Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #193
Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed
Our Website Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of
Contents * Featured Articles Calendars of Events Communication with Our Members Opportunities Petitions Commentaries from Our Members John
Burbank: We Must Support Education Better Ray
McBain: Save with Single Payer Health Coverage Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef Priorities for Changing Our Political-Economic System* Conservatives Argue for Costly Privatization State and Local Links
to the Beef Featured Advocacy Group: AFL-CIO* Nation and World Links to the Beef Trumka: Labor Should Represent All Workers* China Commits to Clean Environment* Can We Implement a Winning Afghanistan Strategy? Our Liberal Spirit Now is the Time. We are
the People. Our
Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean
Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and
Competent Spending ·
Investment for
Productivity ·
Quality
Health, Education, Jobs, Income ·
Environmental
Protection and Energy Independence ·
Security and
Equal Rights ·
Justice and
Peace Everywhere ·
International
Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives oppose all of these Let’s
End Our National Nightmare
Let’s
Restore Our American Dream More on Conservative opposition to our
American Dream Washington State’s 5 Major Needs · Federal Funding for Health and Education · Substituting
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Conservative Legislators Quote of the Week Now is the Time. We are the People.
Calendar of Events
Tuesday, September 29
at 7:30 AM at Swedish Cultural
Center (1920 Dexter Avenue North, Seattle) - Washington
CAN's Annual Social Justice Breakfast. $60. To register.
Saturday,
October 3 at 6:30 PM at Jim Simpson’s home (1120 24th Ave E, Seattle) - inSPIRe Salmon Barbecue and Fundraiser
for Dow Constantine. RSVP.
Thursday, October 15 at 5:30
- 9:30 PM at Seattle Center's Fisher Pavilion - Washington Toxic Coalition’s
Ninth Annual Auction for Action.
$100, $85 before September 18. To register.
Thursday, October 29 at 5:30 PM at Town Hall Seattle
(1119 Eighth Avenue, Seattle) - 2nd
Annual Puget Sound Sage Vision for Justice Dinner. $70.
Communication
with Our Members
A series of Liberal political priorities are presented
on the right side of the first page of every issue of our newsletter. I often consider what 10 more specific
priorities I would implement, if I had the power to do so. In this issue, I present priorities which
make basic changes in our political-economic system. Next week, I will present priorities which
make basic changes concerning international justice and peace.
I would like to see what different
priorities you would choose. Dave Thomas
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Petitions
Tell
congress members to pass health care reform with a public health care option.
Sign
Jim Dean’s Democracy for America petition for a public health care options.
Tell your
congress members to pass anti-trust regulation of health insurers.
Tell
your congress members to pass President Obama’s clean energy jobs program.
Tell
your congress members to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
Tell your senators
to pass the Justice Act to restore our freedoms taken away by our Patriot Act.
Tell
your senators to not give loan guarantees to nuclear energy.
Tell
your senators to support health care coverage for legal immigrants.
Tell
EPA administrator Jackson to regulate perchlorate in drinking water.
Tell the EPA
to protect our land and air from corn ethanol production.
Commentaries
From Our Members
John
Burbank: Our State Must Support Education Better
Excerpted from longer
commentary
More than a
decade ago, the Legislature raised the bar for our kids' education. To have
done otherwise would have been a disservice to our kids, allowing mediocrity to
be acceptable. That just won't work in the global economy. Europe and China are
preparing their next generation of engineers, inventors, thinkers and leaders,
and we have to keep up.
Now we need to raise the bar again. It's great that our 10th graders are making
the grade in reading and writing. But it is unacceptable when only half are
fluent in mathematics, and that more than a fifth of all students starting out
in ninth grade will drop out of high school.
Have we gotten that message? In the face of the recession, the Legislature
could have and should have found some new revenue for education simply by
closing some corporate tax loopholes. But instead the Legislature actually cut
funding for K-12 education by $1.8 billion. That translates to a drop of about
$850 per student per year. So don't be surprised if class sizes are larger this
year, your child can't find a counselor when she needs their advice, or if you
have to pay for “extra-curricular” activities. So we are doing OK. But we could
be doing a lot better. And in the future, we can't afford not to. John
Burbank
Ray McBain: Save
with Single Payer Health Coverage
What's so hard about reducing health care costs? If we assume that one
out of every four dollars spent on "health care" goes to insurance
companies, just bypass them. Single-payer can then, without other features,
save 25% overall on health care.
