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Occupy Protest Shuts Down Harvard Yard By JOSE A. DELREAL Published: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 4 158 COMMENT EMAIL PRINT DANIEL M. LYNCH GSAS student Marissa M. Egertsrom teaches the basics of "General Assemblies" while facilitating a conversation Wednesday night on the Law School campus. UPDATED 4:34 a.m. 11/10/11 A tent city was hastily constructed in front of University Hall Wednesday night during a tense dialogue between "Occupy Harvard" protesters and Dean of Student Life Suzy M. Nelson. The occupation followed a protest on campus involving more than roughly 350 participants sympathetic to the Occupy movement, during which Harvard Yard was shut down by Harvard University Police officers and Securitas guards. The protest was intended to convey disapproval of the University's perceived complicity in growing income inequality across the country. Participants included students, staff, faculty, and community members. Around 7 p.m., protesters were met with increased security that would prevent Boston residents who were not Harvard affiliates from entering the Yard. Multimedia GALLERY OCCUPY HARVARD BEGINS PHOTO "I think it's absurd. Do we really need eight guards per gate?" said Nicandro G. L. Iannacci '13, who has participated in other Occupy events. "The idea that the only people allowed here to have this conversation are members of the Harvard community, specifically, is wrong. Why not welcome more people in?" In response to the limited access to the Yard, demonstrators relocated to the Harvard Law School campus. As they marched past freshman dorms, they chanted, "Out of your rooms and into the Yard," rallying the students in the dorms to join. After a general assembly, protesters left the Law School campus and tried to re-enter the Yard to set up a tent city, but Securitas guards prevented demonstrators from entering by locking the gates. In a tense exchange, students tried to push their way into the Yard-some holding up

Campus - November 2, 2011 2:23 amAn Open Letter to Greg MankiwBy Harvard Talks Politics The following letter was sent to Greg Mankiw by the organizers of today's Economics 10 walkout. Wednesday November 2, 2011 Dear Professor Mankiw- Today, we are walking out of your class, Economics 10, in order to express our discontent with the bias inherent in this introductory economics course. We are deeply concerned about the way that this bias affects students, the University, and our greater society. As Harvard undergraduates, we enrolled in Economics 10 hoping to gain a broad and introductory foundation of economic theory that would assist us in our various intellectual pursuits and diverse disciplines, which range from Economics, to Government, to Environmental Sciences and Public Policy, and beyond. Instead, we found a course that espouses a specific-and limited-view of economics that we believe perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in our society today. A legitimate academic study of economics must include a critical discussion of both the benefits and flaws of different economic simplifying models. As your class does not include primary sources and rarely features articles from academic journals, we have very little access to alternative approaches to economics. There is no justification for presenting Adam Smith's economic theories as more fundamental or basic than, for example, Keynesian theory. Care in presenting an unbiased perspective on economics is particularly important for an introductory course of 700 students that nominally provides a sound foundation for further study in economics. Many Harvard students do not have the ability to opt out of Economics 10. This class is required for Economics and Environmental Science and Public Policy concentrators, while Social Studies concentrators must take an introductory economics course-and the only other eligible class, Professor Steven Margolin's class Critical Perspec

Students Launch 'Occupy the Facts' By JOSE A. DELREAL, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER Published: Monday, November 07, 2011 6 16 COMMENT EMAIL PRINT About 20 students Sunday night launched "Occupy the Facts," a nascent student organization hoping to combat charges that protestors in the Occupy movement are uninformed about public policy issues. The organization seeks to conduct important policy research and make their findings accessible to Occupy protesters and the public. The group will spend the next three weeks developing information packages. "I want to see if we [can] create something that could research public policy surrounding the occupiers' demands," said Peter D. Davis '12, one of the project facilitators. "We want to be able to create fact sheets." One of the projects' goals is to eventually transform their policy findings into various formats, including educational YouTube videos and info-graphics. Davis said that the inspiration for "Occupy the Facts" is the potential for Occupy to affect social change. "I see the Occupy movement as a platform that might just have a chance at making the kind of change that a lot of people in our generation have been dreaming of," Davis said. Talia B. Lavin '12, another active student participant, protested the criticism levied against the movement. "I've noticed this persistent criticism that the demands of the movement aren't specific enough," Talia B. Lavin '12 said. "The goal is to reach out to people who have heard a lot about Occupy but aren't sure what Occupy is trying to achieve." Davis believes the charges that Occupy participants are uninformed are distracting from the movement's potential. "This group is calling those peoples' bluffs," Davis said. Davis met with a small group last week to determine how they could help the Occupy movement. They came to the conclusion that they could leverage Harvard's research resources to make policy information more acces

