[jforman]

One of the common outcomes I've heard called for is a "separation of corporation and state," in response to what people feel is an outsized voice in the democratic process for corporations at the expense of individual citizens. The backlash against TARP is a good example of fairly broad sentiment that federal policy favors financial institutions and high-value investors over "Main Street."

Lawrence Lessig has spoken rather extensively about campaign finance reform in this vein. His latest campaign is for the Fair Elections Now Act, which would encourage small donation-powered campaigns. He's also often argued for a constitutional convention that would address these concerns without needing to stay within the current legal boundaries...that seems to have fizzled a bit, though, I assume because it's so hard to pull off.

[epscylonb]

I am convinced that that in the same vein as america pioneering the separation of church and state, the next big government evolution will be the separation of state and business.

It will be extremely hard to accomplish though because historically money and power have always been bedfellows.

The real problem is the people are complacent, most of what western governments legislate is in the interests of lobbyists, but people only care about lawmaking when they are personally poor or if it concerns foreign policy (TERRORISM).

I have always thought a jury system for legislation might be a good idea, get the sponsor of a bill to stand in front of 12 randomly picked citizens and have them explain what the bill will do, and most importantly, why they are trying to pass the bill.

[JoshTriplett]

That would turn legislation into marketing. We have a bad enough problem already with knee-jerk legislation passed because it sounds shiny.

Now, as a filter, introduced in addition to umpteen other ways to prevent legislation from passing, it sounds potentially helpful. Anything that makes legislation fail by default without an exceptionally good reason to pass would improve matters.

[seabee]

To a large extent this is the purpose of the House of Lords in UK parliament.

The selection process for its members is not at all democratic which leaves a bad taste in many people's mouths. But the general concept of an elected body whose members serve over several terms of government can be helpful to limit overtly populist or ill-thought-out legislation.

[epscylonb]

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting the jury be only check and balance, and I don't think it would be a silver bullet.

We are where we are because business (those who desire money) and politicians (those who desire power) have overlearned the system.

There is no reason why they couldn't overlearn the jury check as well, I can't think of a simple solution.

Perhaps we are doomed to cycles of people being complacent, which lets tyranny flourish only to be ended violently?.

[fiesycal]

You should read this http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870426150457620...

99% of TARP has been repaid already. That's more than you can say about regular people paying back their credit card debts due to limitless spending.

[kevingadd]

Limitless spending? Do you know anything about regular people? To suggest that the TARP banks are in any way more responsible than the average consumer is simply ignorant. 'Regular people' these days are not spending more than they used to, and they're not examples of limitless spending: http://www.yale.edu/law/leo/052005/papers/Warren.pdf

Furthermore, TARP being repaid is not an inherently good thing. Who cares whether we got the bailout money back if the system is still completely broken? We're still in a situation where those banks can do whatever they want, and when things collapse the government will have no choice but to bail them out again because the alternatives are unacceptable. Now that the banks don't owe the government TARP money it has even less leverage than it might have had before.

[fiesycal]

You can't just blame Wall Street for everything. I never suggested consumers were more responsible I just said that heaping 100% of the blame on Wall Street is ridiculous. Yes consumer debt was on the rise before the financial crisis: http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/debt/review.pdf

You say Banks, which part of the Banks? You can't lump the whole Banking system into one group and blame it all. Also the top 1% encompasses much more than these 'greed fuelled' bankers on Wall Street.

[gyardley]

That paper uses a 2001 data set, and things have certainly changed since the housing crisis, but it was interesting all the same.

The paper argued that certain things - like the cost of housing (due to rising prices) and health care - were the cause of middle-class debt loads, and that consumption on frivolous items was actually down from the 1970s.

This is a plausible argument. The cost of housing, health care, and education has certainly skyrocketed. What Warren doesn't mention, though, is that all of these areas are heavily regulated and subsidized by the federal government - unlike all the areas where middle-class consumption has declined.

You might be able to persuade me that people are in fact spending responsibly, but you'll have a harder time persuading me that the solution to their problems is more regulations, or that the appropriate target of these protestors is anywhere outside Washington DC.

[jamieb]

TARP! Yes TARP has been repaid! Why are people complaining, when the money has been repaid? Who are these people who are clearly ignorant of the facts?!!?

That would be you.

We loaned citibank $25bn with TARP. They paid that back. You seem to think that thats the end of the story. Thanks for telling us what we should read.

Turns out we also guaranteed losses on $300bn of assets, added an additional $20bn, and a further credit line of $45bn.

From were I'm standing, that should mean we own citibank. If my company was in that situation, you think investors would offer me a loan? You think that's gonna be the deal you get next time your company is in trouble?

We should own it, dismantle it, break it up. Do that for every big bank down the line.

But forget the $350bn. You think that if your business needs $25bn or it goes under tomorrow, that one of these rich people will just loan you $25bn and let you pay it back when you can? LOL. In my world, $25bn bought citibank outright, and we overpaid. Instead we got 36%. Joke.

Two sets of rules. One for them. One for us.

[te_chris]

And how much of that profit flowed through into the real economy? That's the protesters' point.

[fiesycal]

"Through the repayments announced Wednesday, as well as dividends and interest, taxpayers have recovered about $244 billion of the $245 billion in TARP funds disbursed to banks, the Treasury said. The Treasury currently estimates that bank programs within TARP will ultimately provide a lifetime profit of nearly $20 billion to taxpayers."

Blame the government for that, not Wall Street. Also how much of Apple's 70 billion or so in cash flows through to the economy?

[leerpm]

No, 99% of the funds TARP paid directly to banks has been paid. However there was a large amount of money that went to AIG and other bailouts.