Forum Post: Proposed Unifying Demand: Write Down Our Debts! (long, wonkish post)

Discussion item: What to demand from Congress and the President as this movement’s priority demand? Hint: It's the economy s.....

The growing Occupy movement around the country has a number of demands for our elected leaders, however the economy really is the energy behind the movement. If there weren’t unemployment of over 9% and if Congress and the White House were doing something effective and grand enough to create the millions of jobs that need to be created to reduce unemployment to normal, low levels instead of dickering about deficit reduction, there would be no unifying need for the Occupy movement.

The sad fact is that solutions to the current economic crisis are simple, achievable and straightforward. But even politicians allied with us haven’t been able to propose or support them because of the domination of the financial industry over the American political process.

But there is one clear thing right now that Congress and the President could do to immediately increase consumer spending and create both jobs and well-being for the millions of Americans left unemployed because of the financial crisis and the government stalemate over doing anything about it. It also directly addresses Wall Street’s domination of our political system in just and fair way that stimulates the economy and would create millions of jobs by stimulating consumer spending again (consumer spending accounts for 70% of the US economy and is the part of the economy that hasn't increased since the crisis began):

Forgive our debts! (And everyone else’s too! Or at least enough debt to bring household net worth back up to 2002 or 2003 levels.)

Household net worth has dropped 38% (!) since 2004 and 26% since 2002. Thhis is an amazing, historically radical, declines in US well being, and since wealth is one of the primary drivers of consumer demand, people don’t spend their money and thus . they can’t because their bankers take it first, even if the government provides unemployment checks or even a stimulus-funded job. Economics 101 says that the best way to create jobs in a recession is to spend money, and the best way to make sure the money is spent and not saved or sent to invest overseas, is to give it to people who have to spend it. But we can’t spend money if the banks take it first, so reducing consumers – our – debt load needs to be part of our demands, and it’s a demand that fits with occupying Wall Street. It is clear from the evidence that it is Wall Street standing in the way of economic recovery and job growth, because Wall Street is still trying to collect on debts that Americans incurred before the crisis that crashed their home values and life savings and had no fault in causing. So let's demand that Wall Street provide the stimulus to revive the economy by forgiving debt across the board.