Evaluating the 'Occupy Wall Street' protests - in search of a better world for the 100%


Lesley Pocock

Publisher and Managing Director
medi+WORLD International
World CME
Vice President
Multimedia Medical University (MMU)
Global Medical Strategies
Publisher
World Family Medicine
Middle East Journal of Family Medicine
Middle East Journal of Age and Ageing
Middle East Journal of Business
Middle East Journal of Nursing
Middle East Journal of Internal Medicine
Middle East Journal of Psychiatry & Alzheimers
New Paradigm Journal
South Asia Journal of Family Medicine
Steering Committee
Global Citizens for Peace
Global Ministries for Peace
Executive Committee -Child-Watch

Email: lesleypocock@mediworld.com.au

The US downturn and the downgrading of US credit ratings is now old news, as is the GFC and the European financial crisis. What is news is the stirring of the ordinary person who has become more and more alienated by the financial systems of the world and who are being asked to pay the cost of the financial mess they played no part in making.

Many countries have had endemic corruption and some, dictatorial or semi dictatorial governments, for decades, and many people have accepted this as a normal part of living/the economy, until now.

In the US billions of tax payers' dollars were used to prop up the banks and financial institutions that had been reduced due to fraudulent and unseemly practices while ordinary Americans lost their homes, savings and jobs. The US has always been this way, a free for all capitalist system that works well for those who put profit before all else.

The frustration in the US isn't so much legal-political as the uprisings in the Middle East, though there is an element of that, it is economic inequality. According to the CIA's own ranking of countries by income inequality, the US is more unequal than Tunisia or Egypt.(1)

The 'Wall Street protestors' genuinely feel that corporate America is tilted against the 99%, and so it is. The top 1 percent of Americans possess more wealth than the bottom 90 per cent.
In the Bush administration, from 2002 to 2007, 65 per cent of economic gains went to the richest 1 per cent. In 1981 the average salary in the financial securities industry in NTC was twice the average in other private sector jobs, in 2010 it was 5.5 times as much. (1)

And the downfall of the financial sector (bailed out by ordinary taxpayers) was of their own doing fraud and financial deception. Further, tycoons have been blamed for manipulating the system.
And while there are positives to capitalism, businesses themselves should be outraged at the banks rigging the system so that they enjoy profits in good years and get bail outs by governments in bad years.

The European banks however are now being asked to share some of the burden they have helped to create. We remember the role of Iceland's banks in the 2008 GFC.

A capitalist system can work if there is some existing parity and equity in society but not when it is at the expense of the society, the ordinary person, and the wage earner. Should there indeed ever be a substantial profit margin in a fair system? Surely if there is left over money at the end of the manufacture-sell process perhaps this means that the product or service paid for has been greatly overpriced.

In the US we had instances of the bail out money used to quickly pay executive salaries before the companies folded, and in one case a quick purchase of a Lear jet for private use. This indicates that these people are so removed from reality that they either 'don't get it' or that they are totally unconscionable.

Economists used to believe that we had to put up with high inequality as the price of robust growth, but more recently research suggests the opposite - inequality is not only unethical but also damages economies.

In his book The Darwin Economy, Robert H Frank of Cornell University (2) cites a study showing that among 65 industrial nations the more unequal ones experience slower growth on average. Individual countries grow more rapidly in periods when incomes are more equal - obviously markets are better when sufficient numbers of people can afford to make purchases. There is mounting evidence that inequalities lead to bankruptcies and to financial panic.

'The recent global economic crisis with its roots in the US financial markets may have resulted in part at least, from the increase in inequality, Andrew G Berg Jonathon Ostry of the IMF wrote in September 2011. (3)

Shareholders are now having to institute mechanisms and processes to punish the executives of companies in most countries.

In Australia, where the economy remains fairly buoyant, and likely due to a lack of entrenched organised crime, only now in 2001 do the salaries of CEOs and Board members have to be approved by shareholders. More often than not these same Boards deplete the company so badly that it loses profitability but not before the same award themselves substantial 'payouts' .
Now, while it takes three 'shots', the pay of the Chief executive must be approved by shareholders. Executives will not be allowed to vote on their own pay and so won't be able to outgun shareholders by brandishing proxy votes nobody else gets to see. In the last decade Execs of the top 100 companies earnt more in a year than most workers earn in a lifetime.
Pay rises at the top have outstripped the return to shareholders and everybody else.

Do we have a naive 'trust' in these people that they will be morally motivated or do we see it as beyond our ability to change?

