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The ever-knowledgeable Thom Hartmann has proposed the resurrection of a familiar market remedy to our current economic ills that:

--has served us well in the past, and is currently employed by healthy economies abroad

--pays for itself and then some after only a few years

--puts the responsibility for the cost on Wall Street, where it belongs

--brings revenue back to the taxpayers

--reduces the toxic speculation that helped create this problem, and encourages healthy investment

--is simple, and can stand alone

Best yet, we already know it works, because we used it for decades to generate revenue, and it was successfully adopted by the UK, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, Greece, Australia, France, China, Chile, Malaysia, India, Austria, and Belgium.

It's called a Securities Turnover Excise Tax. That is, if we were to implement, say, a .25 percent STET (tax) on every stock, swap, derivative, or other trade today, it would generate around $150 billion in revenue its first year. Wall Street would be funding its own bailout. As it damn well should.

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Typical of most Americans and most people in modern society, we shorten the descriptive title and the meaning of important events and important days to remember.

I believe that we all refer to Independence Day as the 4th of July. In doing so, I believe we loose the real meaning of this day.

Thom Hartmann did a wonderful show the other day, where he dedicated the last hour of that show to the true meaning of what the 4th of July or Independence Day really stands for.

This is what July 4th, this Nation, the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are all about.
Thom Hartmann hour 3 - 7/1/08 - KPOJ
The first half hour is split between his reading of the Declaration of Independence (in typical Thom style) and passages from his book "What Would Jefferson Do".

It should draw a tear from you as it did many of the callers (last half hour) and myself.

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The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal,as well as The Wild Wild Left,Independent Bloggers Alliance, the Peace Tree and Worldwide Sawdust.

From 1968 to 2004, conservatives utilized the art of communication to persuade voters into supporting policies against the interests of peace and their personal prosperity. While liberals advocated obscure abstractions and responded with cerebral nuance, conservatives prevailed by hitting people in their gut. Law and order, welfare Cadillac Queens, Willie Horton, death tax, permissiveness, the flag and God were all exploited to define liberals as weak elitist traitors and conservatives as upstanding guardians of American values.

Even the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton did little to prevent the center of political gravity from shifting to the right. Consequently, a corporate plutocracy plundered the American economy at the expense of working people and small business owners, our civil liberties were systematically eroded and the neo-conservative empire culture shamefully eroded America's moral authority and geopolitical position.

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