And so the book is populated by financial, technological and emerging-market entrepreneurs peering down from their mountaintops, as well as the closest cousins of the fortunate few: the elite artists, artisans and thinkers who cater to, study or simply swim in the slipstream of the extremely rich.

The operative word is extremely. Ms. Freeland, global editor at large for Reuters, takes readers to the 60th birthday party of private equity titan Stephen Schwarzman, at which Rod Stewart was reportedly paid $1 million to perform; to a lunch over Long Island-sourced striped bass with 20 bigwig investors at George Soros’s Southampton estate; and to visits with assorted billionaires, including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Russian oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Viktor Vekselberg, and the son of Lakshmi Mittal, the richest man in India.

Carlos Slim, not just the wealthiest man in the world, Ms. Freeland tells us, but by one measure the wealthiest man in the history of the world, makes numerous appearances. Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett show up, naturally, as does Bo Xilai, the Chinese elite whose fortunes reversed when his wife was implicated in the murder of a British businessman.

It sounds titillating, but it isn’t. That’s also by design. Plutocrats isn’t a book about the lifestyles of the fabulously wealthy, but rather the global trends the book’s titular class surfed to success. Ms. Freeland isn’t interested here in the “original sins” that allowed men like Mr. Vekselberg to seize control of the Russian economy in the days of privatization (she told some of those stories in a previous book, Sale of the Century) but in locating the plutocrats’ winning instincts in economic, political and cultural contexts.

The result is something resembling a cocktail party at Davos or the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival or any of the other stops on the circuit of the mega-rich. The guests are long on intelligence, determination and self-confidence. The affect, as anyone who’s ever watched a TED Talk might surmise, is empirical and dry.

Plutocrats grew out of an article Ms. Freeland published in The Atlantic in January 2011, which postulated the rise of a new global elite and rested on two ideas that at the time I found thrilling. First, that a French banker working in Hong Kong, a Russian mogul decamped to London and an American tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley have more in common with each other than any has with his own countrymen. Second, when masters of the universe identify along class lines rather than nationality, we’re one step closer to the kind of global egalitarianism that Karl Marx might have idealized. A factory closes in the Rust Belt, taking a bite out of the American middle class; a factory opens in Guangzhou, buoying Chinese standards of living. Maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to say that’s a bad thing.

Plutocrats doesn’t deliver any such strikes of lightning, but it’s rife with impressive analysis. In a chapter on the so-called superstar effect—“the tendency of both technological change and globalization to create winner-take-all economic tournaments”—Ms. Freeland glides from the writings of Soviet intellectuals, MIT and Princeton economists and the apostle Matthew to the careers of 18th century diva Elizabeth Billington, Lady Gaga, white-shoe lawyer David Boies, Yves St. Laurent, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and Albert Einstein.

The phenomena she describes are often self-apparent. Mario Batali maximizes earnings by selling lunch to Wall Street and cookbooks to everyone else. File-sharing extended pop stars’ reach, but undercut wealth for all but the select few who can use their massive popularity to fuel concert tours. These are not surprising concepts, but the thoroughness with which Ms. Freeland surrounds the ideas is satisfying.

The superstars, of course, are a side order. What we really want to know about is the billionaires who seem to remake the world with every new venture, a group that Ms. Freeland sorts into two overlapping chapters. By and large, she says, the plutocrats seized their fortunes by perceiving opportunities created by revolutionary change. But like the 19th century robber barons, they’ve also been enriched by the reallocation of public resources—rent-seeking, in economic parlance—and sought to influence government policy in service of their bulging bank accounts.

On the subject of revolution: Mr. Soros fled a comfortable childhood in his native Budapest after the arrival of the Nazis, a formative disruption that the hedge fund billionaire associates with his ability to intuit instability in markets others view as robust. Mr. Hoffman sensed that the changes being wrought in Silicon Valley in the early 1990s were an opportunity too great to ignore. Mr. Vekselberg collected privatization vouchers in the early days of the new Russia, while a less-prescient business partner cashed in his chips for a mere $100,000. Aditya Mittal, son of Lakshmi, spent years buying up Eastern European steel mills without much competition.

On rent-seeking: Mr. Slim made his fortune by winning a contract for the Mexican telecom concession that was so favorable it preserved a near-monopoly for close to 30 years. The American and British bankers who rose to wealth and power on the revolution in securitization are inextricably tied to a decades-long movement in banking deregulation.

