Thanks: 
Likes: 
Dislikes: 
Re: Today in the economy
Originally Posted by VanChilds
Go back to the way we were before finance and banking were allowed to remerge early this century, something that hadn't been allowed since the Depression when FDR brought in rules and regulation. Keep banking and its deposits under a tight leash and don't let them bet their capital on risky investments. If people want to do that, let them do it but regulate financial firms like investment banks so that the failure of one or more firms can't blow up the system and cost taxpayers money. Put the trading of derivatives (securities based on things like mortgages, stock markets) under regulation too. They're the things that have bankrupted the banks and are cosing the taxpayer trillions. Put them under some form of regulation for the first time ever. Basically go back to roughly where we were before Reagan. It's not like the financial industry wasn't profitable then, it's that it was making actual profits then and not gaming the system. Regulate the system so that it can't be gamed.
Actually investigate bankers and politicians and prosecute them, give them actual prison terms in actual US prisons, not country clubs. That would end almost all criminality overnight, or at least wouldn't allow the entire system to edge into criminality. You'd still get the odd Madoff but with regulation these guys would be limited to tens of millions of fraud, not tens of billions.
In short make the US financial system and capital markets the most honest and transparent in the world, something that investors flock to and the reason they're so big, not let them edge the country towards becoming a banana republic as is happening now.
Increase taxes on the top 0.1% (people making tens of millions a year) to 65% for ten years to pay off the debt accumulated by the last eight years of diastrous/crooked governance. Then drop the rate to 50%. This would have zero effect on future economic growth. In the fifties the marginal rate for top earners was 90% and the US managed 9% yearly economic growth at the time. All this onsense about cutting taxes to increase growth is disproved by reality and has just ended up creating large capital bubbles in markets and consequent disasters. Plus earnings of the top 0.1% have gone up five or ten times since just 2000, so they're still earning far more at 65% tax than they were in 2000. Give a tax cut to 99% of Americans to redistribute income that's been redistributed upwards over the past 30 years. This is the only way to get things really going again.
Stop bombing other countries as a foreign policy tool. Cut military spending (two thirds of all US taxes) by about 80% and invest that money in alternative energies that don't involve hydrocarbons, creating untold millions of non-offshorable jobs that pay well. Basically pay US military wages and defence worker wages and end the hundreds of billions of welfare paid to the US war industry every year, in fact give the military a pay rise so they don't need food stamps to survive. Make sure there are no homeless veterans and they all get proper health care. Negotiate a treaty with other countries to limit weapons spending/work or abolish it. The US maintains its position and the world gets to spend military cash on useful things. Everybody would go for this for various reasons. The US empire is in the same situation the Brits were in 1918 where the war industry is now a huge cost to the country rather than a benefit, so America would benefit by far the most. Terrorism then takes carwe of itself. No interfering in other countries, no violent response, no large numbers of people willing to fund terrorists.
There you go, all problems solved. Nobody trying to bomb you, the economy fixed and the governemtn running the financial industry rather than vice versa.
 |
|
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks