The Nation: Tax the Speculators

[elbales]

I belong to United Professionals, "an advocacy group designed to protect and preserve the American middle class and the opportunities it represents for millions of people who are currently in poverty." I also subscribe to their blog, which brought me this interesting editorial from The Nation on how to pay for economic recovery:

by CHUCK COLLINS

September 19, 2008

With the specter of financial Armageddon raised in headlines everywhere, two questions keep occurring to me. Where will the government find the $85 billon to bail out AIG and other Wall Street giants? And how will we pay for the proposed Main Street recovery, including federal aid to states, relief to homeowners, and public works projects for the unemployed?

The Bush administration plans to add to the $400 billion projected deficit and our $9 trillion national debt. But it's irresponsible to shift the bill entirely to the next generation. The corporations that rigged the casino economy and the wealthy CEOs and investors that profited at everyone else's expense should bear the recovery costs, not our kids and grandchildren.

Word. In fact, WORDY MCWORD WITH WORD ON TOP. WITH A SIDE OF WORD.

It's beyond disgusting to me that the CEO of Lehman Brothers made more than $350 million (three hundred fifty MILLION dollars) over the last five years, and he's sitting there with more money than God while most of the 25,000-odd workers at his company are likely lying awake nights wondering if they're going to have a job tomorrow.

This makes me so angry. This is what Reagan's Republican Party has brought us: unbridled corporate greed, abuse of the system for private gain, and the systematic destruction of the middle class. And this is why I am going to the Democratic Party HQ next weekend to do a one-hour training session on how to register people to vote. We can't keep letting our country be systematically raped by thieves in business suits who think they have the right to step on others to get what they want. We have to take our government back.

I wonder if the people in power really understand just how angry young people are.

 

Comments

[bruinhilda.livejournal.com]

Well, the thinking young people are. Unfortunately, I'm seeing a fair number of people my age and younger who simply can't connect the dots. They don't realize that the government bailout means that the American taxpayer will ultimately be paying for all this, not the guys who caused the mess in the first place.

Of course, they also don't understand how this even happened. To them, it's some mysterious happenstance, not the end result of the money games the rest of us saw coming a year or more ago.

Of course, if they could understand the basics of money, they wouldn't be in massive debt with mortgage payments that are higher than what they earn and $50,000 credit card bills on top of that. ~sigh~