Notes from a Wall Street Showdown

The scene Thursday afternoon in lower Manhattan:

Makeshift signs decrying the abuses of Wall Street intermingled with union banners. “Greed kills” and “Financial reform is a moral issue” waved next to people demanding jobs. One person had constructed a paper mache vampire squid that soared over the crowd. The unemployed and employed alike walked from City Hall to Wall Street on Thursday afternoon in a show of support for financial reform and to demand solutions for people out of work. While no one seemed to think that the current financial reform bill is enough, many felt that it is a good start-and better than doing nothing.

Tom McBride, an electrician, said he was there “because we want jobs.” His union has 2,700 people out of work and 1,500 on furlough. “In a couple of years there will be no more middle class. And they’re building it on labor.” He hasn’t been following financial reform, but he wasn’t hopeful-citing the “nonsense with democrats and republicans fighting over scraps” that he saw during the battle over health care reform.

Union members were also demanding fair wages. George and Billy, who did not want to give their last names, both pointed to the need for higher wages that meet living standards. When I asked George, who has been out of work for eight months, what he thinks of financial reform, he said that the majority of working class Americans want reform, and they need jobs. “People in America need to feed their families. The last 30 years it’s been harder and harder,” Billy said. The solution: “Don’t sell out the middle class.”

“I have a son in college, I’m fighting to pay for education, and I’m a small business owner who’s struggling,” Carolyn Batson told me when I asked why she had come. Financial reform, she says, is “a start.” “It’s not good enough, but it’s enough for now.”

Ida Dupont, a teacher at Pace University, was in favor of reform as long as there is “serious enforcement.” “So Goldman Sachs is yelled at, but then what? There have to be actual repercussions.” When her friend Amy Foerster was asked why she had come to the rally, she pointed to the “egregious” news surrounding Goldman Sachs’ fraud case being investigated by the SEC.

There were those in the crowd who were hold-overs from President Obama’s campaign. Deborah Gaffney, who flashed Obama’s face engraved on the back of her iPhone case, told me, “We’ve started to change but we have to fight for it.” Financial reform is “a good start,” particularly the parts that deal with inflated Wall Street bonuses. She told me that people she knows who work on Wall Street are hoping that something is passed so that there are ground rules for everyone - “Bad behavior begets bad behavior.”

There were also those who brought a sense of history to the current struggle. “I’ve been a political activist since the 60’s,” said Naomi Brussel, a retired social worker. “This is the worst time ever in the US for people trying to stay in their homes” and keep their jobs.

She pointed to the end of the Glass Steagall act as the point when the system got out of control. “It meant no control on the banking system. They are gambling to make money without caring about the consequences.” She felt that financial reform will represent a “minor readjustment,” and that perhaps the entire system itself needs to change.