How to protest Wall Street

Upon reading Terri's post about the "Occupy Wall Street" protests--which incidentally does not seem to have done squat to actually, say, shut down Wall Street--some thoughts on how one ought to deal with the very real excesses of Wall Street come to mind. 


First, one ought to remember that government is not the solution to, but rather the cause of, the problem, from promoting and subsidizing employer paid health care to farm subsidies to the Fed to Fannie and Freddie to corporate welfare programs of all kinds--and for that matter, education subsidies.  Write letters to your legislators and vote accordingly.

Next, one needs to remember that the tentacles of big government and big business are made of debt.  It powers the inflation tax, enables the Fed/Fannie/Freddie, and keeps people in miserable corporate jobs.  If you want freedom, use your spare cash flow to pay off debt--remember the money creation power of fractional reserve banking?  You can put a brake on Ben Bernanke.

Finally, don't forget the power of taking care of what's your own, illustrated brilliantly by one of the big differences between the Tea Partiers and OWS demonstrators; Tea Partiers cleaned up after themselves, while OWS demonstrators left a mess for the government to clean up.  In the same way, how many people are in virtual servitude because they allow big corporations to clean up the messes they've made?  It adds up.

You may not think that you can make a difference with your possibly small income and assets, but you just might be surprised.  After all, hasn't the Chief 1%er been pretty angry that more people aren't taking on debt?  Maybe someone is catching on.  Maybe it's time for you to catch on, too.