Rally in front of some rich guy's house? Now that'll do a fat lot of good

The fledgling group Refund California takes its gripes about the banking system to the San Marino home of a "prominent Wall Street executive" this afternoon, according to a press release. Yesterday, protesters were in front of the Bel Air home of Steven Mnuchin, chairman of OneWest Bank of Pasadena, claiming that a La Puente property had been "callously foreclosed" after the death of the owner's brother (here's the LAT story). The tactic is designed to embarrass these executives in front of their neighbors, and frankly I wonder if it's the best use of the group's time. The debt crisis is way bigger than one banker or one foreclosed property. (Actually, OneWest is the entity that Mnuchin and other investors created after the collapse of the real culprit in this mess, IndyMac.) From Refund California press release:

The goals of the campaign are to:

--Fix Housing to Fix the Economy Enact a widespread mortgage principal reduction program, creating 300,000 California jobs and injecting over $20 billion into the economy.

--Pay Fair Share Close property tax loopholes, increase taxes on top 1% and corporations, stop ripping off taxpayers with financial schemes like interest rate swaps

--Stop Destroying Neighborhoods Stop foreclosure blight, support small business lending and create jobs. Reinvest profits into putting people back to work and rebuilding our economy.

I'm not sure how 300,000 jobs are created by reducing mortgage principal. And what about the investors who actually hold the mortgages and still expect a return? And how do you raise taxes in the current political climate? A few well-intentioned ideas - and very little that's realistic.