Just because a plutocrat has made his way by disruption, Ms. Freeland is careful to point out, doesn’t preclude him from eating at government’s hand. Mr. Soros, to name but one example, is the beneficiary of the U.S. tax code, which privileges investment income by levying it at a 15 percent. Nor is a rent-seeker a purely self-interested being. Mexican telephone service improved throughout Mr. Slim’s ascension. Mortgage bonds made home ownership affordable for many more Americans (if ultimately too affordable for too many). Even the do-gooding tech evangelists come in for second-guessing. It’s nice to think that disrupting an old industry will create opportunities (read: jobs) in the new new thing that replaces it, but that much has yet to be proven.

Midway through Plutocrats, many readers will light upon an unpleasant notion: That, to invoke F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous formulation on a far greater scale, we are not like the doers at the helm of the new world order. Ms. Freeland describes her own archetype in thinking about billionaires-by-disruption: public-school-educated students who go on to attend elite universities, thus equipped with the brains and the outsider status that come in handy if you’re looking to change the world. (It helps explain Ms. Freeland’s comfort with these people to know that she was born in Alberta, Canada, and matriculated to Harvard.) Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in Russia until he bucked the government too hard and wound up imprisoned for tax evasion, draws a sharper distinction: “If a man is not an oligarch, something is not right with him.”

It’s also worth noting that amid a presidential campaign heavy on the rhetoric of the 99 and 47 percents, either candidate fits into the smart outsider formulation. Mitt Romney may be the son of a wealthy man, but he’s an outsider by religion and geography, and recognized a pregnant moment—the rise of the private equity industry—to make his fortune. President Barack Obama, with his two Ivy League degrees and millions in book royalties, fits in with Ms. Freeland’s superstars. “Like the rest of the rising intellectual class to which he belongs, the president is an empiricist,” she writes.

Along with the realization that we are not like them comes another idea, which is that Ms. Freeland is going rather easy on the new masters of the universe. Indeed, when it comes time for her to make a prescription for right behavior, she draws it from the remote location of 14th century Venice. That city ascended to wealth and global dominance because access to fortune remained open. Specifically, she says, because investors in trade expeditions shared profits generously with the merchants they backed, a system which allowed new entrants into the class of the elite. When the city’s rulers locked in their status by placing formal limits on social mobility, Venice calcified and crumbled. Along those lines, Ms. Freeland closes on a piece of advice parroted from former Goldman Sachs senior partner Gus Levy, who described his philosophy as one of “long-term greed.”

That Ms. Freeland’s final words emit from an institution that is above all others symbolic of the global elite may be dispiriting to the 99 percent, but that is probably beside the point. An abiding lesson from Occupy Wall Street is that it’s far from easy to affect change by popular movement alone. In a world in which the very rich drive the biggest changes, there’s really only one thing for a superstar student of disparity to do: Speak to the rich—er, affluent—in a language they understand.

pclark@observer.com

Kweku Adoboli, the former UBS trader charged with amassing a $2.3 billion loss in unauthorized trading positions, goes on trial in London today. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted, according to CNBC.

The U.S. Treasury is selling an $18 billion stake in AIG, in a move that would decrease the government's stake in the insurer to less than 50 percent for the first time since 2008.

Investors betting on a U.S. housing recovery are beginning to cash in holdings in shovel-ready residential land. Firms such as BlackRock, hedge fund Angelo Gordon & Co and real estate investment firm Starwood Capital, snapped up property in bankruptcy proceedings, from struggling developers and banks in foreclosure sales, according to Reuters. Now some of those firms are unloading property, often for gains of 20 percent or more.

Commodities giant Glencore has made its final offer for mining company Xstrata, apparently.

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro would like to complete rule-making on a uniform fiduciary standard, "but Congress handed us a lot of important things to do,” she told Bloomberg.

A U.S. judge barred former Credit Suisse and UBS banker Christos Bagios from leaving Florida to visit family in Switzerland and Greece, according to Bloomberg. Mr. Bagios, who is charged with helping 150 American clients hide as much as $500 million from tax authorities, is currently free on $650,000 bail.

A day after French President Francois Hollande promised to press ahead with a plan to tax on the country's highest earners at 75 percent, LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault, France's richest man, said he had applied for Belgian nationality. According to Reuters, Mr. Arnault said he would still pay taxes in France.

