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Economy

Why Wall St. Does Not Care About Protests

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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People who think investment bankers make too much money have converged on Wall St. to protest that executives there earn millions and they do not. Bankers who barely survived the credit crisis and the government investigations that followed do not care about meek protestors. The worst of what shattered their banker’s world is a year or two behind them. So a ragtag army of disaffected people now will not even cause the millionaires in tall office buildings to look up from the piles of money on their desks.

The Wall St. protests are a great example of people who pick the wrong place to gather. The head of MoveOn.org, Justin Ruben, told the AP, “From our perspective, we’re protesting kind of the greed that led to the collapse of our economy. The fact that these banks aren’t paying their fair share.” It would be hard for historians to find a time when bankers were taxed at a rate that would satisfy the desires of the average American, who makes only about $50,000 a year.

It is Washington who will have to do something to make the very wealthy pay a great deal more, their “fair share,” if anyone can. Protestors would be better off in front of the White House or the Capitol. The protestors could at least threaten to vote for new representation. What bankers make or pay in taxes is not effected at all by the views of the average American.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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