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Jtabeb 10/01/2008 02:53 PM Report
Yes this is a "great" plan for having state sponsored debt-bondage. I can think of no better way to move the country forward than to create a new "class" of society based on neo-feudalism.
Serfdom for the middle class, bury the poor, and reward the top 1.0% with government largess in the form of a derivatives bail-out.
Of course, how could I have missed it, this is pure genius.
Wait a minute, did he say that he was on the board of directors for AIG?
Oh, then we should obviously enact his proposal immediately, because he did such a superb job in shepherding AIG right off of a cliff into the abyss only to have it land on the heads of the American Taxpayer.
And of course, he has no conflict of interest with how this crisis is resolved. None, what so ever.
Joe McC 10/01/2008 12:58 AM Report
I'm an ultra lay-person regarding economics but didn't understand why Martin Feldstein insisted home prices cannot be allowed to drop any further. It was o.k. when they increased by more than 100 percent in such a short time and made homes unaffordable for many in the middle-class? I don't understand that. It seems like it's this same mentality that would allow Paulson(with such ties to wall street) to intervene now when there was no intervention when profits in those markets were soaring. I'm glad I stayed tuned in to hear Mort Zuckerman discuss the housing bubble and how prices are still, even with the decline, above normal.
Dean P 10/01/2008 12:04 AM Report
Mr. Feldstein's premise that mortgage loans are non-recourse loans is just flat wrong as a general rule. A minority of states have anti-deficiency statutes. What was he thinking.
Allan Ramesh 03/06/2008 07:51 PM Report
What I took away from Martin Feldstein's message was essentially a sense of pessimism about the future. There are many threats such as medicare, social security, continued trade deficits, willingness of foreigners to hold our currency, etc. Yet, he does not propose any fundamental changes to the economy or the tax structure. It seems like a car that heading toward a crash but no one has any idea on how to change the direction.
CSHartman 03/04/2008 10:30 PM Report
For Vera, from the Economic Policy Institute (advocates of raising the min wage): What is the difference between directly and indirectly affected workers?
"Directly affected" workers refers to those earning less than $7.25 per hour and thus would receive an immediate raise following the passage of a federal minimum wage increase. "Indirectly affected" workers refers to those who are earning within a few dollars above the proposed minimum wage. While a raise is not legally mandated for these workers, empirical evidence shows that many employers raise the wages of workers earning above the new minimum wage in order to preserve internal wage structures, an occurrence known as the "spillover effect." The number of workers predicted to be affected by an increase in the federal minimum wage is based on EPI research into the effects of past minimum wage increases at the state and federal level over the last 20 years. The number of workers indirectly affected by a federal minimum wage increase is calculated separately for each state (because evidence shows the spillover effect depends on the existing local wage structure) and summed together. In general, the spillover effect is modest and isolated within the bottom fifth of workers in the hourly wage scale.
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage_minwagefaq
hmpierson 02/23/2008 06:13 PM Report
glasater wrote:
"jan h. The reason your health care in the Albaquerque area may have been dissatisfactory is that are government has meddled in that <i>business</i> for decades. And health care is a business--it is not a "right""
On the contrart, the "problem" with health care is PRECISELY that it is run as a business for profit, when it is a necessity of life that is controlled by a very small fraction of our citizens.
You obviously have a "pro business" outlook to the point you believe business needs no regulation whatsoever, and the government has no place in any business whatsoever.
So perhaps the government should get out of the water business entirely, and leave it entirely to private enterprise. What do you think would happen to the price of water? Don't argue that water is different because life depends on it - the same is true of medical care.
We need to break the medical guild, offer free medical education to students (for family practice only, not the more lucrative specialries) in return for x years of government service. The financial return on this investment would be huge, and enable the US to provide universal medical coverage. The wrong people are currently attracted to medicine for the wrong reasons - because it is a very lucrative "business."
