If someone were to overhear what people said ought to be done, and then in the spirit of irony, and for no other reason, proceeded to act accordingly everyone would be amazed. They would find it rash, yet as soon as they had talked it over they would find that it was just what should be done.

- Soren Kierkegaard The Present Age

The age in which we live is the age beyond invention, the age in which everything has a reference, and nothing stands uniquely alone. It is an age in which institutions from political parties to religions have become cowardly simpering caricatures of what they might have been in some deeper more sincere age. The towering American edifice lay in smoldering, belching, stinking ruin. From baseball to automobiles to agriculture to motherhood the age is replete with tawdry, hollow imitation. It is of course not a condition limited to America, we are very much a global society in a stupor. I think of China’s hollow communist party and still more hollow capitalism, Russia’s gilded iron fist and India’s hidden castes. There is not the courage among them to embrace fully their own ideologies, everything must be tempered so as not to upset the markets. The great armies of the earth built on noble principle are ranked with corruption. We fail to even respectfully elevate war to its demigod station.

The Plan, from the Institute for Policy Studies:

IPS Plan to Pay for Recovery

Talking Points by Sarah Anderson, Chuck Collins, Dedrick Muhammad, Sam Pizzigati. Published September 26, 2008 12:12PM

Where to Find $900 Billion from the Wall Street Speculators

Executive Summary

• Don’t finance the bailout with more debt
• Make Wall Street speculators pay now
• Raise $900 billion in new revenue
• Stimulate Main Street and the real economy

As Congress debates the particulars of the inevitable bailout, one key question has gone largely unexplored: Who will pay for this mess?

Lawmakers in Congress appear to have assumed that the federal government will simply borrow more money to foot the bill for the bailout. The national debt ceiling will rise to a whopping $11.3 trillion, up from $8 trillion a year ago.

But this rush to borrowing merely shifts the bailout burden onto the backs of future taxpayers. Congress needs to change course — and develop a “pay as we go” plan that makes Wall Street pay. The lion’s share of bailout funding should come from the high-finance gamblers and the wealthy CEOs who have so profited from our casino economy.

Funding the Bailout: Basic Principles

• Wall Street and speculators should pay now for the mess they created.
• ...continued

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