Charlie Rose

JohnGelles  12/11/2010 03:14 PM Report

The CEO of Boeing said on CSPAN, America needs an Industrial Strategy -- which might be the name for Industrial Policy at the strategic level -- just above operations. I agree.

What are we afraid of? Of course we will make mistakes. We will make choices that need to be done over. But inaction by government leaves decisions to chance outcomes of random economic events. Markets may or may not seek the lowest cost producer. But, producer of what?

Decisions within executive Departments aided by prize juries to measure knowledgeable opinion are better than market outcomes left to luck.

JohnGelles  12/11/2010 03:36 AM Report

HUMAN RIGHTS and INDUSTRIAL POLICY ? Is there a connection ?

The tax accord brings to mind the BIG ACCORD I'm waiting for: I want CHIMERICA to reflect a new appreciation of universal HUMAN RIGHTS in China -- and a new appreciation of INDUSTRIAL POLICY in America.

DOMESTIC POLITICS in both countries is mitigating against these changes of the status quo. WHY IS THAT ?

Both are nations whose citizens share the same needs (but different histories): Americans need INDUSTRIAL POLICY to protect their possession of human rights.

China has IP -- but not HR. How is such a paradox possible ?

JohnGelles  12/10/2010 08:51 AM Report

How does the Dec 9 show relate to the Dec 7 Show where I am posting. They are tightly related in terms of where we are in this Presidential term turning point, and where we want to be. The President is not a Democrat in Name Only. He is the head of our party, our nation and is the leader of the world we are trying to make better.

I hope he misses very few of CR Shows.

His compromise on taxes will pass I hope, as his Health bill and Wall Street Reform bill did. They were far from the bills we must have. But they were a beginning.

The same may be said of the comments we read on this site. They are far from the comments we need, but they are a beginning.

The CR Show has a very large staff of paid people. The shows reflect their great talent. It has what we call real production value. The supporters get their moneys' worth.

Now what we need is a wikipedia-like team of volunteer comments organizers. The ideas reviewed on the show are changing the world. But is the show doing all it can to use those ideas effectively to derive even more benefit from them than they will otherwise get?

I would like to reach the tennis courts and find one third of the players have watched the show and one tenth of their number have left comments. At the moment the last goal is already met. My comments are sufficient until all worthy comment input is restated in condensed form. But the number of watchers is far below par--and the change the show brings to the world is less than it ought to be.

As I have said a million times, the worst part of the show is its failure to understand money and what Bernanke and Keynes should mean to employment, interest, taxes and money. We should have a job for everyone alive--just as we need books for every child. And we should have money created on purpose, not just created by loans likely to be repaid.

JohnGelles  12/10/2010 08:28 AM Report

The CR Show needs to allow comments immediately -- not days later when the immediacy of watching TV is lost.

The Show needs to develop the "change the world" spirit of Mason and Wood, guests of extraordinary talent who are changing the world for the better. The CR Show content is a baby library of its own of talk that can lead somewhere if something is done after the show that is one-tenth as good as the shows often are themselves.

This particular show of December 9th with Mason and his www.groupon.com , Schiff and her Cleopatra, and Wood and his kids and books in the poorest places on earth, is an education in itself. I know I praised another show the other day with the same superlatives. But I am not exaggerating. These hours have been unbelievably good.

JohnGelles  12/10/2010 08:17 AM Report

I have complained often to CR and his staff of the lousy way their comments work -- i.e., no post send editing and no post send moderation by volunteers to educate people who comment on what they're talking about. CR Shows are up their with Front Line and American Experience, as one of the proofs TV is not a great wasteland. It is as good as it gets for most in the audience who are not in graduate school or the British Museum. But the CR Show comments are generally a collection of trash. This is a crying shame.

JohnGelles  12/10/2010 08:11 AM Report

It's 5am, Dec 10, Ventura, CA, 2010. I usually watch the CR Show between 2330 hours and 0400 the following day (out of Los Angeles KCET,) in bed, from a video recorder downstairs transmitting via a tiny disk to every room in the house.

