I am not an American citizen. I live far away. However American politics ultimately affects me along with everyone else on the planet. So I watch whats going on from the outside and am often very puzzled with what I see.
In my opinion the OccupyWallStreet movement is well overdue. And I’m hoping it can bring about much needed change. I also appreciate people within the movement who say it’s not about right wing or left wing leanings – its about the 99% versus the 1%.
Whether you agree with the Occupy movement or not is up to you. But what I can’t understand is how any US citizen that believes in the Occupy movement can continue to vote Republican. The single most obvious and practical step to level the playing fields between the 99% and the 1% is to tax the 1% more. Always has been. It’s not rocket science.
Only a short while ago, however, I watched as the US government came up with solutions to reign in its massive deficit. Amongst the Democrats proposals was higher taxes on the rich. But the Republicans would have nothing of it. So vehemently were they opposed to higher taxes on the rich, that they held Obama over a barrel until the last minute – effectively sabotaging the country’s credit rating in the process.
No wonder then that the big Banksters (the ones who caused the mess in the first place) would love for the Republicans to win. Just look at who is funding the leading Republican candidates – Mitt Romney’s -campaign and you will see that it is basically bought and paid-for by the Big Banks.
I’m also aware that the Democrats haven’t done enough to reign in the banks. But when you put the two parties side to side its clear who the better of the two is in this regard.
So it is all good and dandy that anybody can support the Occupy movement – but please American Occupiers, next time you vote, please “OccupyYourBrains” first. Your votes do count you know…
UPDATE (1 November 2011): ROMNEY INVOLVED IN PONZI SCHEME
Tagged as:
CurrentAffairs,
economy
Tagged as:
CurrentAffairs •
economy
Whilst Corporate-backed Big Media try to paint the international Occupy movement into a chaotic, left-wing hole – some very bright people within the movement are coming up with solid and practical solutions:
1. Break up the monopolies. The so-called “Too Big to Fail” financial companies – now sometimes called by the more accurate term “Systemically Dangerous Institutions” – are a direct threat to national security. They are above the law and above market consequence, making them more dangerous and unaccountable than a thousand mafias combined. There are about 20 such firms in America, and they need to be dismantled; a good start would be to repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and mandate the separation of insurance companies, investment banks and commercial banks.
2. Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about. It would also deter the endless chase for instant profits through computerized insider-trading schemes like High Frequency Trading, and force Wall Street to go back to the job it’s supposed to be doing, i.e., making sober investments in job-creating businesses and watching them grow.
3. No public money for private lobbying. A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer’s own money to lobby against him. You can either suck on the public teat or influence the next presidential race, but you can’t do both. Butt out for once and let the people choose the next president and Congress.
4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers. For starters, we need an immediate repeal of the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break, which allows hedge-fund titans like Stevie Cohen and John Paulson to pay taxes of only 15 percent on their billions in gambling income, while ordinary Americans pay twice that for teaching kids and putting out fires. I defy any politician to stand up and defend that loophole during an election year.
5. Change the way bankers get paid. We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in all of our faces later. It should be: You make a deal today, you get company stock you can redeem two or three years from now. That forces everyone to be invested in his own company’s long-term health – no more Joe Cassanos pocketing multimillion-dollar bonuses for destroying the AIGs of the world.
Source: Disinformation
Tagged as:
CurrentAffairs,
economy
Tagged as:
CurrentAffairs •
economy
