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Edited on Mon Oct-11-10 10:30 AM by Javaman
While that is all well and good...
Doing all what you wrote, all at one time, would basically cause a world wide depression.
Shutting down the banking system for 2 weeks would kill this nation. Right now, companies and people are just starting to get loans. Shutting them down now would kill us economically and would give the rich a holiday as they would continue to collect interest on their money.
How do you consider it treason for someone to transfer money? We already have laws on the books that prevent the transfer of moneys during the time of emergency. So if you consider it treason, would you then hang the perpetrators?
This is why things have to be done in steps.
Due to everything now being connected globally, if we do one thing here, it effects several things there.
This was part of the plan of the globalized economy put down after WWII. This was to work as a check and balance to guard against a world wide depression.
If one area did bad another would do well thus balancing the over all picture.
What they didn't count on was massive deregulation by the biggest player in the game: us.
When we stopped "playing by the rules" the doors were flung open for corruption and graft. aka the mortgage industry gaming the system resulting in a massive housing collapse.
While I'm not a fan of globalization, it's what we got and have to deal with it.
You wrote: "Jail the executives. Seize their personal assets. And nationalize their companies.
Citigroup alone is worth $14 trillion. That should pay for some extensions of unemployment benefits."
What of the thousands of people who work for those same companies? SOL for them? This would cause massive unemployment.
"Oh, and let's put an end to the insanity of home foreclosures. Not only do evictions speed downward mobility, empty houses ruin neighborhoods. If you can't pay your mortgage or rent because you lost your job, don't worry--we'll work out a solution."
Bank of America has halted all foreclosures in all 50 states.
Again, you wrote: "Let's rehab the 20 million abandoned homes nationwide so that the world's richest nation can finally house its homeless. Let's repair and update long-neglected infrastructure."
While I agree that we need to house the homeless, where is that money coming from?
While everything you suggest is a little extreme, a middle ground can be found. The people thrown out of work by your suggestions, could be retained to work in the infrastructure "field". But again, that would also take a huge infusion of money and there would be a lag time before they are up to speed.
While pulling the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan would be a wonderful thing, pulling troops from all our bases abroad in one full stroke would kill many a foreign economies who depend on those bases for income, but would also kill us because having a huge standing army at home that was suddenly decommissioned. It would cause all sorts of 1) societal problems 2) economic problems and 3) employment problems.
We have 30,000 soldiers as part of our joint agreement as allies with the South Koreans. Or do you suggest that we stop honoring our treaties and agreements?
This is why this type of "program" needs to be "phased in".
While ordering contractors to stop working where ever, would basically be illegal, the stopping of those same contractors from working overseas would cause a huge rift in our economy. While I don't particularly like those contractors, many of them are American citizens and send their pay home. Bringing those contractors home would cause an additional rise in unemployment as well as economic problems.
If someone robs a 7-eleven for a loaf of bread to feed his family, he should go to prison for many years for a minor crime? (I guess you don't read the classics) This is like putting someone in prison for possession of a joint for many years. Oh wait, we already do that.
And you don't believe in rehabilitation? The prisons, which are already over crowded with get that much more crowded, plus it costs about roughly between 20 and 35k per year, depending on the state, to house a single prisoner.
"Companies deemed "too big to fail," many of which are run by criminals whose monstrous deeds make Charles Manson look like a piker, should get the same treatment or worse."
While I have no issue with this statement I do have issue with the last part. You are okay with torture? You allude to it as much.
"Let's stop pretending we're poor. All we need to do to save ourselves is unlock the wealth being hoarded by corporate pigs."
Let me clue you in on something, we are poor. We have a massive debt. Wait, let me say that again, A MASSIVE DEBT (and still growing), thanks to trickle down republican stupidity, which won't be paid off for the foreseeable next 3 generations. 50% of all our income goes to the military. Only a small percentage, as compared to the military budget, goes to infrastructure. Until those to percentages are flip flopped, nothing will change.
Our economy is now based solely on the military industrial complex and trying to pry those two apart will be a great feat of strength.
While I like a little rhetoric now and then, it's good for the blood, reality is what I usually prefer to exhibit in the end.
All of the things you propose are indeed possible, but to do them all at once would kill us and the world.
But then again, maybe that's what you want? Or you have been watching to many of those "make over" shows, where they bulldoze a house and build a brand new one!
Until the repubs get a clue and start actually doing something other than just saying, "NO!", we as a nation will continue to stagnate. Because while we Dems enjoy the claim that we hold a "majority" in the senate, the blue dogs, on their own, do enough to prevent that.
Until the tea party morons wake up and realize how they are being taken for a corporate funded ride, we will continue to hear their din of stupidity, that does nothing more than cause distraction from important issues.
We as a nation have long ago stopped requiring accountability from our elected reps. We just go with the flow and feel perfectly okay with complaining about "all politicians are corrupt" and other than a few protests for or against, we roll over and have our bellies rubbed by them.
Since Madison Ave took over political process and electronic voting took over our voice, nothing will change until we as a nation, stand up, pull the scales from our eyes and demand accountability and nothing less.
Writing, "know-it-all" screeds serves nothing. Your "solutions" are pie in the eye ridiculousness with out any real world answers.
Sure we would all love for those things to happen, per say, but the reality of their implication would leave us far worse off.
Reactionary solutions is what got us into the fix we are in now.
What we need are real answers, not angry bullshit. That's no better than the tea party morons.
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