This progressive says congress should take a fiscally conservative approach and only pass a Bailout that pays for itself. Do it by making all the bailout beneficiaries pay. Even better, do it bottom up, but if that's not possible, at least do it so the bottom-- main street- is stuck with the bill.

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This progressive says congress should take a fiscally conservative approach and only pass a bailout that pays for itself. Do it by making all the bailout beneficiaries pay. Even better, do it bottom up, but if that's not possible, at least do it so the bottom-- main street- is not stuck with the bill..

The reason for the bailout is to increase liquidity-- to insure that money for borrowing is available. That money will enable investors to keep investing in stock trades, bonds, mortgages, business loans, etc. and of course, will enable borrowers to borrow.

Thom Hartman described a remarkably simple solution that was used in response to the great depression of 1929the USA for 50 years, and which he reports England is now using-- add a small, quarter of one percentage point tax on stock trades.

"In the United Kingdom, for example, whenever you buy or sell a share of stock (or a credit swap or a derivative, or any other activity of that sort) you pay a small tax on the transaction. We did the same thing here in the US from 1914 to 1966 (and, before that, we did it to finance the Spanish American War and the Civil War).

For us, this Securities Turnover Excise Tax (STET) was a revenue source. For example, if we were to instate a .25 percent STET (tax) on every stock, swap, derivative, or other trade today, it would produce - in its first year - around $150 billion in revenue. Wall Street would be generating the money to fund its own bailout. (For comparison, as best I can determine, the UK's STET is .25 percent, and Taiwan just dropped theirs from .60 to .30 percent.)"

I say add that same tax to loans as well. When a person takes out a mortgage, with less than a minimum amount of down payment, there's an extra fee, usually .25% or .5% charged as mortgage "insurance," called PMI. When the fed raises interest rates a quarter point to affect the economy, nobody screams. Why not take this kind of light touch approach to make the bailout solution pay for itself and remove the risk that main street now faces.

In this case, the bailout is making it possible for credit to be available. Make the beneficiaries pay that small tax that will, in a few years, entirely recover the $700 billion.

Who are the beneficiaries? At first blush, you might think the beneficiaries are the banks and financial institutions being bailed out. They are one portion of the beneficiaries. But the liquidity problem that has dried up credit is affecting companies, individuals and organizations all over the world. I heard of one charitable organization that provides services to children, that has done so for 30 years, using credit lines to tide it over between delivery of government funds. That organization, for the first time in 30 years, just had its credit line pulled. All over the USA, as credit has tightened up, the victims of the liquidity crisis who will, because of the bailout, be able to borrow money, will be the indirect beneficiaries.

Now, I expect the Libertarians and Republicans to oppose this, just like they oppose all taxes. It's similar to the way that right wingers oppose taxes to pay for roads, police, schools, research, health care for the elderly... all the things that keep a society functioning.

This ought to do the trick to get all the fiscally conservative bluedog democrats on board, since this approach actually pays for the bailout. Some right wingers may oppose it still, but at least this approach protects America and Americans from being stiffed. And the next president will have an opportunity to turn the "investment" into a win.

I don't understand why this idea isn't being discussed. Why aren't the mainstream media reporters talking about the idea of a small tax to insure recovery?

Call them. Email them. Tell them that they should be covering this angle on the story.

Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

Rob Kall Wikipedia Page

Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel

Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel

Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..

To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.

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