Charlie Rose

winchester  11/16/2010 12:31 PM Report

I really enjoy your show, Charlie, and watch it habitually.

This segment, however, would have been more insightful had Charlie challenged the views presented by asking about public sector unions and whether they were in effect exerting the power that Huffington and the others fear will result from a concentration of wealth and power by the wealthiest few percent. After all, the public sector unions spend enormous sums of money to get their supporters elected to important positions; these patrons then grow government and its employee base; this then increases the union-based funding available to support future elections of politicians of the same view. A self-perpetuating cycle that is expensive to stop, and effectively funded by unwitting taxpayers. How does Ms. Huffington justify the conflict of interest and lack of accountability this creates for society?

JohnGelles  10/27/2010 12:33 AM Report

THE SEVEN ELEMENT PLAN

FOR GENERAL ECONOMIC REFORM

I think I better state the seven elements now—before you lose interest in the plan. They are—

(1) Greenbacks, like Lincoln's and Bernanke's recent direct purchases of government securities from the national treasury from which it is independent.

When Bernanke (i.e., the Federal Reserve, he heads) buys government bonds directly, the government has money to spend (or lend) for any urgent purpose—without increasing the national debt or disclosing a budget deficit that induced fear of future taxes.

Theoretically this would allow government to finance our move to electric cars ASAP. This could create a huge number of jobs and go a long way toward full recovery from deflation and high unemployment.

(2) A National Capital Budget, financed in whole or in part by greenbacks, to focus public and academic attention on the nature of long term investment, compared to annual operating expenses.

Although a nations money supply and velocity of exchange can help to explain free market prices, and for this reason, cash budget accounting systems have some purpose, this plan approaches prices from a functional point of view: necessities, priced to be affordable, is a primary goal of the plan. Taxes, lowered to zero where possible, is another goal. Both of these goals are better served by a national capital budget than by the cash budget that we have.

(3) A National Dividend, like the one in Alaska, but several times as large. It would end inadequate consumer demand and spending all at once. The dividend could be curtailed as soon as it was not needed.

(4) Inflation Protected Savings, like inflation protected bonds (TIPS bonds). They would, with proper government salesmanship, tend to permit savings to replace taxes as a primary financial tool to prevent spiraling inflation from raising the price of necessities to unaffordable levels.

(5) Anti-inflation Taxes, to subsidize production of necessities people pay for would replace all other taxes.

(6) A Full Employment Operating Budget, to end involuntary unemployment for as long as a majority vote for such an end. Jobs are more than a source of income. They tend to promote the general welfare and individual happiness.

(7) Price Control and Rationing, as a last resort, if and only if, supply, demand, savings, and taxes, were unable to maintain the affordability of prices for the necessities bought by nations and individuals.

http://sites.google.com/site/7elementplan/

DavLev  10/26/2010 09:15 PM Report

She always brings up the subject of the wars (Afghanistan and Iraq)and the right or wrong of our involvement. Except for the cost @ about 1.4% of our GDP ( money which mainly goes for new weapons, the pay of soldiers, projects in those countries), what does it all have to do with the topic, the middle class.

Most Americans, as recent polls show, could care less about

who makes what, as long as there is no criminal activity involved. Bernie Madoff make off with 16B of other peoples' money, but most of the time he made money. Compared to the 400b not accounted for in the TARP, it is a pimple on an elephants you know what.

Comparing Germany to US is absurd. I would compare France, its neighbor, about the same size and population..and talent. France is socialistic. Both suffered equally from WW2.

Finland, Sweden, Norway, etc..oh come on guys. Small countries with a homogeneous population..no blacks or Hispanics. Few Asians. And Norway has all that oil.

In 1945, there were about 140m Americans. Now over 305m and growing. California in 1958 had 19m people, now 38m.

In 40 years, the US over 400m, California over 75.

Our population is bursting at the seams, with a large

baby boom contingent ( benefits replacing productivity).

Sure, we can blame Wall Street for allowing low interest loans to people desiring a piece of the pie (I told you so). The SEC could have been more aggressive so can the IRS with a tax gap of 12% (taxes never paid and presumably owed). Ask the IRS officials why?

