Wow! Interesting ideas! I will bring many of them to Occupy Seattle...Thanks!

I’d like to see a special prosecutor assigned to prosecute all the financial ‘Corporations’ (if still in business) and all of the senior officials of (all) of those corporation who were employed at any time during the financial bubble. I would like to see special prosecutor sweep through the highly paid board of directors who served on any board of any of those corporations.

I don't think it's possible, because those people dominate from a revolving White House door that welcomes only the elite 1% of it's population and many of those criminals now serve the ‘country’s best interest’ AND many more of those criminals think they are safely hiding under the guise of professorships, Deans and even Presidents of some of our highest rated universities.

There seems to have been no point what-so-ever to the Congressional inquiry of 2009 – just a show to placate the masses.

As long as all those criminals maintain their political influence from WITHIN the system, there is no fixing it.

The best use of our most fervent OCCUPIERS (at the moment) would be as educators. They’re able to set up 24 hour live stream videos then we can set up Channels for educating the public. We can even run our own political candidates. They won’t win, but it will be a better protest then taking no part at all in a political equivalency of the Wall Street ponzie schemes.

Every state should have an interest in every other state’s politics because interstate commerce, our educational system, and the basis of all human rights must be equitable between all states.
Just as grassroots movements recruit and train new leaders, so too should the OCCUPY movement focus on new leaders, thinkers, organizers, teachers and we must all learn to value a different kind of risk other than derivatives, more like the risk of middle class philanthropy.

The big banks are still unregulated, prime interest rates are next to nothing, and at this point given the millions who have walked away from a home mortgage, defaulted on personal loans, and continue to build credit card debt on top of debt that they will never be able to pay, there is about as much risk of any criminal offence for individuals as there is to all those people who created this world crisis and were rewarded with compensations of stocks, cash, and the power of holding newly acquired and highly influential social and political status.

I say take advantage of the big banks who are STILL unregulated to build a new infrastructure under the old one and on the money they stole in the first place. We need new technology for greener energy, and new industries to make the products of that new technology. Small businesses should be prime recipients of bank loans and they will create long-term jobs that will require both professionals and non-professionals – they will be the industry that helps the US emerge from the depths of greed and depraved war mongering out to the future that calls us.

In our new infrastructure we need to build a lot of cooperatives. We NEED rural coops so we can band together and stop the likes of Monsanto and the GMO seeds and their ONE TIME seed generation that assures them of world monopoly on seeds. We need to put them out of business and we desperately need rural togetherness and world agreement to sap the likes of Monsanto dry. It’s time for us to use the knowledge and skills of Monsanto type professionals, not for greed but for a better quality of life, a healthier environment, and a future for new generations to enjoy.

If our coops generate enough growth then our own credit unions would be possible. We need creative ideas for new forms of the old Town Hall Meetings. We need to work small and build while maintaining the most important thing that this Occupy movement has created – connections between the subcultures in our own society and so with the distant national cultures we have connected with during this world crisis.

Creating international sister coop organizations on a non-profit level will undermine the mega corporations whose power is great enough to create false supply and demand at will to raise prices.
Educating this country about the role our consumerism has played in this whole fiasco is a good start but we need the coops to offer alternatives.

If we really are the 99% then we have every advantage on our side because we are machine that drives the greed and we have the power to break the hold the 1% maintain over us.

We need new leaders, thinkers, organizers, teachers and we must all learn to value a different kind of risk other than the Wall Street idea of derivatives. We need to take the risk of middle class philanthropy.

1. Single Payer Health Care System modeled after France's current
best in the world system - which will give universal coverage and
at less than half the cost of our current system. This is the single
most fiscally important thing we could do. Single payer dentistry too.

2. Retroactively take back at least 95% of the bonuses of the Wall
St. pigs who ripped us all off with bogus mortgage backed products
for the 10 years prior to the mortgage meltdown. We need that money
back now to pay back all the working class people from who it was
stolen under fraudulent misrepresentations of the products. This
should be good for over $100 billion easily.

3. Make a national bank lender who will extend the most favorable
lending terms to all Americans who would like to refinance not just
for those who are in default. Possibly legislation to heavily
tax banks which are not lending their funds - something like a
windfall profits tax. Definitely stick it to the banks and insurance
companies.

See the Bill Clinton interview on his new book on the topic.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#45196569

http://www.amazon.com/Back-Work-Government-Strong-Economy/dp/0307959759/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320710468&sr=1-1

The sentiments are aimed in the right directions but not well thought out. In fact those who currently have all the power in this country to make those things happen, are the people against whom some of the most severe action should be taken.

You are correct.

Their cuts are just in percentage of government growth.

Not actually cutting the amounts being spent today.

I guess they are banking on the FED keeping rates at less than zero.

Yes, in fact cutting social security and related entitlements is a real farce as the current structure is sound, just as it is, and by some estimates it's sound until 2032.

I think what they are all 'banking' on is keeping the current corruption in the hands of the most elite corrupt.

It's the political structure and those who populate the higer ranks that are least likely to make corrections in favor of the 'so-called 99%'.

We have a blurry vision of an important construct within the population who support the OWS. It needs to be roped in and the power in those numbers will have the ability to effectively undermine the current political strutural failures.

