How are we going to rebuild the regulation apparatus?

[Taverner]

If there's one thing that's clear, its that we got here because of de-regulation and privatization. Starting with Reagan and all the way to Bewsh the Lesser. But getting that "bell on the cat" was hard enough the first time - in fact, when FDR tried to regulate, the "Masters of the Universe" tried to take him out. The only reason they didn't was because of a patriot named Smedley Butler.

So how are going to get them to go along with regulation? By them I mean the banks, the investors, the corporations. SOX compliance was hard enough, and that only makes the company "swear on their mother's grave" that they didn't do anything wrong. Sarbanes-Oxley changed NOTHING.

[defendandprotect]

1. Reassert rules and regulations of New Deal . . .in fact, Bretton Woods!

[Taverner]

2. How to enforce though?

Is there any way we can employ technology to help enforce it?

[Taverner]

3. I do like the idea of the fixed exchange rate however...

[defendandprotect]

11. Well, the New Deal was carried thru with sufficient enforcement on the books . . .

what happened was all of the REGULATIONS were overturned . . .

GOP bought legislators who overturned the New Deal regulations, pretty

much section by section - Glass-Steagall was a big one!

Nixon overturned Bretton Woods .... that kept capital from flying off ---

workers certainly can't fly around as capital now can!

Of course, "insider trading" was prevented to a large degree with by the SEC which

seemingly has been thoroughly corrupted, same as other government agencies.

I'd also slam the door on all of these corporations that went off harvesting

slave labor!

We should take over the auto industry -- any of it that is basically bankrupt --

keep the workers and start making electric cars and refitting gas-guzzlers as hybrids.


PS: Of course, they were trying to prevent the New Deal from ever happening and worked

to overturn it the minute it was passed. In fact, GOP did a lot of harm to labor/unions

with Taft-Hartley Act which they passed over Truman's VETO!--however Truman used it 12X.

We could overturn it -- and return to Wagner Act.

Taft–Hartley Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Effects of the...|Entertainment...|Opposition to the...|See also
The Labor–Management Relations Act, informally the Taft–Hartley Act, is a United States federal law greatly restricting the activities and power of labor unions. The Act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act - 56k - Cached

The Labor–Management Relations Act, informally the Taft–Hartley Act, is a United States federal law greatly restricting the activities and power of labor unions. The Act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and legislated by overriding U.S. President Harry S. Truman's veto on June 23, 1947; labor leaders called it the "slave-labor bill"<1> while President Truman argued it would "conflict with important principles of our democratic society,"<2> though he would subsequently use it twelve times during his presidency.<3> The Taft-Hartley Act amended the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA; informally the Wagner Act), which Congress passed in 1935. The principal author of the Taft-Hartley Act was J. Mack Swigert<4> of the Cincinnati law firm Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, who as of 2007 was still active at age 100.<5>





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act

[Idealism]

4. First we need to fix the complicit media.

We cannot have an aware and educated electorate without a free media. For many decades, the media has been a wholly owned subsidiary of GE, GM, Merck, Lehman Brothers, et al and we were fed lies about the health of our system.

The media needs to remember why Hugo Black praised journalists in the Supreme Court ruling on the Pentagon Papers.

[Taverner]

5. Trustbusting needs to break up the media giants

But I do like this idea of fixed exchange rates

[Idealism]

9. Fixed exchange rates I don't think will be beneficial in this global environment

The US dollar's reserve currency status is not in jeopardy, so if we were to fix exchange rates all you would see is capital flight out of the markets around the world which will cause more of a global spiral downward.

[defendandprotect]

12. Isn't that also addressed by New Deal with anti-monoply laws . . . ????

Many of them, I think, are still on the books --- simply unenforced.


This is Nixon's old idea -- maybe even older than his administration, I'm not sure ---

of putting people in place who wouldn't carry out the real work of the agency and it's

laws -- all government agencies have been corrupted.

[Idealism]

15. There was never a reform movement for lobbying.

Which is what I would like to see happen. No more free trips to Santo Domingo bought for by corporations hoping to buy influence and other BS like that.

[defendandprotect]

16. No money from corportions at all---!!!!

Teddy Roosevelt in the early 1900's said that ...

"Corporations should be barred from any participation whatsoever in elections."

But, I don't remember this and lobbying as a topic of widespread conversation in

corporate-press! And America has been very non-political -- I only began to hear

conversations among groups in restraurants about political things after Bush 2000.

Seemingly, the lack of neighborhood political groups which were run by the Democratic

Party long ago are responsibile for the lack of discussion. Evidently, all of that

-- party people combing neighborhoods, starting conversations, visiting here and there --

was stopped quite some time ago.

[Still Sensible]

6. "..how are going to get them to go along with regulation..."

Should not be a question. Put the watchdogs back in place and give the SEC and Treasury Department the necessary regulatory teeth to do the job.

[Taverner]

7. Shouldn't be, but unfortunately it is

We cannot trust the chickens, the fox or the farmer at this point to do anything right

[Andy823]

8. Well I am not really sure

But the one good thing is that it's not just the Americans that want tougher regulation, the people all over the world are fed up with what has been happening, and many of the governments are talking about world wide regulations that are tougher and that will prevent the "crooks" all over the world from hiding money in offshore bank accounts, and strict regulations that are not just for one country, but world wide! The "ONLY" way tougher regulations can work is if it's done on a world wide basis, and that looks pretty promising from what I have seen in the news.

[defendandprotect]

13. Of course, the new trade agreements were worked to defeat almost all laws . . .

certainly domestic law and they may actually create new international law????

Obviously, those agreements have to be overturned.

Tariffs have to be replaced.

[tech3149]

10. Dropping back to more reasonable legislation is tough

The first step would be providing the regulatory agencies with a budget and focus to take on the central problems. If they had the money and administration on the biggest offenders, this current problem would be a lot less painful. Remember that Spitzer and 49 other state AG's wanted to go after offenders based on state mortgage fraud rules and the previous misadministration shut them down through an arcane rule by the OCC.

[defendandprotect]

14. Didn't know exactly how they shut down the mortagage fraud action ....

Actually, I think Spitzer, as Governor, got together other governors to act on the

mortgage problems/foreclosures more than two years ago ...

and I knew Bush shut them down, but wasn't sure if it was his personal action or what was used???