Charlie Rose

winter  08/29/2009 02:36 PM Report

Okay he's brilliant, but where is he? He was supposed to be

Obamas hammer, his Bobby Kennedy; during the health care issue he's nowhere to be seen, in public anyway. Write a column, do an interview, wave your phantom finger at somebody but get out there and mix it up. The lost middle finger mute joke is becoming truth.

livingplanet  01/19/2009 04:29 PM Report

You never allow a serious crisis to go to waste- Rahm Emmanuel

Fantastic conversation. Whatever issues anyone has against Emmanuel, you have to give it to him. He's brilliant and is potent symbol of the intellectual power that the Obama administration brings to the table. It's a welcome change after 8 years...

mabraham  01/19/2009 03:09 PM Report

Interesting conversation but I have a major beef.

You didn't challenge Rahm Emanuel when he advocated that "the world wants us to lead", although you've had guests (the latest being David Sanger) who desperately try to explain that the "world" just wants us to get a grip on our problems. They applauded the election of Obama because there would be an adult in the WH. They don't expect the next administration to solve all international crises, but they hope it will stop creating new ones.

REMant  01/19/2009 11:25 AM Report

1. There is in fact only one way to solve problems. The right way. Policy-making is not a matter of balancing or even presenting contrasting views, or of a division of labor no matter how skilled, but of being able to resolve and assemble them, in short, of being productive. Who has shown the capability to do that?

2. You can't restore credit, where there is none, and it is not a matter of confidence alone. It is a matter of paying off previous debts first. If we do not pay our debts, many innocent ppl will suffer, and some will undoubtedly die. This seems to be obvious to everyone, but the ppl in govt and on Wall St.

3. Now let me put these two things together. Let us suppose, for the moment, that to keep warm and generate electricity, you are burning oil. The oil is, however, scarce, and a fight is developing over who deserves it most. Then someone comes along and figures out how to turn that oil into, say, solar panels. It generates a greater benefit at a reduced cost, thus saving the resource (as well as the climate), and does it through a better knowledge what can be done with oil. That is productivity. It is what has been lacking in the American economy, and it is the only way we will be able to pay our debts. It requires, however, ppl who can think and do, not adjudicate.

4. The idea that you can sequester the mortgages so that the banks will be able to lend is of dubious value because it is not a question of whether the banks can lend or not, but whether they should and at what rate. In addition, it neglects the fact that the securities represent the income for many retirees. The mortgages have to be refinanced at terms commensurate with the circumstances today. Until that is done you can expect further cycles of deflation and foreclosure. Once the economy has stabilized at the lower price levels you can expect economic activity to resume.

The "economy" is not the equivalent of the Dow Jones avg or even of REIT stocks, either. The price of things reflects only inflation, which not only accelerates economic decline by shifting resources to unproductive uses as it has been doing for the past several decades, but only defers the inevitable.

This is not a problem of regulations or nutty insurance schemes. It is at heart a credit crisis and it has been many years in the making. It is the same as if you had maxed out all of your credit cards, the bank won't give you a loan, and everyone else had done the same thing. If you try to print money in this situation not only do you depreciate everyone else's which is unfair to many of them, but you risk the collapse of it as a world currency and possibly hyperinflation. Cash at the moment is king, and there has to be enough of it around already to do what we need to do to start paying down our debts to regain our credit. You could ask the creditors to forgive them, but they have stockholders and depositors who rely on the return to their investment or savings. If they aren't paid it doesn't help the overall picture in any way. The best thing the govt can do to restore confidence is make it clear that that's what we are going to do come hell or high water and do nothing to betray that trust. To that end we should move Fed interest rates back up to the present natural level, and attempt to balance the budget without neglecting the needy. It certainly isn't going to help to ask for more credit where there isn't any. It would help if rather than individuals and cos going down one-by-one, everyone agreed to lower wages and prices, and the creditors to refinancing, because it will happen anyway, one way or the other.

The entire point of savings, btw, is that it guarantees that there is no debt incurred without some sort of production first, and is the reason why our banking/monetary system has to be overhauled. We have so little savings now, because there has been so little productivity in recent years, and what there has been has instead been sunk into assets or sent abroad. Credit implies the presence of either past savings as the result of production or reasonable expectation of future production. The US has in 200 yrs, however, defined a means of giving credit based only on unsupported future promises, which has often proved to be, as in the present instance, a bridge too far. It will not help to drop a few more paratroops, or helicopter loads of money, still further into enemy territory if the main body of the force can't get there.

Christopher  01/18/2009 05:15 PM Report

I thought this guy was a great choice and I still think he is. He is the guy to get legislation through, his example of the children insurance and parents being impatient with insurance companies was very relevent. I also like his football analogies. And his comments on budgetary rigor (his defence department comments were impeccable). And, he really seems to understand his role.