The US ranks as the 27th "happiest" country in the world, the top countries are the Scandanavian countries, with cradle to grave social contract. Does that gaul the hell out of you, or do you not give a damn as long as you have yours?
fccm 02/21/2008 11:52 PM Report
Winston Churchill pointed out that â??All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.â?? Yet Martin Feldstein, high priest of â??voodoo economics,â?? has not learned a damn thing.
It is stunning to watch and disheartening to see Charlie Rose provide this â??trickle-downâ?? theorist a forum to blindly proselytize the mantra of gross economic policy failures.
Martin Failedstein blindly ignores the gross failures of his supply-side, self-regulation, market-based policies. This voodoo priest of trickle-down theory needs a dose of his own piss-on-you economics with a golden shower and not a golden parachute like his overpaid, underperforming, greedy CEOs getting golden parachutes for massively screwing things up.
dennis dixon 02/20/2008 09:01 PM Report
Mr. Feldstein certain was clearly "conservative" in his political-economic opinions, but I disagree with the poster who said that there should be a "Democratic" counter-balance as well as the one who claimed that people's general wage does not reflect the minimum wage. To take the second point first, the Clinton Labor Dept. had an excellent chart that demonstrated the almost "parallel" decline of general wages in the United States since 1973 with the decline in value of the minimum wage. To force this decline was the goal of Paul Volcker and keeping wages low has been the anti-inflation strategy of the Greenspan regime at the Fed--when no real danger of inflation even existed. The first point is wrong because the "democrats" don't oppose the conservative view of the economy in any serious way. The decline in the trade unions is partly to do with the fact that they have accepted management's theory on wages and have caved in on most issues pertinent to anything that might "cost" management money. Economists whose theory actually opposes that of people like Mr. Feldman rests with the many reasonable "Marxists" who populate the universities and colleges of the United States and Europe. Any neo-liberal worth his salt will say outright that Marx explains Capitalism better than anyone. The difference is the neo-liberals stop half-way through the Communist Manifesto while Marx is still explaining, before most of it ever even happened, how Capitalism expands markets and the world-view of even average people in its search for those markets. Of course to actually give credence to a "Marxist" is somewhat impolitic--or is the term "politically incorrect?"...Dennis Dixon
daddy warbucks 02/19/2008 04:55 PM Report
another one of the "i wish charlie had some onions" interviews. bland, dithering on the part of charlie with a neo-con economist ... can't pbs/charlie have a visiting interviewer from the bbc's hard talk program to show how to conduct a interview with nuanced toughness + spirited soul? look to denmark where even fathers get 6 months paid paternity leave, and every danish citizen receives cradle to grave benefits: "economists" such as feldstein push a "lowest common denominator" based on chinese wages. instead of advocating innovation, he is saying: pay walmart wages & no benefits to the masses and dine with the classes ... zero out 10 stars for this episode.
vera danielson 02/19/2008 09:06 AM Report
I was struck by Mr. Feldstein's remark about raising the minimum wage.He stated that some people aren't worth nine dollars an hour.I think anyone who works for a living is entitled to a living wage and some dignity.
Carol J 02/18/2008 07:39 PM Report
Mr. Feldstein what world do you live in. I was in the work world a long time and I never received a raise I didn't earn. No one who makes more than minimum wage will be given more just because the low man on the totem pole got an increase. Get realistic.
Robert Goulart 02/18/2008 07:31 PM Report
An untruth was spread during this discussion. The duplicity is common to conservative economists. They equate wage increases as the driving force of inflation. It is not and never is. The debt mechanism and banking policies are the driving force of all inflation. The deregulation which brought Wall Street into the banking industrial complex was the mother of our current credit crisis. The first institutions which were protected from the decline are the institutions which profited the most from the abuse. Burden shifts downward on the social ladder and the profits of the taxing nature of money printing is always distributed to the top of the social class divide. The Banks tax!
