Occupy Wall Street also a Financial Success

       In tracing the history of Occupy Wall Street it's interesting to realize that a former Wall Street financier has been very involved in the movement and has put some of his own money where his mouth is.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/10/financier_helped_launch_occupy.html

  
     One thing about this movement that does impress Wall Street is it has been a financial success as well:

     "Perhaps the most surprising thing about Occupy Wall Street is that it is a financial success. In just four weeks since the protest began, it has raised well over $200,000 and collected far more than that in donated food and clothing."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44892333

     However those who speculated that George Soros was a financial backer are barking up the wrong tree. The organization who is most single handedly responsible for Occupy Wall Street is the Canadian anti-corporate group Adbusters. Soros doesn't know who they are.

    This "Wall Street financier" we referenced at top though is an interesting story:

    "Robert S. Halper is a retired banker, former vice-chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange, and a longtime patron of Adbusters, the Canadian magazine initially behind Occupy Wall Street. Halper's donations to the publication have totaled between $50,000 and $70,000 over the last two decades, with his latest gift of $20,000 arriving about a month before the start of the protest. Now, he shows up to Zuccotti Park every day and makes the rounds talking to demonstrators, but fails to mention his behind-the-scenes role. "The whole thing is very surreal to me — the fact that I spent my whole career right across the street," he told the New York Times. "It makes me a little anxious, to tell you the truth. It could go anywhere. I just pray that it ends peaceful." Curiously, Halper also recently donated $2,500 to Mitt Romney's campaign. "

    That last line makes you do a bit of a double take! This guy is a friend of Adbusters, Occupy Wall Street, and Mitt Romney? Talk about strange bedfellows. Like the Good Book says, "You cannot serve two Masters." Or can you?

    "By way of explanation, he told the Times, "My giving is a little A.D.D. — like me." Halper lives on the Upper West Side and is a self-described 1 percenter. "The fact that I made a lot of money, things just worked out for me," he said. "There’s some issues where we’re all in it together."

  "Like health care, which Halper said was way more important to him the last time he visited Adbusters editor-in-chief Kalle Lasn, who explained the plans for the Wall Street Protest over a steak dinner. "I rolled my eyes," said Halper. But he still wrote the check."