NYC residents complain about 'Occupy' protesters (AP)

NEW YORK – New Yorkers who live near the park where anti-Wall Street protesters have been camping out for more than a month are complaining that their quality of life has declined.

At a two-hour meeting Thursday night, some neighbors said protesters urinated in the streets and beat drums in the middle of the night.

"They're defecating on our doorsteps," said Catherine Hughes, a member of the area's community board, a representative panel that helps funnel local concerns to city officials.

Some neighbors who attended the packed meeting called for the protesters to vacate Zuccotti Park, the plaza where protesters have set up their base camp.

But the board voted unanimously for a resolution that recognized the protesters' First Amendment rights while calling for a crackdown on noise and public urination and defecation.

Three local elected officials praised the resolution in a statement Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and state Sen. Daniel Squadron called the community board's resolution "an attempt to establish a sensible framework that respects the protesters' fundamental rights while addressing the very real quality of life concerns for residents and businesses around Zuccotti Park."

Asked about Occupy Wall Street on WOR Radio on Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the protesters' leaderless structure has made it difficult to negotiate with them.

"It's a little bit complicated by there's nobody to work it out with," Bloomberg said. "You know, there just is not any one group, one ideology, one objective, one person to negotiate with."

Occupy Wall Street spokesman Han Shan, who has served as a liaison between protesters and local elected officials, agreed the protesters needed to be better neighbors.

Shan said Friday that there are ongoing discussions about the drumming, which is officially confined to noon to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

One of the drummers, Jackson Leverette, questioned why neighbors would single out the drumming when the plaza, directly across the street from the World Trade Center site, is already noisy.

"When the construction workers are out there it actually drowns out the drums," he said.

The community board also said it opposed the use of force by police or the park's owners to address their concerns.

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Fed debate about more easing heats up (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Two top Federal Reserve officials are arguing the U.S. central bank should consider resuming controversial large-scale mortgage bond purchases to support a fragile economic recovery.

In his first speech explicitly on the economic outlook since joining the Fed in 2009, Fed Governor Tarullo on Thursday said there was "ample room" for policymakers to do more. Tarullo said mortgage bond purchases should be on the table, a sentiment echoed by Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

Tarullo and Rosengren's comments mark the first public discussion of the possibility of more mortgage bond purchases, which were a controversial part of the first round of quantitative easing in 2009.

Other Fed officials said on Thursday the Fed's current policy stance is appropriate.

For his part, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard told reporters that with recent economic data looking better, "monetary policy is appropriately calibrated for this situation." Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto also said Fed policy actions were "appropriate."

The remarks suggest a growing debate among Fed officials about how aggressively to support an economy that is not growing quickly enough to make a significant dent in an unemployment rate hovering around 9 percent.

Pianalto described the economic recovery as "painfully" slow and unlikely to gather pace soon, while Tarullo likened it to a "slogging through the mud and occasionally hitting stretches of dry pavement."

"There is need, and ample room, for additional measures to increase aggregate demand in the near to medium term, particularly in light of the limited upside risks to inflation over the medium term," said Tarullo, who as a Fed Governor has a permanent vote on monetary policy.

ONGOING HOUSING PROBLEMS

Because the ongoing housing problems are so central to the recession and the anemic nature of the subsequent expansion, the Fed should refocus its efforts on housing, Tarullo said.

"I believe we should move back up toward the top of the list of options the large-scale purchase of additional mortgage-backed securities," he added. The Fed bought $1.25 trillion worth of mortgage-related debt, starting in 2009.

Given the controversial nature of mortgage bond purchases -- some Fed officials criticize them as propping up a specific sector of the economy. JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli said he did not expect the Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee to adopt this option anytime soon.

"Nonetheless, Tarullo's speech does show that there is a relatively-silent faction on the FOMC that favors continued action to get the economy to grow faster," he wrote in a note to clients.

"A faltering in growth or a decline in inflation could further embolden this faction."

Tarullo said the effectiveness of an MBS purchase program could be improved by further action to help borrowers whose mortgages are worth more than their homes.

He suggested a government program that helps borrowers whose loans are backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which could be adjusted, but also said steps could be taken to help underwater borrowers whose loans are not guaranteed by the two government-controlled firms.

"Policy changes directed at this last, larger group of homeowners would have to be carefully designed so as not to transfer credit risk from private investors to the government, and could well require legislation," he said.

The Obama administration and the regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are expected to unveil new steps to help distressed homeowners in the next week or two, a senior congressional aide said on Thursday.

WAIT AND SEE

Bullard, who like Pianalto, does not have a vote on monetary policy this year, said the Fed should wait and see how policies it has put in place, including a recent decision to replace shorter-term securities it holds with longer-term ones, affect the economy before taking any further actions.

"Given that the tone of the data has been better in the last six weeks ... then I think you probably want to get into next year before you start thinking about what you do on top of Operation Twist," he said.

