Showing posts with label harms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label harms. Show all posts

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Financial Policy Recommendations

Choose monetary policies that maximize overall ethical benefits.

Prohibit the issuance of state and federal waivers for health, labor, safety, and financial regulations, except when those waivers have been approved by majorities of relevant legislatures or voters.

Require all lenders to obtain, directly from the IRS, the prior three years tax transcripts for loan applicants on loans exceeding $24,000. Require transcript communication by non-forgeable methods. Repeal laws that prohibit lenders from obtaining those transcripts.

Require regulators to take a daily oath to regulate according to the law. Fire and replace regulators who refuse to regulate according to law. End all FBI, regulator, and other law enforcement partnerships with lobbyists, financiers, and corporations.

Make executives and proprietors criminally liable for repeated wage theft.

Require mandatory credit counseling before individuals declare bankruptcy. Require individuals with larger incomes and larger assets to repay more of what they owe when filing for bankruptcy.

Per Peter Swire and as Daniel Prieto notes: institute "a $50 cap and automatic dispute resolution for identity theft losses, similar to the basic anti-fraud provisions for credit cards."

Centralize federal financial regulators and regulations in one agency under control of an elected attorney general, with oversight by the House to prevent corruption driven hiring and firing. At least triple the number of financial regulators and investigators.

Limit financial institutions to thirteen-to-one leverage ratios in bad times and eight-to-one ratios in good times.

Require regulations applying to one financial instrument to apply to all similar instruments, regardless whether labels differ. Create new transparency rules.

Turn government-supported financial enterprises into nonprofit government agencies, then slowly break them up and sell them or kill them.

Charge banking entities having more than $960 million in deposits or 0.19 percent of national deposits an additional $22 of deposit insurance per year, per each $1000 in balances, counting all entities with their parent entities.

Strengthen SEC disclosure rules and enforcement.

Implement some of the prescriptions here.

Permit bankruptcy courts to alter home mortgage terms. Prohibit mortgage lenders from repackaging loans. Eliminate FHA housing insurance.

Require publicly traded entities having assets greater than $11 million or gross receipts greater than $15 million per year to make their tax returns public.

Require high school and vocational school students to receive at least 20 hours of morally risk-neutral personal finance education and require high schools to provide such.

Ban new for-profit home mortgage loans exceeding 8.5 times the local median annual household income. Ban new for-profit non-business motor vehicle loans exceeding $41,000. Prohibit new for-profit non-mortgage and non-business loans exceeding $11,000 to individuals under age 29.

Prohibit financial bailouts of corporations not getting equivalent or greater market rate equity in return. Unwind bankrupt financial entities with no compensation given to equity owners. Unwind too big to fail businesses. Prevent investment banks from having limited liability protections. Prohibit the federal government from suing states and local governments to protect predatory financial entities.

Prohibit U.S. banks from doing business with shell banks or businesses involved in money laundering. Enact sanctions on nations cavalier about banks doing business with shell banks or businesses heavily into money laundering.

Support international efforts to reduce money-laundering, tax evasion, and rogue banking. (Rich criminals say it would violate their right to privacy. Too bad. Their right to criminal privacy is outweighed by the rights of others to protection from crime and by the benefit created by preventing parasites from profiting. Almost no one complains that the government has access to the financial records of ordinary wage earners, individuals who cannot afford battalions of lawyers to defend themselves. Yet financial criminals expect that they should get special privileges to do harm.)

Repeal the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Commodity Futures Modernization Act, and legal elements of the National Home Ownership Strategy. Prohibit entities that participate in offshore futures trading from importing into the U.S.

Require states, Washington DC, and territories having populations greater than 40,000 to appoint mortgage regulators.

Ban government contracting with inverted corporations, including when it conflicts with trade agreements. Ban federal contracts with entities that require employees to sign contracts requiring legal conflicts be resolved through arbitration.

Adopt the EU credit card and debit card caps on interchange fees.

Require credit card entities to give customers at least 23 days to make a payment before adding late fees. Ban credit cards offering more than $28,000 in credit.

Prohibit credit issuing entities from charging interest exceeding the inflation rate plus five percentage points. 

Pass H.R. 3221, banning federal contracting with companies engaging in fraudulent practices.

Increase funding for and the number of investigators at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network by at least 60 percent.

Pass most of these anti-money laundering proposals.

Ban naked short selling. 

Ban securitization, also known as pooling and selling loans, except in specific cases ordered by bankruptcy judges or Congressional majorities.

Require banking entities to publicly list all assets and liabilities.

Pass a law permitting the treasury secretary to implement efficient, thorough capital controls to slash the trade deficit when the harms from trade deficits become excessive.

Pressure giant banks to break up per Dean Baker: "banks would be given sliding targets, say an asset cap of $1 trillion in three years, $600 billion in five years, and $200 billion in ten years. They would face large and growing fines on the amount of assets they held in excess of these caps... after three years they could face a penalty of 1 cent for every dollar in assets they held in excess of $1 trillion. This means that if JP Morgan still has a level of assets near its $1.6 trillion current level after the first deadline it would pay $6 billion a year in penalties. The penalty could rise to 1.5 cents on the dollars for assets over $1 trillion at the point where the $600 billion ceiling took effect. In that case, they would be paying a penalty of 1.5 cents on their assets above $1 trillion and 1 cent on their assets between $600 billion and $1 trillion."

Require annual remuneration above nine times median annual family income at any publicly traded corporation to be severely restricted stock, with only five percent transferable per year.

Ban FDIC, SIPC, and NCUA insurances for foreign entities and foreign owned US entities.

William Greider: "Restore the boundaries between commercial banking and investment banking... [a]ssign the Federal Reserve's regulatory role to a new public agency that is visible and politically accountable." Prohibit all proprietary trading by all commercial banks and credit unions.

Robert Reich: "Credit-rating agencies should no longer be paid by the companies whose issues are being rated; they should be paid by those who use their ratings... investors like pension funds and mutual funds should not be getting investment advice from the same banks that profit off their investments; the advice should come from sources without a financial stake... investment banks [must] return to being partnerships and the capital on their books be their own, not yours or your pension fund's."

Prohibit individuals convicted of financial crimes from working in  financial industries again. Prohibit executives from bailed out financial businesses from working in financial industries again.

Regulate derivatives at least as strongly as stocks. Prohibit government insured entities from buying and selling derivatives. Ban capital relief trades using derivatives. Prohibit government entities from bailing out derivative trading and holding entities.

Prohibit for-profit loan originators from providing insurance for such loans.

Ban loan making entities from giving loans to their managers and or employees earning more than the median household income per year.

Ban entities receiving government loans, bailouts, and or tax entitlements from giving bonuses.

Ban the creation and sale of new credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and other mortgage-backed securities. Prohibit entities with more than $400 million in assets or deposits from owning existing mortgage-backed securities.

Ban dark pools.

Prohibit entities failing to pay Finra ordered arbitration awards from financial industry activities, including through relatives and other intermediaries, except savings accounts.

Create a new Pecora Commission to investigate and prosecute high-cost financial crimes. Ban leveraged buyouts. Strictly regulate futures contracts in industries where cartels, monopolies, or oligopolies exist.

Pass the Ending Too Big to Jail Act and Corporate Executive Accountability Act.

Pass the Nondebtor Release Prohibition Act of 2021.

Prohibit banks and government entities from lending to other entities for those other entities' purposes of investing in bonds, futures, equities, and or derivatives.

Treat corporate board members as corporate employees for regulatory purposes.

Willem Buiter: "Regulate all systemically important highly leveraged financial enterprises, whatever they call themselves: commercial bank, investment bank, universal bank, hedge fund, SIV, CDO, private equity fund or bicycle repair shop... all systemically important financial infrastructure or plumbing: payment, clearing, settlement systems, mechanisms and platforms, and the associated provision of custodial services... on a cross-border basis. Anything that is not explicitly allowed is forbidden. To get a new instrument or new institution approved, there will have to be testing, scrutiny by regulators... and other... parties, and pilot projects... once a new instrument or institution has been approved, it is only available ‘with a prescription'. For instance, only professional counter-parties rather than the general public could be permitted."

