Charlie Rose

vongleichent  04/07/2013 02:55 PM Report

Dysfunctional that would be a way to put it.

Max83  03/18/2013 03:11 PM Report

I have thought about this for quite some time, but the only remedy and cure I was able to think of against the Republican Party's ''Two Santa Claus Theory'' is populism. A la Occupy Wall Street and the 99% vs the 1%.

If the Republican Party calls the Democratic Party the party of ''Big Government'', the Democratic Party needs to start calling the Republican Party the party of ''Big Business and Billionaires'' and literally call them out like that and not just something like the Republicans are ''the party of the well to do and well connected''.

That is much too weak and does not arouse the masses.

Fire needs to be fought with fire if the Democratic Party and President Obama want to get anywhere.

Here is what President Obama needs to do, follow President Truman's example:

''President Obama Could Learn From Harry Truman''

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ1MjlMnWb0

'' Published on Mar 2, 2013

Thom Hartmann says its time for President Barack Obama to take a page out of Harry Truman's playbook and call the "Do-nothing" Republicans out.''

and

''Truman Calls Out The Republicans''

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85Ve094Suck

'' Published on Mar 1, 2013

Thom Hartmann shares a section of President Harry S. Truman's 1948 acceptance speech in which he calls out the do nothing Republicans and ultimately goes on to win the White House.''

Max83  03/18/2013 02:11 PM Report

I must disagree with Charlie Rose here that Republicans are ''serious and well-meaning'' people. I understand though that he must appear neutral and unbiased in his role as an interviewer to maintain his credibility, unfortunately :-)

I am glad though that Mr. Krueger had the opportunity to present his very reasonable and ''serious'' :-) budget proposal.

The Republicans are playing a political game known as ''The Two Santa Claus Theory'':

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Wanniski

''The Two Santa Claus Theory

The Two Santa Claus Theory is a political theory and strategy published by Wanniski in 1976, which he promoted within the United States Republican Party.[9][10]

According to Wanniski, the theory is simple. In 1976, he wrote that the Two-Santa Claus Theory suggests that "the Republicans should concentrate on tax-rate reduction. As they succeed in expanding incentives to produce, they will move the economy back to full employment and thereby reduce social pressures for public spending. Just as an increase in Government spending inevitably means taxes must be raised, a cut in tax rates—by expanding the private sector—will diminish the relative size of the public sector."[10] Wanniski suggested this position, as Thom Hartmann has clarified, so that the Democrats would "have to be anti-Santas by raising taxes, or anti-Santas by cutting spending. Either one would lose them elections."[11]

The theory states that in democratic elections, if Democrats appeal to voters by proposing more spending, then the Republicans cannot gain broader appeal by proposing less spending. The first "Santa Claus" of the theory title refers to the Democratic party which promises spending. The "Two Santa Claus Theory" recommends that the Republican party must assume the role of a second Santa Claus by not arguing to cut spending but rather offering the option of cutting taxes.

This theory is a response to the belief of monetarists, and especially Milton Friedman[citation needed], that the government must be starved of revenue in order to control the growth of spending (since, in the view of the monetarists, spending cannot be reduced by elected bodies as the political pressure to spend is too great)[citation needed]. See also Starve the beast.''

REMant  03/18/2013 11:36 AM Report

Tax cuts and wars? Because we were printing much too much money, and are busy printing even more. And I'm very much afraid we are in for a euphemistic "market correction" of sizable proportions. Americans didn't "lose" x trillions in wealth, either; it was not wealth. If it had been wealth, then it wouldn't have been lost.

Only a money printer could possibly believe that we have in the last four years replenished our paper losses in real terms. We have mainly reflated them by issuing more and diluting the lot, and if there's no productivity increase we WILL see more of this inflation in food, gas, healthcare, home prices, and diminished purchasing power generally. A good measure of inflation is the doubling of Google's stock price since it went public.

If it were really possible to replace losses by printing money, that's all anyone would ever do. It creates a moral hazard, and is a pig in a poke at best, more likely naive primitivism, or, at worst, corrupt political largess. This is the reason why bonds have for so long outperformed stocks. A cynic would get the idea that these ppl want more stimulus because they are afraid we actually are recovering.

Debt will become a huge problem if interest rates rise, and talking about it as insignificant is like touting our unemployment statistics. When ppl stop looking for work they are no longer counted as unemployed, and likewise when debt is sequestered by the Fed it no longer appears on the govt's balance sheet, but both the debt and the unemployed are still there. Tho an increasingly large, but increasingly invisible, bloc of retirees, are at least paying less in taxes on nearly invisible interest income.

As he is clearly a dogmatic Keynesian like Summers, with whom I gather he studied, there is really no point in listening to him, but I have take issue again with the appropriation by these jerks of the term "virtuous cycle" to mean not increased productivity and hence lower prices, but being able to live off inflation in asset prices. All this does is impoverish relatively those who can't afford them, which is, thanks to this policy, an increasing proportion of the population. I consider this attitude well beneath contempt. They can, IMHO, go to Argentina.

A totally surprising, even if somewhat buried piece appeared Sunday in the Metro section of The Washington Post, printed, I suppose, only because it was done by one of their better writers, and placed where I imagine it would be taken as admonition to the city's black population, which is overwhelmingly dependent on Social Security, for it touted saving, which they frequently do to this audience, but also discussed the failure of micro-lending and the increasing success of micro-saving programs in Africa, etc, some of which, it said, are being promoted by the Gates'. But I don't guess our legislators and administrators will find any parallel, even if they find the article. (But they can look here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/microsavings-programs-build-wealth-pennies-at-a-time/2 013/03/15/4bad70fe-8740-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html)

In no way does a man whose lifework has lain in undertaking reform sociological studies belong in this job anyway, and clearly, like Bernanke, he's got a lot of IQ and very little common sense. At least he understood poor ppl are not all terrorists, if it was not news to anyone, but his minimum wage finding only makes sense in an inflationary environment. Plus, as Asst Treas Sec'y, he is credited with the admin's totally inadequate attempt "to help struggling homeowners," and the ridiculous "cash for clunkers" program. And altho he recently said: "these indiscriminate, across-the-board spending cuts pose a threat to the ongoing economic recovery," in April 2011, he argued in The NY Times for a sequester. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/opinion/17krueger.html?_r=0)