My modest economic recovery act

[RGacky3]

If I made economic policy for the United States, these are some absolutely modest reforms I would impliment, not revolutionizing, just modest reforms that would get the US out of recesssion in probably about 2 or 3 years.

1. Re-instate Glass-Steagall, in impliment a law saying that any bank that needs to get bailed out, that requires a government bailout will get basically nationalized, under public control, and become a non-profit socialized bank. The same goes for any industry requiring a bailout.

2. A Stimulus package, about 2 to 3 trillion, going towards;
a.funding long term unemployed cooperatives,
b.retraining programs,
c.strengthening unions (strong unions means stronger working class, meaning more confident consumers, also it means less hours per worker which means companies have to hire more),
d. lots of money going to local governments, cities, states and so on,
e. micro loans
f. Public housing, public education, healthcare and so on.
g. infastructure projects and so on and so forth.

3. Cut corporate tax loopsholes, raise income tax for everyone back to clinton levels and raise the richest peoples tax even further. (higher income taxes means less incentives for HUGE executive pay)

4. Cut military spending in half,

5. Raise intrest rates slightly, basically to offset the inflow of cash, to control inflation, and to reduce speculation incentives.

6. Raise Capital gains taxes significantly and raise estate taxes and inheretance taxes significantly. (Capital gains taxes in the US are rediculously low, estate and inheretance does nothing for the economy and thus should be taxed more, higher capital gains taxes won't discourage investment because people would rather make less profit on capital gains than no profit).

7. Protectionism, raise tariffs, which basically de-incentivises outsourcing, and tax overseas buisiness heavily.

8. Lower the retirement age, 60 is the new retirement age, (gets older people out of the work force, and allows for more hiring).

9. Medicare for all, (any time someone goes bankrupt because of healthcare its a huge strain on th economy).

10. ALL derivatives are on the open market, a 10% capital requirement for derivative bets, and rating agency reform (Al Frankens proposal is my favorate).

11. Allow the government to negociate drug prices, and make government grants be directly from the government and not through banks.

Non of these are radical, not even close, and it does'nt take a genius to figure out how to get out of this type of recession, all of these things would do wonders better than what the US is doing now.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Um, alright, gack. Sounds good.

1. It's pretty obvious at this point that the only people who don't agree with this are the banks. So, basically, all policy makers.

2.a. Are there examples of this? Not co-ops, of course, but "unemployed cooperatives?" I mean, do you mean shelters and the like or assisstance programs, organized by the members?

c. How so?

3 and 6 should be reformed. The entire premise for taxation is flawed, as quoted in your signature. The Capital Gains tax should be abolished and "capital gains" should be viewed as income, plain and simple. Sure, a tax break for retirment funds but the rest should be taxed at least as much as income currently is (or better yet to the clinton levels, with the extreme top being higher).

4. Immediately? God I could only imagine....finding funds to move troops back from Iraq, no check for a family moving from Kansas to South Korea, the ship out at sea and running low on food/fuel/everything....

Instead, this should be more defined. How about, immediately withdraw all troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, close Guantanamo Bay, continue the program of getting the military off of petroleum (Navy/Air Force are roughly halfway there), close roughly half the bases abroad, starting with Bahrain, and make the entire military more integrated (ie 1 branch of the armed forces). Also, no more mammoth deals like f-22s but more retrofittings and getting full use of machinery.

And of course, the biggest way to cut military spending is to cut "operating costs" or, in other words, stop making war.

7. It's 2011, so no. Not agreeing to every free trade agreement, but only those that support fair and free trade, is the right attitude I think. I'm all for things getting more local, but tariffs are really not what we need in such an integrated world.

9. Yes, but only if they actually use the clout of being consumer #1 and fucking negotiate with the drug companies. Oh, yes, you got to that later...

10. Yes, but no I'd rather abolish that market personally rather than trying to tame it.

11. Government grants not via banks...so the federal reserve directly to the people?

[RGacky3]

2.a. Are there examples of this? Not co-ops, of course, but "unemployed cooperatives?" I mean, do you mean shelters and the like or assisstance programs, organized by the members?

c. How so?


There are not any examples that I know of, what I mean is cooperative buisinesses set up by the unemployed and assisted by and funded by the state.


3 and 6 should be reformed. The entire premise for taxation is flawed, as quoted in your signature. The Capital Gains tax should be abolished and "capital gains" should be viewed as income, plain and simple. Sure, a tax break for retirment funds but the rest should be taxed at least as much as income currently is (or better yet to the clinton levels, with the extreme top being higher).


Sure, that premis actually makes more sense.


4. Immediately? God I could only imagine....finding funds to move troops back from Iraq, no check for a family moving from Kansas to South Korea, the ship out at sea and running low on food/fuel/everything....