And the other features, like negotiating prices with drug companies,
doctors, hospitals and labs, can save even more. Ray
McBain
Liberals
and Democrats
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Health Care Reform
A vote on the
Senate Finance Committee’s bill will occur after dealing with over 500 proposed
amendments, perhaps sometime next week.
If all Republicans and some Democrats refuse to support the result,
health care reform will have to be passed by the Senate through a
reconciliation process which only requires 50 positive votes. Even if no Republicans vote for it, it
can be considered bipartisan if it includes Republican ideas, as Senator
Grassley agrees that it does. Massachusetts’
Governor may soon appoint a replacement for Senator Kennedy.
Our house is
waiting to reconcile its three committee bills until the Senate acts, but it is
clear that they
will then support a bill which includes a robust public option, and pays for
any cost remaining after elimination of some waste by increasing taxes on our
wealthiest people.
For weeks, our
commercial media pundits have commented that President Obama must present and
promote his own health care reform proposal, instead of continuing to allow our
Congress to lead the process. President
Obama presented his proposal to both house of Congress and has promoted it
before various audiences, including 5 talk shows on Sunday and on David
Letterman’s evening talk show. Now our
commercial media pundits are commenting that President Obama is getting too
much exposure, such that people will quit paying attention to him.
As in many
other states, Maine
Democrats and Independents differ from Republicans on many issues. It is interesting that those who worry about
unpaid for health reform didn’t worry about unpaid for tax cuts or Iraq War or
other Conservative programs.
2010 Appropriations Bills
Both our house and senate
are passing 2010 appropriations bills, which may all be completed by
September 30, unlike during the Bush presidency.
Extension of Unemployment Benefits
Unemployment
benefits will be extended for 13 weeks in states with high unemployment rates.
Regulating Financial Activities
Financial companies
are successfully lobbying against various regulations. North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan calls for four
actions to restore confidence in our financial system.
Helping our Poor
ACORN has a
long history of effectively helping our poor. For more. Bill aimed at denying
contracts to ACORN also denies contracts to various military contractors.
Stopping Torture
Ex-CIO directors argue
that CIO employees will be afraid to act unless they can break the law.
Nuclear Non-Proliferation
President Obama is
promoting nuclear non-proliferation.
Global Warming
Polluters are organizing
to stop greenhouse gas legislation and EPA regulation.
Priorities for Changing Our Political-Economic System
If I had the power to
implement 10 specific changes to our U.S. political-economic system, I would
implement the following. What different
ones would you implement? What would you
add and what subtract from mine?
Corporations Aren’t People
My first priority would be to
pass a constitutional amendment or law that clearly rejects the claim that
corporations should have the same rights as people. Corporations should be forced to incorporate
at local, state, national or international levels, depending upon their scope
of activities. Their incorporation
should include meeting a series of criteria concerning their purpose, duration,
governing board, transparency, and more.
They should be specifically barred from various types of freedom of
expression, association, and advocacy.
Money Isn’t Speech
We grant people freedom of
speech. But I don’t believe that some
people should have much more freedom of speech than others, as occurs when we
allow rich people to spend much more than poor people to disseminate their
thoughts. The amount of money that
individuals can spend to advocate political proposals should be limited.
Enable More Political Parties
As part of our
judicial system, I would create an Electoral Commission to regulate many
aspects of our elections, including particularly the implementation of
instant-runoff elections, which enable people to express their support for more
ideas, without assisting the election of people with strongly opposing ideas.
Equitable Taxation
I would make our tax system
fairer by requiring that high income people pay for to maintain and enhance our
physical and social infrastructure which is necessary to their income. For example, people might pay a 50% income
tax with a deduction equal to the medium income of people in similar
households. This would reduce taxes for
the great majority of people, while increasing them for our highest income
people and resulting in more revenue.
Eliminate Wasteful Spending
I would also eliminate
wasteful spending, including perhaps more than half of our military budget
which is spent on armaments to be used against opponents who don’t exist and
are unlikely to exist. This would
include eliminating a great majority of our military bases abroad and at
home. Wasteful spending would also be
eliminated in our agriculture and other budgets.
