Simple Reform Could Save America From Wall Street, Boost the Economy: What’s Washington Waiting For

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/simple-reform-could-save-america-wall-street-and-boost-economy-whats-washington-waiting



It’s a simple tweak that would reign in an out-of-control financial sector, stimulate jobs, generate billions of revenue, and possibly prevent another heart-wrenching crisis. Nobel Prize-winning economists like Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman want it. Billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates want it. Polls show the majority of Americans want it. Even the Pope wants it.

We’re talking about a financial transaction tax (FTT) — a tiny tax of, say, less than half a percent: maybe 3 cents per $100 — on Wall Street trading. It’s simple, more than fair, widely supported by the public, and long overdue.

Over the last weeks, Americans have been kept from going to work, asked to go without food inspections and postpone their visits to national parks. The Centers for Disease Control couldn't help protect us from salmonella outbreaks. The families of fallen service members were unable to get death benefits. The fragile economy has been strained as members of Congress wrangle over another phony budget crisis, even as the deficit is shrinking. Meanwhile, Wall Street is raking in billions of dollars in profits from financial transactions. And they pay not a penny in taxes on most of them.

Instead of talking about nickel-and-diming seniors by cutting their Social Security and Medicare, letting our infrastructure crumble, and forcing our children to go without proper education or medicine, we could be returning sanity and balance to our financial system. The FTT would put the breaks on the sort of reckless, breakneck-speed computer gambling that helped tank the American economy five years ago. It could raise hundreds of billions annually. Did you hear that, deficit hawks? We’d have enough to close the funding gaps in states that had their budgets destroyed by Wall Street’s risky behavior and predation. We’d even have enough to invest in new jobs.

[Laelth]

1. k&r for a good idea. n/t

-Laelth

[djean111]

2. Oh, in today's cold hard corporate America - that's a pony, that's a unicorn, that's never going to

happen. A corporate-funded Democrat - I am speaking of all of Washington - is never going to seriously propose or support this.
I would love to eat crow with Bearnaise sauce regarding this pie-in-the-sky wishful hippie idea, but I am pretty sure it is canned peas for me!

[xchrom]

3. +1