How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule

erica from Wall Street Rule

by New Economy Working Group
Type: Report
Published July, 2011
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NEWGroup Launches Report on U.S. Money System Restructure

How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule is a report of the New Economy Working Group produced in collaboration with the New Economy Network; it is an outcome of a series of conversations focused on building a policy agenda for transforming our money system. David Korten is the lead author; participating organizations include Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, Capital Institute, Democracy Collaborative, Green America, Institute for Policy Studies, Living Economies Forum, New Economy Network, New Rules Project, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Public Banking Institute, RSF Social Finance, and YES! Magazine.

The report calls for building a money/banking/finance system of local financial institutions that are transparent, accountable, rooted in community and dedicated to funding activities that build community wealth and meet community needs. The proposed system will look quite similar to the one that existed in the United States before the wave of financial deregulation that began in the 1960s. The How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule report briefly traces that history, outlines its devastating consequences, and presents an agenda for corrective action to change the system rules, structure, and culture.

To read the report online, click HERE; to download the high-resolution version for printing (9MB file), click HERE. It may be freely shared, reproduced, posted, and distributed in whole by any means without specific permission so long as it is presented in its entirety and is not altered or used for commercial purposes. (We encourage sharing via websites, newsletters, and social networking media. Follow #moneyreport and #neweconomy on Twitter for the latest news.)

 

Resources: The implementation of the "liberate America" policy agenda depends on effective broad-based citizen action from outside the establishment to build public consciousness and engage public participation. Please visit our Resource page for an abundance of references and links to campaigns and public initiatives converging in the movement to build a New Economy through financial system restructure.

For your Income dispartity toolkit

This is a FAVORITE of mine.  A keeper!

It's the Inequality, Stupid

 

Illustrations by Jason Schneider

Eleven charts that explain everything that's wrong with America.

— By Dave Gilson and Carolyn Perot

March/April 2011 Issue

How Rich Are the Superrich?

A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244.

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Note: The 2007 data (the most current) doesn't reflect the impact of the housing market crash. In 2007, the bottom 60% of Americans had 65% of their net worth tied up in their homes. The top 1%, in contrast, had just 10%. The housing crisis has no doubt further swelled the share of total net worth held by the superrich.

Winners Take All

The superrich have grabbed the bulk of the past three decades' gains.

Out of Balance

A Harvard business prof and a behavioral economist recently asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth is distributed in the United States. Most thought that it’s more balanced than it actually is. Asked to choose their ideal distribution of wealth, 92% picked one that was even more equitable.

Capitol Gain

Why Washington is closer to Wall Street than Main Street.

member	max. est. net worth
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)	$451.1 million
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.)	$435.4 million
Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.)	$366.2 million
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)	$294.9 million
Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.)	$285.1 million
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.)	$283.1 million
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.)	$231.2 million
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas)	$201.5 million
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.)	$136.2 million
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)	$108.1 million
combined net worth:	$2.8 billion

Congressional data from 2009. Family net worth data from 2007. Sources: Center for Responsive Politics; US Census; Edward Wolff, Bard College.

Who's Winning?

For a healthy few, it's getting better all the time.

YOUR LOSS,THEIR GAIN

How much income have you given up for the top 1 percent?

 
Sources

Income distribution: Emmanuel Saez (Excel)

Net worth: Edward Wolff (PDF)

Household income/income share: Congressional Budget Office

Real vs. desired distribution of wealth: Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely (PDF)

Net worth of Americans vs. Congress: Federal Reserve (average); Center for Responsive Politics (Congress)

Your chances of being a millionaire: Calculation based on data from Wolff (PDF); US Census (household and population data)  

Member of Congress' chances: Center for Responsive Politics

Wealthiest members of Congress: Center for Responsive Politics

Tax cut votes: New York Times (Senate; House)

Wall street profits, 2007-2009: New York State Comptroller (PDF)

Unemployment rate, 2007-2009: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Home equity, 2007-2009: Federal Reserve, Flow of Funds data, 1995-2004 and 2005-2009 (PDFs)

CEO vs. worker pay: Economic Policy Institute

Historic tax rates: Calculations based on data from The Tax Foundation

Federal tax revenue: Joint Committee on Taxation (PDF)

Read also: Kevin Drum on the decline of Big Labor, the rise of Big Business, and why the Obama era fizzled so soon.
More Mother Jones charty goodness: How the rich get richer; how the poor get poorer; who owns Congress?

