Princeton, U.S.A. — A recent ORC International survey of American adults has found that awareness of the Occupy Wall Street movement is unchanged since the intense media coverage of the movement’s events through fall and winter of 2011 but that support for the movement has declined.

ORC International updated a series of questions about Occupy Wall Street asked in late 2011 and found that seventy-one percent of Americans remain aware of the movement, even while media coverage has significantly declined. Protesters have largely dispersed from the parks and fronts steps of the world’s financial capitals.

The continued awareness is in part to the ongoing social dialogue that continues by both supporters and protesters of the movement. According to ORC’s social analytics product, Social Buzz, Occupy Wall Street conversations continue to steadily appear with an average of 156,000 posts daily in the social universe since mid-December. This is mostly driven by specifically timed events including the six month anniversary to re-occupy Zuccotti Park in New York City on March 17-18, mass arrests on March 22, and a May Day Protest.

Overall agreement with the movement’s position regarding the financial inequities continues to hold steady at thirty percent since the fall, however, those who disagree has risen seven percentage points to twenty-eight percent over the past six months.

While levels of coverage in both social media and traditional media have varied, the combination has continued to keep this movement in front of the American public. Long-term sustainability of the movement, however, remains a question.

The poll was conducted using ORC International’s CARAVAN service from June 9-11, 2012. The poll interviewed 1005 US Adults by telephone.

ORC International is a leading global research firm with offices across the U.S.A., Europe and Asia Pacific. The company has been a partner of CNN on the CNN/ORC International poll since 2006 and is a founding member of the CASRO.

Image Courtesy of  Atomische • Tom Giebel

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A little over a week ago, Greg Smith, an executive director at Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s largest investment banking and securities firm, resigned from his position after publishing a letter in the New York Times Opinions section.

The letter, entitled “Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs,” details Smith’s observations of the current state of the company.

Smith, who joined Goldman fresh out of college and has worked at the firm for twelve years since, describes the main problem as the culture of the company, that is, “the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money.”

He outlines three quick ways to rise to the top in the company, two of which involve tricking the client into making moves that will benefit Goldman the most, with no concern for how they will—if at all—profit the client.  Using Goldman jargon, these are executing on the firm’s “axes,” which consists of having someone invest in stocks that Goldman is trying to get rid of. “Hunt Elephants” is another code, for getting clients to make a trade that will bring in the biggest profit for Goldman.

The third secret is to get lucky and find yourself dealing with and trading gas. Keeping in line with this blatant disregard for clients, many employees refer to their own clients as “muppets.”  Although Smith said he did not know of any illegal activities happening at the company, he lamented the eroding moral fiber of the company, stating, “I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.”

Although Smith is not the only Wall Street banker to recently resign, he is the most high profile one, and the only one to leave in such a spectacular and outspoken manner.  Goldman’s stock has not gone up or down much since his resignation, making many believe the situation would blow over and be forgotten.

Others, however, believe that these insiders fail to think about the long term effects.  Matt Taibbi, the journalist who christened Goldman a “Vampire Squid,” thinks this marks the beginning of something bigger than any of the movements currently in the United States—and that includes Occupy Wall Street.  Taibbi optimistically writes, “this incident may turn Goldman into such a pariah that the best young bankers won’t want to work there anymore.”

At this point Goldman’s future is unclear, but there is no denying need for reform within Wall Street.  And with Smith’s explosive words, it may well start there.

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More than three years after the financial crisis, Wall Street watchdogs are still uncovering questionable actions rooted in that time. The latest revelation involves one of the more creative packagers of securities who contributed to a trail of billions in soured deals, as well as a much-maligned rating agency.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority — an independent, non-governmental regulatory body — has recommended disciplinary action against two men for “alleged misrepresentations in connection with the sale” of a complex security.

The recommendation is preliminary. No civil or criminal charges have been filed. The men, Alexander Rekeda and Timothy Day, are both affiliated with Guggenheim Capital, a privately held, financial services company that does everything from trading securities to providing investment advice. According to its web site, the firm, headquartered in New York, has 1,700 employees in 25 offices located in 10 countries, and it manages about $125 billion.

A lawyer for Rekeda could not be reached for comment. ProPublica has learned that he is no longer with Guggenheim. Day, who is still at Guggenheim, did not respond to a request for comment. We will update this post when they are reached.

FINRA has been investigating the men over the sale of a type of security known as a collateralized loan obligation, or CLO. The investigation touches on a CLO called Nine Grade Funding II, although it remains unclear if this CLO is the main focus of the probe. FINRA’s filing did not elaborate on the type or character of the “alleged misrepresentations” it said were involved in the sale of the CLO it is investigating.

In a story published Monday evening, the Wall Street Journal reported that Rekeda was under investigation by FINRA for an unnamed CLO. The Journal also reported that Rekeda is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for a collateralized debt obligation, or CDO, he helped construct while employed by the Japanese bank Mizuho.

As Propublica detailed in the series the Wall Street Money Machine, Rekeda was involved in the creation of several CDOs with Magnetar, a hedge fund that helped put together more than $40 billion of the securities. Magnetar often lobbied for riskier assets to be put into the CDOs and then placed bets against many of the investments, reaping tremendous profits when the deals soured. (Magnetar has never been charged with any wrongdoing, and has always maintained that it did not have a strategy to bet against the housing market.)

