The elephant in the room.... we as a country have $60 trillion in stock, bond, real estate wealth.

[reformist2]

It's time for the ultrarich to cough up some of that and properly fund Social Security and Medicare - that is, the health care and retirement of the American people. In case it's not clear, $60 trillion is a LOT of money. The one-year return on all these investments alone is enough to close any funding gaps in Social Security for the next century. Just a few year's returns on these investments can restore Medicare/Medicaid to solvency. So we're not broke - we have the money. What amazes me is that we're still debating this.

[bamacrat]

1. Those who own that $60 Trillion own Congress so it will not happen.

Suck because you raise an interesting and valid point. But, until the rich are not in control of our elected officials nothing meaningful will change.

[ancianita]

3. Then we spend down their military and all its defunct weapons manufacturing.

[bamacrat]

15. I agree we should dramatically cut defense...

only standing in the way of that are the jobs that will be lost. I don't mean the Blackwaters and Haliburton's of the world but like the auto industry a lot of people work for companies that supply parts and stuff for the military. If we could cut the military while also expanding green energy and the military suppliers could convert to that all would be great.

[BlueMan Votes]

2. don't forget the t-bills and the cold hard cash...

a fair-sized chunk of that is in treasury notes..a lot of our 'national debt' is owed to very wealthy(and not so wealthy) Americans who hold u.s. bonds and t-bills.

[brewens]

4. We've been looted on a massive scale since the 80's. I'm convinced it's entirely the reason for the

all of the mess we're in. People are taught to hate poor people that get money for doing nothing. They have no clue of what's gone on to redistribute wealth to the top.

Everyone basically gets paid out of the same pot. If you give some CEO millions more than he could ever legitimately earn, in some cases for doing a really crappy job, you have to come up short somewhere else.

Some guy at the bottom might get help and "waste" some of his money on alcohol or cigarettes but at least that goes into someone else's paycheck.

[Coyotl]

6. Ronald Reagan was the turning point, crooks in power

and the S&L crisis followed, with tax breaks for the rich transferring capital and wealth, higher interest shutting working people out of home buying while McMansions florished.

[JCMach1]

5. Not quite what it seems... a large % of those stocks and bonds are owned by pension funds

Which also keeps our elderly out of poverty...

But yeah, capital gains do need to be on the table.

[reformist2]

7. True, but the Top 1% own something like 80% of all the wealth.

[JCMach1]

16. from 1989

Private pensions have become an important financial intermediary in the United States, with assets totaling nearly $1.9 trillion in 1989. By comparison, all New York Stock Exchange listed stocks and bonds totaled $4.4 trillion at year-end 1989. In other words, pension plan assets were large enough to purchase about 40 percent of all stocks and bonds listed on the NYSE.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/Pensions.html

[mainer]

8. Not sure what you're advocating, Seizure?

A lot of those stocks and real estate investments are held by people who saved for their retirements. Not ultra rich folks but regular people.

[reformist2]

10. Ideally, an annual wealth tax. But I'll settle for a (much) higher estate tax and trust reform.

[pampango]

9. Exactly right! Our GDP is almost $50,000 per capita. The problem is the distribution

of that wealth. Our inequality (GINI) is the worst in the developed world. If we adopted the progressive policies of European countries the economic problems of the middle/working class would largely disappear.

[gang]

11. yes

[gravity]

12. Or you can just raise marginal tax rates for the rich

and close some loopholes.

Seizing people's wealth will stop any incentive to invest in the US and hurt the economy. What will work is taxing the profits that people generate from this wealth, which we already do.

[reformist2]

13. If you're looking at incentives, taxing income is worse than taxing wealth.

[RepublicansRZombies]

14. we need to activate this financial crimes unit

Details Emerge of New Financial Fraud Unit
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021806220