Charlie Rose

john_q_public  07/20/2011 04:16 AM Report

I like Larry Summers. He is the only guest who won't let Charlie Rose interrupt.

robdverity  07/17/2011 05:19 PM Report

dood - 10 fast comes out as predicted, "a pissy mess."

robdverity  07/17/2011 05:15 PM Report

For example I think Summers, Paulson et al (backers of TARP) have all been taken care of at our expense. The brotherly love at the financial and MI level is limited to 'amongst themselves.' Makes anarchy the more appealing. I think we're headed for the dumpster. Or toilet might be more apropos.

doodah  07/17/2011 05:12 PM Report

robd, 'the Preacher of Doom' , .. a 'pessimist's pessimist' (say that 10 times real fast)

robdverity  07/17/2011 05:03 PM Report

Gelles - your outlook is remarkable from this of yours lifted from below: "I, Gelles, will no buy that crap. Science and technology give us cause for celebration and thanks to God Almighty, or to the human race, such as it is. It is only a matter time before language, law and economics, yield to scientific method and the common brotherly love for which there has always been much evidence (-- to remove the stain of Cain from our DNA and chemistry.)"

Remarkable when your tribal bros. endured UNbrotherly love called the Holocaust. Such stark realism flies in the face of your "evidence of brotherly love." You're a better man than I, Gunga Din, as I don't believe it. . . . . . much as I would like.

JohnGelles  07/17/2011 03:21 PM Report

The key to full employment of labor and private capital is demand in the private sector via demand in the public and private sectors.

Rob de Truth-in-life and politics, aka deVerity wants punishment for the culprits and clamped noses for their willing victims -- OK. Rob is right.

..... The government authorities who protected the crooks who sold fraudulent derivatives and undeserved economic misery to the middle and better classes deserve fines, jails and amputations (at the neck and lower down).

..... But Summers remains right. Called for now is DEMAND and public and private INVESTMENT -- in growth among advanced democracies (including likely future democracies).

..... Which I further refine to mean -- GREEN industrial and material processes and economic democracy (read as full employment and fair wage budgets, practices and laws.)

.

But all here say SO WHAT! Gelles, Bernanke, the President, are talking through their hat. They talk the talk -- but history and events walk the walk. We can and should convict the Wall Street - Gov't-Bureaucracy conspirators. Beyond that -- to build Utopia from scratch -- not likely!

I, Gelles, will no buy that crap. Science and technology give us cause for celebration and thanks to God Almighty, or to the human race, such as it is. It is only a matter time before language, law and economics, yield to scientific method and the common brotherly love for which there has always been much evidence (-- to remove the stain of Cain from our DNA and chemistry.)

The major cause of inadequate micro and macro DEMAND was and is persistent DEBT waiting -- to be re-organized to become lower debt or higher equity (stock).

However, even debt reform is not enough. TAX reform, too, is the sine qua non of modern growth requirements. Why enact compulsory direct taxes when indirect sales taxes and tax-free liquidity injections can finance growth with money to be saved or spent in BOTH the public and private interest.

It must be obvious to all that billions owned by Warren Buffet compared to a mogul like Murdoch or tyrant like Stalin is not in Buffet's case anything but good for the prospects of any economic democracy.

..... Economic equality within the private sector is not what we need. Quite the opposite. Economic security for the bottom, and all the rest, can prevent fascism built on fear for your job and your family.

..... Above that earnings level that secures human rights, additional inequality is more easily tolerated than a leveling of society that can only be done poorly -- and at the risk of making everyone an anarchist.

So, to repeat, JOBS FOR ALL, UNAVOIDABLE TAXES FOR NONE. (Limit taxes to purchases that nobody has to make -- like for sin and luxuries that you'll never miss.

robdverity  07/16/2011 12:47 PM Report

Well said Senior Ruz. Our financial subprime melt down metastasized around the world, causing Euro and dollar-misery (and possibly the Arab spring?). Retribution is overdue.

And they wont even be taxed with a surcharge let alone enjoying lobbied evasions - loopholes (yacht exemptions yet?).

Summers, BO, Geithner, Paulson, Bernanke are all culpable and sorely need comeuppance for the abject misery they helped create and are still creating.

As said before, a culture is only as deserving as what it tolerates. We are apparently holding our collective nose(es).

Miguel_Ruz  07/15/2011 08:29 PM Report

In the past, Summers played a key role to deregulate the financial products that caused the disaster. No one can expect credit and credibility after that.

JohnGelles  07/15/2011 07:20 PM Report

The eight previous comments are pessimistic views. If they are all wrong-headed -- which they are -- they only confirm the Churchill-ian remark that "America always does the right, thing after trying to do all the wrong things first."

Tabs give an account of the past that is not all nonsense, but he concludes that we are nearly beyond fixing. That is nonsense.

