Try watching Michael Moore's "Sicko" again.

Caught it this afternoon. Say what you will about Mr. Moore and his "agenda" but it's damn hard to argue against just how wrong thing have gotten in America. Sure, the movie's larger point is about healthcare and the outrageous inequalities, inefficiencies and expensiveness of our system here in the US. We Americans pay far more for our healthcare than any other country in the world. Yet our overall and general health is amongst the worst in the industrialized world.

However, the secondary message of the movie rings more true now than ever. We have allowed large, conglomerate corporations to profit from that which should be a basic human right ... our physical and mental well being. Worse still, it's the very same system that allowed/enabled this latest financial disaster. As long as we allow corporations to largely control our lives then these abuses will continue and get worse. We Americans are drowning in taxes and debt and we are getting NOTHING for it. Services dwindle, procedures and medications are denied and yet healthcare costs continue to rise at 4 and 5 times the rate of inflation. The middle class is an endangered species in this country. Again, we are drowning in taxes, saddled with massive debt and time and time again were told by our "leadership" to suck it up and do our part. What the hell!? Haven't we done enough?

My proposal? Make the highest marginal tax bracket 60% and eliminate nearly all deductions like interest rate deductions. Before Reagan got his clutches on our social system, the marginal rate was almost 90%, so 60% should seem like a bargain. It's high time the most fortunate amongst us pay the most for that good fortune. Perhaps paying 60% into the system would do the following: 1) the rich would care far more about what happens to this country as they're the most heavily invested 2) the mere thought of 60% of their ill gotten-err -hard-earned gains would limit their greed 3) less greed equals less risk taking equals no more of those "financial innovations" on Wall St. that have created and fueled these boom and crash cycles.

Just my two cents. Make that two point one cents due to recent tax increases here in CA.

Mr. Reich, once again you hit the nail on the head.

I fit neatly into your article in that I am a recently laid off salesman from a large telecom who lives in California. So in a very short period of time, I went from a well-paid, taxpaying contributor to the economy to a virtual economic non-entity, another statistic. I am fortunate enough to have been careful with my money and I am collecting my unemployment insurance but it's a far cry from what I used to earn and from what I've paid into the "system" in taxes over the years. So now "the Governator" brokered a deal that raises my taxes in the form of a 1% sales tax increase AND my vehicle registration taxes and a host of other marginal and/or hidden taxes. Thanks! Now it will even harder to hang on to all that I've worked very hard to earn.

So while all this happens I find it increasingly difficult to choke back the anger I feel at all the "financial wizards" on Wall Street and a host of other boardrooms who created and facilitated this massive fraud. Where are the indictments?! Where are the perp walks?! As it turns out, these sociopaths were taking huge risks and gambling with, as it turns out, OUR tax dollars! Nice. So why are we bailing these criminals out? How is it we allowed these institutions to become "too big to fail"? I am all for paying my fair share of taxes to help our society to take care of those far less fortunate than me. BUT I'd like to know the system isn't rigged against me and that mythical "upper 1%" aren't gaming the system ... as it appears they are. We're not helping the less fortunate amongst us but perversely the most fortunate. We face an unprecedented moral hazard. Bail these frauds out and we enable the very behavior that created this mess. But to let them fail, as they deserve, then we supposedly risk an ever larger systemic crash. So now our hard earned taxes are not only being spent to likely enable this to happen again, but they're not going to help those most in need. Worse still, our taxes are increasing. If this isn't the stuff of revolution I don't know what is.

The good people of turn of the century France got one look at Versailles and how the upper crust were living while they were starving and dying and they correctly chose to revolt and take a few heads, literally. Perhaps something along those lines is called for again ... not literally but figuratively.