The investigation into Rekeda is one of the few public signs that regulators are considering charges against a top banking executive involved in a Magnetar deal. Nine Grade Funding was a CLO comprised of other CLOs backed by corporate loans. It was issued at a time when few such securities were being sold.

The CLO was featured prominently in allegations by a whistleblower, Eric Kolchinsky, against the rating agency Moody’s. Kolchinsky alleged that Moody’s allowed bonds to be added to the CLO in January 2009 and that it allowed the CLO to keep its previous rating.

Moody’s took these actions, according to Kolchinsky, despite plans already in the works by the rating agency to downgrade all such securities. Moody’s denied the allegations. After Kolchinsky was forced out of the firm, he testified about the deal before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

by Jake Bernstein, ProPublica, Feb. 21, 2012, 6:59 p.m.

Image Courtesy of  Songquan Deng / Shutterstock.com

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Even as presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, readies for the South Carolina primary after soundly winning the New Hampshire primary, both the Obama reelection campaign and the Occupy Wall Street crowd he hopes to capitalize on are sharpening the knives of wealth envy.

As the 2011 year closed, the media remained obsessed with the Occupy Wall Street protests. Not a day went by without video of the protesters camping out, clashing with police, or some soft-peddled story on the merits of the protests. Absent are all the admonitions hurled toward the Tea Party for loudly denouncing the Obama Care Law or the president’s insistence on spending more and more money in debt to somehow magically create a positive economy.

Make no mistake, however, just as the Tea Party galvanized opposition against the policies of the Obama administration from fiscal conservatives, so too, does the president hope to utilize the Occupy movement in a similar fashion in the 2012 presidential election. The contrast between the two movements is stark.

There were hundreds of Tea Party rallies, marches, and protests throughout the country in 2010. Yet, not a single venue was trashed, the streets, avenues, and parks were left in pristine condition, and the only reported police arrest occurred in the beginning of the movement, when three white Union members attacked an African-American male in a wheelchair.

Occupy Wall Street, however, has had rapes, shootings, drug use, assaults, and have pretty much used the parks as their own private bathrooms. There has been violence in every city in which an Occupy movement has occurred, and the only word from the mainstream media has been the talking point of not unfairly assessing the Occupiers through the actions of a few bad apples. The hypocrisy is larger than the increase in the national debt, but is not even the worse problem.

There is no single overwhelming theme or idea from Occupy Wall Street, but the one thing they do seem to hate is what they consider to be income inequality. That they are the 99 percent versus the 1 percent has become the mantra, and the 1 percent are not paying their fair share. There is a call for a more even distribution of income and assets.

The ideas for this range from higher taxes to socialism and to out-right communism. What I find annoying is the idea that there should be income equality to begin with and the underlying idea that the rich have an unfair advantage. The reality, of course, is that life is not fair. We are not all given the same or equal attributes.

Some people are born ugly and others beautiful. Some people are born smart, others have average intelligence, and some people are just born dumb. Some are tall; some are small. And yes, some people are born rich, and some are born poor. It is a fact of life. What is also a fact, however, is that the vast majority of people in the top one percent of income earners were not born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

In the 1920′s, well over 80 percent of the wealth in the country was gained through inheritance. A person was born, and if they hit the cosmic lottery, their parents were a Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, or a Kennedy. In 2010, the percentage of wealth gained through inheritance is two percent. The vast majority of the people in the top income and asset brackets were not born that way. They earned it in their lifetimes.

They did this through opening businesses or obtaining professional degrees, like becoming doctors (doctors make up most of people in the top one percent), or by savvy and patient investment. Any way you cut it, they were not handed their incomes and wealth through some lotto ticket. However, the occupiers, which are more like ‘whiners’, act as if someone handed these millionaires and billionaires their money.

They never stop and ask themselves whether they are willing to do the things, make the sacrifices, risk their capital, their health, and or their marriage in pursuit of a business or profession that leads to wealth. The answer to that question is clearly no. If they were willing to do those things, they would not be camped out in a park, defecating in the street, and bitching about someone else’s money.

Yet, it is obvious from the calls for “income equality” that these people want the money that the one percent have. Thus far, none have given a single logical reason why they deserve it. Sure, the general idea of fairness can make many people sympathize with the protesters. After all, no one feels sorry for a billionaire.

However, what is fair about someone working 70 hours a week to start a business that takes ten years to build, having to shell over their money to a twenty-something or thirty-something year old that does not want to make the same sacrifices?  If you use a sports analogy, why would an NFL team with the worse record deserve a part of the Super Bowl trophy? We all know the answer is a that they do not deserve it. Yet, many are duped into thinking that they have some divine right to the fruits of someone else’s labors.

It is unimportant that the top 1 percent owns upwards of 25 percent of the wealth in the country. They deserve it, and they own it because when you “own” as opposed to being a worker bee, your wealth and income are magnified. The beauty of America is that if you do not like what you earn, you can do things to earn more. Nowhere else in this world is it so easy to move up in both income and class without the right political or social connections.

