The Quotable Reich

Sorry you feel that way, but I think if you review the thread my first post dealt with the issues of the OP. It's unfortunate that we got sidetracked on an offhand minor remark I made, but I think you must admit that you post a lot of articles that are extremely critical of Hillary.

Do you wish to deal with the issues of the OP?

Why a Tax on Wall Street Trades is an Even Better Idea Than You Know

One of Bernie Sanders’s most important proposals didn’t receive enough attention and should become a law even without a president Sanders. Hillary Clinton should adopt it for her campaign.

It’s a tax on financial transactions.

Putting a small tax on financial transactions would:

1. reduce incentives for high speed trading, insider deal making and short term financial betting. Buying and selling stocks and bonds in order to beat others who are buying stocks and bonds is a giant zero sum game. It wastes countless resources, uses up the talents of some of the nation’s best and brightest and subjects financial markets to unnecessary risk.

2. generate lots of revenue. Even a one tenth of 1% transaction tax would raise $185 billion over 10 years according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. It could thereby finance public investments that enlarge the economic pie rather than merely rearranging its slices. Investments like better schools and access to college.

3. it’s fair. After all, Americans pay sales taxes on all sorts of goods and services, yet Wall Street traders pay no sales tax on the stocks and bonds they buy, which helps explain why the financial industry generates about 30% of America’s corporate profits, but pays only about 18% of corporate taxes.

Wall Street’s objections are baloney.

Wall Street says even a small transaction tax on financial transactions would drive trading overseas since financial trades can easily be done elsewhere.

Baloney. The U.K. has had a tax on stock trades for decades, yet remains one of the world’s financial powerhouses. Incidentally, that tax raises about 3 billion pounds yearly. That’s the equivalent of 30 billion in an economy the size of the United States, which is a big help for Britain’s budget. At least 28 other countries also have such a tax and the European Union is well on the way to implementing one.

Wall Street also claims that the tax would burden small investors such as as retirees, business owners and average savers.

Wrong again. The tax wouldn’t be a burden if it reduces the volume and frequency of trading, which is the whole point. In fact, the tax is highly progressive. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 75% of it would be paid by the richest 5th of taxpayers and 40% by the top 1%.

So, why aren’t politicians of all stripes supporting it? Because the financial transactions tax directly threatens a major source of Wall Street’s revenue. And if you hadn’t noticed, the Street uses a portion of its vast revenues to gain political clout. Which may be one of the best reasons for enacting it.

We don't trade that often, because I withdraw and even amount every month while my wife sells about once-a-year. I really wouldn't mind a tax at the recommended rate of .001c/$1,000. Since funds fluctuate daily, it won't make any difference to most investors. No big deal.

“The American labor movement helped to create the American middle class,” Hillary Clinton said a few days ago in Des Moines, and then went on to describe her infrastructure program for creating jobs.
I wish she’d talk about how she’ll strengthen unions and make it easier for workers to join them. Hourly wages are still stuck in the mud, largely because today’s workers have no bargaining power. We need unions not only in the building trades but also in the service sector where most Americans now work, many earning the minimum wage. Walmart, McDonalds, Burger King, hotel chains, major hospitals – all should be unionized.
Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama promised in their election campaigns they’d make it easier for workers to form unions – through, for example, direct up-or-down votes on whether to have them, higher penalties on employers who fire workers trying to organize them, and national legislation preempting state “right-to-work” laws (which are designed to kill off unions). Neither Clinton nor Obama followed up on those promises, unfortunately. But the efforts remain critically important.

Some cities are adopting minimum wage rates way above the federal minimum wage. Maybe, the answer is to make it more state wide and city wide based on the cost of living of each location.

Quote:

In 1954 35% of workers were unionized, today it's down to 11%. The union movement is down to some construction, and then state and municipal workers. Sounds great to me if they can get union membership up, but there is the small matter of Republicans blocking the legislation. Republicans hate unions because unions tend to support Democrats, (largely because Republicans are so anti-union).

People have to make it an issue and then start pushing before anything can happen.

Well, let's see. In the UK, which is also a diverse country with approximately the same standard of living as the US, trade union membership is also down. However, it has only declined down to 24% from 35%, not from 35% to 11% like us. Trade unionism hasn't broken them. So it looks like a good idea.