Prohibit credit and debit card providers, along with payment services, from collecting personal information beyond defaults, incomes, addresses, bankruptcies, phone numbers, credit scores, contact emails, late payments, missed payments, and criminal convictions.

Prohibit the issuance of any home mortgage having monthly payments larger than 28 percent of a buyer's mean monthly gross income.

Permit the elected Central Bank chairperson to make Central Bank appointments and firings with Central Bank inspector general approval. Require the Central Bank to have an independent inspector general. Prohibit current and or former financial industry executives from having regulatory and or supervisory positions at the central bank. Require the Central Bank to reveal information about all loans it makes. Provide for the impeachment of the Central Bank chairperson by 65 percent Congressional vote.

Let bankruptcy judges decide which parties should be paid and how much when distributing bankruptcy assets.

Prohibit government insured entities from paying any individual more than six times the median annual household income in all forms of annual remuneration.

Prohibit government entities from making secret grants, loans, gifts, and remuneration, except for well-reasoned intelligence agency and Department of Defense activities. Require reporting of spending on such activities to relevant inspectors general and other relevant oversight entities.

Prohibit federally insured financial entities from making or selling any financial instruments other than loans and their own stocks.

Ban anyone from being an executive and or board member at more than one government insured business at the same time.

Require deferral of at least 60 percent of  top executives' remuneration for at least 9 years, paying relevant corporate criminal fines and or health, labor, safety, financial or environmental civil judgments from the deferred pay when such wrongful activities occurred during the executives' tenures in charge, except when the executives exhibited swiftness in stopping ongoing wrongful activities during their first 60 days in charge.

Prohibit government loans lasting longer than 60 days to financial entities.

Eliminate waivers for fraud and abuse.

Prohibit financial industry loans for weddings, vacations, honeymoons, pleasure boats, and racing motor vehicles.

Improve the Sherman Act, including eliminating the maximum penalty rule.

Prohibit judges from applying less stringent foreign financial laws.

Cancel tax treaties with countries that do not provide tax query information. Prohibit US banks from doing business with entities in countries that aid tax evasion by US citizens.

Eliminate the Enron loophole and other rules exempting trading from regulations.

Require credit scores in free credit reports.

Repeal the misnamed JOBS Act.

Ban mergers and acquisitions at any business receiving bailouts or tax entitlements. Ban government bailouts of any business exceeding the trading value of the business without government taking 100 percent ownership, then reselling later or running as government-owned, privately run. Ban any entity receiving government bailouts or tax entitlements from paying any employee more than five times the median annual household income per year in all forms of annual remuneration, except physicians in non-executive positions. 

Pass the Specter Amendment altering the Exchange Act, allowing anti-fraud actions against enablers of fraud.

Require creditors to resell foreclosed houses within 60 days of foreclosures to individuals using the homes as their primary residences. Fine creditors $240 per day each day after 60 the homes remain unsold.

Ban trusts and pension instruments from investing in foreign debts. Ban US government entities from insuring and or bailing out foreign businesses, multinational businesses, and foreign government debts.

Ban any bailouts or government insurances for corporations currently or previously holding or trading crypto fake currencies. Ban any bailouts or government insurances for financial entities currently or previously providing or withholding financial services from citizens based on the political beliefs of such citizens, reducing the likelihood of corruption resulting from politicians and businesses tacitly trading government money for political partisanship.

Ban any individual and or business having majority ownership of a business filing for bankruptcy from having majority ownership of any other business forever.

Ban any chief decision maker of a business filing for bankruptcy from being chief decision maker for any other business forever.

Ban any individual applying for personal bankruptcy from being chief decision maker for any business forever.

Ban any individual applying for personal bankruptcy from being majority owner of any business forever.

Eliminate Federal agency policy statements that contradict antitrust laws.

Prohibit donations to charities affiliated with current or former Federal elected officials or political appointees and or military officers above O-4 by corporations, foreign entities, and multinational entities.

Make lifetime hard labor the recommended sentence for control fraud exceeding $240,000. Fine those convicted of identity theft tax fraud $200,000 plus any fraudulently obtained funds.

Ban all forms of credit risk insurance for corporations.

Ban endowments and pension funds from investing in private-equity. Ban pension funds from investing in foreign and multinational entities. Ban individuals handling pension investments from earning more than twice the median annual household income per year. Ban government entities from pre-funding government worker pensions. Ban labor unions from having investments, except credit union savings and checking accounts, plus real estate they perform union work from. Require labor union donations to political entities be approved buy a majority of union members.

Make recusals for financial and or relationship conflicts of interest mandatory for judges and investigators, enforced by an independent Federal entity.

Require executives of foreign companies traded in the United States to follow domestic disclosure rules.

Prohibit executives and board members from selling their stocks in their corporations until at least 1,500 days after leaving their corporations.

Require most banks and credit unions to provide FedNow services to their financial law abiding US citizen customers having sufficient funds in their accounts and accurate identification.

Increase the Department of Justice's antitrust division enforcement employment by at least 960 individuals, along with an adequate budget. Increase the FTC budget and employment by at least 350 percent.

Enact most of these banking reforms.

Prohibit anyone ever employed in the software, advertising, financial, lobbying or multi-level marketing industries from serving as legally binding arbitrators.

Per Matt Stoller, revoke some executive orders concerning the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Savvy Emailer: "Make it illegal for financial institutions to transact off balance sheet."

Prohibit former government employed lawyers from working for firms representing financial crime defendants.

Require all financial entities operating in the United States to follow regulations at least as strict as US regulations everywhere in the world they undertake financial transactions, including non-parent businesses. Require such entities to permit US regulators to access and evaluate their trading information.

Require corporations to incorporate with the federal government. Nullify state incorporations.

Require parent entities to have civil and criminal liability for crimes and harms committed by shell companies.

Prohibit anything from taking out a life insurance policy on an individual without that individual's knowledge. Prohibit corporations from taking out life insurance policies on individuals unless those individuals' first degree relatives are the main beneficiaries.

Hand Central Bank and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency regulatory duties to the FDIC and other government entities. Increase regulatory funding and regulator employment. Eliminate the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Place a $440,000 cap on executive lawsuits against companies.

Prohibit current or former executives at for-profit banks and or private equity firms from being employed by the Central Bank. Prohibit former Central Bank employees from working for for-profit banks and or private equity firms.

Require selection of board members for publicly traded companies by shareholders in proportion to shares held, excluding shareholders with shares below a federally mandated level. Ban the top two executives from voting. Require a re-election of top executives at publicly traded companies by board members any time a majority of board members request such.

Ban anyone having a remuneration receiving position with a for-profit financial company from concurrently working for any government regulating entity.

Ban judges and federal elected officials, along with their spouses and first degree relatives, from owning income earning financial instruments, except checking accounts and savings accounts and their residential real estate.

Amend laws to not include maximum punishments for financial crimes causing greater than $200,000 in harms.

Pass HR 5912, prohibiting the industrial loan company loophole.

Ban payment for order flow.

Pass the Securities and Exchange Commission Real Estate Leasing Authority Revocation Act.

Ban rent-to-own and similar schemes.

Prohibit any board director at any publicly traded corporation that filed for bankruptcy during their tenure from serving on any board at any publicly traded corporation again.

Require foreign and multinational entities operating in the United States to obey US financial regulations everywhere they operate, including laws not currently enforced.

Enact these antitrust reforms.

Permit states to establish public banks or credit unions roughly modeled on the Bank of North Dakota, to maximize beneficence to citizens.

Ban capital appreciation bonds.

Bill Black: hire 1,000 more FBI white collar crime agents. Have them focus on major financial crimes, not nickel and dime crimes.

