Talking Points: Economic Meltdown
By Inequality and the Common Good
Author(s): Chuck Collins
Put over-reliance on the free market together with “hands-off” government and you get an economic melt-down, with the spectacle of the government bailing out and buying giant financial firms: the very antithesis of the “free market” that the Wall Street cheerleaders were extolling. The Bush administration turned our economy into a casino and gave rich investors almost all the chips. The following document is a series of talking points, in an easy-to-read question-and-answer format, on the key questions being discussed today about the global economic meltdown.
October 15, 2008
By Inequality and the Common Good
Author(s): Sarah Anderson, John Cavanagh, Chuck Collins, Dedrick Muhammad, Sam Pizzigati
Rebuilding Accountability and Trust
The grassroots blowback against the Bush Administration’s proposed Wall Street bailout is rooted in deep distrust. Americans recognize the need to act on our current crisis but detest the idea that ordinary taxpayers should bear the brunt of bailing out the kingpins of Wall Street.
The following program, if incorporated into the bailout, could far better address our current problem’s root causes and restore trust and confidence in our economic system.
Program Basics:
• Fund a green stimulus for the real economy
• Restructure mortgages for families put at risk by predatory lenders
• Make Wall Street speculators pay for the bailout
• Shut down the global casino: Assert real oversight of financial markets
• Limit CEO pay and prohibit profiteering from the bailout
