The Occupy Wall Street protest may be the answer to a favorite question of social scientists ever since the bank bailouts of 2008 -- where is the social movement ? Americans are famously willing to tolerate a relatively large amount of income inequality ( especially compared to our European counterparts ) . Americans love meritocracy , and are typically quite happy to see hard work rewarded , even to the tune of millions of dollars , as is often the case on Wall Street . But there is a catch — we want the rules of the game to be fair . Recent scandals involving Wall Street banks and financial institutions , headed by some of the world 's most well-paid managers , executives and analysts , have many Americans asking themselves whether this game is rigged . It is this sense of injustice , coupled with economic insecurity , that animates changes in Americans ' attitudes toward Wall Street . It 's not just a small number of Americans , those who are actually `` occupying '' Wall Street , who feel such injustice . That 's just the tip of the iceberg . In a paper forthcoming in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly , I examine Americans ' attitudes toward banks , financial institutions and Wall Street over the last 40 years and look at historical trends in how Americans perceive the honesty and ethical practices of bankers . Animosity toward Wall Street is at its highest level in at least 40 years . Americans have never exactly loved Wall Street stockbrokers or bankers—but we certainly did n't always hate them . Why this increasing hostility ? The answer is a `` perfect storm '' of financial turmoil and a series of major scandals on Wall Street . The public has been down on big Wall Street banks and financial institutions for some time now . The General Social Survey , administered by the National Opinion Research Council , has asked Americans about their confidence in banks and financial institutions since 1973 . Between March of 2006 and March of 2010 , the percent of Americans with a great deal of confidence in banks and financial institutions plummeted 19 percentage points , from 30 percent to an all-time low of 11 percent . According to a similar trend from Harris Interactive , the percent of Americans with a great deal of confidence in the people running Wall Street had already reached an all-time low of just 4 percent by February of 2009 . These figures are not just a reflection of Americans ' dissatisfaction with the size of their bank accounts — they also reflect the increasing belief that Wall Street is playing a game that only the bankers can win . Economic hard times , such as global recessions , do tend to bring about small , but noticeable drops in the public 's confidence in Wall Street , just as we might expect falling confidence in a military that is losing a war . But when economic downturns coincide with major scandals , as in the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s and our current dilemma , the biggest changes in public confidence result — changes that may have contributed to the protests we are seeing on Wall Street today . In other words , Americans really begin to get angry when there is evidence of systematic foul play . To be sure , material hardships such as unemployment rates in the 9 percent range and the continuing high levels of foreclosures and bankruptcies undoubtedly set the stage for a public outcry . But this outcry has a distinctly moral tenor . The sentiments of the Occupy protestors holding signs reading `` Blame Wall Street Greed , '' `` People not Profits '' and `` Wall Street was the Real Weapons of Mass Destruction '' certainly echo the wider American public 's sense of moral indignation . Just 26 percent of Americans in an April 2011 Harris poll thought the people working on Wall Street were `` as honest and moral as other people '' ( for a point of comparison , the percentage was 51 in 1997 ) . In that same poll , 67 percent of Americans agreed that `` most people on Wall Street would be willing to break the law if they believed they could make a lot of money and get away with it . '' Ultimately , whether Occupy Wall Street is a watershed moment or a momentary disturbance remains to be seen . The key question , however , is whether the bubbling populist outrage evidenced in Occupy 's `` We are the 99 % '' signs will translate into populist-friendly politics . The Buffett Rule , calling for millionaires to pay taxes at higher rates than their employees , is one , albeit timid ( as the political scientist Larry Bartels has recently articulated ) , indication that the new political calculus involves tapping into this brand of populism . Elizabeth Warren 's Senate campaign is another . At minimum , the visibility of the Occupy Wall Street 's movement should bring renewed attention to a political and economic issue the majority of Americans on Main Street agree upon—something 's not quite right on Wall Street and something has got to be done about it .
Lindsay Owens : Polls show a spike in Americans ' lack of confidence in finance . She says Americans react to scandals such as the 2007-8 financial crisis . Financial turmoil is another factor that weakens confidence in Wall Street , she says . Owens says key question is whether this disapproval translates into reforms .