Require punishments for white collar repeat convictions to be greater than previous punishments for similar crimes.

Ban any government entity from obtaining and paying any financial instrument with interest rates greater than four nominal points above the inflation rate.

Ban government sponsored and or appointed entities from giving secret loans, grants, bailouts, and redistributions, except for Department of Defense research and development, along with other military activities during US declared wars.

Require appointment of Central Bank inspectors general by Congress. Require appointment of bank examiners by the head of the Central Bank, making bank examiners federal employees.

Implement some of Overcoming Short-termism.

Require mergers and or acquisitions to honor the debts and pension obligations of both entities. Require Antitrust Division and House majority approvals for national or regional mergers and or acquisitions creating Herfindahl Indexes greater than 0.19 and or increases in Herfindahl Indexes by greater than 0.01. 

Require the largest competitor having a book value greater than $40 million in a national or regional market having a Herfindahl Index greater than 0.19 to break up unless receiving permission from the Antitrust Division and a House majority to operate at a Herfindahl index above 0.19. Continue breaking up the next largest competitors until the Herfindahl Index drops below 0.19. Require competitors permitted to operate at an index greater than 0.19 to meet some well-reasoned requirements of public utilities.

Ban any entity seeking bankruptcy protection from giving renumeration to any individual employee and or contractor, except physicians, exceeding $160 thousand per annum from the time of filing.

Ban private entities from making appointments to government oversight and law enforcement entities.

Eliminate the carried interest loophole.

Ban any contract requiring individuals to waive fiduciary and or other ethical duties.

Repeal the misnamed Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act.

Pass the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act and the 21st Century Antitrust Act.

Ban all loan making corporations and government entities from giving weight to religious and or ethnoracial considerations in making loans.

Pass the Accountable Capitalism Act.

Prohibit dividends to managers during the first four years following a buyout.

Prohibit government contracts with foreign and or multinational entities having convictions anywhere exceeding five days incarceration and or $25,000 in fines.

Ban anyone, who received remuneration greater than twice the median annual household income in any year from sports, defense, finance, media, telecom, gaming, insurance, tobacco, lobbying, auditing, pharmaceutical, fossil fuel or real estate businesses, from government jobs paying more per year than the median annual household income, except in medical fields.

Implement most of these auditing reforms.

Ban for profit pharmacy benefit managers.

Ban investment advisers from advising entities to invest in private equity. Require all entities with private equity like structures to be regulated at least as strictly as investment banks.

Amend laws prohibiting government co-owners of businesses from having voting power to give government voting power in proportion to ownership percentages.

Ban current and former financial industry executives from financial regulatory positions. Prohibit legal credentials holding employees of the Federal Trade Commission and the DOJ Antitrust Division from owning income earning financial instruments, except checking accounts and savings accounts and their residential real estate.

Ban any individual who accepted more than $2,000 for any speaking engagement from elected public offices and political appointments.

Prohibit any for-profit entity owned by other entities from receiving loans from those owning entities.

Require Congressional majority approval of Central Bank emergency lending exceeding 1.5 billion dollars.

Ban the ownership of older than four-year-old single and twin unit housing by for profit corporations, except FDIC insured banks.

Prohibit government entities from contracting with entities owned by private equity firms.

Pass the IRS Whistleblower Program Improvement Act of 2021.

Ban ownership of older than 20-year-old multi-unit housing by out of state corporations.

Grant the Commodity Futures Trading Commission request for a 13 percent increase in funding. Strike Footnote 563 from the July 26th, 2013 CFTC guidance and policy statement.

Enact some policies here.

Ban new non-recourse loans that exceed $2.5 million to individuals and to businesses having any executive receiving more than $2.6 million per year in all remuneration. Ban businesses owing money on loans greater than $4.2 million from increasing executive remuneration at rates greater than the inflation rate.

Ban regulators and other law enforcement entities from offering plea bargain fines and other settlements for less than 150 percent of financial harms caused.

Repeal the Community Reinvestment Act.

Prohibit non-individual pension funds from investing in financial instruments other than domestic index funds, US Federal bonds, and domestic savings accounts.

Pass the Credit Card Competition Act of 2022.

Prohibit the hiring of regulators, who previously received remuneration from entities subject to regulation by the would-be regulators, except for teaching how to catch crooked tricks roles.

Prohibit current and former regulators from receiving remuneration from entities regulated by the current and former regulators' government agencies.

Prohibit any entity having more than 1.5 percent foreign ownership from receiving US tax entitlements. Prohibit any entity having more than 1.5 percent foreign ownership from receiving bailouts from US government entities.

Prohibit current and former pension fund managers from receiving gifts or remuneration from financial entities other than their managed pension funds, plus their savings and checking accounts, the same for union managers.

Repeal the misnamed Pension Protection Act and Section 209 of the National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996.

Prohibit states from having weaker financial regulations than federal financial regulations. Permit states to have stricter financial regulations than federal financial regulations.

Require government law enforcement entities to hire, employ, and pay public corporation auditors, perform the audits, then require the corporations audited to reimburse government entities for auditing costs.

Prohibit 401(k) accounts from investing, except in index funds, savings accounts, and the highest grade bonds.

Amend laws specifying maximum fines for financial crimes to have no maximum.

Create claw back laws and rules for every industry having executives capable of financial crimes.

Implement Francine McKenna's auditing reforms.

Require all foreign and multinational corporations selling financial instruments in the United States to comply with US auditing rules.

Ban stock options for executives paid more than four times the median household income.

Prohibit financial regulators fired for failing to regulate according to laws from future government employment and from receiving gifts and or any form of remuneration from financial industry entities.

Prohibit current and former financial regulators from receiving gifts and or any form of remuneration from financial industry entities.

Repeal Rule 10b-18. Prohibit open-market stock buybacks.

Prohibit special purpose acquisition companies.

Require at least 10.5 percent down payments on home, auto, and or business loans exceeding $24,000.

Ban central bank employees earning more than the median annual household income per year from owning income earning financial instruments other than checking accounts, savings accounts, and their residential real estate.

Prohibit any partner, sole owner, majority owner or top executive of any business that filed for bankruptcy from being a partner, sole owner or top executive of a corporation.

Prohibit any non-federal product from being labeled as currency.

Ban anonymously owned businesses from financial transactions with US entities.

Prohibit businesses from making loans to employees and contractors, including Form 1099 recipients.

Ban private equity entities from buying existing businesses, nonprofits, and residential properties.

Pass the ENABLERS Act, requiring broader reporting of international money laundering. Pass S.3316, a bill to help anti-money laundering whistleblowers. Expand whistleblowing protections and awards to cover all government entities involved in financial regulations.

Require financial criminal laws to require a preponderance of evidence of intent rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, including intent to be negligent.

Promote interagency sharing of probable financial crime information.

Enact more anti-money laundering policies.

Increase the cap on the Commodities Futures Trading Commission's whistleblower fund.

Prohibit any producer or wholesaler from giving rebates to retailers and retail purchasing employees.

Require stress tests to check for low probability, high harm outcomes.

Freeze assets of nations or their citizens when those nations refuse to extradite individuals likely guilty of US financial crimes exceeding $600,000 in harms.

Prohibit the transfer of assets from US entities to tax haven entities, including through middlemen.

Prohibit entities registered in tax havens from conducting business activities with US entities.

Pass the State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act.

Ban the central bank from buying stocks and bonds, except from manufacturing companies having all employees working in the United States.

Pass a federal law against perpetuities.

Seize up to four times the financial harms done available assets from non-arrestable, non-extraditable individuals having US financial crime arrest warrants or unpaid US civil judgments or unpaid US civil settlements.

Ban the FDIC and NCUA from insuring anything other than customer savings and checking accounts of US dollars.

Increase the maximum FDIC insurance for banking to 900 million dollars at a new basic services US Postal Bank and or new basic services Central Bank, adhering to the economic and regulatory prescriptions on this blog at a minimum. Prohibit bailing out depositors' deposits above $250,000, failing to take advantage of these new banks or methods of dispersing deposits.

