Here Are The Four Charts That Explain What The Protesters Are Angry About...

Earlier this week, we published a chart-essay that illustrates the extreme inequality that has developed in the US economy over the past 30 years.

The charts explain what the Wall Street protesters are angry about. They also explain why the protesters' message is resonating with the country at large.

Here are the four key points:

1. Unemployment is at the highest level since the Great Depression (with the exception of a brief blip in the early 1980s).

2. At the same time, corporate profits are at an all-time high, both in absolute dollars and as a share of the economy.

3. Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low. In other words, corporate profits are at an all-time high, in part, because corporations are paying less of their revenue to employees than they ever have. There are lots of reasons for this, many of which are not the fault of the corporations. (It's a global economy now, and 2-3 billion new low-cost employees in China, India, et al, have recently entered the global workforce. This is putting pressure on wages the world over.)

4. Income and wealth inequality in the US economy is near an all-time high: The owners of the country's assets (capital) are winning, everyone else (labor) is losing.

Three charts illustrate this:

The top earners are capturing a higher share of the national income than they have anytime since the 1920s:

CEO pay and corporate profits have skyrocketed in the past 20 years, "production worker" pay has risen 4%.

After adjusting for inflation, average earnings haven't increased in 50 years.

It's worth noting that the US has been in a similar situation before: At the end of the "Roaring '20s," just before the start of the Great Depression. (See some of the charts above).

It took the country 15-20 years to pull out of that slump and fix the imbalances. But by the mid-1950s, employment, corporate profits, wages, and inequality had all returned to more normal levels. And the country enjoyed a couple of decades of relatively well-balanced prosperity. But now, everything's out of whack again.

Importantly, the inequality that has developed in the economy over the past couple of decades is not just a moral issue. It's a practical one. It is, as sociologists might say, "de-stabilizing." It leads directly to the sort of social unrest that we're seeing right now.

SEE ALSO: CHARTS: Here's What The Protesters Are So Angry About...

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Dear Upper East Siders, Here's What The Protesters Are Chanting Outside Your House

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The non-violent Occupy Wall Street protests taking place in Manhattan's Financial District are currently marching through the Upper East Side.

They're calling it the "NYC Billionaires Walking Tour."

The protesters are expected to visit the homes of hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and JPMorgan's chief executive Jamie Dimon.

Now what was once a small group of college age kids camping out in Zuccotti Park has swelled to a massive movement with copycat versions popping up in cities nationwide. 

As a result, the marches are no longer just a couple hundred, but thousands with their chants and cheers resounding and they're all over the Upper East Side today.

Speaking of their chants and cheers, they're extremely catchy. 

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BILL GROSS: The Occupy Wall Street Protesters Are Just Fighting Back After "30 Years Of Being Shot At'

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One of the richest, biggest investors around seems to be 100% on the side of the Occupy Wall Street Protesters.

Just tweeted by PIMCO:

Gross: Class warfare by the 99%? Of course, they’re fighting back after 30 years of being shot at.

30 years of being shot at?

It sounds like he's basically saying it started with Reagan, though actually labor's share of the national income has been declining for about 40 years.

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Matt Taibbi Lists The 5 Things The Occupy Wall Street Protesters Should Demand

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The man who called Goldman Sachs a "great vampire squid" has some advice for Occupy Wall Street.

Not that he doesn't think they're doing things well. In fact, he thinks the logic behind the protester's lack of demands is ingenious.

But if they were to figure out their specific demands. Here's where he, per his article in Rolling Stone today, thinks they should start:

1. Break up the monopolies. He's talking about the 20 or so "too big to fail" companies in our country that could single-handedly take down our economy.

2. Pay for your own bailouts. "A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about..."

3. No public money for private lobbying. Pretty self-explanatory.

4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers. Right now, because of the carried-interest tax break, they're only paying about 15%.

5. Change the way bankers get paid. Bonuses shouldn't be paid up-front. They should be contingent upon performance. 

Actually, the groups coalescing around the Occupy Wall Street movement have started to mention demands, though they aren't official. Here's a video of the pep talk they had before yesterdays Millionaires March. They specifically mention keeping the New York State Millionaires tax alive and well:

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LIVE: Watch As Protesters Go Up To The Homes Of Rich New Yorkers

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The Occupy Wall Streeters are currently marching on a "NYC Billionaires Walking Tour" in the Upper East Side.

Some of their destinations include billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson's home as well as media mogul Rupert Murdoch's home.

JPMorgan's chief Jamie Dimon's home is also on the tour.

Here's their live stream [via Global Revolution]

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John Paulson Has A Message For The Protesters

John Paulson commented on the Occupy Wall Street protests today.

Paulson's message for the protesters: "Don't vilify our most successful businesses."

At the same time of his call to investors to discuss redemptions and the future of his hedge fund on Tuesday, protesters marched to the Upper East Side to tour the homes of rich people.

As the movement spreads, many on Wall Street are starting to speak out against the protesters. Some argue they've accomplished nothing. A poignant moment occurred when a trader in Chicago said that the protesters are arguing for the same things that got us into this mess in the first place, while some men dressed like Robin Hood protested nearby. Traders in Chicago proudly put a sign in their windows saying, "We are the 1%."

Finally, someone big on Wall Street said what many are thinking.

UPDATE at 3:10: The protesters are said to be marching to John Paulson's house now. 

The full statement from Paulson & Co:

“The top 1% of New Yorkers pay over 40% of all income taxes, providing huge benefits to everyone in our city and state. Paulson & Co. and its employees have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in New York City and New York State taxes in recent years and have created over 100 high paying jobs in New York City since its formation.

New York currently has the highest income taxes of any state in the country and thousands of businesses have fled New York to states with no income taxes such as Florida, Texas and Nevada, or moved offshore.

Instead of vilifying our most successful businesses, we should be supporting them and encouraging them to remain in New York City and continue to grow.”

CNBC just tweeted, "Paulson & Co. Answers Occupy Wall Street March - Paulson & Co.: Don't Vilify Our Most Successful Businesses."

Don't miss: this 30-second exchange explains what the protesters want and what Wall Street's response to that is >

Who's in the 1%? Click here to see the Richest Billionaire hedge fund managers >

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Will These Two Videos Absolve The Arrested Brooklyn Bridge Protesters?

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Last night we reported on the 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters who got arrested for marching on and obstructing the Brooklyn Bridge.

Some have apparently claimed entrapment by the police (who encouraged them to walk on the road), but the people we talked to last night mostly suggested that the police merely stood by and watched, not encouraging them, but not stopping them either.

So far we've seen no evidence of police actually encouraging protesters to go on the road, but there are videos that show police walking in front of the protesters, as they go up onto the road.

This isn't the same as encouraging them to go on the road, but on the other hand, you could see why people in a crowd would think that going on a bridge is kosher if the police are calmly walking in front of the crowd as they go up the road.

Here are two videos. The first, via Andrew Krucoff, is very short and shows the police clearly leading the way at the very start of the protesters entering the bridge.

The second video is longer, and doesn't show the moment of entry, but goes a little further in terms of the police walking in front of the protesters.

Anyway, we're curious your take. This doesn't look like entrapment to us, but it seems that if the police were going to throw a net around 700 protesters once they got to the middle, there's little reason for the police to be at the front of the pack entering the bridge.

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