It first started when a large group of protestor started their movement at Zuccotti Park which located at lower Manhattan.
The whole idea of occupying wall street was initiated by the Adbusters - Canadian Anti-Consumerist Magazine. Later on, other independent activist also join the occupation which started on Sept 17, 2011. The Occupy Wall Street movement then spread to other major townships like San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles and much more. The main purpose of this whole movement is to protest the financial service sectors for being greedy and inequality caused the largest global financial crisis since the Great Depression. Their slogan for the movement was " We are the 99%".
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| Protestor showing a banner at the Occupy Wall Street movement. |
How "Occupy Wall Street" Started and Spread
The main cause of the Occupy Wall Street movement - Subprime Mortgage. Subprime Mortgage are mortgages that are meant for lower credit ratings borrower. Greedy investors gave out many subprime mortgages causes the boom of property market in U.S. And eventually, the property value and mortgages value decreases and many big investment bank went bankrupt like Lehman Brothers.
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| Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy |
United States of America is a democratic country with
free market economy. This concept is called the Capitalism
with no government intervention on their market. And the whole Occupy Wall
Street movement thing went wrong because many of the CEOs from Wall Street took
the risk without the knowing the consequences and gamble in this game. They did
not realize how terrible would a Subprime Mortgage cause the boom of property
market in U.S.
In my opinion, I agree on "Occupy Wall Street" movement. The reason why I agreed on this movement is because the rich is getting richer and the poor becomes poorer. All the investment banks and insurance company risked the citizen's money and gamble in this game. Who is it to be blame? The citizens of America now blame their own government for giving too much "freedom" in the market. Now, they are blaming for their liberalism and capitalism. To rescue the frozen market in U.S, the Federal Reserve of US injected capital to bail out troubled banks with $700 billion USD. These huge sums of money are from the taxpayers and is to provide credits to the citizens. However, it's not true.
To recover the economy of U.S, the government should play a huge role. Government intervention is very important in a market economy. Therefore, a set of rules and regulation are needed to control the financial system and economic system in U.S.
Works Cited
Altman, R. C. (2009, February ). Foreign Affairs.
Retrieved from Council on Foreign Relations, Inc:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63714/roger-c-altman/the-great-crash-2008
Greene, B. W. (2011,
October 24). US News. Retrieved from U.S.News & World Report LP:
http://www.usnews.com/news/washington-whispers/articles/2011/10/17/how-occupy-wall-street-started-and-spread
Jarvis, J. (Director).
(2011). The Credit Crisis Visualized [Motion Picture].
Saft, J. (n.d.). The
New York Times. Retrieved from The New York Times Company:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09iht-col10.4.16821961.html
