Charlie Rose

doodahdaze  02/28/2009 09:56 AM Report

I wonder if President Obama knows of any good honky jokes... That one of Joe "the cracker" Biden was pretty good... LOL

AQQ  02/26/2009 10:51 PM Report

I love the CR show but you really need more ideological diversity in your Obama coverage. For what purports to be objective journalistic coverage, this is laughably one-sided.

KeenObserver  02/26/2009 03:49 AM Report

One thing is perfectly clear, Charley and friends are in love With Obama, and love comes from the heart not the brain. This explains everything. Nothing more need be said.

ShalomFreedman  02/26/2009 03:18 AM Report

This was a richly informative show of a kind Charlie Rose is the master of making. His questions were as usual in place and each of those asked contributed some new insight into President Obama's speech before both Houses of Congress. There was unanimity on the quality of the speech, and the fact that the President rose to the occasion. Doris Kearns evoked the legacy of FDR as public educator in time of economic crisis. Paul Krugman gave the President good marks for laying out in general an economic plan for recovery. David Brooks saw how President Obama provided in dark times an inspiring message of hope for the future, and contrasted this with Bobby Jindal's out- of- date negative reply for the Republicans. On the whole all were agreed that President Obama once again showed himself to be a master communicator. He is a person of tremendous personality and also , it seems to me, of great understanding and wisdom. His call for a New Era of American Responsibility seems to me right in place.

Of course there are many very large question-marks, the balance- of- trade deficit, the loss of the manufacturing sector, the question of alternative energy as real possibility economically. President Obama addressed the major problems of Health Care, Environment, Energy and indicated that he is not delaying. He also spoke about the long- term need to deal with the ever- growing deficit. He told a few poignant stories of individuals and again showed he knows how to connect on the personal level.

I would agree that his statements on foreign-policy were in this speech, sparse. But of course the Crisis of the day, however global is an American domestic one first for the American President.

An illuminating program for which again Charlie Rose is to be thanked.

tartufe  02/25/2009 08:42 PM Report

The big banks are a putrescent scumbag bunch of predatory and confiscatory maggots that should be allowed to go the way of natural selection. Extinct. The laws of laissez faire capitalism would mete out exactly what is needed, right and natural. Trying to subvert this will only prolong the agony.

tartufe  02/25/2009 08:30 PM Report

Obama, the eloquent, chose to use it to articulate the M-I oligarchy’s consistent drum-beat for increased military presence in A-P (Afghanistan-Pakistan).

Holbrooke on the newshour has pitched the adopted party line swill as well. The M-I oligarchy has and is winning once again. The practiced propaganda is insuring by default an ipso facto continuation of the policy of yet another protracted stupid, mindless, and unnecessary quagmire of killing - ours and theirs. The same sort of culture that would create a world financial crisis - solely for the soulless pieces-of-eight.

Our insouciant disregard for human life with the indiscriminate use of drone-fired missiles, mindlessly recruiting for al Qaeda and the Taliban, makes Raytheon, Lockheed, Boeing et al have nocturnal emissions. Collateral damage means sustained conflict which converts to collateral in the bank (and yachts in the Bahamas of course).

Venality, greed and profit still trumping common sense. Where are the statesmen? Where are the adults?

Obama doesn’t know. He could have been so much more. But, alas, Citigroup and Raytheon et al have first-right-of-refusal on his soul.

REMant  02/25/2009 03:11 PM Report

Obama skips talking about the inflationary aspects of the stimulus plan and tho I think he probably is dismayed at some of what the Demos in the Congress did, he remains silent about it, and moves quickly in his comments to those programs that promise growth. This is unfortunate, but only because there are a lot of ppl who continue to think that bad debt is better than no debt at all. They hope that we will grow and/or save our way out, without any writedowns. The question tho is whether the debt is an asset or a liability in that process. Obviously, inflationists like most of Wall St, Bernanke and the other central-bankers, think it is an asset. I don't see how it can be. But, in any case, bailing out the banks is not just politically unacceptable, it is probably not possible, and irrelevant even if it were, and really unjustifiable. So I think Main St not Wall St has the right perspective on it.

Actually, I thought Jindal's answer was far better than what could have been expected. For instance he recognized the need for fiscal responsibility, which has been absent from Republican rhetoric since Reagan. His emphasis on individualism is the essence of republicanism, and can't be considered wrong, unless you are, like the Reagan, actually a Democrat in disguise. The problem is in the implication that there are, therefore, no public goods, but I am not sure he said that. What he did say - correctly - is that members of his party wanted tax cuts for individuals and businesses and objected to many items in the bill as pork, which they undoubtedly are. For the rest he did not materially disagree with Obama, and I think it was in fact better delivered than the president's. David, it appears, has been talking to too many monetarists, who, as Hayek complained, could never really say what money was. In fact, the "other stuff" - stuff that makes structural changes - IS what is of primary importance.

Deflation increases the burden on the debtor. This is true for the mortgages, but also every other debt. Reflation is the usual course we have taken to redress this. But debtors have therefore over the decades benefited immensely from this process, and they richly deserve to be hit now. And since most creditors are, or have been, debtors, it doesn't matter whether they lose either. Reflation is in fact not a good idea at any time, because inflation, while it seems to help debtors, ends up not only putting them further in debt, but also the nation. It is not an available option this time anyway. As with the mortgages, most of what we need to do falls not in the realm of economics, but of law. Not only to arbitrate debtor-creditor issues, but to gain efficiency by making immediate changes in the structure of our economy that continuous inflation has made it possible for so long to avoid. The president is completely right about that, and the only problem is to be right about the changes. Deflation benefits most those with expertise and willing to work, and those with cash, and it should. It devalues the opposite, which it should. The Reaganites, no less than the Wall Streeter's, want to have it both ways - individualism without responsibility - and you can't.

Those who think you can just fix the credit mkts by mfring money not only do not understand that this is a crisis caused in the first place by too much money and credit, but also have the essential process backwards. Credit has to be earned first by productivity putting money in the bank. That means smarter transportation, healthcare, energy, etc, come first, then savings, then credit and more sustainable employment. That's what the admin is trying to do as much as it can, and the Fed, Congress and pundits will allow.