@Hey hey! Ho ho! Protesting everything has got to go!

@protestfolk Regarding the failure of Billionaire Plutocrat Bloomberg’s administration to benefit most people who live in the Big Apple, as the Coalition for the Homeless observed in a 2009 press release:
“Compared to when Mayor Bloomberg took office in January 2002:
“The total homeless shelter population is 17 percent higher – there are now more than 5,000 more homeless New Yorkers sleeping each night in municipal shelters then when the Mayor took office.
“The number of homeless families is 38 percent higher – there are more than 2,600 more homeless families sleeping each night in municipal shelters than when the Mayor took office.
“The number of homeless children is 16 percent higher – there are more than 2,000 more homeless children sleeping each night in municipal shelters than when the Mayor took office.”
And as Lizzy Ratner noted in an article, titled “Boom Town and Bust City: A Tale of Two New Yorks,” that appeared in the February 14, 2011 issue of The Nation:
“According to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, the city’s fifty-seven billionaires (including its billionaire in chief, Mayor Michael Bloomberg) increased their collective net worth by $19 billion between 2009 and 2010, while the number of
New Yorkers visiting food pantries ballooned by 200,000 during roughly the same period.”
Given the connections of the administration of Wall Street’s Columbia University to Wall Street financial institutions (like the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Goldman Sachs), however, it’s not surprising that the plutocratic mayor of Wall Street’s city government in New York, Billionaire Bloomberg Media Mogul Michael Bloomberg (who grew up in Medford, Massachusetts and not in NYC and whose media firm was initially financed by Wall Street’s now-defunct Merrill Lynch brokerage firm) should still be welcomed on Columbia’s campus by Wall Street’s Bollinger Administration. Regarding Plutocrat Bloomberg’s “philanthropy,” he apparently has used his foundation’s grants to both gain additional tax exemption and special political influence for himself and to discourage criticism of his failed administration in New York City by the various local community groups and institutions to which he has funnelled grants from his surplus wealth/personal “slush” fund.

@the highest job creations have come out of schools that place an emphasis on scientific research, ENGINEERING, and BUSINESS.

look at all the start ups coming out of stanford, a predominantly ENGINEERING school. do you have any idea how many jobs just 2 stanford computer science students have created (google)?

columbia is a powerhouse of reputation but most of that is in our past. how the fck are we to overcome MIT, cornell engineering, stanford, even carnegie mellon in engineering start ups if all you do is complain about business interests?

what bloomberg did to new york city is nowhere NEAR the kind of destructive crap that BOTH obama and bush pulled off in washington. if youre gonna spend time protesting, protest the more important people. instead of protesting the annoying rat sqeeking in the corner, protest the large barking dog outside who’s mauling people.

bloomberg created bloomberg terminals, which is used by virtually every reputable financial firm in the US and its become a buzzword, just like “google”. ( “hey man, bloomberg it”) he grew up poor too. what have YOU done?

@Anonymous if he gives his money away, gates-style, after he dies, who the fuck cares how much he has?

@colin As is to be expected from bitter anonymous online comments, “wtf” commenter makes little to no allusion to the issues the small group of protesters was actually raising and instead pigeonholes them based on their assumed academic interests. I don’t see any mention of Foucault or other “postcolonial/deconstructivist/complit/whiners” on the flier above which instead refers to concrete policies that Bloomberg has participated in pushing through, which have been to the detriment of many New Yorkers. Bloomberg isn’t a terrible guy but that doesn’t mean that he deserves a place in politics. Is it really out of the goodness of his heart that he is serving his third term as NY mayor and slashing spending in the public sector? That he spent $75 million on campaign financing which pretty much destroyed any opponent’s opportunity to get elected? (And the last election was actually pretty close despite that!)

And as for competing with the Chinese–on what level do you hope to do that? By emulating a government/society with no protection for the working classes, the environment, and so on? No doubt the US provided that model for them but that doesn’t mean that we should stick with it.

Next time you’re gonna grumble about “fucking hipsters” raising clear questions about concrete problems in our society, why don’t you do it in person rather than by trolling on BWOG?

@Not a big fan of the schmuck But he had a great point about OWS’ misguided anger, that they should be targeting Washington and government greed–which is much more excessive and certainly less ethical by far than profit-making companies. The issue is with our electorate’s separation from their constituents, with our lack of a truly representational government, with the absolutely staggering wealth one needs to even BECOME a politician. The fatcats in government are forming an aristocracy with far, far more power and capacity for “evil” than Wallstreet brokers (not trying to acquit them of blame, of course– corporate corruption is rampant, and, through lobbyists and campaign donations, affects our government), and they are the ones who do nothing to condemn the acts of crony capitalists. They THRIVE on the money that those people produce, after all, and without it would just be on par with all of us, the disgusting street urchins, and would have to follow the same laws that we do, they would lack healthcare the way that we do, they would have to give up their exorbitant pension plans, their guaranteed job stability.

So, in closing: Bloomberg is a bummer, but he has some good points about the OWS protester’s misdirected anger.

@Anonymous Put yourself in Mike’s shoes. If he’s going to give away money, his #1 motive is seeing his contribution go as far as possible — the most bang for his buck, so to speak. Now does Columbia have much of a reputation for either creating or incubating startups and startup tech? (Aside from some well-known wins from the 90s like DVDs and heart stents) Ever hear of the Strickman filter? DKV? Fathom?

I absolutely agree, it would be great if Mike would direct some of his giving to startups, research, etc here at CU, but I also know Mike won’t do it if he thinks he can get a bigger bank for his buck by giving to Stanford, NYU Poly, CUNY Engineering, Cornell, MIT, etc. Can you make a convincing case that a contribution to CU Engineering would return more jobs, more new technologies developed, more new startups incubated than an equivalent contribution to any of the above? If you can, please for the love of God, tell Feni, tell Prezbo, tell the SEAS Board of Visitors — because you will have done Columbia an incredible service. You can’t just whine and ask for money. You have to show that you can put it to better use than anyone else.