Why am I not surprised that many downtrodden Occupy Wall Street protesters actually come from quite luxurious backgrounds?
The Daily Caller obtained arrest information–which includes home addresses–on the 984 New York City Occupiers arrested between September 18 and October 15 and concluded:
Among addresses for which information is available, single-family homes listed on those police intake forms have a median value of $305,000 — a far higher number than the $185,400 median value of owner-occupied housing units in the United States.
Some of the homes where “Occupy” arrestees reside, viewed through Google Maps and the Multiple Listing Service real estate database, are the definition of opulence.
Using county assessors and online resources such as Zillow.com, TheDC estimated property values and rents for 87 percent of the homes and 59 percent of the apartments listed in the arrest records.
Even in the nation’s currently depressed housing market, at least 95 of the protesters’ residences are worth approximately $500,000 or more. (RELATED SLIDESHOW: Opulent homes of the ’99 percent’)
The median monthly rent for those living in apartments whose information is readily available is $1,850.
A U.K. Daily Mail article reported that many protesters inadvertently have shown their roots by forgetfully flashing wads of cash or making “absent minded mention of their private schools.”
Holden Caulfield had a word for people like these: phony.
Bruce Thornton, who taught at a college for 30 years, has another word: ignorant.
This lack of critical understanding and ignorance of simple fact characterize the main theme of the protests, that the wealthy “1%” of Americans have gamed the system to enrich themselves at the expense of everybody else, an analysis redolent of Scrooge McDuck cartoons or Frank Capra’s portrait of Old Man Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. But these caricatures are woefully uninformed about how a global, free market economy works.
What is more disturbing is that some people who should be behaving like adults—that would be President Obama and Rep. Pelosi—are making common cause with these spoiled brats.