In
Our Hands
Using Individual and Community Power
To Inspire Corporate Change
Ken Streater
Copyright 2011
Ken Streater
Smashwords Edition
In Our Hands
Part of the Toolkit To Change Series
Economics and corporate profit are simply supply and demand. Transform demand and supply must shift. In Our Hands is a solution-oriented handbook that provides individuals and communities tools for use in our free market economy to inspire corporate change. The tools are built on the often forgotten fact that corporate America needs you and me to survive and thrive. We change. They change. It is in our hands.
This book is not red, blue, or green. It is not an anarchist expose or trickle down manifesto. It knows no political affiliation and does not side with or blame any one party or person. It is founded on one belief: we, the people, can create change in our personal, community, national, and international economies. It is based on the belief that corporations should not build indiscriminate wealth in the shadows and on the backs of their constituents, and that we have allowed that to happen. It offers a platform, using simple tools, to develop an economy that is designed to respond to customer demands. It attempts to do this proactively rather than reactively, and through power of free choice rather than the force of protest. It does not dwell on the past or what is wrong, but on what we can do to make our world right. Whether a Supreme Court decision, a challenging political system, offshore production, or we, the people, by not paying close enough attention, the way we got here matters only as a reference to what it is we need to fix, not who we need to blame. Where we go and what we do now matters most.
About Toolkit To Change
Toolkit To Change produces handbooks, or toolkits, designed to bring about personal growth and societal shifts. With our publications we seek to inspire positive change on individual, local, national, and international levels. With each toolkit we offer a handful of easy-to-use tools geared toward making worlds better. We recognize each person in a community as the ultimate change maker. We honor that role with guidebooks that reflect on individual and collective challenges we face. After noting the cause, we shift to effect, and then elevate, by offering solution-oriented acts founded in reason, willingness, and other positive energies for people and communities to perform.
We see benefits of people and groups moving along different paths towards a common goal. And, we know that change comes from grass-root efforts. Our guidebooks are not based in a particular political position and illustrate “non-good” only to bring about good. We try to teach and not to preach. Ultimately, the toolkits aim for us all to stop the bitchin’ and start the fixin’. We hope you find our publications enlightening and useful as you set out to make a world of difference.
Other Publications from Toolkit To Change
Individual-Led Community Change
In Our Hands: Using Personal and Community Power to Inspire Corporate Change
Changing Course: Using Self-Directed IRAs to Move Your Money from Wall Street to Your Street
*This Land is Your Land: Making Commerce Eco-Conscious
Personal Development
*Waist Not? Want Not! Fun Solutions to a Healthier You
*Attitude Adjustment Already: Steps to Elevate Your Life
Also available from Ken Streater
The Gift of Courage: Stories of Ordinary Heroes and the People Who Share Their Lives
Toolkit To Change: Making a World of Difference
P.O. Box 1716
Redmond, OR, 97756
www.ToolkitToChange.com
Copyright, Ken Streater, Toolkit To Change, 2011. All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-105-33311-8
*Available Fall, 2012
Preface
I have been an America’s Servicing Company customer for six years. Every single month I make my mortgage payment to them between the first and fifteenth, before the late fees hit. I have not asked for a loan modification, considered foreclosure, or requested refinancing. However, on weekends for the past several months in comes a call from America’s Servicing Company, lovingly asking me via a detached automated recording to please give them a call. They call because I missed the payment on the first of the month (as I have for several years), and they are concerned. My payment history shows that I do not miss monthly payments at all, nor pay them after the past due date. This past Saturday I was up early, working on another book, and the phone rang at 7:30 a.m. It was, once again, America’s Servicing Company calling.
