There are three things that need to be done immediately if we, as a nation, intend to survive. To remain free people. To leave our children a better world than the one we were born into.
The way we are going now, we are headed toward, in a best case scenario, eternal servitude.
Follow me into my oversimplified unrealistic black&white world where nuance has no role and complex problems have easy solutions... By the way, I don't mess around with health care issues here as Universal Care/Single Payer/Whatever you want to call it is so obvious I don't need to bring it up.
Number One: Fair Taxation: The cap on Social Security taxes needs to be removed, and non-wage income needs to be taxed more than wages. Non-wage income is essentially money you make simply for having money. Sure, to make your investments pay off you need to make the right bets -- but most of us don't have the means to make bets on that scale at all. Why reward the wealthy simply for being wealthy?
Let me pose this question -- would the housing market have been so overpriced if capital gains were taxed just like any other form of income?
Number Two: End Foreclosure: There needs to be a complete freeze on all foreclosures until this crisis is resolved. Some have said that without foreclosures as an option, banks would not loan any money because they would have no way to recoup their investment if the borrower defaults. This may be true, but right here, right now, another wave of foreclosures is going to help no one. Devalue and renegotiate, do whatever needs to be done to keep neighborhoods healthy and families in their homes -- both home buyers and home renters.
It doesn't matter who you are of what you do, if you get removed from your home, it's going to hurt not only you but the people around you, from extra stress on social services to the effect on the next generation. Once we straighten this mess out, then we can worry about taking care of the houses that need to be forcibly emptied.
Number Three: Import Jobs and Export Finished Goods: If there's no market for cheap plastic crap from offshore sweatshops, if the cost of your widget is the same whether you buy American or Chinese, then the incentive to buy American becomes clear. Some will undoubtedly attack this proposition because protectionism is bad and we can't simply lock ourselves out of the global market. I say, let the American companies doing business offshore, shipping jobs away, compete on the basis of quality and service. If Widget A and Widget B are essentially identical, let them cost about the same. If A is clearly better than B, people will pay more for it. The first and most obvious single step here is to make it the law of the land that no company that outsources their headquarters to a tax haven or its operations to, well, anywhere but here is eligible for any Federal, State, or Local government contract of any kind.
OK, we've got Tax the Rich, Screw the Banks, and Protectionism.
Let the mocking begin.