New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the press this week that he is listening to the complaints coming from the protesters involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement — he just happens to think that they’re dumb.
Speaking from a business breakfast event on Tuesday morning, Bloomberg let loose on the protesters, once again offering his support for the banking industry and instead saying that the detest should be directed towards Washington, not Wall Street."I hear your complaints," Bloomberg said yesterday. "Some of them are totally unfounded. It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp."Bloomberg, of course, has a net worth of nearly $20 billion. Forbes recently listed him as the twelfth richest person in the United States. Given that, I think it’s safe to say that he isn’t exactly a member of the 99 percent. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal earlier, Mayor Bloomberg said that he’d respect the protesters as long as they respect the law. Following a recent failed attempt to evict protesters at Zuccotti Park, Lower Manhattan’s central hub for the Occupy Wall Street movement, Bloomberg responded by outlawing generators at the demonstration on the eve of the city’s first snowfall of the year, forcing protesters to get creative with ways to keep warm. "The bottom line is – people want to express themselves. And as long as they obey the laws, we'll allow them to," said to the WSJ. "If they break the laws, then, we're going to do what we're supposed to do: enforce the laws."Despite his initiative, the park remains largely occupied and the movement has spread across the world. Responding to Bloomberg’s statement yesterday morning, former NYC Mayor Ed Koch offered his support to the 99 percent. According to The Associated Press, Koch told reporters that major corporate execs should be imprisoned for their role in the financial crisis, to which seemingly everyone but Bloomberg is still feeling the aftermath of.