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This video, by the National Nurses United, promotes a financial transaction tax on Wall Street trading to help restore the economy.

Capitalism made America great. But in the wrong hands, capitalism can turn American dreams into nightmares. This film is about one raider and his firm — Mitt Romney and Bain Capital — and how they destroyed the American dream for thousands, including Steelworkers and their families. For More: http://www.kingofbain.com http://www.whenmittromneycametotown.com

In the iconic Christmas film, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” an angel offers the beleaguered main character, George Bailey, the stark choice between a hometown named for a cruel banker or one created by and for the middle class.

The banker’s town, Pottersville, is filled with bars, gambling dens and despair.  The people’s town of Bedford Falls is made of hope, hard working middle class families, and their homes financed by the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan.

The film’s happy ending is the people of Bedford Falls banding together to rescue George Bailey and the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan that had given so many of them a leg up over the years. Republicans seek a different conclusion.  They find middle class cooperation and community intolerable. They want the banker, Henry Potter, with his “every man for himself” philosophy to triumph. In the spirit of their self-centered mentor Ayn Rand, Republicans are trying to disfigure America so she resembles Pottersville.

A building and loan association, like the Bailey Brothers’, uses the savings of its members to provide mortgages to the depositors. Members essentially pool their money to give each other the opportunity to buy cars and homes. At one point in the film, George Bailey explains this concept to frightened depositors who are trying to withdraw their savings during the panic that led to bank runs in 1929.

Bailey urges the townspeople who had crowded into the building and loan office to withdraw only what they need, not empty their accounts. “We have got to stick together,” he tells them, “We have to do this together.” A building and loan doesn’t function without trust and cooperation.

It works well for Bedford Falls. The mortgages it provides help working people move out of the Potters Field slums and into Bailey Park, where homes well kept by their owners increase in value.  Despite the success, Potter condemned this practice, saying it was based on “high ideals without common sense.” He criticized the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan for granting a taxi driver a mortgage after Potter’s bank had rejected his application. Potter scoffed at such practices, asking if the building and loan was a “business or a charity ward.”

This is exactly what Republicans do. They describe beloved American programs like Medicare and Social Security as charities – using the euphemism “entitlements.” Like mortgages from the Bailey Building & Loan, Medicare and Social Security are not charities. They’re the American people depositing and pooling their money for the benefit of the American community.

The GOP tries to destroy programs like these that aid the middle class, the vast majority of Americans – the 99 percent – while Republicans protect tax breaks and special perks for the rich – the one percent, the Henry Potters. (more…)

Been quite a year, huh? We’ll remember this one for a long time.

This new generation of Republicans, the self-styled Tea Partiers, want to repeal just about all of the 20th century. They don’t like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ, or any of those Kennedy brothers. They say they want to repeal child labor laws, the 40 hour work week, food safety laws, environmental laws, the income tax, direct election of Senators, Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage, banking regulation, Pell Grants, Head Start, civil rights, voting rights, and just about every other form of progress the 1900s brought us. You know, William Buckley used to say that “a conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling stop.” These guys are standing athwart history yelling “go back!” They will happily shut down government at the drop of a hat, for any reason at any time- even when they get what they asked for in terms of policy concessions. Backed by the 1%, the Wall Street elite and the captains of industry who destroyed the economy but are deeply hurt and offended when anyone tries to hold them accountable for it, these Republicans are hell-bent are creating an economy based on the ideas of Ayn Rand and Gordon Gekko, where greed is good, generosity and kindness are weaknesses, and we are taught that it is everyone for themselves and devil take the hindmost.

And speaking of the Wall Street big boys (not being sexist, virtually all of them are) who are not just the top 1% but part of the top 0.1 %, they set new records in 2011 for arrogance that even I didn’t think they could. I had assumed that after some of their more ridiculous moments of the last few years (like one financier comparing Obama to a Nazi because he wanted to take away one of their loopholes), that their very well paid PR guys would tell them “hey, the anger level at us is really rising, we should try to avoid public displays of unbearable hubris”. But the PR team’s nightmares continue multiplying because of quotes like these referring to protesters, one 0.1 percenter said “who gives a crap about some imbecile?” And here’s another 0.1 percenter: “instead of an attack on the 1 percent, let’s call it an attack on the very productive.”

