As of 8:30am this morning, there were about 100 people “occupying” the public park area outside One Liberty Plaza (Edit: It’s not public, but the owners gave permission, see comment below). The massive NYPD presence is ringing the area without much to do. It’s close to several food vendor trucks and is generally a nice spot to enjoy one’s lunch al fresco, though it’s rather cool and drizzly today, so I doubt they are displacing anyone. It kind of looks like the saddest Phil & Friends show ever.

Foot traffic by the NYSE is being heavily regulated by metal guide barriers, and people seem generally pissed that the trains which normally stop there are not running south of Fulton. Multiple entrances to most buildings have been closed off, and one must show a building ID to get inside. Interestingly, I did *not* see the standard SWAT cops with assault weapons scattered around. The visible NYPD presence is wearing regular cop uniforms.

All in all, there aren’t enough protesters to cause much more than a nuisance, but the city’s protective measures are certainly a pain in the ass to the people who work here. And FYI - we’re not all grossly overcompensated executives or traders.

Disclaimer: I fully support people’s right to peaceably assemble and protest whatever they want. I personally think that the “protest now, figure out our cause later… via Facebook” idea reeks of contrived populism with a dash of ironic “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” but I probably would have found the idea romantic in my high school days, too.

One reason I came to work in this industry - with my degrees in Political Science and Economics, and a specialization in International Relations with respect to developing economies - is because of a desire to understand the overwhelming complexity of the global financial/political ecosystem, and to act to make that system a more compassionate one when possible. In my years on The Street I’ve taken a variety of steps to make my small universe of influence accountable to a resonable ethical standard, and beyond that I’ve selfishly absorbed as much information as possible about why the status quo is what it is.

I’m of the opinion that committing one’s life to understanding this shit is hard; sleeping on the street for a while is not only easy, but creates the appearance of an adversarial “outsider” citizenry that is not a critical (and often willing) participant in the system itself. I have no further intention of explaining or defending my admittedly jaded view of the Occupy Wall Street folks.