Something, that I find silly about the Protest on Wall Street, is that stock trading is done mostly by computer algorithms. Human trading has been a minority for a long while. So they're directing in part their protest at the minority of stock traders.
It's not just stock trading. Wall Street is emblematic of a bigger problem of corporate excess and greed.
I'll give you a personal example of when I lost all faith in American capitalism (not that I was ever a rabid free-marketer to begin with):
I work for HP. When I came on in 2009 our CEO was Mark Hurd, who earned rave reviews for "making HP profitable". He did this by freezing all pay increases, enforcing mandatory pay cuts for many people, and reducing benefits for people at EDS, which HP had recently acquired. He made a token show of reducing his own pay as well. However, the Board of Directors compensated for this by voting him a pay raise equal to what he had cut. In other words, all a PR stunt.
We had to take constant training courses on corporate ethics and what we could and couldn't do, and all the things that could get us fired and/or prosecuted. Lo and behold in 2010, Hurd is caught falsifying personal expense reports to embezzle money to pay "hush money" to an HP consultant (and former softcore porn actress) so she wouldn't file a sexual harassment case against him. That's bad in and of itself. But the real kick in the cajones was that when he was forced to resign from HP, he received a
$42.2 million severance package. Which was equivalent to almost two years' worth of pay.
So let me get this straight...if I embezzled a few hundred dollars I'd be fired immediately, docked the amount from my final paycheck, and subject to civil prosecution. But if you're the CEO, play a little grab-ass, then embezzle $20,000 to cover up, then lie about the embezzlement....you skip out scot-free with a lovely parting gift equal to more money than a mensch like me will make in
TWENTY LIFETIMES.
Oh, and then promptly get hired by Oracle with a $220 million "signing bonus" and make $78 million in pay in your first year.
I was willing to accept Hurd as a vile anomaly. But let's look at his successor, Leo Apotheker. Leo was fired by SAP, and promptly hired by HP to 'restore investor confidence'. He did this by making a series of baffling executive decisions, such as pulling the plug on the HP TouchPad less than two months after it hit the market, and announcing abruptly that HP was getting out of the consumer PC market. The stock price plummeted 50%, and he was fired after only 10 months on the job. And then....(wait for it)...he receives a $10 million severance package. $1 million for each month on the job, and all he did was completely fuck everything up.
THIS IS NOT CAPITALISM. Capitalism involves reward for risk. A small business owner is capitalist. He sinks his own money into his business, and he enjoys the rewards if it works out, and suffers the loss if it fails.
CEO's and investment bankers and hedge fund managers....these motherfuckers are insulated from risk. They get paid ludicrous amounts of money
regardless of results. They're playing goddamn Monopoly with other people's money. THIS HAS TO STOP.
In Japan, executives that fucked up this badly would commit suicide. In China, the government would kill or imprison them. Frankly, I'd be happy with either option at this point.