Why is the Obama Team Embracing Hooverism?

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Mike
Chris Hayes had Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council for President Obama, on while guest-hosting the Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell last night. Hayes played the clip that Krugman recently highlighted, where Obama said that the government’s budget is like a family’s budget that has to tighten in hard times and emphasized deficit reduction as a means to get confidence going to kick up the recovery, and asked Sperling to explain. Hayes also brought up the historical-low interest rates on Treasuries as a counter-argument to these points.

You’ll be happy to know that Sperling brought up that the government is, in fact, kind of like a family, that trillions on corporate balance sheets are a little bit because of a lack of confidence, especially on the deficit, and, my favorite, this, in response to Hayes bringing up the interest rate as the most sophisticated pricing instrument we have on government debt:

“well I think there’s a lot of factors that go into the interest rates right now. But there’s certain things you know that are just sound….any country anywhere that has its debt increasing as a percentage of its income creates doubts about its sustainability. That’s gotta discourage some people from feeling as good as the long-term investments…”

Wow. It is quite funny to watch Hayes’ jaw drop with a sense of horror when he realizes what he’s hearing from one of the key current architects of the Democratic economic platform:

video and more at link
http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/why-is-the-obama-team-embracing-hooverism/

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Thanks. I'll be here all week; don't forget to tip the waitress.

:applause:

Not sure why they are letting banks dictate the sale of assets and cuts on social programs with no input from voters or taxpayers.

rebounding. They arrested some of their banksters, refused to bail them out, and replaced their government.

But kinda always wondered how if one "has" to work in order to feed, house and provide healthcare for themselves they could honestly consider themselves free. But that probably has plenty to do with my student loan statements ;). Thanks for the link!

but the beginning explains fractal banking and the whole money = debt, debt = money setup concocted by the Federal Reserve and global banking/ corporate interests. It's pretty fascinating: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg

that ALL the DCdems embrace.

I see this as the legacy of the 1990's. Papa Bush zigged to conservatism with a conscience
and Clinton zagged to corporation friendly liberalism. Only one of these presidents has a legacy in their party.

Either that or they want to outdo Bill Clinton and become the best republican administration of the past century.

I think we can pretty much kiss off the multi dimensional chess playing as a possibility.

A great "change" would be exiting Iraq and Afghanistan and creating and passing a debt consolidation bill that would allow people to get a govt loan at 5% to refinance and replace their huge credit debt. Ideas like these are common and would be very easy to implement.

Why aren't they? Conservatives are cowards who only look out for themselves.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.