Forum Post: Maximize Your Power !

In a Democracy, we get the government we vote for. In Capitalism, we get the corporations we buy from. By borrowing, we make the bankers rich. If we borrow money to buy foreign goods, we make the bankers rich and lose our jobs.

Referencing http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/housedebt/ we see that Americans spent not only their disposable income, but started borrowing at unprecedented levels starting in 2000 to buy foreign made goods. By 2008, fully 20% of disposable income was going toward household debt payments to pay for all those foreign goods. Our purchase of foreign goods produced a trade deficit that averaged 714 billion per year between 2005 and 2008, or $2.1 trillion in total cash outflow over a three year period ( http://tinyurl.com/CensusTradeData ).

The most positive action I have seen to date by OWS is the people voting with their dollars by closing Bank of America accounts and moving their funds to Credit Unions. This is how consumers change the face of corporate America.

You are all blessed with the Internet. Engage your representatives with rational positions; according to my own representatives, few people do. Research the companies with which you do business on a daily basis and stop doing business with those that do not pay a "living wage" or provide the benefits you feel are appropriate. Skip that self check lane at the supermarket and use one staffed by a human. Press "O" whenever a computer answers your call.

Above all, consider the full SOCIAL cost of each and every financial transaction you engage in.

Stop voting for the product with the cheapest purchase cost alone cost and consider your neighbors job now and then. This means you may actually have to pay a little more for the product, but this simply means your values are WORTH something to you. Stop selecting the most convenient choices like that computerized check-out lane, that computerized voice on the phone, Amazon.com, etc and insist on dealing with real people. You may have to wait a bit longer, but in waiting you are saying your values are WORTH something to you.

It is darned HARD to be a responsible citizen, but this effort is what is required of us if we are to live up to our Founder's faith in Man's ability to self-govern.

We the People have all the power to effect change. Use it.