Action Ideas

Create a Twitter, Facebook and Instagram storm!

#10yearsOn

You can use this hashtag in several ways! One example:

Post a picture of yourself ten years ago and now, with a caption such as:

“#10yearsOn…

I received a college degree,

moved out of my parents’ house

and found the work I love.

And you @CountryFinanceMinister, what did you do?”

#ChangeFinance

You can use this hashtag in several ways! One example:

Share a selfie holding a sign ‘#ChangeFinance’ with a symbolic landscape in the background, such as a coal mine, unemployment waiting line, closed hospital etc.

#NotWithOurMoney or #NotWithMyMoney

… will you destroy a coral reef

… will you extract shale gas

… will you speculate with debt

… will you organise tax evasion

…

These messages should relate to the dirty things the financial system is still doing. Send a strong message to show that we no longer want the financial system to do dirty things with our money.

For Individuals

• Create a poster with one critical, sarcastic question like ‘Happy 10^th birthday, Financial Crisis. How did you manage to look the same after 10 years?’

• Switch your bank account to an ethical bank.

• Turn your pockets inside out.

• Put a white paper in the street: ‘#10yearsOn from the financial crisis… Banks and other leaders of this world are fine. Thanks for helping with your money. And you, what happened to you since 2008?’

• Eat a ‘financier’ (French cake)

For Small Groups

• Blow bubbles in front of banks.

• Blow a balloon inside a bank until it explodes.

• Stick “Beware: Dirty Money” signs on ATMs all around your city.

• Hand out ‘Free Money’ to passersby (e.g. 1 dollar bills), and explain that you are celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the bail out.

• Hold banners from bridges over roads at rush hours with slogans.

• Show empathy towards politicians and bankers. Stitch handkerchiefs with “Don’t blow it!” and ask for a personal conversation about what they find important, how that relates to our own issues, and help each other as human beings. (This is gentle activism, craftivism.)

• Enact a fake wedding between a political body and a financial institution.

• Organise a subprime party

Organised Actions

• Put a ‘Crime Scene’ tape around a bank.

• Lots of people (men and women) should wear suits and clothes like the financial sector, march through cities and go to the Ministries and Parliament saying “Listen to us, the people!”

• Project onto the buildings of banks: how much money has been paid out in bonuses since the crisis/ how much in fines has been paid/ how much was paid for the bailout. (Requires heavy duty projectors for daytime)

• Create a video of a utopia / vision in which everything necessary has been done. And now the economy is going well, inequalities have decreased, climate change is mitigated etc.

• Organise a photo exhibition “Picture the crisis”

• Organise a choir in front of financial institutions

• Create a pop-up Haunted House/ Museum of the Horrible History of the Financial Crisis- which is an interactive experience for the general public to engage with.

• Crash bankers celebrations of the anniversary.

• Direct action in front of state parliaments.

• Go to banks! Have a general assembly inside or outside.

• Bring things of symbolic value, maybe enough to block the entrances of financial institutions.

• Go to bank branch next door. Occupy it. Bring coffee, talk with people about what happened to them since 2008.

• Dress up as a banker and occupy parliament.

• Banner drops from towers and financial institutions.

• Christo-style stunt covering national banks in black cloth.

For Individuals

• Start a #10yearsOn petition

• Write letters to policymakers/ banks that require answers

For mobilizing VIPs/Academics/Opeds

• Have a group of 500 high net-worth individuals from all over the world publicly demand more regulation and a fairer financial system

• Have the Pope and other religious leaders speak out on a new vision for finance: for all people and the planet.

• Public pledge of finance professors/ economists to teach in a different, cross-discipline way- putting finance as a servant of society.

• Opeds in media exploring lack of reforms.

Organised Actions

• Organise alternative finance forums, meetings, festivals or conferences to plan for solutions.

• Organise culture actions, screenings, shows or concerts.

• Have a peoples’ tribunal or court on the streets, and involve the victims of banks.

• Create a Financial Stability Citizen Board

• Ask the G20 to meet again.

• Critical lectures on #10yearsOn can be organized in public venues (e.g. Universities) or in cooperation with unions, student groups etc. These can serve to inform and to motivate for more direct action.