Regulating Financial Activities, Companies and Markets
In order to reduce
speculation, I would place limits upon the amount that could be borrowed to
purchase stocks and place a tax on stock transactions. I would also regulate financial companies to
ensure that they do not commit fraud and to not take risks, such that their
failure might negatively affect our economy.
No Financial Company would be allowed to become too big to fail.
Support Unionization
I would pass the Employee
Free Choice Act and other measures to enable workers to become union
members. These measures should include
strongly enforced penalties for companies that illegally oppose unionization.
Non-Carbon Based Energy
To limit global warming, I
would substitute non-carbon based energy for coal, oil and natural gas based
energy. This would also reduce our negative
foreign exchange payments and their inflationary effects. This would involve energy conservation and
caps on use of various carbon-based energies, as well as subsidies for the
development of non-carbon-based energies.
Health Care Reform
To save lives and reduce
costs, I would reform both health care and the way it is funded. It should be funded by our government. It should be provided by coordinated teams
led by primary care physicians and nurses, who are informed concerning best
practices, with reimbursement based upon prevention, treatment and hospice
outcomes.
Register all Guns
All gun-owners should be required
to register their guns to enable their identification when used in a
crime. To protect innocent bystanders,
restrictions should be placed upon who can own guns, the types of guns they can
own and where they can be carried or used.
Conservatives Argue for Costly Privatization
Conservatives
created Medicare Advantage plans, arguing that competition among private health
insurers would bring down Medicare costs, then had to add subsidies to motivate
private health insurers to participate, which then cost more than covering
health care by government paid Medicare.
Conservatives argue similarly concerning provision of
student loans. When congress by a vote of 253-171 just
eliminated all banks from receiving subsidies for offering student loans,
which cost $80 billion more over ten years than loans provided directly by our
government, Conservatives complained about expansion of our government. Conservatives would prefer that all of our
tax revenues be directed to private corporations so that only they would offer
services at higher costs than our government could offer them.
State
and Local
Featured Advocacy Group ----------
AFL-CIO ---------------------------------------
The mission of the AFL-CIO is to improve the lives of working
families—to bring economic justice to the workplace and social justice to our
nation. To accomplish this mission we will build and change the American labor movement.
We will build a broad movement of American
workers by organizing workers into unions. We will recruit and train the next generation of organizers, mass the
resources needed to organize and create the strategies to win organizing
campaigns and union contracts. We will create a broad understanding of the need
to organize among our members, our leadership and among unorganized workers. We
will lead the labor movement in these efforts.
We will build a strong political voice for
workers in our nation. We will fight for an
agenda for working families at all levels of government. We will empower state
federations. We will build a broad progressive coalition that speaks out for
social and economic justice. We will create a political force within the labor
movement that will empower workers and speak forcefully on the public issues
that affect our lives.
We will change our unions to provide a new
voice to workers in a changing economy. We
will speak for working people in the global economy, in the industries in which
we are employed, in the firms where we work, and on the job every day. We will
transform the role of the union from an organization that focuses on a member's
contract to one that gives workers a say in all the decisions that affect our
working lives—from capital investments, to the quality of our products and
services, to how we organize our work.
We will change our labor movement by
creating a new voice for workers in our communities. We will make the voices of working families heard
across our nation and in our neighborhoods. We will create vibrant community
labor councils that reach out to workers at the local level. We will strengthen
the ties of labor to our allies. We will speak out in effective and creative
ways on behalf of all working Americans.
Also see Bill Moyers
Friday interview concerning the history of our labor movement and its
change from one which sought improvements to the working conditions of all
workers and their families to one which focused upon negotiating with employers
to improve the working conditions of only union members.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the
Beef
Is the No on I-1033 campaign
not ready for prime time?
Nation
and World
New AFL-CIO President Richard
Trumka Calls for a Labor Movement that Represents All Workers
Trumka laid out the strategy last week in a speech to the
Center for American Progress: The federation would do more to reach out to
struggling younger workers, and would view its mission more in terms of
speaking up for working-class Americans as a whole than merely for its 11
million members. In his
acceptance speech, he repeated his pledge that the AFL-CIO would broaden
its vision beyond serving the private interests of its members, to serving the
public interests of all workers.
