Forum Post: Here are four demands we could all get behind

It's time to focus demands and focus them at Wall Street and the specific congressmen and senators who are blocking legislation.

1. Demand Big Banks Give Ordinary Citizens The Same Rates They Receive From The Federal Reserve. -Borrowers can’t re-negotiate college loans the way big corporations can, who have access to interest rates that are near zero. Students can’t consolidate high-rate private loans with lower-rate federal borrowing, so the plums of high finance are out of their reach. Those who graduated from college are paying off debt for decades — nearly $23,000 per student and six figures for professional degrees.

2. Demand Congress Permit Regular Folks To Discharge Student Debt In Bankruptcy. It’s somewhat of a consolation that graduates can get lower payments based on sparse income or employment if they have federal loans, but they still have to repay those loans. If they file for bankruptcy, they can’t discharge those debts, which are like albatrosses. Not so with the megabanks, who not only received a multi-trillion-dollar bailout, but got the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve to buy their bad debt and toxic securities. There’s a solid reason why the delinquency rate for student loans is almost as high as credit cards.

3. Demand Congress Pass Stimulus Plan To Create Infrastructure, Education, Research and Clean Energy Jobs Instead Of Investing In Two Wars That 3/4 Of America Thinks Are Senseless. If the job market were robust, none of these protesters would have to worry. Like previous generations, they could work, pay off their debts and buy things like appliances, furniture and homes. They could afford to have children and provide them decent educations. That was the American Dream. The younger generation is not getting the job opportunities their parents or grandparents had. They are faced with average 15 percent unemployment. It’s much higher for minorities. Even if they can get a job, wages are depressed due to the recession and many are underemployed, working several jobs or are part-timers.

4. Stop The Hemorrhaging Housing Crises By Forcing Banks To Write Down Mortgage Balances To Today’s Value. The big banks – BofA, Chase, Wells, Citi, etc. – all played a major role in driving up housing costs by pushing high risk loans to anyone with a heartbeat then reselling them as AAA-rated mortgage backed securities and finally, illegally foreclosing on those homes. They’re getting sued by every major investor, 50 attorney generals, FHFA, and even each other! They settling each suit and paying back investors one by one, thereby recognizing the securities fraud they committed. It’s time to bring those mortgages back to today’s value where they should have been all along, and let investors collect something rather than a 50% reduced foreclosed property.

The first 3 points came from Reuters (http://blogs.reuters.com/reuters-money/2011/10/10/what-the-occupy-wall-street-crowd-should-be-saying). The fourth is my demand.

Tom