Charlie Rose

finalfantasytown  04/02/2012 01:52 AM Report

It is not the time for FREEDOM. Literally, the last and important soul is not waken up, which is the first reason to Chinese government and Chinese communist party hesitant to make decisions.

For instance, how to define fear? The definitions or understanding of fear from carnivore and herbivore with intelligence project public and conflict. Roughly, fear is an emotion opened by the possibility or probability of safety collapse. But the distinction is on 'safety' which is scaless. Herbivore's mind bases on 'round and round' and individual. They don't care about natural resources and eco system. The lower the species is, the more obvious this phenomenon is. The truth is that fear has an origin/beginning and an end. What carnivores really fear is the collapse of the whole animal kingdom they dominate, including the collapse of the ecosystem indirectly triggered by wrong doing. When no fear in FREEDOM, it is the time for massive evolution. Based on this, I apologize for stupidly saying that Taiwan island can be the place for paradise. Also, it is true there exists massive extinction before massive evolution several times in history.

tbo88  04/01/2012 05:09 PM Report

Again, most of you people are clueless. You've never negotiated anything in your life from what I can tell. That's why none of you have ever run for office at any level. Your thanklessness for Reagan's job in office is ridiculous. If you people want more of your paycheck taken away from you, fine. Don't take anymore of mine. Do I want a deficit, no, but everyone has to give in and back some to eliminate the current debt created by this Administration. Did Obama have much of a choice? Maybe not, but he still has inflated it over 10 trillion dollars in less than 4 years. Stop banging the drum if you aren't willing to do something about it. Keynesian is a bunch of crap. Look at the facts instead of your own opinions. Clueless people go around in circles their whole life. When are you going to stop going in a circle?

tbo88  04/01/2012 05:09 PM Report

Again, most of you people are clueless. You've never negotiated anything in your life from what I can tell. That's why none of you have ever run for office at any level. Your thanklessness for Reagan's job in office is ridiculous. If you people want more of your paycheck taken away from you, fine. Don't take anymore of mine. Do I want a deficit, no, but everyone has to give in and back some to eliminate the current debt created by this Administration. Did Obama have much of a choice? Maybe not, but he still has inflated it over 10 trillion dollars in less than 4 years. Stop banging the drum if you aren't willing to do something about it. Keynesian is a bunch of crap. Look at the facts instead of your own opinions. Clueless people go around in circles their whole life. When are you going to stop going in a circle?

john_q_public  03/31/2012 09:22 AM Report

"90% of life is just showing up." That quote does not come from George Bush, it comes from Woody Allen. Maybe Bush stole it, who knows?

Spring  03/30/2012 09:31 PM Report

1. James Baker

In your interview above with James Baker, he appeared to be more partisan than he was during the Clinton administration and during the first term of the second Bush administration, and seemed to be more like he was when he first gathered national attention as a campaign strategist (with the exception of a brief mention of F. Roosevelt, Baker only praised Republican presidents and pretended as if Clinton achieved his budgetary successes only as a result of Reagan economics). Treating the economic circumstances prevailing when Obama took office as substantially the same as when Reagan took office, was a drift into fantasy land, a land where too many Republicans inhabit today.

You pressed him during the interview more than usual, but did so more collaterally than frontally. He gave his views on the budget but the issue that has been primary in recent years hasn't been a Republican's views but rather willingness of Republicans to compromise on views in order to attain specific results, such as legislation, budgets, and appointments. We learned nothing of this from the interview.

Worse, although Baker emphasized spending cuts far more than he did tax increases, he failed to discuss whether he, particularly as a former secretary of state, believed the military budget (one equaled to that of the combined military budgets of the major powers) should be cut. Rather, he focused on entitlement cuts. He could have been pressed on military cuts and the purpose of such large military spending, particularly in light of the yearly deficits being created.

2. Gary Ross,

I thought Ross was being disingenuous when he compared the video clip you showed of 'The Hunger Games' to a Barbara Walter's interview. The real comparison was not Walters but 'American Idol', where R. Seacrest sits down with contestants and talks to them about their motivation or background before he sends them out on the stage to compete. The popularity over the years of this 'American Idol' format is why, I would guess, the format is in 'The Hunger Games'. I see no good reason why the imitation shouldn't have been admitted or discussed.

