I'd actually revised this later to omit #4. It's apparent to me now that the Occupy people have no interest in making a political statement the way the Tea Party did.
I think it's a mistake to appeal to the public on the basis of income inequality but to really mean something else. Income inequality is a tangible that a lot of people can relate to because almost everyone gets a regular paycheque and buys goods and services.
As a Canadian essentially doing an American's work, the part of the Occupy movement that scares the crap out of me is the anti-foreign, anti-outsourcing, and anti-free-trade aspects of it. That kind of talk has even been coming from US presidential candidates, who often talk about erecting punitive tariffs to "protect" American jobs. It's coming from both Democrats and Republicans too. (Mind you, they usually mention China but everyone's in the way of the tariff shotgun.)
American voters and decision-makers have some tough options to weigh and most of these are way beyond things like a bank bailout or Citizens United. Those issues are essentially yesterday's news.
Something as simple as a reduction of unemployment by as little as one per cent to an acceptable level might get everyone's focus back on the meaningful issues. Think of it as a huge HR "bailout" and run the thing for about a year and see how it works. It could have a training component (although "free" training tends to have a high dropout rate).
I'll even buy more US bonds for my RRSP to help finance it.
