Friday News Roundup - Hour 1
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-10-28/friday-news-roundup-hour-1
The U.s economy grew by 2.5 percent in the third quarter, the fastest pace in a year. The congressional debt reduction supercommittee met in public Wednesday. But the real action continued behind closed doors. A Democratic proposal was leaked, and countered by a Republican offer, but taxes remain the stumbling block. President Obama announced economic measures that don’t require congressional approval, including one to ease student loan debt. And GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry unveiled his flat-tax plan. The domestic hour of our Friday News Roundup David Corn of Mother Jones, Jeanne Cummings of Bloomberg News and Byron York of the Washington Examiner.
Guests
David Corn
Washington bureau chief, "Mother Jones" magazine; author of several books, most recently, "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War."
Jeanne Cummings
deputy government editor, Bloomberg News.
Byron York
chief political correspondent, Washington Examiner.
Related Video
The panelists respond to a caller's view on the Occupy Wall Street movements and discuss the political and cultural forces that precipitated the movements. Bloomberg's Jeanne Cummings said that the question many frustrated Americans continue to ask, both inside and outside the movement, is "where are the jobs?"
Comments
Please familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use before posting your comments.
Excellent post mudeye
David Corn would you please comment on Byron York's arrogant and untrue comment that the anti invasion of Iraq marches in Oct of 2002 and in early 2003 were small and mostly people banging on drums. He was clearly not there and may be you were not either. But he is absolutely wrong. Those tens of thousands in the streets in DC and over a hundred thousand in Feb or New York were made up of working class Americans, women in long fur coats WWII, Korean, Vietnam Vets etc..... He was clearly not there and HE WAS WRONG ABOUT IRAQ. And the folks marching against that invasion knew the Bush administration was lying.
I am so happy that the OWS are receiving the press they deserve. The anti invasion marches made up of hundreds of thousands on the east coast, millions nationwide, 30 million world wide did not receive this type of press.
Who knows lives lost due to lies might have been saved. Which was why people were marching. But the MSM was missing and not in action
Gov. Perry's plan is just plain silly. According to him, he can raise more money with a 20% tax and no capital gains tax than Simpson-Bowles could do with a 25% tax including capital gains.
Can your guest please discuss why we seldom hear anyone talking about raising taxes on capital gains? I have read that under Clinton taxes on capital gains dropped from 28% to 20%. Then dropped again under Bush 43 from 20% to 15%. Is this not discussed because many of our Reps are millionaires and may make a great deal of money off of capital gains...and are the very people who reduced taxes on money making money
I recently heard that the government (congress?) authorized Bank of America to transfer hundreds of millions (billions?) of dollars worth of Collateralized Debt Obligations (=bad financial bets) from their investment arm over to the consumer bank, thereby earning FDIC protection. This would put them in a position to erase those losses at taxpayer expense. AGAIN. Can you please comment on this development. To me it seems like a really bad move, and one totally consistent with the Occupy position that congress favors business over its own voting populace. Thanks!
Why is it that no mention is made in most media regarding the news that the world population has hit 7 billion?
Can your guest please discuss the new poll reporting that only 9% of the American people have any faith in I want to call"our Reps" but will just say Reps. 9% for heavens sake...how low can they go?
Two items: 1, Occupation Wall Street, and 2, Job creation (re article in Wall St. Journal.
1-OWS - Our book club is at least 99% supportive of OWS--and we are about 20 middle to upper middle class women, ranging in age from the mid-30s to the 80s. We know from personal experience that de-regulation permitted the financial institutions to offer products that were unethical, but not necessarily illegal. We know from personal experience that all of our politicians are funded by corporations and therefore beholding to the interests of those corporations even when they run counter to the best interests of the general populace. A few of us have participated in actual demonstrations, others will, others write letters, so for the one commentor to attempt to downplay the intelligence of this movement is offensive and incorrect.
2-Jobs-A recent article in the conservative Wall St. Journal suggested ways for corporations with excess funds to 'grow their own' employees by the participating more fully in partnerships with community colleges and 4-year universities, and by creating various types of apprenticeships. See, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020442240457659663089740918...
'Why Companies Aren't Getting the Employees They Need, Peter Cappelli, 10/24/11-Wall St. Journal.
Wake up congress! Conservative commentators need to stop lying. It's offensive.
Can you imagine the news media getting out from in between the people and the government and let us use the 'public' airwaves to have the dialogue that is needed. I have never been to one of the protests but my experience is that we don't want to be ground up to make the one percent richer. One of your guests also said America used to have a fair economic system. WHEN? Certainly not when Martin Luther King was protesting poverty in America, and certainly not during slavery or Jim Crow.