By building an ethical system of business and international cohesion for that business from within the population, we could effectively force changes in the wider population which would influence the focus, vision, and ethics of those who run for office in the future.

It's a process and it needs to emerge from the bottom up. The first step is to recognize and point out the corruption - which is currently being done with the OWS movement.

The second and third step must be concurrent, as we educate the public about ethics in government, business and internal and international trade and commerce, we need to be building business that align with those features.

The goal should be to unite governmental interests with those of the people.

All real analysis of the system show that it is financially unsound. It could be made financially sound by increasing the income to the programs but even that will eventually bankrupt the system. "Some estimates" are just looney.



This, IMHO, is exactly correct.



This also is correct.



You are just dreaming. It's not gonna happen. America is getting dumber, not smarter.

The only two possibilities of it happening are revolution (not gonna happen) or a viable third party (unlikely on the viability).



See, here is the problem with that. The looney left will bankrupt the country with spending (as is shown by the current administration) and the looney right will release business from government oversight (and we see what that has done in the past).

There are only two options and they are both bad. The radical left controls the Democrats and the radical right controls the Republicans. There is no middle to do what is right for the American people. And when it comes right down to it, there really isn't much difference, spending wise, between the two parties.

Money controls the government and the US Supreme Court has ruled that giving money to politicians is a "right". That pretty much leaves the "99%" in the cold.

A good paper on the topic is ...

http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/beyond-the-welfare-state a except to follow ...

"The attempt to rescue the citizen from the burdens of responsibility has undermined the family, self-reliance, and self-government. But, in practice, it is above all fiscal: The welfare state has turned out to be unaffordable, dependent as it is upon dubious economics and the demographic model of a bygone era. Sustaining existing programs of social insurance, let alone continuing to build new ones on the social-democratic model, has become increasingly difficult in recent years, and projections for the coming decades paint an impossibly grim and baleful picture. There is simply no way that Europe, Japan, or America can actually go where the economists' long-term charts now point — to debts that utterly overwhelm their productive capacities, governments that do almost nothing but support the elderly, and economies with no room for dynamism, for growth, or for youth. Some change must come, and so it will."

I was answering the OP's question about what would I do if I had
the power to do so.

It is not a discourse on how to accomplish these things just some
ideas. But I will add that if France can do it on health care then
we can do it too. Same for banking reform and same for taking
fraudulently earned bonuses. Happens all the time.

No point in throwing hands up in the air and gesticulating wildly
and whining about how powerless we all are...

Personally, I would like this babble about National Healthcare to materialize into something tangible. We are supposedly spending money on it. Yet no one can show me a piece paper.

i don't see that the op put, 'if you had the power' into the mix. there are limits to the powers of government and what somebody can accomplish.

She asked what difference would you like to see.
Not how are we going to do it.





Re-read the OP.

Vote on legislation that would allow any American to run for office IF they had enough voters behind their running,,and ...WITHOUT THE BIG MONEY BEHIND THEM..
Make it a LAW that NO PUBLIC OFFICE SEAT,,,can be held IF THEY HAVE INVESTMENTS IN ""ANYTHING"" EXCEPT U.S. TREASURY BONDS,,
Make It a LAW that to HOLD A SEAT,,ONE CANNOT HAVE PRIVATE INVESTMENTS,,PLUS have a special committee that monitors ALL their banks accounts to make SURE they are not receiving any EXTRA MONEY.
Let it be known to everyone who wishes to run for ANY office,,
THEY HAVE TO ABIDE BY THESE RULES....and THEN,,maybe ,,,just maybe,,
The ones voted into office will be greatly HAPPY with just their salerires given for holding that seat,,and the corporate bribes shall be stopped from them being able to get their hands on that money....
THAT WOULD MAKE THE PEOPLE MORE FOR "THE PEOPLE",,,and in its change,,SAVE much of the truth and power that WE ALL SHARE, as a NATION for the betterment of ALL...

What I'm talking about has nothing to do Democrats and Republicans. And it has nothing to do with politics, at least not on the face of things.

I'm not talking about anything illegal - in fact, what I'm talking about is 'using' the system and its laws to its fullest potential, which is no less than what the major corporate powers have been doing for years.

Right now as borrowing is at this low of an interest rate is the best time to began new 'middle-class' philathropic ventures, like starting more green businesses. Investing in new media - hell we have 24 hour streaming video of OWS - the method of communication is out there, we just need to populate the channels and then direct folks to them.

And by the way, it might be helpful to know if there is anything at all in this current system that you or others think is worth keeping?

As for me I like non-profit Credit Unions, I think that's how all financial services should be run - as a 'service' to the people.

Sounds like a lot of big government. So far the US government has proved to me that it could do any of this.

That's a valid concern but if France can do it and all of the other
major countries can have single payer health care with better medical
outcomes and half to one-third the cost then we should be able to
do that too.

There is no big government aspect to fraud restitution really.

Likewise all the central bank has to do is be a lender with reasonable
rates and force the private banks to stop hoarding their money after
they have taken us all for a ride. Might turn out to be a big money
maker for us.

I totally agree.

and who are they?
Seek no further than the "Hallowed Halls" of Congress!
Wallstreet wouldn't get away with what it does without the consent of the Body Politic!
That's where the Rot is!

Papa Don ' t Preach