Class warfare?

"Wall Street," that metanym for wealthy financiers, bankers, hedge fund managers, etc, is indignant that "Occupy Wall Street" protestors are calling attention to the stark disparity between the 14,000,000 jobless Americans and the soaring corporate profits and CEO bonuses, and to the widening economic gap between ordinary people and "Wall Street" people.

Wall Street is indignant? Yes. Panicked? Maybe. Paul Krugman -- my next to favorite economist after Joseph Stiglitz -- looks at the protest movement in this light in his October 9th NYT column, "Panic of the Plutocrats." I cut it down some, but almost every sentence is essential:

. . . Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009. Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced “mobs” and “the pitting of Americans against Americans.” The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging “class warfare,” while Herman Cain calls them “anti-American.”

. . . The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

Last year . . . financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes . . . [the] chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.

And then there’s the campaign of character assassination against Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer now running for the Senate in Massachusetts. . . .

But listening to the reliable defenders of the wealthy, you’d think that Ms. Warren was the second coming of Leon Trotsky. George Will declared that she has a “collectivist agenda” . . . Rush Limbaugh called her “a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it.”

What’s going on here? . . . Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. . . They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis . . . .

Yet they have paid no price. . . basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.

This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. . . .

So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.

I would add to all this the uniqueness of the current "robber barons." Unlike the industrial giants of the past who made their fortunes in something useful to society (railroads, steel mills, and oil), these guys got rich by gambling -- with other people's money. That's exactly what all the complex credit swaps were: betting with other people's money.

They didn't manufacture anything useful. They didn't provide necessary transportation services, like railroads or airlines. They didn't even make non-tangible but entertaining or edifying things like Hollywood moguls produced movies. They just gambled with other people's money. And gamed the system to lose, so they could win. Duh !!! And Alan Greenspan didn't see it coming?

Now they are indignant that reformers are trying to put an end to the free ride given them by taxpayer-funded bailouts when they screwed up? That's what I think Occupy Wall Street is all about, even if the not-well-organized demonstrators haven't quite defined their message. In a way, they are the counterpart to the Tea Party -- at the other end of the right-left spectrum.

Back to Krugman:

So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.

Indeed ! Yes, it's class warfare. That's what it has been ever since Republicans began dismantling the New Deal and regulatory control. Let's take them up on it, and call it for what it is -- and wage the good fight against the system rigged in their favor.

Once the Repubs get through the silly season of their primary campaign (I for one applaud their ever-earlier primaries, so we can get those debates over with and get all the crazies off the stage), there should be a real debate between the two parties about the role of government in the economy and in providing services to the people. Then let the American people choose which party to put in power.

Come on, Democrats. Here is your campaign message. Use it !!

Ralph