I've lived - and worked - through the widening of the income gap. I am one of the many who kept our heads down, reported to work every day, and took on more responsibility and more job descriptions as technology advanced.
Business was able to get away with this because credit was extended to the rest of us as our real wages fell behind. This worked fine until the crash, although it did have a secondary effect of taking even more money out of the pockets of the middle and lower classes and put it into the pockets of the wealthy.
I am also offended by the idea that the wealthy are the most imaginative and creative people in this country; they just happen to have more resources.
The wealthy owe the rest of us. They need to get over it and pay up.
(My last name rhymes with "Ackroyd>")
Perry's tax plan is best understood as an "Alternative Maximum Tax" analogous to the Alternative Minimum Tax although with the opposite motivation.
Come on. The trend in wealth increase started in the early 80s. The first huge tax cut was in 1981? Coincidence?
How many of the people at this round up panel are in the 1%? How many think taxes on the wealthy should go up?
Hope the Rehm Team eventually does a show on how many of our Reps are millionaires? How many make a great deal of money off of capital gains? And how absurd it is that these millionaires in our congress have been able to reduce capital gain taxes. Money making money
The great American experiment is all about checks and balances. Capitalism naturally puts power in the hands of the few. Democracy is supposed to put power in the hands of the many. Democracy is how we are supposed to defend ourselves against Capitalism.
didn't the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, on Jan, 2010, pretty much guarantee that our representatives and hence the government will belong to corporations?
I have a problem with all of your guests touting the greatness of America that anyone can move up the social ladder, when the Economic Mobility Project just showed that the United States has quite low economic mobility for a developed country, ranking below France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway, and Denmark.
Saying that, "Jobs can not be created until consumer spending increases," is like saying, "The beatings will continue until morale improves."
David Corn says there is no evidence that cutting government spending helped any economies. From what I have read Canada has done just that and are doing quite well at present.
I would ask David Corn what countries with the size of government dept and spending deficits we have, have done better with even more deficit spending.
I don't know anybody who is not making more money than they did in the 80's, is there something wrong with that? I make a hell of a lot more than I did when I was 18, i've worked my ass off to get where I'm at at age 48, damn kids now a days want to be where I'm at when they're 18 instead of working for it, pisses me off
William "Can you imagine the news media getting out from in between the people and the government and let us use the 'public' airwaves to have the dialogue that is needed."
Nope! Concerned about ratings. Not about informing the public based on accurate information. Turn on MSNBC and you hear the same quote from Perry, same Cain commercial played over and over again. Thank goodness for the internet. deep investigative reporting does not make enough money
1) Let's get real about the supposed "job creators." They are also job destroyers and job manipulators. I work in corporate America. I know, as any good manager knows, that people, the cost of paying them and providing benefits, is a business's most significant cost. To manage those costs, we eliminate jobs, we close facilities, we lay people off, we fire them, we send their jobs to other countries where we can pay those people less. Putting more money into the pockets of our corporate chieftans is as likely, if not more likely, to be spent on automating 10 people out of a job as it is to be spent on "creating" even one job.
Thank you for so skillfully pointing out to one of your panelists that using the term Obamacare is inappropriate. I was thinking the same thing and Diane, as usual, pointed out that using that term is offensive. Whoo hoo Diane!!!
---One of your guests also said America used to have a fair economic system.---
Fair, perfectly fair, at one point? Of course not. But fairer.
Actually, fair isn't even the word I'd like. Fair has too many connotations of "being nice" and "avoiding conflict so nobody gets hurt".
I'd much rather "most rewarding" or "most efficient" or, to be wordy, the "getting the mostest to the mostest". I mean, right wing economists are always going on about efficiency and rewarding success and stuff like that.
It's been shown that top-heavy distribution is a result of policy choices, and while averages of everything over the last ~35 years or so is increasing, including productivity, we the "riff raff" haven't been reaping the benefits of it.
As the joke goes, "What's the last thing a right-wing economist says before drowning fording a stream?"
Cicaeda: Brian Moneyhands says it is the RIGHT of a corporation (his B of A) to turn a profit. Duke Power is telling the Midwest it is their RIGHT to inflate the cost of new powerplants to any level the ratepayers can bear. They are about to repeat this in the Southeast. It seems Big investors always have a RIGHT to a big return on their wagers. I was never one to watch poker on ESPN. How about you? I do remember Mother advising me to let the spoiled little kids win at board games. She never advised me to play with real dough. Wealth etiquette has gotten out of control, I think.
