Charlie Rose

winter  11/23/2011 12:51 PM Report

Lessig is one of few people I might trust with the role of benign dictator and not go Pinochet or Mobutu on us ...or Cheney and Haliburton for that matter.

GILLERAN  11/22/2011 06:34 PM Report

Federalize all election campaign funding NOW.

Gelles  11/20/2011 01:27 PM Report

Charlie Rose Show and its comments on the page linked below covers much the same territory as Lessig's page. (excdept for some reported ads):

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11996

Gelles  11/20/2011 01:19 PM Report

Buddy Roemer's Official Website lists his issues:

1.Fighting Special Interests

Buddy Roemer is committed to fighting the corrupting influences in Wall Street and Washington, ending favors to big donors and the misuse of federal funds to benefit major corporations that take jobs overseas while they evade taxes in America. Campaign finance reform and ending unlimited Super PAC campaign contributions made possible by Citizen's United ruling are critical to battling this problem.

2. Balancing The Budget

We must win the battle to control federal spending. At 25 percent of GDP, federal spending is excessive by any standards, unsustainable under any hypothesis, and erodes confidence in the financial management of our nation’s government.

3. Creating Jobs

America is suffering, with 20 percent of its workforce –25 million people – out of work, underemployed, or no longer even holding on to the hope of finding a job. We have a million fewer jobs than we did 12 years ago and the jobs we have, pay less. “Made in America” is an endangered species. As president, any policy Buddy Roemer considers will first be evaluated through the lens of the impact it could have on American jobs created or lost. In order to restore jobs in America, we must restore America’s industrial prominence. The only way to do so is to establish legitimate and reasonable economic barriers to unfair competition from abroad.

4. Reforming Taxes

Special interests have also taken their toll on the tax code, which is unfair, unreadable, written by lobbyists, and crammed with the loopholes.

5. Strengthening National Defense

America has always led in expanding freedom and democracy across the world. I believe that we need a foreign policy that is firmly rooted in this proud tradition and ready to confront the new challenges of the 21st century. We need a President who is free to lead our friends and allies with clear conviction and unparalleled strength.

6. Securing Energy Independence

Buddy Roemer believes that any energy policy must begin with using resources at home safely and efficiently, reducing dependence on foreign oil and creating jobs here in America.

7. Reforming Health Care

Healthcare reform under President Obama fell victim to special interests, and failed to address the underlying causes of costs in the system. Tort lawyers, pharmaceutical and insurance companies tend to be major campaign donors to campaigns in order to protect their bottom lines. As an insulin-dependent diabetic for more than 40 years, Buddy understands the importance of a healthcare system that is affordable and provides the quality of care that people need. He is unwilling to accept campaign contributions that would keep him from being free to lead on healthcare reform.

8. Fixing Immigration

Immigrants play a vital role in our economy, bringing skills and hard work to jobs that can at times be thankless.  At the same time, we have a responsibility to seal our borders and ensure that those who come to this country do so legally.

9. National Security

Military preparedness is paramount to maintaining America’s role in the world, and ensuring that America has the most advanced technology and best trained troops to be ready for any situation that might necessitate their involvement.

10. Foreign Policy 

America cannot, and should not, be the world’s policemen.  However, Buddy Roemer is committed to assisting countries who choose freedom to become stronger.  

11. Banking Reform

As a small business banker, Buddy Roemer is proud to have chosen smart investments that kept his bank on solid footing while others were taking bailouts from the government to remain solvent. Banking is too important to be left to the bankers, but Buddy recognizes that regulation of the industry must be a fine balance between too much and too little.

12. Education Reform

In order to remain competitive and viable, America needs to focus on providing its youth with world-class education.

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

On balance, Buddy's issues statements are better than others. However, the following are repeated as changed by me:

2. Balancing a Full Employment Budget

We must win the battle to manage federal spending in the public interest. Federal spending is the source of national investment the private sector may find too high for private means. Federal spending for government operations should be kept to essentials. Federal investment for economic and industrial strength to defend our liberty and ensure prosperity should never short change our potential and critical needs.

Budgets too low to achieve full employment will poison the well from which we all must drink. They always have and always will. Depressions and wars are the price of government without purpose -- and with the fixed belief that universal greed is father to automatic achievement of the best results possible for ourselves and our posterity.

8. Fixing Immigration

Immigrants play a vital role in our economy, bringing skills and hard work to jobs that can at times be thankless. At the same time, we have a responsibility to seal our borders and ensure that those who come to this country do so legally. When experience proves that a rich America attracts people who need a better break at home we should endeavor to help willing nations to provide good jobs for emigrants before they try to break our laws.

