Brian Gongol
Twelve things the Occupy protesters could be doing that would be more productive than protesting:
1. Take all of your banking to a credit union. Credit unions are owned by their depositors, and any profits they make belong to the depositors. As member-shareholders, the depositors become the owners.
2. Make a plan to eliminate your debts and get it underway. Banks make most of their money from people who are in debt. People who aren't in debt neither feed the profits of the banks, nor find themselves chained to fiscal masters they don't want. If you're already debt-free, help educate others in how to do so. Volunteer to teach a course or to serve as a mentor to someone looking for debt help.
3. Read The Little Book of Common Sense Investing
. The author, John Bogle, is a capitalist -- one who thinks that there are people in the financial sector who take inexcusable profits. But he doesn't advise people to drop out of capitalism. Instead, he recognizes that it's long been the most effective economic system of any type for making the lives of ordinary people better, and he offers a clear solution for making it work. Bogle offers clear, easy-to-follow guidance for avoiding those people and starving them of the excess profits they try to take. (There are two copies available at the Des Moines Central Library.)
4. Read The Millionaire Next Door
. The authors provide clear guidance about how virtually anyone -- regardless of income -- can establish financial security over the long term. The need to plan for the future is nothing new in human history; at different times, that's meant canning enough food to last through winter, or preparing to follow migrating herds of animals, or finding a job with a company that offered a generous pension plan. Except for that brief deviation through the era of generous pensions, it's always been up to individuals and families to take care of themselves. Today, that means learning enough about money and finances to either know how to save and invest for both a "rainy day" and for retirement -- or to have the judgment to find someone to do that work on your behalf. But the ultimate responsibility still belongs with the individual household. It always has.
5. Identify a good or service you think is overpriced and start a business offering an alternative. A lot of people choose to demonize the market system rather than learning to work with it. Short on cash? Lots of good businesses can be started with little or no start-up money. Or form a co-op. Or borrow from a credit union. Or find some friends, pool your money, and incorporate. If cash is the most serious limitation, don't overlook the fact that businesses trade (or barter) with one another all the time in lieu of cash payments. Just keep track of the value placed on the trade, since the government taxes it just the same.
6. Run for office. Spend time in a constructive attempt to persuade other people to agree with your principles. The democratic process is still alive and well. It took just over 150 votes to win election to the Clive city council last month, 534 in West Des Moines, 515 in Waukee, a few over 1,000 in Urbandale, and 685 in one Des Moines precinct. Money doesn't keep people out of these offices -- many of the races were even uncontested. If your ideas truly represent "the 99%", you should win in a landslide. Most of the time, local elections are won by getting 51% of votes from the 25% of people who actually get out and cast ballots.
7. Prepare a petition for a specific proposal to fix something about the system. Distribute the petition and obtain the required signatures. State legislatures remain particularly easy to reach and persuade. There is no point in trying to make a show of giving your grievances to a bank manager.
8. Write a thoughtful, original letter with a reasonable policy proposal. Share that letter with your duly-elected representatives in Congress and your state legislature. Copy the letter and share it via PDF on a website. Holding signs like "GOP: Greed Oil Profit" is just cartoonishly silly; it doesn't persuade anyone who isn't already in agreement, so it really accomplishes nothing. If you legitimately want change, then you have to persuade others to agree with you -- that's the way a democracy is governed.
9. Instead of occupying a park, clean one. Wear t-shirts with the name of a group (or a ballot initiative, or a bill) you support.
10. Volunteer to serve on a committee of the local government. Experience on a parks board, for instance, or a county hospital commission, provides a swift education in how the political process works. Think there's a better way to do things than the status quo? Then it's your civic responsibility to do something about it.
11. Take a class in economics or finance from a college or the local community-education agency. Lots of protesters show a remarkable degree of ignorance about the fundamentals of economics -- like thinking that a campaign for public office is the same as something owned by the public. Mistakes of this order of magnitude demolish any sort of credibility of the protests. Des Moines Community Education is offering nine night courses about money in spring 2012, each for $25 or less. Don't want to spend that much? Go to a used bookstore and get a used textbook in the subject. Or take free online courses in economics from MIT.
12. Identify a charity serving people whom you think deserve help. Put the same effort into fundraising on their behalf and peacefully promoting their agenda as has thus far been channeled into loud protests.