Most of my tennis playing friends who I meet at 0730 at the public tennis center in Camino Real public park do not watch the show. Some very few do.

So, in the very dark middle of the night when I usually write these comments I'm all alone with the Show.

Tonight it was Groupon and The Point from Andrew Mason, Cleopatra from Stacy Shiff and Literacy for poor children from John Wood. It was the Greatest Show on Earth.

[Let me post this intro before all is lost from a crash of this great system.]

robdverity  12/09/2010 05:16 PM Report

O is a DINO, a Dem. in name only. He's been bedded with big money since his campaign (Larry Summers, R. Rubin et al), and the MI oligarchs and their war (O's war - Af-Pak), all verified by his throw-away of $700,000,000 to his wanna-be richer-than-most one-percenters.

One-term is proving too long. A totally gutless disappointment.

anne4444  12/09/2010 03:44 PM Report

I do admire Ms. Jan Schakowsky’s compassion for the hopeless.

I personally don’t see it as a big issue related to the tax cut for the wealth. THE KEY IS HOW THEY SPEND THEIR MONEY:

If they spend the money into the domestic business, we will all benefit from this spending tremendously since they do produce more with less than.

If they spend on luxurious home, real estates or even merchandises, we do have property tax and sale tax; therefore government will get more tax in return.

THE WORSE CASE IS… THIS CASH FLOWS INTO A BLACKHOLE.

JohnGelles  12/09/2010 11:30 AM Report

In browsing through CR Show comments, the following stood out:

Slim 11/02/2010 01:37 PM

Finally, we all get to see how prescient all you pasty media mavens have been in your political prognostication of the demise of Democrats in congress, and your subliminal hope, incessently expressed, of the failure of black aspiration in general and "Obama" in particular. The absolute absence of black sensibility and race, as an important ingredient in this seasons political discourse, exposes white fear of the black and brown "other" rising to power in our country. Its supression by merely wishing it into oblivion, actively attacking it and its leaders, or by jinning up fear in this season of uncertainty won't undue the inevitable. This election, most importantly, shows blacks and browns the lengths to which the advantaged and powerful in society will go to to hold onto this position. Perhaps, now that this election season is over, more rational and diverse heads can come together to discuss the real issues of importance facing our nation, instead of the irrational and racist ones just given voice.

===================================

Well, my rosy view of the Obama compromise on taxes for the rich versus the middle class did not get into race.

Slim sees racial issues where I see jobs-money-interest issues. He is on to the racial rivalry elements in much of the opposition to rational reform. And he is open minded to the issues Obama puts on the front burner. Obama sees his responsibilities to whites and blacks as inclusive not exclusive. His first concern to to prevent nuclear war not promote profound understanding of racism on earth. I would be the same were I in his position.

But it will do no harm for whites to hear from Slim more often. Tell me, Slim, do you see any chance for Quantitative Easing to get the popular understanding it requires? Blacks need money as much or more than whites. Oprah has enough. Is she using it wisely?

JohnGelles  12/09/2010 10:59 AM Report

I meant to say Charlie and others ought to get the people's opinions together (like Buffet's call for import certificates) that can begin to shape the reforms we urgently need for JOBS NOW, energy, education, etc. Bernanke's QE debt-free money is a beginning. Import certificates can protect industrial power and potential.

Our history of progress, from the Magna Carta to the election of Barack Obama, offers hope that this nation, if it truly installs a government of, by and for the people, can lead a global renaissance of science, industry and morality, that will bring East and West together, bury terrorism overnight, and open minds to new social architecture where carbon is used for structure's not for fuel, hydrogen is used to store energy, the sun is used to create stored energy, and money is used take everyone out of debt and into a world where they are valued as our family.

JohnGelles  12/09/2010 10:44 AM Report

The President's compromise will encourage a serious effort to create the jobs we need in the industrial and other areas where our national interest demands both government and private investment and growth oriented strategies.

The criticism of the tax breaks for people near and at the top makes no sense at all. These people are called on to invest and manage business operations that create jobs in the public interest as well as in owners' interests. When they make the needed investments, it has a better effect than if they were taxed. When they don't, we may have to consider other remedies later.