George Soros says Germany should lead Europe out of the ongoing sovereign debt crisis, or exit the euro zone itself.

How to define 'subprime?' The answer may determine the fate of the government's case against three Freddie Mac executives alleged to have misled mortgage investors.

Citi became the first U.S. lender to issue it's own credit card in China, Bloomberg reports.

George Soros disclosed a 7.85 percent stake in Manchester United, the British soccer club that began trading on New York Stock Exchange on Aug. 10.

Felix Salmon says Man U's fluctuating share price is another good argument to keep investors away from initial public offerings.

The regulator tasked with overseeing audits of brokerage firms such as Peregrine Financial Group, the Iowa-based futures broker that shuttered last month after it's founder attempted suicide, has disturbing news, Floyd Norris reports in The Times. Every audit reviewed by Public Company Accounting Oversight Board inspectors showed a failure to take proper efforts to verify financial statements or ensure that the audited firms had sufficient capital on hand.

Since the London Whale capsized Jamie Dimon's reputation, Wall Street has struggled to put forth a replacement statesmen, according to Bloomberg.

Despite new law that may allow IPO bankers to publish research on offerings they underwrite as soon as, or even before, shares begin trading, banks have informally agreed to a quiet period of 25 days, The Wall Street Journal reports.

In an about face, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway terminated $8.25 billion in credit default swaps on municipal debt. If Mr. Buffett has doubts about munis, should you too?

Best Buy reported second-quarter profit fell 90 percent on restructuring charges and week sales. Good news for Richard Schulze?

Spain's short-term borrowing costs fell as markets bet that the European Central Bank would intervene in sovereign debt markets.

Waris Ahluwalia, Marissa Montgomery, Alexander Soros (Patrick McMullan)

Saturday night the skies grew ominous as The Observer rounded the bend toward Fairview Farm, located right on the water in Bridgehampton. Luckily, we were greeted by giant white tents arranged for “Unmasked,” the Alexander Soros Foundation’s Global Witness Gala.

Like his father, 26-year-old Alexander Soros is quickly becoming a well-known figure on the philanthropic scene, most noticeably with a donation of $250,000 to Jewish Funds for Justice. Although this was his foundation’s first public event, the names on the host committee were enough to fill a Weinstein dinner party.

Unfortunately, half of the hosts were missing: We couldn’t find Robert Redford, Emma Thompson, Arianna Huffington or Anne Hathaway in the big-top tents. (“Mr. Redford sends his love, but was unable to attend,” the PR woman informed us dutifully.) Among the guests, however, schmoozed Justin Bieber’s über-manager, Scooter Braun, actor Jeffrey Wright, the Soros Foundation’s Michael Vachon, designer Johan Lindeberg (recognizable with his ZZ-Top beard) and economist Dambisa Moyo.

The theme of the party was “unmasking” the inner superhero, and though tiny red masks attached to sticks were handed out at the entrance, we didn’t notice if anyone was actually using theirs, or when the appropriate time to take them off was. Instead, guests held them under the crook of one arm as they crowded around the entrance where Fred Adler was holding court.

“I used to have a place up in Water Mill—back when I could afford it,” the venture capitalist was overheard telling several partygoers, many of whom who had traveled from that specific piece of real estate themselves.

Heading deeper into the big top, we ran into Mr. Wright, of Syriana and Basquiat fame. “I’ve been involved with these causes for years,” Mr. Wright told us before an old clock bonged and we were forced to move from the cocktail tent to the seat-yourself dining area. “I have a company that mines for minerals in Sierra Leone, and our goal is to create a more sustainable industry ... one that gives jobs back to the community.”

Co-hosting the evening was multiple-Hollywood-statuette-owner Edward Zwick. Sure, we could have asked him about the Academy Award-winning films that he directed, like Glory or Legends of the Fall, or discussed his work on Traffic. (Or maybe just mention how we can still recall the scandalous Entertainment Weekly cover for Love and Other Drugs, which he wrote, directed and co-produced.)

We asked Mr. Zwick about his latest project. “It’s about Bobby Fisher, sort of the later years,” the producer told us. “We have Tobey Maguire playing the lead, although he’s a little old: Bobby Fisher is supposed to be in his early 30s in the script, and Tobey is 37.”

