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The Coming Debate

Digby has recommended this post. It is an interesting post in parts, but some of it is absurd to my eyes. Some particularly wrongheaded parts of it (as well as some of the interesting parts) follow:

Recycled Clintonism is recycled neo-liberalism. This is change only the brainiacs from Hyde Park and Harvard Square could believe in. Only the experts could get hot under the collar about the slight differences between "behavioral economics" (the latest academic fad that fascinates some high level Obama-ites) and straight-up neo-liberal deference to the market. And here's the sobering thing: despite the grotesque extremism of the Bush years, neo-liberalism also served as its ideological magnetic north.

Let us hope the Obama Administration can "recycle" the economic accomplishments of "Clintonism" - 22 million new jobs, significant reductions in the number of people living in poverty, significant reductions in income inequality. More . . .

The post continues:

[Donald] Richberg and [Hugh] Johnson helped design and run the National Recovery Administration (the New Deal's first and failed attempt at industrial recovery). [They] were partial to the interests of the country's peak corporations. [They] wanted them released from the strictures of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act so that they could collaborate in setting prices and wages to arrest the killing deflation that gripped the economy. But they also wanted these corporate behemoths and the codes of competition they promulgated subjected to government oversight and restraints.

Actually, the National Recovery Administration was intended to impose government control on industrial activity - not unshackle corporations. Indeed, the opposition to the NRA was extreme among "corporatists" (the label affixed to Johnson and Richburg in the post.) The NRA was clearly the part of the New Deal which most resembled socialism.

The post continues:

Meanwhile, Felix Frankfurter (another confidant of FDR's and a future Supreme Court justice), aided by the behind-the-scenes efforts of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, fiercely contested the influence of the corporatists within the new administration, favoring anti-trust and then-new Keynesian approaches to economic recovery.

This is true, but hardly a fight against "corporatists." It was more of a fight against deficit hawks like FDR Treasury Secretary Henry Morganthau. In my previous post, I provided Keynes' own critique of the NIRA (National Industrial Recovery Act), which created the NRA.

In terms of recovery policies, one of the most interesting debates were between Harry Hopkins, whose focus was on job creation, and Harold Ickes, Sr., whose focus was on government investment in infrastructure. One could creditably argue that Ickes was the better Keynesian. I would love to read Krugman and others on that debate.

The most interesting and insightful part of the post to me was this:

The question for our "new era" -- not one our New Deal ancestors would have thought to ask -- has become: How do we get beyond the bailout state? This is one crucial realm where genuinely new thinking and new ideas are badly needed.

At the moment, as best we can make out, the bailout state is being managed in secret and apparently in the interests, above all, of those who run the financial institutions being "rescued." Often, we don't actually know who is getting what from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, or on what terms, or even which institutions are being helped and which aren't, or often what our public monies are actually being used for.

. . . Are we, then, witnessing the birth of some warped, exceedingly partial version of state capitalism -- partial, that is, to the resuscitation of the old order? If so, lurking within this string of bum deals might there not be a great opportunity? Putting the economy and country back together will require massive resources directed toward common purposes. There is no more suitable means of mobilizing and steering those resources than the institutions of democratic government.

Under the present dispensation, the bailout state makes the government the handmaiden of the financial sector. Under a new one, the tables might be turned. But who will speak for that option within the limited councils of the Obama team?

A real democratic nationalization of the banks -- good value for our money rather than good money to add to their value -- should be part of the policy agenda up for discussion in the Obama era. As things now stand, the public supplies the loans and the investment capital, but the key decisions about how they are to be deployed remain in private hands. A democratic version of nationalizing the financial system would transfer these critical decisions to new institutions created by the Congress and designed to pursue public, not private, objectives. How to subject the flow of credit and investment capital to public control ought to be on the drawing boards if we are to look beyond the old New Deal to a new one.

Or, for instance, if we are to bail out the auto industry, which we should -- millions of jobs, businesses, communities, and what's left of once powerful and proud unions are at stake -- then why not talk about its nationalization, too? Why not create a representative body of workers, consumers, environmentalists, suppliers, and other interested parties to supervise the industry's reorganization and retooling to produce, just as the president-elect says he wants, new green means of transportation -- and not just cars?

