Essential things that must be done, and aren't being proposed by the Administration or Congress (or anyone outside of the progressive blogs):
1) Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act.
2) Stop the exemption for over-the-counter derivatives.
3) Rescind the Bankruptcy Bill of 2005.
4) Temporary "nationalization" (or call it another word) of the "too big to fail" zombie banking houses. Break them up again. "Too big to fail" is to big to exist in a sustainble healthy economy.
5) Look into closing the Fed, and let the gov't "own" the
money supply, not a private unaccountable front for the
very wealthy and more than average power/status-hungry
elite using The Fed.)
no. 6) is perhaps the most essential - public funding of campaigns. I know the right wing packed Supreme Court (4-3. I hope) declared money to be "speech" and therefore protected by the 1st amendment. I hope that doesn't nullify public funding. Of course, even before that decision, getiing Congress to pass a law shutting down their gravy train never succeeded, despite Public Citizen, Common Cause, and a lot of voters' appeals. But I don't see any other way to TRULY get the corporate corruption out of Washington.
7) Restore the Fairness Doctrine to broadcasting, which was done away with in relative stealth during the Reagan administration, and has given us a huge right-tilt wacko radio and the propaganda wacko right wing Fox News Channel.
8) Reform credit card companies (the huge Wall St. banks that have been so beneficial to the world economy) - basically, reinstate USURY laws.
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Also, get rid of Geithner/Summers; replace them with people who will work for Main St. and the public interest, not in the interests of the plutocratic elite on Wall St. who (along with their paid-for cohorts in government, who lifted regulations above) got us into this mess.
Too big to fail is too big to exist; enforce the anti-trust laws.
Despite the Supreme Court declaring money "free speech," the only way out is 100% transparent public financing of campaigns. And maybe some legislators will have the guts to pass a law undoing the designation of corporations as "persons" under the law enacted toward the end of the 19th century, which ushed in the first Robber Baron Gilded Age.
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