I recently watched a video on YouTube titled “Keep Wall Street Occupied”, and I liked it.
LINK HERE and video embedded at bottom of post.
The basic idea is that by sending back the envelopes that big banks send credit card offers in, you can actually perform a mini-protest of various degrees. You can send them back empty, and cost the bank whatever rate they negotiated with the Post Office, or you can put various other things in the envelope to raise the cost billed to the bank while making a statement with the contents.
I had a discussion with a family member the other day, and their initial disgust with the OWS movement was tempered when I expressed that only a small minority shown by certain media outlets are disenfranchised youths that feel entitled to this or that… It’s an individual thing that people are protesting about. There are some real idiots out there saying some ludicrous stuff. The same as there are some outspoken people in the Tea Party that are less than representative. For me, OWS is about a complete distrust in both the rights granted to corporations and the lack of accountability that banks and financial institutions should own up to on their own, or by legislation.
Anyway, back to the video, If you care to understand the rest of the post, watch it and come back here… Or don’t… Free will and all that jazz…
Two things not stated in the video jumped out at me.
First is that this could definitely help the Post Office. I’m not sure I want to, since it seems like they get most of their workers from the pool very capable to communicate properly, let alone function efficiently. But it would take some money out of the the banks and put it into a part of the government running in the red. It’s short term at best, because if this were successful enough, the banks would change how they do business (but isn’t that sorta the point though).
The second thing is that each time I receive a credit card offer from a bank, it wastes my time. If i calculate out my annual salary into a minute increment, then they shouldn’t they pay more than just the cost to send me junk mail. Something commensurate to what my time is worth? Even if I send the empty envelope back, would probably not be spending the same amount of money that I calculated as my billing rate by minute.
As one commenter on the YouTube video page points out, the most effective way to stick it to the banks is to take all you money, deposits, and credit out and put them into smaller, local banks and credit unions.
I’m trying to do that… But I’m considering sending back some envelopes nonetheless…