Cheers for Wall Street Protesters

Not all reaction to the Occupy Wall Street movement has been predictable. Jim Chanos, a hedge-fund chief, and Bill Gross, the highest profile bond-fund manager in America, expressed sympathy for the protesters. And the chief executive of Citigroup Inc. said he'd be "happy to talk with them." Here's a look at what notable financiers, politicians, and media stars have said about the protests.

Colin Powell, Former U.S. Secretary of State, Army General

"Demonstrating like this is as American as apple pie. We've been marching up and down and demonstrating throughout our history. ... There's an increasing gap between those who are doing very, very well, and I'm doing well, and those who are not doing as well, and those who are not doing as well are not seeing their lives improve. So there's frustration, there's angriness there." (Source: Politico)

Michael Moore, filmmaker

"We started rewarding people not for making things or inventing things. We reward people for making money off money and moving money around and dividing up mortgages a thousand times over, selling it to China. We're against greed and the fact that 1% could get nine slices of the pie and the other 99% are supposed to fight over the last slice." (Source: Piers Morgan)

Russell Simmons, hip-hop entrepreneur

"Simple idea, power to the people. It's not a difficult idea, that we get the special interests and the money out of Washington." (Source: Keith Olbermann)

Bill Gross, founder of Pacific Investment Management Co.

"Class warfare by the 99%? Of course, they're fighting back after 30 years of being shot at." (Source: Twitter)

Laurence Fink, CEO of BlackRock

"The protesting is a statement (that) the future is very clouded for a lot of people. These are not lazy people sitting around looking for something to do. We have people losing hope and they're going into the street…” (Source: Bloomberg)

Joseph Dear, chief investment officer, CalPERS

"The financial system gets bailed out, executives' salaries stay high and the incomes of people who work for a living, paycheck to paycheck, continue to decline." (Source: CNBC)