The Crisis and The Way Out Of It: What We Can Learn From Occupy Wall Street Posted on October 8, 2011 The Occupy Wall Street movement more effectively addresses the cause of the financial crisis than economists and discussions in the mainstream press. Further, this movement embodies democratic solutions for a way beyond the crisis. This essay focuses on Occupy Wall Street's facilitating of political action from disparate, heterogeneous partisans; increasing of transparency and participation in decision-making; and relying upon both human-scaled and participatory technologies. Through these processes, the Occupy Wall Street micro-community embodies a vision for a pluralistic, direct democratic society and demonstrates it through practice. Three years into an economic recession that rivals the Great Depression, economists are scrambling for explanations of its origins and the steps to take. Congressperson Darrel Issa (R-CA), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, blames unaffordable housing and political kickbacks from the banking industry. He stresses the need to "return to fiscal discipline and prudent, responsible   housing policies"(Issa, 2011, p. 419). Gary B. Gorton of the Yale School of Management traces an added cause to the "parallel" banking system and a banking panic that began in August 2007 (2010, p. 2). Former economist at Freddie Mac and the Federal Reserve and current Cato Institute adjunct, Arnold Kling, blames capital regulations and "cognitive failures" of executives in financial institutions. It may not be surprising to the reader that this employee of a libertarian think-tank advocates for deregulation and expects the public to "not be deceived into believing that regulatory foresight can be as keen as regulatory hindsight" (Kling, 2011, p. 517). Ten-year veteran CEO and President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and current Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute blames "a failu

Occupy the Vote A new student initiative, "Occupy the Facts," should also emphasize political engagement By THE CRIMSON STAFF Published: Thursday, November 10, 2011 0 8 COMMENT EMAIL PRINT In Nov. 2010, days before the Republicans' midterm triumph, at the crest of the Tea Party wave, The Guardian's Gary Lounge wrote that the movement "…does not exist. It has no members, leaders, office bearers, headquarters, policies, participatory structures, budget or representatives." One year later, the Tea Party' fortunes have ebbed somewhat, and it has been largely supplanted by Occupy Wall Street as the epicenter of American populism. And yet, Lounge's words are perhaps even more pertinent now than they were then, as they also aptly encapsulate the gravest deficiencies of this latest protest movement. Like its rightwing predecessor, Occupy Wall Street has been criticized-by The Crimson, no less-for its permeating incoherence and debilitating disorganization. Enter "Occupy the Facts," a new, Harvard-grown student group dedicated to providing an intellectual foundation and policy platform for the headless movement. "Occupy the Facts" appears to be a direct response to these allegations of incoherence; its goal, according to co-founder Peter D. Davis '12, "is calling those peoples' bluffs." His colleague, Talia B. Lavin '12, likewise said that "I've noticed this persistent criticism that the demands of the movement aren't specific enough. The goal is to reach out to people who have heard a lot about Occupy but aren't sure what Occupy is trying to achieve." Our democracy is ill-served by blind, amorphous rage, and so we are heartened to see some effort to channel this populist energy into constructive issue advocacy. We are living today with the consequences of the Tea Party's failure to provide intelligible solutions to our most pressing national problems, and the effort to better inform and orient this new upsurge of popu

