The backbone of America's economy has always been small business. But, over the years, greed conquered common sense, and small family-owned businesses became large publicly-owned conglomerates who had little interest in being good corporate citizens within their local communities. Long-term objectives were discarded for short-term profits that out-performed last quarter's profits. That's why O.U.T.R.A.G.E. believed Article XIX was important: it was a resolution to nationalize all public corporations.
The idea was to regulate corporations so that they would become more responsible to society instead of solely responsible to their executives and shareholders. Of course, big companies always tried to portray themselves in the best light with glitzy TV commercials and warm magazine ads about how they shared America's interests in the environment, quality of life, ecology, and prosperity. The raw truth was something more sinister: they're interest was in grabbing more of your money.
If that resulted in deceptive packaging (to make you think you were getting more than you actually were), or tainting their products with addictive substances (that would get you "hooked" on their brand of cigarettes or soda pop), or convincing you that their "designer beer can" somehow made their product better, it was all designed to draw more customers into a web of consumerism from which many people could ever escape. As easy credit became more available to millions of customers, Americans were headed down a slippery-slope of 'buy now, pay later" - sometimes much later, at the expense of exoribtant interest rates and miscellaneous "fees". The lobbyists, of course, made sure it was all "legal" with the help of a pliable and gullible U.S. Congress who gleefully went along with anything the industry proposed. The American consumer, by 2008, was in a pond of financial quicksand - and the big banks had just recently made it more difficult for people drowning in debt to declare bankruptcy and relieve themselves from the tenacles of big business.
O.U.T.R.A.G.E. believed Article XIX to be an important measure in keeping corporations under control, maintaining fair and equitable profit structures, and ensuring that employees would not be robbed of their pensions or benefits after years of loyal service, just because some CEO needed a million-dollar golden parachute. O.U.T.R.A.G.E. employment experts were working closely with economics professors and corporate leaders, alongside a battery of 'common' citizens, including laborers and union leaders. The work continued in St. Kitts day and night. This was just one of twenty five resolutions that was to be passed into law as soon as the new Congress convened after being elected next November 4. Again, difficult questions arose: how do you allow free enterprise and still try to control basic avarice? It presented perplexing issues that took long hours of debate, compromise, and amicable collusion as the formal language was being readied.