”Even though the face of the American labor movement has changed, one thing
hasn't: It's that the surest, the fastest, most effective way to lift workers
and our families into the middle-class is with the strength, that can only, only
come with a union contract. And, sisters
and brothers, that fundamental truth hasn't been more critical to the future of
this country than it is right now because, today, the American middle-class
isn't being squeezed--we are being crushed.
The mirage of prosperity through borrowed
money has dissolved--and now we're left with the reality of a hollowed-out
economy and a broken financial system. Even
though it wasn't the labor movement that got us into this mess, we are the
people who are going to lead America out of it.”
“What kind of
labor movement do we need? A younger labor movement. A greener labor movement.
A labor movement that can project its power - to defend workers anywhere in the
world. A labor movement that's organizing the unorganized. A labor movement
that's winning health care for every family - and, yes, a labor movement that
stands by its friends, punishes its enemies, and challenges those who can't
decide whose side they're on.“
Richard Trumka pledged himself to
implement bold resolutions passed by the AFL-CIO delegates this week that
support full inclusion and participation in the union movement by lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender workers and increasing inclusion of workers with
disabilities. And Trumka committed the
AFL-CIO to implementing resolutions passed this week for recruitment and
training of young workers in the union movement and to continue the struggle to
aid women and workers of color in the movement.
"We are going to insist on more
and more," Trumka said, referring to diversity, "We aren't going to
settle for anything less from now on."
This is historic from the president of the AFL-CIO. This is a new day,
one that realizes Randolph's dream that collective bargaining could give
everyone, including the "despised, the neglected, the downtrodden and the
poor" a path to the middle class. For
more.
What got
everyone's attention, though, was his threat to Democratic congressmen and
others who take labor's support for granted -- including those willing to
compromise away key elements of health-care reform for the sake of token
bipartisanship. "More than ever, we
need to be a labor movement that stands by our friends, punishes its enemies
and challenges those who, well, can't seem to decide which side they're
on," he said. "I'm talking about the politicians who always want us
to turn out our members to vote for them, but who somehow always seem to forget
workers after the votes are counted."
For
more.
In an interview with the Huffington
Post on Saturday, Richard Trumka, the secretary-treasurer and likely next
president of the AFL-CIO, said his federation is drawing a line in the sand
when it comes to a public option in the health care bill. “Lawmakers, who don't
support the provision”, he said, “shouldn't take anything for granted.” "We'll look at every one of their
votes," Trumka said after his speech at the Netroots Nation convention.
"If they're against the Employee Free Choice Act, if they're against
health care for that reason, I think it'll be tough for them to get support
from working people."
Trumka's remarks were echoed privately
by several other labor officials at the convention in Pittsburgh.
In particular, the emerging Senate
Finance Committee plan - which seems unlikely to contain a public option and
could end up taxing pricey health care packages - seems almost guaranteed to
incite the unions. "We'll oppose
it," Trumka said, when asked about any bill that ends the tax exemption
for employer coverage. "It's actually a stupid concept because if you tax
those that have it to pay for those that don't, eventually those that have
[benefits] won't. Then who do you ultimately tax?"
Trumka's warning shots come at a time
that the AFL-CIO is charting out a more aggressive campaign to target lawmakers
who, as one official put it, "take labor's help but don't vote for labor's
interests." Part of that process is to hold out the prospect of electoral
consequences.
Former DNC Chair, Howard Dean,
likewise predicted
that Democrats who vote against the public option would have to deal with a
primary challenge. Meanwhile, a group of
progressive members of the House of Representatives made
it clear on Monday that they will not support a health care bill that
doesn't include a government run option for insurance coverage.
The AFL-CIO also intends to campaign
against targets within the Republican Party and conservative media. In his
speech on Saturday, Trumka called out "the entire cast at Fox News,"
for perpetuating fear and mistruths about the President's health care agenda.
He also called Rush Limbaugh a "loudmouth," and decried the
fake-grassroots movements being orchestrated in opposition to Democratic
reform. "We are going to continue
to mobilize and counter the lies and the myths that they're trying to create to
defeat this," he told the Huffington Post. "The special interests,
the pharmaceutical industry, the health care industry are so vested in the
current system they'll so anything to keep it this way and we have a job to do
there.