I thought Ross was also being disingenuous when he said he saw no problems with 13 year kids attending the 'Hunger' movie but didn't think 7 year kids should. But blockbuster Hollywood movies today are a world-wide phenomenon, and are shown in places like Sri Lanka (think Tamil Tigers and massive number of teenage suicide bombers), Cambodia (massive number of teenage killers again), Iraq, Columbia, Congo, Rwanda (and other parts of Africa), the former Yugoslavia, and perhaps Northern Ireland, where teenagers were killers. In those countries, people and society are still living with the after effects of this. It would have been relevant to have raised this issue with Ross or for him to have raised it. The relevancy was shown especially by Ross' invoking the 'Arab Spring', an international phenomenon as well.

Gelles  03/30/2012 07:12 PM Report

Tabs~

The US dollar competes with Gold. It also competes with the euro and yen. Nobody asks us to sponsor the global reserve currency -- and if it changes -- (it once was the Pound Sterling) -- it will be because the new GRC will be better than Gold.

As for what we need globally, that is better than toilet paper, is adequate aggregate DEMAND and greater SUPPLY than has ever been imagined. We need FULL EMPLOYMENT and universally high wages and cheap capital. Cheap capital when and because we have created MACHINES that in turn create new machine-creating machines, with people employed to use their brains and hearts more than their backs and exposure to injury.

Tabs, we want to end injury at work, poverty here and abroad, and stupidity wherever we chance to look. To do this will not take tight money. It will take top notch education, morality, science and sensibility.

I am sure we agree. But you see past reliance on anachronistic belief in market outcomes and laissez faire doctrines as the "best we can do". I say "nuts" to that. We are ready for ABUNDANCE as counseled by Singularity University. I'm with them -- and I am opposed to the idea that society is doomed to repeat its errors forever.

tabs  03/30/2012 10:14 AM Report

It was Mr Baker that mused on a previous Charlie Rose visit that his wife said he should be more forgiving by not having such a long of a memory.

Like that visit Mr Baker uttered some telling words that if the USD were not the Reserve Currency for the World the US would be Greece. What Mr Baker would have gone on to say if he had not been cut off by Mr Rose is that because the USD is the Reserve Currency the US can manipulate the world into helping pay for Americas profligate ways. For the world to buy oil, it has to pay in USDs and as such each oil purchasing nation has to have warehouses full of USDs held in reserve to pay for that oil. Both the Federal Reserve and Treasury know fully well that those USDs will never hit the streets as long as the USD is the Reserve Currency. So in the advent of any Bond Crisis Ben Turn on those printing presses full blast and print USDs until they have the same value as toilette paper.

Now can everyone see why the Chinese pronouncing that the USD should be replaced as the Reserve Currency in early 09, a Russian Chinese trade deal that did not use USD's as a medium of exchange, and now a BRIC nations creation of their own Central Bank are warning signs that America has lost the trust of the world.

Gelles  03/30/2012 05:15 AM Report

The second half of the interview with James Baker changed my mind about Baker's ultimate wisdom with which to solve our two biggest CURRENT PROBLEMS:

PROBLEM ONE: Prevent Nuclear proliferation that may be unleashed by Iran, after N. Korea got away with its defiance of all the world three years ago.

..... Baker wanted something less than bunker busters: he wanted diplomacy to organize the USA, Russia, Europe, Japan, China, India and Brazil, to FORCE (without bombs) Iran to accept UN inspection and an opening up to the world's demand to prevent a rampant nuclear arms race -- without limits -- likely to bring wars and accidents the human race cannot afford.

..... Baker's wisdom in this matter, that I addressed in comments on the 1st half of this interview, remains in tact. James Baker was a champion for his position on this Problem 1.

PROBLEM TWO: Prevent continuation of inadequate demand in the global economy -- which causes unemployment, poverty, depressions, insanity evidenced by ignoring the REAL ECONOMY (which measures hunger, homelessness, disease, pollution, war, etc) -- and concentrating on -- debt and related numbers with mean nothing at all when divorced from real supply, demand, output, resources, skills, training, and systematic connection between people and the work that must be done in real life.

..... Here Baker is talking "mush and non-sense" -- as Simpson and Bowles said of all of us the following day on Charlie Rose Show.

..... Baker claimed he is no Keynesian. Yet Supply-side Economics focuses on support for real production (Keynesian) that high taxes may prevent when we ignore REAL PRODUCTION, OUTPUT OF NECESSITIES, SUPPLY AND DEMAND, etc., and, instead, focus only on profit and loss paper statements which are phoney and false from their inception to publication.

..... So Baker fails my reality test. Reality rules in the end. Although luck plays giant role, and we all would be speaking German if Hitler had loved "Jewish Science" instead of murdering Jews, luck is usually supported by respect for real problems and solutions by winning nations over time.

