Wall Street Endures

The Occupy Wall Street campaign is faltering, despite considerable public sympathy for the social issues which the protesters seek to publicize.

The pickets and other demonstrators focused on a seam of popular discontent at economic inequality in the United States, the difficulty people face in obtaining work, and the failure of wages to keep up with rising costs. The effects of the Great Recession, specifically people losing their jobs, their mortgaged homes and large portions of their 401(k)s, have left millions of Americans unhappy with their own economic situation and their prospects for the future.

Although there is widespread dissatisfaction with President Obama, the public holds Congress in even lower regard. Last month, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll, Congress registered a 9% approval rating, the worst in the legislative body's history since Americans were first surveyed on the subject in 1977. Although the President may have erred in reaching too far and, paradoxically, retreating too often, the Congressional followers of Rule 9-J, "Just Say No", have offered the American people next to nothing.

One improvement in civic discourse comes from the spread of C-Span and other programs dealing with public issues. We know more about our public officials than we did years ago. We can discern with they really mean, both from their choice of cliches and from their body language. When one strips the gibberish and the platitudes from the remarks of the lawmakers and the witnesses who testify before them, one can get a sense of what is actually going on in the minds of the players.

It is true that they speak in code; that is a convention of public discourse. If many of our representatives said in public what they actually believe, their careers would be terminated. We see how many entertainers, performers or talking hosts have lost their jobs because of words and phrases which are politically incorrect, or capable of offending any group of people, whether racial, religious, ideological or gender-linked. It was said to have started with Uncle Don back in the 1920's on WOR. In reality, this never happened, but it has been so widely told over the years that it has become part of our popular culture.

Speech can be offensive, and the characterization of a group because of the behavior of a small number of its members places an unwholesome and possibly dangerous strain on the fabric of a heterogeneous society. We now attempt to deal with this situation by defining certain abusive words as "hate speech" and penalizing the speaker.

As always, the responsible approach in marginal cases is to seek balance, with freedom exercised with responsibility. At my law school graduation, a quotation was read that I learned was coined by a professor in the 1930's and has been recited annually since that time. "You are ready to aid in the shaping and application of those wise restraints that make men free."

By substituting 'people' for the possibly suspect noun 'men', the sentence gains at least another century of useful life, unless another euphemism comes into fashion.

The unhappiness expressed by the demonstrators, pickets and campers at Zuccotti Park is by no means confined to one city, state, or region. It partly stems from the belief that government is too far removed from the people, or at least far from the people who are complaining. It is partly a reaction to the resentment expressed against the poor, the disabled and others who may receive public assistance or public (except military) employment. The distaste for public programs may (or may not) have some roots in ethnic or class antipathy.

Occupy Wall Street offers no particular solutions to the issues it raises. Making public services free or more easily available will increase the $15 trillion national debt and promote economic instability. Rich people have far more mobility than the poor, and can more easily move to tax havens. It is not uncommon, however to hear groups complaining but without practical solutions to the problems they address. Sometimes futility raises the intensity of the complaint.

We will watch closely as this grievance spreads or withers, along with the oncoming Presidential campaign. Our thought is that the race will be decided by the public judgments of millions of individuals, which will to some extent be intuitive and individually may be irrational, as to which candidate is a better person and which one will do a better job. Television brings the candidates closer to the people, and assuming that the candidates are roughly equivalent in ability and resources to deceive the public, something close to the truth may emerge from the welter of claims and denials. E pluribus unum, out of many one.

What happened on Wall Street is simply that people got tired of the act. Every Broadway show opens and closes; almost all politicians, as well as empires, rise and then decline. What begins as new and striking becomes familiar and eventually tiresome. This is particularly true when the participants are not particularly knowledgeable about what they are doing.

We predict that there will be other disturbances in the pre-election period, and that there will be an attempt to unify the left on a program, just as the Tea Party movement has to some extent organized the right. Time will tell which group gains strength, but one thing that any political movement needs is an agenda, which has not yet emerged from the left, while the right simply offers negativity.