As the owner of two businesses that employ a few people, I make a living wage. My wife works ¾ time for a regional airline and volunteers at our kids’ schools. I contribute to my community by serving on a couple of advisory boards, coach my kids’ soccer and basketball teams, pay my employees fairly for the good work they do, and get up early in the morning to make breakfast for my family. On school days I have the stove on around 7:45 and breakfast served around 8:00. It is a battle sometimes to get my kids out of bed and on the roll to school, but it magically happens Monday through Friday. On Saturdays we don’t eat until later. My family sleeps in since it is a day of rest for my kids, my wife and me.
America’s Servicing Company is owned by Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank in the U.S. I don’t know whether or not John Stumpf, the CEO of Wells Fargo, coaches his kids’ teams or makes breakfast for his family every day. This really does not matter. What does matter is that John’s compensation package in 2010 was $19 million dollars and he does not get calls from America’s Servicing Company at 7:30 on Saturday mornings. Interestingly, the average Wells Fargo bank teller makes $22,000 a year (just over one tenth of one percent of what John makes) and likes to sleep in on Saturdays too.
I conceived and began writing this book when I realized that there was really only one thing I wanted relative to large corporations and felt was a reasonable request on behalf of all Americans. All I ask is this: Let’s be kind and fair.
Some of corporate America has a real struggle being kind, no matter how nicely you ask them. It may be we are not asking them enough or speaking to the right person. Perhaps we should illustrate dissatisfaction by peacefully using our free market economy to move our money elsewhere. This may be exactly what it takes to increase their civility and encourage them treat employees and customers better, as they have in the past. A half a century ago Sears and Roebuck, a leading retailer at that time, employed men and women who made a living wage and had health insurance through their work. They earned enough to house and feed a family of four with a work-week that respected family and community. Only twenty years ago large banks and mortgage companies did not make automated calls early on weekend mornings, seeking a payment that was not late. And, just a few years ago we thought the world was going to come to an end on September 11th. We rallied around each other in the name of brother- and sisterhood and, in the face of tragedy, being kind, humane, and fair helped us survive.
In 2008 the world witnessed another collapse, that of our financial institutions and global economy. As a result, millions of people have lost their jobs, been forced from their homes, and are stripped of their dignity and pride. These are people who follow the rules, bleed for their employers, seek only food and shelter for their family, and practice community benevolence. I am one. All my life I have worked hard to make a living. I do not expect handouts. I do not want someone else to earn my keep. I try to teach my kids that honesty, hard work, creativity, open mindedness, gratitude, and fair play can serve you well. And, given our rich life, that is working very well.
I also tend to call a spade as I see a spade. I do not kowtow to corporations because they are “too big” to deal with. As a customer of various corporations that I do business with, I do not hesitate to call the CEO or Chief Legal Counsel to sing the praises of good service or draw attention to unfair treatment. In the past few years I have personally spoken with the heads of many large corporations or their direct personal assistants, including the CEO of U.S. Bank, the Vice President of Progressive Insurance, the Chief Legal Counsel of Berkshire Hathaway, and a Director on the Wells Fargo Bank Board. I do this by simply calling them on the phone. I tend to go straight to a source to solve a problem. The impact of such things as Wells Fargo robot calls, a lack of corporate civility and their executive management compensation practices push me beyond whining about personal and global injustices. I long for the day when corporate benevolence is not an oxymoron. And, I had a hand in allowing the present economy of corporate excesses to happen, so I must accept some responsibility on that level. I am, therefore, determined to do something more about our circumstances—yours and mine.
To stimulate that call to action this book provides seven simple tools to magnify the power of one, one hundred, or one thousand. As a group that becomes exponentially stronger we can effect large-scale change. This effort and change is all based in freedom of choice and the power of compassion and care: compassion for your family, your neighbor, and your community, and care for your region, state, country, and the world. If we at local levels do not behave in a way that reflects our concern for friends and colleagues, then how can we expect others to do the same?
The goal of this handbook and the behaviors it may manifest is to inspire corporations to change and become more compassionate and caring themselves. Before rolling your eyes, consider this: there are large corporations that do very much care and are making our world better. Consider Ben and Jerry’s, Google, and Best Buy. When you visit these places or buy their products and services notice how you feel about giving them your business. There is goodness in many large corporations and you know it when you see it.