Why not apply the same model to the rehabilitation of the nation's infrastructure; indeed, why not to the reindustrialization of the country as a whole? If, as so many commentators are now claiming, what lies ahead is the kind of massive, crippling deflation characteristic of such crises, then why not consider creating democratic mechanisms to impose an incomes policy on wages and prices that works against that deflation?

This is radical, and welcome, thinking. I am almost sure I disagree with most of it. But it is worthy of being discussed. Should it be discussed in the Obama Administration? Perhaps. But nothing prevents discussion of it in academia, among the public and on the blogs. What would mar the discussion, in my view, is to see it as another excuse for further Clinton bashing, as opposed to a real discussion about the policies we will need for our country.

Speaking for me only

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    Sitck to the issues (5.00 / 3) (#2)
    by Fabian on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:18:51 AM EST
    and it becomes much easier to discuss.

    Whenever I hear the word "Clinton" not used in reference to Hillary's or Bill's current activities, I stop listening.  

    The one issue I would like to see addressed is that of assistance to the states.  Almost every state government must have a balanced budget.  The forecast for Ohio's budget is bleak and I'm sure we aren't alone.  PBS brought up the term "counter cyclical" in reference to the need for certain services increases as the state revenues decreases.  The states are faced with only two ways to address this problem - cut services and/or increase taxes.  It's a lose/lose/lose scenario.  So the states are looking to the federal government for help.

    Enter Universal Health Care.....

    One of the biggest costs for any state government is health care for the poor.  Certainly would be a big help if the federal government took care of that for them.  With true federally funded UHC the states wouldn't have that burden.  (Certainly would help if all women had access to full range of reproductive health care services.)

    Indeed (none / 0) (#7)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:25:20 AM EST
    Stick to the issues.

    Parent
    balanced budgets in the ... (none / 0) (#8)
    by Salo on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:26:27 AM EST
    ...states will contradict the efforts of the Feds in stimulating the economy.  There should be some reforms in state constitutions on this score.

    Pass some emergency economic law that nullifies the balanced budget rules for a year long period.

    Parent

    Okay - who is going to pick up (5.00 / 1) (#14)
    by Fabian on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:32:46 AM EST
    that deficit?  And one measly year?  Doesn't seem long enough.

    I would guess from economic cycles that states would need three years of deficit spending before the economy cycles far enough up back up again.

    Listening to discussions of the state shortfall was depressing.  The projected deficit is huge, big enough so that it won't be a case of either/or (either social services OR infrastructure spending cuts) it will be a case of where the cuts will be the deepest.

    Parent

    Excellent point (none / 0) (#10)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:27:02 AM EST
    brush the dust off the state section in... (none / 0) (#12)
    by Salo on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:31:28 AM EST
    ...your local law library.

    Parent
    I wonder if there is a way (none / 0) (#15)
    by andgarden on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:32:58 AM EST
    to inject money into states. The services they're having to cut will really hurt people, especially the newly unemployed.

    Parent
    Absolutely (none / 0) (#31)
    by Steve M on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 01:30:00 PM EST
    The Democratic stimulus package under consideration right now contains a ton of aid to states for things like food stamps, Medicare shortages, roads and bridges.  States don't have the same ability as the federal government to go out and get international credit when there's a budget shortfall, so the feds are going to help make up the difference to avoid massive cuts in services.

    Parent
    How does being fiscally responsible (none / 0) (#24)
    by Farmboy on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 11:50:06 AM EST
    with a balanced budget "contradict" economy stimulus?  Not going into further debt for our grandchildren sounds like a much better plan.

    If a family is barely making their mortgage payment, would you really advise them to go buy a new Lexus on the basis that this expenditure will relieve their financial issues?  Really?

    Parent

    The answer (5.00 / 2) (#33)
    by Steve M on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 01:36:55 PM EST
    is that without an increase in government spending to make up for the slowing economy, not enough stuff gets bought, which leads to lost jobs, which means fewer people with money, which means even less stuff gets bought, and so on in a downward spiral.  The idea of ramping up government spending during a slowdown - and this is Keynesian stuff, straight out of Macroeconomics 101 - is to reduce unemployment and stabilize things until the economy recovers and can support the jobs on its own.

