Charlie Rose

VDiamant  01/15/2012 05:49 PM Report

I concur with the previous comment. You should be running for president, Mr. Barney. Social consciousness and responsibility have become an aberration, it seems. As much as there is criticism of the Wall Street and bankers, the top 1% laughs all the way to those bankers, and nothing changes. People who run for offices fulfill only their ambitions to rise out of anonymous mediocrity, no matter how much they foam about serving people! Good Obama, though sincere, had no chance with the majority around him, standing for self-righteous greed, ignoring the right of others to a descent way of life.

mlsmith  01/10/2012 03:12 PM Report

Mr. Barney Frank, I will miss you dearly if you completely remove yourself from the public debate on all the political issues. People need to hear your truthfulness, a liberal view. The conservative cause is so fraught with deception that to not contest it, will allow a type of fascism to brew, as in the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the tea party refrains.

Surf  01/09/2012 10:58 AM Report

Now that he is retired – and wealthy - may be he can approach government from our side. If he truly wants to make affordable rental housing he can sit down with a notepad and write up a business plan that will pass muster with a banker for a loan to start up a construction firm. (Not dipping into his personal wealth to subsidies his venture,to make his point, by making small fortune from his current great fortune.) Then abide by all rules and regulations to license his firm with the State and County. Once done, pay his workers the prevailing union wage and build his architecturally idyllic and socially empowering rental properties. Then price the units where the “poor” can service the rent and where he can make a profit - in less than 100 years.

It might be enlightening to see what his 45 years of legislating has done to us pain-in-the-rear voters from our point of view.

Bluesmeup  01/08/2012 02:52 PM Report

Thank you, Mr. Frank, for telling Charlie to stop interrupting while you were trying to make a point. I wish more guests would tell him to shut up when it's deserved. Mr. Rose has a habit of butting-in with guests on his show. It seems to be the case that Mr. Rose forgets that he's the host and what guests have to say should be more important than him trying to get his views across-- often by interrupting. Having said that, I love watching the Charlie Rose show and the interview with Mr. Frank was excellent!

chawlynoze  01/08/2012 06:04 AM Report

Sharkster, -

You're Insight(s) is closer to the Reality then most people can admit. They would learn alot to heed your words of Wisdom. More so than this, Goofball, Frankly Barney, who dropped the proverbial societal soap on purpose right in front of Phil Gramm, so Phil Gramm could cornhole us all!

It's about time, Phil Gramm, spent some Real Time in the prison shower, that's a reality show worth cooking up some popcorn for.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/07/2012 11:37 PM Report

Barney's neurons fire very quickly.

I like what he said in "Inside Job" although he only gave them 20 minutes.

"She (Brooksley Born) was overruled, unfortunately. First by the Clinton administration and then by Congress. In 2000, Senator Phil Gramm took a major role in getting a bill passed that pretty much exempted derivatives from regulation."

Graham said these derivatives were unifying markets, reducing regulatory burden. Then after leaving the Senate Graham became Vice-Chairman of UBS. From 1993 his Wendy served on the board of Enron. I hope Congressman Frank stays clean.

Yes Charlie, some say the private sector can do it better--perhaps a reality show, government vs the private sector when one bends over in prison to pick up the soap.

efeinbe2  01/07/2012 02:52 PM Report

Love barney.

bonalibro  01/07/2012 06:35 AM Report

You really tipped your hand, Mr. Rose, in that fight with the Congressman over the private sector doing it better. The private sector is no better at doing things than government is, and this has been proven time after time. Look at the way the private sector wasted billions in Iraq on shoddy and uncompleted construction contracts, look at what the private sector is doing to medical care and medical costs. The rent seeking and profiteering is killing us. The urge to privatize government functions began in the 1970s, at the end of a long bear market when returns on investment were terrible, and the Dow was priced at four time earnings. If a company could get cost plus by assuming government functions, that was a damn good deal. Has been ever since, even with the boom in the capital markets. But it hasn't been a boon to the taxpayers. The size and cost of government has increased in spite of it.

I truly believe there are only two things the G.O.P. has against government; the elevation of African Americans into middle class government jobs, and government demand that business assume its external costs.

Otherwise, they love government because it's a source of enormous profits.

I remember in the Reagan years, when the President's closest campaign advisor bypassed a White House job to set up a firm called The Power House. I went for job interview there, and the one thing they wanted to know was who my Pentagon contacts were, because the only mission was to open doors to rent seeking contractors for a cut of the Government's largess.

