By Tres Fimmano

Hopefully you’ve heard of the recent Occupy Wall Street events. Beginning September 17th, a number of protesters began gathering in New York City to start the 99% movement. The “99%” refers to the significant difference in income between the wealthiest 1% of Americans and the rest of the country. Since its commencement, the movement has created a huge voice, not just in the United States but all around the world. Other countries have found events such as Occupy London and Occupy Athens popping up all around. Now that the event is starting to calm down due in part to the dropping temperature, all there is for me to do is look back and reflect on the pros and cons of the idea.

Every protest has a good side and a bad side. At the very start of the “Occupy” protests, I had a lot of good things to say about them. Their whole ideology seemed to be that there are a lot of things wrong with the economy and that the people who aren’t hurt by it are living the luxury while others have a lot to worry about. What’s to disagree with there? Our economy isn’t just in a bad position, it’s screwed. With 9.0% unemployment and over 15 trillion dollar national debt, there’s a lot to complain about. In addition, the top 1% had a 23.5% share of U.S. annual income as of 2007 (last time it was that high was the Great Depression at 23.9%). So yes, it’s terrific that not just somebody, but a large group of people are all coming together and saying “something needs to be done about this.” Because in truth, the difference between the 99% and the 1% is too great and people who make over a million dollars a year can afford to get taxed a little more. So as far as the cause of the movement goes, I’m all for it.

While it’s easy for me to agree with the ideology of the movement, it’s not quite as easy to agree with the actual protest itself. Yes, they can all have a voice, but that voice is no solution to the problem that we have. In fact, a concept of the “53%” started during the protests as a counterargument. These are the Americans who are not involved in the protests but instead are at home, working hard, maybe even more than one job, and making a living. They claim that hanging out in New York City and screaming or holding signs won’t solve anything, but only trying to stay on track will actually fix the economy. While this view is a little pessimistic compared to the occupy movement, I can’t help but agree. The protesters certainly don’t have a plan or any answers. They’re simply demanding that something be done while they could be making money. Furthermore, the whole idea of protests in Wall Street doesn’t make sense to me. Wall Street is not the place to be if you want something done about the national economy and the actual protesters have been rather unorganized themselves. There are different groups of them and towards the end of the events they lost their unity with screamers in one area, drunk teenagers in another, and people sleeping in another. Overall, the protest could have been set up and designed to make a difference but it really wasn’t and that was its major flaw.

All in all, I have to say that the movement has both goods and bads but really the cons outweigh the pros. It is great that people are finally speaking up and saying that we are in a bad position and the people who have the power need to do something about it. At the same time the protest has created a voice for the people but been unsuccessful otherwise.