Occupy Wall Street: Oh Yeah & So What?

I once heard a commencement speaker claim that, with regard to our judgements of the significance of historical events, we need to ask two questions:

“Oh yeah?” and “So what?” Are the claims and facts valid, and if so, do they matter?

If you’re still unconvinced that what has happened in the US banking system and Wall Street takes the lion’s share of blame for the plight of your home values, retirement savings and future for your children, let the numbers do the talking.

Here are a dozen ways to lay it out visually that help where words might fail. I think this does an adequate job of establishing the “oh yeah” of this assessment of how much richer the rich have become at the expense of the middle class and poor. We’ll not even count the cost paid by the world’s biological and mineral resource systems to gorge the top predators.

Then, if you admit the validity of the blame by the aggregate voices being heard across America today (the OWS not the most succinct or articulate), consider the So-What. Look and listen to WHY economic inequity matters more than you might have appreciated. Watch this TED talk by Richard Williamson. Consider the societal costs of the rich getting so much richer in the past few decades.

If you reach the conclusions that Wall Street (who-ever and what-ever that collective historical entity is) is innocent of both purpose and execution towards its present unjust dominion,  and if you have carefully considered the consequences of economic polarization and think this does not matter, we are from different planets.

NaNooNaNoo.