Looking deeper into Occupy Wall Street     BY RAGHURAM RAJAN NOVEMBER 10, 2011   0   STORYPHOTOS ( 2 )     More Images »   Raghuram Rajan is professor of finance at the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, and author of Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy. Photograph by: Photo: Courtesy Project Syndicate CHICAGO - It is amazing how the "one-per-cent" epithet, a reference to the top one per cent of earners, has caught on in the United States and elsewhere in the developed world. In the United States, this one per cent includes all those with a 2006 household income of at least $386,000. In the popular narrative, the one per cent is thickly populated with unscrupulous corporate titans, greedy bankers and insider-trading hedge-fund managers. Some suggest that the answer to all of America's current problems is to tax the one per cent and redistribute to everyone else. Of course, underlying this narrative is the view that this income is ill-gotten, made possible by George W. Bush-era tax cuts, the broken corporate governance system and the conflict-of-interest-ridden financial system. The one per cent are not people who have earned money the hard way, by making real things, so there is no harm in taking it away from them. Clearly this caricature is based on some truth. For instance, corporations, especially in the financial sector, reward too many executives richly despite mediocre performance. But apart from tarring too many with the same brush, there is something deeply troubling about this narrative's reductionism. It ignores, for example, the fact that many of the truly rich are entrepreneurs. It likewise ignores the fact that many of the wealthy are sports stars and entertainers, and that their ranks include professionals such as doctors, lawyers, consultants, and even some of our favourite progressive economists. In other words, the rich today are more likely to be working than idle. But what migh

Thomas Sowell Delivers Inconvenient Truths By Heather Wilhelm Economic Facts and Fallacies By Thomas Sowell Perseus Publishing, December 2007 -------------------------------------------- Want to be a real hit at a cocktail party? Try bringing up politics, preferably with someone who disagrees with you--and if they're an emotional sort, even better. Proceed to delve into controversial issues of the day (the politics of race and gender, for instance) and, as you do, back up each point with lucid economic facts. After thorough research and a calm, learned presentation, odds are that you'll make a real impact. An impact, that is, in the form of gigantic tufts of steam shooting out of your audience's ears. Thomas Sowell's new book, "Economic Facts and Fallacies," is much like that cocktail party guest: cool, logical, informative, insightful, and, for some sides of the political aisle, a major irritant to be blocked out of the mind. Indeed, Sowell is the first to admit that facts, though the subject of his book, aren't always enough when it comes to winning the debate. He quotes Henry Rosovsky, a Harvard economist: "Never underestimate the difficulty," the professor once said, "of changing false beliefs by facts." Sowell's book dismantles many of the pervasive fallacies running rampant in politics today, broken into categories of urban life, gender, academia, income, race, and the problems of the third world. Some of these fallacies stem from false assumptions; others from faulty economics; still others from dodgy definitions. "Undefined words have a special power in politics," Sowell writes, "particularly when they evoke some principle that engages people's emotions." He mentions "fair" as a prime example. In the charged political milleu of 2008, "change" is surely another. Sowell packs the book with salient facts--that less than 5% of all American land is developed, for instance, or that the percentage of American families with incomes over $75,000 has tripled ove

PETER BREGMAN Peter Bregman is a strategic advisor to CEOs and their leadership teams. His latest book is 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done. To receive an email when he posts, click here. One Thing I've Learned from the Wall Street Protests 1:43 PM Tuesday November 1, 2011  | Comments (57) T During a bleak, cold winter in New York City, a park is occupied by thousands who stand there day and night for weeks. Nobody knows precisely what these occupiers represent, but people are mesmerized by them. Not just the city, but the country and beyond. Articles appear in papers around the world as people react with mixed emotions spanning surprise, admiration, ridicule, frustration, pride, and even fear. I am talking about The Gates: 7,500 bright orange fabric and steel sculptures erected by artists Christo and Jeanne Claude in 2005 that serpentined 23 miles of Central Park's walking paths. I loved The Gates. The exhibit was visually stunning, creating the sensation of a river flowing through the snow-covered landscape. But what I loved most about them - perhaps their greatest impact - was the conversations they sparked. I would guess that no other art exhibit ever got as much popular attention as The Gates. People who would never otherwise think much about it were pondering and discussing the question "What is art?" Sparking Conversations. That, too, is perhaps the greatest impact of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Protestors have been criticized for their lack of clarity. What, precisely, are they protesting? From what I could tell when I was at Zuccotti Park, it was everything from corporate greed to unemployment to tax loopholes to foreclosures to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to specific companies to bank ATM fees to unfair distribution of wealth, and a lot more. But, in this case, lack of clarity might be something to celebrate instead of criticize. Because, the truth is, we all have more questions than ans