Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Taking money out of the pockets of the poor and unemployed. Now, how do you do that?

Marchers target biz bigs’ UES digs


A horde of anti-Wall Street protesters marched through the Upper East Side yesterday, rallying outside the homes of some of the city’s most prominent businessmen.

Dubbed the “Millionaire’s March,” it attracted about 450 demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street movement who have been camped out at lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park since Sept. 17.

There were no arrests.

They gathered across from The Plaza hotel on Central Park South at about 1 p.m. before heading to the homes of Koch Industries co-owner David Koch, New York Private Bank & Trust President Howard Milstein, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, whose company owns The Post, Paulson & Co. President John Paulson, and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

“They’re making so much money out of our pockets, it’s not fair. I can’t afford to live and these guys fly jets,” said Yubelca Morel, 40, an unemployed social worker from Washington Heights.

“These guys need to pay more taxes.”

Protest organizers said revelers would stay on the sidewalks. But at one point along Fifth Avenue, the rally was so crowded, it spilled out on to the roadway.

Police demanded the protesters get back on the sidewalk, and sent some away from the street to relieve the congestion.

The group focused its venom on the December expiration of New York state’s 2 percent “millionaire’s tax” -- and some members carried a game-show-sized check for $5 billion made payable to “The Top One Percent.”

“Billionaires are living it up with multiple houses, and I’m struggling to get by day to day,” said Brittini Gray, 22, a community organizer.

“They need to redistribute the wealth in America.”

The protesters left the mock $5 billion check at the entrance to Paulson’s building.

But his hedge-fund firm was quick to shoot back.

‘The top 1 percent of New Yorkers pay over 40 percent of all income taxes, providing huge benefits to everyone in our city and state,” read a statement from Paulson & Co.

The statement added that the firm recently created more than 100 high-paying jobs in the city.

And Mayor Bloomberg, who recently gave the protesters permission to stay in Zuccotti Park indefinitely as long as they followed the law, defended Dimon.

He’s “one of the great bankers,” said Bloomberg at an unrelated event.

“He’s brought more business to this city than any banker in [the] modern day. To go and picket him, I don’t know what that achieves,” he added.

Today, Occupy Wall Street will join with hundreds of office cleaners -- including some who tend to the Verizon and Sotheby’s offices and who are represented by the union SEIU -- in a march on the Stock Exchange.

The group is also preparing for the cold by searching for a commercial kitchen they can use to prepare hot food.


These people get all manner of things for free on the backs of people who actually work.



2 comments:

A Conservative Teacher said...

I notice the the guy quoted in this post was a 'community organizer', he was able-bodied, and he was young and energetic... couldn't he be making the world a better place somehow by producing some sort of good or service, having children and spending time with his family, and engaging in civil protests and regular election behavior? Or is asking him to not be a useless hippie stealing money from those who work hard every day too much to ask?

jerry said...

But, you see he wants to matter without actually doing anything productive. Push a person like this hard enough and you'll find the fall back position is anti consumerist.