By Luanne Teoh on 11-01-2011

The Occupy Wall Street movement across the nation is something that’s been a long time coming.

The Occupy Wall Street Movement’s (OWS) motto: We are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. This OWS movement empowers real people to create real change from the bottom up.

At the very core of the problem are the money managers of the nation – Big banks and institutions in charge of people’s money.

• List of America’s worst banks in 2011 by The Daily Beast — Despite these and other unpardonable sins, banks showers tens of millions of dollars in bonus money on top executives.
• List of 10 highest paid bank CEOs in 2010 by CNN Money — Jamie Dimon, CEO of Chase made $20.8M in 2010, a 1,541% increase from 2009.

According to the American Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO), CEOs of the largest companies received, on average, $11.4 million in total compensation last year of 299 companies in the S&P 500 Index. Overall, CEOs of the 299 companies in the Executive PayWatch database received a combined total of $3.4 billion in pay in 2010, enough to support 102,325 jobs paying the median wages for all workers.

In contrast, this is has been the reality of the 99% of Americans for which Occupy Wall Street’s support is coming from — a great chunk of them are from small businesses and employees of small businesses.

In Seattle, David Meinert, owner of a pizza and cafe has been donating pizzas to the protesters everyday. He said, “small businesses don’t need more tax giveaways for the rich. We don’t need more money spent on bank bailouts, subsidies for oil companies, corporate agribusiness and the wars. We need money reinvested in American infrastructure, education and people.”

On a personal note, I visited a Chase bank last week to seek investment information and advice. The Certified Financial Planner of the branch I visited told me point blank that it’s consumers walking away from their homes that are causing all the economic and financial problems we are facing today — the sheer audacity and ignorance, not to mention insensitivity of that comment.

This is the reality of big bank employees — pressured by sales metrics and focused on the payout. Hence, the strategy of big banks selling sub prime mortgages for years as standard which caused the housing meltdown.

A Chase bank employee posted this comment on an anti-Chase bank blog:

The reason they are so pushy, and recommend specific things are because we make what are called “Personal Value Credits” or PVC’s. That is our commission. We open a checking account: 5 PVCs, we sell a Debit Rewards card: 7 PVCs. Credit cards: 17.5 PVCs. Loans and investments pay the most. Loans are 0.7 PVCs for every $1000 , so a $100,000 loan = 70PVCs.

This is why customer service is horrible… there is a tremendous amount of pressure for each banker to make at least 1150 PVCs. That is 100% payout. Over 1500 PVCs = 125% payout, and over 2,000 PVCs = 150% payout. If we don’t reach our goal of 1150, we get less than 100% of our PVCs.

What Small Businesses Can Do:

• Move your money — the big bailouts the big banks have been receiving are being distributed to all the wrong areas especially executive pay. As a small business owner, you have the choice to bank with a smaller institution who actually cares and know about you and your business needs.
• Move Your Money Project — here is a great resource on who, what and how you can participate and move your money so that it works for you and your business.
• Reinvest in Main Street — the vast majority of which avoided the banquet of greed and corruption that created the toxic economic swamp we are still fighting to get ourselves out of are struggling.

Why Do This:

1. You can make a difference – while you may not have the time and resources to join an OWS protest, you get to make a difference. According to the Huffington Post, “If enough people who have money in one of the big  six banks move it into smaller, more local, more traditional community banks, then collectively we, the people, will have taken a big step toward re-rigging the financial system so it becomes again the productive, stable engine for growth it’s meant to be. The big six banks are: Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
2. Big banks not lending – Despite the big banks government bailouts (from taxpayers money) and increase in fees, from June 30, 2008, to June 30, 2009, outstanding loans in this category dropped 2%. From June 30, 2009, to June 30, 2010, they fell an even faster 6.4%.(source: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco).The big banks have also cut lending by over $100 billion since 2009 while executive pay of big banks have been on the rise.

About Luanne Teoh

Luanne is a senior correspondent for BizTechDay focused on Small Business Tech, Mobile and China based in San Francisco. In the last 17 years, she has helped launch start-ups and turned around failing operations. Her international work experience include both public and private corporations in Southeast Asia, Australia and North America. She has previously worked for Oracle Corporation, SonyBMG Music, Universal Music, Catcha Media and SOH Inc. Apart from a keen interest in technology, Luanne is also and avid explorer of the globe, cultures and people.

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