Nada ... Nothing Can Be Done
We are just SOL
Or ... We Can Dream
Just maybe
What Can We Do ...
Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform in the final segment (WHO DESTROYED THE MIDDLE CLASS – PART 3) of his brilliant essay has set forth a well thought out series of strategies that make way too much sense for the SheepClass of America; however, may just be ideas that could become doable when the current regime collapses and we as a nation start to look for alternatives
Political System
Economic Policy
Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform in the final segment (WHO DESTROYED THE MIDDLE CLASS – PART 3) of his brilliant essay has set forth a well thought out series of strategies that make way too much sense for the SheepClass of America; however, may just be ideas that could become doable when the current regime collapses and we as a nation start to look for alternatives
Political System
- Since politicians cannot be trusted to exhibit courage or intelligence when it comes to public policy, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution needs to be passed, with a five to ten year implementation period to ameliorate the pain.
- Term limits of 6 years for Congressmen and Senators. Serving in Congress should not be a career. It is a duty to the country. The purpose of Congress is to represent the existing generations of citizens and ensure that future generations have a country that offers opportunity to live a better life than their parents.
- The entire election process would be scraped. It would be transformed into a 3 month publicly financed election. No money from corporations, unions, or individuals would be allowed. Multiple candidates would have an opportunity to debate on public TV. The two party domination of our political process must be broken.
- Corporations are not people. Extreme wealth does not ive someone the right to buy elections. Rich oligarchs operating in the shadows and spending billions on negative advertising is not how a republic should elect their representatives. Lobbyists, special interests and PACs and would be eliminated from the political process.
- The President could no longer issue Executive Orders, undercutting the legislative process.
- Every bill before Congress would immediately be put online. The constituents of every Congressmen and Senator would be allowed to voice their opinion by voting yes or no online.
- Every bill that is proposed by a Congressman must have a funding mechanism. If the proposal increases costs to the American taxpayer, something else must be cut to pay for the new proposal. This would be unnecessary if a balance budget amendment was passed.
- No American troops could be committed to war in a foreign country without a full vote of Congress as required by the U.S. Constitution.
- A cost benefit analysis would be conducted regarding every department and agency in the Federal Government by the GAO. Those failing to meet minimum requirements would be drastically reduced or eliminated.
- The education of children would be delegated to localities, without Federal mandates. Every child in America would receive vouchers for grade school, high school and college. They could choose any school to attend – public or private. If the private school cost more than the voucher, the family would pay the difference. Excellent schools would flourish, poor schools would be forced to improve or they would close. Teacher tenure would be eliminated. Teaching excellence would be rewarded.
Economic Policy
- The first thing to be done is to abolish the Federal Reserve. It is owned by and operated for the benefit of the biggest banks in the world. Its sole purpose has been to enrich the few at the expense of the many through its insidious use of inflation and debt issuance. It has been around for less than 100 years and has debased the USD by 96%. The U.S. Treasury has the authority to issue the currency of the country. It did so from 1789 until 1913.
- The 2nd thing to do would be to reinstitute the Glass-Steagall Act because Wall Street cannot be trusted to manage their risk properly. This would separate true banking activities from the high risk gambling that brought the economic system to its knees. Privatizing the profits and socializing the losses is unacceptable.
- The FASB would be directed to make all banks and financial corporations value their assets at their true market value. This would reveal the mega Wall Street banks and corporations like GE to be insolvent. An orderly bankruptcy of all insolvent financial firms involving the sell-off of their legitimate assets to well-run risk adverse banks that didn’t screw up would ensue. Bondholders and stockholders would realize their losses for awful investment decisions. The economic system would be purged of its bad debt.
- The currency of the US would be backed by hard assets. A basket of gold, silver, platinum, uranium, and some other limited hard commodities would back the USD. If politicians attempted to spend too much, the price of this basket would reflect their inflationary schemes immediately.
- The 16th Amendment would be repealed and the income tax would be scraped. It would be replaced with a national consumption tax. The more you consume, the more taxes you pay. Wages, savings and investment would be untaxed. The tax code is the source for much of politicians’ power. Its demise would further reduce Washington DC control over our lives.
- A downsizing of the US Military from $1 trillion to $500 billion annually would be initiated through the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, Germany, Japan and hundreds of other bases throughout the world. Policing the world is bankrupting the empire.
- All corporate, farm, education, and social engineering subsidies would be eliminated. All Federal employees would have their pay slashed by 10% and the workforce would be reduced by 20% over 5 years. Federal health benefits and pension benefits would be set at average private industry levels.