Envy and anger at the good guys who work in the national and public interest and happen to be leaders at the top is misplaced. We do not want a nation where all business power is concentrated in federal bureaucracies. We want a decentralized system, like a reformed capitalism, where taxes are eliminated where they do no good. The great majority of working people should pay no taxes at all. They create the wealth and will create enough extra wealth to run the government on added production that requires no subtractions from earnings.

The central bank in a rational economy can add new money to match added production. It is time for people to save some money and get completely out of debt. That can leave the government deeply in debt TO THE WORKERS as it should be. Government debt to me, by way of economic rights in my favor, is not a BAD THING. There is no advantage to ending deficits and national debt, if the debt pays for public services like free higher education, free medical care, and free public parks and other cultural advantages.

It is time for a compromise between the left and the right to find the center of gravity of an economic democracy such as the one the President is aiming for.

The real problem is that we do not see Charlie Rose and other high brow media getting Bernanke, Obama, Buffet, and the most respected union people who are not well known because our culture has allowed unions to be victimized by the greed and ignorance of our worst capitalists -- since WW II ended and Taft Hartley stopped the good effects of the Wagner Act it destroyed.

Union dues ought to be free to members and paid by government the same we pay lawmakers and judges who have failed to protect workers from the power of money and greed.

Marc_Bossiere  12/08/2010 11:48 PM Report

Leave it to Charlie to have 3 1/2 liberals (out of 4 people) on to talk about a current political issue. You couldn't find ANY Republicans to appear on this panel Charlie? Did you try to find any?

JohnGelles  12/08/2010 07:34 PM Report

How about DEMANDING Charlie Rose open Dec 8 comments BEFORE tomorrow or the next day. It's an easy fix. Tonight, the 8th, I'll SEE the SHOW. My comment should not have to wait. After the text is also on line, I will add to my comment if necessary. Come on, team, let's get cracking on common sense change.

JohnGelles  12/08/2010 07:27 PM Report

Jan Schakowski worries over disparity -- the few at the top earning far too much -- the many at the bottom getting scraps.

REM ant worries something strange: "Reformers will have to throw out Keynes and monetarism along with the remaining incumbents."

The Congress-lady ought to consider that if the bottom is raised to a decent minimum standard of living, the disparity will be much much less and will have mixed effects-- not all bad. That is, when the bottom has plenty and the top stinks with capital, some at the top will set standards, like building the Taj Mahal, that become a cultural plus.

As to REM ant he is really mixed up. Keynes is the anti-monetarist: Friedman is the monetarist. Keynes is more for fiscal spending, Monetarists are more for limiting the money supply--their great fear is monetizing the national debt.

Actually, Bernanke is willing to monetize a modest portion of the debt in hope the Keynesians in Congress will spend it wisely. I'm with him.

REMant  12/08/2010 11:46 AM Report

This may be portrayed by the president as win-win, but it is a lose-lose deal for the American people. It's old-fashioned log-rolling, typical of what's been wrong with the Congress for far too long. The GOP gets to tell their constituency that they've saved them some money and the Democrats can distribute patronage. If Obama believes that this was instead good for the country, he richly deserves to be a one-term president. The attitude of those Democrats protesting it is mystifying to say the least. The amount the wealthy contribute in taxes is negligible, so it has to be pure spite. I'm not opposed to have them pay more in principle, but they ought to realize that it is the govt spending and monetary policy they've supported all these years that has made those ppl rich. The thing about this is not that it isn't progressive, it is that free money always ends up in the pockets of the wealthy, because of the asset inflation it causes. This will hurt the middle-class, not help them. Reformers will have to throw out Keynes and monetarism along with the remaining incumbents. So I disagree with all of these ppl. The woman just doesn't understand that you cannot create investment out of thin air, esp at this juncture. And Rogoff shows a capacity for compartmentalization that is astonishing. I trust the new Congress, which ought to have been deferred to in any case, will overturn this collusion, and pass the tax reform an increasing number are calling for. But it shows that getting rid of business as usual is going to be an uphill battle.