Gelles  01/07/2012 02:40 AM Report

Barney Frank talks too fast.

tabs  01/06/2012 04:02 PM Report

So Mr Franks take on Mr Romney is that he has "no core values" and will say or do anything to get elected to the Presidency. It is very interesting that Ms Wassermann Schultz in an interview on the FAUX News last night said essentially the same thing about Mr Romney. This apparently will at least be the opening gambit by the WH in its reelection campaign if Mr Romney is the Republican candidate.

However one wonders if the following sounds similar to Mr Franks refrain?

Romney Robot

Thu, 03/03/2011 - 08:26 — tabs

"Mitt Romney has less personality and character than Robbie the Robot on the 1960's television program Lost In Space. What Romney Robot is, is a slick opportunist whose only core value is his ambition to be President of the United States. The only question is would he sell his Mother to be President or would he just stop at the wife and kids."

So Mr Romney does have a core value after all and that is that he has ambition to be President and will do or say whatever it takes to move into the WH. Here one thinks that he is merely a product of the times where situational ethics is the smart thing to do as it is the conventional wisdom of politics today.

.

The question one has continually posed for Mr Romney is why do you want to be President? A SPIN answer will not suffice, as the nation to elect him needs an answer from the heart. What we have gotten as of late from Mr Romney is the SPIN answer and that is that the nation he loves is in dire straits and that competent leadership is needed to save it. That Iowa answer sounds like a TV GAME SHOW HOST and is not befitting of a man who wants to be President.

BTW one does know the reason why Mr Romney has a burning ambition to be President even if Mr Romney is not fully aware of it himself.

REMant  01/06/2012 12:21 PM Report

Well,if he's not a social reformer (the dictionary definition of a progressive), then he's a machine politician (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall).

Mr Frank doesn't believe that markets lead to equality. Hence he is left with the need for welfare, and problems generated by an absence of mkt discipline. He was a prime encourager of govt home-buying assistance, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which by inflating values perversely assisted property owners far more than the poor, making the situation infinitely worse and sending it on a downward spiral. To say now that he was forced to do because of "segregation" sounds as if he is merely trying to shift the blame for the debacle onto others.

Ppl don't want the poor housed in places they don't own in their backyards, because the poor simply don't take care of the places. It's not their "fault," but it is their problem, and not one I'm sure simply "mainstreaming" them is going to solve. This was the same logic behind busing and that doesn't seem to have worked. In the past they been provided with housing that they have so completely trashed, the only alternative has been to demolish it.

There IS an increasing amount of agreement in Congress, that, as Dave Barry rather inelegantly put it last weekend (http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/dave-barrys-year-in-review-the-2011-festival-of-sle aze/2011/12/08/gIQAyK5QTP_story.html), it continues to spend insanely more money than it actually has. It's beginning to turn up in the literature being sent out, and on the campaign trail, where it was never seen or heard before.

The Founders, of course, didn't allow for parties, but I don't think them at fault for that. The govt was designed to approach a mixed constitution - the executive initially for life or a long period; the upper house besides representing the states, for an intermediate period; and the popular lower house for the shortest period - the underlying thought being that influence would then accrue to those with the most experience and stake in the country. It was designed for stability, and it has been stable.

I can't argue with his characterization of Romney (nor perhaps with Romney's characterization of him), but I will say altho it seems men and women were perhaps not destined by nature to live in harmony, they nevertheless will have to if humanity is to be perpetuated. It may be that homosexuality is not anyone's fault, but it IS their problem. And whatever you think of Ms Bachmann, you have to admire her own family values.

We have tho heard much of this from Mr Frank before, and I doubt we need to hear it again and again.

After Sen McGovern came on I realized these two interviews also coincided with the admin's announcement yesterday of large cuts in Defense.

Richard_DeBiase  01/06/2012 12:16 PM Report

Dear Congressman Frank,

While you are writing and speaking, please don't forget about the Drug War. Those of us who love marijuana are more oppressed by the government and the Religious Right than gays are.

I appreciate everything that you have done for the cause, such as co-sponsoring HR 2306 (Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011) with Ron Paul and others. I hope you understand how betrayed by Barack Obama we feel; I cannot imagine voting for him again.

I'm an old-fashioned Liberal like FDR and LBJ, not a Neo-Liberal like Clinton or Obama. One of the things that makes Liberalism work is that it is a coalition of the oppressed; but my group has been left behind. I think the government can do great good, when pointed in the right direction. But if the price of getting our freedom is to support those who want to eliminate the government, like Ron Paul, then that's what we will have to do.

Best regards.