    Balancing the budget during a downturn, when tax revenues are already down, means massive cuts to government services, things like unemployment benefits and healthcare.  In turn, those cuts leave people even worse off and even less able to resume productive economic activity.

    Parent

    Do you suppose there is a (5.00 / 1) (#35)
    by oculus on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 01:40:14 PM EST
    "Keynes for Dummies" for those who didn't take econ 101?

    Parent
    Wow, so you're into insults, just (none / 0) (#36)
    by Farmboy on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 01:46:23 PM EST
    because I've watched 30 years of Republican deficit spending, and I'm not amused by what it has done to our economy?

    The one brief moment in the last 30 years we've had a decent economic uptick was during the last part of the Clinton admin.  And oh yeah, there was a surplus.

    Name call all you want.  Name drop all you want.  Just don't ask me to respect your ideas when you go all 2nd grade straight out of the gate.

    Parent

    What in the h*ell are (none / 0) (#40)
    by oculus on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 01:56:58 PM EST
    you ranting about?

    Parent
    Goodness Oculus (5.00 / 1) (#49)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 04:47:25 PM EST
    you never chap anyone.  I think someone put the wrong fluid in their Wheaties this morning, brushed their teeth with the Bengay? :)

    Parent
    Ha. Always lurking just beneath (5.00 / 1) (#50)
    by oculus on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 04:53:14 PM EST
    the seemingly placid surface.

    Parent
    (insert sheepish nod here) (none / 0) (#55)
    by Farmboy on Thu Dec 04, 2008 at 07:53:25 AM EST
    Yeah, yesterday afternoon was a long, drawn out session of dealing with idjits at work.  My brain saw the "for dummies" and generated a "what did I ever do to this guy?" moment.

    Again, my bad.  Still don't like deficit spending.  :-)

    Parent

    Farmboy is actually sweet (none / 0) (#56)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Dec 04, 2008 at 08:23:16 AM EST
    Lives up to his legacy.  Everybody has DAYS.

    Parent
    If your "keynes for dummies" comment (none / 0) (#41)
    by Farmboy on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 02:10:42 PM EST
    wasn't directed at my post, then disregard my comment about your insults.  If so, then yeah, call it what you like.

    The point I'm making here is that driving states into deficit spending would work about as well as it has for the federal budget - that is to say, not well at all.

    By the way, deficit spending and supply side economics are part of Keynes' theories.  Doesn't make them a good idea just because he liked them.  Reagan liked them too.  Keynes endorses deficit spending by the gov't as a short term fix, a quick stimulus if you will.  We are long past the point of calling Reaganomics short term.

    Parent

    Actually, I was replying to steve m.'s (5.00 / 2) (#42)
    by oculus on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 02:25:52 PM EST
    comment.  Just so you know, I never took an econ. course.  My question was sincere.

    Parent
    well then, that's something completely different. (5.00 / 1) (#43)
    by Farmboy on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 02:28:24 PM EST
    mea culpa.  mea maxima culpa.

    Parent
    Thanks. (none / 0) (#45)
    by oculus on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 03:01:58 PM EST
    Well (5.00 / 1) (#47)
    by Steve M on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 03:24:21 PM EST
    I certainly agree that it ought to be a temporary stimulus.  The fundamental problem is that we'll never have enough revenues to balance the budget unless the economy manages to grow itself out of recession first, so worrying about balancing the budget in the short term (as Krugman points out, this was Roosevelt's key mistake in 1937) is counterproductive.

    I don't think any of us are arguing for a continuation of Reaganomics.  For the most part, Republican deficit spending has occurred for all the wrong reasons.  But just because Clinton managed to balance the budget in the late 90s, I don't think we can pretend like we can do the same thing right now, given the much different economic climate.

    Parent

    I agree, (none / 0) (#57)
    by Farmboy on Thu Dec 04, 2008 at 08:26:10 AM EST
    attempting to balance the federal budget in the short term would be like trying to drink the ocean, and for all the reasons you've mentioned.  I'm just against the idea of allowing states to deficit spend when they're running as fast as they can just to break even - and in California's case, failing to do that.  To use the analogy of a river, the revenue stream at the state level is much too shallow (even if it's very wide, say in the case of large states) to feed more than a nickel's worth of debt, even in the good economic times.

