A Detailed Look At TARP
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The credit card industry is so competitive that regulation is unnecessary.
4. Rather than a self-regulating and intensely competitive market of more than 5,000 issuers, the credit card industry is one of the most concentrated in the nation (and is increasingly being hit with allegations of monopoly practices). The top three issuers -- Bank of America, Citibank and Chase -- control more than 60 percent of outstanding credit card debt. Consumer choice has declined over the past 20 years as economies of scale for marketing, administration and customer service have led thousands of card issuers to cash out to the largest banks. And self-regulation has failed when it comes to weeding out the worst card issuers; Visa and MasterCard have dismal track records in disciplining their members.
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What do you think a compromise between sensible members of both parties would look like?
I think the administration made a mistake approaching the funding of health-care reform how it did and I think Republicans made a mistake refusing to seriously debate the issue or its funding.
The value-added tax would be a very appropriate tax to use for this purpose. One reason is I am disturbed that we have a large percentage of the population that pay no income taxes. And I know many of those people pay payroll taxes. But income taxes fund the general government. According to a study by the Tax Policy Center, 47 percent pay no income tax, or have negative liability. And I think it's bad for democracy when people get into the position when a majority can vote benefits for themselves but not pay for it. And that should disturb liberals as much as conservatives.
The VAT would necessarily be a broad-based tax. It would be a way of getting people to pay for the benefits they themselves receive. People like Len Burman and Rahm Emmanuel's brother [Ezekiel Emmanuel, a health care adviser to Peter Orszag] have supported this for some time. Len argues that if people knew the VAT was dedicated to health-care reform, and the rate rose and fell automatically with the spending of the system, they would have an incentive to hold down taxes. They would have some positive reinforcement we do not now have with Medicare. I hope that's right. You know, every other major developed country has a VAT: The parties of the left in Europe made a deal a long time ago: If conservatives will let us have a welfare state, we'll fund it conservatively. And I think that's still a good deal.
So why aren't we seeing anything like that?
I think there's a couple of reasons for that. Both sides are pathologically afraid of advocating any kind of tax that would be paid by the average person. Republicans are opposed in particular to the VAT precisely because it's such a good tax. They fear it would become a money machine and it would help the government grow. I agreed with that for a long time. But the problem now is that we need a money machine! We have all this spending in the pipeline. It's not a question of whether we'll create new programs. It's whether we'll fund the ones that are already there.
What's the best way to fund healthcare? This is one idea, and I think it's a good one. This interviewee IS a conservative, but I agree that focusing taxes entirely on the rich is a bad way to fund healthcare reform. At some point it will strain investment and growth, and that's especially true in a recession / depression.
this is where you find a bunch of star wars crap and other facts/opinions about how great life is and can be. or might not be so great sometimes or so thrilling. you know how it is.
