OUR NATION’S NURSES THINK SO--Friday night, I’ll admit I was not engaged in deep thinking. My channel surfing from baseball on ESPN abruptly ended when I tuned into PBS in the middle of Bill Moyer’s program, Moyer & Company. One of Bill’s guests was labor leader Rose Ann DeMoro, who heads the largest union for medical nurses in the U.S. Under, her leadership National Nurses United (http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/ ) is leading a charge to reclaim this nation (not as Republicans or Democrats or other parties) but as individuals who believe in shared sacrifice.
DeMoro’s group is embracing a world wide Robin Hood Tax program that seeks to tax stock market (read banking) investment transactions and turn the money over to hospitals, schools, retirement plans, housing and other bedrock programs that are not just a safety net but are core foundations of global societies.
In a recent blog, DeMoro says everyday citizens must reclaim the U.S. (as a start) by making Wall Street pay. A first step is not to occupy buildings but to demand a tax on Wall Street greed and speculation.
Called a Robin Hood tax by a growing global force (www.robinhoodtax.org), the tax DeMoro’s union is asking would be a small fee on buying and selling of stocks, bonds, credit default swaps, hedge funds, derivatives, the speculative activity that brought on foreclosures and ruin to so many and brought little in return.
I present this information in this blog to give DeMoro a fair hearing. Read what she proposes and judge for yourself.
All of us, who work for a living are taxed on our transactions. Why should Wall Street bankers not be taxed on their transactions? It’s called shared sacrifice.
This is not some radical new idea. This country, according to Bill Moyer, had a stock transaction tax from 1914 until 1966. Good question to ask is why was it stopped?
And, while at it, ask who in recent history has asked for the Wall Street transaction tax to be reinstated and who opposes it.
What I like about this movement is the fact that the nurses of America are so ardently supporting it. Nurses are at the core of healthcare in America. All they ask is to listen what they have to say. And, join them if you believe.
If Gandhi's chronology of 'first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win' is anything to go by, the world-wide Robin Hood Tax campaign is getting close to its goal.
Update: JP Morgan Chase just reported a $2 billion dollar income loss that they blame on lax oversight. Maybe they need some oversight because when a bank loses money--guess whose money they're losing? For what the New York Times has to say on the trading loss go to:
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