Robinhood Tax... Mmmmmmm... Very nice graphic... lovely woman... lips parted enticingly with just a smidgen of green tint in her eyes to match the spray brushed mask... Does she come with Soma...? (Brave New World reference - look it up if you are unfamiliar with it...).

Bad Idea... See reprint below of article from Global Research Website. Please forgive me for not synopsizing it. Yes, OWS is a great movement and gives me hope. I was ready to move to the country and buy a small farm to turn into a commune/refuge, I'd been so disheartened by the complacency and apathy I've seen here in the city (Philadelphia). "When things get better... When the economy turns around... etc., etc." Tired of people thinking this is just another, albeit larger, blip in the glorious march to prosperity for all... Would tell them, "wake up, it's not a recession, it's a transition... it's the beginning of the last act in a 30 year play called, "The End of the Middle Class - and you're in it it." The two fundamental economic problems of pressing concern (remember, there are a host of additional chronic ones, as well as the backdrop problems of environmental destruction, nukes, war in general, etc., etc.) are the public debt - US insolvency, and the private sector trade deficit.

1. The Insolvency problem can be addressed by immediately slashing the military/security budget. This means getting out of the Middle East. Period. (Digression: It also means a reassessment of our (nation's) role abroad and what we have really been about (see Zinn's "People's History..." for a start...). Let me put it this way, when we went to war with Spain and took rather than freed the Philippines, we set the stage for our approach to the rest of the world for the rest of the century. Yes, the rest of the European powers were doing the same thing, as would/did Japan. The point is that colonization and resource acquisition are what we do and how we operate. It's not and never has been about democracy and freedom for all (although many of us believe in and promote this with great effort.) We need to understand this and re-evaluate this as a nation if we are going to actually redress this aspect of the situation.)

2. The private sector economic problem is basically the result of the movement of our manufacturing offshore to places of very low wages (look up "Chinese crate men" to really understand this), little or no environmental protections, and poor or nonexistent safety standard. We were told these jobs would be replaced by employment utilizing our unique American ingenuity and entrepreneurial skills. Basically, what they told us was, "let the little brown and yellow skinned peoples do the dirty work. We Americans are special. We'll do the clean and glamorous stuff, like web engineering..." Yeah, right. And they made the truth easy to ignore by flooding the sector with cheap money (credit) and diverting our attention with the "terrorist" threat. So how do we fix this problem? EASY. Invoke protectionist rules based upon living wages and other basic regs. To China: "You want to sell toasters here? Fine, pay your people properly, and don't wreck the planet while doing so. [(look up, "coal in China" or the "Three Gorges Dam" for example.) Note that we still have serious issues here on this score however (mountain top coal removal for example).] "Then we will see who can build the best toaster for the best price - but on an evil playing field." Note, the whole Smith/Ricardo comparative advantage justification for globalization is improper. It assumes capital is fixed and doesn't allow for "absolute" advantage. The reality is in the present situation this paradigm would predict exactly what's happened - a shift of production and wealth to the countries with absolute advantages in all factors of production... But the elites and their economic hit men didn't tell you this.

Now... given that the solutions actually are fairly straightforward, and given that we don't see any of our people in power (e.g., Obama) talking about these solutions - for that matter, you don't even hear serious discussion about it on NPR (so much for me sending them cash for their fund drives) - where does that leave us? Where does that leave me? DISCOURAGED and ready to buy that farm and hope for the best... And then OWS happened... Finally. Should have occurred 2 years ago (yeah, I know, we were all waiting for Obama to do some change... "Yes We Can..." "Hope..." Yeah, right...)

But now this?! A robin hood tax? THIS is the rallying cry? Give me a break! Look up and read the following to understand what this implies and then, WRITE BACK and spread the word...

"The Robin Hood Tax: Occupy Movement now Marching Straight Off the Globalist Cliff"

Peace.

Posted as Anonymous - I really don't want to end up on a domestic extremist list until I have finished ALL my preparations (but that is a different discussion). (Look up Rawles if curious.)