Saturday, November 26, 2011

The Real Story Behind The European Mess

Flag of the British Indian Ocean TerritoryImage via WikipediaThe market is sending strong signals.

The Europeans did the economic union thing, and they did the single currency thing. But they thought they all could still be all these various sovereign nations.

And the market is saying no to that.

The economic union and the single currency needed to be followed with a political union. The Europeans needed to work on that years ago. Not attempting a political union was a mistake. And the Europeans are paying a price.

And if they are not going to go for the political union the economic union is going to unravel. The single currency could fall apart.

This storm is major.
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Friday, November 18, 2011

Somewhere To Start

Day 50 Occupy Wall Street November 5 2011 Shan...Image by david_shankbone via Flickr(1) A second term for Barack Obama, with a super majority in the Senate and a majority in the House in exchange for total campaign finance reform within the first 100 days of his second term. If that is not delivered, launch a new third political party. This is me saying 2012 is about The Agenda, not Barack Obama.

(2) Wealth Equity Tax of 10% on all corporations with a valuation over a billion dollars.

(3) Nationalize Zuccotti Park.

Jeff Sachs: New York Times: The New Progressive Movement: Following our recent financial calamity, a third progressive era is likely to be in the making. This one should aim for three things. The first is a revival of crucial public services, especially education, training, public investment and environmental protection. The second is the end of a climate of impunity that encouraged nearly every Wall Street firm to commit financial fraud. The third is to re-establish the supremacy of people votes over dollar votes in Washington....... The progressive era took 20 years to correct abuses of the Gilded Age. The New Deal struggled for a decade to overcome the Great Depression, and the expansion of economic justice lasted through the 1960s. The new wave of reform is but a few months old. ...... The young people in Zuccotti Park and more than 1,000 cities have started America on a path to renewal. The movement, still in its first days, will have to expand in several strategic ways. Activists are needed among shareholders, consumers and students to hold corporations and politicians to account. Shareholders, for example, should pressure companies to get out of politics. Consumers should take their money and purchasing power away from companies that confuse business and political power. The whole range of other actions — shareholder and consumer activism, policy formulation, and running of candidates — will not happen in the park..... To put it simply: tax the rich, end the wars and restore honest and effective government for all....... Finally, the new progressive era will need a fresh and gutsy generation of candidates to seek election victories not through wealthy campaign financiers but through free social media. A new generation of politicians will prove that they can win on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and blog sites, rather than with corporate-financed TV ads. By lowering the cost of political campaigning, the free social media can liberate Washington from the current state of endemic corruption. .... A new generation of leaders is just getting started. The new progressive age has begun.
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