Who is This Monster They Call Wall Street? We Are. We Might Even Be Your Neighbor

COMMENTARY | Wall Street. The monster the protestors love to hate. I still can’t understand its logic. Maybe, Marybeth Hicks of the Washington Times asks in her “Occupy Reality” piece, “Who parented these people?” is right. It’s about entitlement. I get the feeling that the infamous Gordon Gekko of the Hollywood blockbuster “Wall Street” is being mistaken for documentary material. I wonder if these protestors really know anything real about their target. Who is this “Wall Street” they speak of, so reviled, disparaged and occupied these days?

Well, I’d like to introduce my family. I’m not ashamed to say we are Wall Street. We are not monsters and (gasp), we may not be that different from the protesters, just older and more experienced.

Let me clarify. We graduated from college in 1991, in the middle of a recession caused by the Persian Gulf War and inflation. Few in our class had promising job offers. Applications to law school and medical school soared as people hoped graduate school would help them wait out the economic drought of the time.

Job interviews invariably worked in a typing test. Speed, not your degree equaled a paycheck. Temp jobs and long hours at copy machines were personal purgatories to many. We envied people who had graduated only a few years before with prestigious, higher paying jobs, but we had bills to pay and worked hard at our crappy jobs, (mine at a law firm and his in accounting). It was frustrating and a serious struggle for financial security.

Fast-forward 20 years. The months each year my kids never saw their father during tax season, my graduate school tuition, the credit card bills and life stress took its toll. Finally, we bought our own home and along with it came the stress of a mortgage, taxes and car payments. Now, he’s an employer, with four other partners within the finance industry. They employ ten people who work hard to support their families. Forty people, including children, rely on the success of this business. So we’re being criticized for achieving the American Dream?

We all know the few newsworthy greed driven crooks and companies who have become household names. The Wall Street I know consists of mostly hardworking people. Some are richer, some poorer and media hype aside most do not own private yachts. If they do, then I say bravo. Are some of them wildly successful like our favorite athletes and entertainers? Yes, and because of that success they can often be found on the boards of major philanthropic organizations trying to better the world for their children and all of us.

I’d like to wager a bet that in another 20 years, when the rallying cry has died down and everyone grows up, some of these protestors will be the 1 percent. It could happen. I wonder how they’ll feel then, when their name is on the tax bill and someone tells them they don’t deserve their success.


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