The popular imagination of organized crime - of Sicilian mafia groups confined to certain cities and a handful of criminal markets - is seriously out of date. The criminal enterprises of today represent a multibillion dollar set of networks that prey on every aspect of global society, distorting markets, corrupting governments, and draining huge resources from both. Fuelled by the same forces of globalization that have expanded trade, communications, and information worldwide, criminal syndicates not only have unprecedented reach into the lives of ordinary people but they have undermined the competitiveness of multinational companies and the security of governments worldwide.

Borrowing from the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Global Agenda Council on Organized Crime defines organized crime broadly - as groups of three or more people, motivated by profit, acting in concert to commit serious criminal offences (4).

Increasingly networked-based and multinational in scope, organized crime is exerting greater impact than ever before. Indeed, criminal organizations rank among the most entrepreneurial and adaptive elements of the global economy. They have proved particularly nimble in exploiting weak institutions and fragile states, but their impact is profound even in the most advanced economies. Organized crime affects the financial markets of Hong Kong, the banking industry of Japan and the construction industry in New York. Organized crime deters foreign investment in Mexico and Afghanistan, and stifles the reconstruction of many post-conflict societies such as Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It fosters corruption, illicit trade, and illegal migration, undermines the environment and human rights, and contributes to the depletion of natural resources.

As the world grows increasingly interdependent, criminal organizations will continue to expand and adapt. The rise of new powers such as China, India, and Brazil will pose fresh challenges to the world's ability to contain the spread of sophisticated crime syndicates.

This year, in its first global assessment of transnational organized crime, the UNODC estimated illicit flows tied to crime syndicates at about US$125 billion per year.

This organised crime and rampant bribery, graft and corruption in nearly every country of the world has not ever been properly challenged, or outlawed, and it is a fine line between corporate crime and organised crime - indeed both are 'thriving businesses' globally.

We probably all read the recent story from India, of truck driver Anant Lal Gupta, who was pulled over by two transport officers who demanded a bribe of 5000 rupees for an imagined offence. Gupta who knew the practice well would or could only pay 500. In front of his son he was dragged from the truck and beaten to death, with sticks and iron rods. On the same day the third most powerful man in the Indian government was being accused of complicity in one of India's largest frauds. (5)

Already the former Home minister had been jailed over the so-called 2G scandal involving kickbacks. This scandal cost India $US 40 billion. A recent survey by India Today magazine found only 47 per cent of young people in India's cities were proud to be Indian. About 65 percent of 18-25 year olds believe corruption is the greatest danger facing India.

In India almost every transaction with someone in authority requires a bribe, from getting electricity connected to getting a pension or a favourable verdict from a judge.

This is not to say that it is only the young who have morals - perhaps the older generations have already despaired of the situation long ago.

The October G20 finance ministers vowed that they did not want any 'contagion' from Europe's financial crisis to affect their own economies.

In Greece protesters say they are fed up with the financial system being prioritised over the needs of the people where it has lead to increasing ill health and suicide.

In Italy which has had allegations of corruption in governments for all living memory the political system itself is seen as a totally corrupt process.

Riots have occurred in Spain where there is 46 percent youth unemployment, yet the youth have not contributed to the problem, rather those who speak the truth and demand justice are the first to be attacked by the ruling elite.

In China where we have seen appalling practices recently such as selling dangerous and poisonous substances as baby milk and where schools were the first to collapse during the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 due to corrupt and shoddy building practices, and prior to the Olympics we saw poor people forcedly removed from their homes, for business and government projects with no financial compensation or alternative abode and dealt with severely should they publicly complain.

Andrew Yeh at the Financial Times reports the OECD says corruption threatens the Chinese economy:
The severe and widespread nature of corruption in China is becoming a major source of social discontent and poses a threat to the legitimacy of the country's leaders, according to experts at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

..."The economy is growing, so incidences [of corruption] are growing too," said Janos Bertok, one of the OECD researchers in charge of evaluating corruption in China. "The social dimension is equally as important as the economic dimension," he said.

Mr Bertok said that corruption had already become a "danger to legitimacy" for Beijing because there was much popular dissatisfaction with corrupt officials, particularly in rural areas. He said China's corruption problem presented acute risks for the privatisation of state assets and for the "highly vulnerable area" of the construction sector.

Transparency International's latest Corruption Perceptions Index rated China at 3.4 out of a possible 10, which ranks it about halfway between the worst countries (Haiti and Bangladesh, both 1.5) and the best (Finland, 9.7). Countries with scores of less than 3 indicate "rampant corruption" according to TI. (6)

The other, more worrying aspect is corporate crime and destruction of the environment with no reparation financially or practically, as if these processes were done properly with respect for our planet and all citizens thereon they would reduce profit levels for such multinationals. The oil and mining industries in many countries have destroyed huge tracts of the earth, permanently and irreparably with their pursuit of even more resources to exploit for even more money (in this one generation of the many generations of mankind who were hoping to use them for survival in future millennia) for more personal profits at the expense of the ongoing existence of the planet itself. The damage caused by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is well documented and now there is proposed mining in Alaska at the risk of extinction of its last great migratory herds.

