Monday, July 07, 2008

Ben's Noisy Lunch Hour

On March 26, after a crowd took over the lobby of the Bear Stearns building to protest the Fed's involvement in the deal with JP Morgan, I wrote: "Eventually those protesters might wonder why they're picketing in the lobbies of investment banks instead of outside Federal Reserve buildings."

This past weekend, a reader emailed me some photos of a protest at the Federal Reserve on June 27 (sample below, the rest here). If the Fed continues on its present course and/or more people start to associate the rising cost of living with monetary policy, the next real estate bubble will be in free space on that sidewalk.



















19 Comments:

Blogger Tony said...

Those protesters are sporting too many smiles and too few pitchforks... but I commend the sentiment and it's much more than I did.

7/07/2008 12:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Woohoo! We need more of this. Wonder if there was any MSM coverage? (as if...)

7/07/2008 1:35 AM  
Blogger Ritholtz said...

Awesome!

7/07/2008 5:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

One quick approximation to tell whether the protesters have a point or not, is the amount of police attention they receive... is the Fed taking a page from George Bush and enforcing a "designated protest zone" somewhere, ohhh, two or three miles away?

7/07/2008 11:40 AM  
Blogger Jimmy the Saint said...

Did any of the protestors say what the police wanted? I agree though, this is awesome. If only more people would gather in front of The Fed.

7/07/2008 12:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If I was still living in DC I would joint that erudite, sophisticated cabal...Good work gang!

7/07/2008 4:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

haha...great stuff. I don't think our masters have anything to fear though. So...a handful of people who actually are informed enough to understand do a bit of protesting. 90 percent of Americans haven't got the slightest clue what those signs mean. Good for them though. Maybe some of those evil fools saw the signs and felt a bit embarrased.

7/07/2008 4:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Goldhorder, evil fools, by defintion, cannot be embarrassed.

They probably laughed.

Then took down their names and license plate numbers.

7/07/2008 5:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It looks to me as if the police are reading the handouts. They seem interested.

7/07/2008 6:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

(Read with heavy Russian accent.)

Where are these Pinkertons when you need them?

Profits need protection from the proletariat.

Most of these protestors appear to be Academician. They must be on lunch break from the University.

Lennon's ghost! If any passers by were actually intelligent enough to understand these signs we'd be in trouble!

Lucky for us we have public education to combat 2 and 3 syllable words.

Rest easy friends our Plutocracy remains in good hands.

7/07/2008 6:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

God dammed economist hippies

7/07/2008 8:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Patriotic Americans!

7/07/2008 8:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The protesters demeanor is awesome. Smile, be polite and approachable, and it's much easier to engage the public.

Also, many of the messages are simple to understand, even for the uninitiated or uninformed.

"Ben reduced by 325 points and all I got was this lousy food and energy inflation" LOL.

Great job and I hope more people participate in the future. It's a great way to inform and educate the public as to what's really going on, since the media refuses to do so.

Thankyou Ticker Forum group! Thankyou!

7/07/2008 8:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

They have some GREAT points. God bless them for taking action.

From Fed Up USA web site:

The Fed and our elected officials should be forced to stop the following immediately:

1. Bailing out financial institutions, homebuilders, and homeowners with taxpayer guarantees

2. Exchanging liquid treasury paper for unmarketable mortgage debt

3. Witholding information about the unmarketable debt from taxpayers

4. Forcing taxpayers to pay for losses on the unmarketable debt

5. Failing to hold accountable those who committed fraud

6. Feigning transparency. As promised by Fed, Treasury, Congress and SEC during hearings, start telling taxpayers the truth instead of taking advantage of them.

If I wrote my Representative, I'd get a form letter with BS. And then for the rest of the year I'd get a letter every month asking for money. Even though they did nothing to address the problem in a productive manner for the majority of the people.

7/08/2008 1:18 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gorgeous!

7/08/2008 10:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

People who do evil don't see themselves as evil. They are just doing what is "necessary" to protect our "institutions". They know what they are doing is not in the interests of most American people but they see themselves as above us riff raff. They don't think us riff raff would even notice. That is why they would be embarassed. A few of us noticed.

7/09/2008 2:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Looks like some of the rest of the world are protesting too. Read Intro "the unsustainable has run its course" here http://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2008e.htm Surprisingly frank comments.

7/09/2008 10:38 AM  
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