Anthony Lane similarly pointed out Mr. Maguire’s age in his review of The Amazing Spider-Man for The New Yorker. We wondered why this was the current factoid du-jour. Perhaps it was just a coincidental reminder of the relentless march of mortality, that soon Mr. Maguire will be passing out of his 30-somethings.

But we didn’t ponder too long.

During a meal of fish and macaroni and cheese, Mr. Braun and Mr. Soros introduced a short film in which Global Witness director Simon Taylor called upon the superheroic “men and women without capes” of Global Witness, who investigate human rights abuses in Third World countries. The supervillains, in this case, would be the kleptocratic dictators and corporations that siphon off natural resources and exploit local labor in these areas.

We complimented Mr. Taylor on his analogy, to which the Brit replied dryly, “I wasn’t sure how well the superhero thing would go over. But you liked it?”

We did indeed.

Next was the auction, in which a slightly more rumpled Mr. Soros came back onstage to sell everything from a membership to Sitaras Gym ($2,500) to a chance to meet Justin Bieber backstage ($10,000).

Then came the surprise of the evening: MC Hammer performed while the group of Mr. Soros’s young jetsetting friends partied down to “Can’t Touch This”. (Stop, Hamptontime?) Armed with red roses, Mr. Hammer dedicated his performance to “all the beautiful women at the event” before launching into “Have You Seen Her?”

Insouciantly plunked at our table and refusing to take off his sunglasses, rakish entertainment lawyer and Sean Parker confidant Eric Lerner was busy telling The Observer how a character in Royal Pains was based on him.

“See, the younger brother of the Hamptons doctor is named Evan R. Lawson, and he’s described as ‘socially ambitious,’” Mr. Lerner explained, finally becoming animated. “I have a friend who writes for the show—that guy is totally me.” Mr. Lerner kept his shades on through half the evening, despite the fact that it was nighttime ... and raining.

As for the young Mr. Soros, he was doing his best to both greet his multitude of friends and survive his first philanthropic outing with aplomb. After introducing himself to The Observer several times without answering any questions, he finally relented to give us a quote.

“I couldn’t be more proud or excited for what we’re doing this evening,” said the Soros scion, decked out in white linen and, like Mr. Lerner, a pair of stylish sunglasses.

As for Mr. Soros Sr., we had only a couple of moments to ask him about his son’s event.

“It’s a good thing we got to put up these tents, in case it begins to pour,” a friend answered for the billionaire philanthropist.

There was a sudden clash of thunder, as the storm began in earnest. Mr. Soros smiled at us and shook his head, though whether the gesture implied “No Comment” or was, in fact, a comment on the timing of the weather was anyone’s guess.

Journalist Viola Drath

It's Friday, it's 90 degrees out...we don't want to spend the rest of our afternoon putting out fires here at The Observer. Still, it's worth mentioning that the New York Times profile today of Albrecht Muth and Viola Drath, the "social ponzi schemers" who rose to prominence in the 90s based on little more than elbow grease,  fake stationary and humble-brags about Henry Kissinger ("When I speak German to Henry Kissinger, he starts talking like a little boy" is something we all aspire to put in our Twitter bios) does lend itself to speculation on who will be the new "Worst Couple in Georgestown."

Except it will be "The Worst Couple on 5th Ave.", or possibly "The Worst Couple of the Aspen Ideas Festival."

Since the creator of the Eminent Persons Group funded by George Soros (ballsy!) and his wife did not end up in the best of places-- he was 44 years her senior, had shady ties to American and Iraqi organizations, and his paranoia had turned them both into Howard Hughes-like recluses -- it would be too incendiary to just name a couple to take their place.

Not to mention that the reason for the new couple would be last year's  mysterious murder of the 91-year-old Ms. Drath, which Mr. Muth was eventually charged with, though his mental instability has kept him from trial. (Tareq and Michaele Salahi immediately pop to mind, though they are the tamer, reality-show version.) So how about you just go through our Power Couples list and name your favorite suggestions below! Or hey, make up your  own fantasy Muth/Drath combo.

But you know, without the murder part.

From This is Money:

HSBC has tested its cash machines in Greece to check whether they could cope with the reintroduction of the drachma if the country drops out of the euro.

...

An HSBC spokesman said: ‘Like all banks, we have been working with regulators to undertake preparatory work at multiple levels in the event of a sovereign default, an exit from the euro, or any other eventuality.’

...

