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Re: Occupy Wallstreet
Old 10-28-2011, 12:58 PM   #9
Professor S
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Default Re: Occupy Wallstreet

TML, you make some good points, but your solutions are the exact type of top-down, centrally controlled "reforms" that helped get us into the place we are in now.

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Originally Posted by thatmariolover View Post

What I’d ultimately like to see:

• Money being removed from politics.
How would you do this? Who pays for the campaigns, who decides who pays? Actually, in this age of free and available information I am very sympathetic to this idea, but a lot of thought needs to be put into it to avoid abuse and further corruption.

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• Corporate lobbying power diminished.
Only corporate lobbying power? What about other large, powerful organizations that wield large amounts of lobbying power and influence? Should only corporations have their voice silenced?

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• An end to corporate personhood.
Depends on what you mean by personhood. I would say that if we treat them like a person, we need to treat them no differently than we would an individual, meaning if we bail out a corporation we bail out individuals.

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• Adjust average hourly earnings for inflation (hasn’t increased in 50 years).
So if we force companies to increase pay, what happens when these companies eliminate the position? Current minimum wage laws have already cost teens and the elderly thousands of jobs. Isn't a wage dictated by the market better than no wage at all?

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• Better hiring incentives and significant consequences for firing workers while raising executive pay.
Why would a company hire someone they don't need regardless of incentives? A $5,000 tax credit doesn't even sniff at the cost of hiring a new employee.

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• Harsher punishments for white collar crime (with great power comes great responsibility, not impunity).
Agreed, in principle.

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• Limits on executive bonuses, raises, and incomes.
Why? Is their raise going to prevent new jobs that companies don't need?

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• A complete audit of the Federal Reserve.
Agreed.

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• Revelation of the secret interpretation of the Patriot Act and/or its abolishment.
Please explain the "secret interpretation" part.

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• Legislative/Congressional reform (takes too long to pass important legislation).
How so? The devil is in the details.

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• Demilitarization of America’s police forces.
Explain

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• Sensible reforms to the drug war.
100% agreed.
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