    A good part of this is because many towns and cities are in debt up to their eyeballs for various silly things like schools, or sewers, or paved streets.  Given that increasing revenue sufficiently to pay back a debt requires either an expanding economy or a higher tax rate, there's no more juice left in that particular turnip.  Any increases in either are already spoken for at the local level for a long time to come.  This means that state deficits might never get paid back, which is not a good thing.

    I used to work for the dept. of labor in Iowa and understand fully the idea of keeping an economy alive by keeping the money moving.  Deficit spending as a economic stimulus is useless now, in my opinion, because we've been deficit spending for so long.  There would be no stimulus because it is the normal condition.  A different way of getting the money to move needs to be implemented.  Personally I'm in favor of re-instituting a progressive tax that moves the revenue burden to the top 5%.  Regardless, a situation needs to been created where the money moves on its own, without govt stimulus, for any long term recovery to be effected.

    Parent

    We can't get the economy on track (none / 0) (#58)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Dec 04, 2008 at 08:30:05 AM EST
    at this point by worrying about balancing the budget.  We must "worry" about where we are spending this money though.  The fake assets that all the "creative" accounting made up can't be recapitalized, and the corporations involved in that are going to have to eat it and I don't feel sorry for them because they were trying to make money off of nothing.....off of arithmetic.  We can only recapitalize REAL THINGS for what they should have been worth without all the insanity that Credit Default Swaps created.

    Parent
    State constitutions can be (none / 0) (#37)
    by oldpro on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 01:48:24 PM EST
    nullified by a federal edict?

    No thanks.

    Limitless debt and long-term bonds to pay for short-term woes in states will put us all in the soup with California.

    I thought we progressiveliberaldemocrats were against that...

    Parent

    in each state o'course. (none / 0) (#46)
    by Salo on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 03:03:39 PM EST
    State by state.

    Parent
    Not. Gonna. Happen. (none / 0) (#48)
    by oldpro on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 04:21:32 PM EST
    And talk about your long-term project...tilt at windmills much?

    We couldn't even get the ERA past them.

    Parent

    Funny, there isn't much discussion about (5.00 / 5) (#3)
    by ThatOneVoter on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:20:31 AM EST
    what Reagan would do to get us out of this mess, is there?


    Reagan is mostly of interest. . . (5.00 / 5) (#20)
    by LarryInNYC on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:48:10 AM EST
    when you want to get into a mess, not out.

    Parent
    Heh (none / 0) (#6)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:24:56 AM EST
    I second that Heh (none / 0) (#26)
    by easilydistracted on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 11:55:17 AM EST
    There certainly should be ample opportunity (5.00 / 1) (#27)
    by ruffian on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 12:00:48 PM EST
    and many forums for people to advocate for nationalization of the banks and industries. Let's have a real debate about it, as BTD says, without using it as an excuse to bash the Clintons.  

    I'd love to see intelligent debate about these issues in the MSM, so the American people can get educated on the pros and cons, instead of having the knee jerk reaction that such talk is too radical to even be heard.

    But we are not going to get real discussion that gets to people that don't read Digby or TL without a better media. And at this point they won't even scratch the surface of real policy discussions.

    What really needs to be debated (5.00 / 1) (#44)
    by Alien Abductee on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 02:33:31 PM EST
    but it doesn't look like it ever will be is the extent to which military keynesianism dominates and distorts the US economy.

    military Keynesianism -- the determination to maintain a permanent war economy and to treat military output as an ordinary economic product, even though it makes no contribution to either production or consumption

    It's fundamentally non-productive in the sense of taking half the country's potential and letting it be locked out of developing the sorts of real material value that improve everyday life, yet accepting the skewing of the economic numbers to look as if that wealth is real. And it's something no politician other than a few brave souls like Kucinich who are willing to be turned into jokes by the Establishment for it will even discuss. This is the nut of the problem, and no one with any inside power can even talk about it publicly.

    The 'war on terror' is a perfect pretext for (none / 0) (#54)
    by FoxholeAtheist on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 07:07:14 PM EST
    maintaining a perpetual geyser of cash for 'defense' spending.