The largest corporations that do not spend as much time and money as good corporate citizens like those above grew into juggernauts by leveraging legislation and free markets to their benefit. Unfortunately, in many cases this was at the expense of decency. But it was on our watch. We not only let this happen but our votes and buying patterns enabled, supported, and grew it. With record profits and troubling disregard for workforce compensation and international workplace conditions, the largest and most egregiously insensitive companies march on due to our inaction in a system that should allow us to control our destiny. By changing how and with whom we do business we can change how corporations do business. This handbook shows how.
Corporations find power in size. As a collective we can be even more powerful. I invite you to use each of the tools detailed in this handbook to help corporate America be kind and fair.
Introduction
A convergence of several elements led to the writing of this handbook, or toolkit. The first is the constant presence of large banks and other huge financial institutions embedded in our lives. Second, global grass root movements are drawing heightened attention to the abuses of Wall Street and gigantic corporations around the world. Third, we are bearing witness to the power of the common person as Middle Eastern countries overthrow greedy leaders who hold no regard for those they depend on for their prosperity. Fourth, our current economic situation makes now the time for change. And fifth, we need an easy-to-follow how-to manual in mass circulation that can impact excessive corporate profitability, reduce flagrantly disparate compensation packages, improve individual financial performance, and increase our collective autonomy. Here is that guidebook.
Most of us spend a fair amount of time complaining about the abuses of corporate America. We whine about the incessant computer generated calls, including those early on a Saturday morning. We talk to anyone who will listen about our frustration with the increasing banking fees and decreasing credit limits. We boil inside about the mortgage situation and the banking industry and government’s role in creating this situation. In all this anger we forget to take responsibility and action to help fix the problem. We throw up our hands, feeling there is nothing we can do. There is, and it is not difficult or complicated.
The purpose of this handbook is to stop the bitchin’ and start the fixin’. It is imperative to stop “fighting” the machine, expecting force based in anger and frustration to make change. Constantly working against something only reinforces that negative energy. Studies show and history bears out that the greatest shifts in humankind have been catalyzed in reason, willingness, and love. By shifting our role from victim to change-maker, and then reveling in that positive impact, we change the energy of the entire world. It is in our hands.
In each chapter, this toolkit presents historical information to frame the scope of corporate abuses that are creating holes in our personal and collective economic fabric. The examination of the past serves as a foundation for change. Finally, it inspires individual action as part of a very large group, with the hope that the positive, collaborative energy takes root and grows.
It is important to note that most corporations are good. Literally thousands of them operate with ethics and humanity as their base. Managers and shareholders of good corporations appropriately and fairly use financial and operational benefits to build healthy products, serve the public, employ good people, and enjoy the fruits of their labor with a clear conscience. The concept of corporations does not have at its core the need to control and connive. The original concept was to allow individuals to pool resources and attract capital in order to make things better and make better things. It is the abuse of this corporate ideal in today’s legislative climate that has led to financial devastation. Decency and the collective good have been sacrificed in the interest of greed.
This book is not red, blue, or green. It is not an anarchist expose or trickle down manifesto. It knows no political affiliation and does not side with or blame any one party or person. It is founded on one belief: We, the people, can create change in our personal, community, national, and international economies. It is based on the belief that corporations should not build indiscriminate wealth in the shadows and on the backs of their constituents and that we have allowed that to happen. It offers a platform, through simple tools, to develop an economy that is designed to respond to customer demands. It attempts to do this proactively rather than reactively, and through power of free choice rather than the force of protest. It does not dwell on the past or what is wrong, rather what we can do to make our worlds right. Whether by a Supreme Court decision, a challenging political system, offshore production, or we, the people not paying close enough attention, the way we got here matters only as a reference to what we need to fix, not who we need to blame. Where we go and what we do matters most.
