Occupy protesters should target governments not City, LSE chairman says | UK news | guardian.co.uk.

The chairman of the London Stock Exchange has urged the Occupy movement to blame irresponsible governments rather than City institutions for the global financial crisis.

The LSE is the target of the Occupy the London Stock Exchange protest, but Chris Gibson-Smith believes the inhabitants of the impromptu tent city in the capital are blaming the wrong people.

He said they should target the politicians who allowed banks to run up huge debts.

“There are unintended consequences of free markets,” he added. “It’s not capitalism that has been the problem, but irresponsible governments and politicians who have allowed the financial system to explode by permitting the build-up of ludicrous amounts of debt and leverage.

“No one ever said that free markets could or would be self-regulating. That’s where people over the past few decades have got it wrong, and many are still in denial – look at Alan Greenspan, [the former chairman of the Federal Reserve], who is still defending free markets.”