Occupy Wall Street is now two months old and what has it accomplished? On the positive side, it has spread throughout the world to some fifteen hundred cities and it gives a face to the unemployment issues our country is facing. On the negative side, there have been hundreds of violent crimes commited by people participating or criminals using the encampments to their advantage as an area that is hard to police. When we see demonstrations like this (picketing, sit-ins, etc.), we have to wonder if this is the most effective way to produce the desired change.
In order to engage the desired change into becoming a reality, you have to understand the opponent. The opponent of the 99% is Wall Street and the rest of the remaining 1%. The opponent, being super wealthly, value money. Rather than standing around with signs and chanting about how unfair the wealth gap is and how Wall Street is made up of a bunch of crooks, you should do something to affect their cash flow.
According to Forbes, the top 400 income earners in the United States derived a vast majority of their income from dividends paid from their stock holdings. Since we know this about the 1%, then we need to ask ourselves how to change their dividend windfall. Dividends are paid from retained earnings. If the revenue and profit fall for a company, the company will tend to reduce or cut out the dividend completely. This will in turn reduce the dividends paid out to stock holders. If the dividend is reduced, some holders of that stock tend to reduce their holding of that stock or sell their entire position. This inturn will increase the supply of shares for sale and thus driving down the stock's price.
Now, on to Wall Street. Wall Street earns money from the trading of shares on the market. Each time a stock is bought or sold, Wall Street makes money. Therefore, the more volatile the market (high volume of shares trading) the more money Wall Street makes. The largest stock traders are the institutional traders (mutual funds, hedge funds, etc.). In order to limit the amount of shares they can move around, you have to limit the amount of money flowing into these funds. Most of the money comes from 401(k) (IRA's, too) contributions. If you stop funding your 401(k), then the money pouring into these funds will dry up and the market will come to halt as the volume of shares being traded will significantly decline. The lack of shares being traded will hurt Wall Street in the pocket. Then and only then will Wall Street actually listen to what the public is saying. Simply insulting Wall Street and milling around outside of their offices will not change anything.
If not funding your 401(k) seems too extreme and not financially responsible, then take a look at your debt portfolio. Most of the debt we are carrying (aside from our home and car) has interest rates that far exceed what we are gaining from our 401(k)'s. Look at it this way, if you invest in the market via a 401(k), you could lose money or gain money. If you instead use the 401(k) contribution money to pay off your 12% credit card debt, every dollar you put toward that debt will give you a guaranteed 12% return. Remember, paying off debt is just as important as putting away for retirement.
You have to be smart with your money. We all work for a finite salary for a finite number of years, which means the amount of money we will earn in our lifetimes is finite. The more you pay towards interest from debt, limits what you can save. The faster you pay off debt the more money you'll have left over in the end. There is one exception. If your interest rate from debt is below the interest rate you can get from a fixed interest savings account, then you should fund the savings account and pay the minimum payment on the debt.
As it stands with Occupy Wall Street, nothing is going to change. The movement is filled with unemployed people who do not know what else to do and that is sad. On the other hand, these folks may have to take a job that is beneath then once their unemployment has run out, until things improve (if they improve at all). Lastly, I firmly believe things are going to get worse in the short-term, before they get better. Hang on tight!
