Top 5 targets of Occupy Wall Street

Inspired by a provocation in a July blog by Canadian activist group Adbusters, who in turn took their cues from the Arab Spring demonstrations, Occupy Wall Street has taken on epic proportions ? and even more epic targets. In the crosshairs of this band of tent-dwelling rabblerousers are nothing less than the pillars of society.

- Maud Dillingham

Wall Street is the main target of Occupy Wall Street protesters for the role it played in the economic meltdown of 2008 by engaging in risky lending practices of mortgage-backed securities. When brokerage firms and financial institutions were bailed out by the government, only to turn around and hand out large bonuses with taxpayer money, a sense of propriety was breached.

Many of the protesters believe that Wall Street blatantly and recklessly abused the credit default swap market, which in retrospect can clearly be seen as a house of cards. The protesters believe the unstable nature of the credit default swap market must have been known to those involved and that the guilty parties should be prosecuted.

Driven by profit motives, Moody Investors Service and Standard and Poor's gave AAA ratings to hundreds of thousands of subprime mortgage securities that ultimately proved to be worthless. It is this type of playing fast and loose with other people's money that the protesters seek to rein in, while acknowledging that risk and reward form the bedrock of the finance industry.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Ob2huklPzNI/Top-5-targets-of-Occupy-Wall-Street

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