> Challenging foreclosure and moving homeless people into
> vacant properties is an attack on Wall Street's power that
> also makes the mechanism of that power very clear and
> concrete.
It is likely that, four years after the bubble popped, not far from 1/2 of the assets in the balance sheets of the U.S. commercial banks (which now include Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs) are real estate loans and securities, as well as "physical" real estate (commercial and residential, some of which fell on their laps through foreclosures, with structures that have a high chance of decaying for lack of or delayed attention, maintenance, etc.). Fed H8 release and stuff. When the spirit of the times make it likely for people to undertake organized actions that challenge the ability of banks to enforce these contracts the usual way, at least some banker out there must be having nightmares.
Yesterday, at my workplace, we had a lecture (organized by a student club I allegedly mentor) by an executive VP of NYSE Euronext who seemed genuinely mad at those bankers whose excesses led to this mess.
And regarding the present and future of financial markets, he was particularly critical of the National Market System, algorithmic trading, dark pools, etc. implying that tighter regulation of trading was fine with him. And funny how the guy used OWS to sell the NYSE (the physical exchange): "Everybody knows where we are. We are at 11 Wall Street. You don't read about people occupying Eurex or Globex. People occupy Wall Street!"