    Here's a post from Corrente. It addresses the issue of mammoth military expenditures; as well as Robert Gates' role in 'facilitating' numerous wars and arms sales, beginning with delaying the release of US hostages by Iran in order to damage the re-election chances of Jimmy Carter in 1980:

    Today, with less than 5% of the world's population, the US outspends the other 95% of the planet combined on things military, including a network of more than 725 bases in a hundred foreign countries. The bucks that pay for US Marines in Somalia, for B-52s in the Indian Ocean, nuclear-armed fleets in the Persian Gulf and much more don't come out of any imperial war budget. They're part of the national defense budget...

    The new Secretary of War [Secretary of Defense] is the same as the old one. He'll be Robert Gates, a Reaganite and Bush family operative who has headed the Department of War [Department of Defense] since 2006.



    Parent
    Well, it seems obvious (none / 0) (#1)
    by andgarden on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:11:12 AM EST
    that we will never get beyond "the bailout state." People expect too much today from the government to let it stand idly by and the economy collapses. But generally speaking, nationalization is almost never an option. So we get bailouts.

    The argument for nationalizing GM is perhaps not a terrible one at this point: they want more in bailout money than the company is apparently worth.

    The auto industry (5.00 / 3) (#9)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:26:28 AM EST
    has been in such distress for so long that at this point, apart from the economic recovery aspects of it - there really is only a national interests aspect to consider.

    Which makes it a prime candidate for nationalization.

    Parent

    GM is apparently looking to jettison Saab (none / 0) (#13)
    by andgarden on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:32:00 AM EST
    Wanna bet that the Sweedish government will buy in a Trollhättan minute? (Personally, I would be sad to see it go if they don't.)

    Parent
    Though they now say (none / 0) (#16)
    by andgarden on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:35:16 AM EST
    that they'd rather not. I'll bet that changes.

    Parent
    Volvo is also on the block. (none / 0) (#29)
    by oculus on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 12:43:36 PM EST
    The answer to the question of how (5.00 / 3) (#18)
    by inclusiveheart on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:36:39 AM EST
    we get beyond the bailout state is actually fairly simple - regulation and anti-trust.

    When they were debating the cash giveaways all the pols got on TV - especially Dems like Frank and Dodd - and said, "Now is not the time to be looking at regulation".  But if we do not look at regulations - or lack there of - that have a direct impact on limiting the bad behavior that got us here - there is nothing stopping these corporate entities from continuing to do business and lose money in exactly the same way that led to this economic collapse.

    Of course, no one but me, myself and I seem to be uttering the phrase "anti-trust", but it seems obvious to me that if something is "too big to fail" then it is simply "too big" in the first place.

    Not for nothin' after Citigroup got their last cash influx from the government, they were onto buying a construction corporation and had a new derrivatives mortgage bet to offer as one of its line of alchemist products where instead of betting against loan repayment, you get to bet that the loans will get repaid.  So we bailed out a bank so they could do construction and had to bail them out because they were offering products that amounted to alchemy and the credit markets are still for all intents and purposes in a deep freeze.  Shaking head.

    Parent

    Would you buy your only car (none / 0) (#19)
    by andgarden on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:42:55 AM EST
    from a small company or, absent the FDIC, but your money in a small bank? I sure wouldn't.

    I'm all for anti-trust enforcement, but sometimes you really do need big companies for economies of scale etc.

    Why the big 3 are such basket cases is an interesting question. I think the answer probably isn't a pleasant one: it really isn't cost effective to make cars in America anymore.

    Parent

    There are plenty of cars made (5.00 / 1) (#21)
    by inclusiveheart on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 11:15:51 AM EST
    in the US by foreign manufacturers.  Alabama has three foreign companies operating in their state alone.  The "right to work" states have attracted many plants.  But Toyota decided not to build a new plant in this country and went to Canada instead because of their national health insurance.

    The American car companies unlike competitors like Toyota have invested very little in long-term planning in terms of products and research which is why they are thoroughlly unprepared to meet the latest market need - smaller, more efficient cars.  That would have been where the "economies of scale" would have made sense, but they didn't bother with actually organizing themselves to take advantage of that advantage.

