I am a Ninety-Nine Percenter

Unfortunately for most of us ninety-nine percenters, the initiators of the Occupy Wall Street movement forgot a key ingredient for a meaningful (let alone successful!) protest: focus and goals.

Opinion Piece by Meagan Yockey, Staff Writer

Via _PaulS_

Taco Tuesday has become a bench mark in my life. Once it was just a way for friends to get together, eat, drink and be merry, but now it has turned into a meeting of the well educated and unemployed. The stories I’m hearing of filling out job applications, going to job interviews and the quiet disappointment that comes after is all too familiar.

The young and old [er] alike seem to have the same problem: they apply, they interview and nothing happens. This process seems to be the job itself, and after so many mornings of dressing in our ‘go get em’ attire, we’re starting to feel the burn that is unemployment. So we now focus on the injustice that is the unemployment rate, we watch the news and educate ourselves on the protests and all that it encompasses.

In this regard, I am a ninety-nine percenter.  At least I’m pretty sure I am.  But I don’t want to occupy Wall Street (or the business district of my home town).  Neither am I a “…Starbucks-sipping…” malcontent, and I do not want to “…eat the rich…” as Charles Krauthammer recently suggested in his weekly Washington Post editorial that ninety-nine percenters or the ‘Occupy Wall Street’  (or the OWS, as they are called) demonstrators want to do.  No, Mr. Krauthammer, we just don’t want the rich to have us for lunch!

What I want, and what I suspect the large majority of the demonstrators want, is a broad spectrum of change.  Change in the political system and the politicians who can’t seem to accomplish anything without threats and accusations that it’s the other side who doesn’t ‘get it.’

Change in a banking system that is happy to accept taxpayers’ money to bail them out of a conflagration of poor decisions and short-sightedness, but gasps and rails at the mere suggestion that they should be grateful or that they should learn from their mistakes.

Change in an investment environment that, having grown to a global network, welcomes and honors gambling and risk taking the likes of which Reno, Las Vegas and Atlantic City have never imagined.

Change to a corporate culture that benefits from a myriad of tax-payer underwritten tax breaks and loopholes, yet has the gall to suggest that those who are unable to find employment are at fault, not the economy or the government.

Unfortunately for most of us ninety-nine percenters, the initiators of the Occupy Wall Street movement forgot a key ingredient for a meaningful (let alone successful!) protest: focus and goals.  If you don’t like how something is being done and want those doing it to do it differently, you have to be able to explain what is being done wrong and provide a clear and compelling reason as to why different will be better.

So here we are a month into the protest, without a clear agenda or set of objectives.  A lot of national and international attention has confirmed that lots of people nearly everywhere are mad as hell at our collective financial, political and economic situation, but we haven’t figured out what to do with that anger and frustration to compel change to any of the key areas that need it.  When do we set aside the anger and find a constructive way to improve our way of life?

Taking the issues raised earlier one at a time, we’ll start with politics.  The U.S. Congress has the lowest approval rating of the job they’ve done.  I would suggest that we have several possible reasons – and ways – to address their performance: Term Limits, reduction (if not elimination) of life-long pensions, and reduction of tax-payer funded health care for politicians.

The catch is that Congress won’t propose, let alone enact, legislation that would so severely impact their own well being, so reasonable, clear and compelling changes need to be defined and presented to them via national media.

[pullquote]But the right kind of change…will only happen if and when good ideas are molded into clear and compelling suggestions, supported by appropriate and reasonable implementation steps, and by the right people.[/pullquote]

Next is the banking system.  Our elected representatives need to define and implement banking system reforms that will prevent abuses by banks of its clients.  This is also a tricky one, because we want both a reform to our political system – including less government and fewer, less onerous regulatory oversight of many aspects of our lives – while we need that same government to take control of a system that frequently acts as though controls aren’t meant to apply to them.

Loan criteria that differ from bank to bank and loan type to loan type are another area of abuse that needs to be fixed.  It’s especially infuriating that many banks are still in business today only because we bailed them out of their financial mess, yet they are now making record profits and increasing restrictions on loans to businesses and individuals who helped fund the bailouts – the result of which is a stalled economy.

And, finally, we have the corporate culture to address.  Hearing that Exxon, General Electric, Boeing, and other multi-billion dollar companies have been granted tax concessions by local, state and federal tax authorities for a multitude of reasons is perplexing, at best.

Are those reasons real, fair and legitimate?  Are the companies still complying with the original terms of the concession?  Did the taxing authorities really have the power/authority to grant the concessions in the first place?  Were the taxing authorities fore-sighted in their deliberations and ultimate definition of the conditions for the concession – e.g., calling for a reduction (or elimination) in the concession under certain conditions, such as shipping jobs overseas?

But the right kind of change – and the fixes that come with it – will only happen if and when good ideas are molded into clear and compelling suggestions, supported by appropriate and reasonable implementation steps, and by the right people.

The movement has brought lots of people together and has garnered the attention of the media, so we have a foundation upon which to promote change that will benefit us all. Until we are able to breach the wall that is keeping us from economic success, I’ll continue to enjoy the comfort in Taco Tuesdays, and my friends and I will keep talking about ways to promote change.

ARB Team
Arbitrage Magazine
Business News with BITE.

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