on lining your own pockets.
I would argue that the regulators and Washington need to figure out a way to diminish the importance of lobbyists and the power of money in Washington, which is just overwhelming. Those are three things that are right off the top of my head that seem like they desperately need to be done.
Q: Do you think Wall Street has been listening to the Occupy Wall Street protesters?
A: No. I think they find Occupy Wall Street annoying, like a gnat that needs to be flicked from their shoulder blades. But Occupy Wall Street hasn't given them a lot of reason to worry. They (Wall Street) can shrug off protests in the streets that are a couple of thousand people, even four or five thousand people. They still outnumber Occupy Wall Street.
Q: Do you think the Occupy movement is going to fizzle out or do you think it will go somewhere?
A: I think a lot of that depends on the economy itself. I do believe that if the economy starts to improve - and really does improve - I think it will flit away. I think if the economy stays mired in the current recession - I suppose it's not officially a recession - but if we remain with 9.1 percent unemployment, which actually understates real unemployment; if Europe causes our banking system to crack again, which is a distinct possibility; if bad things continue to happen economically, yes, I think it could be a growing movement as more and more people get disgusted.
