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So there’s a lot of yammering out there about OWS, and what it means, or doesn’t mean, and even some opinions that OWS protestors are less grateful than a panhandler, and perhaps more immoral, too, since they are capable, presumably, of working…but aren’t even looking.

What does OWS mean to me? This:

And: This:

Will’s Sign at Occupy Times Square, quote by Conor Friedersdorf from John Grace on Vimeo.

Read more about the genesis of the quote in the Atlantic.

And what’s that sign all about? Listen to this Planet Money podcast.

When you’re finished, head back here and let me know: Are you angry about this too?

Observed:

No comment required, really.

The single most common misconception about [the Texas governor] is that he has been running a large state for the past six years. Texas has what is known in political science circles as “the weak-governor system.” You may think this is just a Texas brag, but our weak-governor system is a lot weaker than anybody else’s.* Although the governor does have the power to call out the militia in case of an Indian uprising, by constitutional arrangement, the governor of Texas is actually the fifth most powerful statewide office: behind lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller, and land commissioner but ahead of agriculture commissioner and railroad commissioner.

Via “The Marketplace Morning Report:”

JEREMY HOBSON: Global stock markets are still excited about what the Federal Reserve said yesterday afternoon. That interest rates for banks that borrow from the Fed will remain near zero percent for the next two years. That’s the Fed’s way of influencing the rates we pay for everything from student loans to mortgages.

Keeping rates that low for that long is unprecedented and making such a bold statement… carries its own risks…

Via “This American Life:”

Alan Greenspan: The FOMC stands prepared to maintain a highly accommodative stance of policy for as long as needed to promote satisfactory economic performance.

Adam Davidson: You might not believe me, but that little statement, that is central banker’s speak for, hey, global pool of money, screw you.

Alex Blumberg: Come on, that’s not what he said.

Adam Davidson: It is. I speak central banker. Believe me, that’s what he said. What he is technically saying is he’s going to keep the fed funds rate– that’s when you hear, the fed interest rate– at the absurdly low level of 1%.

And that sends a message to every investor in the world, you are not going to make any money at all on US Treasury bonds for a very long time. Go somewhere else. We can’t help you.

And so the global pool of money– which does speak central banker. They understood what he was saying– they looked around for some low-risk high-return investment. And among the many things they put their money into, there was this one thing that they fell in love with. To get it, they called Wall Street, a guy like this.

Mike Francis: My name is Mike Francis. During the beginning of the mortgage implosion, I was an employee, executive director at Morgan Stanley on the residential mortgage trading desk.

Adam Davidson: Mike was one link in a chain that connected the global pool of money to its new favorite investment, residential mortgages, the US housing market, and guys like Clarence Nathan. Think how attractive a mortgage loan is to that $70 trillion pool of money.

Remember, they’re desperate to get any kind of interest return. They want to beat that miserable 1% interest Greenspan is offering them. And here are these homeowners paying 5%, 9% to borrow money from some bank. So what if the global pool could get in on that action?