Does America Need Wall Street?

[Rocko]

Hell yes.

1. prohibit short sales
2. prohibit derivatives
3. prohibit flash-trades
4. tax every transaction on wall street
5. take withholding tax off every sale on wall street, 30% on profits zero on net losses
6. bring back Glass-Stegall
7. make the SEC like the FBI and go after off-shore tax cheats
8. get tax breaks for US jobs created

1, 2 and 4 are horrible ideas.

Short sales are important in price discovery. We should be doing more to encourage short sales, not less.


Prohibiting derivatives is another really, really bad idea. Derivatives play a critical part in distributing risk within the economy.

Taxing every transaction on Wall Street will just take more trading business away from America. They tried it in Sweden in the 90s to "pay" for their banking crisis. It was a disaster

Yeah, and short selling not only makes for a more comprehensive and efficient market, but also creates real liquidity.

 

[Chris]

We need to bring back Glass-Steagal.

It worked well for 70 years.

Michael Moore and 40+ OWS activists agree with you.
They came up with a list of Ten Things We Want:

"Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.

"Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes."

They also had this demand regarding FICA taxes.
I'm not sure if their numbers are accurate...

"Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays."

OWS has kicked off a national discussion about income inequality during the last ten weeks.
Where does it go from here?

Don't Sit This One Out - What's Your Vision for Occupy Wall Street? | Truthout

Those are all good ideas.

I would add one more.

JOIN A CREDIT UNION.

 

[georgephillip]

OWS has not kicked off a national discussion on income inequality. It's kicked off a discussion among themselves but everyone else is ignoring them.

"Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job."

The above is a specific demand from OWS.
How do you think the 1% will respond?

Don't Sit This One Out - What's Your Vision for Occupy Wall Street? | Truthout

I can't find the link right now; however, within the last two days I've seen Lexis-Nexis based evidence that shows the phrase "income inequality" has increased dramatically in the corporate press since OWS got started.

That is likely to continue between now and November 2012.

 

[Katzndogz]

I'd like to see it! It would probably only last a short time, but I would like to see Wall Street close up shop and drive the engine of someone else's economy, like China.

Abandon the buildings to the occupiers and rats. Fire all the employees and leave the country. Turn the whole area into an urban jungle right out of Escape from New York. There would be some kind of poetic justice in seeing the shitters descend into eat or be eaten.

Many Wall Street bankers would have been executed by China's government in 2008.
Hundreds of years ago financial speculation was punished by death in Europe.
Maybe reinstalling Glass-Steagall would be a good compromise.

China hasn't passed laws requiring lenders to lend large sums of momey to people knowm not to pay their bills.

No speculation. Give the democrats what they are after, very large ghost cities. A good place for OWS to spread out.

 

[georgephillip]

We need to bring back Glass-Steagal.

It worked well for 70 years.

Michael Moore and 40+ OWS activists agree with you.
They came up with a list of Ten Things We Want:

"Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.

"Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes."

They also had this demand regarding FICA taxes.
I'm not sure if their numbers are accurate...

"Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays."

OWS has kicked off a national discussion about income inequality during the last ten weeks.
Where does it go from here?

Don't Sit This One Out - What's Your Vision for Occupy Wall Street? | Truthout

Those are all good ideas.

I would add one more.

JOIN A CREDIT UNION.

I left Bank of America three years ago and joined my first credit union.
'Should have done it years before that.
There are economic alternatives to many things that most of us are still unaware of.
OWS is opening more eyes every day in that regard.

 

[Chris]

Michael Moore and 40+ OWS activists agree with you.
They came up with a list of Ten Things We Want:

"Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.

"Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes."

They also had this demand regarding FICA taxes.
I'm not sure if their numbers are accurate...

"Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays."

OWS has kicked off a national discussion about income inequality during the last ten weeks.
Where does it go from here?

Don't Sit This One Out - What's Your Vision for Occupy Wall Street? | Truthout

Those are all good ideas.

I would add one more.

JOIN A CREDIT UNION.

I left Bank of America three years ago and joined my first credit union.
'Should have done it years before that.
There are economic alternatives to many things that most of us are still unaware of.
OWS is opening more eyes every day in that regard.

I joined last week.

I should have done it years ago as well.

