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Old Man Bloomberg Tired Of Occupy Wall Street's Attempts To "Destroy Jobs"
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Oct 8, 2011
Modified Oct 8, 2011
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Oct 8, 2011
Modified Oct 8, 2011
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In his weekly radio address, billionaire autocrat Michael Bloomberg took the opportunity to criticize the groups of students, labor unions, and other demonstrators who haven taken to Lower Manhattan to protest the state of our economy. "They're trying to take away the tax base we have, because none of this is good for tourism," Bloomberg said, apparently unaware that the tourists are eating it up and that some of the protesters are tourists themselves. He also claimed that those in Zuccotti Park were "trying to destroy the jobs of working people in this city."
“If the jobs they’re trying to get rid of in the city—the people that work in finance, which is a big part of our economy—go away, we’re not going to have any money to pay our municipal employees or clean the parks or anything else,” he said. And it's not as if the mayor himself has ever played a role in pissing away hundreds of millions of dollars of that taxpayer money anyway.
Bloomberg began talking about the protests after a caller who claimed to live above Zuccotti Park said the park was "unusable" and complained of the group's "incivility." The mayor said "he couldn't agree more." According to the Times he also compared the protests to those in Vietnam for a second time in a week, noting that today's anti-war protesters are respectful of veterans. "The Vietnam War, which was my generation, we treated our vets who came back terribly, just terribly," he said. So, these protests are analogous to Vietnam in that they're both pointless, job-killing nuisances?
Governor Cuomo took a more measured stance on the protests at a press conference on Thursday. “The economy is not doing well," he said, "A lot of people are feeling the pain and when people are feeling pain they look for an outlet and I think that’s what you are hearing from the protestors."
Tagged
billionaires
bloomberg
Cuomo
economy
jobs
mayor bloomberg
occupy wall street
protests
unions
vietnam
wall street
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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