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There are several very simple fixes that should be put in place which would stabilize our economy for decades.
1 Add a nominal ten cent per share fee on all stock trades of shares resold less than six months after they were purchased. It would have zero impact on investors and would immediately eliminate high frequency trading speculators.
2 Require significant minimum capitalization of all banks. If banks want to take big risks with their profits, good for them... Risks with deposits should never exceed capital on hand.
3 The entire student loan 'industry' needs to be regulated. Schools should be required to spend a high percentage of revenue on present students, the same way insurance premiums are limited by cost of the insured pool and utilities are limited by pricing constraints. The great majority of student money goes to projects that have nothing to do with the cost of education per student.
4 A single payer baseline health system that covers catastrophic care and basic medicine, with supplemental private insurance or cash payments layered over it.
5 reinstate the Gephardt rule, that a vote for the budget counts as a vote to raise the debt ceiling by the necessary corresponding amount. The present method of voting to spend and later voting on whether or not to pay the bill is disastrous and unnecessary.
6 Implement the Buffet rule which would eliminate carried interest and other loopholes used by generational wealth to pay a 12% tax rate...
These fixes won't make us prosper because they don't address the root problem (we have more people than we need and that curve is accelerating), but they would stabilize things and give us a sane environment to live in while sorting out the larger issue.
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