Create strict mandatory minimum punishments for risk reckless bank owners and employees. Prohibit entities that engage in lobbying from participation in government insurance programs.

Pass the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act.

Amend the Uniform Securities Act to remove civil liability exemptions for relevant accessory actors.

Prohibit states and local governments from borrowing money using financial instruments having interest rates above the inflation rate. Prohibit states and local governments from paying any financial instrument fees, except outstanding balances and inflation rate interest.

Ban limited liability protections for lobbying and private equity firms.

Ban limited liability protections for non-manufacturing corporations having market caps greater than 22 billion dollars, defining manufacturing to include non-fossil fuel energy companies but exclude companies having more than four percent of their sales and or profits from media and or software.

Do not require evidence of motives and or cooperation for antitrust and other financial crime convictions.

Prohibit banks and credit unions from seizing funds in accounts they declare dormant.

Ban individuals having net worths under two times the median annual household income from buying stocks and bonds, except index funds.

Ban the sale and transfer of unregulated securities.

Pass the Safe Access to Cash Act of 2022.

Pass the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2021 and the Investor Choice Act of 2021.

Give state and local governments $6.50 per citizen, per year exclusively for state and local government initiated antitrust and other anti-financial crime legal actions against corporations having book values greater than $20 million. Legalize antitrust lawsuits by local governments.

Repeal laws and parts of laws aiding kickbacks, monopolies, oligopolies, and or parasitic middlemen.

Experiment with Iowa's title guarantee program nationwide, banning commercial title insurance.

Ban so-called opportunity zones.

Charles Calamaris and Henry Kaufman: prohibit "hold-till-maturity book value accounting for securities." Prohibit central banks from valuing collateral at inflated values. Use SRISK measures in regulations.

Require banks and credit unions having greater than $90 million in assets and or liabilities to issue public, bimonthly reports listing assets and liabilities.

Pass the Failed Bank Executives Clawback Act.

On this website, entity shall be defined as any person or group or organization.

Mark Flannery and Enrico Perotti: require banks to have market triggered contingent convertible bond buffers "at high threshold values to maintain risk incentives even when leverage increases, thus helping to overcome the risk of regulatory delay."

JT Fournier, last updated December 26, 2023

Various Policy Recommendations

Send 99 percent of lawsuit punitive damages above $400,000 and 97 percent of pain and suffering damages above $580,000 to the Treasury Department.

Prohibit per individual wrongful death settlements and judgments exceeding 140 times the median US household income. Prohibit per injured individual injury settlements and judgments exceeding 120 times median US household income.

Remove prisoner on prisoner rape and assault victims, plus those at risk of rape, assault or murder, from the general prison population at jails and prisons. Separate prisoners by race and ideology whenever the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs. Implement some recommendations of the National Prison Rape Commission.

Decriminalize private consensual sexual activities involving one or more minors when the individuals involved are separated by three years or less in age, except when any involved individual is deliberately killed or deliberately injured, having injuries requiring hospitalization.

Ban the sale, pet possession, and captive breeding of venomous animals, constrictor snakes, and members of the Felidae family weighing over 40 pounds, except by licensed zoos, zoologists, herpetologists, and relevant government officials.

Remove speed bumps from public roads. Limit driver speeds on residential roads by enforcing speed limits.

Permit contractors to repossess materials, with law enforcement escort, when customers fail to pay.

Create a federally funded and operated chain of sperm banks, available for a $15 user fee, to fertile women citizens having clean urine, no felony convictions, no history of admissions to psychiatric hospitals, and no known serious hereditary illnesses. Donor requirements: male, fertile, IQ at least 125, clean urinalysis (including cotinine), no history of drug abuse, no criminal convictions, ages 15 through 28, no STDs, no history of using Tinder, no disabling hereditary illnesses, no history of psychiatric drug use or admission to psychiatric hospitals, no first degree biological relatives with felony convictions or psychiatric drug treatment, no work history in the following fields: finance, athletics, lobbying, advertising, television, humanities, telemarketing, social media, social sciences or multi-level marketing. Pay sperm donors sufficiently to ensure enough qualified donors donate. Spend at least $250 million per year advertising the sperm banks, using harried parent actors with insolent, destructive child actors as examples of what happens with dysgenics. Create a federal sperm bank of sperm from whistleblowers and corruption fighters.

Ban visa waivers.

Adjust recommendations on this blog for inflation.

Ban the sale of lawsuit settlements to third parties.

Ban gambling nationwide. Prohibit financial transfers to gambling operations outside the US. Prohibit US citizens outside the US from gambling.

Require international money transfer businesses to have a federal license, using license fees to investigate criminal activities by them.

Require corporations selling fresh meat, fruits, and vegetables to have those foods irradiated.

Enact universal federal background checks for firearm sales and gifts. Prohibit more than one firearm purchase or gift receipt of firearms per year by citizens, except by licensed retailers, wholesalers, government entities, and multi-employee guard businesses. Prohibit the purchase of or gift receipt of more than one firearm clip or magazine per year by citizens, except by those listed in the previous sentence. Prohibit the purchase of firearms by attempted buyers knowing of individuals in their households having prior felony convictions or mental health hospitalizations or non-anxiety mental health prescriptions or greater than seven days lifetime incarceration for misdemeanor convictions. Encourage government entities to pass red flag laws, permitting friends, family, and law enforcement entities to file court petitions taking firearms from individuals threatening themselves or others.

Prohibit the possession of automatic, semi-automatic, and lever action firearms by individuals under age 45 outside of their domiciles, their properties, their travels homeward from legal purchases, their travels to their new homes, their appointment scheduled travels to and from gun repair shops, except by employed tellers, cashiers, security guards, law enforcement, railroad workers, merchant mariners, commercial fisherpersons, commercial property leasees, commercial property owners, on duty military personnel, individuals employed as drivers, employees of licensed firearm manufacturers, employees of licensed ammunition manufacturers, licensed harmful species hunters, and individuals acting to prevent or stop likely violent felonies in progress. Prohibit the purchase and gift receipt of semi-automatic and lever action firearms by individuals under age 22. Prohibit vehicle travel with loaded magazines attached to firearms, except by law enforcement, security guards, on duty military personnel, and individuals acting to stop or prevent a likely violent felony in progress. Prohibit the construction and possession of unlicensed, privately made semi-automatic, pump action, and lever action firearms, also known as ghost guns. Prohibit individuals born outside the US from selling, buying, and or possessing ammo and firearms.

Ban the sale, gift, and importation of firearm magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, except by the military and military contractors acting on behalf of military use. Create a 60-day waiting period for the gift or purchase of firearms. Ban the sale and possession of bump stocks. Prohibit the discharge of firearms by individuals under age 17, except to stop likely violent felonies in progress. 

Prohibit the open carry of firearms, except at least one of:
  1. licensed gun business properties, personal properties, personal domiciles, licensed shooting ranges or gun repair businesses or
  2. the approved activity individuals from two paragraphs above or
  3. licensed hunters on or within 30 feet of permitted hunting lands or
  4. household properties with permission of property owners
Repeal the misnamed Fair Pay Act.

Ban recurring billing without physical opt in signatures or keyboard strokes for each item, each time billed.

Require that at least two passing Phase I medical studies be conducted in the US before granting FDA approval to non-pathogenic medical treatments. Require that at least 60 percent of relevant Phase II and phase III medical studies be conducted in the US and NATO nations before granting FDA approval to non-pathogenic medical treatments.

Create more prison employment for prisoners.

Make
$1,100 per month, per child the maximum child support award. Prohibit child support payments to proven adulterous divorce filing spouses, placing such child support in trusts slowly given to relevant children upon reaching age 18, at a rate of no more than $1,100 per month. 

Ban palimony. Ban alimony, except to a) partners who paid for the educations and or medical care of partners filing for divorce and or b) non-divorce filing partners awarded custody of both partner biological children.

