Bloomberg: Occupy should blame Congress, not banks

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/02/8595672-bloomberg-occupy-should-blame-congress-not-banks

In a clash of New York City mayors past and present, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Mayor Ed Koch took opposing sides at a panel discussion Tuesday over the Occupy Wall Street protests — with Bloomberg coming to the defense of banks and Koch angrily calling for criminal prosecutions of corporate executives.

"It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress," said Bloomberg, himself a former executive of a financial information company, at the event for business leaders.

The mayor is an “ignoramus…who just swallows right-wing propaganda whole,” wrote economist and New York Time columnist Paul Krugman on his blog. “Some centrist hero.”

“The fact is that for any public figure to go with the Congress-did-it argument at this stage is for him to reveal both that he is grossly ignorant about the central policy issue of the day and that he gets his ‘analysis’ from right-wing flacks,” added Krugman.

“The supposedly liberal New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg should know better than to peddle that crap,” added Joan McCarter at the liberal Daily Kos. “It’ll make Bloomberg’s 1 percent buddies happy to hear him stick up for them, but it’s still a lie.”