I think crowd funding / cooperative owned business / locally sourced / locally funded will change the country.
Take a look at
kickstarter
lending club
and mosaic
https://joinmosaic.com/...
With Mosaic and lending club, regular people loan money or fund solar to other regular people (for profit), but we cut wall street and banks as much out of the equation as we possible can.
With the rich getting richer than ever, and everyone else fighting for scraps, we need to fund our fellow citizens locally and responsibly.
Imagine using kickstarter (or something like it) to fund a local coffeehouse, even better a CO-OP coffee shop. A co-op that hires locals, at livable wages, and serves products that are healthy, and locally sourced. A place where neighborhood residents can frequent and something that everyone owns a piece of.
I am deadly serious about this, but in order to get it done, we need to want to change the world, one job and neighborhood at a time, and we need to mobilize.
No one is going to save us, the elite doesn't care about the 99% so we have to get it done ourselves.
Has anyone from Kos started a business or run for office?
With enough crowd-funding we can finance elections- imagine electing a Kos reader or writer... This isn't about charity, (some of it could be) but it is about combining resources in order effect change that none of us could do on their own, and if we succeed as partial owners, workers, or investors, well, we could make a profit as well.
Before you dismiss this, look at the Oyua as an example. The founder was able to raise millions from kickstarter. She took that cash, and started a for profit company that makes video game consoles. From literally nothing, she was able to create a video game console from crowdfunding startup cash. Now she sells those units at Amazon and best buy at a profit... What did the original crowdfunders get out of the deal? they got the chance to purchase the product and the games that their funding helped to create. What did the CEO get? Probably millions in profit.
Every once in a while i read a diary or a member that is living on the edge, and when i see other readers donate money, or try to help them find a job, my heart and my soul feels better. Kos has reached critical mass, being able to Vent and expose and educate citizens on the evils that exist has changed the country for the better- but what else can we do?
I know there are a lot of reasons why this would fail, or why it might not be able to work, but dreams are what we've got, so why not express them?