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Why #occupywallstreet Protests are Misguided – State Governments are the Source of Corruption

I was told by a very smart marketer to never use yourself as a data point in marketing. For sales this has been very wise advice, but listening to many of the dopey #occupywallstreet protestors proclaim their reasons for protesting I can't help but think of my own situation and how misguided these protestors are. Why?

1) Corruption starts local and spreads. The real corruption that most of experience on a day to day basis happens at the State level. State courts, as typified in NY Divorce, are allowed to eschew the values and written code of the US Constitution and create their own rules. State Governments have far more powers to remove your freedoms than the Federal Government and the finance industry has no power whatsoever over individuals without the partnership of government. The Attorney General's office of New York showed that States have more power to punish the finance industry than the federal government who has yet change a single rule governing shady areas of the finance industry while State Governments have punished and fined many. The AG of California has withdrawn from negotiations to settle mortgage fraud and will force the industry to deal with CA directly which will be better for the people.

In short, States are better regulators than the federal government and States are also the nexus of most of the corruption we deal with on a daily basis. Plus, national politicians mostly come from State government and are all nominated from State political industries.

If every State had protestors camping out in their capital cities demanding transparency in State politics, civil court systems that are bound by the US Constitution and protections against unfair practices by the finance industry in their own state Wall Street itself would become even more meaningless than it already is. Think of those TV commercials where they say in mega-fast talk which states prohibit things and then you realize the power that State governments have.

2) Based on a divorce gone wrong a state can - a) take 65% of your net income b) take your drivers license c) take your passport d) put you in jail e) destroy your credit report f) take your tax refunds g) tell everyone that ever paid you anything that you are a deadbeat (when you really aren't) h) take all of your assets i) take control of all of your bank accounts j) take your children k) ban you from speaking with your children l) enforce religion from a court bench m) much much more! States can do all of this to people who don't have lawyers and can't afford lawyers and much of this can happen with no hearing whatsoever. A computer generated form letter will get most of this done except jail and even that is done regularly to citizens without lawyers. The Federal Government can do these things to terrorists but most of the above requires some process whereas the State has no such requirements.

3) Wall Street is a myth. It is no longer the epicenter of the finance industry and blaming the finance industry for the problems of America is entirely misdirected. The problem is the finance industries power over the government - both state and federal. Since citizens elect governments we should be influencing our local elected officials to eschew the useless SEC that is truly filled with insiders of the industry, not some amorphous 'Wall Street' and act as regulators. Each state has some finance industry and certainly has banks lending in their domain so this is where we should focus on change.

4) Most of the people who do work on and around Wall Street have no power whatsoever to change policies that govern the finance industry. Most of the workers are normal people trying to support their families. A few superstars make a lot of money but the vast majority are middle class regular-joes trying to make ends meet. Why take away their jobs when the real culprits that allows unfair practices in lending, banking and trading are in Albany and other state governments.

5) Corruption and favortism flourish in local political machines that elect candidates. These mostly clandestine organizations that produce the junk candidates that we complain so much about are a result of our local political party offices endorsing the knuckleheads. We must force our local political parties to nominate better people and punish corrupt officials more harshly and quickly. Wall Street doesn't even exist so how can you punish it? Local elected officials are real people and the political parties of our states are real people that nominate and allow real people to run for offices and this is where the focus must be - on the source of our elected officials, not on some nebulous force that has no formal definition.