The 99

About a year ago, as part of a PSU Economics Department Symposium, I had the opportunity to stand in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and ask them to use their authority to refinance consumer debt at an interest rate more like 3-4%, with a repayment forbearance period along an income scale.

I found the authorization in their charter, I convinced my group, I made a Powerpoint with the words liquidity trap and helicopter money. I asked for changes to the ZZZ and the FDCPA.

I chickened out.
I'm sorry.

In many ways, it was already too late. My plan would have been most effective before Americans in recession dumped their money into paying their debt down.

Now, maybe I don't understand international capitol flows as well as I should.

But I do know that American consumers cannot keep up, with their stagnant incomes, on the interest payments they make to the banks, which now average 13% and range up to around 28%.

We are in a trap we can't afford. I do not see any justification where finance needs that money more than we do. Whether it should be going to individuals or to government is truly beyond the point. Finance is not using it to grow the economy by reinvesting it productively. Finance is using it to hoard wealth. While people are suffering.

We are in deep. Our problems are complicated and agreement is hard to come to.

But we, the people, cannot afford to buy our groceries on loan anymore.
We, the people, cannot afford to pay half, or more, of our incomes on housing anymore.
We, the people, want to work.
We want to believe our children will have a life at least as good as ours, if not better.

We, the people, at least the ones on my block, and in my classes, and in the grocery store and the thrift store, have changed the way we shop, and have stayed in town on our vacations, and have learned how to get by on less. We have seen our positions cut, our workloads increase, our wages fall and our leaders fiddle, all while we continue to just try to adjust.

We want a reallocation.

We want less hoarding. We want more work, and we want more of the benefit of our labor to be in our hands and in our communities.

We want the games to stop, because it is our lives and our futures that are being gambled by an entrenched minority that has ceased to provide adequately for the masses.

We, the people, are the 99%, and we cannot afford no change.