1. Stop all “robo-signing” of home foreclosures immediately.
2. Allow students to declare student loan bankruptcy.
3. Reinstate “Glass-Steagall”, which separated consumer banking from investment banking.
4. Investigation of the major investment banks who were involved in the subprime mess.
5. Investigation of Fanny, Freddy and the ratings agencies like S&P who gave banks AAA ratings which were false.
6. Implementation of Elizabeth Warren’s Financial Consumer Protection Bureau.
7. Overturning Citizens United. Money is not speech. It’s one person, one vote, not one dollar, one vote.
8. Passage of Obama’s Jobs Act and/or implementation of a WPA-inspired jobs-emergency program. The WPA was a Depression-area government employment program.
9. Similar to #8, an immediate halt to the laying off of public sector workers, especially at the state and local level. Consumers create jobs, and we can’t afford to keep squelching demand.
10. Break up the banks that are (say it with me) Too Big to Fail. Such a move is not anti-capitalist, it’s pro-capitalist. You can’t have capitalism without the possibility of failure for poor investment decisions.
2 comments:
Plus it's tacky to appeal to people on the basis of "hey! we're still pro capitalist". It's like asking for a nicer form of domination. When you make demands of power, doesn't NEED to be anti-capitalist, but it also doesn't need to be "pro capitalist" either.
Evan, my point there is that we shouldn't get caught up in the false dichotomy. Plus, it's what I think! Markets (like anything else) need transparency and accountability. My statement was targeted at those who argue that, for example, jailing the LIBOR crooks would be bad for free markets. Thanks for the comment.
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