"Occupy Wall Street" Heads to Rome

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright October 15, 2011
All Rights Reserved.                                         

          When G20 finance ministers met in London and Paris over the weekend, they hoped to resolve a growing sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone threatening to bankrupt Europe’s biggest financial institutions.  Rioting first broke out the U.K. July 21 over a run-of-the-mill police shooting that morphed quickly into protests over Prime Minister David Cameron’s Tory government’s severe austerity measures designed to reduce budget deficits and promote economic prosperity.  Cash flow problems in the Eurozone and banking sector forced governments to impose draconic cutbacks to save Europe’s struggling economies.  Greece’s expected bankruptcy sent chills up Europe’s spine, causing Wall Street to drop nearly a thousand points.  Today’s move to add a banking surcharge to protect European banks from insolvency didn’t play well in Wall Street or other foreign capitals.

            When the Germany and France launched the common currency in 1999, it was supposed to create unprecedented prosperity.  Instead, Europe’s many disparate economies began running in the red, forcing prosperous countries like Germany and France to bail out the weaker ones.  Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece found the over-inflated euro difficult to replace their own currencies, frequently devalued when economic times got tough.  Now that the Eurozone and the U.K can no longer pay massive social programs and pension obligations, they’re looking for ways to finance their well-intentioned socialism.  When rioting broke out in Greece March 6, 2010, it was just a matter of time before it spread across Europe and eventually the U.S.  Flooding the Brooklyn Bridge Oct. 1, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement has now spread to the U.K and Europe.

            Composed of the same anarchists that regularly attend G20 or G7 meeting, professional bands of protesters hurled Molotov cocktails at government buildings, banks and other businesses in Rome.  “Occupy Wall Street” is the latest buzzword for anti-capitalist anarchists that routinely protest economic summits around the planet.  Blaming the violence on “a few thousand thugs from all over Europe,” Rome mayor Giaanni Alemanno blasted anarchists for shutting down the Defense Ministry.  “People of Europe:  Rise Up,” read the banner in Rome, protesting the draconic economic steps taken by the Eurozone to placate Frankfurt’s European Central Bank’s austerity measures on member-states to receive bailouts and low-interest loans.  Eurozone countries are now dependent on the ECB for the cash needed to maintain costly social welfare programs.  Now broke, the Eurozone scrambles for available cash.

            Rome police sprayed water-cannons and tear gas to break up bands of violent protesters.  Estimated at around 100,000 demonstrators, the Rome riots promised to disrupt government services.  Billionaire Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has no answer for dealing with Italy’s mushrooming budget deficit and sovereign debt.  Heading in the same direction as Greece, Italy finds itself forced, along with other Eurozone nations, to impose austerity measures on state workers to contain mushrooming costs.  Wikileaks founder Julian Assange spoke to a crowd of about 500 in Rome’s St. Paul’s Square, complaining of an international banking system a “recipient of corrupt money.” Assange has been under the gun since embarrassing the U.S. government, publishing classified docs on the Iraq and Afghan wars.  Shortly thereafter he was accused of sexual assault in Sweden.

            Organized anarchists seek any chance to hurl Molotov cocktails and disrupt governments participating in global economic summits.  Now that the Eurozone faces extreme financial hardship, it’s a perfect chance for anarchists to hide behind “Occupy Wall Street” to justify their usual-and customary mischief.  Organized rioting provides no real insights into the real piracy that goes on in stock markets around the globe.  When U.S. banks ran out of cash in 2008, no one wanted to look at the banking industry’s reckless investing that once-upon-a-time caused the 1929 Stock Market Crash that led to the Great Depression.  Few want to talk about former President Bill Clinton tossing out depression-era Glass Steagall and signing Gramm, Leach Bliley into law in 1999, allowing banks to once again play in the Wall Street casino.  Nine years later, banks ran out of money.

            Anarchists around the planet seized on the opportunity to lash out at the global economic powers.  They’re doing nothing to help global stock markets regulate private equity and hedge funds and stop the run-a-way short selling that has turned stock markets into an endless roller coaster ride.  If anything good comes out of “Occupy Wall Street,” it’s going to be the recognition that multinational corporations, like Apple Computer, have an obligation to create jobs not just oodles of profit for shareholders.  While there’s nothing wrong with turning a profit, there’s something very wrong with stockpiling trillions in offshore accounts and not reinvesting the cash to create domestic jobs.  Central bankers and finance ministers should get the message that working people get fed up with high unemployment.  Nothing is more destructive for any society than not creating enough jobs for their people.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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