..... ..... If we created the monetized demand called for (trillions), and spent new fiat AND bank-loan money (50-50 or so, for many years, and less when prosperity was well rooted) -- and focused such spending on supply of all public necessities, like improved infrastructure, massive R&D support for the future technologies now inviting same (bio-tech, nano-tech, info-tech, cyber-defense, space-defense, unmanned-machines offense, etc., diplomacy, war-avoidance, etc.)-- with trillions of dollars in contracts with private and public producers, --

..... ..... ..... we would create the full employment and middle class economic security urgently needed.

.

Of course if we do not do such heroic things, if we WAIT for private shopping to drive us out of the ditch, we may be left to rot on account of our own ignorance -- not on account of Asian wisdom (which has yet to overcome its years of Mandarin-ism, Communism, and authoritarianism.)

All and all, Summers explains more of "what to do" than other guests. Cure the JOBS deficit first, the supply-the-poor deficit next, the rational politics deficit next, etc.

..... ..... He does not repeat, ad nausea, that our debt is out of sight: it is far less than average among nations who will be our rivals to model future systems that will rely more on steel and carbon collars than on white and blue collars worn below mouths you have to feed and feelings you have to beware of.

robdverity  07/15/2011 04:17 PM Report

Apropos of nothing, he came off as ineloquent, esp. for a Harvard prof. Maybe I'm guilty of matching my opinion of him with his speech pattern.

EPatrickMosman  07/15/2011 10:43 AM Report

Summers Part 2 adds nothing to Part 1 and there is nothing more to add to my comments on Part 1.

Sugarland  07/15/2011 03:37 AM Report

The near religious fervor of politicians when using the words “demand” and “debt” to drive toward policies is most disconcerting. Both are derived from antiquated economic theories that do not account for the unrelated instantaneous transfer of ideas and money along with the globalized production of material goods.

Lack of “demand” for your product means you invested money and expertise to produce something the market no longer needs.

Excess “debt” means you borrowed money for an activity that is no longer desired.

It would appear that our present economic circumstance was/is caused by poor decisions on selecting activities that make the best use of money and expertise. Both government and the private sector have participated, even colluded , in making the poor decisions. Some of that religious fervor needs to be channeled into developing better means for making proper decisions.

The ultimate use of “most desirable” activities is to increase the standard of living of all and/or support the ever expanding population.

ttime  07/14/2011 08:12 PM Report

Summers should answer in detail why he stopped "Brooksley Born" Chief of Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 1998 or1999 from regulating the dark markets of derivatives along with Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan when he was in Clinton Administration. That is the root cause of the landslide of the American Economy we are experiencing for last five years.

ttime

tabs  07/14/2011 05:17 PM Report

Mr Mant, who does one think sent Bachmann the following?

You Can't Put Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again

Thu, 08/05/2010 - 11:14 — tabs

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You don't have to tell me things are bad, worse than bad. But the sky isn't going to fall, the end isn't nye and we are not doomed. What is going to happen and we are well on the road to this end is that the USA is just not going to be as prosperous nor as powerful as it once was.

The Middle Class is going to shrink, there is going to be a relatively large underclass of working people and unemployed. Wages for the American worker are going to more closely parallel that of the worlds wage structure and the living standard is going to decline. The economy of the USA is going to more closely resemble 1910 than its post war heyday of 1960.

What truly amazes is the lack of vision on the part of ALL the economists, politicos and media. These people don't seem to understand the historic inevitability of this end. It does seem that they are stuck in the present and when trying to remedy problems are trying to formulate some grand plan that will "fix" America so that it can retain its supremacy in the world. What these people fail to realize is the fact that it took one step, one decision at a time over a number of decades to reach the situation America now faces. To "fix" the problem a grand plan of action or legislation is not going to work for any plan is based on present knowledge and conditions and can not foresee future conditions or problems. One gets themselves into trouble one step at a time and one gets one self out of trouble the same way. Anything else is simply not going to work. That is not to say that one can not have a direction or policy to move towards.

Further all the efforts to rectify America's problems is like the kings men trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again for these same economists etal also fall to understand the arc of history. Again they seem rooted in the moment or at best looking back a mere decade. To get a truly accurate assessment of Americas current status one has to look at its economic and political history going back 65 years.

After WW2 America entered into an unprecedented wealth building Post War Prosperity Boom that lasted roughly 20 years. This prosperity boom was fueled by 5 main ingredients

1. America was the only unscathed industrial power in the world and the world needed rebuilding.

2. The GI's returning from WW2 started families and needed everything refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, cars and houses.

3. After WW2 there was a dearth of consumer goods as very few were produced from 1930 to 1945 due to the Great Depression and the World War. Thus there was 15 years worth of pent up demand.

4. The rise of the large middle class, where a man without an education could attain middle class status was due to corporations thinking that they were making so much money that they could meet Union demands for higher wages. These corporations felt they would lose more money by going on strike than paying its workers higher wages and benefits.

5. The Cold War demanded that higher military budgets be kept in place. This one might say was a continual government stimulus program.