The cash machine tests at branches in Athens are understood to have been extensive to ensure that the machines are able to handle banknotes of a different size and texture.

Whither Europe: European governments have about three months to save the monetary union, George Soros said at the Festival of Economics: "I expect that the Greek public will be sufficiently frightened by the prospect of expulsion from the European Union that it will give a narrow majority of seats to a coalition that is ready to abide by the current agreement. But no government can meet the conditions so that the Greek crisis is liable to come to a climax in the fall. By that time the German economy will also be weakening so that Chancellor Merkel will find it even more difficult than today to persuade the German public to accept any additional European responsibilities. That is what creates a three months’ window."

Investors wonder whether central bankers can come to the rescue again, as Europe signals another tumultuous summer for markets.

Self-defense: Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami defended his agency's low tally of prosecutions against top investment banking officials for charges arising out of the financial crisis. For one thing, said Khuzami, decisions on mortgage-backed securities weren't made at banks' highest levels. For another: “We are responsible for regulating 35,000 entities, and yet we are about the size of the D.C. police force.”

The SEC investigator suspended last month after he confided in co-workers his desire to carry a handgun had previously applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon, but was denied.

One insider trader hit the speaking circuit, hoping to build up some goodwill ahead of his sentencing today.

What's in a hedge? Rule makers contemplate the Volcker rule and JP Morgan's recent $2.3 billion "hedging" loss.

Fee fie: Bankruptcy lawyers are under pressure to justify fees that often exceed $1,000 per hour. The lawyers will have their chance to defend themselves today, at a public meeting with the Justice Department's Trustee Program.

Golden oldies: AIG CEO Robert Benmosche looks to the European debt crisis and sees retirement ages moving as high as 80.

Muted response:

Falling star? Morgan Stanley's star investment banker Michael Grimes believes he did an excellent job with Facebook IPO, according to the Wall Street Journal. Fault for Facebook's languishing stock price—$31.91 at Friday's close—lies with the technical glitches in Nasdaq's trading operation, Morgan Stanley officials are whispering. That won't stop rivals from dropping the FB-bomb when competing with Morgan Stanley for clients.

Hedging Europe: It's unlikely that the European crisis will give way to an investing legend like George Soros, who made $1 billion petting against the British pound in 1992, according to Reuters. Hedge fund managers are plying varied strategies—from currency trades to bets on bank stocks or sovereign debt or even a more bullish attitude towards gold in anticipation of future fallout in Europe.

New polls showed that Greece's pro-bailout parties are gaining, easing fears of a eurozone exit. The news out of Spain was less good, as the government grapples to support ailing lender Bankia SA.

Activist gas: Carl Icahn bought a 7.56 percent stake in Chesapeake Energy, the natural gas giant reeling from a series of disclosures CEO Aubrey McCLendon's potential conflicts of interest. Mr. Icahn has called for the election of a new slate of directors before the board votes on a successor to Mr. McClendon as chairman. “Having the current board select a new chairman without shareholder approval and without allowing for shareholder representation is akin to asking the fox, who has plundered the hen house, to choose another fox to assist it in standing guard over the remaining hens,” Mr. Icahn wrote in a letter to the board.

Pay dirt: Comp at European banks was down.

A Bloomberg columnist sides with Jamie Dimon in wondering about executive pay at media companies.

Bean rush: Hydrofrackers depend on guar gum; farmers in northern India's desert states reap bounty.

New directions: JPMorgan is thinking about putting directors with actual risk management experience on its boards risk committee.

Re-primed: Lou Lebedin, JPMorgan's global head of prime brokerage, is being replaced.

Nonprofit Leasing by Submarket.

Deals like NYU Langone Medical Center’s combined 420,000-square-foot lease at 1 Park Avenue in May, and Open Society Foundations’ lease for 152,000 square feet at 224 West 57th Street in April, were among the biggest deals of the year and accounted for a large chunk of all nonprofit leasing activity, according to Cassidy Turley’s "Not-for-Profit & Public Sector Leasing Activity in 2011" report.

The number of leases that exceeded 50,000 square feet comprised 1.29 million total square feet this year, as opposed to 477,000 square feet the year before.

The burgeoning and expanding health care industry, which added 1,300 healthcare jobs in 2011, also contributed to the size of these deals. Three of the five largest leases were by health care firms, according to the report.

