Occupy Wall Street - the view from a "Wall Street Insider" at Big Business journal, FORBES

This commentary on the Wall Street protests from Gene Marcial is interesting primarily because it appeared on the Forbes magazine website. Forbes characterizes itself as "Information for the World's Business Leaders." Marcial wrote the "Inside Wall Street" column at Business Week for 28 years:

Surely, it’s time for the nation’s leaders to meet with the Occupy Wall Street protesters and publicly address their grievances. The country’s decision makers, most notably those in Congress, can’t simply watch idly by and wish them away, as they appear to be doing...

One of the major problems that most Americans feel is their utter sense of frustration and helplessness in the face of the mounting oppressive problems that the gasping economy and rudderless leadership in Congress have engendered. So this expanding public outcry shouldn’t be  surprising at all.

Those who want to minimize the Occupy Wall Street protesters, including New York City Mayor Bloomberg, aren’t convinced about what the protest is all about, or its relevance. But their message is clear.

“The message — and the solutions — should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered,” says The New York Times in an editorial on Sunday Oct. 9, 2011. “The problem is that nobody in Washington has been listening.”

At this point, protest is the message, notes The Times: “Income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people.”

Indeed, the huge number of young people enthusiastically participating in the protests reflect this disturbing prospect.

“On one level, the protesters most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity,” notes The Times.

One of the loudest message from the protesters is that the nation’s top leaders, especially those who have been elected to draft and pass helpful and sensible legislation to advance an economic recovery and provide gainful employment, have not been doing their job...