 

[georgephillip]

The real question is: do we need Liberals (aka: Progressives, Marxists, neo-Fascists, Socialists, Democrats)?

At least as much as all those free-market conservatives who claim to respect transparent competition and fair compensation. Conservatives like Alan Greenspan and Hank Paulson and Phil Gramm.

Remember them?

I'm against FDIC insurance, Sparky

How do you feel about mom and apple pie, Rockefeller?

 

[georgephillip]

I'd like to see it! It would probably only last a short time, but I would like to see Wall Street close up shop and drive the engine of someone else's economy, like China.

Abandon the buildings to the occupiers and rats. Fire all the employees and leave the country. Turn the whole area into an urban jungle right out of Escape from New York. There would be some kind of poetic justice in seeing the shitters descend into eat or be eaten.

Many Wall Street bankers would have been executed by China's government in 2008.
Hundreds of years ago financial speculation was punished by death in Europe.
Maybe reinstalling Glass-Steagall would be a good compromise.

It wasn't speculation, it was a Ponzi scheme.

And yes, Glass-Stegall should be brought back. It worked well for 70 years.

Wasn't capital flight a capital offense in South Korea after WWII?
I guess there's no way to put that genie back into that bottle.

What about this one?

"Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job..."

http://www.truth-out.org/where-does-occupy-wall-street-go-here/1322057279

 

[georgephillip]

I'd like to see it! It would probably only last a short time, but I would like to see Wall Street close up shop and drive the engine of someone else's economy, like China.

Abandon the buildings to the occupiers and rats. Fire all the employees and leave the country. Turn the whole area into an urban jungle right out of Escape from New York. There would be some kind of poetic justice in seeing the shitters descend into eat or be eaten.

Many Wall Street bankers would have been executed by China's government in 2008.
Hundreds of years ago financial speculation was punished by death in Europe.
Maybe reinstalling Glass-Steagall would be a good compromise.

China hasn't passed laws requiring lenders to lend large sums of momey to people knowm not to pay their bills.

No speculation. Give the democrats what they are after, very large ghost cities. A good place for OWS to spread out.

In 2004 the FBI began warning of an epidemic of mortgage fraud with 80% of the crime originating with lenders. I don't see how legislation passed in the 70s nearly crashed the global economy forty years later, particularly since most of the defective mortgages where created by institutions that were not subject to the law you are blaming.

 

[Cowman]

If not for Wall Street, who else would the right go down on? Well, of course there's always big business.

 

[Skull Pilot]

The best way for people and therefore the economy to prosper is to bring together those with innovative ideas and those with money.

Banks and the stock market are two of the best venues in which to facilitate such a meeting of ideas and money.

 

[editec]

OWS has not kicked off a national discussion on income inequality. It's kicked off a discussion among themselves but everyone else is ignoring them.

"Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job."

The above is a specific demand from OWS.
How do you think the 1% will respond?

Don't Sit This One Out - What's Your Vision for Occupy Wall Street? | Truthout

I can't find the link right now; however, within the last two days I've seen Lexis-Nexis based evidence that shows the phrase "income inequality" has increased dramatically in the corporate press since OWS got started.

That is likely to continue between now and November 2012.

I would propose a different approach.

Profit sharing by corporations.

Eventually the workers (collectively) own enough of the company that their input matters.

 

[georgephillip]

OWS has not kicked off a national discussion on income inequality. It's kicked off a discussion among themselves but everyone else is ignoring them.

"Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job."

The above is a specific demand from OWS.
How do you think the 1% will respond?

Don't Sit This One Out - What's Your Vision for Occupy Wall Street? | Truthout

I can't find the link right now; however, within the last two days I've seen Lexis-Nexis based evidence that shows the phrase "income inequality" has increased dramatically in the corporate press since OWS got started.

That is likely to continue between now and November 2012.

I would propose a different approach.

Profit sharing by corporations.

Eventually the workers (collectively) own enough of the company that their input matters.

Call me a cynic...

I don't think elected Republicans AND Democrats would even consider either one of the ideas you and Michael are putting forth.

If it is true the richest 1% have consolidated the powers of all governments over the past 500 (or 5000) years and used those powers to increase their private wealth, only a Revolutionary change like evicting MOST Republicans AND Democrats from DC in a single news cycle will supply the gravitas required to FLUSH the 1% from their kingmaker thrones.