Matt Taibbi Lists The 5 Things The Occupy Wall Street Protesters Should Demand

Business Insider

12 October, 2011

The man who called Goldman Sachs a "great vampire squid" has some advice for Occupy Wall Street.

Not that he doesn't think they're doing things well. In fact, he thinks the logic behind the protester's lack of demands is ingenious.

But if they were to figure out their specific demands. Here's where he, per his article in Rolling Stone today, thinks they should start:

1. Break up the monopolies. He's talking about the 20 or so "too big to fail" companies in our country that could single-handedly take down our economy.

2. Pay for your own bailouts. "A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about..."

3. No public money for private lobbying. Pretty self-explanatory.

4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers. Right now, because of the carried-interest tax break, they're only paying about 15%.

5. Change the way bankers get paid. Bonuses shouldn't be paid up-front. They should be contingent upon performance. 

Actually, the groups coalescing around the Occupy Wall Street movement have started to mention demands, though they aren't official. Here's a video of the pep talk they had before yesterdays Millionaires March. They specifically mention keeping the New York State Millionaires tax alive and well:

Occupy Wall Street visits Upper East Side homes of billionaires