Do we need 12 years of high school with a 50% dropout rate?

Are all those colleges that give BS degrees in Letters and SScience really valuable or needed?

Why not 3 year requirements for degrees, and or 13 years of

high school, with more college course at that level for those interested?

Anger among the middle class, what middle class? What is

the middle class anyway?

Globalizationh at fault for creating disparity? Perhaps

we should handcuff anyone who uses technology to reach

abroad?

Forget the aftermath of WW2, that was 55 years ago.

There was no Internet then..and yes, Europe and Asia

were destroyed completely, with countries raped.

Were we right in aiding Germany and Japan afterwards?

Depends which side of the concentration camp one was in.

The obvious remedy is less, but more efficient government,

outlawing tobacco and alcohol, as with the case of MJ, which is really hemp.

doodah  10/26/2010 08:24 PM Report

The notion of 'middle-class' is a very generalization. The upper-middle-class wishes to 'ease' their ways into the worry-free enclaves of the rich upon the backs of the middle-to-middly and lower(harder-working)-middle classers (the majority), by, for example, indirectly forcing (tricking) the majority to fund their (the upper-upplys) state of the art healthcare, that the people (the majority), who are actually PAYING FOR IT (through their money, sweat, and tears) will not afford to access that level of healthcare for themselves. It is absurd.

The level of ignorance pervasive, allows this absurdity to live, the professional liars earning their keep fooling through catch terms, like 'conservative' or 'liberal' , a big bullshit perpetuated by a misguided and lazy press-media. For example, the pigs that caused the financial crisis, want people who identify themselves as and live by 'conservative' values to believe, that they too, are 'conservatives', and as such, appear to be our ONLY alternative (by virtue of owning ALL politicians). And THAT is what will ignite the biggest riot the world will ever see.

MDorais  10/26/2010 08:10 PM Report

From my perspective,one of the big fixes I would recommend is to start by fixing the Democratic system by not allowing companies to contribute to any political party or to any politician's campaign.'One man, one vote' as we say here in Canada. Lobbyists, business and financiers may have their say in various forums, but should certainly not have the possibility to interfere with the democratic process by pouring money on the party or the candidate in return of favors.

JohnGelles  10/26/2010 06:54 PM Report

"Amen," I say, to flipper 4's prayer for love and common sense in an overly competitive and confused time.

I have based all my arithmetic for tax, money and legal reform, on his prayer for adherence to the "Golden Rule".

Add to that universal rule, the "Second Bill of Rights". This means economic security based on work, output, science, democracy and life-long education, etc.

Add to these, "Functional Finance". This means an arithmetic that is based on our material universe of chemical elements, particles smaller than atoms, and energy sources of all kinds.

It means that arithmetic keeps debt as a number -- not a debtors prison. The number must never be allowed to defeat the purpose of civilization. We have re-organization and re-structuring of debt to make sense of it.

Flipper 4 mentioned inequality and the fact that we are also all equal in many things. I would add that inequality in wealth and income can be viewed favorably IF the poorest of the poor are raised by our customs, laws and systems, to the level of a decent life similar to the way we use Earth's air. Air is plentiful (or should be) and we all enjoy as much free air as we can breathe. As technology advances, all necessities will be as free as air -- if we try to make it so.

In the meantime, if government spends enough to guarantee full employment of labor and capital, inequality will not be a curse. It will tend to absorb money created to motivate production that is more than enough to do the job.

I wish Charlie would understand this point (which is from Functional Finance and other theory). Charlie ought to bring Mathew Forstater and Randall Wray from the University of Missouri on his show, with others if appropriate, to discuss fixing the jobs situation overnight -- and not asking people out of work to drop dead for a couple of years.

flipper4  10/26/2010 06:08 PM Report

Please also see below. "John Henry was a Steel Driving Man and Bill Gates was/is a Computer Freaking Genius"

Fareed (who I'm including in this discussion) is widening the political window to the next 20 years (about the limit of his model), which of course, is an eternity in our "democracy", but the blink of an eye in history.

