Someone just asked me for a comment on a Presidential candidate’s policies to reform the sub-prime mortgage market. Here are the items I suggested.
1. Return currency issuance to the US Treasury;
2. Require all government accounting and information and payments systems to be run by government systems and workers — no outside contracting with corporations and banks; do the same for systems now under the control of the Federal Reserve;
3. Require all government contract budgets and contracts with private banks and corporations be posted on the web;
4. Require that government budgets, including credit portfolios and originations, be published on a place based basis in addition to traditional functional methods;
5. Fire the NY Fed as depository for the US government;
6. Identify all missing money and assets from government accounts since fiscal 1995 and take steps to achieve restitution through common law right of offset, seizure and other means;
7. Reform investment laws to improve the ability of pension funds to refuse to do business with entities that they believe may be criminal or responsible for losses and to improve the ease with which investors can facilitate investment locally.