Friday News Roundup - Hour 1
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-06-24/friday-news-roundup-hour-1
Republicans pulled out of debt reduction talks led by vice president biden. They cited an impass over taxes only President Obama and House Speaker Boehner could resolve. The Congressional Budge Office issued a dire warning of a debt explosion, and the Fed said the U.S. economy is weaker than previously forecast. Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman officially joined the Republican presidential race. The Supreme Court threw out a massive class-action sex-discrimination lawsuit against Wal-mart. And the House is set to vote on resolutions regarding Libya.
Guests
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Washington correspondent, The New York Times.
Greg Ip
U.S. economics editor, The Economist, and author of "The Little Book of Economics: How the Economy Works in the Real World."
Nia-Malika Henderson
national politics reporter, The Washington Post.
Comments
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Why does the United States necessarily have to default on its debt if the debt ceiling isn't raised? Isn't there enough tax revenue to continue paying the interest on the debt? It seems to me it's just a matter of shifting priorities.
Questions: Regarding Greece and the economic crisis I have 3 questions. a) I heard that companies such as Siemens were found by the German justice system to bride Greek politicians to get contracts. Can those contract be nullified and the money from the billion dollar purchases returned to the Greek people? It seems unfair in the name of the people the strike illegal contracts. b) Certain prominent politicians and historians such as Jacques Delpla (of the Conseil d'Analyse Économique in Paris) and Prof. Hagen Fleischer (a German Professor now teaching at the University of Athens) have said that Germany still owes Greece about 600 billion euros from the reparations of the second world war. c) Does anyone know the number and amount of credit default swaps (CDS) on Greek bonds secured by US institutions and is this a problem?
It's always a 'political season'! Two years for the mid-terms then another two years for the general election. And it's the fault of the media, all the air time given to 'possible' candidates, covering debates 18 months before the election.
No one has mentioned the elephant in the room regarding tax increases to help with deficit reduction. Grover Norquist has forced Republicans to sign a contract to assure that they will never increase taxes in any form.
I agree. We cannot compare Greece to the USA. USA can print money and re-arrange priorities to pay its debts while stimulating its economy. For example, we could bring home the troops and pay them through the military contractors to rebuild the electric grid. I more efficient smart grid could save us up to 20% of energy consumption. We definitely need more stimulus. A dollar devaluation is also positive because it makes our exports cheaper and our imports more expensive.
On Huntsman
Nelson Rockefeller committed one of the great political mistakes of the 20th Century. Working for FDR, he refused the President’s entreaties that he become a Democrat (his family were all Republicans). That decision cost Rockefeller his chance at the Presidency, because by 1964 there was no longer room for a liberal Republican (or even a moderate) on the GOP ticket.
I sometimes think both Romney, and now Huntsman, have made the same mistake. (That may explain Romney’s “flip-flops" and attempts to run from everything he did as Governor.)
I doubt Huntsman is GOP material. He’s diplomatic, prefers to negotiate with members of the legislature in private and work out deals, he believes climate change is caused by humans, supports civil unions (he probably thinks gays and lesbians are human beings), and says he is unwilling to destroy an opponent’s reputation in order to run for president. He’s also clearly an intellectual (and you know how much the party of Bachmann and Palin love those).
I hope I’m wrong.
I may not agree with his economic and tax policies (we don’t really know what they are yet), but so far he seems to possess some things the other Republican candidates don’t: sanity, integrity, and humility!
So, Mr. Cantor (dancing to Grover Norquist’s tune) refuses to even consider increasing revenues, or eliminating tax subsidies and loopholes, unless “balanced” by further tax cuts?
Fine. I have a “modest proposal” the Democrats should implement (if only they had the guts). Replace all corporate tax cuts, subsidies and loopholes with individual ones. Good-bye ethanol and oil subsidies. Hello to allowing full deduction of our medical expenses (instead of only 92.5%). Hello to deducting both State income and sales taxes (instead of having to chose between them). Hello to a $10,000 exemption for ordinary interest income (thus increasing personal savings). Hello and welcome back to deducting credit card interest and political campaign contributions (up to an individual limit, say $100 per candidate and/or party). Finally, eliminate all corporate incentives to moving jobs overseas, such as an increased tax on businesses that do it!
I’m sure this can all be done while being “revenue neutral”, so that Norquist’s “no new taxes” pledge will be “honored”. Then watch the Republi-Cons howl as they try to protest “tax breaks for the ordinary Joe and Jane”!
The Federal Reserve downgrades its outlook for the economy and the Democrats want to increase taxes on the only productive part of the economy to support the misplaced spending of the most parasitic. Same old, same old.
Any politician who talks about 'creating jobs' lives in fantasyland. It can't be measured and the decision to hire is complex. Taxes are just a small factor. Long term, education is a major factor. The largest group of unemployed are those with no high school diploma. Not many politicians talk about that.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/435/how-to-create...
hainc on June 24, 2011 @ 2:04 pm wrote: "The Federal Reserve downgrades its outlook for the economy and the Democrats want to increase taxes on the only productive part of the economy to support the misplaced spending of the most parasitic. Same old, same old."
And the Republicans want to cut budgets, throwing people out of work, and cut unemployment and other benefits, meaning that more people will need those benefits and yet have less money to spend to get the economy moving, while also cutting taxes (thus decreasing revenues, increasing the deficit, and continuing the same cycle).