What Charlie, Fareed and almost everybody else on the earlier panel 'seem' to "know", is that Obama did not "viscerally" understand that he was supposed to take his moral authority from the election and order a series of dramatic infrastructure work projects for the 21st Century. (I wanted that too, but)

--What they seem to forget is that he was supposed to do this after Bush trashed our economy. Yes, Obama could have used his stimulus money moderately differently, but he also had to be a political pragmatist to get any stimulus through at all. With so many cookies devoured from our economy by the Bush admin., the war, the bankers and the mortgage bubble; the republicans, like they always do, left the pile for democrats to clean up at the back of the parade.

You can mostly blame the oil industry, because they had the most to lose if Obama had instead inherited a less debt ridden economy. If that had been the case, Obama with much less effort, could have converted our energy based economy from petroleum to green without threatening the national Debt. (Which Bush and Cheney convinced many 'way back when' "doesn't matter")

Let's be real adults and speak in real terms about the World Bank, IMF, Republican and Federal Reserve "AGENDA" for America: 'Break the unions, minimum wage, social security safety nets, and pensions so that we once again become competitive with the other workers of the world on a wage scale.'

Response: The latter can be done without the former.

How? Raise minimum wage in other countries. Protect

and/or install social security, pensions and unions in

all countries.

While the wage difference is minimized between nations, "direct" (not "order") each nation's economy into a limited number of specialties. Do this overtly. Simultaneously develop a "gentlemen(ladies)'s 'public' agreement between nations that recognize we must not constantly cannibalize each others' economies -- instead we must cease wage/monetary warfare, political manipulation, corruption and outright warfare. In other words, nations must think of "self interest" in the broader sense that "Karma" will knock your country upside the head if your definition of "self-interest" does not take into account the well being of other nations. (No, I am not religious)

Develop friendly international competition in each specialty by only (primarily) including a limited number of nations in a competitive division. You can think of this as a boxing weight strategy. India, Indonesia and China are Heavy weights. Other countries are mid-weights, still others are flyweights. They are competing for sales on a level playing field (specializing in broader range of products and services if large, different range if small). Break them down even further based upon natural local resources, transportation location, and commitment to education, human rights, environmental stewardship and commitment to the ideals of this strategy (including reducing corruption, monetary interference, etc.,)

Social Engineering? Yes. Be Overt About it. Do not make it mandatory, but instead get buy in like Germany did.

4. Yes, invest in modern infrastructure.

5. Invest in environmental recovery.

This will result in global homeostasis. We can no longer accept the notion that human value is based upon the premise that individual talent must or even may "leverage out" or exploit large segments of our population.

"John Henry was a Steel Driving Man"

"Bill Gates is/was a Computer Freaking Genius"

"Inequality", or the more base form of it, "superiority" must be addressed.

We can no longer afford to accept or rely upon the experiment called "Social Darwinism". Sure Bill Gates and many others in the top .001% have added more intrinsic technological/applicable value than a large percentage of the rest of us combined. However, that does not mean Bill is out there procreating thousands of "mini mees".

The point to all this? In 20 years we will be left with a realization that nobody quite expected. All our great industrial/technological achievements as a species, if we survive, will be taken for granted.

This will leave us in yet another spiritual quandary. If steam engines can outwork us, and robots (or if you prefer) computers can out-think us, what is our intrinsic value?

So, in between now and 20 years from now, do we really need to keep making people feel insecure about their ability to survive? Do we really need to steal people's pensions, rape the environment, start wars, bottom out the economy or simply make people feel inadequate because they didn't invent the internet (small joke) -- and all sorts of other behaviors to crack the capitalistic whip?

Perhaps you think I am headed toward a speech about renewing plans for the leisure society. Instead, I'd like people to consider the following (It's a little out there, so suspend your disbelief for a moment):

If I told you that in 20 years, we will no longer be the strongest, smartest, most creative or even funniest life-form on the planet; what could you do over the next 20 years -- as a leader, as a parent, as a youth, as a cab driver, as a lawyer, as a doctor, as a ditch digger -- to demonstrate why our species has intrinsic value?