Missed the mark on occupy movement...
I believe the movement is about citizens attempting to create their own platform for a national dialogue. The movement's vision has not been fully or clearly expressed yet, but I believe it is crystal clear. There will be a national conversation about the future of our democracy. The angry and disillusioned sentiment of americans is tangible. We do not wish to validate the political system is that has (by our own doing) grown completely out of control. Occupy Everywhere movement must become a national effort to open or minds and create a new american eality.
And if you cannot see what people are angry about, we can start a list. Please ask your self "am I willing to participate respectfully in this conversation?"
My company was going through a bankruptcy a year ago and lost the contract that I had been working under for 8 years.
Since then I have been putting out applications to any job that matches my skill sets. I have an undergraduate degree, a master’s degree and have worked for 10 years in my specific field, yet I can not get a job at a coffee shop much less in my field.
It is a frustrating, frightening and depressing situation that many people are facing.
To hear that corporations are making record profits and still putting the oweness on the American public to spend more before they will create jobs is ludicrous! Where do they propose this discretionary income come from?!
The rhetoric of conservative politicians and corporate America is an insult to thinking people.
When I heard Byron York defend the republican position in terms of "philosophy" it made me physically nauseous. My God, what will it take for us to learn that philosophy without evidence is simple insanity? The Republican party seems so loyal to its beliefs that it is willing to sacrifice not only the well-being of the overall economy and the creditworthiness of our government, but the physical well-being of the planet itself. Please, learn and respect the evidence first, then form your "philosophy". Opinion first then evidence is a recipe for disaster, and one that we have should have all learned well by now.
If I remember correctly, Greece spent a bundle in 2004 to host the summer Olympics. Did this world-wide event contribute deeply to their current debt dilemma?
First, a panelist made the claim that Americans had been content with our system until the recession, and that somehow the sentiment of the Occupy Wall Street is a reaction to current economic woes. However, if you remember the jubilation in which Obama's candidacy was received, you will understand that the millions of Americans who have been distraught over the 30 years of deregulated, faux "moral majority," trickle down Reaganomics were OVERJOYED to FINALLY have an electable candidate that might be able to stand up to the injustice and erosion of democracy and economic freedom.
It is along these lines that I also disagree with the claim that talent is in the top 20%, by pointing to Reagan's admitted war on non-profits as a way to "starve out" and "defund the left." In other words, the economy is set up to reward certain types of work (i.e. managers, financiers), and not others. It is practically impossible to earn a living if you are foster care worker, or a preschool teacher in the inner city (for example) despite emerging neuroscience research that confirms the early years are critical to development. The result is a vicious cycle of declining pay leading to declining quality (which justifies less pay and even lower quality). Rick Scott’s recent negative comments about anthropologists and the social sciences is an example of the ideology that refuses to value certain subjects and fields of work.
On that note, the hyper-wealthy cannot blame Democrats for class warfare, because THEY are the ones who insist on pitting the lifestyles and beliefs of one financial class of voters (those in manufacturing, engineering, tangibles, etc) against those of another class of voters (those in social service, design, innovation, or research). The goal now is for NO VOTER to fall for it anymore. Get corruption out of business and government. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and too much power and wealth has been consolidated in the hands of too few.
" monte wrote:
DOJ: Secret Record? What Secret Record?
—By Siddhartha Mahanta
| Mon Oct. 24, 2011 11:17 AM PDTAttorney General Eric Holder. Pete Marovich/ZumaHere's a thought experiment: If you've requested a national security-related document through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) but the Justice Department says it doesn't exist, could it exist anyway? Under a sweeping set of new rules proposed by the DOJ, the answer could soon be yes.
Current FOIA law allows the government to withhold information—lots of it. Typically, such withholdings come with a simple explanation called a "Glomar denial," which says that the government can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the records in question. But, as ProPublica reports, the new rules "would direct government agencies to 'respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist'"—meaning that the government can just pretend away your request, along with the information in question.
...
In light of "fast and furious" and other DOJ activities is anyone surprised anymore how corrupt the Obama Justice Department is?
October 26, 2011 - 2:30 pm "
You gotta lotta nerve, you sorry, Fact-omitting Factotum Flak for the Bushes, Queens of the America Last Party.
The Glomar Explorer precedents were invented and defended by the then Head of the CIA, a Rat Traitor from 3 Generations of Rat Traitors, GHW Bush, who already had plenty to hide. Expanded and enlarged by the most corrupt, secretive, and criminal President and Administration, that of the Rat Traitor and Draft Evader, George W. "Twiggy" Bush.