Ideas for the 99% Occupy movement. Idea #1

Many have been asking what are the demands of the 99% movement protesters across the country and much has been made about the lack of a coherent message. I believe since most of us are in the 99% we must offer suggestions for what we all can do.

So here is my first suggestion. Most of us are concerned about the "Too Big to Fail" banks here in the US. There are about 6 of these institutions and here are the list of the ones I remember:

JP Morgan Chase
Bank of America
Citicorp
HSBC
Wells Fargo

Anyone who is concerned these banks are too big can withdraw all their money and put them in local banks and Credit Unions. I like Community banks myself because they loan to local merchants. If the 99% withdrew their support of these banks they would be forced into shrinking and the size of their assets would shrink dramatically.

Idea #2 is in the works. If you have any ideas, feel free to leave a comment and maybe yours will be posted.

Senate and Congress on Financial reforms: They sold out!

First the headlines and the subscript: New financial rules might not prevent next crisis! The most sweeping changes to financial rules since the Great Depression might not prevent another crisis.

The article was written by AP Business Writers Daniel Wagner and Stevenson Jacobs and posted on Yahoo.com. It lays out in very concise language the problem, the solution and why the solution might not work. For example, remember the Financial reform Bill passed by the Senate and the Congress was supposed to solve Too-big-to-fail institutions. Here's the excerpt on that particular topic:

The problem:
After bad bets on housing and other risky investments caused the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the government pumped billions into the largest banks to keep the system afloat.

The solution: The overhaul would let regulators close banks whose collapse could threaten the system.

Why it might not work:

The Senate bill lets regulators decide whether to protect the creditors of failed banks. Creditors might take a too-rosy view of a banks' finances if they feel they have nothing to lose in a failure. They might still lend to weak banks and raise the cost of eventually closing them down.
The bill does little to prevent big banks from getting bigger, meaning taxpayers might have to intervene again. A Democratic amendment to limit the size of banks was rejected amid opposition from banks such as Goldman Sachs.

The Bill passed by the Senate last week must be reconciled with the House version of th Bill. Interested persons should call their Congressmen and tell them to fix these gaps and close those loopholes!

To read the full article (and it is worth reading), click here.

Too big to fail? Ha!

Here's an afterthought about the AIG Insurance company Fed bailout. Maybe we shouldn't allow companies to get that big without spinning off part of their businesses and the profit shared among shareholders? It seems that the expression "the bigger they are the harder they fall" is appropriate here.