Unoccupied New Orleans

The sign pictured below was displayed at the Occupy Wall Street site in New York City a few days ago.  It is a very good sign for those of us who are Krugman readers, and agree with his point of view regarding the economic and political problems we face today.  Krugman is a Nobel laureate economist who writes a column for The New York Times.  He also writes a daily blog which can be followed by simply clicking his name in the list of Links on the lower right hand side of this page.

But it is a good sign for an even larger reason.  It indicates a growing recognition of the need to make specific arguments and demands.  Otherwise, this movement will have no hope of helping facilitate the implementation of stimulative economic policies which can get people back to work and pick up this flat-lined economy, or of taming and regulating the out-of-control, greed-ridden financial structure on Wall Street, and in the banking system.  Leaving a vacancy in the essential role which leadership must play in any successful social movement is not an option.

This is a realization which the Occupy New Orleans activists sooner or later must fully take on board, and grow past their currently nebulous, if noisy, undirected clammor for a cure of our economic and political ailments, while not developing or enunciating prescriptions for a course of treatment.