Emma Berry

If there is to be change in the stranglehold that Wall Street has on America,  it will have to begin with people in  local governments and local Chamber of Commerce’s who stop making any kind of a deal with Wall Street corporations to attract Wall Street business to their communities.

It is absolutely ridiculous.  In Plano Texas, for example, their local government raised property taxes in 2006 to the extent that people owning a home valued at $244,000 were paying an extra $40 a year.  And what did the local government do with this added revenue?  They did things like give a cash incentive of $1.2 million to Pizza hut to move its corporate headquarters to Plano on a tax free piece of property.  ABSURD!  The people who most benefitted from this were not the local people in Plano but the global investors of Pizza Hut.

In Texas, we see this at a state level with our governor who is willing to allow industry to pollute our air and our water.

This faulty logic of an “either/or” mentality must end if we are sustain life on our planet. We have been hoodwinked for years by special interests into thinking that either they must have their way and be allowed to pollute and take unnecessary risks with worker safety and all without paying their fair share of taxes or they won’t bring their business to town.  We must have local leaders who have the courage and insight to say no.  No it is YOU who must be responsible and pay your taxes to the community that you use.  It is YOU who must reduce YOUR profits.  It is YOU who must not put our community at risk for your profits.

OTHERWISE, we will use our tax dollars to create community corporations.  Every community in America should have at least two community corporations that are owned by shareholders who live in the community.  This is the only way to stabilize local economies.  Wall Street corporations do not own their alliance to the communities that they pollute.  They owe their alliance to their global shareholders.

If local communities don’t start making them behave–no one will.

DEMAND THAT YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT STOP HANDING OVER YOUR COMMUNITY TO WALL STREET.

Another area where local communities are vulnerable is with food security.  To the extent possible, all food consumed locally should be grown locally and/or in the nearby region.