Cookie Monster is Smarter Than Lawrence Summers (or at minimum less corrupt)

Muppets’ Cookie Monster Explains Occupy Wall St & Economic Meltdown « Dvorak News Blog

I want to back up my good friend, The Cookie Monster, by pointing out that we have not lived in a free market system for several years now. A free market system implies that private lenders are making loans, not Fannie, Freddie, and Ginnie.

Exhibit A

A free market system also implies that one part of the government (the Federal Reserve) is not buying debt from another branch of the government (The U.S. Treasury). That, my friends, is at best the central planning found in communist countries, and at worst what Banana Republics do in the short years leading up to their demise.

Capitalism requires constant growth, and unfortunately, due to the current circumstances, the only way to return to that growth is to tax the wealthy. The Federal marginal tax rate on the wealthy was 90%+ during the 1950's (look it up), and those were the most prosperous years our country has ever seen (BTW, the rich didn't do too bad either!). Don't let the congress lie to you, telling you taxes can only stunt growth. It's B.S. Their greed somehow reached escape velocity from the bounds of morality around 1982 and a subset of the rich have been buying your congressmen ever since then to rob you blind... right into destitution for some of you (think underwater mortgages and loss of U.S. jobs).

Exhibit B

It's not a matter of us against them, as much as it is a matter of them against us (possibly with the them being congress more so than the rich). We need to realize this to move forward and heal the economy.  We need a temporary tax increase on the wealthy.  We did this in the 1950's and it didn't sink our country.  We can do it again and nurse ourselves back to health before we destroy ourselves.  It's worth thinking about.

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