3 Things Occupy Wall Street Should Do

Saturday night my roommate and I were wandering back from Ned Devine's down by Faneuil Hall in Boston trying to find a cab. Somehow we ended up over close to South Station and we ran into Occupy Boston (alcohol is not good for your internal compass). I decided to check it out because I don't trust the traditional media to cover this movement in its honest, actual light (because they are corporations, and therefore, a target of the movement. They are not an unbiased actor). There were a bunch of signs airing legitimate grievances about the horrifying wealth inequality we experience today. There were also a handful of signs with clever ways of essentially saying "fuck the rich." There was also a sign that said "expose the 9/11 cover up." This showed me that there is a an extremist element participating, but in contrast to what I saw at Occupy Boston, they are a very small minority. Most of the people just seemed angry and distressed at their current situation. This anger is legitimate, but the message seems muddled. Kudos to Rusk Lee Waites for coming up with his five ideas, here are a few of mine.


#1. Demand a constitutional amendment banning any usage of private funds for campaigns for federal elections and establish publicly funded elections.
This has gone on long enough. The keystone of every politicians campaign for the last 40 years has been about "changing the culture in Washington." Well it's been long enough. You guys couldn't get the job done, now it's our turn to change the culture using the biggest tool we have. Draft this amendment and ask every politician where they stand on it and I'll bet every one who isn't immediately in favor of it will be voted out of office. This is the first step in making this country a more efficient Democracy.

The cost to the taxpayer? Politicians spent $4.2 billion in the 2010 elections, the most in history (the money spent in 2012 will undoubtedly exceed that number). According to the IRS, there were 144,103,375 tax returns filed in 2010. If taxpayers had paid for the entire 2010 election, it would have cost $29.14 per tax return (these figures are assuming a flat tax, something we don't have, they're here to provide context). If we were to pay for that gross amount of advertising (which I highly doubt anyone would want to) every 2 years, it would cost $14.57 a year. I would still pay that every year to get rid of the gridlock and corruption in Washington.

Dylan Ratigan has already released a petition with over 200,000 signatures trying something like this.


#2. Demand a federal seed bank for entrepreneurs partially funded by new taxes on financial transactions.
The central issue of this movement is the lack of good jobs due to many factors (globalization being the biggest one, not corporate greed). Instead of waiting around for a job, get off your ass and create one. With the internet, you don't need technical expertise (although I would strongly recommend having it over not having it, you can teach yourself how to write code using tutorials on YouTube). Have an idea on how to make a product better? Post it on Elance.com, then head over to LegalZoom.com to buy a Non-Disclosure Agreement for $15, find a freelancer, have him sign the NDA, and get a beta version up then measure the response. The hardest part of running a company is always acquiring the initial funding because investors don't want to invest in ideas, they want to invest in projectable results.

The internet has made starting a business incredibly cheap. There should be a Y Combinator-style seed bank funded by the public and private sector (where both have equity in each individual venture). The average cost of getting a beta up on the internet while also having enough money to pay rent and eat only Ramen Noodles is $14,000 according to Y Combinator. Since the federal government is much bigger, they could afford to make this seed funding larger and would accommodate more types of ideas. First, impose a tax on each individual financial transaction on Wall Street (to punish High Frequency Trading that makes the market more volatile) and invest those revenues in the Federal Seed Bank. The federal government could partner with Venture Capitalist firms to split ownership of each venture. In this system, the government provides the seed funding and VC firms provide the advisors and pick which ideas to invest in.

Let's assume that the average cost to the Federal Seed Bank for each venture is $20,000. In 2009, there were about 27.5 million businesses in the country. Assume we want to increase that number by 5%; that amounts to investing in 1.3 million ideas every year at a total cost of $26 billion per year. If we finance half of each venture using Wall Street taxes and half with federal income taxes, the annual cost to each individual taxpayer would be $90.13. I like that price tag a lot more than Obama's $400 billion jobs program (an average cost of $2,775.79 per tax return).

This would benefit everyone. Occupy Wall Street has raised legitimate grievances about the corporate elite but America is what it is today because of Wall Street and corporations. We win when they win (just so long as we make sure they're not using those winnings to steal from us). The federal government (meaning the taxpayers) own half of every seed funding agreement, the second half is split by Wall Street and Venture Capitalist firms who now have more start ups to work with and more chances to find winners to fund at the next stage in their development.

#3. Kick out the yahoos
Look at Egypt and Tunisia; peace is a winning strategy. There is no place for signs like this in this demonstration