EDMOND — Unless you’ve been living in a cave somewhere, you are probably aware of the protests going on around Wall Street by a movement now known as Occupy Wall Street. It started a couple of months ago and has spread across the country and internationally. While it has become fashionable among some to see the protesters as an entertaining sideshow, like a flash mob for slackers seeking to lock arms with anti-establishment kooks, there is more to it than that.

Sure, they have their share of nut cases and anarchists; but there are a lot of regular people in that group who are just plain angry and frustrated about current economic conditions and their perceived lack of opportunity for some.  In that sense, the metaphorical “Wall Street” and “big corporations” are easy targets. But are they the right targets?

It reminds me of the demonstrations in the ’60s and ’70s regarding the Vietnam War, social change and civil rights. I know — I was there. Over a beer sometime, I can tell you some great stories. Some participants had specific agendas, some were socialists, communists or revolutionists; but most were just young people hanging out with a general movement they felt somehow connected to.

Like our generation in the ’60s, many of the OWS participants are people who feel that their freedoms are being constricted due to the corruptness of others. They are joining together to push back against that feeling. Whether actually true or not is a subject of much debate, but that is clearly their feeling and perception. However you look at it, there are serious societal ramifications here that need to be addressed.

The problem for the OWS movement today is they have yet to get behind a coherent message of what they want. Without that, the crowds eventually will lose interest and fade away, especially once winter hits. Ask the question, “If you had the power to give you whatever you wanted, what would that be?”  Most cannot give you an answer beyond some rant about greedy bankers, Wall Street fat cats or give peace a chance. All we learn is that they’re just plain ticked off.

Unemployment remains high, the economy is limping along at best, the middle class is shrinking and the gap between high and low income earners is growing. None of those problems are going away anytime soon and neither are their frustrations.

Clearly though, there is something to all of this and the movement is growing. When large, ever-growing numbers of the population are this angry and frustrated, we need to pay attention. They do have some legitimate points, but they don’t articulate them very well. So, in the interest of trying to help out, may I offer a suggestion? What OWS needs is a script or list of talking points to focus their efforts.

First of all, in most cases they’ve got the wrong target. They should be in Washington, D.C., in front of Congress. While the financial sector is certainly not without blame and they pushed everything to the limit, it was Congress and the Federal Reserve who were the enablers. They also are the ones who can affect some of the change OWS wants.

Here’s a good starter list of talking points they could use and ones many of us old establishment types could get behind as well:

1. Stop propping up individual institutions because they are “too big to fail” and because letting them fail would hurt us all. That’s nonsense. The world will not end and life will go on.

2. No more bailouts instead of bankruptcy. If you invest in bonds or stocks and the company goes under, I’m sorry but you made a bad investment and you lose. It’s not the taxpayers’ responsibility to protect your investment.

3. Bring back a version of the 1932 Glass-Steagall Act that separated commercial banks from investment banks. It worked pretty well for 67 years.  When it was repealed in 1999 it only took a wide variety of financial firms seven years to totally mess everything up again.

4. Stop over-regulating and strangling small banks with dozens of meaningless but expensive regulations that do nothing to encourage lending.  They are the ones that lend to small businesses where most of the job creation happens. They are not the ones who caused the global financial crisis but they’re getting punished for it.

6. Insist that the Federal Reserve stop printing money and debasing the dollar. It increases energy and food prices and hurts the ones who can least afford it.

7. Instead of endless unemployment benefits, insist the government spend money on training and education for the types of jobs that are available.

8. Instead of stimulus money to encourage consumer spending, which doesn’t work in this environment, spend it on real infrastructure projects (roads, bridges, schools, electrical grid, etc.) that we need, put people to work doing it and leave us all with something to show for it afterward.

There are many others, but that’s a nice start. Will this address all their grievances? Of course not. However, if the OWS crowd actually managed to have some impact in any of these areas, we would all be better off and some of things they are angry about might actually get better.  Who knows, we might even encourage some entrepreneurs and create a job or two along the way. I might even have to go dust off my old peace symbol necklace and join the crowd. Peace brother! Thanks for reading.



NICK MASSEY is a financial adviser and owner of Householder Group Financial Advisors in Edmond. Massey can be reached at www.nickmassey.com. Securities offered through Securities Service Network Inc., member FINRA/SIPC.