Social Security/Ponzi Scheme Venn diagram

Memo to GOP: Shifting the tax burden 20 years down the line is not a commitment to low taxes

‎As the economist Tyler Cowen succinctly notes in his op-ed Antitax Ideas Could Have Unintended Results, "Promising never to raise taxes, without reaching a deal on spending, really means a high and rising commitment to future taxes." 

Every GOP candidate is promising no new taxes for my parents generation via a direct commitment to high taxes on the next generation. Shifting your tax burden to the future is the very definition of not taking personal responsibility--everyone under the age of 40 needs to ask "why should I pay your tax bill in 20 years?"

The worlds a complex place, and the GOP doesn't have any presidential candidates willing to fess up to the base of their party.

Russell Simmons: All My Employees Paid Less Taxes Than I Did

Organizing an Occupy Wall Street solidarity rally --Atlanta

I want to start working on organizing a solidarity rally with #occupyWallStreet outside the Atlanta Federal Reserve.  Using these three concrete demands to hold Wall Street accountable that Mike Konczal of RortyBomb came up with... 

 1. Cancel the debts. The crisis we face is fundamentally about a giant pool of bad mortgage debt. We need to work through these debts for recovery to really take off. The only question is who will absorb them—the creditors who made the loans or the people on the other side. In this case, there is no way to share these losses, and the government has stood behind the owners of many of these debts as being "Too Big to Fail."

Anthropologist David Graeber cites historian Moses Finley, who identified “the perennial revolutionary programme of antiquity, cancel debts and redistribute the land.” This remains the case. The modern inventions for dealing with failed debts, bankruptcy and inflation, both have failed. The bankruptcy code has a flaw preventing mortgage workouts and inflation is so low that markets are worried that the level of debts could increase with time.

The recession is far worse in areas of the country with the most bad debts and foreclosures, and debt relief can take the edge off. By making banks write down bad loans and work out failed mortgages we’ll have an system where the fraud that originated on Wall Street isn't borne entirely on the real economy.

2. Investigate Wall Street. In the buildup to the crisis, bad loans that could never be paid back were passed out to unsuspecting homeowners. These loans were then passed along a chain until they got to investors who thought the loans were made with the utmost diligence. When the entire house of cards collapsed, homeowners were left with bad loans, investors looked to cover their investments, and a mind-boggling 5 million people were foreclosed on. Loans were made so fast that proper records weren’t kept, which means it’s difficult to hold creditors and debtors accountable.

Now that the housing sector has collapsed, banks are cutting corners and using fake documentation to foreclose on properties that they don't have proper access to. In this mess of a system, homeowners who haven't missed a payment are being dragged down, through faulty paperwork. Several state attorneys general, including ones from New York and Nevada, have taken the lead in demanding an investigation, much to the chagrin of the Obama administration and financial elites. By supporting them, we’ll help build a country where there isn’t a two-tier system of justice.

3. Create a Financial Transaction Tax. It is hard to think of something with such a boring name as a particularly radical solution, but an FTT would be an important first step toward remaking our economy so it is not so dependent on the financial sector.

Thanks to a wave of deregulation laws in the late 1970s and early 1980s, finance has been one of the fastest-growing sectors over the past 30 years. It’s become so important, in fact, that some argue the economy should be run in accordance with the ideas and goals of the financial sector. This way of viewing our economy is less about long-term value than short-term price manipulation, less about investing in communities and peoples than about gaming tax codes and regulation and less about markets as a means of expression and more about consolidated, cornered market power. A financial transaction tax would help fight back against this and begin to steer our economy toward more sustainable and workable ends.

There are endless problems that plague America, but if the battle is brought to Wall Street, the demands should address the financial sector directly. Creating a post-recession economy that is more egalitarian is going to be a battle for generations. But there are straightforward steps that can put us well on our way.

If you want to get involved you can find me on twitter @JimNichols or email me at Jim.Nichols@gmail.com.  

Al-`Awlaqi Should have been Tried in Absentia--your silence speaks volumes...

Highly concerned with the silence within Democratic circles about the assassination of a US citizen by Obama without due process. It was an illegal action.  To my Democratic Party friends I have to ask--Do you really think it would be a good idea to give a President Michele Bachmann or a President Rick Perry the authority to kill American citizens at will and with no due process?

Juan Cole has an excellent run down of the issue.

Obama has been a third term of Bush in many ways.  There is a good case to make that on the issue of "war on terror"/civil liberties questions he has been worse.

#OccupyWallStreet in one sentence?

"This recession has scarred generations of Americans for the foreseeable future and yet few in power are really rattled about it." --Rortybomb

For more:Understanding the Theory Behind Occupy Wall Street’s Approach 

My only fear is this won't begin a long term process to #occupyWallStreetViaMainStreet which in my mind means long term political organizing to elect people at the local level, long term union organizing to give workers a voice and more bargaining power vs. the CEO's, and long term direct action efforts on issues related to social justice and global warming/energy crisis.

Warren Buffett on the Buffett Rule

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"There's been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won"

Proposed Roads To Freedom By Bertrand Russell

Proposed Roads To Freedom By Bertrand Russell

The great majority of men and women, in ordinary times, pass through life without ever contemplating or criticising, as a whole, either their own conditions or those of the world at large. They find themselves born into a certain place in society, and they accept what each day brings forth, without any effort of thought beyond what the immediate present requires. Almost as instinctively as the beasts of the field, they seek the satisfaction of the needs of the moment, without much forethought, and without considering that by sufficient effort the whole conditions of their lives could be changed. A certain percentage, guided by personal ambition, make the effort of thought and will which is necessary to place themselves among the more fortunate members of the community; but very few among these are seriously concerned to secure for all the advantages which they seek for themselves. It is only a few rare and exceptional men who have that kind of love toward mankind at large that makes them unable to endure patiently the general mass of evil and suffering, regardless of any relation it may have to their own lives.

Quote of the day

I’ve got nothing against hostility generally, but unfocused hostility based on misunderstandings I find displeasing. Directed, intentional hostility only!  --LizardBreath 09.28.11 at 5:31 pm: 

Job Killing Regulations