Require intended use proven effectiveness for product types sold by corporations having more than four hundred million dollars in annual sales  before being offered for sale.

Make it a felony for government employees to warn entities facing government inspections about the specific dates or times of upcoming health, safety, inventory, financial or environmental inspections, with at least a six year mandatory minimum sentence upon conviction.

Ban government employee pay based solely on seniority.

Use Social Security cards and numbers for only Social Security. Create new national identification cards and numbers. Require names and national identification numbers of both parents to be recorded on US birth certificates when parents are American citizens.

Per Brenna Davis, increase prison pet therapy and "group therapy for substance abuse." Offer pet therapy for individuals in solitary confinement, except those having a high risk to kill or torture pets.

Increase the budget of the Employment Standards Administration by at least 90 percent and increase the number of work place inspections by at least 90 percent.

Prohibit any government entity from banning individual photography or videography from any property an individual is legally entitled to sit, walk, stand, or recline upon.

Per Michael Smallberg: "The Department of the Interior should phase out its Royalty in Kind program and return to a market-priced Royalty in Value program." Downblend "excess highly enriched uranium" and sell it to nuclear plants. Implement some of the thousands of recommendations made by inspectors general.

Experiment with the Ready, Willing, and Able Program nationwide.

Collect fingerprints and DNA samples of all convicted, violent felons living in the US. (It violates privacy rights but the samples would protect the much larger privacy, moral, life and property rights of non-criminals.) Create a 100 percent of wealth fine on those convicted of murder. Return fines paid plus interest for overturned convictions. Attach automatic fines at least equal the overall cost of harms done to all convicted violations of federal law.

Require those convicted of financial crimes to serve a minimum of one day of hard labor for each $190 of harm done.
Implement CeaseFire in areas with high rates of violent crime. Pass the Workplace Wrongful Death Accountability Act, increasing fines and prison sentences for corporate murder and manslaughter.

Exempt individuals earning less than three times the national median annual household income from libel and slander lawsuits. Prohibit libel and slander claims from exceeding 16 percent of defendant assets.

Create national legislation legalizing surrogacy contracts, holding individuals to surrogacy contracts they sign.

Allow auto owners to purchase insurance, to contract prior to incidents property and personal damages covered, including pain and suffering damages, plus the ability to sue, similar to the Auto Choice Reform Act.

Allow individuals to choose contractual binding pre-commitments for drug treatment.

Require civil trial losers to pay reasonable court costs of their trials.

Eliminate government funding and approval for medical practices found to have no overall benefit.

Require all law enforcement employees to wear working video cameras while interacting on duty with individuals. Store the video data for at least 180 days at tamper proof locations. Make the data publicly accessible by Freedom of Information Act requests.

Pass the Food Safety Modernization Act. Implement a 15 percent VAT on foods containing brominated vegetable oils and on foods containing potassium bromate.

Ban the deliberate addition of arsenic or growth hormones to livestock or livestock feed.

Repeal legislation in trade laws that are not direct trade matters.

Repeal the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012.

Require corporate workers earning less than 40 percent of national mean hourly income to join labor unions of their choices. Prohibit corporations from preventing such workers from joining labor unions.

Prosecute criminal perpetrators without regard to whether victims want to press charges. Make framing an individual by any other individual, including prosecutors, a felony.

Repeal the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Make group purchasing organizations subject to antitrust and anti-kickback laws.

Prohibit patents on intellectual properties directly developed by taxpayer dollars. Prohibit patents on genes. Ban patents on gene therapies. Repeal Bayh-Dole.

Create a strict, new federal anti-corruption, anti-crime agency, fighting crimes committed by law enforcement entities.

Permit new teen drivers to drive with only licensed adults over 20 during their first year with a license, with no driving between 10 pm and 5 am, except to and from work. Grant an adult driver's license after 365 days with no moving violations or at fault incidents.

Prohibit state and federal prosecution for the same offense. Rid three strikes laws.

Lift the ban on assassinating foreign leaders in situations where 85 percent congressional approval exists.

Ban any entity receiving government contracts from funding political media, making campaign contributions, giving gifts to current and former federal employees, and from employing former government elected officials and political appointees.

Per Jonathan Cohn: experiment with malpractice health courts and "sorry works" voluntary reporting of medical errors.

End federal funding of PSA screening.

Implement a 20 percent national sales tax on pet foods and foods harvested from biological hot spots.

Require at least 210 days of twice daily breathalyzer tests for alcohol crime convictions of greater than a $1,200 fine and or four days incarceration. Require at least 700 days of owned motor vehicle interlock breathalyzers for alcohol DUI convictions.

Give the attorney general the right to make justice department appointments and the central bank head the right to make central bank appointments.

Ban false flag operations by government employees, intelligence agency subcontractors, and Department of Defense subcontractors, except within the borders or conquered territories of nations Congress declared war on. Make lifetime hard labor the recommended sentence for convictions resulting from such activities.

Make almost all crimes exceeding two days incarceration, $400 in fines, and or 50 hours of community service deportable offenses, except speech and thought crimes.

Prohibit newly constructed public roads from having directional labels such as East Preston Street and West Preston Street.

Prohibit anything from charging citizens or government entities for FDA unapproved treatments on humans within the United States.

Override all rights of home invaders during their home invasions, banning home invaders from pursuing any judgments for harm done to them during invasions.

Ban cattle grazing on environmentally sensitive lands. Require grazing cattle on sensitive lands to be replaced with less harmful animals or no grazing animals.

Require all invasive medical devices to pass clinical trials with mean health benefits at least twice harms before allowing sales. Revoke FDA rule 510(k).

Ban any corporation or individual grossing more than $4,000,000 per year from having negative taxes.

Eliminate The Equitable Sharing Civil Asset Forfeiture Program.

Require publicly available gyms to remove torso rotation machines.

Prohibit taxpayer funding of health care provided by religious organizations, including tax entitlements.

Ban self-defense laws that allow alleged self-defenders to engage in violence based solely on the alleged self-defenders' emotive states.

Ban females from direct combat military occupations, except during periods of homeland invasion.

Split the Ninth Circuit Court in two.

Gradually withdraw from all mutual defense treaties, except those with Australia, New Zealand, and NATO nations.

Ban government entities from selling air, roads, ports, bridges, rivers, creeks, lakes, prisons, airports, parking spaces, police departments, and fire departments to private entities.

Experiment with pre-filing income tax returns similar to the Danish system.

Withdraw US membership in and support for the IMF.

Ban the internment of cetaceans in any pen smaller than 2,000 cubic kilometers. Charge violators according to kidnapping laws.

Charge a 22 percent negative externalities fee on imports from nations that fine, arrest or convict individuals for political speech related crimes. Charge a 20 percent negative externalities fee on imports from nations that deliberately capture or execute cetaceans.

Require government entities to fire without further payment, including employee pensions, at fault government employees when a relevant civil judgment against the government entity exceeds $70,000. Require the fired employees to pay 20 percent of the civil judgment up to $60,000 or 20 percent of the former employees' assets, whichever is larger.

Per Luigi Zingales: implement a one percent tax on short-term debt.

Require the FDA to conduct random, annual, unannounced inspections of all facilities manufacturing supplements and prescription drugs for the US market. Provide full funding for such inspections. Give inspectors the power to ban production or imports from any facility that fails inspections.

When a civil judgment is rendered against any government entity for crimes committed by government employees or contractors, require any individuals convicted of those crimes to pay the full amount of civil judgments out their personal assets, excluding amounts exceeding the total assets of those convicted. Require all government employees and contractors to attend a training session informing them that they can be held financially liable for any laws they break, that following orders is no excuse.

Implement some Brennon Center voter registration reforms: http://brennan.3cdn.net/3234b49c4234d92bf3_3km6i2ifu.pdf

Create an Independent Commission Against Corruption similar to the Australian version.