The ordinary person is witnessing the mass destruction of their planet by rampant corporate greed.

Global warming, acidic seas and mass destruction of ecosystems show that the values of the corporate and financial world are benefiting no life forms, only, literally, a handful of people, and for them only in the short term.

And if we are to evaluate these activities it is quite apparent that one party (ordinary humans) have nothing personal to gain from these exploitations, and the ongoing survival of humans and the other species we are quickly making extinct by those who wish to make obscene profits and who do not require even more money. The pursuit of money itself seems to be the company goals not the growth or expansion of the company. The world does not need more oil resources - there are plenty in the pipeline at the moment - literally - and at a time when we all should be focusing on renewable energy. It is quiet apparent to the 99% where the eternal problems lie. We have all been ruled by the despots and greedy since so-called civilisation began - those that think it is okay to have it all themselves at the expense of all others. Surely our collective intelligence has advanced past this point.

This is not 'anti business', it is merely good business as there will be none of us left to market to unless this stupidity and greed is stopped.

Additional to direct crimes against the viability of the planet and species are poor and corrupt practises that do not require companies to have a negative footprint, or to remedy the destruction that occurs during manufacturing or mining and still today, everywhere, waste and poisons and toxins are poured directly into the sea and the rivers, while environmentalists indicate the sea is growing more acidic and less able to support life, little or nothing is being done anywhere to stop this. Rather the whistle blowers are ridiculed and attacked and there is growing abuse of legitimate protesters. There are also active attacks and campaigns against those who speak the truth in these matters - it seems big business is very jealous of their obscene wealth. Hence the Wall Street protesters have been extending their cause to planetary survival itself.

There is a floating rubbish heap in the North Pacific Ocean the size of the Australian continent and the 'sand' on many beaches in Hawaii is now made exclusively of plastic. These small bits of broken down plastic pieces are being eaten by fish thinking they are food and some fish have stomachs full of plastic not allowing them to process any real food. It is quite apparent to the non-greedy that this huge resource of food for the world will disappear about the same time as the land based food supplies are seriously degraded due to similar land based practices.

These are all by products of an out of control global financial system.

This aspect of economic and survival vandalism is perpetrated by few and all will pay the price. Then we have food supplied being patented by companies and with the courts in capitalist countries preserving those self appointed rights and upholding their claims against the interests of all mankind. Is this not capitalism gone mad? Surely these are crimes against humanity just as much as massacring people with machine guns.

It is certainly not all business to blame. Many businesses have extremely healthy attitudes but it seems most rampant in big business (where you don't have to face your economic victims) and in the financial industry.

Speculating on stock and share markets seem to have become businesses on their own right to some - with people buying and selling on the 'movement of money within the share markets ' more akin to gambling than proper business practices. I tend not to worry about the share market at all as it is of little relevance to the rest of the world, the 99%, rather it tends to take the nature of a parasite but it is a worry when we let these speculators destroy good and viable businesses and businesses that provide proper and necessary products.

And it all comes down to basic morality and basic common sense. We do not have to return to barter but we all need to take an intelligent look at the state of the world economies and see if we can do things a little better. Obviously national financial regulations were inadequate, or have failed or been corrupted by those with vested interests. With our human history one of greed and exploitation of each other, we cannot trust in this system.

Is the selling of unnecessary rubbish consumer goods justified? Is 'marketing' goods to weaker minded people who did not know they needed them in the first place fair practice especially when these goods deplete vital resources and have no inherent value whatsoever.

I wrote a similar article some time ago when the US was the economic leader of the world and there were no occupiers of Wall Street (in April 2009) and when no doubt many thought it somewhat radical. Now it seems the reality of the problems with runaway capitalism and organised crime have become apparent to most of the planet, well 99% of us, and this I emphasise, is the last chance for all of us. Big business and normal people will starve alike and our planet will become too toxic for any to survive if we put all our values and interests in the hands of the money men - it took us only 200 years to almost destroy the entire thing and we only have about 2 years in which we can turn it around or be well past the tipping point of human and ecosystem survival. It is not socialism versus capitalism; it is good versus evil, and sense versus stupidity and greed.

Like the environmentalists who were ridiculed when they spoke up decades ago about the state of the planet and now its degradation is apparent to all, these Wall Street protesters will one day be the heroes of society.