Occupy Wall Street now occupying more of Wall Street

As hundreds milled about at Zuccotti Park today in Manhattan's Financial District, it became clear that Occupy Wall Street isn't just a young person's movement anymore. And it's gathering momentum. Retiree Colin Offenhartz, 68, today made the journey to New York City from Chappaqua, N.Y., to join crowds of youths in the protest that began Sept. 17. He and his friend Ed Ozols, 67, were a couple of the more seasoned participants in the this afternoon. “This is a crisis the banks built; they had fraudulent securities and sold short — and now they want taxpayers to bail them out,” said Mr. Offenhartz, a former owner of a manufacturing company in The Bronx. “You can't destroy the middle class to survive,” he added. The protest, now going on its third week, morphed from being a loosely tied movement to an organized group that has the support of major labor unions including the AFL-CIO, 1199 SEIU and the United Federation of Teachers. A list of “Demands for Congress” has also surfaced, calling for the passage of proposed bill HR 1489, the Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2011 — which would bring back some provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, as well as enactment of the so-called Buffett rule and the creation of a law that would bar former regulators from working for the companies they once had overseen. “Corporate America is undergoing a crisis of legitimacy,” said David Intrator, 55, founder of Strategic Documentaries, a New York-based communications firm. “I believe in more regulated capitalism, stricter regulation of Wall Street and the enforcement of laws.” But, he added, justice shouldn't mean that individuals working for financial services firms should be demonized. “I have friends at hedge funds,” Mr. Intrator added. A number of them support increased regulation of their industry, he said. Mr. Intrator's thoughts were different from those of other protesters, who were angry at investment banks for their pre-recession sale of foundering mortgage-backed securities while simultaneously making bets against them. “The bankers on Wall Street should be held accountable for selling ghost assets,” said participant Mary Topper, 21, of Asheville, N.C. She had been at the park since this Monday and had quit two part-time jobs to make the trip. Signs and slogans have voiced opposition to everything from bank foreclosures and corporate influence in politics, to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and insufficient job prospects. The coalition has the potential to become the “Tea Party of the Left” if the protesters can transform their disparate list of grievances into targeted policy prescriptions, said Brayden King, a professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management who's written on social and political movements. “They have to figure out what it is they are about in order to become the force of change in the Democratic Party like the Tea Party has been in the Republican Party,” Mr. King said by telephone from Evanston, Ill. “Without that, it will be hard for politicians to figure out how to position themselves without just saying: ‘We're mad, too.'” In fact, Ms. Topper said she has become skeptical of the movement's politics. “We first agreed that this was nonpolitical and that it was about holding Wall Street accountable, but now it turned into a liberal left movement,” she said. “I would've liked to see our judicial system work.” Most of the participants had their own brush with the prolonged economic downturn. “I've actually lost several near-fortunes during previous recessions; it's too risky to invest,” said Mr. Ozols, who said he's living on savings and Social Security. “I won't have enough to last me into retirement.” Kayla Mock, 28, an organizer with the United Food and Commercial Workers International, said: “My sister works in retail, making less than $10 an hour. A lot of my generation is struggling with debt and finding jobs. It used to be that you could go to school and get a good job.” This story was supplemented with reporting from Bloomberg News.