Though the Boss is singing about a couple of muggers on this Irish folk-inspired outlaw anthem, his real target is the bigger economic crimes by the bankers and “fat cats” against the ordinary citizen.

Springsteen said in Paris on February 17, 2012 at the unveiling of the Wrecking Ball album that he is not afraid how the record will be received in election-year America:

The temper has changed. And people on the streets did it. Occupy Wall Street changed the national conversation – the Tea Party had set it for a while. The first three years of Obama were under them. Previous to Occupy Wall Street, there was no push back at all saying this was outrageous…a basic theft that struck at the heart of what America was about, a complete disregard for the American sense of history and community…

In ‘Easy Money’ the guy is going out to kill and rob, just like the robbery spree that has occurred at the top of the pyramid – he’s imitating the guys on Wall Street. An enormous fault line cracked the American system right open whose repercussion we are only starting to be feel.

Nobody had talked about income inequality in America for decades – apart from John Edwards – but no one was listening. But now you have Newt Gingrich talking about ‘vulture capitalism’ – Newt Gingrich! – that would not have happened without Occupy Wall Street.“ (As reported by UK newspaper The Guardian.)