Same old, same old.
By the way, have you noticed that the same Republi-Cons who insist the Democrats are entirely to blame for the economic meltdown (since the Dems "took over" Congress in 2006 - an inaccurate statement at best), aren't rushing to blame Republicans for this downgrade, even though it's coming after they "took over" the House of Representatives, and are blocking any effective actions in the Senate?
I thought the Republi-Cons were going to give us jobs, jobs, jobs!
One of the justifications for entering Afghanistan and Iraq has been that by attacking and disrupting the ability of Al Qaeda to train terrorists we somehow protect the United States from terrorism. That has always seemed like an extremely flimsy excuse for going to war in someone else's territory.
After all, Al Qaeda has managed to sneak ONE horrendous attack on this country using 19 men and our planes. Wouldn't it be enough to bolster our own border security in combination with intense diplomatic pressure on countries that harbor terrorists to find and detain them? Why spend billions on weapons and logistics and risk the lives of our soldiers on foreign soil? I believe we could spend far less and risk very few lives protecting our own borders and aggressively working the diplomatic front.
I have never been in favor of our military actions in the Middle East, and I have never been convinced of their supposed necessity. I hope we bring our troops home immediately.
David Behrman
Houston, TX
Vietnam veteran (1st Air Cavalry Division, 1965-66)
You're right Judith - and not raising taxes while we have had 10 years of war has put us where we are. When someone requires a promise of 'for any reason' it ventures into the area of unreasonable.
Once again a large portion of the program focused on the Presidential election. The media should be taking much of the blame for extending the campaign season. I'm old enough to remember when JFK started his campaign - he was barely started in February of the election year. That's 9 months, not the current 19 month campaign season.
The result of this extended campaign: Lots of money in campaign coffers; a tabloid style of reporting by the MSM; a distraction from real issues; an inability to get anything done in Congress.
Etaoin wrote on June 24 @ 3:51 pm
"And the Republicans want to cut budgets, throwing people out of work, and cut unemployment and other benefits, meaning that more people will need those benefits and yet have less money to spend to get the economy moving, while also cutting taxes (thus decreasing revenues, increasing the deficit, and continuing the same cycle)."
No Etaoin, it is the Obama Administration that is throwing more people out of work due to his economics policies. Go to the Independent Business Associatation and see why small business in not hiring. The uncertainity of Obamacare, regulations, and tax increases. It is all spelled out for you there. What is needed is to take social programs from government paid for by the taxpayer and given to the non-profits and churches. But God forgive, anything to do with God or religion the Dem's/Libs hate.
It is correct that Dem's/Libs have made this economy worse. The budget cycle which ends in October is 1.5 trillion over budget even though Obama told us he would stay within the budget.
Nice try Etoain.
EL Principle Gingon Habla la verdad
DR show- love ya man, but gotta say I thought discussions concerning economy and debt ceiling were a bit "flighty".
Debt ceiling was raised 7 TIMES (!!!) applauded by GOP each time, during W years- how else could tax breaks for wealthy have been afforded. 3 years after Bush tax cuts were signed into law America employment was worse than before the cuts. This at a time when America was on a credit-induced spending frenzy. When consumers spend, goods are produced, stimulating production, and therefore job growth. W policies cleverly managed to reverse this basic law of economics, so that the only ones benefitting from this tremendous period of mortgage/credit- induced spending were the wealthy, until what steadily has emerged is a distorted political system run for and by the few. During W, nation’s job base grew at by far slowest pace in 50+ years (this an extraordinary accomplishment, considering boom we were in). Founding fathers would be ashamed. Situation is very similar to how the nation stood before Great Depression.
It is in some ways unfortunate that by taking some extraordinary measures, 2nd Great depression was averted, because now the political will (and sanity) is not there to make some of the great structural changes necessary- including tax increases for wealthy, regulations preventing majority from being screwed by runaway nefarious corporate interests, and improvement of decaying infrastructure.
The result at best will be high unemployment for a LONG time. This of course seems to fall into general GOP strategy, who by various extensive PR tactics on a largely uninformed public, somehow attempt to blame last 10 years demise on dems, instead of on disastrous 40 years of Borrow and Spend "trickle-up" policy.
A good question Alex888. For Greece, about $79 billion, according to The New York Times. Here’s the article, in which you can also see the CDS outstanding for Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and Italy, the total amount adding up to about $600 billion. That doesn’t tell the whole story, though, because the domino effect of (taxpayers) having to own up to these obligations would take down banks around the world. Wikipedia shows the total CDS market to be around $38 trillion (in 2008). It would be a refreshing to hear this discussion more often (at all), instead of how to rein in the excesses of Europe’s welfare states (read, demoracies), more derisively known as PIGS. How about the excesses of Wall Street, and financial markets around the world?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/business/global/23swaps.html?ref=credi...
Come on Drew:
Obama was marketed as the do all type of president. Why was he telling the voting population he was going to create 5 million jobs when he has lost so many more.
The second great depression was avoided because the bank bailout that took place in October 2008. This is Obama economy.
We the taxpaying public are the ones being screwed now that we are having to pay 1 trillion dollars from passage of the Recovdry Act.
Regulation is part of what is killing jobs. One of the Blue states in the union California is #50 in creating jobs because of regulation.
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