    In any case, after the Nova (fiasco) my family has owned Toyota - when it was a small car company - Volvo - pre-Ford - and Saab pre-GM - so yeah, I'd be likely to buy a car from a smaller car company.  

    And as to the banks there is a middle ground between a small community bank and a monster like Citigroup.  Not for nothin' the analysis of why Citi is in so much more trouble than Bank of America (also probably too bit) is that B of A has been better about sticking with banking - doing what they know best.  

    It used to be that when you were a bank, you were only a bank.  Now you can be a bank and just about whatever else you want at the same time - and "whatever else" is what has caused the problems for these financial institutions.  

    So I have no problem with the idea of breaking these conglomorates up and preventing them from gambling on enterprises they have no core competency in - because that protects people's savings, retirement funds and investments in these institutions from the things that are endangering them now.

    Parent

    >...It used to be that when you were a bank, you were only a bank.  Now you can be a bank and just about whatever else you want at the same time - and "whatever else" is what has caused the problems for these financial institutions.  

       The repeal of Glass-Steagal in '99 pushed by Robert Rubin, pushed through the Senate by Dodd and signed by Bill C. Robert Kuttner back in '07 wrote about this when the early signs were there as to the upcoming economic crisis.

    Parent

    http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=12573

    >...Rubin's crowning achievement was the repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated largely unregulated and more speculative investment banks like Goldman Sachs from government-supervised and -insured commercial banks like Citi, which play a key role in the nation's monetary policy. Glass-Steagall was designed to prevent the kinds of speculative conflicts of interests that pervaded Wall Street in the 1920s and helped bring about the Great Depression (and reappeared in the 1990s).

    Parent

    And your point is? (5.00 / 1) (#25)
    by inclusiveheart on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 11:53:58 AM EST
    Am I now supposed to like the deregulation because Clinton's finger prints are on it?

    But Glass-Steagal was not the first - the trend started during the Reagan Era.

    I've been watching this stuff unfold for years.  We had a family experience in the early 90's that highlighted exactly how problematic the deregulation was.  That whole thing happened shortly after banks were allowed to manage stock accounts in conjunction with traditional banking services.  The stock account portion of the biz was largely unregulated.

    Personally, I think most Democrats have been just as awful on this front as the GOP has - although I get the sense that most Dems were too thick to really understand what it was they were giving away where I get the impression that the majority of the GOP understood exactly the advantages they were creating for these financial institutions - especially the part where they were not subject to much if any liability if they blew it all.

    Parent

    Misidentification of the guilty (5.00 / 1) (#51)
    by cenobite on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 05:44:09 PM EST
    You mean the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, sponsored by Phil Gramm (R) in the Senate, Jim Leach (R) in the House, and pushed by Thomas J. Bliley (R), chairman of the of the commerce committee?

    The bill that passed the Republican-controlled Senate 90-8 and the Republican-controlled House by 362-57, huge veto-proof supermajorities?

    I guess that must be Bill Clinton's fault.

    Or something.

    Parent

    Did (none / 0) (#53)
    by Wile ECoyote on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 06:35:47 PM EST
    Bill sign it?

    Parent
    Bless your inclusive heart. You've illuminated a lot of issues (comment #21).

    We need to hammer this point home: national health care will be good for business. As it now stands, many US employers (i.e. auto companies) absorb the cost of health insurance since there is no national health care in this country. Therefore, as you say companies like Toyota have set up shop in Canada.

    You also mentioned that some auto makers have moved to 'right-to-work' states where, I'm assuming, the employees are non-unionized. However, that is not the case in Canada which has both national health care and a robust commitment to unionized labor.  

    Parent

    Bailouts vs. Nationalizing (none / 0) (#34)
    by blogtopus on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 01:38:21 PM EST
    Are there any economic studies out yet comparing the costs to the taxpayer that each option entails?

    I'd be very curious to see what they would show...

    Parent

    Yeah... (none / 0) (#4)
    by Salo on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:22:35 AM EST
    ...there are no radical voices in the Obama cabinet. A shame really. Rice kinda fits that bill but she's merely a David Ignatieff clone when you gets down to it and she'll be used by other interests and disposed of when she starts to embarrass the boss.