"We're also going to keep politicians strong
so that they don't listen to the moneymen and continue to erode away or
negotiate away a program [so much that it] ultimately becomes useless. Right
now, without a public option [reform] becomes useless. It won't change the
current system."
Richard
Trumka also called for tough new regulations of our financial industry.
Reduce Medical Malpractice
By developing guidelines to reduce
errors, admitting and apologizing for errors, acting to control those who make
errors and using mediation to adjudicate lawsuits, lives
can be saved, injuries avoided and lawsuits reduced.
China Commits to Clean Environment --
China’s stimulus-recovery spending,
the world’s largest as a percentage of gross national product, is a major
influence to end our global recession.
Now China is pledging
to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases. It is supporting clean renewable energy,
phasing out coal-fired electricity generating plants, passing regulations to
conserve energy in buildings and appliances, promoting public transportation
and energy saving vehicles, reforesting and a variety of other actions.
China’s
commitment pushes the United States to make a similar commitment, both to limit
global warming and to create green jobs that might otherwise be created in
China. The result may be that rigorous
proposals may be approved at the December climate change summit in
Copenhagen.
Can We Implement a Winning
Afghanistan Strategy?
For
a history of American military actions in Afghanistan. In March, shortly after taking office,
President Obama committed 21,000
more troops to Afghanistan, including 4,000 to train Afghanistan soldiers. This increased the number of troops from
27,000 to 48,000. In June, American and
Afghanistan troops moved to secure various canal and river crossings, towns and
villages along the Helmand River and hold them while assisting the
civilian population to deny their support to the Taliban.
On August 10, 2009, Stanley McChrystal, the newly appointed U.S.
commander in Afghanistan, said that the Taliban has
presently gained the upper hand and that the ISAF is not winning in the
8 year-old war. In a continuation of the
Taliban's usual strategy of summer offensives, the militants have aggressively
spread their influence into the north and west Afghanistan, and stepped up their
attack in an attempt to disrupt August 20 presidential polls. Calling the Taliban a "very aggressive
enemy", he added that the U.S. strategy in the months to come is to stop
their momentum and focusing on protecting and safeguarding the Afghan civilians”.
McChrystal suggests that the strategy of
protecting people from the Taliban and acting to secure their loyalty should be
applied to the more densely populated areas near Kandahar instead of the less
populated Helmand Valley. Yet the people
of the Helmand Valley cannot now be left unprotected. So more troops are needed.
Winning the support of people is made more
difficult by the corruption of the Afghan government and its police force, and
by the fraud that occurred during the recent election. Vice President Biden and others have
suggested an alternative approach which focuses upon Al Qaeda instead of the
Taliban. This would require fewer troops
and assumes that even if the Taliban assume control of Afghanistan, they can be
kept from harboring Al Qaeda. President
Obama is waiting for the Afghan election to be resolved before choosing
a strategy and deciding appropriate troop requirements. For
more.
Our
Liberal Spirit
Now is the Time. We are the People.
A major factor in the
effectiveness of Liberals is their ability to identify priorities, even when
all seems to be happening routinely under the control of others. We are not faced with any elections. Many health care reform decisions have been
made and the remaining ones are going to occur first within the Senate Finance
Committee and then in merging the various house and senate bills within each
house and then the resulting house and senate bills.
Now that we have come so far,
public pressure is crucial for dealing with those Democrats and perhaps a few
Republicans whose votes are important for passing an effective health care
reform bill. We should be all signing
petitions and contacting wayward congress members to insist upon their
support. A substantial majority of
Americans support health care reform. We
must make it clear that there will be repercussions for congress members who
disregard our concerns.
Now Is the Time for Health Care Reform
Health care reform leads our
agenda. Until it is passed, other
priorities are largely on hold. Once it
passes, we can proceed to dealing with substituting non-carbon based energy for
coal and oil to the benefit of our environment and our foreign exchange. And to regulating our financial markets,
companies and their activities to prevent future bubbles and other abuses. And to strengthening labor unions and other
steps to change our mindset and activities from a borrow, consume and speculate political economy to an earn, conserve and invest political
economy.
