“We are the 1%”

Provocative responses to the Occupy Chicago protests from the Chicago Board of Trade:

•  Signs on office windows proudly declaring: “We are the 1 %“

•  Papers were ‘dumped’ on the protesters from above: the pages were applications to McDonald’s Restaurant.

•  Leaflets were dropped on protesters. Some of the salient details were:

•  “We are Wall Street. It is our job to make money.”
• “Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours.”
• “We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive.”

Do they think they’re the only ones who work hard? And what do they actually do? It seems to me that the entire stock market is built on a nebulous foundation.

Inequity in the distribution of wealth is the basis for countless problems in human society and it irks me that people are making light of it: the messages from the Chicago Board of Trade are full of arrogance and egocentricity. And perhaps a trace of fear.