    One of the problems with the Executive appointed cabinet, in a structural sense, is that the office holders have no loyalty to a constituency that they represent. They are loyal only to the president. I think it's one of the reasons the US is in such dire straits today. Content follows structure and the appointees are flunkies or eventually become flunkies. I'm not really sure a cabinet position ought to be a full time job either--maybe a 90% on secretary duties with 10% devoted to a constituency.  That way they can resign office but maintain the elected office if things go sour and a new person is needed to to do the job. Undersecretaries could easily be unelected appointees and they are the people who really write the policy papers anyway.

    Teh poster didn't really need to go into the Clinton hangers on thing either. It was both gratuitous and is OBVIOUSLY the talking point memo   that the media/GOP will be using about Obama--he's Clinton's hostage. He's a junior partner in his own administration.  

    Rice is completely mainstream (5.00 / 0) (#5)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:24:42 AM EST
    there is nothing, not on thing, unconventional about her views.

    Parent
    except muscular intervention in Africa... (none / 0) (#11)
    by Salo on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:30:03 AM EST
    ...in cases like Rwanda.  Although as I stated she's simply a poor Democrat's David Ignatieff. An advocate of humanitarian intervention exploited by neo-liberal cynics.

    Parent
    That seems conventional to me (none / 0) (#17)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 10:36:29 AM EST
    Realize (none / 0) (#32)
    by Steve M on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 01:32:21 PM EST
    that liberal interventionism was completely mainstream until Bush co-opted the rhetoric for the Iraq war and made everyone to the left of center suspicious of using military force to "liberate" oppressed people.  But look at what Clinton did with Bosnia, Kosovo, etc., perfectly normal stuff to find in the Democratic playbook in times past.

    Parent
    And Bill's regret re Rwanda... (none / 0) (#38)
    by oldpro on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 01:51:13 PM EST
    Um. (none / 0) (#28)
    by miwome on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 12:12:42 PM EST
    I understand that these problems and potential solutions are completely unknown and no one knows what they will look like. But he has used such vague language and jingo-speak ("democratic" gets thrown around an awful lot), and as far as I can tell none of it really means anything. Create institutions? Democratically nationalize? Create democratic mechanisms to fight deflation? I mean, great, but what on earth is he actually proposing?

    Also, there is a real and crucial difference between behavioral and neoliberal economics, for economic policy and for the way the state encourages us to see ourselves as individuals, and his dismissal of that difference illuminates how much he does not understand. "Only the experts" indeed. Does he know anything about behavioral economics other than that it's trendy at UChicago right now?

    One advantage, had Sen. Clinton (none / 0) (#30)
    by oculus on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 12:52:55 PM EST
    been elected President. She might assign one of her "people" to keep up with Talk Left.  

    Schlesinger on Henry A. Wallace (none / 0) (#39)
    by wurman on Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 01:55:27 PM EST
    ". . . Naive Public Servant . . ."

    The Wallaces were also a Republican family, but in the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, not of Herbert Hoover. H.A.'s father and Hoover, Harding's secretary of commerce, were bitter foes in the Harding cabinet. After his father died in 1924 at the age of 58, H.A. blamed Hoover for his death and opposed him for this and other reasons in the 1928 and 1932 elections. When a Democrat made the White House in 1933, Wallace was one of the two Republicans Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed to his cabinet, giving him his father's old job (the other Republican was Harold Ickes as secretary of the Interior).

    TomDispatch pastes Fraser's column which states: "But there was also Henry Wallace as Secretary of Agriculture, a Midwestern progressive who would become the standard bearer for the most left-leaning segments of the New Deal coalition."

    I don't think that description of Wallace is factually accurate.  Schlesinger's review of the Wallace biography may be a useful glimpse into what some people now perceive is "progressive" or "left-leaning" in comparison to how that term was used in the thirties & forties.  And to label a naive Wallace as "left-leaning" may be a classic instance of rightwingnutz rhetoric.

    And I'm curious as to why so many commenters are incapable of seeing that former Clinton operatives, & Hillary Clinton herself, are capable of "original" ideas.  The Clinton gang seems to have had several of them back in the day. No doubt they can repeat that performance, given the new conditions generated by the Idiot King & his corporatist factotums.