My pragmatic, progressive economic solutions

Yay! The crappy bailout failed. But we still need to fix things. Now we have a bit of time to decide on a plan AND we have the authority (from all those good Americans who have been calling their congress critters to say "Hell No!")

So what do we do? It's going to be expensive, no doubt about it.

1) We implement Galbraith's plan to eliminate caps on FDIC insurance and we fund the hell out of it. We also fund the hell out of FBI investigations into Bankster crimes. No one trusts a corrupt financial system and when there is no trust there is no credit. We need to implement measures to instill trust.

2) We put in Hillary's HOLC program. But the mortgages that are most at risk. Keep people in their homes and paying something on them. This keeps property values level because the market isn't flooded with foreclosures while we work all the madness out of the standing loans.

3)Universal healthcare NOW. If we can come up with 85 billion for AIG, we can certainly come up with 85 billion for something that has a much more immediate and comprehensive effect on the health and household budgets of every single person in the country.

4)We have to stop living on credit and start paying people what they are worth. We need a national living wage, not minimum wage. Any person working full time should be able to afford the basics of food, shelter, and transportation. Any business that cannot afford to pay a living wage should fail.

5) Restructure corporate write offs. Corporations can take deductions for two things- wages paid to American workers (not including the golden parachutes of executives) and supplies bought from American companies. There is no reason anyone should get a tax break for spending money outside the US.

6) Tax the fuck out of golden parachutes. There may not be a way to limit the top of the wage scale, but we can certainly make it less profitable to ruin a company and then quit running it.

7) Tax the hell out of profits from dirty energy sources to pay for investment in clean energy. Allow companies to bypass the profit taxation if they put the money into green energy R& D directly.

That's what I got.