You Say You Want a Revolution….

In this, my final post, I will attempt to define what Occupy Wall Street really is. Let me start by saying that I will analyze this through the lens of finances, which is what my posts were about.

Occupy Wall Street in one word, is a response.

It is a response to the conditions that the majority of Americans face in our society. These are people who have decided that they will no longer stand by when there are billionaires who can finance deep-sea explorations, when they can’t purchase a car.

Unemployment has gone up since the Clinton years, the stock market still hasn’t fully recovered from its dip in 2008-9. Local businesses have been forced to close down, these are all things that displease members of OWS.

Have they been successful? My answer would be no.

Does this mean anything? My research couldn’t tell you.

What my research has shown is this. OWS is run by a group of people who know what they are doing. They organize the money that people send them, and they have appropriated a Finance Committee. Despite the dislike for the Finance Committee, and there is a lot of dislike, the Finance Committee does exactly what it sets out to do. It makes sure that nobody spends money frivolously.

Now members of OWS dislike the fact that the Finance Committee has more say than the General Assembly when it comes to funding, but look at the money troubles that OWS is facing right now. If the Finance Committee had been more lax with spending, they would be in a worse situation.

OWS, in part through the finance committee, has become a hub for people who are not happy with their current financial situation. They provide metro tickets, food, and small amounts of medical care for people who have been injured through the course of protesting.

An organization without leadership simply cannot exist.

Through my research, I have determined that while there is no one leader of OWS, there are many, the Finance Committee included.

Lastly, I would also like to say that OWS is a voice. It’s a voice for people who want their frustrations to be heard by the government. They are tired of endless bureaucracy, and they want change right now.

OWS wasn’t something that was cooked up overnight, judging from how the finances work, it was methodically planned.

Occupiers have grown tired of waiting for change to happen, and they want to bring it. Only time will tell if this social revolution will actually amount to anything.

-         

Justin

The Leaders (not really) Behind OWS

In my last post, I discussed some of the frustrations that groups in Occupy Wall Street had with the way finances were distributed, and this post will discuss how the Finance Committee at OWS works.

For those who don’ t know, the Finance Committee calls the shots at OWS in terms of where the money goes. If a working group at OWS wants more money, then they have to go through the Finance Committee.

In an article by New York Magazine, the author took a closer look at how the Finance Committee functions, and also the problems that people have with the Finance Committee.

Members of the Finance Committee, such as John McGarvey, are people that have jobs that are somewhat interesting for OWS members. Their occupations include being businessmen, lawyers, and bank investors, though they also have a tattoo artist/software project manager (who was going to get an NYU finance degree before dropping out to support OWS)

That’s right, the very same people that OWS members are taking a stand against, also happen to be a part of OWS, I guess that goes to show skeptics that you can be both rich, and empathetic to the needs of the poor, who knew?

However, the Finance Committee is a stingy group. A group of drummers went to the General Assembly of OWS to ask for new drums, their request was denied because it didn’t go through the Finance Committee.

In fact, everything in terms of finances must go through the Finance Committee, even if the General Assembly has already consented to it.

In addition, the Finance Committee also takes money that working groups or other components of OWS raises. However, if the group wants to get the money back, they must fill out paperwork, and go before the Finance Committee, and in many cases, even if the group wants back money that it raised, it may not get it back.

So does this mean that OWS has a leader, does a group of highly-paid elites run OWS?

Jackie DiSalvo, an key occupation organizer and union leader said, “At OWS, we try not to have leaders, but, in fact, that has resulted in our having many, many leaders.”

Does this mean that she was specifically referring to the members of the Finance Committee, absolutely not, but it does mean that they have a big say in an organization that is supposed to be about what the people want.

I wonder, what does it mean when a small group essentially controls what OWS will do, in terms of finances.

If I’ve proved anything with my posts, it’s that money is key to this organization, and this small group of people controls the money.

Interesting.

-          Justin

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/11/meet-owss-mysterious-finance-team.html

Some People Never Learn to Share…. and for Good Reasons

This post will be dedicated to examining the financial relationships between Occupy Wall Street’s financial section and the groups in OWS. I will warn you ahead of time, I couldn’t find any reputable sources aside from the NY Post article on this topic, so the material won’t be as factual as my last post, but it’s an interesting topic to consider nevertheless.

According to a NY post article, OWS was rather stingy with its funds in October of last year. In the article, a disgruntled member of OWS stated that the financial section of OWS “dives on whatever money is raised by OWS working groups, and doesn’t give it back.”

What are OWS working groups? Someone might ask. Well, in short, they are groups that take care of necessary functions inside the organization. For example, there is a kitchen group, who takes care of the necessary function of a kitchen, and there are other groups who fulfill other roles.

These groups raise money, which is then taken by the financial section of OWS, officially dubbed the Finance Committee. The Committee then re-organizes and redistributes the money how they see fit, much to the apparent chagrin of some of the smaller groups, such as the Comfort Working Group, who don’t receive nearly as much funding as some of the larger groups.

If you recall from my previous post, which looked at the funds required to keep OWS going, it stated how much OWS spends on different things. OWS grouped together different things for that report, there are roughly 30 OWS working groups, and not even 8 categories, which means that some of them had to be grouped together, because you can’t exclude things in a financial audit to the government.

According to my last post, OWS is running out of money. In fact, according them, they should have already gone broke.

If that’s not the case, then they have a few options

1.)    Accept the money from MRG

2.)    Cut costs and raise more money

3.)    Raise enough money to keep going without cutting costs

They still haven’t accepted the money from MRG, so they’ve either done option 2 or 3. Personally, and there is no real way to verify this without another financial audit report, I believe they’ve done number 2 (no pun intended).