One of the hottest buildings for public sector tenants was 100 Church Street, which absorbed a 58,000-square-foot expansion by Healthfirst and a 90,000-square-foot expansion by the State of New York’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, according to the report. Add that to the 280,000 square foot lease renewal that the NYC Law Department is finalizing for renewal and it’s little surprise the SL Green-owned building has seen a shrinking occupancy rate.

Other buildings, like 120 Wall Street, The Empire State Building and 77 Water Street (which added The William J. Clinton Foundation as a tenant), also performed well in 2011.

“You see a concentration of leasing activity all the way downtown,” said Robair Reichenstein, a managing director at Cassidy Turley and one of the authors of the report.

The fact that these nonprofits have big backers, especially with the George Soros-backed Open Society Foundations, have helped fuel this leasing activity.

“All that grouping of the top five [leases] are all organizations with healthy balance sheets,” said Mr. Reichenstein. “These are all organizations that are as solid as solid can be, so I think it makes sense that these are the large organization that can make the large floor commitments,” he added.

Drosen@Observer.com

A man with a US dollar bill taped over his mouth joins members of trade unions join "Occupy Wall Street" protesters during a march to Foley Square on October 5, 2011 in New York. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)

UPDATE: This story was revised October 18 with new information including an updated number for the total amount of funds raised by the protest. It was originally posted on October 14 and ran in The New York Observer print edition Wednesday, October 19.

“George Soros money is behind this!” Rush Limbaugh told his listeners two weeks ago, feeding speculation that the “99 percent” agenda espoused by the Occupy Wall Street protesters has filthy-rich backers—a claim picked up by Reuters and heatedly debated in the media. Soros money? If only. Around the time Reuters was walking back its headline, “Who’s Behind the Wall Street Protests,” later revised to “Soros: Not a Funder,” protesters were voting on whether to spend $3,000 on brooms and trash cans to clean up the occupied plaza in order to avoid eviction by the city.

Back in July, when local activists hammered out the logistics of the Occupy Wall Street protest, they were planning for little more than an urban camping trip. Committees were established to handle security, medication and sanitation. Nourishment was a major concern. Fundraising was an afterthought.

Still, onlookers are rightfully eager to follow the money. Politics have been so dominated by financing for so long that a major movement without major backers seems unthinkable. Last week, Republicans announced a new Super PAC determined, according to The New York Times, to “raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to defend the party’s majority next year”; meanwhile, President Barack Obama raised more than $42 million for his re-election campaign over the last three months.

Donations are flowing into Occupy Wall Street as well, though on a much smaller scale; as of Tuesday the protest’s general fund has raised approximately $294,000, according to members of the finance committee on Tuesday (although the committee is still refining its balance sheet in advance of giving it to a CPA). That’s enough to keep the demonstrators well-fed and livestreaming, but it’s not Soros-level treasure.

More than 4,000 donations ranging from $5 to $7,000 and totaling about $214,000 have been collected online. About $1,000 in cash comes in every day through the empty five-gallon water jug at the ersatz cafeteria in the middle of the plaza and three duct-taped paint buckets stationed at the information booths. Michael Moore gave $1,000 after a book signing. An anonymous donor gave $5,000 after a fundraising pop-up art show, entitled “No Comment,” held at the historic JP Morgan Building. The General Assembly, the group’s open legislature, voted en masse to decline a donation from music mogul Russell Simmons, who wanted a hand in helping the protest shape demands (spawning a rumor that he’d asked the protest to endorse an album in exchange for $20,000). The total on-site donations, cash and check, is about $80,000. And that’s just the general fund; more has been raised for tangential projects. Staffers of the free paper The Indypendent garnered $75,690 to print The Occupied Wall Street Journal via the crowd-funding site Kickstarter; another group has raised $2,971 on the crowd-funding site IndieGoGo to send “radical barbers” and “progressive tailors” to make over the protesters.

Meanwhile, organizers have had a crash course in money management. “It’s radical finances,” Victoria Sobel, the 21-year-old Cooper Union art student who served for a few weeks as Occupy Wall Street’s unofficial CFO, told The Observer Sunday during an evening rendezvous at the protest’s off-site conference room and facilities, McDonald’s.

