Things for the 99%

Here's a list of things the 99%/Occupy movement should be advocating.  A little of this is based on FDR's "second bill of rights":

Everybody deserves to have a decent living from 40 hours work per family.  If you want to work more that's ok, but it should not be necessary to work multiple jobs or have multiple family members working full time to earn a decent living.

A decent living means safe, comfortable housing, clothing, food, education, health insurance, retirement, transportation, not just to and from work, but for recreation and vacation.

"Everybody" is probably impossible--it was found, for example, that while unemployment could be driven under 5%, it came at substantial cost in inflation.  But we should come as close as we can.


The people who broke the economy, for example by creating derivatives with ridiculous levels of leverage, and the fraudsters who enabled them, need to go to prison and serve real time.   The victims need whatever support we can give them.  In particular we need some sort of moratorium on foreclosures and put more pressure on banks to renegotiate.  Anybody who received a bailout has an obligation to spend at least that much doing this.


We need a LOT more financial regulation.  In particular, perverse incentives such as bonuses for short term profits with no corresponding punishments for long term losses can't be allowed.   There are a lot of things in the financial market that serve no public purpose other than to make money for a few people.  If they're harmful, they should be banned.  Extremely high speed trading is an example.  The purpose of the financial markets is to promote businesses which actually do produce something useful.   Finance is a service industry.  It is of no intrinsic value--only the companies that are financed have value.


I think we need to create an economy where no entity controls more than about 1/2% of US GDP or 1/10% of worldwide GDP (around $65B in 2011).   Given nationalized economies like China and Saudi oil I recognize that there are complications to this.   I think it's also appropriate that no entity control more than 5 or 10% of any given market without being subject to the sort of regulations imposed on AT&T between 1918 and 1983.


None of this is in any way socialist or communist.   It may be redistributionist, but that's not the same thing at all.   The ideal way to implement redistribution is to provide services for everybody.   If everybody has access to the same health care, education, pension system, transportation, etc., then nobody's being treated unfairly.  It may be that the rich pay a little more than the poor, but they're benefiting more than the poor too.  (A number of politicians in countries with single payer health care systems have been asked whether they'd consider going back to a more capitalist system.  None would.  The people love single payer everywhere it's been tried.)