Permit unused portions of the electromagnetic spectrum to be leased to cell phone entities at adequate profit to citizens.

Invalidate an intellectual property claim when that intellectual property is deliberately kept off the market for anti-competitive reasons.

Decriminalize fentanyl test strips.

Charlie Savage: permit "federal judges to quash subpoenas against reporters if they determine that the public interest in the news outweighed the government’s need to uncover the leaker – including, in some circumstances, disclosures of classified national security information."

Repeal laws that punish news and opinion generators for keeping sources confidential, except in cases where such generators reveal classified military strategies, tactics, weapons technologies or positions of forces.

Ban credit risk insurance, including credit default swaps.

Remove restrictions on state regulation of airlines from the Airline Deregulation Act.

Eliminate statutes of limitations on civil suits resulting from felony convictions, along with non-felony financial crime convictions exceeding $40,000 in harms.

Replace the Peace Corps with a Planned Birth Corps offering free IUD procedures to females within the U.S. and to females who cannot afford IUDs elsewhere around the world. Spend $340 million annually on a domestic public education campaign promoting the use of IUDs.

Eliminate all regional Federal Reserve banks. Eliminate all central bank officials who have not been elected by citizen vote or appointed by officials elected by U.S. citizens.

Move all criminal trials of state and local public servants to jurisdictions outside the jurisdictions currently or formerly employing the public servants on trial.

End federally funded mammograms for women under 50, not at a high risk for breast cancer.

Support an international treaty that requires all ocean going vessels over ten tons to pay a environmental damages security deposit.

Prohibit government entities from subcontracting prisons, litigation, law enforcement or tax collection to private entities.

Provide federal funds to purchase and preserve 178,000 acres of U.S. Sugar's land in the Everglades at minimal price.

Require added processed food salts to be 30 to 40 percent potassium chloride by mass.

Increase the penalties for evading law enforcement using motor vehicles.

Pass the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009, State Secrets Priviledges Act, FISA Amendments Act of 2009, USA PATRIOT Amendments Act of 2009, National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009, and Executive Branch Accountability Act of 2009.

Grant United States recognition to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Create an international treaty requiring all synthetic DNA sellers to screen orders with lists of dangerous pathogens, to report and punish violators. Embargo any nation that fails to find and punish violators.

Make all first class one ounce stamps forever stamps.

Eliminate funding for air marshals.

Require criminal trials or plea agreements for non-violent crimes causing less than $10,000 in damages to take place within four working days of arrests.

Conduct more research on the Hawaii Opportunity Probation with Enforcement system, with minor violators, having curfews monitored with GPS devices.

Ban former federal employees, who had security clearances, from gaining gifts, contracts or employment exceeding $16 from foreign and multinational entities.

Ban anyone formerly employed by the pharmaceutical industry from working for the FDA in a regulatory position. Ban all former corporate executives from working for the FDA. 

Require applicants for financial regulatory positions to read and pass a test on the following books: ECONned, Goliath, 13 Bankers, Predator Nation, Treasure Islands, The Finance Curse, In Praise of Hard Industries, The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins.

Reduce the salary of every federal agency head 0.1 percent every time their agency fails to comply with a legitimate FOIA request in the required amount of time.

Require polluters to pay the full costs for harms caused times at least 1.6.

Restore CDC preparedness funds.

Ban the use of computers and cell phones by drivers of moving vehicles  nationwide. Require new vehicle non-steering wheel audio entertainment controls to disable when moving.

Ban those convicted of rape or murder or both from contacting their victims as well as first, second, and third degree relatives of their victims.

Ban over-the-counter supplements found to cause worse impairment of vehicle operators than a blood alcohol content of 0.08.

Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

Add a one percent of wealth or 0.3 percent of annual income, whichever is greater, federal fine to any texting while driving conviction.

Require schools and employers to provide treadmill desks, standing desks or ergonomic 120 degree angle chairs similar or better to Herman Miller Aerons for all students and more than three hours per day desk job employees.

Repeal the $75 million liability cap on oil companies.

Pass the Specter Amendment to the Exchange Act. Revoke Rule 144A.

Require hospitals to provide private, anonymous drop off spots for young children that parents or guardians plan to abandon.

Require medical providers to give a printed copy of harmful test results to patients.

Implement some of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission national standards.

Create the necessary incentives to implement a worldwide ban on the distribution and production of ephedrine and psuedoephedrine.

Prohibit any multinational corporation with outstanding legal judgments--exceeding two years without payment, excluding publishers--from doing business with and in the US.

Pass the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2011 and Non-Federal Employee Whistleblower Protection Act of 2011.

Ban any law enforcement employee convicted of any felony from remaining employed with any government entity and from manufacturing any lawsuits related to their law enforcement employment.

Ban non-physicians from performing male circumcisions. Charge anyone who puts their mouth on the penis of a recently circumcised child with sexual assault and reckless endangerment.

Require all individuals contemplating non-emergency surgeries to be informed of non-surgical alternatives and of expected values for surgery and alternatives by independent decision making experts. Prohibit the experts from receiving gifts or payments from the medical industry.

Pay convicts and drug addicts $4,000 to obtain permanent, federally funded sterilization, except those already sterile and those serving mandatory life without parole sentences.

Repeal the Davis Bacon Act.

Ban the importation of all species of live freshwater and saltwater animals for food use and food sale.

Pass an abortion consistency law applying to any state restricting abortions during the first 22 weeks of pregnancy. Require all females aged 11 to 46 in those states to subsist on vitamin supplements, mineral supplements, white bread, skinless potatoes, saltine crackers, protein powder, and vegetable oil. Most abortions are spontaneous, often resulting from reactions to slightly toxic foods. Prohibit physical work among these girls and women that might induce an abortion. Fine any company that knowingly sells other foods to the above individuals for reckless endangerment. Require monthly, random testing for pregnancy and banned substances. Ban pregnancy causing activities by individuals genetically likely to have miscarriages and spontaneous abortions. The fact that miscarriages and spontaneous abortions are "natural" is ethically irrelevant.

Require national citizen ID cards for employment. Fine employers $27,000 for every illegal immigrant employee they hire. Provide full federal funding for workplace inspections, enforcement, and prosecutions.

Ban all trademarks on all words contained in the 2000 edition of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, except words already trademarked.

Require anyone conceiving a child with a married individual they are not married to at the time of conception to pay child support if the married individual or their spouse retains sole custody of that child until that child reaches age 16.

Prohibit states and local governments from restricting the number of taxi licenses granted to individuals and partnerships, except to ensure that taxis and drivers are adequately insured and have passed required inspections and safety requirements

Provide funding to analyze backlogged rape kits and to enter results in databases.

Prohibit prisoners from using online social media and dating sites.

Prohibit former intelligence agency employees from Federal elected office.

Overturn most presidential executive orders since 1963.

Conduct a large study on building and public transportation designs to reduce the spread of pathogens.

Require government fines to at least equal the dollar value of the harm done.

Require all law enforcement agencies to fire employees directly responsible for the lawsuit filing anytime agencies lose lawsuits exceeding $40,000. Prohibit those fired individuals from working in law enforcement elsewhere.

Change the numbers of judgeships and funding for such in proportion to changes in numbers of cases.

End scholarship programs by intelligence agencies.

Ban salary payments to federal elected officials during periods of federal shutdown. Ban federal elected officials from regaining such lost payments.

Permanently close all US embassies and consulates in OIC lands. Close all OIC member embassies and consulates in the US. Close all Mexican, Chinese, Israeli, African, Caribbean, South American, and Central American consulates in the US. Close all US consulates outside Japan, Europe, Canada, Australia, South Korea, and New Zealand.

Require individuals sentenced to more than 30 days for financial crimes to serve hard labor or sentences in supermax prisons

Ban the sale of shark fins and the on land possession of shark fins.

Make it a felony to tamper with recording devices owned by any level of government.

Ban the use of lie detectors in all government activities, except research on the accuracy of lie detectors.