The group resisted temptation when it came from Mr. Simmons. But how can the decentralized movement, encompassing many varieties of purist from anarchist to libertarian to vegan—one protester told The Observer she maintained a strict alkaline diet—remain uncorrupted? Occupy Wall Street has to keep its books clean in order to avoid going the way of Al Capone. But it’s also had to justify working with the banking establishment to its radical congregants, 24 of whom were arrested over the weekend during a mini-run on the LaGuardia Place Citibank. It’s a delicate line to walk, especially when every major decision and any purchases over $100 have to be approved by the General Assembly, sometimes twice. The sanitation working group recently brought a simple proposal: the purchase of storage bins in order to tidy up the park. It passed, but only after a member of the assembly attached a friendly amendment stipulating that the bins should be certified Fair Trade. When attempting to purchase Fair Trade storage bins, the sanitation committee discovered they do not exist. The proposal had to be passed again.

The movement is also large enough that many people in positions of responsibility don’t know each other, adding to the difficulty of establishing a financial infrastructure. When we first met Ms. Sobel, a young protester seated nearby couldn’t help but overhear. “Hey, are you on Finance?” he asked. “I’m at the info booth, and we like, get a lot of money? What should we do?”

The movement has also inspired unaffiliated websites, claiming to be collecting funds for Occupy Wall Street. There are more than 200 occupation-related campaigns on the fundraising website WePay; some are rumored to be fraudulent, others merely unauthorized. The organizers behind OccupyWallSt.org started raising a separate fund for their own expenses, for $6,000, causing a kerfuffle with the finance committee. Meanwhile, people at the camp are “always trying to steal the buckets,” Ms. Sobel said, and well-meaning protesters as well as opportunists have been seen walking around with their own buckets.

Fortunately for the activists, a mutual friend introduced Ms. Sobel to Elaine Brower, a peace activist who lives in Staten Island and works in the city controller’s office. Ms. Brower is the treasurer for October 2011, a movement which had been planning to occupy Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. for the ten-year anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, independently of Occupy Wall Street—although the groups eventually started collaborating­­.

“Thursday, the 23rd,” Ms. Brower said, consulting her notes when The Observer called. “We sat in McDonald’s—that seems to be the official headquarters over there—and I’m trying to explain to them the ups and downs of accounting and financing.” Ms. Brower detailed the difference between a not-for-profit and a nonprofit to Ms. Sobel and organizers Chris Biemer, Pete Dutro, Darryl Price, and “Robert,” and warned them not to personally accept money because of the risk of taking on unwanted liability.

“I love the whole lateral decision-making process,” Ms. Brower said, referring the protest’s hyper-democratic means of deciding action—“but without any type of leadership they could really get themselves into trouble.”

Ms. Brower arranged for a fiscal sponsor, the nonprofit Alliance for Global Justice, through which the Friends of Liberty Plaza can receive tax-free donations, about a week into the protest.

But the group was still playing catch-up. There was only one venue for fundraising, which was tied to the personal bank account of Mr. Biemer, a 23-year-old Florida transplant and member of the local chapter of Food Not Bombs, the non-profit known for canvassing grocery stores and restaurants for discarded food to repurpose for the homeless. Mr. Biemer was heading up the food committee for Occupy Wall Street, whose original plan was to solicit food donations and find free leftovers by dumpster diving. But on July 29, he wrote an exhaustive letter on the group’s website in which he estimated that the amount of peanut butter sandwiches needed to feed the expected 20,000 people—figuring a typical peanut butter sandwich requires two tablespoons of peanut butter and the stuff is available in 45-lb. tubs—they’d need about $1,000. “Despite some outreach efforts, the total amount of money raised by the Food Committee so far equals $0,” he wrote. “So, we need money.”

Mr. Biemer registered an account at WePay.com to accept donations for food, with the expectation that it would never exceed $2,000 and thus avoid inviting an audit. But after the protest started, they were getting so much donated food that there was no need to dumpster dive, and on the fourth day, Mr. Biemer’s WePay account had collected about $10,000.

In the first week of the protest, around the time they realized they had money, the protesters realized they needed to spend money. Tarps, coffee and other staples that weren’t being regularly donated were in high demand, as were dry socks and underwear after it rained. There was a march planned for Saturday, the protest’s first big weekend, and organizers needed funds to cover bail and medical supplies such as gauze, which was soaked in vinegar and handed out to marchers in case of tear gas. The money was sitting in Mr. Biemer’s account, but there was no legal entity to transfer it to. Meanwhile, some wondered whether it was ethical to spend money people had ostensibly donated for food on other necessities instead. At the same time, protesters on site were grumbling about the funds. “People were really freaking out,” Ms. Sobel said. “’Where’s the money? How much is there? Why can’t I see it?’ I was extremely discouraged. We were kind of screwed.”

