Reply #2: some thoughts

[PETRUS]

#2 - In addition to your observations, I'd like to point out that 25% of the Pentagon's budget is unaccounted for. A South American country (Brazil? I forget...) promises to set up a website so any citizen can see all the expenditures and what they're for. If we knew where the money went, it might change things.

#4 - Yes, the tax code needs to change. We should also impose a financial speculation tax (a half a percent would raise billions and have the added benefit of reigning in the kind of behavior that cause commodities prices to spike for no real reason) and a (small, say 1 or 1.5%) wealth tax on holdings on holdings above a certain threshold, say $10 million.

#5 - Our healthcare system amounts to a HUGE subsidy. Bush's drug plan for seniors was a fat giveaway to big pharma. Some of the biggest projected future liabilities are Medicare/Medicaid and the CEPR studies show that is almost entirely attributable to running the programs though inefficient (a gazillion companies, each with its own bureaucracy), for profit enterprise.

#8 - No means testing. Social Security is national insurance, not welfare.

We could also do other things to seriously goose the economy - and therefore boost treasury revenues. There are options that rarely, if ever, get discussed. Why? Because while they would benefit the nation as a whole, the financial sector would be taken down a few pegs in the process. For example, the fed could not only keep interest rates low but deliberately allow inflation to go up somewhat, creating a real negative interest rate. This would stimulate all kinds of much needed investment in a wide variety of enterprises and also give desperately needed debt relief to consumers, graduates with student loans etc. We could also devalue the dollar, making exports much more competitive and allow us to reinvigorate our manufacturing and re-employ millions.


(Occupy Wall Street)