Occupy Protesters Were Right, Says Bank of England Official

The Telegraph, one of the UK’s more conservative daily newspapers, reports a senior Bank of England official of saying that the anti-capitalist Occupy protestors are both morally and intellectually right.

Andrew Haldane a member of the Bank’s financial policy committee in a speech entitled Socially Useful Banking given at an event in central London on October 28, 2012 said “Occupy has been successful in its efforts to popularise the problems of the global financial system for one very simple reason; they are right.”

“I do not just mean right in a moral sense,” he added.

“It is the analytical, every bit as much as the moral, ground that Occupy has taken. For the hard-headed facts suggest that, at the heart of the global financial crisis, were — and are — problems of deep and rising inequality.”

– Telegraph

“The asset-rich, in particular the owner-occupying rich, became a lot richer. Meanwhile, the asset-less and indebted fell further behind. In other words, the pre-crisis asset price bubble acted like a regressive tax,” he said.

– Guardian

“Occupy have touched a moral nerve in pointing to the growing inequities in the allocation of wealth and incomes globally. The 99 per cent certainly agrees. But so, more interestingly, do a high and rising share of the 1 per cent.”

– Financial Times

Read the Telegraph’s coverage here as well as that from the more progressive Guardian and the ‘objective’ Financial Times. The BBC coverage is here.

Try searching for any reporting of this speech on any of the U.S. newspaper sites. The Union-Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and New York Times. Good luck.
John Loughlin

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Point Loma Democratic Club of which he is a member.