Forum Post: Narrow the focus
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 7, 2011, 11:15 a.m. EST by graumaus
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Too many demands. I feel if you want to get Congress to listen, you must first get rid of the lobyists. They and the companies they represent are doing the most harm. Our politicians need to stop being bought!
Although Occupy Wall Street has no list of demands yet. I have some suggestions. What should be on the list is the massive "wealth redistribution" that has gone on for the last 30 years. The top 1% now controls over 42% of our nation's entire wealth and the top 10% now controls over 70% of our nation's entire wealth. The bottom 50% now only controls less than 2% of our nation's wealth. How did this happen?
The middle class spends their wealth on goods/services and the corporations have redistributed their wealth by paying their profits all out to the executives and shareholders. Middle class wages have stagnated for 30 years while executive wages have gone up 256% in since 1980. Even last year executive compensation went up another 11%. The top 1% now controls over 42% of the entire nation's wealth. We have not seen numbers like this since the great depression. The top 10% controls 70% of the entire nation's wealth. All of our nation's wealth has been redistributed into the hands of the few.
The middle class was roped into replacing wages with easy credit. So instead of paying people living wages, corporations fooled us into thinking we were doing well and could afford things by giving us easy credit instead of wages. Instead of having wages to buy t.v.'s, furniture, etc. we were given easy loans. So the middle class became a debtor class. There used to be a tax disincentive to paying out all of corporate profits at the top because in the 1950's income was taxed at 90% over a certain amount money and now that tax disincentive has disappeared. In 1950's the highest marginal tax rate was 90%. In 1960-1970's it was 70%. In 1980's it dropped to 49%. In 1990's dropped to 39%. Under George Bush it dropped to a mere 36%. We have had over 30 years of massive tax cuts for the wealthy.
There is now no tax disincentive to paying out all of the corporate wealth at the top. And there is no employee bargaining power because now less than 12% of all of our jobs are unionized. Corporate profits are at an all time high, healthcare company profits are at an all time high, and oil profits are at an all time high. We don't have a healthcare crisis we have a healthcare company profit-taking crisis that no politician will doing anything about. Healthcare and oil companies have enjoyed a decade of record profits while we have had a decade of massive premiums for little coverage and a decade of outrageous gas prices.
The problems are: 1) deregulation of the banks by the Republican-controlled congress in 1999; 2) hedge funds are exempt from regulation; 3) tax system no longer has a disincentive against paying outrageous executive salaries (highest marginal tax rate has dropped from 90% to 36%); 4) commodities market is exempt from regulation (Republican-controlled Congress exempted it in the Commodities Future Modernization act of 2000); 5) the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations can spend unlimited funds in campaign elections (thus politicians on both sides favor the wealthy/corporations) and 6) the rise of corporate/billionaire propaganda media "news." Because of the need to raise massive sums in politics today, we no longer have a party that represents the people. The Democrats have to chase the corporate and big money donors too.
What can we do about this: 1) re-instate Glass-Steagall Act regulating the banks; 2) regulate hedge funds and the commodities market (because the commodities market is not regulated speculation has caused prices for commodities to go through the roof); 3) get rid of the money in politics (have federally funded elections with clear limits on spending and no outside groups allowed to have ads); 4) get rid of 1980's laws stating that corporations' only duty is to maximize shareholder profits; and 5) regulate "news" channels and newspapers (no more "slanted opinion news" masquerading as hard news) and reinstitute the fairness doctrine across all news outlets to ensure that both sides get equal time.
Funny, I posted a few items and Anonymous said they were too focused. i maintain that there is no desire for this to succeed as someone is pulling the strings and using this as a diversion for something else. Keep the chaos disorganized while no one is looking behind the curtain.
Colorado has the strongest law prohibiting lobbyists from giving lawmakers ANYTHING. It's Amendment 41, passed not by the legislature, but by citizen ballot initiative. Most reforms start that way. Here in Colo., ballot initiatives gave us the country's first Renewable Energy Mandate (Amendment 37), the country's strongest ban on lobbyists giving politicians ANYTHING (41), campaign finance reform (27), increased K-12 funding (23), Background Checks at Gun Shows (22), Medical Marijuana (20), cleaner hog farms (14) and Term Limits (12), just in the last 6 general elections. Research it yourself with the National Conference of State Legislatures' database: http://www.ncsl.org/programs/legismgt/elect/dbintro.htm
So the most powerful demand should be ballot initiatives for every state and the nation, with improvements to prevent problems like California has with initiatives. Oregon's new Citizen Initiative Review is a great start: http://healthydemocracyoregon.org
The best project for this goal is led by Mike Gravel: http://Vote.org