My answer would be to love my neighbor as myself, to love, not critique, but love my child's picture on the refrigerator as much as the greatest work of art, to love the perfectly imperfect nature of ourselves, to protect our world and each other from harm. We must rise to the occasion of our own forthcoming apparent insignificance and remind ourselves that every last one of us is "significant". If you find a nest has fallen from a tree, place it back. If you find a country is being destroyed by floods and disease, send help. If you find a neighbor is lonely and defensive, invite them to a party. If you find a co-worker is lost and confused, give them encouragement. If you find someone does not share your belief system, find a way to get along through mutual respect. If you find our government tortures, deceives and kills, tell them to stop.

We are all significant. From Down syndrome to Einstein, from Shiite to Sunni, from Jew to Gentile, from landscaper to President, and from pessimist to optimist, we all give one intrinsic and valuable thing to each other -- true love. Unlike intelligence, muscle, talent or even creativity; true love cannot be labeled by an IQ test, measured on a scale, debased by an American Idol Judge or given a thumbs up/down by a critic. However, true love can be administered unconditionally despite not always being reciprocated.

I'm glad we have Einstein (and his wife), Galileo(and his daughter), Hubble, Newton, Gates (and his father and Allen), Rosalind Franklin (and her um... peers) Edison (and those he got some of his ideas from), Bell (""), GW Carver, Crazy Horse, Gandhi, Jesus, Buddha, Mohamed, Vivaldi, Mozart, Darwin, Madame Curie, Lucas, Spielberg, Spike, Jordan, Pele, Annika Sorenstam, Lincoln, Mandela, Marcus Aurelius, Socrates, Oprah, Elvis, J.T., Sting, Miles, Frost, Dickinson, Dickens, Orwell, Vonnegut, Twain, Woolf, Orville and Wilber, Ford, Carnegie, Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, Van Gogh and all the rest to demonstrate our unique history... HOWEVER, in the end, we must, and I believe, we will realize that JOHN and JANE DOE are just as significant.

JohnGelles  10/26/2010 05:58 PM Report

It was suggested in the on-air show that government could create jobs. And this solution was not followed up. It can do such job-invention with contracts, loans and purchases. Everyone agrees infrastructure spending is a good idea. We should also all agree that tax cuts of every kind are a good idea.

..... ..... Why so? Why tax cuts? Won't deficit spending reduce confidence by lenders and investors in the future -- and therefore curtail private sector actions to bootstrap its way out of trouble?

..... ..... Answer: Yes. There will be some loss of confidence and animal spirits for recovery. BUT GOVERNMENT CAN OUTSPEND THAT LOSS !!

..... ..... In an emergency, we must outspend that loss and be sure to outproduce it too. With the added production, we can accomplish all the undone tasks around us. Until everyone of us is trained-up and employed-up to doing what markets have failed to do, government spending is a must and waiting is far riskier. Who knows this for sure? The dead guys who wrote "The Second Bill of Rights" in 1944.

Outside the box are such current needs as a condominium of the top economic powers to finance security plans that will react to fire,flood, earthquake, etc., and even incoming asteroids in space.

It goes without saying that cooperation among all nations to feed the hungry and treat the sick in a manner that befits the new century is an undone program.

Everyone knows we need tax reform, law reform, money reform, etc., and that specialists in these areas need outsiders to have sufficient authority to force the impossible to be done.

JohnGelles  10/26/2010 05:33 PM Report

This discussion of How to Restore the American Dream", (or of re-empowering the middle class to prevent the malefactors of great wealth from destroying civilization as they may do by accident more than design), is all around us -- especially on TV on Charlie Rose and Fareed Zacharia's GPS.

It must be kept alive until the professionals who want to wait for market demand to solve it are silenced in favor of a democratic version of managed capitalism emerges.

Managed capitalism funds projects in energy, climate, jobs, peace, space, etc., with fiat dent-free money. Markets for the moment fund industry with bonds, stocks, and contracts that rely on debt or equity interests. This sort of funding needs help from government to get up to speed to absorb production from Asia and consciously favor middle class political power over the purchase of the law by the oligarchs among us.

Most of you do not see that money is nothing more than production of what money can buy. Of course, demand today is inadequate because we have allowed debt to destroy jobs, production and the base for more money to repay the debt. Accordingly, private debt must be bought by government to get it out of the way immediately. It can be paid for fiat money or promises of harder money in the future.

