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marmar

(76,985 posts)
Sat Jan 7, 2012, 10:25 PM Jan 2012

Wall Street, We Can Hold YOU Hostage


from the Working Life blog:



Wall Street, We Can Hold YOU Hostage

by Jonathan Tasini
Friday 06 of January, 2012


In some ways, the worst phenomena in political and public life is the way in which we--the people--give over power to the financial and corporate elite partly because we internalize marketing phrases and economic nonsense beaten into our brains over 30 years by the brain-dead traditional media and a capitulation by the political leaders of both parties. Take just as a small sampling the foolish obsession over a non-existent debt and deficit "crisis", or the much longer-term "taxes are bad for business".

And we have enormous power--if we just use it. Which brings me to a most recent threat by Wall Street.

I've written a lot about the Financial Transactions Tax (here is one basic piece from a year ago): a tiny tax on financial market transactions that would raise hundreds of billions of dollars, encourage big traders to "buy and hold" financial instruments rather than engage in the crazy casino-like environment that fuels a speculative bubble—-which hurts all the regular people when the bubble bursts, which it always does--but not be felt at all by the small investor.

Of course, Wall Street has gone bonkers, opposing the FTT because...well, it's simply about greed. But, the phony argument being used by the political leaders who are helping Wall Street block the idea--and this IS a phony argument--is that oh, my god, financial markets business will pick up and move away. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.workinglife.org/blogs/view_post.php?content_id=15357



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