Dear Commons Community,

On Friday, Mayor Bloomberg is quoted in the NY Times as stating that the Wall Street protesters are not productive and as “trying to destroy the jobs of working people in this city.”   With all due respect, I do not see it the same way.  The Occupy Wall Street movement is trying to bring attention to the fact that there are many people out of work and hurting in our city and in our country.   The federal government in catering to moneyed interests, found it necessary to bail out the financial services and banking industry to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars but has not done the same for the common  “Joe” or “Jane” who does not have a job, cannot pay the mortgage and has to go on food stamps to feed their children.  Furthermore, the CEOs of too many of our companies have now decided that rather than invest in America by hiring more workers, they will sit on their stashes of cash and wait at least until the next election to see if a president more friendly (i.e., Romney, Perry, Cain) to their economic interests is elected.  It is my opinion that a good part of the recession that we are in is manufactured by big business and their refusal to invest in America by hiring more workers.  So I would ask you Mr. Bloomberg when you next meet with your billionaire friends and fellow CEOs such as Gates, Murdoch, Scaife, and the Koch brothers, please ask them to use their wealth to hire more workers and to stop using it to control people’s lives.

Tony