The risk of waiting for unplanned forces to solve our consumption problem is that economic insecurity will bring on forms of corruption, crime and war that can destroy human rights and human progress.

On my site I'm trying to think outside the box. In these discussions on Charlie Rose we are all trying to do this. Let us not give up. Perhaps we can for a ring of sites that sticks together until we solve the problems.

Anyone who agrees ought to say so in comments following this one.

charlizecourriers  10/26/2010 05:07 PM Report

I don't sense that any one of these quests is middle class, let alone the owner of the show. Recently quests on this show have been concerned to "burp baby Obama" but these quests seem to think that more drastic steps are necessary. Next Tuesday may foretell even a trip to the (political) ER. Or perhaps his Psychiatrist. Or Publicist.

robdverity  10/26/2010 04:59 PM Report

Apologies all round. Get this back to the plight of the middle class.

charlizecourriers  10/26/2010 04:58 PM Report

I don't have the sense that any one of these guests(contestants) is middle class, let alone the owner of the show. Perhaps next Tuesday night will help to clarify this (mis)perception? Recently this show's guests have been concerned to "burp baby Obama" but now it seems their efforts are more drastic. Will a trip to the ER be necessary? Or a visit to his psychiatrist. Or publicist.

robdverity  10/26/2010 04:56 PM Report

REMant - you're a handful. I like to think I agree with you when I comprehend you, which is hit and miss, and prob more of the latter. But your 4th para. lost me more than usual.

To whit, ".... We have to have virtue, and, if we do, we won't really need govt. And we will have virtue in the long run, or we'll all be dead. I don't think the human animal has any particular death wish, tho sometimes I wonder. The route to virtue may well run through democracy and dictatorship, but we will get to the promised land, tho, I'm sure, the skeptics won't like this assertion."

WE DON'T HAVE VIRTUE! WE HAVE EGREGIOUS GREED! WE DO NEED GOVT - REGS. AND YES LONG TERM WE WILL BE DEAD BECAUSE WE DO INDEED LACK IT (VIRTUE). HOW MANY NUKE-POSSESSING NATIONS DO YOU NEED TO CONVINCE YOU THAT OUR SPECIES DOES INDEED HAVE A DEATH WISH. TALK OF A PROMISE LAND ONLY ADDS TO THE IDIOCY, AND THE HEAD-LONG RUSH TOWARD IT.

The most cognitive animal on the planet will incongruously destroy it. Skeptic or realist?

REMant  10/26/2010 04:18 PM Report

Middle class, of course, translates to republican. It is not upward mobility, nor is it simply a matter of median income. It means equality, and necessarily, individualism, and, thus independence, and virtue. The ability to invent and produce. In present parlance it means libertarian, or as the British say, Liberal. Obama ran on this issue, but it got lost when it shouldn't have, because it was and remains at the heart of the financial crisis. It is not enough to say you will tackle it AFTER things return to normal. Recovery means we will have to deal with it now. Steven and Ken are right about this and Arianna, Prof Hacker and Charlie are wrong. We can't buy our way out, and we certainly can't print money to do it, nor can we do it with transfer payments, altho the latter is of some temporary benefit. Health care is a red herring, too, because it is a symptom, not the cause. We can't really take some of the money we spend on it and give it to someone else. Prices are what they are because the service is directed at the wealthy and provided by those equally wealthy. The providers are interested in selling Cadillacs, not Chevies. The rest are priced out. They are priced out, because they are aided and abetted by the banks.

I first floated the idea that world economic problems must be the impact of China, and other developing nations in a discussion with a Heritage Foundation director in the mid-90's. I recalled an anonymous writer in, I think, the Pensylvania Gazette during the financial crisis of the Revolution, who used the analogy of water seeking a level to explain what we otherwise know as circular flow. The reasoning was that developing countries must pull developed countries down to their level as much as the other way 'round. As cheaper labor they will by definition be more productive, but (as Robbins argued in the 1930's) productivity of any kind should lower prices. That they do not must be due to credit or money creation. To look at it this way, it is not that China caused the real estate bubble by lowering the long-term interest rate, but rather that it popped the bubble of high real estate prices, the same way the price of PCs plummeted at the same time the tech bubble popped. Buying US Treasuries allowed the houses to be built to be sure, but it also meant that the price of houses could not be sustained at a level that would allow them to be continually sold for more. It is not, therefore, the inflation of asset prices that really causes the problems, but deflation brought about by increased productivity, which is not acceptable to the owners of them.