But this was also the year when the movement of, by, and for the bottom 99% started to rise up. This 99er movement is forcing economic issues — and yes, issues of class and economic inequity — onto the American table to be debated and talked about in new ways. The push and shove of these two fundamental ideas- that society should be organized on behalf of the 99% not the 1% vs. the Social Darwinism of greed being good- will dominate our political debate not only in 2012 but for years to come. (more…)

Call your Congressman and ask him which side he’s on, Banker Mr. Potter’s or George Bailey’s?

Mr. President, we heard what you said last week in Kansas — about the dangers to our economy and democracy of the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top.

We agree. And many of us are prepared to work our hearts out to get you reelected — as long as you commit to doing what needs to be done in your second term:

– Raise the tax rate on the rich to what it was before 1981. The top 1 percent has an almost unprecedented share of the nation’s wealth and income yet the lowest tax rate in 30 years. Meanwhile, America faces colossal budget deficits that have already meant devastating cuts in education, infrastructure, and the safety nets we depend on. The rich must pay their fair share. Income in excess of $1 million should be taxed at 70 percent — the same rate as before 1981.

– Raise capital gains taxes to the same level. It’s absurd that the 400 richest Americans — whose wealth exceeds the wealth of the bottom 150 million Americans put together — should pay an average 17 percent tax on their incomes, the rate day laborers and child-care workers pay. That’s because so much of the income of the super-rich is considered capital gains, now taxed at only 15 percent. Close this loophole. (more…)

Wall Street is its own worst enemy. It should have welcomed new financial regulation as a means of restoring public trust. Instead, it’s busily shredding new regulations and making the public more distrustful than ever.

The Street’s biggest lobbying groups have just filed a lawsuit against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, seeking to overturn its new rule limiting speculative trading.

For years Wall Street has speculated like mad in futures markets – food, oil, other commodities – causing prices to fluctuate wildly. The Street makes bundles from these gyrations, but they have raised costs for consumers.

In other words, a small portion of what you and I pay for food and energy has been going into the pockets of Wall Street. It’s just another hidden redistribution from the middle class to the rich.

The new Dodd-Frank law authorizes the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to limit such speculative trading. The commission considered 15,000 comments, largely from the Street. It compromised on key provisions. It weighed the benefits to the public of the new regulation against its costs to the Street. It did numerous economic and policy analyses. It even agreed to delay enforcement of the new rule for at least a year.

But this wasn’t enough for the Street. The new regulation would still put a crimp in Wall Street’s profits.

So the Street is going to court. What’s its argument? The commission’s cost-benefit analysis wasn’t adequate. (more…)

Bill Maher says he knows it’s “counter intuitive” and “hard to grasp” but when taxes on the rich were a little higher under President Clinton, the federal budget was balanced, but after President Bush cut those taxes, deficits grew.

Secret Fed loans led to $13 billion in bank profits. The Fed concealed from Congress which banks borrowed, when, how much and at what interest rate.

Perhaps you’re part of Wall Street’s richest one-percent, yet, deep in the deepest part of your hedge-fund heart, you secretly support the “We Are the 99%” people. Taking a big step even further, you might actually desire to join the Occupy Wall Street movement in one of its tent camps to show your solidarity. But – my goodness! – there’s just no way you can settle into one of those grungy plastic tents that the movement people are in.

Well, fret no more, my über-rich friend, for that’s why Neiman Marcus exists. In the nick of time, the luxury retailer has come out with its “Christmas Book,” featuring 171 pages of fabulous gift ideas for the fabulously wealthy. And there it is on page 62-63 in a four-color spread: the “Dream Folly” tent.

It’s an 18-foot diameter yurt that, according to the catalogue description, is inspired by the whimsical TV show, “I Dream of Jeannie.” And what a whimsy it is, with an opulent interior that, as Neiman puts it, “goes beyond your wildest, most decadent dreams.” You’ll sink into “a bevy of one-of-a-kind down-filled designer pillows,” zone-out on the tent’s fine textiles in colors selected “to evoke the bubbles of a warm, soothing bath,” and be protected from even the darkest of nights by “a custom, hand crafted crystal chandelier.”

The catalogue assures purchasers that Neiman Marcus can have a Dream Tent “installed on your estate grounds in the blink of an eye.” And if the company can deliver in, say, the Hamptons, how hard would it be to set you up in a downtown Occupy encampment?

Yes, even the wealthiest elites can stand with the people… then withdraw to their dream tents. Prices start at $75,000. While that’s a bit pricey, imagine the solidarity it will build with those protesting the excesses of Wall Street elites. (more…)