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

Lawrence Lessig is one of the brightest guests ever to address this audience.

chawlynose  11/20/2011 06:43 AM Report

Only criticism of Mr. Lessig, why not Ask Charlie rose to reach out to Buddy Roemer for an interview?.??

Why not ask Charlie Rose to INVITE Buddy Roemer to one of the many many Debates?.??? why? why? why?

chawlynose  11/20/2011 06:39 AM Report

Wow! ... "Lawrence Lessig" , that's a name worth remembering. He is saying everything I have been thinking and Trying to say for going on 3 years or so now. This interview should be a permanent fixture of the Charlie Rose website home page, so it doesn't disappear into the archives.

The core problem is very obvious, but politicized down. Buddy Roemer is the ONLY candidate offering a REAL SOLUTION to our Biggest economic and societal ills. We need Buddy Roemer!

chawlynose  11/20/2011 06:15 AM Report

By far, one of Charlie Rose's most intelligent and HONEST guests.

JohnGelles  11/17/2011 01:17 PM Report

Winter~

Thanks for your desire for a fair system. Believe me, you know as much about jobs, debt, need, supply, demand, etc., as REMant and I. You have known it because you are immersed in commerce, consumption, thought and common sense, etc.

As you point out, the greatest beneficiaries of typical corporate operations are on a path to receiving too high multiples of the average wage. This prevents too many low wage consumers from buying enough to keep prosperity around all the time -- until none are poor and no pollution or corruption is welcomed by the "system".

Lawrence Lessig believes all this. And he is right. The issue is "what to do?".

We currently operate hoping the system is self-correcting: "what must be done, will be done!". Our system subscribes to this erroneous belief.

The change I would add to Lessig's $50 and $100 contributions to pay for campaigns is the National Economic Security Agency, packed with IT (information tech) competence and resources. Only such a huge agency can know enough about production and supply to successfully guide Congressional spending of debt-free tax-free money to maintain full employment all the time -- when you can no longer produce obsolete products, you still have a job learning new needed skills.

In the long run, we must want robots to do all the repetitive work -- and people to do all the human tasks that must be done and robots will never do: like caring for other people, enjoying peace and prosperity, etc.

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

My Kindle Fire came. I am breaking my hump trying to learn to use it. I think I will fail. The tablet I want must offer talk-to-text, text to talk, superb navigation, and affordable prices. Fire may some day have this and be able to teach me how to use it. At the moment I am suffering from my short-comings and Fire's short-comings (if it has them).

winter  11/17/2011 11:54 AM Report

JG,

I find the popular conception of Freedom to be less than comprehensive insofar as it can carry with it the wisdom for

beating the path towards a future that finds People sharing in the rewards of their efforts fairly and outpace another abstraction ...Power. Whenever the concept of Freedom is spotlighted it ought to entertain the

question inherent in it of --whose Freedom-- when individual Freedoms come in conflict. That question often comes in the form of ...how are we going to split the treasure? All I ever took were macro and micro economics and I forgot 90 percent of that so I turn economic explorations into explorations of right and wrong and instead of how does it work I resort to questions of who is it working for? Falling down this abyss of relativism everyone grasps for branchs to stop their fall and most of the time they're just wisdomless straws. Why am I not answering your questions directly ...probably because I can't. I don't understand a fraction of what you and ReMant do on Econ. I don't think ulitimately that our answers lie in Econ. moreso in social science based approachs to our dilemnas. The Ed Show displays a chart that sums it up for me, that increases in wealth have been disproportionately distributed topwise for decades even in times of increased productivity. Evidently the supply side has had the demand side of the equation, and it necessarily is an equation, come around and bite it in the ass. The right keeps insisting, in arenas of Dutch Auction extortions of Federalism, that we empower business with ever more breaks. Are they going to create their own demand and buy their own products? My cat, if you feed her enough, will never stop eating until she falls down dead. Its what makes her NOT a person, with a mind, towards self reflective moderation.

finalfantasytown  11/16/2011 09:27 AM Report

When I am lost, I go to facebook because I can dream my face-looking there.

I think Lawrence Lessig's book aims to show how neurons inaccurately receive, process, and send out signals, and try to find a way to rewire.

JohnGelles  11/16/2011 06:41 AM Report

Post-send editing, such as Amazon support on all its bulletin boards, is dirt cheap and absolutely necessary. Why is Charlie so stubborn? Rose could be the leader of late night potent thought (which he thinks he is already) if he added to this archive live links, post-send edits, transcriptions, and bumper stickers like "Charlie Rose, the Free University Not to be Missed."

