Forum Post: What the demands of OWS should be

The way I see it, OWS has 3 main concerns, which are actually shared by 98% of the American people, without hesitation:

1. Standard of living for Americans
2. Student loan debt and employment (related: healthcare)
3. Ending irresponsible and/or corrupt practices of government and corporations (especially banks and "wall street")

I will make a thread on each of these points, since the site is telling me the essay with all 3 included is too long to post on OWS :(

1. Our standard of living:

We want it to be higher (duh!). So far, most of the people I have seen have been calling for a higher minimum wage, or a "living wage". The idea is to pay people more, so they can afford more stuff, thus making their lives better.

This is a decent idea, but there are a couple of problems. First- fewer jobs will be created because each new job will automatically be much more expensive. There will be fewer people working harder and more people with no job at all. Second- it causes wage inflation, which leads to price inflation. When prices go up in sync with wages, we aren't any better off. Third- the reality of the world today is that a small number of firms supply a huge amount of the goods and services Americans buy. These increased wages will be going to pay increased prices with the profit going right back to the ruling elite (the 0.1% to 0.001%, who are surely laughing at all of you as you get arrested trying to implement their wish list of policy goals).

Here is a two-part alternative plan OWS should consider.

Part A. Let working class Americans keep their money. Cut working class tax rates to zero. Currently, "the 53%" have pointed out that 47% of americans pay no federal income tax. But, a lot of those 47% still have to file a tax form and still have federal income tax deducted from their checks. And a lot of those 53% are currently paying so little, it's barely worth it for the Gov to spend the money required collect from them. The government should equalize the nominal rate and the effective rate, keeping more of people's own money in their own pockets instead of giving to the government first, so they can slosh it around to whatever corporation's lobbyist gave them a handie that week, then borrow more money from international financiers so they can give you a tax "refund" check.

Part B. Increase the American people's purchasing power by taking steps to MAKE THE DOLLAR WORTH MORE. Hello? DUH? No need to increase wages, just make every dollar we have buy more stuff. When the house of Rothschild set up the US Federal Reserve Corporation, they promised us a dual mandate. The official purpose of the Fed was to both keep inflation low and aim at full employment (which means, bizzarely, as some "acceptable" % of unemployment). Today, full employment part has been somewhat revised, the Fed now sees it's role as to ensure that the stock market keeps going up. But now, Bernanke has made a statement, officially ending the dual mandate of the Fed. The Federal reserve will no longer attempt to control inflation. It is out in the open now, the only purpose of the Federal reserve is to pump more money into the "too big to fail" banks and hope that they gamble wisely. OWS must take a stand against this. NO more bailouts, NO more monetary easing, NO more troubled asset purchases. NO more of our dollars can go to help the banks (and other companies, ahem, Solyndra) avoid the consequences of their own stupid decisions. We must demand an end to these inflationary policies which make our dollars buy less and less stuff every day. At the VERY least, we must demand that Bernanke re-affirm the dual mandate. Ideally, it should be a single mandate, to keep inflation low so our dollars buy more stuff. But baby steps.

Your thoughts?