Create a mandatory minimum bail for financial crimes at least equal to the financial harm done. Create a mandatory minimum bail for felony crimes at least equal to ten percent of the arrestees assets.

Pass the End Debt Collector Abuse Act of 2010 and the Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act of 2009.

Permanently ban anyone sentenced to more than four days in jail, more than $5,000 in fines or more than 50 hours of community service for financial crimes from working in the financial industry. Permanently ban the CEO of any corporation fined more than $4.5 million for financial crimes committed during the CEO's tenure from ever working in finance or as an executive in any capacity.

Require all religious entities receiving more than $11,000 in annual donations to file an IRS Form 990 every year.

Prohibit the central bank from having private regional banks.

Ban corporations from sales and solicitations on public property.

Ban the training and practice of chiropracty

Ban government entities from forcing victims to pay the costs of others' negative externalities.

Require all business and government entities to report all significantly hazardous substances they release into the environment to the EPA and to individuals filing FOIA requests.

Provide federal matching funds for state and local infrastructure projects passing adequate overall benefit-harm tests any time the national unemployment rate is above 5.2 percent.

Require consumer diagnostic systems to be accessible to independent mechanics.

Ban any foreign entity or individual fined for bribery or extortion, or convicted of bribery or extortion, from doing business with any US entity or from entering the US.

Ban motor vehicles licensed outside the US and Canada from traveling on US roads.

Ban anyone without a valid license or learner's permit from driving on US roads, except during emergencies.

Verify the identity of motor vehicle registration purchases and renewals with the national ID card.

Create a new $40, ten year federal hunting, trapping, fishing, and gathering license good for use on federal lands and waterways for the removal of designated harmful species.

Ban storage of coal ash at locations vulnerable to large waterway spills.

Ban any entity failing to pay US ordered fines from sales, production or distribution within the US.

Ban phone calls delivering prerecorded messages, except prerecorded messages from friends, relatives, employers, and government agencies, excluding the IRS.

Ban the use of cell phones and other electronic communications equipment by non-law enforcement drivers in moving bicycles, scooters, and motor vehicles.

Ban life insurance payments to beneficiaries when policy holders die in the act of committing a felony.

Ban state and local restrictions on non-fossil fuel energy projects in and above US waters.

Ban the removal of efficient, well-functioning hydroelectric dams until any year fossil fuels produce less than one percent of US electrical energy.

Make all non-military and non-health hazard dumpsters public domain, including the property under and in the immediate vicinity of dumpsters. Ban individuals from poisoning food in dumpsters and from locking access to dumpsters, except military and health hazard dumpsters.

Require all federal legislators to live at least 180 nights per year in randomly selected for rent or sale housing in the poorest zip code within Washington DC.

Repeal laws that require employers to meet employee religious requests.

Fix or eliminate the Congressional Budget Office.

Require all federal agencies and departments to undergo independent financial audits at well-reasoned intervals.

Implement a 25 percent VAT on all purchases made by the Department of Defense from private entities outside the US.

Prohibit any individual from being punished for audio or video recording any public activities engaged in by any government employee or contractor. Make it a felony for government officials to punish employees for reporting legitimate crimes and misconduct committed by contractors or other government employees. Make it a crime not to report crimes committed by fellow government employees or contractors. Eliminate the pensions of any government employee convicted of any felony, except when the convictions are later overturned. Return any forfeited retirement payments to retired government employees when felony convictions are later overturned. Require every state to create an investigators and prosecutors division to prosecute crimes committed by government employees. Fully fund the divisions with federal funds. Elect the heads of the divisions by statewide elections. Allow the heads to make all division appointments and to override the decisions of local prosecutors to prosecute or not prosecute government employees. Put the division in complete control of all dash-cams and and other state and local law enforcement recording devices. Prohibit employees of this division from knowingly socializing with other government employees while off duty.

Require time and a half pay for all work done for corporations beyond forty hours per week.

Matt Stoller: require publicly available audio and video recordings of all public hearings.

Ban unpaid internships and all other unpaid work for corporations, government employers, and political parties.

Require minimum fines for driving under the influence to at least equal 2.6 percent of annual income or 0.5 percent of wealth, whichever is greater.

Create federally funded clinics to provide a low-cost daily fixes for drug addicts. Require all addicts to arrive and leave the clinics by walking or public transportation. Make such dosing records electronically available to law enforcement agencies.

Create dozens of Truman Committees for major areas of spending.

Prohibit the hiring or continued employment of regulators having spouses or first degree relatives employed in industries those regulators regulate.

Prohibit government entities from taking tax payments in anything other than United States dollars.

Prohibit cheerleaders from being more than three feet above a standing surface during cheerleading activities.

Require government entities to try juveniles committing violent felonies with knives, firearms or explosives as adults.

Revoke section 1201 from DMCA, the section limiting right to repair.


Repeal the Proxmire Amendments that prevent the FDA from regulating huge doses of vitamins.

Give civilian prosecutors the right to prosecute crimes committed by military personnel in their jurisdictions.

Ban the use of public funds for maintenance on paved single outlet roads in counties having more than 150,000 population.

Ban government entities from hiring armed contractors.

Remove publicly funded Secret Service protection for any individual or family having greater than $47 million dollars in assets.

Require for-profit legal contracts to be comprehensible to citizens reading at an eighth grade level.

Eliminate funding for BioWatch.

Pass the better parts of S. 1196, Chuck Grassley's e-verify bill, including the parts consistent with this website.

Defund military bands.

Prohibit government funds, including tax entitlements, from going to any religious entity.

Grant water rights to owners of lands rainwater falls onto, until the rainwater leaves those lands.

Eliminate Freedom of Information Act exemptions, except national security and Department of Defense exemptions specifically granted by Congress.

Eliminate the J-1 Summer Work Travel Program.

Ban policies that make it illegal to arrest minors for prostitution.

Separate state and federal prisoners by race, religion, and non-religion, except when doing so would create excessive costs.

Implement a 52 percent federal mandatory minimum marginal federal tax on adjusted annual gross incomes above seven times the median household income per year.

Ban the privatization of prisons, tax debts, water utilities, and court ordered fines.

Ban relatives from abrogating living wills.

Ban lawsuits against good samaritans for reasonable acts.

Ban non-temporary seizures of property, except under court order or legislative act.

Ban organized soccer, hockey, lacrosse, football, pageants, roller derby, pole vaulting, discus throwing, shot putting, javelin throwing, hammer throwing, and competitive cheerleading for individuals under the age of 17.

Ban under 18 organized sports from practicing more than 6.5 hours per week.

Ban any political entity from labeling itself as independent or nonpartisan in paid advertising.

Ban smoking in all buildings, vehicles, and other enclosed spaces containing individuals under the age of 18.

Ban libel and slander lawsuits exceeding 16 percent of a defendant's net assets or yearly income, whichever is greater.

Ban anyone committing a felony from suing victims of the felony for harms the criminal suffers committing the crime.

Ban the consumption of alcohol products by knowingly pregnant individuals.

Permit victims of paternity fraud to sue for damages, except when the resulting child lives below the federal poverty level and the person committing the fraud is a custodial parent.

Create a mandatory minimum sentence of 180 days hard labor for anyone convicted of knowingly, falsely accusing another individual of a felony.

Ban anyone convicted of rape from having any parental rights over any children resulting from the rape.

Ban the importation of meat from birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ban the sale of fish oil supplements.

Create a $30 per passenger negative externalities tax on international flights leaving and entering the US, except for Canadian citizens on flights originating from Canada.

Give agencies investigating and prosecuting white collar crimes at least 280 percent more workers to investigate and prosecute white collar crimes, plus require them to conduct roughly 280 percent more investigations and prosecutions.

Require the E-Verify system to auto-report when the same worker's Social Security number occurs at two or more employers. Require investigators to briefly check whether the same individual has more than one job or whether a crime occurred. Arrest those committing fraud. Require employers to submit electronic copies of workers' government photo IDs. Require employers to submit employer taken head photos of current and prospective workers.