JohnGelles  11/16/2011 06:29 AM Report

Sharks~

You have it right, friend. Lessig and Roemer have rational ideas the CRS audience should echo. Add to them (the ideas), those who will, the need to add to private gross profit wage subsidies that boost the minimum wage, as computed by government charged with our defense, sufficient purchasing power to grow a green economy at accelerating rates until poverty is defeated and democracy's enemies, if such there be, are kept on permanent notice that the four freedoms are backed by force the likes of which there is nothing comparable.

If you think the global economy can survive as civilized enterprise, without such OPM money subsidies, please explain how. If not we have a two legged stool for reform to (1) bury Lobbying Induced Corruption, bias against high wages, and to (2) bury inadequate gross profit in the private sector and tax-free spending by governments, including federally passed through support of competent enthusiastic local government.

There is a third leg to our stool that may not be too popular. It has to do with nuclear proliferation. While we take big bite out of corruption and a huge bite out of ruinous deflation, there remain threats to the four freedoms by the heirs of tyrannical impulse that characterize human political experience. These heirs, whose would be arsenals cannot be tolerated, must be invaded by special forces to kill the leaders not the people. It is time for the forces of democracy to rule out the threat o nuclear attack by rough police action before collateral death to innocents becomes what it has been in since air power replaced cavalry as democracy's protector.

This means a team of three competencies, from these or similar types of leaders: Lawrence Lessig, Buddy Roemer and David Petraeus.

Get on board by adding your user-name and endorsement to a plan to appeal to the center before the scene on the streets result in the election of undesirable reactionaries. As to the Herbert Hoovers among us, take a nap until 2013.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  11/16/2011 02:26 AM Report

“I think the core thing that's gotta happen first is that we have presidents and Congress who are, to steal Buddy Roemer's slogan, free to lead, free to be independent of the special interests that fund them enough so that they can decide what to do on the basis of their principles or on the basis of what they think is right.”

Yes Lawrence--freedom! (But scream it like Mel Gibson in "Braveheart".)

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-10-18/lawrence-lessig-republic-lost/transcript

SharkswithfrikingLazers  11/16/2011 02:21 AM Report

"Number of Americans who remained loyal to Britain during the Revolution: as many as 500,000 (20% of white Americans)."

http://www.shmoop.com/american-revolution/statistics.html

Yes at about a 9% approval rating, Congress really, really sucks and "60 Minutes" drove it home on Sunday with their insider trading story.

Lawrence is quite right and the time for change is now. Please feel free Lawrence to lead the charge.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  11/16/2011 02:04 AM Report

"First. As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people."

http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa52.htm

Well then, if 30 to 70% of their time is spent raising money then they are not doing their jobs.

Why spend any time at all raising money once elected if you only get a two year term? Why do we need professional money raisers to represent us? Make it more like mandatory service than a dream job and they will be anxious to leave--just like what happens to those who are drafted.

Find someone good in your district, take their family hostage for two years, and force them into a two year Congressional term. By the way, hold all the congressional families in the same campus and make them all work, play, eat and worship together.

Shanghai our Congress! (at least until the Corporations lose interest)

JohnGelles  11/15/2011 10:42 PM Report

Winter~

I hope we can bring constructive ideas to Lessig and his book. He sees some corporations and other misguided or greedy producers paying large sums to elect Congress and our Commander in Chief in a game where the money-contributors obtain tax advantages and support for owners of farms, mines and factories, etc., to hold wages as low as possible.

You seem to agree with Lessig's view and his solution. If not, please be specific, and use plain English, to help us decent people, rich or not-rich, plan to improve the lot of our children and their children, etc.

Also, considering that bad-news capitalism is producing the goods we use and trade everywhere but in North Korea, please comment on my additional cure for our economic poor performance: we must pay consumers enough to buy the global output of our monetary systems of production. This we are told will require more money than sales (less costs) provides. Tod try to do this I have recommended a National Economic Security Agency with enormous information-tech resources and competence.

The NESA may sound far out and questionable. But we are talking about ignorance that costs trillions and kills millions.

And we must use more advanced logistics than we have, to know which consumers to pay how much, to allow the whole system to save us from various ways we now bring on our own ruination.

To cut this short -- return to the problem of what is money and how much is there, that we can spend without taxing it out of your pocket or borrowing it from anyone?