Instead, this should be more defined. How about, immediately withdraw all troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, close Guantanamo Bay, continue the program of getting the military off of petroleum (Navy/Air Force are roughly halfway there), close roughly half the bases abroad, starting with Bahrain, and make the entire military more integrated (ie 1 branch of the armed forces). Also, no more mammoth deals like f-22s but more retrofittings and getting full use of machinery.

And of course, the biggest way to cut military spending is to cut "operating costs" or, in other words, stop making war.


military spending could be cut IMMEDIATELY by having actual oversight on the spending, also slowly getting out of the wars, I'd say just by stopping the wars you could get close to cutting it in half, since George bush came in military spending doubled. So I'm just saying, back to Clinton levels.

This is obviously not all at once.


7. It's 2011, so no. Not agreeing to every free trade agreement, but only those that support fair and free trade, is the right attitude I think. I'm all for things getting more local, but tariffs are really not what we need in such an integrated world.


Considering most industrialized countries use tarriffs, which puts buisiness in the US at a huge disadvantage I'd say they are needed, fair trade is just a slogen, you need a way to enforce it.


10. Yes, but no I'd rather abolish that market personally rather than trying to tame it.


Its hard to just abolish it, considering it would just be replaced with some other financial innovation, but if that was possible I'd totally be fore abolishing the derivatives market (considering it does NOTHING positive for the economy).


11. Government grants not via banks...so the federal reserve directly to the people?

No the Treasury.

[RGacky3]

Oh one more thing, cut the work week to 35 hours, and minimum 4 weeks vacation a year (imagen what that would do for the job market), and fund the department of labor to cut down on labor violations.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

In regards to the tariff, which seems to be the only thing we don't see completely eye-to-eye on, it made sense that some states imposed a tariff to protect their newborn economies. For example, the South Koreans limiting the number of cars that could be imported for example. Now that Kia and Hyundai are global competitors, however, these tariffs should be abolished and consumers in the ROK, for example, should be able to buy foreign models that are competitive.

[Thirsty Crow]

Good to know that there are aspiring macro-managers of the capitalist system out there, especially since they are on the progressive side.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Aspiring, but utterly failing as well lol. The people in power remind us daily that simple, common sense reforms that will allow sustainable living and progressive development will never be implemented as long as they hold power.

[RGacky3]

My point was that this Bullshit that "the economy is hard, give Obama a break." Is utter bullshit, it can be fixed, even without radical changes.

These things are not that difficult and these proposals are nothing new, many serious economists have recomended them, but as we all know, Obama's priorities lie elsewhere.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I wouldn't just pin that on Obama, but the entire democratic party of course, especially in the house prior to 2010. It seems that since 2008, a small portion of the republicans scared democrats to do less than they should have with the stimulus/healthcare, and then instead of going on the offensive, with the entire govt under their control, they decided to try and do little else, trying to survive the election season. The result was, of course, completely disasterous for the democrats and gave that small portion of republicans sway, seemingly.

There is no option on the american political spectrum for tackling hard problems for working class people. The tax rate is ridiculously low for the very affluent, but Obama merely suggesting taxes rise on the wealthiest 2% has caused an uproar from the right. That being said, more and more it seems that tension is being built that must go somewhere.

[Drosophila]

I like it besides the protectionism part. Protectionism has shown to fail epically throughout history.

[Sadena Meti]

8. Lower the retirement age, 60 is the new retirement age, (gets older people out of the work force, and allows for more hiring).

9. Medicare for all, (any time someone goes bankrupt because of health care its a huge strain on the economy).


Problem with #8. Social Security is going to go bankrupt. It's a mathematical fact. Currently it's projected for 2037, this would accelerate it. So you need a point 8a. to solve that problem. Drastically raise Social Security Withholding.

Problem with #9. Medicare in it's current form is expected to go bankrupt in 2017! Something needs to be done about that. You'll need 9a 9b 9c and 9d. Massive new spending. You've got to lower the cost of health care through single payer, which you've done, but also through massive reform of the industry, malpractice in particular.

[masty]

If you could plug my brain into a speaker while I was looking at the menu at a good restaurant this is kind of what the resulting noise would sound like.

[RGacky3]

Problem with #8. Social Security is going to go bankrupt. It's a mathematical fact. Currently it's projected for 2037, this would accelerate it. So you need a point 8a. to solve that problem. Drastically raise Social Security Withholding.


No its not, thats when the surplus ends, not when you get bankrupt, demographics change btw, so that should be jus ta short turn problem, but if it really is a problem, get rid of the cap, its solvant forever.


Problem with #9. Medicare in it's current form is expected to go bankrupt in 2017! Something needs to be done about that. You'll need 9a 9b 9c and 9d. Massive new spending. You've got to lower the cost of health care through single payer, which you've done, but also through massive reform of the industry, malpractice in particular.

the massiave reform of the industry is getting rid of the insurance industry.