We can change the world. This toolkit provides tangible active steps that you can implement today and that will not cost you more money. In fact, they may make you more. They will, however, take a little bit of your time, which we recognize is precious and valuable. To get through these seven steps you will need to commit two hours a week for three weeks to make changes and about 30 minutes a week thereafter for the subsequent month. In this much time, you can help change the behavior of individual corporations. After that, you should not need to spend any more time than you do today with personal economic projects, but your positive impact on corporate America and the improvements to your life will be significant.
The little bit of time you take will reward you with more energy and relief. It will help you understand how corporate America works in the “land of the free.” It will improve your control over personal finances. It will allow you to share with your neighbors and coworkers how we all can make a difference. And it will help us take back the reins of our economy. You will be left with a sense of pride and awareness that you are in charge of your world—and Wall Street is not.
Economics is simply supply and demand. Change the demand and the approach to supply must be changed. Another expression for supply and demand could be cause and effect. We as a consuming public cause the behaviors of the corporations, and also their effect. In other words we are at once the reason for and the solution to our economic position. Therefore, all of the tools in this kit are built upon the often forgotten or completely ignored concept that corporate America needs you and me to survive and thrive. Again, it is in our hands.
Protests alone do not change how these monolithic institutions are fed or react. They only draw attention to businesses that create enough negative energy on their own. Complaining to your co-worker or neighbor does not inspire action, only frustration. Doing nothing has led us to the point where so much of what you do, buy, and say is driven by the very businesses we support. “Black Friday” illustrates that point. But, we can stop following brilliantly marketed consumer rules. For change to occur, you need to stop buying and borrowing from corporate America. Instead, act with reason and willingness, changing your own behaviors to make the world a better place. Give to yourself and your neighbor, not a distant Goliath entity. Put your money into your community by exercising smart buying and investment choices.
Here are the tools to do it…
Tool #1: Saw. Cut off your relationship with your large bank today. Choose another bank for your checking and savings accounts. Invest your money locally for the greatest returns.
If you are using Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, or any other very large publicly traded institution, you may not fully be considering the power you have as a community member and participant in a free market economy. Here is why it is important to consider where you are banking: The motivations of the largest financial institutions are likely not the same as your motivations, nor do they have your best interests at heart. Profit that financially rewards executives, Boards of Directors, and primary shareholders is what drives these entities. These shareholders—pension funds, insurance agencies, mutual funds, investment banks, and foreign government investment vehicles—buy and sell huge blocks of stocks of the big financial entities every day. Millions and millions of dollars are hedged with these lenders in the hopes that their return on investment is huge. The corporate boards and CEOs of these institutions are concerned with the satisfaction of institutional shareholders—not yours. Happy large block shareholders mean higher stock prices, which mean greater profits which, mean higher paid executives. That does not necessarily mean higher savings account interest rates, more favorable borrowing terms, or healthier communities.
The average American saves approximately $392 a year. The average American makes just over $50,000 a year. This means that less than one percent of your money is going into a bank to stay. Most of it is passed through your bank account in the form of checks and debit card transactions. Since deposit accounts in any bank or credit union are guaranteed up to $250,000 by the Federal government, the likelihood of loss of your money in a large bank is slim to none.
So, if you are only running money through a bank and not actually leaving much in the vault for banks to use for their own investments and loans, why bother changing banks? Consider this: Whenever you deposit a large check, it can take days or weeks to clear. Is the bank’s concern really whether or not that check will clear? Now, modern banking technology allows the transaction to process almost instantaneously. However, if the bank can hold those funds away from you and keep them in their coffers for a few days (this is known as a float), imagine how much they can make on all of these deposits nationwide every day as they instantaneously invest and realize profit? After using your money for a few days or two weeks they pass it on to you. All banks play this float game well, but the largest banks, with the largest depositors, make millions an hour doing it. Take your money away and put it into a smaller, less domineering and dominating financial institution. Transfer funds into local or regional banks that have a direct stake in your community.