Why is Wall Street outrage spreading?

Edited and Translated by People's Daily Online

The Occupy Wall Street protests have grown from small groups of dozens of young people gathering in New York City to a mass movement of more than 10,000 participants with nationwide support in less than a month. An increasing number of labor unions and college students are joining the movement, and more and more public figures have expressed understanding and support for the demonstrations.

The Occupy Wall Street movement claims to be unorganized and leaderless, and does not have a clear focus. The ultimate reason why it became so popular in such a short time is that the movement provides ordinary Americans with a new opportunity to vent their frustration and anger and thus enjoys great potential public support.

Growing income inequality and the greed of Wall Street are the root causes of ordinary Americans' anger. After the 2008 global financial crisis, the U.S. government introduced a plan to bail out Wall Street and clean up speculators' bad debts with 700 billion U.S. dollars of taxpayer cash. The U.S. economy has been sluggish since the crisis, with high rates of chronic unemployment.

Many Americans have lost their houses and jobs, while the Wall Street "fat cats" have gotten away with their crimes and continue to enjoy high incomes. As a result, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. The Occupy Wall Street movement then naturally occurred because people need a channel to vent their anger.

In addition, more common U.S. people have become disappointed and angry at "money politics" and the "rich people's government" of the United States. Financial magnates and magnates of other industries of the United States have offered huge amounts of political donations to the two parties, and therefore, it is hard for the U.S. congress to pass acts aimed at limiting financial speculation or narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor.

While running for president, Barack Obama once said that he would make a law to strengthen the supervision of the financial market, but his proposal was always hindered by Congress and the act was not approved by Congress until 2010.

Still, the act approved was actually a lighter version of the bill, the core feature of which had been cut out: Regulations on financial derivatives on Wall Street were almost left untouched . Furthermore, although a year has passed, the act is still empty words and has not been brought into effect in detail. In addition, it also makes the U.S. people angry that many policies of the United States could not be implemented effectively and in a timely fashion because of the nasty fights and attacks between the two parties.

There has been a wide appeal from ordinary U.S. people to change the current situation, and even President Barack Obama was forced to admit that the life of U.S. people is worse than it was four years ago.

Pursuing a change and reform has turned into a major demand from the public of the United States. Some demonstrators directly express that they oppose the war, oppose cutting down the social welfares and ask for jobs instead of cutting down employment. They want to press the U.S. government and Congress to change the current situation.

Obviously, it is just the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The protestors are making preparations for passing the winter and also plan to settle down in the Liberty Square of New York. On the one hand, the demonstration is just a voluntary social movement and will hardly evolve into a political party movement that will dominate the political field of the United States.

On the other hand, the demonstration has changed the political ecology of the United States and both the Democratic Party and Republican Party are making use of it to make themselves look good and censure their opponents. Just like the anti-Vietnam War demonstration that occurred half a century ago, the Occupy Wall Street movement will heavily and significantly impact the presidential election of 2012 and the future foreign policy trends of the United States without doubt.