- The Social Security System would be completely overhauled. Anyone 50 or older would get exactly what they were promised. The age for collecting SS would be gradually raised to 72 over the next 15 years. Those between 25 and 50 would be given the option to opt out of SS. They would be given their contributions to invest as they see fit if they opt out. Anyone entering the workforce today would not pay in or receive any benefits. The wage limit for SS would be eliminated and the tax rate would be reduced from 6.2% to 3%.
- The Medicare system is unsustainable. It would be converted from a government program to private market based program. The Federal mandates, rules and regulations would be eliminated. Senior citizens would be given healthcare vouchers which they would be free to use with any insurance company or doctor based on price and quality. Insurance companies would compete for business on a national basis. Doctors would compete for business. The GAO would have their budget doubled and they would audit Medicare fraud & Medicaid fraud and prosecute the criminals without impunity.
- The healthcare bill would be repealed. Insurance companies would be allowed to compete with each other on a national basis. Tort reform would be implemented so that doctors could do their jobs without fear of being destroyed by slimy personal injury lawyers. Doctors would need to post their costs for various procedures. Price and quality would drive the healthcare market.
- The entitlement state would be dismantled. The criteria for collecting welfare, SSDI, food stamps and unemployment benefits would be made much stricter. Unemployed people collecting government payments would be required to clean up parks, volunteer at community charity organizations, pick up trash along highways, fix and paint houses in their neighborhoods and generally keep busy in a productive manner for society.
- A free market method for stabilizing the housing market would be for banks to voluntarily reduce the mortgage balances of underwater homeowners in exchange for a PAR (Property Appreciation Right). The homeowner would agree to pay off the PAR to the Treasury (and administered through the IRS) out of future price appreciation on the existing home or subsequent property. The homeowner would be excluded from taking on any home equity loans or executing any “cash out” refinancing until the PAR was satisfied. The maximum PAR obligation accepted by the Treasury would be based on the value of the home and the income of the homeowner.
July1
By: Susan Harley
reinstating-glass-steagall-21st-century-solution
Follow @Susan_Citizen on Twitter
Most people only think about bank runs around the winter holidays when “It’s a Wonderful Life” plays incessantly on television and the protagonist is trying to save his small community bank from going under. Bank runs are an old-fashioned idea, the stuff of black and white movies and not the sort of issue we tend to think of as a problem for this century.
Since the advent of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 1933, our deposits are protected and we don’t need to worry about banks running out of money.
Or do we?
When banks are allowed to take bets on toxic debt or enter into complex derivatives transactions – essentially gambling with our taxpayer-insured deposits — we may be setting up our economy for another meltdown. Banks can and do lose huge sums of money on failed bets, as happened with several leading banks in the run up to the 2008 crash. These bad bets were part of what caused many financial institutions to fail; the failures set off the chain reaction of the economic crash. Instead of paying back depositors and simply allowing the banks to go under, the government chose to bail out some of them, leading to trillions in payouts under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and other bank supports.
They say hindsight is 20-20, but our country’s leaders should have known better then to allow this gambling. For most of the last century, we had strong, clear protections against just that type of bank activity. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress included a ban on riskier investment banking (read gambling) by FDIC-insured facilities when the system of federally-insured deposits went into effect in 1933. This ban between commercial and investment banking was called the Glass-Steagall Act, and it was rolled in with the Banking Act of 1933, which also created the FDIC.
This safety glass was in place for over 50 years and served the country well as we experienced overall stability in the financial industry. But banks desiring to engage in high-risk, high-profit transactions pressured Congress to break down the wall. The Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999 through President Clinton’s signing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
After Glass-Steagall’s repeal, commercial banks backed by FDIC guarantees borrowed cheap money and jumped full force into packaging debt, underwriting mortgages and growing their investment strategies. They took bigger risks than ever before, leading us straight to the crisis. Over-leveraged and under-capitalized, the banks’ gambling strategies blew up.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) passed in the wake of the financial crisis will go a long way towards fixing the problem when eventually implemented via regulations, but bank gambling problems haven’t completely faded into the past. As recently as 2012, a JPMorgan Chase trader, Bruno Iskil (a.k.a. the “London Whale”), gambled with FDIC-insured deposits using a failed investment strategy that was purported to be a hedging position, which caused his bank to lose over $6 billion.
