Increase taxes on the rich, use the revenue to invest in infrastructure which we know from history brings a country out of a recession.
This isn't a recession and we're not getting out of it anytime soon. I don't mind if we raise taxes, especially capital gains, on millionaires but we can't grow debt, prices, or the size of the government forever at a faster pace than the growth of the underlying economy. We need to admit that economic growth over the last couple decades has not been enough to justify the growth in government spending, or in the costs of things like housing, health care and tuition. 2008 was just the tip of the icebubble. Toxic debt is still held at face value all through the economy, promises which cannot be kept have not yet been broken.
Insolvent entities, whether they're banks, borrowers, or students, need to be allowed to go bankrupt. Currently the government won't allow either banks or students to enter bankruptcy, and the banks are terrified to foreclose on the borrowers because if those properties hit the market home prices would fall to a level that reflects the organic home demand of people who actually have income/capital.
When we do this there will be an economic depression,
don't freak out, default and bankruptcy are vital components of capitalism. We can't have capitalism only when it's "fun", the system can only be kept in balance if there are consequences for unwise decisions and unsustainable business models. The people who caused this haven't been allowed to suffer the capitalistic consequences of what they've done (and I'm not talking legal consequences this time), and the markets will remain uncertain, distorted, and distinctly un-capitalistic until that is done.
Take the student loan programs back into the public sector and remove the profit skimming from the loans.
I say make student loans dischargeable and don't federally backstop the lenders. These student loans/tuitions are as inflated as house prices ever were, colleges and lenders are getting rich gouging the government with the students as proxies (now also debt serfs thanks to government preventing bankruptcy).
Charge the people responsible for lying about financial company assets and those who deceived borrowers with the crimes they've committed then send the guilty ones to jail
I agree with Respect in that criminal liability could sometimes be difficult to prove, though I disagree with his apparent "resistance is futile, it would be a complete waste of time to even try" stance.
Require the banks that got bailouts or who were involved in the dishonest housing loans to renegotiate loans down to the same price they could sell the foreclosed homes for instead of foreclosing and leaving the house abandoned and unsellable.
The entire bubble was dishonest, make lenders mark to market and allow them to go bankrupt if that makes them insolvent.
Decriminalize pot (at a minimum) and that will decrease the jail populations helping local economies.
Well, obviously. (edit) Good luck convincing anyone in the establishment, especially Obama.
Make privatized jails illegal since they have a motive to use deceit to populate their buildings and underfund prisoner services.
Would be hard to prove but yes I suppose they do have a motive. The government gets ripped off by corporations all the time and we need to be more watchful for that.
Drastically cut military spending by kicking the military industrial lobbyists out of the loop and by recognizing the limits to what we can do with our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.
For now I'd be content with bringing as many troops (and mercenaries) home, from as many places as possible, and give unelected generals more power over how the military budget is to be allocated rather than letting congress and lobbyists micromanage the military legislatively.
Pass a Constitutional Amendment rescinding the SCOTUS
Citizens United decision.[*]Revise FEC rules to prevent the obvious skirting of campaign finance laws using proxy organizations.[/list]
This one really depends on whether we're really going to treat them like people, or give them the benefits of being people but not the drawbacks. One drawback to being a person is that when a
person is caught doing something like laundering money for cartels or scamming their counterparties they can go to prison, their freedom to participate in society and the economy is often revoked for some period. If we were serious about corporate personhood, we'd revoke charters over behavior like that of Wachovia or Citi. We wouldn't need further proof, as organizations they were caught and admitted to the crimes. They got off with fines, which is not how we treat individual people at all. Fannie Mae hasn't even moved to cease robo-signing
while negotiating the settlement for the last time they were caught.
The way we do corporate personhood reminds me more of Tron Carter from Dave Chappelle's Law & Order sketch than the way
actual "persons" are prosecuted:
*Warning, violence and offensive language ahead* (also assertions of systemic racism, while backed by statistical evidence, are OT so overlook that)
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=219426
