Is it supposed to be funny? Or is it really just absurd, sexist and ageist nonsense? So hard to tell these days.
You want an 8 step solution? I can fix it in five.
1- All debts are considered non-transferable. Period. No more stock trading, no more “complex financial instruments”. You loan money, you collect interest. If you make a good call, you profit, if you make a bad call, you lose. No more selling the debt off to someone else. Stock can be purchased or sold back to the company only.
2- The US tax code gets completely eliminated and replaced with a new one of not more than 120,000 words- A length the average adult can read in it’s entirety in the space of a normal workday. The words themselves must be able to be comprehended by someone at an 8th grade reading level. Limit the total number of taxes or deductions which can be on the books- If we want to add one, we have to repeal another one to make room.
3- Tax unearned income at a higher rate than earned income, and transactions which stay within US borders at a lower rate than those which cross them. Parent companies are fully responsible for every activity of their subsidiaries, and all advertising must indicate the name of the ultimate parent company. Companies “headquartered” in a country which provides less than 20% of their sales, suppliers, or employees are subject to an additional 50% tax on all gross income- Yes, that includes subsidiaries.
4- Nationalize the Federal Reserve. Install Bernie Sanders as Chairman.
5- Elizabeth Motherfucking Warren as Attorney General.
The only way to deal with bad bankers is by taking money they have control over. We need to get the bankers out of the federal bond system and rebuild and reorganize the Federal Reserve.
Any suggestion anyone makes is moot in this broken political system. Unless the people take control of the government we have no chance of meaningful reform.
We have to accept the reality of our political and economic life. America is an oligarchy. The constitution has no meaning in this government. Put out the distress flag - the American flag upside down.
If you’re not going to do better yourself…
But, I figured the shiny brass balls would be a clue.
If you’re unfamiliar with satire, I highly reccomend “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
You can find the full text at the link below, and read it in less than half an hour.
Any one of the first three of those steps would be such an amazing breath of fresh air, and such a wrecker of institutionalized corruption, that it could properly be described as “revolutionary.”
I know that, being a dude, I shouldn’t respond, but here goes anyway.
It’s an attempt at satire.
To make it worse, the part about only allowing women is some pretty fucked-up sexist bullshit, and plays off on the hoary old stereotype that men are aggressors who should be off doing aggressive things, while the woman, being by nature kind, nurturing, and motherly, should be doing kind and nurturing things. Instead of saying these retirees should be, say, running daycare, this dude is saying that they should be trading, because they’ll take a kind, motherly approach to trading. Leave it to BB to lap it up when someone wraps up misogyny in a cloak of Girl Power.
Because really, anyone who has worked in an environment that is predominantly one sex or another can tell you: both sexes are fully capable of being impulsive and capable of displaying downright despicable behavior. My own experience is that men tend to be more overtly violent, while women tend to be more passive-aggressive and let the anger simmer over a longer period of time. The fallout can be equally bad in both cases.
And…and…
Trading is a bit like pornography: Women may like it, but they don’t like it nearly as much as men, and they certainly don’t like it in ways that create difficulties for society. Put them in charge of all financial decision-making and the decisions will be more boring, but more sociable.
Oh…what’s that word the kids more progressive than me use? Yeah, let’s “unpack” that.
Porn. Yeah, just done for shock value.
This is where we get into Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics territory. Depending on who’s doing the asking, anywhere between 25% to 100%(!) of men look at porn. And again, depending on who does the counting, anywhere between 1% to 1 in 3 women look at porn. If a high percentage of women look at porn, why’s there so much, well, icky stuff? Well, because porn companies look at those low numbers and assume they don’t have to cater to women.
And ugh, there’s that “women are nice” sexist bullshit again.
Anyway.
Have any of you had a conversation with an older woman any time recently? Ye Gods. Here in the U.S., you’re as likely to run into a Muslim-hating, gun-nut granny as you are to run into a kind, nurturing woman who likes to knit. The younger senior citizens are Baby Boomers. Anyone want to put them back in charge of anything at this point?
I’m willing to say that letting cooler, wiser heads prevail is a good idea, in theory. But cooler, wiser heads are the ones who make the decisions to let the younger, more foolish people build systems that have bumped up against the speed of light, literally. The notion of replacing that with a bunch of silver-haired ladies is good for a chuckle, at least.
When I saw the photo associated with the story all I could think of was “that bull has no asshole.” I guess they decided the last thing they needed on Wall street was another asshole.
By proposing banning transfer of debt, I guess you are proposing to get rid of banks all together - they are the debt transferral middlemen - facilitating money moving from people with excess liquidity, to those with insufficient. Someone gives money to a bank, the bank is in debt to them and so can’t transfer it on.
So companies are stuck raising money directly. Well, that’s inefficient, and costly. Why would every company want a trading arm to deal with customers? A bit of a burden on one man businesses.
Let me guess, you’re now going to propose some workarounds that seem remarkably similar to what banks do today?
It’s not a workaround, it’s what banks have been doing for as long as they’ve existed.
Banks would still be able to loan money and collect interest. That’s not transferring debt, it’s writing a new debt which they will be responsible for. They just wouldn’t be able to loan money, then sell the IOU to someone else.
I don’t get to buy a house and then just tell the bank “I’m moving out- This guy here is going to move in and pay the mortgage instead, so don’t contact me any more”. The bank shouldn’t be able to do the same thing.
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