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Economy
In reply to the discussion: STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, December 23, 2011. [View all]Demeter
(85,373 posts)21. “We Own Wall Street” By Eliot Spitzer
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_best_policy/2011/12/occupy_wall_street_we_own_wall_street_a_new_movement_to_stop_corporate_america_s_misbehavior_.html
How small shareholders, pension funds, and mutual funds can stop corporate Americas worst behavior and ignite a political movement...As the year ends, American politics remains mired in the agenda of the right... And the presidential campaign heading into the Iowa primaries is dominated by the libertarianism of Ron Paul and the astonishing, appalling ideaseliminate child labor laws, for instanceof Newt Gingrich.
Yes, Occupy Wall Street changed the debate for a brief spell, and, yes, President Obama harkened back to the glory days of progressivism with his Kansas speech. But in general American politics has lost sight of the most important crisis of our generation: the shrinking middle class. So let me offer some advice to Democrats and progressives seeking to capture the attention of the American people. It has long been my belief that ownership trumps regulation. What I mean by that is while laws and regulations can create boundaries to behavior, the reality, as we have seen after passing much legislationSarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frankis that even good laws leave room for bad decision making that results in cataclysm. Even though prosecutors should have charged many more bad actors on Wall Street, much of what led to the crisis was not blatant illegality: It was horrific judgment exercised by senior executives and regulators. More laws and different regulations might have mitigated the disaster, but the best remedy, and the step we have to focus on, is giving citizens more decision-making within the private sector.
We Own Wall Street should be the rallying cry of the former Occupy Wall Street, come January. We Own Wall Street is the truth. The actual ownership of major banks, manufacturers, and retail giants resides in vast repositories of capital that are owned and controlled by the public: mutual funds, public pension funds, and endowments at public institutions. If the public exercised its huge ownership capacity by influencing board member selection, compensation, and political donations, then these companies would be fundamentally altered.... make the following two simple demands of the Wall Street firms:
First, disclose the substance of, and all records relating to, any meetings between senior officers of the company and any regulator over the past five years. On behalf of the public and shareholders, we need to understand what happened in the regulatory process and why; we need to be comfortable that the company and government officials have been forthright with the public about the nature of the discussions that led to the massive flow of public funds to the company....Second, cease all giving of corporate funds to any entityfor-profit, not-for-profit, overtly political or notthat is involved in attempting to sway the course of legislation or regulation in Washington or any state capital. This would encompass the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as well as the Sierra Club. The idea would be to slow the cascade of money and influence flowing into politics from inside the corporations. As owners we are saying: Stop trying to alter the rules you play by. Just play by the rules and focus on building a better product....The effort to reassert proper ownership need not be an argument from the left or the right. It is merely an effort to move responsibility and power back to where it belongs.
How small shareholders, pension funds, and mutual funds can stop corporate Americas worst behavior and ignite a political movement...As the year ends, American politics remains mired in the agenda of the right... And the presidential campaign heading into the Iowa primaries is dominated by the libertarianism of Ron Paul and the astonishing, appalling ideaseliminate child labor laws, for instanceof Newt Gingrich.
Yes, Occupy Wall Street changed the debate for a brief spell, and, yes, President Obama harkened back to the glory days of progressivism with his Kansas speech. But in general American politics has lost sight of the most important crisis of our generation: the shrinking middle class. So let me offer some advice to Democrats and progressives seeking to capture the attention of the American people. It has long been my belief that ownership trumps regulation. What I mean by that is while laws and regulations can create boundaries to behavior, the reality, as we have seen after passing much legislationSarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frankis that even good laws leave room for bad decision making that results in cataclysm. Even though prosecutors should have charged many more bad actors on Wall Street, much of what led to the crisis was not blatant illegality: It was horrific judgment exercised by senior executives and regulators. More laws and different regulations might have mitigated the disaster, but the best remedy, and the step we have to focus on, is giving citizens more decision-making within the private sector.
We Own Wall Street should be the rallying cry of the former Occupy Wall Street, come January. We Own Wall Street is the truth. The actual ownership of major banks, manufacturers, and retail giants resides in vast repositories of capital that are owned and controlled by the public: mutual funds, public pension funds, and endowments at public institutions. If the public exercised its huge ownership capacity by influencing board member selection, compensation, and political donations, then these companies would be fundamentally altered.... make the following two simple demands of the Wall Street firms:
First, disclose the substance of, and all records relating to, any meetings between senior officers of the company and any regulator over the past five years. On behalf of the public and shareholders, we need to understand what happened in the regulatory process and why; we need to be comfortable that the company and government officials have been forthright with the public about the nature of the discussions that led to the massive flow of public funds to the company....Second, cease all giving of corporate funds to any entityfor-profit, not-for-profit, overtly political or notthat is involved in attempting to sway the course of legislation or regulation in Washington or any state capital. This would encompass the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as well as the Sierra Club. The idea would be to slow the cascade of money and influence flowing into politics from inside the corporations. As owners we are saying: Stop trying to alter the rules you play by. Just play by the rules and focus on building a better product....The effort to reassert proper ownership need not be an argument from the left or the right. It is merely an effort to move responsibility and power back to where it belongs.
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