michelle 02/18/2008 05:52 PM Report
Wow, Watching this it is clear to me that long distance relationships don't work. Confidence is everything, and credit is nothing more than a bank's belief that I will do what I say I will do. My great grandfather bought and sold heards of cattle with a handshake. He knew what he could do, what he couldn't. For three generations we have coasted on that reputation.(new thought)Greed is an ugly task master, never satiated. And when it comes to financial well being, doing what you're told is never a substitute for doing what is best in the long run. If I ran my house hold as if I were only going to be a part of this family for five years, I'd be in crisis too.(new thought) And I wonder about these saving type nations. The individual saver will eventually find out what many United States Citizens have figured out. If there is any money in the bank, those in charge will some how find a way to bilk them out of it. If that happens, the chinese will become big spenders too. Of course, if those of us in the United States didn't have the mistaken idea that medicare, social security ect. would take care of us in our old age, maybe we'd be bigger savers also. I don't expect China to institute health care for their citizens any time soon.
michelle 02/18/2008 05:51 PM Report
Wow, Watching this it is clear to me that long distance relationships don't work. Confidence is everything, and credit is nothing more than a bank's belief that I will do what I say I will do. My great grandfather bought and sold heards of cattle with a handshake. He knew what he could do, what he couldn't. For three generations we have coasted on that reputation.(new thought)Greed is an ugly task master, never satiated. And when it comes to financial well being, doing what you're told is never a substitute for doing what is best in the long run. If I ran my house hold as if I were only going to be a part of this family for five years, I'd be in crisis too.(new thought) And I wonder about these saving type nations. The individual saver will eventually find out what many United States Citizens have figured out. If there is any money in the bank, those in charge will some how find a way to bilk them out of it. If that happens, the chinese will become big spenders too. Of course, if those of us in the United States didn't have the mistaken idea that medicare, social security ect. would take care of us in our old age, maybe we'd be bigger savers also. I don't expect China to institute health care for their citizens any time soon.
Stanley I. 02/18/2008 05:23 PM Report
Mr. Feldman is so obviously Republican in his view of the economy it would have been nice to have an obviously Democratic view as counter-point. Perhaps he would not appear under those conditions?
If the Republicans are ever successful at destroying Social Security they will no longer have a slush fund to dip into to cover their economic blunders.
Jean 02/17/2008 01:51 AM Report
APTV messed up and did not broadcast Friday's show. But looking at the comments this seems to be a good time to raise the question. When does the Social Security Administration start selling the US' IOUs on the bond market? How long will they be selling them?
androcass 02/16/2008 06:34 PM Report
Charlie:
I like the show, but I wish you'd get a little tougher on economic issues. Had anyone, even with the credentials of Dr. Feldstein, come on your show and talked about Iraq in the same rosy way, you would have questioned them a lot harder.
Many of the earlier commenters have it exactly right - a lot of people are profoundly worried about the direction the US is taking. It's one thing to have Mr. Immelt on (a clip of that interview was shown last night), of course he believes that the US decline is fine as long as GE finds a way to make money from it. But we expect more from "eminent" economists, and we expect you to hold their feet to the fire a little more.
kevink 02/16/2008 06:05 PM Report
Dr. Feldstein is a member of the Bilderberg Group, the group of 120 top members of the internationalist elite from Europe, Canada, and the US who meet privately each spring to discuss and further the Group's goals such as supranational institutions for global governance. The Charlie Rose show has become the US media outlet for Bilderberg, as evidenced by interviews with US Bilderbergers including David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Jessica Matthews, Richard Perle, Vernon Jordan, Richard Haass, Dennis Ross, Richard Holbrooke, and Robert Zoellick. Dr. Feldstein and fellow Bilderbergers are not only well aware of the issues behind the Social Security crisis, the implosion of credit markets, US military policy in the Mideast, the health care crisis, the nuclear proliferation issue in south central Asia, and other important issues, they create and drive policies through their media, government, and lesser institutions. They, along with European royalty, heads of the banking, oil, and commodity cartels, central banks, the media, NGOs, and private equity firms who comprise Bilderberg are the wise guys running our system. No one becomes President in the US without passing muster with Bilderberg, and that goes for McCain, Obama, and Clinton.
