Since the early 1990s, I have maintained that the current economy is based on 'un-earned' income for the wealthy and hard work for the rest. "Un-earned" income is income that is derived, not by the sweat of one's brows or by producing tangible goods and services, but on interest, dividends and other payments based largely on other people's work.
The current world-wide movement that started out as "Occupy Wall Street" is attempting to redress that situation by blockading bridges, camping out in parks and protesting in many ways against this economy without really having any focus. This is the first mistake that the Occupy movement has made.
Without focusing their efforts on changing the credit and debt-based ecomony (which is basically what 'un-earned' income amounts to), they are missing the mark and striking out at nothing in particular, just displaying a sense of unease with no goals.
This makes the movement an easy target for ridicule. Many people see the protesters as being the 21st century equivalents of hippies; people who would rather get stoned than working for a living.
Mistake number two is found in the way that they are lobbying for change. Instead of paying attention to the past 40 years of financial market history and lobbying their elected government officials during that time, they do the "peacenik" protest dance. Protesting will not change a thing unless they serve up solutions to the problem.
Which brings us back to mistake number one. If they do not have a clear focus on what needs to be changed, they will not be able to find solutions. Its a tautology, a circle dance with no end in sight.
Here is my proposal for change.
Find something to fix within the world financial market, look at options how to make the economy more equitable for the working people, then lobby governments to change the rules along those lines. Make sure that what you want to fix is doable and will result in a better re-distribution of wealth without violent revolution.
In this way, the Occupy Wall Street movement will gain some credibility and probably effect real change.
The only big problem I see now is that most of the protesters would like to be at the top themselves in exactly the same way as the very people they are protesting against. This makes many of them hypocrites.
So here is a challenge for all you protesters: find what needs to be fixed, focus your efforts on changing those rules and then come back to us. If your solutions are viable, then your protests will have merit.
At the rate you're going now, the only people you will impress is yourselves. The rest of us will find better ways to change the way the financial system works.
