Forum Post: a couple of ideas
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 6, 2011, 11:54 p.m. EST by ForTheWinnebago
(143)
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- Have more meaningful, but not necessarily more regulations which are measurable. More regulation is not a panacea, especially for larger firms who are often, through the use of clever lawyers and accountants, one step ahead of regulators. By more meaningful, I mean regulations that do not contain conflicts of interest. For example, the OCC is one of the organizations that regulates banks, yet its funding does not come from Congress, it comes from the banks themselves; the banks are funding an organization that regulates them.
Regulation "by whom" and "for what ends" are two important questions that should be addressed. "By whom" should be addressed in order to examine potential conflicts of interest and "for what ends" should be addressed to make sure the regulation is actually doing something beneficial, for example, decreasing systemic risk. Further, the effectiveness all regulations should be quantifiable through metrics.
Re-enact Glass-Steagall, there should exist a firewall between commercial and investment banking interests; this will help decrease systemic risks.
Drastically scale back the role, or abolish The Federal Reserve. Sanders' recent audit of The Fed revealed that over $16 trillion dollars was granted to American foreign banks and businesses, this is unacceptable especially when we hear calls of necessary austerity.
Drastically scale back our empire abroad. No more nation building, no more unnecessary wars. End our foreign adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as prudently possible.
End the War on Drugs immediately. This increasingly violent war is not justifiable on economic grounds nor on the grounds of freedom. If you contend you own your consciousness, you ought to be able to modify your consciousness as you see fit. True freedom starts from the ground up, legalize the tools of consciousness modification. Making parts of nature illegal is a ridiculous notion.
End prison privatization. By maximizing shareholder value, the private prison industry operates in direct opposition to the values and goals of citizens.
Reform campaign finance, one idea is publicly financed elections.
Overturn the ruling on Citizens United v. FEC, 80% of those surveyed opposed (and 65% strongly opposed) the Citizens United ruling. This will help scale back corporate and union influence in the election process.
Corporations should be taxed at the corporate tax level regardless of whether their incomes are derived domestically or internationally. No corporate tax holidays. End the incentives for corporations to move income abroad.
Did you know there used to be 2 additional tax brackets? From 1964 back, there was a bracket of $500,000 and above and $1,000,000 and above. First, index all brackets to inflation, re-instate higher income brackets, and lower income tax rates for all other brackets. Better yet, discard the whole system (and the IRS), and adopt a consumption tax.
Adopt a "no loss socialization" policy. The losses of privately held businesses should never again get to use the taxpayer to absorb their losses or make them whole from their poor decisions.
Examine "too big to fail." The banks are now fewer in number, because of industry consolidation and other causes, and assets are even more concentrated, system risk has grown because of this.
Nearly none of the underlying causes of the previous financial crisis were dealt with. The bad debt was never purged from the system. We should allow the process of creative destruction to reign. The government is not there to protect the financial interests of the politically connected.
End all government subsidies to all industries.
The measure of GDP for economic progress should be reexamined.
Lower the barriers to entry for alternate political parties to get on ballots. By enforcing extremely high barriers to entry, the Republican v Democrat false choice duopoly continues onwards.
End capital punishment - we are no longer barbarians. I'd like to think we have progressed past the Code of Hammurabi.
Re-examine our cozy relationship with Israel, this should be obvious; Republicans and Democrats would be strongly against such a thing. When both parties have serious issues with a particular policy measure, that usually is a litmus test for whether it is against the status quo in a positive way.
Do you actually understand Glass-Steagall, or the Fed?
(Obviously not)
Investment arms of banks admittedly have led to some problems, but it is largely because of their risk hedging that they are able to offer us affordable interest rates. With Glass-Steagall reinstated, it would be much more expensive to buy a house or car (or anything for that matter). Additionally, your savings accounts would give you even less of a return.
As for the Fed, your anger is quite misdirected. The Fed allows us to control the money supply, which (basic economics proves) can alter interest rates, inflation, and thus short-term GDP growth. If we got rid of the Fed, we would lose a very valuable tool in softening some of the effects of future economic downturns.
It is a shame that the Fed was unable to prevent the Great Recession. We should not damn the institution, however, just because of one failure. Just look at all the good Alan Greenspan was able to do during the '90s at the helm of the Fed.
Are you being serious? I can't tell if you are being satirical or not.
Glass-Steagall would put a firewall between commercial and investment banking operations thus decreasing the systemic risk of the entire financial system. It has been shown repeatedly that the financiers cannot handle themselves like adults, so we will have to limit their risky endeavors. If they want to take risks, then they must bear the consequences of them, but they have shown themselves to be incapable of "dealing with consequences," something that functioning members of society learn when they are between the ages of 7 and 12 years old.
RE: The Fed
Do you understand resource misallocation perpetuated by perpetually low interest rates? Do you understand how bubbles form and the role the Fed plays in creating them? Do you understand the total lack of oversight the Fed has? Are you reporting your facts from your Econ 201 class?
//they are able to offer us affordable interest rate//
THAT IS PART OF THE PROBLEM. Credit should be priced by the market, it shouldn't be made so it's "affordable." Do you understand how the market works? If credit is above equilibrium price, less people use it, when less people use credit, credit will become cheaper. See, this is how credit ought to work, instead we have the Fed to manage this process of how expensive credit is, and when you set the equilibrium lower than what the market would deem (what we have now), you suffer the consequences (bubbles).
The U.S. Federal Reserve gave out $16.1 trillion in emergency loans to U.S. and foreign financial institutions between Dec. 1, 2007 and July 21, 2010, according to figures produced by the government’s first-ever audit of the central bank.
If we get rid of the Fed, credit would be priced by market participants rather than being "massaged" from the top - down, central planning at its finest.
Oh, also.
Of the $16.1 trillion loaned out, $3.08 trillion went to financial institutions in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium, the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) analysis shows, and there is NO congressional oversight on this process.
The audit also found that the Fed mostly outsourced its lending operations to the very financial institutions which sparked the crisis to begin with, and that they delegated contracts largely on a no-bid basis.
Sorry, but fuck that. Loaning more than our GDP out to corporations without Congressional oversight? You have got to be kidding me that you can advocate such an institution.
Wrong.
While your Glass-Steagall argument is a fancy talking point, there is simply no empirical evidence to back up any argument that equates the repeal of Glass-Steagall with the 2008 financial crisis. Simply put, most economists believe that there was no causal correlation between Glass-Steagall and the subprime bubble. Mortgage-based derivatives existed long before the repeal of Glass-Steagall. If you spend the time actually researching these issues, you will understand this.
About the Fed, I fully agree that the Fed needs more oversight. The bottom line, however, is that we need some type of organization that can rapidly cause fluctuations in the money supply. Congress cannot do this, nor could the president.
Additionally, the Fed didn't give loans out for the hell of it. Bernanke was trying (quite desperately) to prevent a global economic shutdown.
As for your argument about allowing the interest rate to float, there are two main reasons why that is a bad idea. First, allowing higher interest rates would lead to less businesses buying durable goods, which would cause a severe drop in GDP. Secondly, higher interest rates would prevent many people (especially minorities) from ever owning a home. Two things that I personally do not want to see happen.
I was in the midst of typing a reply when I saw this. I agree.
All reasonable and realistic
too many idea's