Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is an ongoing series of demonstrations in New York City based in Zuccotti Park in the Wall

Street financial district. The protests were initiated by the Canadian activist group Adbusters.They are mainly protesting social and economic inequality, corporate greed, corruption and influence over governmentparticularly from thefinancial services sector and lobbyists

A chart showing the disparity in income distribution in the United States.Wealth inequality and income inequality have been central concerns among OWS protesters.[Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data shows that in 1980, the top 1% earned 9.1% of all income, while in 2006 they earned 18.8% of all income.

In mid-2011, the Canadian-based Adbusters Foundation, best known for its advertisement-free anticonsumerist magazine Adbusters, proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, address a growing disparity in wealth, and the absence of legal repercussions behind the recent global financial crisis.

The protest was held at Zuccotti Park since it was private property and they could not be legally forced to leave. At a press conference held on September 17, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said, People have a right to protest, and if they want to protest, we'll be happy to make sure they have locations to do it.

1. Break up the monopolies. The so-called "Too Big to Fail" financial companies now sometimes called by the more accurate term "Systemically Dangerous Institutions" are a direct threat to national security. They are above the law and above market consequence, making them more dangerous and unaccountable than a thousand mafias combined. There are about 20 such firms in America, and they need to be dismantled; a good start would be to repeal the GrammLeach-Bliley Act and mandate the separation of insurance companies, investment banks and commercial banks. 2. Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about. It would also deter the endless chase for instant profits through computerized insider-trading schemes like High Frequency Trading, and force Wall Street to go back to the job it's supposed to be doing, i.e., making sober investments in job-creating businesses and watching them grow.

3. No public money for private lobbying . A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer's own money to lobby against him. You can either suck on the public teat or influence the next presidential race, but you can't do both. Butt out for once and let the people choose the next president and Congress. 4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers. For starters, we need an immediate repeal of the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break, which allows hedge-fund titans like Stevie Cohen and John Paulson to pay taxes of only 15 percent on their billions in gambling income, while ordinary Americans pay twice that for teaching kids and putting out fires. I defy any politician to stand up and defend that loophole during an election year. 5. Change the way bankers get paid. We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in all of our faces later. It should be: You make a deal today, you get company stock you can redeem two or three years from now. That forces everyone to be invested in his own company's long-term health no more Joe Cassanos pocketing multimillion-dollar bonuses for destroying the AIGs of the world.