Time for Wall Street to protest.SFGate published a piece titled "Oakland council leans toward ending Occupy camp," where it explains a contentious Oakland City Council meeting where occupiers that attended screamed down city officials when they did not like what those officials were saying (so much for free speech huh?), but it was in the middle of page one where the damage done to the city from the OccupyOakland occupiers can be seen.
Quan did not say whether she will seek an end to the camp, but she said that about half the businesses in downtown feel the camp had been doing "a lot worse."
She also said she was disappointed that some people at the meeting mocked Joe Haraburda, president of the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, who told the council the camp should be closed because it is hurting businesses.
Since the encampment started, two businesses have pulled out of a total of 50,000 square feet of commercial office space downtown, and another company with 100 employees decided not to open an office, Haraburda had told the council.
"The situation we find ourselves in is absolutely unacceptable," said Haraburda, who was heckled loudly by camp supporters. "We want the Occupy Oakland (camp) closed."
In a city with a high unemployment rate, Quan said, "Losing 3- to-400 jobs ... is pretty painful."
Quan said she also received a letter from the CEO of a company in Oakland that had 500 employees. The CEO, whom she did not identify, said that the protests that seem to disrupt businesses twice a year might prompt him to leave.
This is what businesses must do in order to force city officials to understand the damage that will be done to the city itself, not from occupiers rioting as they did a couple days ago, starting fires, vandalizing businesses, shattering their windows, spray painting buildings and shutting down their port, but by forcing businesses to choose to move their locations in order to guarantee the safety of their workers and the continued ability to conduct their business.
If businesses across the country start moving from the occupied cities and move to locations where their businesses are not hampered by lawlessness, then corrupt officials, Mayors, Governors and politicians in that city, that allow those violating the law to occupy areas illegally, will start to feel the pressure as their unemployment rates start to soar, as their streets fill up with empty offices and storefronts and as the neighborhoods deteriorate and property values plummet.
Wall Street can and should fight back as some are already starting to do, not by protesting or dropping leaflets, not by dropping applications for McDonalds on occupiers' heads,not by complaining to corrupt city officials, but instead by doing up their cost benefit ratio numbers and deciding their businesses would be better off if located elsewhere.
That is a protest that would hit these city officials in occupied territories right where it counts..... revenues.
It is Wall Street that needs to protest now.
You can find all WuA's Occupier antics posts at the class warfare label page here.
(Additions and corrections were made to this post for clarity)