Can you do that in China, Cuba, Russia, or India? No! In America, you can, and the proof of that is the people who make up the one percent. Go back 10 or 15 years, and the people there today were not there back then.

If you are part of the 99 percent, then the question is, “What have you done today, this week, this month, and this year to increase your wealth? What have you done to affect your income level?” If the answer is nothing, then Herman Cain is right, and you are poor because of yourself. It is no one’s fault, but your own.

As we have seen over the last few years, personal accountability has become a lost value for many in this country, especially for the spoiled children of baby boomers who expected the world to give them a silver spoon- even if it means taking it by force from someone else.

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The occupy Wall Street protesters have been dismissed by most media outlets. As the group begins their third week of occupation, media outlets are unable to ignore the growing chants any longer. The media’s main outrage with the group has been that they are not organized or do not have a list of demands.

Although, I am not sure the Tea Party events have a list of demands either, but the Tea Party protests with far fewer people get far more coverage and political attention. And they say we have liberal media in America? The protesters at Wall Street have begun to organize and are making a list of demands. The media asked, the protesters answered.

The group released a declaration for occupation on Friday, stating in part that the movement aims to “express a feeling of mass injustice.” The injustices include foreclosure crisis, work place discrimination and student loan debt. The occupation, which has enjoyed a smattering of celebrity endorsements, received some larger supporters on Friday.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka embraced the global occupy Wall Street protests. Asked about the ongoing mass protest in New York’s financial district, which has begun to gain support from major unions, Trumka said Friday morning: “I think it’s a tactic and a valid tactic to call attention to a problem.

Wall Street is out of control. We have three imbalances in this country—the imbalance between imports and exports, the imbalance between employer power and working power, and the imbalance between the real economy and the financial economy. We need to bring back balance to the financial economy, and calling attention to it and peacefully protesting is a very legitimate way of doing it.”

Hailing the power of street protests to shift the dialogue, Trumka said, “I think being in the streets and calling attention to issues is sometimes the only recourse you have because, God only knows, you can go to the Hill, and you can talk to a lot of people and see nothing ever happen…”

More local unions have supported the movement, including a transport union, which has over 38,000 people. The movement has also started to gain attention worldwide as countries in Europe express similar outrage over the growing income inequality.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/kapkap/

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You might have not heard of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests. I wouldn’t fault you if you haven’t. The media has primarily chosen to ignore the growing protests in lower Manhattan. The police have not ignored the protesters, however. Using excessive force against peaceful demonstrators seems to be par for the course in America.

Let’s focus on the mainstream media first. The coverage of the protests on Wall Street has been rather sparse. A quick mention here and there. When any media outlet dives into the occupation in more detail, they inevitably use words such as “unorganized” or “eccentric” about the protests and the people occupying Wall Street.

They point out that the protests is leader-less, (I guess that is a bad thing) and made up of some rag tag weirdos. The mainstream media, forced to cover the growing movement in Egypt earlier this year, used the same terms to describe that demonstration as well. The media clearly does not like citizens using the same rights that pundits hide behind whenever something they say is deemed inappropriate.

Freedom of speech is not just for those on television. The “Occupy Wall Street” protesters are beginning their second week of protests, camping out in Lower Manhattan. Although the protests have generally been peaceful, the police have not responded as such. Over the weekend, over 80 people were arrested by police. Often, these protesters were doing nothing illegal.

A police officer decided to pepper spray the protesters on Saturday.  Think about that for a moment. A police officer sprays a group of protesters while walking by for no reason at all. The video of the incident has been slowed down in super slow motion; there was no reason for the excessive force. Other videos of the weekend are just as shocking.

Protesters are tackled to the ground for using a video camera. An unarmed woman is grabbed over the police barricade by an officer. There was nothing about this protests that seemed American. And I, like others, have wondered why we no longer protest much in this country. Clearly, I have found my answer.

We are no better than other countries despite our desperate beliefs. We execute people. We arrest protesters. We allow the rich to get away with murder while asking more of the middle class. The government controls the media and the corporations control the government.

If we saw these same scenarios in other countries, we would puff out our chests and state how “proud we are to be American.” Yet, in our own backyard, we ignore the injustices. Although the protests in Manhattan are encouraging, they will be silenced. Millions of people protested the Invasion into Iraq but that movement was silenced as well.

I guess the revolution will be televised, or at least broadcast on Youtube. The media may ignore the growing outrage, but with social media—we may be heard anyway.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/shankbone/

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The Frankfurt (Germany) stock market continues its downward slide. The DAX lost 3.9 percent in the afternoon at 5988 meters, while the MDAX emits 6.1 percent to 8575 points. The TecDAX lost 4.2 percent to 687 points.

The decline in recent days adds up to more than 17 percent. This is the biggest fall in prices since the turmoil following the bankruptcy of  the U.S.  investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008.

In the morning it had temporarily looked like a recovery – the German benchmark index could make up for its opening losses and was for several minutes in the black. However, then the pessimists gained the upper hand again and the DAX slipped below 6000 points.

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