Require all judges, generals, admirals, cabinet officials, and federal elected officials to undergo random testing for illegal drugs eight times per year, fining them six percent of their gross annual salaries for each positive result. Require those with positive tests to be tested 16 times per year for the remainders of their federal employments.

Remove the word whereas and other verbose insertions from new laws. Ban enforcement of portions of new laws containing any of the words fear, hate, feel, envy, hatred, dislike, offensive, happy, unhappy, pleasant, unpleasant, comfortable, and or uncomfortable, including gerunds, synonyms, plural forms, and or past tenses beginning on January 21, 2013. 

Require rejection of lawsuit filings containing irrelevant ad hominem attacks. Permit attorney and defendant objections to any fallacious reasoning during trials.

Ban prisoners from wearing jewelry and or religious attire.

Ban circumcisions without anesthesia.

Eliminate federal funding for PSA screenings, except for men with previous histories of prostate cancer or family histories of prostate cancer.

Ban unsolicited advertising by text message. Fine advertisers $0.80 for every such advertising text sent.

Require every state to score eight or higher on the Trust for America's Health pathogen preparedness scale by the end of 2014.

Require government contracts and purchases to be made on a cost-benefit basis, meaning benefit-harm basis.

Ban government employed medical professionals from prescribing more expensive treatments when cheaper equivalents are available.

Per Robert McIntyre: "repeal the tax rule that indefinitely exempts offshore profits from United States corporate income tax."

Permit the USPS to provide basic banking services.

Ban drug makers from giving free and below cost samples of habit forming psychoactive drugs.

Increase the IRS Budget by $6 billion per year, using the increase to hire at least 12,000 employees, to audit and investigate individuals with suspected incomes over $190,000 per year. Thereafter, increase the IRS budget one billion dollars for every $800 billion increase in GDP.

End all migration into the US. Eliminate all visas to the US, except tourist, student, and diplomatic visas for citizens of Japan, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, and NATO nations placing $90,000 in a holding account, returnable when leaving. Remove Turkey and Albania from NATO. End asylum. Immediately expel migrants. 

Ban direct and indirect remittances to lands refusing to take expelled and deported migrants back. Ban flights from those lands. Ban mail and other deliveries to and from those lands. If they still refuse, parachute drop their US migrants home.

Ban drug makers, wholesalers, and middlemen from paying physicians, except their full-time physician employees paid more than $200,000 per year by them.

Expand the ban on insider trading to all US citizens, residents, and anyone making trades to and from the United States.

Provide federal funds to establish and run organizations similar to the Westergaard Foundation.

Rescind the tax exempt status of all charitable entities not devoting at least 82 percent of their funds for primary human services: housing, nutrition, clothing, health care, health research, primary education.

Ban tax holidays.

Require items collected for recycling within the US to be processed within the US.

Create independent commissions to fight corruption at the federal and state level.

Make it a felony for a government employee or contractor to confiscate a recording without a court order.

Repeal Section 601 of HR 1905, the section banning diplomacy.

Ban anyone in prison, on parole or on probation from holding a politically appointed state, local or federal position.

Ban any government employee pension from exceeding 70 percent of the median annual income of full time, full year workers.

Pass a federal good samaritan law.

Repeal the misnamed Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act.

Grant Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin islands independence. Prohibit territories from having federal tax advantages over states.

Have government entities buy properties or other assets they lease when long-term costs of leasing exceed long-term costs of buying.

Ban S corporations.

Place all US phone numbers on a marketer do not call and text registry, except when number owners opt out.

Require any individual convicted of  perjury resulting in punishment of an innocent defendant to face an equal or greater punishment.

Require publicly published government computer forms and publications intended for mass distribution to be published in at least two different file formats.

Require law enforcement patrol vehicles to have dash cameras, making all recordings publicly available for at least 30 days.

At least double federal non-opiate pain reduction research and development. 

Ban prescriptions of stimulants for weight loss. Require individuals prescribing  psychoactive drugs to minors to issue  well-reasoned reports explaining why the problems could not be alleviated with moral actions and strenuous exercise.

Ban government gifts to corporations. Prohibit regulators from being embedded with entities they regulate, except when conducting investigations and other oversight activities.

Provide federal funds to extend by up to 40 percent the operating hours of public libraries having a mean of 25 or more patrons inside during additional hours.

Ban government vehicles from speeding unless they have flashers on.

Hire 9000 additional U.S. Labor Department investigators and prosecutors.

Ban government insurance for any private financial entity or product, except savings and checking accounts.

Use federal funds for nationwide implementation of the Colorado Family Planning Initiative.

Pass a 0.2 percent financial transactions tax.

Require any fertile individual who applies for TANF benefits to become surgically sterilized before obtaining such benefits. Require any fertile individual, who applies for non-physical disability benefits to become surgically sterilized before obtaining such benefits. Offer fertile, current or former special education students, between the ages of 18 and 44, $20,000 in federal funds to become surgically sterilized.

Ban anyone having an IQ under 120, age over 35, any drug-related convictions, any psychiatric drug use, any financial crime convictions or any felony convictions from donating to US sperm banks.

Decide congressional salaries by voters every two years during general elections, with three inflation adjusted options available: current salary, ten percent pay cut, ten percent increase.

Create a less expensive legal training and licensing system similar to the UK's but with more options for apprenticeships.

Grant a non-citizen appearing at a US embassy or consulate the right to present sufficient evidence for a relationship that led to the birth of a child by a named US citizen or legal  resident. When the named US individual does not provide basic child support for the minor, court order the named US individual to undergo parental DNA testing. If the US citizen or resident is proven by DNA evidence to be the biological parent of a minor non-citizen living outside the US, deduct $100 per month minimum, per child in child support and electronically transfer the funds to the foreign child or their guardian. Deny non-custodial parents the right to bring children to the United States, except when their children have been kidnapped from a non-custodial US citizen parent. 

Pass the Byrd Mine and Workplace Safety and Health Act, The Safe Cosmetics Act of 2001, and the Internet Freedom Act. Approve the Minamata Convention to reduce mercury exposure.

Investigate representative samples of packaged food products sold at retail chains having more than $100 million in annual sales. Fine food producers when major ingredients differ from labels by more than ten percent.

Require cell phone providers to unlock cell phones at the request of cell phone owners.

Publish results of all clinical trials. Fine drug makers $600 million for any new, unpublished clinical trial beginning in 2013.

National Research Council: build and launch infrared survey spacecraft to look for Earth bound objects.

Pass the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act.

Repeal laws prohibiting the travel of bicycles moving under ten miles per hour on sidewalks.

Require surgical sterilization of fertile individuals having their child removed for greater than 90 days for abuse or neglect.

Repeal the misnamed 1991 Civil Rights Restoration Act.

Require publication of publicly funded non-national security research in free to read and download open-access publications.

Implement a few anti-terrorism prescriptions from the Gilmore Commission.

Downsize the service academies to nothingness. Use ROTC programs, other programs, and promotion of enlisted personnel to create officers.

Prohibit any individual from earning more than $450,000 per year from government contracts.

Vagueness per Bill Joy: "Create an international body to publicly examine the dangers of technologies... [r]elinquish... development of those technologies so dangerous that we judge it better that they never be available."

Fund efficient syringe exchange programs.

Restore funding for the Microbiological Data Program and reform the program.

Declare any sea lane with high rates of piracy to be few boat zones, banning vessels, except non-motorized boats, international shipping, and international military craft. Within the few boat zone, seize or sink highly probable pirate vessels.

Ban the for profit sale of products containing triclosan.

Require parents and guardians failing to obtain required vaccinations for their custodial children to pay a $300 annual negligence tax each year they fail to vaccinate.

Ban the sale of homeopathic products.

Charge individuals using homeopathy and faith healing on children with practicing medicine without a license.

JT Fournier, last updated April 12, 2024