Dave Gilson is a senior editor at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Get Dave Gilson's RSS feed.

220 more tax facts that will make your head explode

http://www.businessinsider.com/20-more-tax-facts-that-will-make-your-head-explode-2010-4

Gus Lubin and Gregory White

If your head didn't explode from Reason's awesome tax video, then take a look at the new list.
Pundits talk a lot about the growing tax share of the rich, and the 47% of Americans who don't pay income tax. These arguments are somewhat unfair because they ignore the growing wealth disparity.
But they're just two of many ridiculous facts that emerge in the bureaucratic mess of taxing the world's biggest economy.
Most people are having a bad day. Thanks to inefficiency, everyone in America faces a rotten future.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/20-more-tax-facts-that-will-make-your-head-explode-2010-4#ixzz1OhLu0vGx

There are 21 slides, and I just cannot post them all here.  Be sure to check out that link!!

From the comments:

Slide 6 is factually wrong:
54% of your federal income tax goes to the military

54% of the "Discretionary" Federal budget goes to the Military. The total Federal Budget, this is less than a Quarter, once you factor in Non-Discretionary spending, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/20-more-tax-facts-that-will-make-your-head-explode-2010-4#ixzz1OhLEmh8B

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html

Flip It to Fix It:
An Immediate, Fair Solution to State Budget Shortfalls

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

RELEASED MAY 25, 2011: Severe budget deficits now facing the states represent significant hardship and political challenges, but immediate solutions are feasible and readily available. The national recession has produced historic revenue shortfalls marked by the greatest decline in state tax receipts on record, while concurrently increasing the demand for public services.

When the economy is hurting, state governments should be adding jobs and investments, a proven response that keeps money flowing in the economy. Instead, virtually every state has opted to slash vital public investments and layoff public servants. Such moves increase unemployment, harm the nation’s infrastructure and educational systems, and dampen our nascent economic recovery. This is not good policy in the short or long term, and—contrary to popular belief—it is entirely unnecessary.

At the core of the budget crisis facing states are regressive state tax structures (comprised of the major state and local taxes) that are unfair, unsound, and unsustainable by design. Fortunately, there is a sensible solution: inverting the state’s current tax structure.

The inversion exercise takes a state’s current distribution of state and local taxes by income quintile (lowest 20 percent, second 20 percent, middle 20 percent, fourth 20 percent, top 20 percent) and flips it at the 50th percentile mark, thereby making a regressive structure progressive.

This resulting progressive tax structure has major benefits to states.

• It raises significant revenue. If every state inverted its tax structure, states would raise a combined $490 billion, wiping out deficits with cash to spare to invest in economy-enhancing activities.

• It is unmatched in its economic efficiency, which encourages steady and strong economic activity and widespread prosperity over time.

• It provides commonsense equity, with wealthy families contributing a greater share of their income in taxes than low- and middle-income families.

To achieve the inverted structure, states must establish, or significantly improve upon, the graduated personal income tax—the backbone of any progressive tax structure. Concurrently, states and localities must significantly reduce their reliance on regressive sales, excise, and property taxes, which fall heavily on low- and middle-income families.

The benefits to inversion are clear and many; there is no rational economic argument against a progressive tax structure for every state. The biggest hurdle in achieving such a model is a lack of political will. State level elected officials simply cannot ignore the fundamental roots of their deficit problems, even if significant legislative or constitutional roadblocks make sensible reform a politically difficult undertaking.