Ex-Wall Streeter feels solidarity with 'Occupy' forces

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Recent debates about the debt ceiling, budgets, austerity and tax cuts have brought to sharp focus the very questions of what role and responsibilities corporations have for the societies they operate in and garner their profits from.

Many across the country and indeed the world have witnessed an economy that is constantly teetering right on the brink, with many doomsday catastrophic scenarios being constantly thrown about leaving many feeling vulnerable.

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In many ways many feel that the country was held hostage by Wall Street and while many begrudgingly accepted that it was possible that Wall Street had to be bailed out that first time, the continued insecurity leaves many feeling extremely angry at the industry they feel is holding a gun to their head demanding a ransom of continuing help or risk the whole economy.

To add insult to injury there were reports right across the media about 2010 being a year of record bonuses, all while the hugely unpopular Bush tax cuts that heavily favor the very wealthy were extended benefiting those in this same industry, other major corporations and the very wealthy.

People have remained extremely politically engaged since the 2008 election when I feel Barack Obama wakened the civic mind of perhaps far more people than in any recent election.

The result of this has been the fact that people remained engaged in the political process and as such many in the public have been able to tie the cuts demanded by the GOP and Tea Party and the excessive, expensive tax cuts that amount to a raid on the treasury, leading to cuts in the social safety net and government jobs — teachers, firefighters, police and many civilian government workers adding to the economic insecurity.

As an African, my sensibilities have always been very much attuned to the need for greater equality and greater access to opportunity for all, and a need to level the playing field in particular for racial minorities in America including African-Americans, Latinos and Native Americans.

Having worked on and off on contracting for various firms on Wall Street over the last 10 years, I was recently laid off from my last role about two weeks ago on the 30th of Sept 2011, and given my sensibilities, it was only natural that I should participate in whatever way I could to support the Occupy Wall Street movement, which with its very clear and concise message of a need to level the playing field that is currently too heavily skewed in favor of the highest income earners.The way I got involved was by just coming down to the now renamed “Liberty Park”, asking how I could help, and being told to just jump on board and start helping. I learned about how the park was organized into working groups whose role was to provide specific needed services such as the kitchen for food, media for the creation and distribution of media, Press and PR, People of Color etc.

I signed up to a few working groups and got involved right away attending meetings for the Press and PR group as well as the People of Color group which are the two groups I have now settled in working on.

Press and PR of course involves talking to the media and one of the questions that has come up time and again has been the question of whether I felt conflicted about having worked on Wall Street and now helping in the movement, and the simple answer is an unequivocal no.

As I previously mentioned my values have always been deeply anchored in a need for equality of access to opportunity for all in education, health care and economic participation. An ideal situation in my view would be one where everyone could be paid as much as Wall Street bankers but as long as that remains unfeasible, I do believe that higher taxes including windfall taxes on excessive profits such as those of the energy industry and bonuses across industries would be a good beginning particularly in this environment where low taxes have so directly led to great insecurity in the very social safety net that was created under FDR to help specifically at times such as these.

I am personally of the view that the protests against Wall Street are primarily aimed at all major corporations and not necessarily at least the majority of individuals that work in these industries who include many like myself who are on and off contractors with great job insecurity as evidenced by my recent lay off.

As such, I believe that what the movement is protesting is an existing economic & political system too closely married, prioritizing the profit interests of the wealthiest corporations to the detriment of the very majorities whose taxes helped bail out and continue to subsidize tax cuts to this and other industries.

In fact, I would argue that the industry in its lobbying and push for endless tax cuts, and special treatment and exemptions from regulation, renders itself a disservice in several ways including costing itself customers when every day working people are unable to invest and further at great reputational risk to the industry.