Occupy Wall Street

Recently, people gathered in Wall Street see that the country’s economy is collapsing, that ordinary Americans are suffering badly, and the government is doing little except help the handful of giant corporations based on Wall Street. The people in the street want the government spend as much money and effort to help the average American as Wall Street.

In America, entrepreneurialism is highly valued and the opportunity of upward mobility is huge. Most people believe that it makes U.S. became the world’s most powerful economy, so the bankers, the key roles in capitalism who allocate capitals and provide the funds to entrepreneurs got exorbitant salaries.

However, in nowadays America, the rich are very rich and millions of Americans are losing everything that they have. Further, people are becoming poorer because of the actions took by the bankers on Wall Street. They have been making wild and irresponsible investments in financial markets and funding the factories to move overseas, leaving thousands of people out of work.Income disparity in America is quite large but it has been large for quite some time. In fact, I’m quite surprised seeing so many people gathering in Wall Street. To realize how severe the condition in America is, I watched a movie called “Capitalism: A Love Story” last Friday. In the film, it seems that something has changed in America and it is neither income inequity nor petty class envy or jealously, it is about survival. Millions of Americans are losing their livelihoods, the homes, and their futures.

Occupy Wall Street movement causes a series of discussion on capitalism, income disparity, and uses of derivatives around world. Last Saturday, there is also an activity called "Occupy Taipei" held by several people at Taipei 101. According to some of video clips from the reporters, I saw people marching and singing “International Song” in Taipei 101, giving speeches about unpaid overtime, long working hours, 99% of people not having enough to get by, tax rates, living standards, the Taiwanese pension being too low, etc. on the stage. As a solidarity protest alongside occupying Wall Street in the US, Occupy Taipei sought to be a peacefully protest in Taiwan.

Although some people criticized the occupying movement around world has no concrete demand toward the government, I think it is quite good that people start to realize that they have the power and the system of capitalism should be reconsider. Occupy Wall Street movement is not only American’s business, as a citizen of a capitalism country, we should concern it. What is happening in America is also likely to happen in Taiwan. I hope every hard-working worker in the world, no matter which class he belongs to, can enjoy the wages he deserve to earn.