..... Our problem today is NOT debt. It is our neglect to solve our need for a gigantic revolution in energy and education which would yield:

..... (a) the hydrogen economy and preserve carbon for making lasting material products like Boeing aircraft or even better uses;

..... (b) user friendly schools that would educate and train people to perform needed tasks that matched their greatest talents;

..... (c) absolute full employment at good wages -- and attention to everyone's reasonable need to feel good and work hard at what they're good at to solve pressing problems and prevent world war;

..... (d) life-long education, greater emphasis on cooperation over competition, etc., etc.

.

The thought experiment people like Charlie Rose should conduct is to imagine he had GOLD to pay off all our debt. If he did, GOLD would be worthless. Debt is worthless. Only REAL OUTPUT and REAL NEED mean anything in the REAL WORLD of supply, demand and successfully connecting these two together.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/30/2012 02:26 AM Report

If, as he says, primaries count more than general elections then let's get rid of general elections.

Why waste all the time and money for something that really doesn't count--especially since our general election voting system is not a real democratic system anyway?

His work with Bush v Gore helped drive this home.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/30/2012 02:20 AM Report

Charlie says there must be 100 books about America's demise.

The Secretary counters with Japan and how they were the threat in the late '80s and early '90s and look what happened to them.

Yes, please look at Japan's real estate and please draw lines of intersection to what is happening to us.

Unfortunately, I think the Secretary made a case for these 100 books.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/30/2012 02:14 AM Report

If he were King he says he would then cut spending and raise taxes.

He would never be King unless he signed an oath to a guy named Grover (who should have gone to jail with his buddy Jack) to never raise taxes.

In America, for Republicans, there is only one King maker.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/30/2012 02:10 AM Report

HW is an Iran-Contra criminal thank you very much.

From George Washington University:

This sampling of some of the most revealing documentation (Note 1) to come out of the affair gives a clear indication of how deeply involved the president was in terms of personally directing or approving different aspects of the affair. The list of other officials who also played significant parts, despite their later denials, includes Vice President George H.W. Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, CIA Director William J. Casey, White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan, and numerous other senior and mid-level officials, making this a far broader scandal than the White House portrayed it at the time.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/index.htm

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/30/2012 02:07 AM Report

Yes Jimbo:

Never, never, never bet against Uncle Whiskers.

Watch out for The Debt Bomb (it is probably an IED).

If the US dollar was not the reserve currency we would be Greece.

Conn47msm  03/29/2012 05:17 PM Report

I listened to Mr. Baker re-phrase..and really think that a citizens abilty to have understanding--is the most important of grass roots../

I think our world is living a mis-undersanding APP../

Finding its intelligence in poor subjects.

aj617  03/29/2012 02:42 PM Report

James Baker displayed a keen insight on many topics, but on

the subject of Reagan's tax policy he sounded like a typical

Republican pol propagating a misleading version of the Great One's mythology. The main driver of the economic growth that occurred on Reagan's watch was primarily the great expansion of available credit that was already underway and not the magic of tax cuts for the rich as the myth would have it. During the 1980's average housing prices roughly increased by $50,000, adding a great

deal to the national piggy bank, while average household credit debt was less than $5000. The economy and with it, job creation,accelerated and surged as vast pool of credit was consumed. That it happened concurrently with the tax cuts was merely a piece of good fortune for Republicans and not evidence of any profound 'genius' at work. Volcker is the one who deserves most of the credit for bringing down inflation and interest rates, thereby creating the store of credit in increased (but still reasonable) property values.

But don't let the facts get in the way of a good story

(Ronnie never did). And thus it came to pass that the wealthy have been milking his story ever since and have lived happily ever after in low-tax la la land.

REMant  03/29/2012 11:44 AM Report

If you really want to be optimistic about America's future, you can always fall back on the fact that no country, just like no person, or no company, exists in a vacuum. That's the only reason why Japan, Inc. went belly up. And it's the reason why we have. It may well be the reason why China does.

Compromise is fine, but you can't compromise on the Constitution, nor on debt and money. Compromise has too often meant mutual backscratching or palm-greasing.

Of course, I do agree with him both about the need to reduce deficit and debt, and about educational reform.

Reagan's tax reform and the Volcker recession were good policy, tho we had to go through it all again a decade later. But the fact is that both increased interest rates and lower taxes, or at least lower spending at this moment, would be a much better policy today. Ppl forget just how stagnant this country was in the late '70s after a almost two decades of welfare and war spending.