Someone will be sworn in as President on Sunday, January 20, 2013. We hope the person will be able. You have probably never heard of him, but you should add Gary Johnson, the Republican former two-term governor of New Mexico, as a long-shot who should be considered, if these decisions were made on the merits rather than on media attention or scandal.

If Gary Johnson gets anywhere in 2012, remember that you read it first here.

After All, It Is a Park

City Moves on Zuccotti Occupiers

After Two Months' Acquiescence,

Next Round Will Be in Court

Last night, the city administration used its power to close down, at least temporarily, a street demonstration that had occupied Zuccotti Park, a previously uncelebrated 33,000-square-feet plot of choice Lower Manhattan real estate with trees and benches softening the skyscrapers surrounding it on three sides.

The Park is located on the west side of Broadway, between Cedar Street and Liberty Place, roughly two blocks north of Trinity Church, which is at the head of Wall Street. It is public open space, owned and maintained by Brookfield Properties and intended for passive recreation. It was created through a transaction in which Brookfield was permitted to build a substantially larger office building on the site. Mr. Zuccotti, a former first deputy mayor of New York City during the Beame administration, serves as the co-chairman of Brookfield, a Canadian company.

Zuccotti is a highly regarded public servant and a successful and innovative real estate executive. When the city was on the brink of bankruptcy in 1975, a principal demand of the business and civic communities was for his appointment as first deputy mayor, in effect the city's chief operating officer. His leadership helped to restore the reputation of city government, whose credibility had been seriously impaired as a result of misleading financial statements over the years, which concealed the city's failure to cope with deficits.

It is interesting that Zuccotti's name is more likely to be widely known for the two-month forcible occupation of the park designated to honor him than for the good works he accomplished for the city at a critical time in its history.

We must point out that today, in 2011, thirty-six years after that narrow escape from financial ruin, the city's position, although not so dire as it was in April 1975, when bankruptcy papers had been prepared by the law firm of Weil, Gotshal and Manges to be filed in Federal Court, nonetheless conceals structural weaknesses. At this time, due to thirty years of relative fiscal restraint, the city is not as badly off as either the national government, with its $15 trillion public debt, the New York State government, which faces a $3.5 billion deficit in the upcoming fiscal year, or the euro zone, whose stability is widely regarded as precarious.

Unfortunately, there is no John Zuccotti on stage or in the wings today to deal with these fiscal problems. We must face these issues in the closing stage of a twelve-year mayoralty which largely avoided disaster and disrepute, and which initiated many worthwhile programs, particularly in health and housing, while being unable to eliminate the structural imbalance which has plagued city finances for over a generation.

While reserving for another time a discussion of the current mayoral candidates, we believe it is safe to say that none has demonstrated the stature or skills of a Zuccotti or a Felix Rohatyn, to cite two leaders of the past generation. As people criticize Mayor Bloomberg for various aspects of his persona, they should not forget the substantive achievements of his tenure or the relatively high quality of his appointments.

We will be fortunate if the next administration at City Hall is comparable in achievement to the current one. Political leaders are often more highly regarded after they have left office. Harry Truman epitomizes that history. The inevitable reassessment of the current administration is likely to start sooner than the Truman redemption. Our problem, however, is not with what will be Mayor Bloomberg's place in history, a position which will be measured in part in consideration of his enormous personal wealth, employed in the public's interest as well as his own.

The issue which will dominate the next two years in our municipal history is who the successor will be, and whether he or she will have the ability to deal with the daunting issues that still face the city. We have sounded the call that danger lies ahead, and it will take enormous effort and sacrifice to deal with the problems that have gravely impaired so many other places, both in this region and around the world. Time always gets shorter, and we should devote our abilities to a wide search for equitable solutions, because inaction leads to the aggravation of existing problems as the time to resolve them inevitably diminishes.



StarQuest #785 11.15.2011 714 words