Spitzer praises protests, suggests aim

One of the reason mainstream Democratic politicians are skeptical of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations is that they don't have any clear demands, or rather that their demands are something along the lines of world revolution.

One answer to this from the left is that the Tea Party didn't have a legislative agenda either. Another, from former Wall Street occupier Eliot Spitzer to Keith Olbermann earlier this week, was to suggest one: The stock transfer tax.

There are so many benefits to imposing [the stock transfer] tax. One, it generates a lot of revenue that we need for a jobs program, education, all the other things. Two, it would stop some of the high-speed trading that serves no good public purpose. Computer-driven trading, which is — according to some estimates — half to two-thirds of the volume, it’s all Goldman trading to Bank of America, buying it back. It does nothing for society, and yet, it is what is driving the market and the volatility, hurting the real investors like you and me or hundreds of thousands — millions of others. Taxing that would be good for the market on top of everything else.

A bit hard to imagine a focus on a policy that specific, or a chant about the transfer tax, perhaps. Spitzer was also enthusiastic about the protests:

This is organic, it is genuine, it is amassing more and more support day by day. It has touched a nerve and I think this could really begin to say to the Obama administration “Hey, you don’t understand what we, the public, are saying to you.” He’s off there — you know, he has been so flat on this issue of Wall Street and the economy. Maybe this will finally push the president to speak with a new, more aggressive, dynamic voice.