On the one hand, NBC‘s Meet the Press gives us Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (2/5/12):
DAVID GREGORY: Governor Daniels, one of the things you hear from the campaign trail, Mitt Romney said it just the other day, is that the recovery should have been so much stronger. You know, it’s very difficult to prove something like that, just like it’s difficult for the president to prove the economy would’ve been weaker if not for his particular policies. How could it have been stronger had a Republican been in president, in your judgment? Been in the White House, I should say.
DANIELS: Well, for one thing, for one thing, national policy wouldn’t have been so relentlessly anti-enterprise as it’s been. If you’d assembled a team of Nobel economists and said design us a policy to stifle and strangle investments and small business growth and innovation in this economy, you couldn’t have done better than what’s happened the last three years. The mindless piling on of new regulations, every one of them very expensive, and in the aggregate extraordinarily so, that’s all drained away dollars that could’ve been used to hire someone. New taxes and the threat of more, all the uncertainty that’s come with that. What we know is this, David, I don’t have–no one can prove what might have happened, but this is the weakest recovery, by far, from a deep recession that we have in–since the records have been kept, and I don’t think that’s an accident.
Wow–anti-enterprise tax-hiking regulatory excess!
Instead of the reporter in the room quizzing his guest on what he’s talking about, let’s get another guest to weigh in.
Like, say, a billionaire mayor:
GREGORY: Mayor Bloomberg, as an independent voice in all of this, is that your judgment as well, that that’s a fair criticism?
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: I think I agree with most of what Mitch said. I think if you want to have growth, number one, you have to have the financial industry be strong and willing to take risks. And this relentless criticism and investigation of them, whether–regardless of the facts in the past, if we want to have a future, we have to have people have confidence.
Yes, that is the problem: we must throw more money at the economists who have brought the economy to its knees.
Then the disinterested billionaire sees the problem as unwillingness to speculate with ever more abandon, despite the social safety net provided to the finance sector by the bought-and-paid-for government.
Welcome to Neo-Feudalism, American style. Now get back to your mud fields, peasants!
What Daniels meant to say was: We want free rein to pollute and exploit what little is left of this planet. We want to avoid being taxed for Medicare and Social Security. We want to destroy workers’ unions, end pensions, cut medical benefits and privatize schools so that we can produce an endless line of corporate drones. This way a few of us can get very rich.
Elaine,
Exactly.
” … whether–regardless of the facts in the past, if we want to have a future, we have to have people have confidence.”
Love the pause at the start of that sentence. ..whether [or not, they stuffed it up] … regardless of the facts !!!
I don’t bother to watch this claptrap unless Rachel Maddow or another intelligent person is featured. But I have noted how this show, Face the Nation, and some others are just MSM propaganda pap for the unwary, the uneducated. The same tired old faces and mostly the same voices for the system drone on and on with the same mantras. This prevailing Fourth Reich uses any means necessary to divert attention from the true facts. It collectively refuses to face any reality in this addictive quest for more MONEY – the TRUE “gods” these Serve! The Ignore-Ant among us are the ones being Fooled into supporting these conditioned visions for Armageddon brought to us by the insane so lost in the FEAR driving us on to self-destruction! May WE The People Come To Prevail. Great comment, Elaine!
And of course a number of Nobelists in Economics have now actually weighed in, and they find austerity, no safety nets, low taxes for the rich, and no regulation of big business to be a perfect recipe to continue and deepen the depression and continue enriching the already rich.
Time to put the Billionaire Mayor B. under oath to discover more precisely what “relentless criticism” and that “financial industry (strong, willing to take risks)” actually means, given what we already know. Thus far, there is little or no risk of prison time for selling packages of risky mortgages as high grade securities. As for insider trading by members of Congress, trying to help the needy on Wall Street, at least they were chagrined enough to write some legislation about that, but the Mayor was artfully evasive, clinging to the “glittering generalities” concept from high school civics class. If the Mayor is truly an expert, he must know more than I do, a whole lot more. One thing more annoying than a millionaire wasting my time, is a Billionaire wasting my time.
“Independent” Republican Wall Street Billionaire Mayor Bloomberg has certainly shown his true stripes. New York elected him as a social moderate, not the Billionaire that wants to turn back the clock to 2009.
Doesn’t Mayor Bloomburg have some sort of stake in the finance industry, meaning that he is openly advancing his own business interests after being called independent?
I don’t think anybody is saying…………. pile on the regulations.Tax everything that moves.Make those who are producing pay all the taxes.Tax corporations at much higher levels.Level all playing fields by governmentally redistribution the wealth so that all americans have the inalienable right to not just be created equal- but to end up equal.This is what spurs economic growth!No body is saying that.Hey wait a minute what am i saying?That is exactly what the left is saying!
michael e, you’re funny, you’re using words but you’re not saying anything, geez
EFK….Let me say it as clearly as I can to you.When Obama came in we all knew he had nothing in his DNA or learning curve that could help him to produce even one job(except his own).We heard him say he would cut the deficit in half,and cut spending.We knew he was lying.We have gone down the rathole 5 trillion in 4 years.Added another trillion in spending every year including this years projections (that are speeding up).And added zero jobs.In your wildest dreams could you ever of seen such an unmitigated disaster?Such a complete failure this man has shown himself to be at the helm of this great country?EFK………You should of known.Known to the penny.To the last penny in the last broken piggy bank.Because WE TOLD YOU!We laid it out for you as clear as day.Under Clinton we sowed the seeds of disaster,but had enough Reagan overflow and a conservative house to carry on.Under Bush (no conservative)the economy crumbled.Under BAM it turned to dust.Now a conservative move is afoot that will once again push the economy to produce expand and return to a paying basis.We will stand by our record in 4 years.And you damn well will stand by yours.