Matt Taibbi is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone. He’s the
author of five books, most recently The Great Derangement and
Griftopia, and a winner of the National Magazine Award for
commentary.
(...)
No matter what, I'll be supporting Occupy Wall Street. And I think the
movement's basic strategy – to build numbers and stay in the fight, rather than
tying itself to any particular set of principles – makes a lot of sense early
on. But the time is rapidly approaching when the movement is going to have to
offer concrete solutions to the problems posed by Wall Street. To do that, it
will need a short but powerful list of demands. There are thousands one could
make, but I'd suggest focusing on five:
1.
Break up the monopolies. The so-called "Too Big to Fail" financial
companies – now sometimes called by the more accurate term "Systemically
Dangerous Institutions" – are a direct threat to national security. They are
above the law and above market consequence, making them more dangerous and
unaccountable than a thousand mafias combined. There are about 20 such firms in
America, and they need to be dismantled; a good start would be to repeal the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and mandate the separation of insurance companies,
investment banks and commercial banks.
2.
Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks
and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate
enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over
to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about. It would also
deter the endless chase for instant profits through computerized insider-trading
schemes like High Frequency Trading, and force Wall Street to go back to the job
it's supposed to be doing, i.e., making sober investments in job-creating
businesses and watching them grow.
3.
No public money for private lobbying. A company that receives a public
bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer's own money to lobby against
him. You can either suck on the public teat or influence the next presidential
race, but you can't do both. Butt out for once and let the people choose the
next president and Congress.
4.
Tax hedge-fund gamblers. For starters, we need an immediate repeal of
the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break, which allows
hedge-fund titans like Stevie Cohen and John Paulson to pay taxes of only 15
percent on their billions in gambling income, while ordinary Americans pay twice
that for teaching kids and putting out fires. I defy any politician to stand up
and defend that loophole during an election year.
5.
Change the way bankers get paid. We need new laws preventing Wall
Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in
all of our faces later. It should be: You make a deal today, you get company
stock you can redeem two or three years from now. That forces everyone to be
invested in his own company's long-term health – no more Joe Cassanos pocketing
multimillion-dollar bonuses for destroying the AIGs of the world.
To
quote the immortal political philosopher Matt Damon from Rounders, "The
key to No Limit poker is to put a man to a decision for all his chips." The only
reason the Lloyd Blankfeins and Jamie Dimons of the world survive is that
they're never forced, by the media or anyone else, to put all their cards on the
table. If Occupy Wall Street can do that – if it can speak to the millions of
people the banks have driven into foreclosure and joblessness – it has a chance
to build a massive grassroots movement. All it has to do is light a match in the
right place, and the overwhelming public support for real reform – not later,
but right now – will be there in an instant.
This
story is from the October 27, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone.