Bob Tourville 02/16/2008 05:24 PM Report
Not one mention of the immense spending on the mismanaged Iraq War. Once again, the only "solution" offered was to get rid of Social Security. The boomers were the first generation to pay SS taxes for their entire lives. Entitlement is the wrong word. It is a contract. There should be a huge SS surplus to cover their retirement. It has been robbed over and over again. Back in the 80's a deal was made to "save" SS, and SS taxes were raised. SS funds kept being raided, and it was not until the 90's that, SS was in surplus. There never was an income tax surplus. It was a SS surplus. Suddenly, Greenspan declares it is unconstitutional for the Federal govt. to hold those funds. Wow what an interpretation, declaration. After all Congress, the will of the people, had passed much legislation on this issue. And that SS surplus was once again raided and distributed as income tax breaks to the wealthy. Wow, now a generation that bore the burden is going to be asked to suffer, because of fraud and mismanagement? The terms of the debate should not be how the govt. can default on the contract, but how they can fulfill it.
incredulous 02/16/2008 12:58 PM Report
Mr. Hamber, couldn't have said it better. Thanks! We needed that. The wise-guys running our system into the realm of the Roman empire have no concern as long as they get theirs, a la golden parchutes etc. - re Mr. Prince of Citigroup and others.
David Hamber 02/16/2008 03:00 AM Report
Under the guise of objectivity and impartiality, many of the so-called "experts" are in bed with the same people that have contributed to the current crisis. Feldman appears to hold no human being or group of human being responsible for anything that is undermining our economy. He appears to believe that the US economic system is the best of all possible economies. No wonder that the people in power in the U.S. take no responsiblity for their catastrophic decisions while they line their pockets at the public's expense. The experts will spin an elaborate pseudo-scientific fuzzy grand theory that ignores individual human agency, holding no one responsibility for our diasterous Iraq war, our mortgage and credit crisis, our declining health system, our crumbling infrastructure, our energy dependence on unsavory regimes, our daily loss of domestic manufacturing, our gross indebtedness to the world, our faltering educational system, our increasing homelessness, our rising obesity levels that lead to escalating sickness and early death, our inadequate retirement system that will see millions of babyboomers living on the edge of poverty, our shamefully high national murder toll that turns some of our great cities into war domestic war zones, etc.
glasater 02/16/2008 02:47 AM Report
jan h.
The reason your health care in the Albaquerque area may have been dissatisfactory is that are government has meddled in that <i>business</i> for decades. And health care is a business--it is not a "right".
incredulous 02/16/2008 12:44 AM Report
How can an economist omit blaming the egregious greed of Citibank, et al for enticing and literally entrapping the vulnerable into entering sub-prime variable interest rate loans solely for the attendant fees. Then irresponsibly selling the loans in the secondary market. So they no longer care. Then Arabian Sovereign Wealth Funds move in at our ultimate peril. GOLD IS NOW THE ONLY PRUDENT INVESTMENT LEFT. We are a naive, childish, immature ship of fools. Between the M-I complex overspending for war and the egregious greed by Citigroup et al with their rapacious interest, and the political inability to face solutions for SS, Medicare etc puts us far below 1st place which our arrogance can barely endure. Productivity rate producing nothing is zero. The piper finally may be demanding his due.
jan h. 02/16/2008 12:33 AM Report
February 15, 2008
Dear Charlie and Staff,
Please consider interviewing doctors, nurses, and patients in various states to see what they want and need for better health care. I would especially like to hear this interview of a group like this from New Mexico. I was recently in the hospital and was amazed at the cost and the conditions of the hospital. It was one of our better hospitals in Albuquerque. We are one of the poorest states in the United States and if investigated for our health care, comparable to a third world country. Please Help Us with exposing this problem to the world! It would be interesting to compare our health care to Maryland for instance.
Sincerely yours,
Jan H.