So our present priority must
be to ensure that a health reform bill passes which will provide everyone with
access to quality health care, at a cost that we can afford. All three house committees and one senate
committee have passed bills. The Senate
Finance Committee is now detailing a bill which requires dealing with several
hundred amendments to Senator Baucus’ proposals.
Now Is the Time for Eliminating Abuses by Private
Insurers
Our priority should be to
pressure members of the Senate Finance Committee to produce a bill which
ensures that all our people are covered, at a cost with is affordable. This requires that private health insurers be
regulated to reduce their abuses and through regulation or competition are
forced to lower their costs. Unless an
alternative is found (and none is in sight), a public insurance option is
necessary to provide competition.
Without such competition, there is nothing to prevent the costs of
private insurance coverage to continue to increase faster than Medicare costs
and much faster than the costs of medical care and the inflation of our
economy.
Now Is the Time for Eliminating Waste by Health
Providers
Besides pressuring private
insurers to lower their costs or quit offering insurance, we need to address
the reduction of waste in the provision of heath care. This includes stimulating coordinated
preventive, treatment and hospice care by health care teams led by primary care
doctors. Various strategies for doing
this can be based upon an examination of health care providers, communities and
states in which high quality health care is provided at low cost compared to
other areas. These may include creating
coordinated health care teams, consisting of providers who are paid for their
results instead of their procedures, with their procedures based upon
examination of best practices by their peers.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Charles Derber, 1998, Corporation Nation, How Corporations Are Taking Over Our Lives and what
we Can Do about it
Charles
Derber, 2002, People Before Profit
Charles
Derber, 2004, Regime Change Begins at
Home, Freeing America From Corporate Rule
Charles Derber, 2005, Hidden Power, What You Need to Know to Save Our Democracy
In
these three books, Charles Derber shows how Corporations are pursuing their
private interests at the expense of our public interests. In 1998, 44,000 Corporations conducted
business in multiple countries, producing 33% of our world’s gross product, up
from 17% in the 1970s. The largest 200
received total revenue of $7.1 trillion, which is greater than the combined
revenue of 182 countries and of 80% of our world’s population.
Our
various industries are increasingly dominated by only a few large corporations,
whose activities are not limited by either competition or government
regulation. Instead of regulating these
corporations, the World Trade Organization (WTO), World Bank (WB) and
International Monetary Fund ((IMF) enable these corporations to violate
national laws. To substitute our public
interest before private corporate interests, it is not enough to charter
corporations or include more stakeholders in their governance. It is necessary to place the WTO, WB and IMF
under control of a democratic United Nations.
So that their mission will be to regulate corporations instead of
serving them.
In
his 2002 book, Charles Derber shows that during the global expansion of
corporations, most poor countries have not benefited. In fact, the only countries that have
benefited are those which limited the activities of large corporations. To assist the economic development of poorer
countries, it is necessary to control investments, production and sales of
large corporations within them. Since
they lack power, such control must be stimulated by reforms stemming from more
powerful countries.
In
his 2005 book, Charles Derber focuses upon corporate power within the United
States that depends upon support of Republicans and a significant proportion of
Democrats. This book ends with a series
of recommendations that citizens organize to change the mindset that justifies
corporate power at the expense of people power.
Note
that all three of these books were written before our housing and credit
bubbles collapsed. If corporate power
had been limited to preclude the housing fraud and corporate risk taking that
produced these bubbles, the bubbles and their collapse would not have occurred.
Although
the collapse assisted the election victories of Democratic congress members and
President Obama, corporate power was such that public funds were used to bail
our large financial companies and in some cases, forced their merger to create
even larger and more powerful financial companies. While reforms have been proposed, none have
so far been enacted. Some of our large
financial firms are engaging in many of the risky activities that created our
bubble and are lobbying hard to prevent reform.
To avoid future bubbles and other corporate abuse, we must pass regulations which create competitive financial markets without excess profits, eliminate financial firms that are too big to fail, and eliminate speculative activities that benefit corporations as the expense of workers. This may occur, once our health care system is reformed. In the meantime, we must not forget the damage that unregulated large financial companies have caused and may cause again un regulation occurs.