Occupy Wall Street: A For Effort

F for execution.  The Occupy Wall Street movement was born from a great message and a necessary protest; the top 1% of wealthy Americans have prospered at the expense of the remaining 99% during the course of the current economic slump that began in late 2007 as Countrywide sputtered out of control (few experts actually acknowledge that to be the true beginning of the financial crisis and instead point to Lehman.  Fact is, the recession started Q4 2007, long before the Lehman collapse).  So, the outrage-- I get it; I'm outraged at the disparity in wealth, too.



But the expression of this outrage is unfocused.  By occupying all of Wall Street, the movement is spreading its outrage from the 1% they are intending to target.  Instead, the protesters are yelling shame upon their own, people who are just working their own 9-5.  And while those employees may be just as frustrated with the fat-cats at the top, they're just happy to be getting a steady paycheck with 9%+ unemployment.  Is that so evil?

In truth, the Occupy Wall Street protesters are no more than a mob of angry bigots, when you really think about it.  They've painted every employee of a financial institution as an enemy-- a proverbial fat-cat, regardless of the income that financial professional may be making.  It's tantamount to stereotypical discrimination of any group.  But please don't take my identification of the situation to be a complaint, because I've always been of the philosophy that stereotypes are 1) Funny and ironic 2) YOUR responsibility to defy.

I'm a banker.  Let's see if I can defy the stereotype, then.  Let's see...thanks to student loans, I've got a negative net worth.  Don't own a home, don't live to excess, and I don't make money off of others' misfortune.  In fact, I work for a small, community-based commercial bank.  These banks have become so over-regulated that the "speculation" the media says occurs couldn't be more far from the truth.  In fact, it's impossible for a bank to "take a chance" on a business anymore, as Pink's hotdogs claims in the latest BofA commercial.  Without all 5 C's of credit firmly in place, regulators would criticize any bank-made loan, making "taking a chance" a career-ending decision.  Whew!  Glad then, that I can defy the stereotype that's being protested on Wall Street.



So, Wall Street protesters, want an A for execution?  Take a page from the book of the group of folks that set up shop outside the home of Wells Fargo's CFO, Timothy Sloan, in San Marino.  While his compensation is unavailable at Reuters, John Stumph (the CEO) has a package worth $18MM, so we can safely assume that Timmy's making a cool $5mil+.  I certainly don't condone the fact that the 'Refund California' protest actually bled onto this property, the idea was right.  Protest outside Tim Sloan's house.  Hound Jamie Diamond like the Paparazzi on Lindsay Lohan.  Denigrate Lloyd Blankfein and call him horrible names in front of his children outside of his home for all I care.  His children should know that their father is a horrible, lying, greedy SOB that should have been in jail for the past 3 and the next 300 years.

But the IT guy making $65K?  The operations manager making $90K?  Even the senior credit administrator making nearly $200K?  Leave them alone!  They're integral cogs that would actually make the financial system work if the C level executives of the behemoth, political-monster institutions would stop counting their own net worth and realize that they are thoroughly pissing everyone off with their selfish greed.

The Occupy Wall Street message is great, but the actions aren't matching the message, and this is my recommendation to rectify that divergence.