The Fed at its September meeting said it will replace $400 billion of short-term securities on its portfolio with longer term ones to push longer-term interest rates lower -- which is known as Operation Twist. It will also replenish its holdings of mortgage-related debt to support the depressed housing market. Tarullo said Operation Twist, while helpful, was "by definition limited".

Operation Twist was the latest in a long series of extraordinary steps to boost growth through a financial panic and deep contraction. The Fed cut rates to near zero almost three years ago and announced in August rates would likely stay that low through the middle of 2013. The central bank has also bought $2.3 trillion in securities to encourage borrowing.

Another Fed official, Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota said unemployment, which he described as "disturbingly high" now, would have been higher without the actions the Fed has taken.

(Additional reporting by Mark Felsenthal in St. Louis, Pedro da Costa in Washington, Larry Vellequette in Toledo, Ohio, David Bailey in Minneapolis and Ann Saphir in Chicago; editing by Bob Burgdorfer, Bernard Orr)

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56 Percent: The Most Troubling Number About Occupy Wall Street (ContributorNetwork)

A recent poll has shown that far more people are in agreement with the Occupy Wall Street movement than are opposed to it, even though it remains, going into its fourth week on October 14, a vaguely unfocused and amorphous demonstration against a number of things wrong with America and its government. In fact, according to the Time poll, the protest movement has a favorable rating of 54 percent (as opposed to a 23 percent unfavorable rating). However, even though a majority of Americans agree with those holding signs saying "We Are The 99%" and many of its positions -- such as prosecuting corporate executives responsible for the financial meltdown and raising taxes on millionaires -- 56 percent of the poll's respondents said they believe that the demonstrations will have little impact on American politics in general.

In short, most believe that, although the movement is viewed primarily as a positive entity, its impact will be marginal at best. The government -- and Wall Street -- will continue unabated, as it were. As they were.

That should be even more reason for those who are part of the 99 percent -- ostensibly, those whose income is less than a million dollars per year and the greater part of Occupy Wall Street -- to stand with those that are already demonstrating. The status quo remains static due to inaction and continued silence, and a populist movement is only as powerful as the sum of its individual components and their message. The organizers of Occupy Wall Street are fully aware of this -- as are their opposers.

Since its inception in late September, Occupy Wall Street has grown from a small protest in New York to a nationwide movement, with other "Occupy" protests springing up from Boston to Dallas, Tampa to San Francisco. And as the movement's message of being fed up with government inactivity that favors the rich and powerful, a stagnant economy with a limited jobs market, and a top-down economic system that has exaggerated the gap between the haves and the have-nots over the past couple decades, resonated with more and more individuals, the idea has developed to take the message global on October 15.

At the same time, most corporate controlled media ignored the small protest at first, but as the number of protesters grew (as did their list of grievances) and the demonstrations spread across the country, not only did major media begin covering their individual and collective stories, but those opposed to their message began to sound off as well. Fox News Channel, which had been instrumental in the national organization and rapid dissemination of the (so-called grassroots) tea party's conservative message, painted Occupy Wall Street as a disorganized bunch of anti-capitalists and author Ann Coulter compared them to "Nazis." Rush Limbaugh called them "commies," a White House-driven liberal conspiracy. Even Eric Cantor, Republican House Majority Leader, echoed the Fox New charge and called the protesters a "mob."

Needless to say, Fox News (whose shows are produced, owned, and operated by millionaires) and Limbaugh (a multi-millionaire world unto himself) and Cantor (a multi-millionaire representative from the state of Virginia) see the status quo as a good thing. They are part of the 1 percent that Occupy Wall Street sees as holding too much money and power at the expense of the other 99 percent of the people.

The truth of the matter is: The demands of the protesters would do little to affect the lives of the 1 percent, even if they managed to have a major impact on future legislation solving wage disparities and social inequalities. In the end, the demands are being made to alter the system that relegates the 99 percent to forever being 99 percent or living an existence just a couple of paychecks short of being homeless or without the basic necessities of life. The rich will remain rich, regardless. In the nation with perhaps the highest standard of living in the world, the fact that so many are out of work or working underpaying jobs or working two or three jobs to make ends meet is a shame unto itself. That so many feel the need to rise up and say something about is indicative that laws, regulations, and conditions will have to improve to make the plight and the number of opportunities for upward mobility of the 99 percent improve as well.

But resistance to those improvements is guaranteed. Unfortunately, so is the idea that all the efforts of the protesters will go for naught, the status quo unshaken. And the most troubling aspect of it all: The idea that millions of individuals working in popular concert attempting to eliminate the socioeconomic and sociopolitical disparities that now exist within the American way of life will have little effect.

That 56 percent of Americans believe that the movement will have little impact is a sad testament to how ingrained the the idea of the intractableness of the government and inertia within prevailing socioeconomic systems have become. And if that number does not add resolve to the populist movement to endure until they effect positive change in the lives of the millions of people who comprise the 1 percent, then that same 56 percent will assuredly be correct about the impact of the 99 percent.

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