Even after the Volcker Rule (the piece of Dodd-Frank that will ban banks from proprietary trading solely on the behalf of the financial institution), the size of our financial markets make it difficult for overburdened regulators to police today’s too big to manage banks and to determine what is permissible versus non-permissible gambling. Going back to a clear Glass-Steagall separation of commercial and investment banking is the easiest way to make sure greedy banksters don’t put our fragile, still recovering economy back on the rocks.
To that end, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act to restore the complete separation of risky investment banking from straightforward commercial banking activities.
Support for the proposal is overwhelming. On June 16, the 81st anniversary of FDR signing the original Glass-Steagall law, Public Citizen delivered to Senate offices a letter signed by 162 national, state and local groups calling on all senators to co-sponsor the 21st Century Glass- Steagall Act. The public is clearly behind the proposal. Hundreds of thousands of citizens have signed various online petitions urging Congress take action to re-separate commercial banking from risky investment banking, including more than 30,000 of Public Citizen’s members and supporters like you.
NOW is the time to fix our banking system. If you haven’t already done so, please take a moment to sign the petition to tell your Senator that real banking protections should not be a thing of the past.
Susan Harley is the deputy director for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division.
By: Susan Harley
reinstating-glass-steagall-21st-century-solution
Follow @Susan_Citizen on Twitter
Most people only think about bank runs around the winter holidays when “It’s a Wonderful Life” plays incessantly on television and the protagonist is trying to save his small community bank from going under. Bank runs are an old-fashioned idea, the stuff of black and white movies and not the sort of issue we tend to think of as a problem for this century.
Since the advent of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 1933, our deposits are protected and we don’t need to worry about banks running out of money.
Or do we?
When banks are allowed to take bets on toxic debt or enter into complex derivatives transactions – essentially gambling with our taxpayer-insured deposits — we may be setting up our economy for another meltdown. Banks can and do lose huge sums of money on failed bets, as happened with several leading banks in the run up to the 2008 crash. These bad bets were part of what caused many financial institutions to fail; the failures set off the chain reaction of the economic crash. Instead of paying back depositors and simply allowing the banks to go under, the government chose to bail out some of them, leading to trillions in payouts under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and other bank supports.
They say hindsight is 20-20, but our country’s leaders should have known better then to allow this gambling. For most of the last century, we had strong, clear protections against just that type of bank activity. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress included a ban on riskier investment banking (read gambling) by FDIC-insured facilities when the system of federally-insured deposits went into effect in 1933. This ban between commercial and investment banking was called the Glass-Steagall Act, and it was rolled in with the Banking Act of 1933, which also created the FDIC.
This safety glass was in place for over 50 years and served the country well as we experienced overall stability in the financial industry. But banks desiring to engage in high-risk, high-profit transactions pressured Congress to break down the wall. The Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999 through President Clinton’s signing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
After Glass-Steagall’s repeal, commercial banks backed by FDIC guarantees borrowed cheap money and jumped full force into packaging debt, underwriting mortgages and growing their investment strategies. They took bigger risks than ever before, leading us straight to the crisis. Over-leveraged and under-capitalized, the banks’ gambling strategies blew up.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) passed in the wake of the financial crisis will go a long way towards fixing the problem when eventually implemented via regulations, but bank gambling problems haven’t completely faded into the past. As recently as 2012, a JPMorgan Chase trader, Bruno Iskil (a.k.a. the “London Whale”), gambled with FDIC-insured deposits using a failed investment strategy that was purported to be a hedging position, which caused his bank to lose over $6 billion.
Even after the Volcker Rule (the piece of Dodd-Frank that will ban banks from proprietary trading solely on the behalf of the financial institution), the size of our financial markets make it difficult for overburdened regulators to police today’s too big to manage banks and to determine what is permissible versus non-permissible gambling. Going back to a clear Glass-Steagall separation of commercial and investment banking is the easiest way to make sure greedy banksters don’t put our fragile, still recovering economy back on the rocks.
To that end, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act to restore the complete separation of risky investment banking from straightforward commercial banking activities.
Support for the proposal is overwhelming. On June 16, the 81st anniversary of FDR signing the original Glass-Steagall law, Public Citizen delivered to Senate offices a letter signed by 162 national, state and local groups calling on all senators to co-sponsor the 21st Century Glass- Steagall Act. The public is clearly behind the proposal. Hundreds of thousands of citizens have signed various online petitions urging Congress take action to re-separate commercial banking from risky investment banking, including more than 30,000 of Public Citizen’s members and supporters like you.
NOW is the time to fix our banking system. If you haven’t already done so, please take a moment to sign the petition to tell your Senator that real banking protections should not be a thing of the past.
Susan Harley is the deputy director for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division.