10-07-2011, 02:32 PM
I think it hard to tell at this point what's going to happen with "Occupy Wall Street". It appears to be a pretty spontaneous and amorphous event where the participants are trying to feel their way towards a consensus about what it means and what to do next. It could easily all fall apart due to no cohesive thread pulling them together. It could fall apart but spin off into smaller groups that continue to be active. But I don't see any reason yet to conclude that there is no way that it can congeal into a significant political force. In general the economic elite in the country seem to have settled on it being the case that we have to put up with long term high unemployment while significantly reducing social safety net programs as being necessary to protect the value of their capital, and it isn't surprising in a democracy that a large group of people find that to be unacceptable.