The answer is Output-based money to replace Debt-based money. Debt-based money is very small compared to Output-based money. To use your Henry Ford notion. He had to use Debt-based, even gold-based money. So he never got the results he wanted. OBM uses Ford Cars and all others to allow government to create missing money. How much? Unlimited. The NESA advises government of supply, price, demand, and deficits in demand. Gov't zero's out the deficit in demand CAREFULLY. It does not want to ruin the magical power of money to motivate production of cars. Workers must be motivated until robots can replace them -- and workers become great scientists and artists because they are as good as you and I, even you and me. Owners must also be motivated. They must be able to design better cars, safer cars, etc. Eventually, owners will have to test their products behind the wheel where unsafe cars will kill them first.

winter  11/15/2011 09:16 PM Report

Before we become a tent city of cabals, each one trying to find the best way to sneak their interests past public scrutiny before awareness of any lack of merit is discovered, it must be prudent to put a stop to the battle royale that is campaign finance in the forms it exists in today. The Chinese market is often criticized for its lack of openness; as it should be. The general public welfare is currently threatened by the conflicting interests of private enterpirse. The general welfare is at a disadvantage due to its being less well organized and without the police backing the private sector enjoys.

Since the demise of colonialism it seems we've become increasingly dependent for sources of profit that have more to do with transfers of liquidity and opportunities than creating anything actually and materially anew. The private sector thus has become desperate and Henry Fords notion that every man should be paid an wage that affords him the ability to buy the product he built fades into the offshore distance of outsourcings. It took 14 Trillion dollars to prop up the belief that our way of life can actually provide

a means to keep our people from the wolf. The tune played to this game of musical chairs is either a dirge or the theme to Looney Tunes.

JohnGelles  11/15/2011 07:40 PM Report

The recommendation from Lawrence Lessig that we a create $50 tax-based subsidy free to all taxpayers for campaigns for Congress, President and Vice President, plus a $100 (and less) gift-based voluntary subsidy from all voters which they pay for out of pocket, for these same campaigns, together with a voluntary acceptance of such funds by candidates who promise to spend no more than these subsidies, is a WINNER.

If they do not kill K Street and corruption of the regulatory and law-making functions of the federal government, because candidates spend more by refusing the subsidies, we presume the limits will be doubled and redoubled, until we can forbid outright as crime, buying the Congress or the Presidency by spending above legal limits.

This makes the Lessig book interesting -- but not sufficient.

The global corruption, that denies human rights and the Second Bill of Rights to Americans, Chinese, Indians, Europeans, and all 6 billion adults on this planet, is caused mostly by debt-based money. We much switch to output-based money (OBM).

So Lessig's subsidies and Gelles' OBM are both needed to make full employment budgets the powerful tools they have been in war -- BUT USED HEREAFTER ALSO IN PEACE TO PREVENT UNEMPLOYMENT, POVERTY, POLLUTION, RECESSION, DEPRESSION AND WAR.

www.ustaxreform.us ... www.ustaxreform.us/.crs.htm

tabs  11/15/2011 02:54 PM Report

It was on this very Charlie Rose program some years back that Gore Vidal said, "That the United States became a National Security State in 1948." With the advent of nuclear weapons and the dreadful consequences of nuclear war national security trumped all. Throw in the reality that the US was the richest and most powerful nation the world had ever seen and the stage was set for the corruption of the system. With all the varied interests, all jockeying for position and power the game of politics has become all consuming. As for the epiphany, it is when the game of politics becomes more important than governing itself that the system begins to fail. Unfortunately in ones opinion it is only when all the money and power disappears that the game stops as everybody will be too busy trying to survive.

REMant  11/15/2011 11:38 AM Report

The Founders in convention showed they understood perfectly well that ppl would sell their votes, especially those Founders arguing for monarchy, such as Morris. However, there's no question but that lifting restrictions on campaign finance in the present circumstance was the right thing to do. Until men become angels, we are going to have corporations, unions and other combinations, and, if so, they should be on equal footing.

Obviously, various elements of both parties are trying to horn in on these anti-establishment movements, for instance, big money and fundamentalists on the tea party, and the unions on the occupy ppl. They have attempted to stigmatize their opposite numbers as fascists or communists. But the protestors can find common ground once they realize that the issue is not the capitalism vs the welfare, but the way in which monetary and fiscal policy undercut the dependence honest institutions should have on labor.

BTW, the Federalist newspaper articles have nothing to do with the Constitution, its motivation, its crafting, or its meaning, and hence its interpretation except where they merely describe the provisions. The word democracy appears nowhere in any document of the period I'm aware of - and I've read nearly all of them - incidentally, except in connection with mobocracy.