Considering the time crunch, Ms. Brower offered to move some money through October 2011. Mr. Biemer overnighted a check made out to the nonprofit for $5,000 and Ms. Brower delivered the cash Saturday morning so an invigorating breakfast could be bought for the plaza in advance of the march. “I told Victoria to make sure she locked it up somewhere,” she said. The money did get locked up, in a safety box at One Police Plaza, after Ms. Sobel was arrested with the remaining $4,300. It was returned when Ms. Sobel was released, with a receipt and a raised eyebrow.

Since then, Occupy Wall Street has opened two bank accounts in the name of its unincorporated association, Friends of Liberty Plaza. The first was at the Lower East Side People’s Credit Union—the most ethically-palatable solution within a reasonable commute. CEO Linda Levy was surprised to see the protesters walk into the bank. “We asked how they had found us, and they said they found us on the internet,” she told The Observer. “We were actually really pleased that they decided to open an account with us. The fact that they would pick us to have their account would reflect that we’re not like other banks. A lot of times there are progressive movements that complain about the banks but they still keep their money in the banks.”

The credit union has made “Occupy Wall Street” an honoree at its upcoming 25th birthday party, she said.

About two weeks ago, Occupy Wall Street was approached by another financial institution: the union-owned Amalgamated Bank at 52 Broadway, four blocks from the protest’s headquarters at Zuccotti Park. The finance committee members were having trouble making it up to the Lower East Side by 4 p.m. in order to deposit, so they opened a second account at Amalgamated, which has a big, red, branded banner in the window: “Amalgamated Bank Supports UFT and the Occupy Wall Street Movement.” (Another possible wrench in the process: Amalgamated is under a consent order by the FDIC for not discharging delinquent loans in a timely manner. If it doesn’t satisfy the FDIC’s requirements, it could be in line for receivership.)

But even as things tighten up on the accounting side, the General Assembly, which now attracts a thick crowd that takes up half the park, is becoming comically inefficient. The group has no sound permit for a PA, so each committee’s proposal must be amplified by the “human mic,” in which a speaker says a few words at a time which are repeated by the audience seated immediately nearby, then echoed in concentric rings. A scribe also transcribes the proceedings on a laptop which is projected onto a screen. And at the opening of each assembly, facilitators remind the crowd the hand signals: up spirit fingers for yes, down for no, and arms crossed in front of the chest to indicate a serious objection.

With waves of new protesters still arriving, it’s more likely that someone will block each motion. As a result, some groups are raising their own funds–creating resentment and potential legal implications. Suspicion isn’t limited to finance. “They’re having secret meetings,” one protester, who is establishing the plaza’s internet café, said of the media group. The arts and culture committee and media working group dominate the plaza as groups like Labor, Library and People of Color attract smaller numbers—although everyone seems to love the food committee.

The General Assembly passed a resolution to spend a hefty $3,000 to clean up the plaza Thursday when the N.Y.P.D. essentially angled to evict the protesters in order to “clean the park,” the same pretext that was used in June to shut down the union-instigated Bloombergville, an occupation near City Hall to protest budget cuts and layoffs. The body also recently approved a $25,000 budget for the media working group.

But due to the tedious approval process, expenditures are mostly happening only in small increments—petty cash expenses taken out of the on-site cash buckets. Meanwhile, funds are accumulating online. The amount donated per day keeps increasing. A technical team is building an accounting system using open source software, which will embed a balance sheet on the website for anyone to have a look.

“I’ve been trying to warn them to make sure that all of this is really kept aboveboard,” Ms. Brower said. “We know that the government is going to be looking at this at some point. Like, they have buckets around for donations. You really shouldn’t have buckets around. It’s just not a good thing. It’s a temptation and it doesn’t look right.”

We were assured the committee is replacing the buckets with lockboxes, we told her.

“Accepting cash in that situation could lead to problems!” she said. “When money comes into play, it brings out the worst in people.”

ajeffries@observer.com

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Ms. Brower used her own Haiti-based 501c(3) to help out Occupy Wall Street; on two occasions, Ms. Brower used the October 11 association to cash checks for Occupy Wall Street. The Observer regrets the error.