Occupy the Planet Vectors of Change: Economics

Submitted by charliehiphop on Sun, 2011-10-02 10:09

Poverty Planet: Protest Sign: Truth. Poverty Planet: Protest Sign: Truth.So Occupy Wall Street continues to gain steam, and this is great news! The Powers that Be are forced to take notice. People all over the country are showing gratitude and support. This little seed is growing quickly. Soon enough it will bear fruit.

The question is: What do we do then? What do we do after the revolution is won? What, specifically, are the goals of this thing?

There are three main vectors of change: Economic, Political, and Philosophical. Today I would like to offer some ideas on the first one:

The Economic System

No lobbyist: No lobbyist for me No lobbyist: No lobbyist for me
Wall Street is the focus of this revolt, and it is the best focus. It is, indeed, the elite financiers of the world who have created the mess we are in through their endless greed and callous disregard for the planet and humanity. Finance is the root of all evil. It has corrupted our political system and stolen our democracy out from under us; is the organ grinder that reduces our press to a bunch of pathetic, utterly transparent propaganda-spewing well-coiffed trained monkeys, removing the final check against the corruption of power; it has warped our judicial system into a slave market where the victims of the real crimes end up in for-profit prisons, and the money generated by the trillion-dollar-a-year drug industry gets laundered through their banks; it has cheapened our once-respectable military into an instrument of thuggery that invades sovereign nations to steal their oil (Iraq) and drugs (Afghanistan); it has created a phony dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear energy that threatens to destroy all or most life on this planet; and, above all (once again) has stripped us of representative democracy by buying it lock, stock, and barrel. We the People currently have no real representation in the halls of power. This must change, but we'll get to that in a later post...

Make no mistake, brothers and sisters: the BANKSTERS are the most evil men and women on this planet. It is true that money is the root of all evil, and there is a hell of a lot of money flowing through Wall Street. So Occupy Wall Street is EXACTLY the right approach to get this party started. We the People will prevail. That is a foregone conclusion. Too many times, history has proven that when people get moving, the oppressors fall like so many dominoes.

It is critical that we ask the question now, well before we officially declare victory: how do we change after the revolution? What's it going to look like?

Let's start with finance since that's where the revolution is starting. How will that system change? We do need some system of finance, after all. It would be some revolution indeed that evolved human consciousness beyond the point of needing to keep track of credits and debits.

I propose that the new system of finance (gasp!) need not look terribly different from the current one, just more fair, better regulated and -- ultimately -- more free. Truly free markets are a very efficient and fair way of distributing goods and services. The problem is that the markets are not truly free. The laws of economics do not apply to the banksters. When they lose billions, they get taxpayer bailouts. Then they turn around and charge you for using your debit card to access your own money. (This is but one of many examples of how they directly screw us.)

So I'm actually going to say that after the revolution, we should do a few things where the markets are concerned:

Tax all income over a certain amount equally. Why should un-earned income (capital gains) be taxed at a lower rate than earned income? The rationale is that it encourages investment, but why should private investment trump the public good? If Joe Plumber pays on the money he works hard to earn, Joe Bankster pays at least the same percentage (but preferably higher) on the money other people worked hard to earn for him.
Remove all gas, oil, coal, and nuclear subsidies. This means no more cheapo drilling leases on the people's land and no more tax breaks. It means industry pays for its own cleanup and is taxed to pay for its own regulation. Let's just see how these old 20th century technologies stack up against solar and wind in a truly free market where the dinosaur technologies are not subsidized to the tune of multiple billions of dollars a year.
Subsidize renewables. Screw it. The oil, gas, coal, and nuclear industries have been sucking at the taxpayer teat for decades. It's only fair to let the renewable industry catch up. This should kill off the Earth-destroyers once and for all.
Repeal Gramm-Leach-Bliley. We need banks to be in the business of borrowing (from depositors) and lending (to consumers and businesses). We need insurance companies to be in the business of insurance. And we need investment banks to be in the business of investing in real enterprises in the real world, not fantasies cooked up by idiot-savants from MIT.
Regulate with teeth. Retroactively investigate and jail the crooks who paid themselves massive bonuses for tanking our economy. Make sure the punishments are severe and represent a true bulwark against "moral hazard." Recoup as much stolen wealth as possible.
Mandate full-employment by law. This fits into the nether-region between politics and economics, but in a society as rich as ours, nobody who wants to work should ever find themselves without a job. To try to argue otherwise is absurd on its face. I don't know the specifics of how this would work, but there is plenty to go around if the pigs on top don't take it all.
Eliminate the Federal Reserve. Yes, I agree with the Paulistas on this one. The Constitution mandates that "Only Congress shall have the power..." to create money. It does this with good reason. Congress (in theory at least) represents the people. The banksters represent themselves. If they could see this 200+ years ago, surely it is even more obvious today.
Encourage true investment. Discourage idle speculation. This means that capital should flow to enterprises actually proposing to build stuff in the real world, not toward gaming computers to spit out money at the already rich. Federal backing of small loans to small businesses would be a good place to start. Taxing speculative gains at a higher rate than dividends would also be a splendid idea.
Revoke corporate personhood. The rights of people to participate in their democracy trump the rights of corporations to corrupt democracy.
(Rather obviously) Reform the tax system so that the rich pay their fair share and workers stop getting hosed. Make the standard deduction $50,000 for every taxpayer. Tax corporate income and high income earners at a higher rate. Eliminate loopholes and simplify the code. Make high income earners pay into Social Security and Medicare on every dollar they earn instead of just the first $110,000.