"The fact is, the markets work, and they are working," said Cheney in an interview in his White House office. "And people - some of the big companies obviously - have taken risks. Risk means risk. And there's an upside as well as a downside in some of the choices they've made. We have to be careful not to have this set of developments lead us to significantly expand the role of government in ways that may do damage long-term for the economy."
The same goes for Democratic efforts to curb the predatory lending practices that left naive homeowners in trouble, says Cheney: "We don't want to interfere with the basic, fundamental working of the markets."
Your markets are working alright! Thanks Dick, for making our case for socialism even more compelling and easier to win people over to. While the real solution to the crisis is a socialist revolution, here are some stopgap reforms to carry us through the year.
- Use the newly nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to refinance all troubled mortgage holders with 30 year fixed rate notes on a fair and realistic valuation of their homes, not the over-inflated housing bubble prices. Let the investment banking industry take the losses on all refinanced price differences.
- Institute an immediate and progressive wealth tax with severe penalties for capital flight.
- Institute a immediate windfall tax for record profit making petroleum corporations, in fact, let's extend that to all the non-bid contract war profiteers as well.
- Repeal the Bush tax cuts for the obscenely rich, create a much more progressive tax structure, and remove all tax loopholes and subsidies for corporations.
- End the brutal occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq (with half of that 2.1B a week being used for reparations).
- National single payer healthcare.
- Take the 700B and rebuild inner cities, create a national public transportation system, and invest the rest in public research and development of alternative energy sources.