Occupy Wall Street Might Be 'Turning Point'

Paul Krugman today gets squarely behind Occupy Wall Street, which "is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point," he writes in the New York Times. Wall Street's bankers deserve the anger being directed their way, and the protests are a necessary reminder of that. Yes, the protesters are short on specific policy goals, but "it’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details."

Krugman suggests two: debt relief for working Americans and infrastructure investment to create jobs. "Neither proposal is going to become law in the current political climate, but the whole point of the protests is to change that political climate," he writes. President Obama and Democrats have a rare chance here to win back disillusioned supporters, and they better take these protests seriously, he advises. "And if the protests goad some politicians into doing what they should have been doing all along, Occupy Wall Street will have been a smashing success." Full column here. (More Occupy Wall Street stories.)