By 1965 this unprecedented status began to change first with competition from Europe and Japan and later Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, China, India and Brazil. If one remembers the first of the American industries to fall to foreign competition was the American ship building industry, followed by autos, steel and electronics..remember those American icons of American electronics Zenith,, RCA, and Westinghouse? This trend has continued on to this very day.

Also one has to mention the inflection point where the US government and society in general began to feel that as a "Rich" nation we could afford it all without consequence and that was the day LBJ put the SS Trust into the General Account in 1968. This act merely disguised the true national debt by using an accounting gimmick of placing that debt into accounts payable.

By examining the causative factors that led to the Great American Prosperity Boom of the post war period one has to realize those conditions that created it no longer exist, there is a new paradigm at work. America is saturated with consumer goods, debt and is faced with continually steeper competition in the world. The mere fact that American politicians are trying to resurrect the past is in of itself a causative agent for failure. America has to face this new reality and not try and delude itself into thinking Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again.

aj617  07/14/2011 03:50 PM Report

I rather liked Part I of the Summers interview, but part II

did not really develop the discussion at all and was very

repetitive. We have already seen that existing Capacity

can swallow up a trillion dollars of stimulus, or a trillion

dollars worth of tax cuts, or both, without producing many new jobs, and that the idea of making infrastructure jobs by taxing the rich, arguably the best idea, is off the table. I was hoping for an insight that could hurtle the impasse, but now it is becoming clear that the economy will not improve until another Hitler appears to scare the upper class enough to pony up as in WWII. They have the money to fix the problem, but they don't see the American people as a good or necessary investment.

charlizecourriers  07/14/2011 01:40 PM Report

"Let's be clear," the "we" here is the we of the Democratic Party. This man's problem is his lack of demand, not America's. I suggest the true 'unheimlich' moment occurred in the first interview, at about 11 minutes in, when he floated out the cost of "capital money" as JUST two point eight five per cent. Summers, on an unconscious level, is incredulous about the system not working according to his fantasies. But he("we") can keep this economy working if we("us") following his mediocre economic banalities! This is a discredited man whose karma is continuuing to reveal itself. Of course Rose is his ideal apologist(thanks Plato!). Finally, as I mentioned yesterday, the real question is this: how much would taxes have to raised to pay for all the programs now on the books-And assuming NO program reductions? This is question that the

Republican/Democrat club is putting off until after next years election with the current debt limit smokescreen. Stay posted, America.

REMant  07/14/2011 11:08 AM Report

Somehow or other a great part of this interview was the same as that aired the day before.

I would suggest, however, we have little tourism, not only because there's nothing to see in this great country of ours, but also, because it costs so much to get an hotel room or a meal outside of McDonald's. And, of course, he is going to blame everything on the lack of demand (i.e., command).

Prof Summers is one of those enthusiasts I spoke of earlier. And it surely seems Mr Rose is also one. Just when you think Charlie has begun to understand something, he pulls one of these stunts. Perhaps he just wants to please everyone. Such benevolent ppl, their entire sense of self-worth depends on being in a position to give ppl things. The problem is that Americans for the better part of a century have been coaxed by such ppl into an economics of continuous credit creation, which has enticed them to put all their money into assets and driven up their prices to unsustainable levels. This philosophy we now call Keynesianism, of which Summers is a well known representative. Despite what he says about the balanced budgets Greenspan convinced Clinton to adopt in 1993, he cannot really understand any context in which borrowing (because that's where ultimately the spending must come from) is not the driver. But this house of cards must collapse, and it will not be easy on anyone. IMHO what is likely to happen in the next several years will make the 1930's look like a holiday, whether we borrow more or not. The best we can do is to retreat in an orderly fashion, which cannot involve more reckless and face-saving behavior. That's the real issue of these budget talks. The middle class, which was encouraged by Democrats (mainly) to sink everything into real estate, have no choice but to give up this false sense of self-worth, and start working and saving. But while I understand many Americans are looking for jobs, I am not at all sure many really want to work anymore. Sure the govt can borrow from misguided Chinese and Saudis, and the Fed can further lower the value of the dollar, and maybe equalize American wages with those in the 3d world, or even take them lower. But would that make anyone work or will it start a mad scramble for commodities as it has with gold and oil, and, which must eventuate in war?

Prof Summers does not in any way understand the 1930's and esp not 1937. I've written about this many times before, but nothing, I am sure, I say is going to change his mind, because he has long since staked his reputation on this line and will not even try to learn anything new. The idea that the '70s or the mid '90s was any different from the '30s is ludicrous. EVERY recession and depression has been caused by too much credit, too much spending exceeding the ability of ppl to repay, usually misappropriating savings that made it possible (for even a command economy must save), and undermines the virtue required to do it. We discussed all this ad nauseam two-three years ago.

Incidentally, I would have to agree with the president that it is not clear whether Social Security will get paid or not, because the govt routinely raids the "trust fund" Rep Bachmann spoke about and leaves an IOU (which no doubt shows just how successful Keynesianism is at stimulating economic growth!)