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Weekly Wrap: Free trade agreements, Occupy protesters

Marketplace Staff Oct 14, 2011
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Weekly Wrap: Free trade agreements, Occupy protesters

Marketplace Staff Oct 14, 2011
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Kai Ryssdal talks to Marketplace’s Heidi Moore and Lizzie O’Leary from Bloomberg News about the jobs bill, the trade agreements and protesters from Occupy Wall Street.

On when politicians might begin to give attention to Occupy Wall Street:

Lizzie O’Leary: Oh, I think they’re already paying attention. In part because the media is, and in part because many of the media who are are trying to cast Occupy Wall Street as an inverse of the Tea Party. I don’t happen to think that’s entirely accurate — I get the narrative and I think that Democrats have to do with it. And the vice president talked about it.

On what the people are saying:

Heidi Moore: It’s interesting because you’ve heard this idea: we are the 1 percent, we are the 99 percent. And I think it’s just the 100 percent, from what I’ve heard, because as I’ve been talking to people in the punitive 1 percent — bankers, investment bankers who make millions of dollars — they all sympathasize with some aspect of what Occupy Wall Street is saying. They understand wealth inequality — they came from the middle class, most of them. And so what you see here is a rift between the middle class that made it and the middle class that didn’t. And there used to be class mobility and obviously the recession has just robbed us all of that.

For more analysis, click on “Listen to this story” at the top of the page.

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