Morris Gleitzman:

...is a bestselling Australian children's author, in his new book "Too Small to Fail", invents the child character "Oliver" to explain some home truths learned by Gleitzman himself when self educating on the losses to his superannuation, as a common outcome to the GFC.

...On Power!

"I became gripped by what seems to be a huge contradiction between the education, status and power of those running the investment and banking industry and the immense foolishness of some of their choices and decisions".

...On the stock market!

"a long time ago I grasped the basic notion that high finance, especially regarding stocks and shares was pretty much gambling".

...On consequences!

"And they’re cuts that tragically are going to largely affect many people who don’t have any savings and are already doing it tough. They bear the brunt of what’s going on in Wall Street".

Business must answer to 'Occupy Wall Street'

No, they don't.

What is this nebulous entity "business"? Is it industry or banking, or Retail? Does it include small business, mom and pop business or only multinationals.

Business will give "occupy wall street" the attention it deserves which is zero.

...Hey!... "King" Capitalism is wearing no cloths!

Sadly, the arguments in this article are as inchoate as the "occupy" phenomenon itself. The Onion, as it does so often, strikes at the heart of the problem with precision...

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation-waiting-for-protesters-to-clearly-articulat,26353/

"Americans are eagerly awaiting a list of demands from the group so they can then systematically disregard them and continue going about their business"

The real problem is that consecutive US Governments have "drunk the Kool-aid" that excoriates any notion of social responsibility, as a form of Communism. A situation exacerbated by the collapse of the Soviet system, which freed up the "I told you so" brigade to confer automatically virtue on ever-more-obscene executive salaries.

To object, was to be "un-American".

Even more corrosive was their acceptance of the concept of even more obscene "bonuses", for creating nothing that had economic worth. The proof of this, if proof is needed, is to "follow the money" through the trillions of dollars sloshing around the derivative market. Every one of these trades originally made a motza for a "dealer" somewhere, to the point where bonuses stopped being measured in millions, and began being tallied in the tens of millions. As they painfully unwind those toxic instruments, and various parties take a bath along the way, what are the chances of sucking back those - I have to use the word again - obscene pay-packets?

Nil.

That's why there is no concrete target to aim at, no tyrant to topple, and no clear definition of what "victory" would look like. Ask any "occupier" to define what life would be like if they "won" their protest. You'd get the naive idealism of a fifteen year-old, expressed by a frustrated middle-class Tweeter.

And to those who rabbit on about "socializing losses" and wish that all those nasty Banks should take their lumps, two words.

Baby.

Bathwater.

Agree with Adam's closing comment ' massive pay increases to politicians and senior public servant – justified with reference to 'market' rates – it is worth considering whether corporate largesse is contributing to a creeping venalisation of the public service as well, which will only accelerate the erosion of public support for our economic system.'

However don't agree with general railing against government intervention and bureacrats. We should never forget that it was deregulation - e.g removal of the Glass-Stegal Act which stopped commercial banks gambling with depositors' money - that caused the GFC and we still haven't seen the necessary re-regulation that we be needed to fix the system.

Re the work of bureaucrats, I have worked as a public servant for 17 years - as a teacher and develepoment officer. I know that rank and file public servants generally earn their pay and do some of the hardest jobs in society. However I do agree than the top rank public servants on several hundred thousand are getting too much pay and too little accountability.

As for corporates - surely it's time to enact a remuneration ceiling. I'll throw in $1m per year as a suggestion - about 7 times more that the higer paid workers. I already hear screams of 'rampant socialism' but is there any other way to stop the rot?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12780#220701

diver dan, spot on mate.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12780#220702

Shadow Minister, YES they do, depending on which protesters you are talking about.

The article author is quite correct about the problems.

Big Business is equally EVIL as Big Government & Big Unions. Many moderate centrist, tea party types in America are complaining about exactly that.

Same as the convoy of no confidence here.

However there are also a lot of closet communist "rent a crowd" types taging along pretending they are interested in democracy rather than communism.

EG in Brisbane the "occupy the world, Post Office Square" people are all the "usual suspects", rent a crowd, RED/green, getup, GAYLP/alp, Socialist Alliance mob.

These are the same fools helping Wall Street to set up their next ETS, eCONomic treason scam. Trading in carbon dioxide based derivatives instead of debt based derivatives. They claim to represent the 99% while in fact they are planning to steal from the 99% of us & give it to the 1% filthy stinking super rich.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12780#220704

diver dan, radical extreme, globalised, free trade, too big to fail, capitalism may be past it's use by date, but are you familiar with the kind of "capitalism with a heart" advocated by these guys?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McEwen AND http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Menzies attacked what they called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire_capitalism as being too open to manipulation by monopolies & cartels. They advocated for free trade between Australian companies behind a tarriff barrier, which gave us full employment.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12780#220712

Pericles, OH dear where do i start?

Correct with HALF you rant of course, BUT the worst changes to corporate law & bailouts allowing the worst excesses to occur were introduced by closet communazi governments both in America & here.

Was our financial industry deregulated by Howard & Fraser, or was it comrades Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Krudd & Dillhard?

http://www.mailstar.net/xTrots.html trots & fabians destroying our eCONomy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5E6pvDv2Y&feature=channel_video_title free trade whitlam, hawke & keating

Obummer went on with worse bailouts than Bush. PM Brown & DPM Dillhard want to help wall street make us pay them a tax on the air we breath.