A spinoff group from the Occupy movement is seeking to launch its own prepaid debit card, as a prelude to offering a more complete set of financial services. Ridiculous? Not at all. In fact, taking over some of Wall Street's business could be the most useful thing Occupy Wall Street could do. According to the New York Times, the prepaid debit card is but the first offering from the Occupy Money Cooperative, a spinoff group that wants to build at least a rudimentary set of alternative financial products, for the public. How is this different from the banks that Occupy was protesting? Well, EVIL BANKS are for-profit enterprises that seek to maximize their own profits by squeezing consumers for everything they're worth. For most people, that translates to high fees for every little service, which is, essentially, extortion by banks. It is middlemen taking as big a cut as possible of the money that flows through their coffers, with no associated benefit for the public. It is $32 billion in overdraft fees in 2012 alone.
What Occupy wants to do, by contrast, is to create a not-for-profit financial institution that could fulfill common needs—debit cards, checking and savings accounts, loans—with no profit imperative, meaning that it could be totally focused on charging the lowest possible fees.
