c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Any thoughts on this contradiction's potential impact on the
> Occupation ? Stock holder's democracy and all that..
this "contradiction" is about 99%'s dependence on Wall Street investment.
Most people don't own stock, though we do suffer when the stock market goes down due to its impact on 401k accounts and the like and because stock market falls hurt business confidence and reduce real (tangible) investment by firms. So we have to keep the Wall Street bunglers happy (as a group).
This was also the justification for 2008's TARP too: most of us don't own banks, but the health of the economy depends on that of the banks.
These are only short-term problems. The fact is that real reforms (going beyond Dodd-Frank) are actually good for the behavior of financial markets and banks, even if they hurt the megaincomes and prestige and power of the financiers in the short run. Banks and financial markets behaved better before the deregulation era that started in the late 1970s. (Note: this is within the normal workings of capitalism: we're not talking about socialism.) A speculation tax (a tax on financial transactions, often called the Tobin tax or the "Robin Hood" tax) would not only raise government tax revenues but would slow down the craziness of the financial sector.
Of course, short-term problems are still problems, because the financial fat cats will defend their megaincomes and prestige and power until they are wrested from their cold dead fingers -- and have the financial wherewithal to buy lots of politicians and presidents to prevent such prying.
So what's needed is political pressure from the outside -- OWS may be the perfect example -- to force the financiers to take their medicine, which would actually make the system that they profit from behave better. The rest of us would benefit. -- Jim Devine / "In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness." -- George Bernard Shaw