Judging from their last report, the amount of money they would have had to raise would have been staggering, but they haven’t completely ceased operations, so option 2 is the only real choice here. So was it a good move for them to be stingy with their money, and not give more to less essential groups? Judging from the financial state they’re in now, it sure looks so.

-  Justin

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/they_want_lice_of_the_occu_pie_9xKCxcI4aectFYkafMb8UJ

The Costs of a Movement

Every day companies, colleges, and businesses spend money to keep their operations running smoothly. Occupy Wall Street is no different. According to a report given to the New York General Assembly, Occupy Wall Street portions roughly $17,090 every week for normal operations. Where does that money go? Let’s find out. Be aware, the numbers that I’m looking at are just those for the main OWS operation in New York, the financial records of the other offshoots are hard to locate.

Food – $10,000 dollars is spent weekly on food. This tally represents the total spent in kitchens, not the amount they spend on raw food, so some of it represents eating utensils, gas bills for the stoves and ovens, and other things. Some people joke about homeless people attending OWS just so they can eat, whether that is actually true, I don’t know, but OWS is well aware of the connection that food has to support.

Street Medics – $1,100 is spent every day on what OWS dubs ‘street medics’. In the course of protesting, there are times when protesters may incur cuts, scrapes, and maybe more serious wounds. They don’t give vaccinations, $1,100 simply isn’t enough, but they money they spend allows them to treat minor injuries.

Metrocards – $4,380 is spent weekly on Metrocards. I’m having trouble believing that they spent this much on a weekly basis, but if the report says so, I can’t contradict it. This money goes towards getting the protesters to the protests. After all, you can’t have a protest with nobody present.

Outreach Printing Budget – $2,000 is spent weekly on printing propaganda and reading material for the OWS movement. I don’t know if this money accounts for what they do online, but I doubt it considering this is called the “printing budget”.

Meeting Space – $450 is spent on meeting spaces. Not really much to go into detail here, it simply costs $450 to rent out weekly meeting spaces.

Grand Total: $17,090

Here’s the interesting part. In the accounting statement to the general assembly, OWS claims that they had (on March 2, 2012, when the accounting statement was given) $134,357.95. Of that, $89,529.99 is on hand for bail, and $44,827.96 is available for the general fund. According to OWS, they would have been broke 3 weeks after this report was given at their current spending rate. I haven’t found any documents that say that they’re bankrupt now.

They raised a little over $1,500 on the week they gave the account.

-  Justin

http://www.nycga.net/groups/finance/docs/weekly-report-week-of-march-2nd-2012

Corporate Sponsorship (or not)

One thing that everyone can agree on about Occupy Wall Street is that they are out to change economic conditions for the 99% in America. However, every revolution needs funding, so where does a group comprised of people who want more money get money? My research has shown that there are actually two major ways.

The first and most important way is through individual donations. Estimations have placed the amount gained through individual donations, at roughly $800,000. This money was gained from individuals who felt like giving to the movement, and they gave some cash. Some individuals contributed a few dollars, and others contributed $20 or even $40, but nobody decided to give OWS 100,000 or anything of that nature, that is until the Movement Resource Group came along.

The Movement Resource Group (which shall be referenced as MRG henceforth) has collected $300,000, and wants to give it to OWS protests and offshoots of those protests.

According to their website, the members of MRG currently include

Ben Cohen —co-founder, Ben and Jerry’s Ice cream
Richard Foos — co-founder, Rhino Records
Danny Goldberg —CEO, GoldVe Entertainment
Jerry Greenfield —co-founder, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream
Dal LaMagna —CEO President, IceStone USA
Judy Wicks —Founder, White Dog Cafe

Now this move has angered some activists and proponents of OWS, because they want the movement to remain ‘pure’ in a sense, and they don’t like the way that MRG is going about supporting the Occupy movement. There is a lot of he said, she said business going around, but what I can say, is that there are two facts that are known right now.

First and foremost, MRG considers itself to be associated with OWS, that is according to their official website. That would be fine and dandy, but OWS (whoever makes the decisions for OWS, and I believe that this is a major issues, because as far as I know, there is nobody who makes decisions for the entire movement) has not reached an agreement with MRG for distribution of the funds.

So what does that mean?

It means that OWS doesn’t consider MRG part of their movement, and if MRG does in fact contribute to the movement, it is because individual actors in the movement asked for funds, and this is not representative of the movement as a whole.

Now why would the good people (note, all white males, with the exception of one female) at MRG decide to give $300,000 to OWS? That is a question I think I would be hard-pressed to answer with actual statistics and facts, I’ll look into it more.

- Justin

http://movementresourcegroup.org/?page_id=205

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/01/from-russell-simmons-to-ben-and-jerry-the-would-be-sponsors-of-occupy-wall-street.html

Money in the Movement

In Kurt Andersen’s piece he says, ” ‘Massive and effective street protest’ was a global oxymoron until — suddenly, shockingly — starting
exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times. And the protester once again became a maker
of history.”

The quote means that before 2011, there had not been effective large-scale protest for quite some time. However, following the revolutions in Egypt and the Arab world, it seemed that people, not just politicians, had the power to incite change.

In Occupy Wall Street, protesters aren’t just makers of history, they’re also the people who finance the movement. My research has shown that Occupy Wall Street is largely  funded by people taking part in the protest. This does not mean that OWS does not receive any sponsorship from corporations, but the sources that I have found all say that people fund the movement.

- Justin