'Don't ignore the political message of Occupy Wall Street': Paul Krugman

As Occupy Wall Street protests spread across the United States and over the world, industry and media experts are warning the larger population to take its underlying social and political message very seriously. The “people’s power” movement against what they allege to be the US government’s ‘pandering’ of fat-cat corporates and Wall Street firms has been growing in momentum and support, as more and more people come forward to pledge their support. NYT Columnist and Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman, Chairman & Editor-in-Chief, Forbes Media, Steve Forbes, and Global Editor-at-Large, Reuters, Chrystia Freeland talk about their views of the movement and the underlying reasons for its growth and success. [caption id=“attachment_110217” align=“alignleft” width=“378” caption=“Paul Krugman - Reuters”] [/caption] Paul Krugman, NYT Columnist We are just three years after the greatest banking crisis since 1930s. It was brought on due to excesses on the part of the financial industry and the industry was bailed out at public expense and risk and yet we are still an economic crisis. And somehow all of that, who are these guys, why are we supporting them, why haven’t they paid more for this, what are the reforms that are going to stop this from happening again, all that disappeared from the debate.We have been arguing about who is going to cut security and what about that budget deficit and we’ve lost the whole tread of the debate in our society right now. These protesters who are mix of all sorts of people suddenly brought that back into the center of our national debate. Steve Forbes, Chairman & Editor-in-Chief, Forbes Media I think the protestors should go against the Fed as opposed to against the Wall Street. If the Federal Reserve hadn’t been on such an east money path for the last decade and taking the central banks with it. We would not have had a housing of this boom Chrystia Freeland, Global Editor-at-Large, Reuters I do think that the occupy wall street movement like the tea party is a serious grass root expression of people being really angry. People being angry about the fact that wages are stagnating in the US, and they don;t see economic growth and that people losing their jobs and they are losing their homes. And i think there is no consus whatsoever on a political solution,. But this is real anger.