I was somewhat heartened to read in the Post last week that Geithner had got the point to the extent of suggesting nations should agree to balance their imports and exports. Tho Steven's point about mass media is well-taken, and global mkts allow economies of scale, they also allow a lot of segmentation and with it the support for diverse new mkts. And fortunately in places like Austin, TX there are still indigenous artists who are patronized well enough to get by. Too, the automation question has been around for a long time, but Henry Ford essentially solved it, and like globalization, the only reason it doesn't stay solved is due to credit creation. We don't need tariffs and bounties, but we do need the opportunity for labor to seek its level.

There's "public" in the sense of the general welfare, and then there's public in the sense govt programs, just as there is natural and positive law. It is not a matter of democracy anymore than dictatorship, or of balancing interest groups. We have to have virtue, and, if we do, we won't really need govt. And we will have virtue in the long run, or we'll all be dead. I don't think the human animal has any particular death wish, tho sometimes I wonder. The route to virtue may well run through democracy and dictatorship, but we will get to the promised land, tho, I'm sure, the skeptics won't like this assertion.

The middle class was formed at a time when capital was provided largely by savings, despite the best efforts of the Spanish, which could not but have been provided by labor, and so could not get out of hand. But over time the wholesale creation of debt has taken over. We now think we must have debt to impel the process and so face adversity by a tactic that it seems only reasonable to think self-destructive. It is perhaps, as Weber thought, the idea came out of the monasteries. That it is impelled by shame and a need for atonement, and is inherently selfish.

This discussion only skimmed the surface of this issue, getting sidetracked at times, and it deserves a great deal more attention.

JohnGelles  10/26/2010 04:11 PM Report

Continued from cutoff:

implied by victory over totalitarian fascism.

We, therefore, must mimic WW II financing (now with Quantitative Easing) globally to build the physical infrastructure and monetary system of production that will employ every person and work to satisfy every need.

Debt must be re-organized. Deficits must be re-calculated to conform to a full employment budget and a full utilization of capital and technology.

Taxes must be reformed to eliminate all unnecessary taxes: functional finance (the logical extension of Keynes' thought) proves sovereign money can fund government without taxes when price is affordable and profits are saved if not invested.

In other words, governments of each nation alone, or of many nations together (where possible), create full employment monetary systems and waste no people at all.

We must not listen to professionals who do not know how WW II was financed overnight and went to full production almost immediately.

People who start with the 50's must be silenced until they fully understand the early 40's.

JohnGelles  10/26/2010 04:00 PM Report

The American Dream today includes regaining regaining global leadership today by worthy successors to Churchill and Roosevelt so as to implement globally the full employment and conquest of poverty and protection of the environment implied in the 1940's by the Four Freedoms and victory.

This requires the

Slim  10/26/2010 02:00 PM Report

Why do all these shows on social, economic, and political topics on this show have the same basic format and bias? No Black or Brown analysts or viewpoints. Maybe you could designate one of your pasty pundits to appear in blackface and to espouse the stereotypical minority views one hears in the media. Also the conversations seem to inexoriably gravitate to blaming "Obama" for whatever ills are being discussed. Asking the question " What should the President have recognized, ( about the current problems facing the middle class), that he didn"t, giving the impression that he alone was responsible for it and its correction. From my perspective the answer to that question should have been--- the President should have recognized that white America wasn't prepared to bite the bullet and give up their ill gotten priveledges; the rich to the poor, whites to blacks and browns, men to women, and the elites to the masses. The fact that what seems so obvious to me about the origin and arc of almost all of the serious problems discussed on your diverges from the opinions and views of your guests suggests, to me at least, that an important viewpoint is purposefully being ignored and supressed by this country's mainstream media.