(page 5) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/525938/Trade_Union_Membership_2015_-_Statistical_Bulletin.pdf

We've been hearing for many years now that the middle class income has been stagnant. Is that also true in the UK?

Dunno. I'll try to look it up, it will take some time. I'll get back to you on that.

Here's an interesting article on the UK.
http://www.bbc.com/news/education-30855551

The only thawing of the national logjam is a resurgence of true federalism, the 10 amendment, things like that. How stupid and arrogant and intentionally trivial of the president to legislate bathroom policy but the result is

"about half of all states are now battling the administration over the culturally divisive issue of transgender students and whether they should be permitted to use the restrooms of their choice.

I read an article similar to that. I'm not sure how much I trust them, since it seems to be based on a report with a certain agenda. And of course, there is leftover poverty fromthe 2008 crash over there as there is over here. So I'll have to check some more.

"The best argument for a single-payer health plan is today’s decision by giant health insurer Aetna to stop participating in Obamacare health exchanges in all but four states. If follows a similar move by UnitedHealth Group, the nation's largest insurer. Both say they’re not making enough money because too many people with serious health problems are using the exchanges and not enough healthy people are signing up.
It all proves that a healthcare system run by giant for-profit firms is a system designed to avoid sick people.
Meanwhile, giant health insurers are consolidating into two or three behemoths. Aetna itself is trying to buy Humana. So the real choice for the future is either a public single-payer system or a hugely-expensive for-profit single-payer monopoly that will try to avoid people who need health care."

How about going with the original Obamacare plan-a private option and a public option? If the private option can do what it says it can do-deliver more efficient healthcare at a better price due to the nature of private enterprise-let's see the people decide. Of course, the private option would be regulated, they would not be allowed to do the "pre-existing condition" thing and similar horrors.

I agree it is problem. However, even if Bernie Sanders would have became president and he managed to pass the health care plan he had, he would have run into the same problem which the present ACA has with states having the option of not participating in the exchanges since his would have been run by the states as well. He said if the states would have refused, the federal government would have stepped in and paid for it which is what happens now.

Oddly some GOP agreed with Medicare expansion but not the exchanges because they feared they would get blamed if it was not run well. This way the government still sweeps in to pay for the expansion with them having to be held accountable if it not run well. So perhaps if there is movement again to have single payer health care, it will not be fought like it was in the beginning of those tea party town hall meetings. Maybe some of the GOP governors have finally realized people want government paid health care.

Why the GOP is embracing ACA's expansion—but not its exchanges

Also wouldn't erasing a whole health care insurance industry sort of decimate the economy? Where would all those people work? That would be a lot of money being taking out of the economy.

We can always find excuses to fail.

Worse and worse. On Friday night, Donald Trump exhorted a crowd of mostly white supporters in Pennsylvania to “watch and study and make sure other people don’t come in and vote five times” in “certain sections” of the state. He was referring to majority-black precincts. "Go around and look and watch other polling places and make sure that it's 100 percent fine, because without voter identification -- which is shocking, shocking that you don't have it.”
Such dog whistles invoke the voter intimidation and harassment that led to the passage of the now-gutted Voting Rights Act. Trump’s bigoted rhetoric has already raised concerns about intimidation – made even more likely by the Department of Justice’s recent decision to drastically scale back its election observer program.
In fact, there is almost no actual in-person voter fraud in America. A survey of 1 billion ballots cast between 2000 and 2014, found only 241 possible -- possible! -- fraudulent ballots.
Trump is also already losing Pennsylvania. The RealClearPolitics polling average in the state shows Clinton leading by more than 9 points. Trump must figure the only chance he has is by fueling more racist anger and fear.
What do you think?

Actually I would love nothing better than to have single payer health, there are just a lot of issues to work out, but maybe, we will get lucky with our leaders in Washington and they will actually towards the goal of having single payer health care. The question of insurance industry would need to be addressed, bringing it up is not looking for an excuse to fail. I don't know how much more I can express it, I want single payer health care and would support it wholeheartedly if there is a push to get towards that goal.

I read about Trump's sign up to get people to volunteer to "monitor" voters. I can just imagine the type who would do it. Hopefully, he will not get away with it.

Voter intimidation is illegal.
http://guardianlv.com/2012/10/attention-swing-states-voter-intimidation-was-officially-ruled-illegal-in-the-1965-voting-rights-act/

https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trump-is-encouraging-intimidation-and-racial-profiling-at-the-polls/