Managing the economy and getting people back to work is the first priority. It’s a delicate and complex balancing act to accomplish though, requiring many adjustments large and small. On a macro level, we (and those who determine economic policy decisions) could do a lot worse than study the insights and methods of John Maynard Keynes. Wall Street, particularly the banking and insurance industries need a great deal more transparency and regulation, not only to protect the citizenry and efficiently create the kind of economic growth that all of uscan share in, but to save them from themselves and the self-destructive corporate culture that puts short-term profit and personal greed at the expense of the company’s own long term health. The decline of the middle class and growing disparity between rich and poor needs to be reversed. Politicians have to become more accountable to the public so that corruption becomes much more difficult. that’s a tough one, because even if corporations can’t directly contribute to political campaigns it won’t make much difference; the big money comes from so called ‘independent action committees”, and limiting them would be in violation of the constitution’s free-speech amendment. Maybe what we need is a direct , rather than representative, democracy where candidates debate each other or present their views on live TV and are eliminated each week through a series of elections. Barring a fundamental change like that, all we can do is try to fix things little by little. Knowing what would be good for society (health insurance for all, full employment, better educational systems, control of pollution, weaning ourselves away from hydrocarbon energy dependance, lower and more equitable taxation, etc.) is a whole lot easier than figuring out how to accomplish it or getting people and politicians to agree and actually do something. We have to cut the federal deficits and concomitant borrowing that will ultimately lead to either debt or inflation driven economic melt-down (a la Ireland, Iceland, Greece and possibly Italy, Spain, etc.). But we need to do it in moderate, considered steps and do it in such a way that it doesn’t destroy the very things we prize and need as a society to thrive.

By the way, here’s one quick fix that would eliminate a great deal of political ‘corruption’: Make it illegal for anyone in government (city, state or federal, elected or appointed) to take a job in the lobbying industry after they leave a civil servant position. This law would also apply to all staff members (from the chief of staff on down) in any government office.