Again, many thanks for your efforts to educate, inform, and enlighten. A gem you are.

Predatory lending is a symptom, not a problem all of its own, btw. We worship money, adore it, tell ourselves that those with it are worth more than those without it. Most of us pursue it. We make it a symbol of status; we could have chosen many other things, but that’s the thing we’ve settled on.

Tell people that all that matters is shareholder value, and make their bonuses depend on creating it year on year, and they will do whatever they can to create it. Obviously, no one in power has a real problem with it, because they represent wealth, and wealthy people do not get wealthy by being all huggy. They get that way by being predatory themselves. The only people who disapprove are those who get fucked over, and they’re entirely powerless (because they lack money), and us, and we’re just so much blather, small bubbles in the froth on the ocean wave of greed.

If helicopter Bernanke keeps the printing presses going, the dollar literally won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.

It’s the way the Repubs are letting price inflation creep into the system, so as prices go up the commercial activity appears to be increasing (GDP). It’s trickery.

So, we have too many dollars for the DP we’re producing. The dollars devalue automatically. Blame it on Conservative Bush Republicans!

There were some speculators, but most of the people I know in trouble got there by refinancing the home they have long lived in.

Another of their tricks was to let people refinance to have money for home repairs (they didn’t have enough money on their own to buy new or repair) and in so doing they lost their original mortgage and with it mortgage insurance. With their second loan they had no protection against losing their home if their income stopped or they had extraordinary expenses (like a health problem) and many people lost homes.

Not nice people. Nope, you can’t nice these people.

the Federal Reserve is lending out billions of dollars to themselves the banks at the window for 4.25%, who orchestrated the subprime mortgage crisis and credit crunch. And in turn, we lowly taxpayers are presented with the devaluation of the dollar, inflation, low wages, and unemployment. The banks hit us coming and going.

That’s why we need someone who thinks of people first and will push for laws which prevent predatory lending which can destroy people’s lives.

As for FDR; The Crash paved the way for the man Wall Street had groomed for the presidency, FDR.

I never heard Wall Street groomed FDR. That’s interesting. Well, he did a lot to fix America’s economy and banking systems, so they did owe him thanks. But, for people who groomed him they certainly showed a lot of hatred. Strange lot those Streets.

starting in the Carter years, the first major bailout of a giant Corporation, Chrysler. What has happpened is that corporations practice capitalism when profits are abundant, and due to Carter’s decision to not allow capitalism and free markets to follow their course, he had allow bad corporate risk failures to be shared and created socialized risk.

The government loaned Chrysler money and Chrysler paid it back with interest. The government made a profit for the treasury and Chrysler stayed in business and people kept their jobs. Everybody won, so what’s your problem?

Deregulation has dealt this country an evil blow. We need a “New Deal” round two. It makes no sense for corporations to have loopholes and allow them to pay NO taxes! I would rather see the corporations pay all of the taxes and the people pay none. Corporations should be paying for the privilege of selling their products and services in OUR country!

In general I’m in favor of a flat tax because it’s “Equal treatment under the Law”. But, recently the talk about corporations NOT being persons made me think that maybe we shouldn’t be taxing them, but taxing people more heavily.

I wonder what great economists or tax attorneys would think of that arrangement.

For me, the questions I want answered are:
how much money do we need to raise,
can we get it consistently from year to year with a given plan,
do we have a social goal,
what tax system achieves these goals.

It’s hard to know precisely how much money we need, but government budget analysts can provide those numbers.

Economists at the CBO can probably estimate pretty well whether a given plan raises money consistently. For example, a consumption tax wouldn’t be entirely predictable from month to month. A business tax might be more consistent, but there are also ups and downs there.

Social goal? Yes, I think right now the Progressive idea is to balance things a bit, end the fantastic disparity in wealth which allows the Rich to run the show and turn everyone else into so much baggage. It is also to cut back on the inordinate power the Rich have.

So, we should NOT tax corporations since they’re not people and we don’t tax private activities like knitting or boat rowing.

We should perhaps tax private individuals income at one fair rate. I’d of course, suggest that to avoid it being unnecessarily destructively regressive that we also provide a ‘cost of living’ deduction of large proportions.

Of course, you’d have to phase in such a thing. It’s quite different from our current system. From Edwards planned 28% corp tax and unified single tax rate for earned or interest income I think you could step down the corp rate over a period of years and bring in the deduction at the same time as you end the many different deductions and special loopholes we have now. Of course, I don’t know if he has considered any such plan.

I don’t want to be taxed for riding a bike, watching a movie, playing a video game or walking in the park. Why should my commercial activities be taxed? They all relate to improving my quality of life?

Caveats: I’m sure there are many relating to sheltering incomes and the like. Details can be troubling at times.