Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A Wikileaks lawyer runs into Atty General Eric Holder at Sundance

[Emily Reyn]

It is good and very entertaining...Magazine is in black and white with no ads.  
Well worth the subscription cost.


________________________________
 From: marekreavis <reavisma...@sbcglobal.net>
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Wednesday, February 1, 2012 6:42 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: A Wikileaks lawyer runs into Atty General Eric 
Holder at Sundance
 

  
Thanks for the recommendation re The Sun, it's new to me and looks like a good 
resource.

***

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Emily Reyn <emilymae.reyn@...> wrote:
>
> I subscribe to The Sun magazine, which included an interview this month with 
> Richard Wolff, economist and critic of the structural problems with current 
> capitalist system.  In this particular interview, he discusses capitalism in 
> the context of today's economic reality, the OWS movement, and historical 
> events, policies, laws, etc. that led up to where we are.  The Sun website 
> doesn't post current issues to preserve interest in their subscriptions, I am 
> assuming, but the interviewer (David Barsamian) asked a couple of questions 
> that speak to Obama's administration and its decisions that I have 
> subjectively excerpted below.
> 
> Wolff is, I'm sure. called a "marxist or communist"  but he makes a lot of 
> interesting points and has ideas that could be implemented in a democracy. 
>  Personally, I would love a government job at a living wage at this point in 
> my life for a variety of reasons.  
> 
> "Barsamian:  What practical steps could the Obama administration take to 
> address the inequalities that the protesters (OWS) are pointing out? (as in 
> the economic inequality being furthered by both the Republican and Democratic 
> parties, as represented by their financial backers)
> 
> Wolff:  It might be too late for that.  Obama had many chances and took 
> none of them.  He repeatedly compromises with the Right and ignores or 
> throws minor concessions to his core constituents.  Nothing short of a major 
> reversal of everything his administration has done would convert him into an 
> ally of OWS.
> 
> Barsamian:  So who is most to blame for the mess we're in?
> 
> Wolff:  We should be beyond blaming the poor or the rich.  Everybody did 
> his or her part to contribute to this crisis.  The bankers did what bankers 
> do; the working people did what working people do.  Everyone tried to make 
> this system work for them.  Workers couldn't pay back their debts for 
> understandable reasons. Employers stopped raising wages (which have stagnated 
> since the 1970's for the "middle class") because the system allowed them to 
> do it.
> 
> When a system has everybody playing more or less by the rules and achieves 
> the level of dysfunction that we have now, it's time to stop looking for 
> scapegoats and understand that the problem is the system itself.  It's 
> driving everyone in it - corporations, individuals, banks, businesses on Main 
> Street, whomever - to act in ways that are bad for the economy as a whole.
> 
> Barsamian:  What immediate steps would you recommend? (in terms of fixing 
> the current system)
> 
> Wolff:  I would focus on one short-term step that ought to be taken 
> immediately, and one intermediate step that will be harder to take.
> 
> ...We ought to have a national jobs program to put our unemployed back to 
> work (yes, back to the 30's), and end the plan that has now failed for four 
> and a half years, the plan of Presidents Bush and Obama, which is to provide 
> incentives for the private sector to hire people.  Unemployment is as high 
> now as it was three years ago.  It is unconscionable and unethical to stick 
> with a policy of proven failure.
> 
> Two and a half years ago President Obama designed a stimulus program that was 
> supposed to put people back to work.  It offered incentives of various 
> kinds: tax cuts and subsidies that would hopefully lead the private sector to 
> hire more people. It cost roughly $800 billion and was passed by Congress. 
>  It didn't solve the problem.  In September 2011 President Obama went on 
> television again to propose yet another stimulus, only this package was half 
> the size of the one before it.  Obviously, if the first one failed, this one 
> cannot work either.
> 
> The solution is for the government to hire people directly.  Use every 
> dollar of the program to create government jobs, not to provide incentives, 
> some of which will end up in the hands of executives or shareholders.  You 
> want to put people to work?  Hire them and pay them a decent salary.  We 
> could be building public transportation....etc., etc......
> 
> More important than that, and a bit more far-reaching, is the need to 
> democratize our enterprises......Right now, all the decisions are made by a 
> tiny group of people.  In most corporations that group is the board of 
> directors: 15 to 20 people who decide what to produce, how and where to 
> produce it, and what to do with the profits.  And who selects these people? 
>  The major shareholders, another group of 15 to 20 people.  The vast 
> majority of working people have no voice.  What if the employees 
>  themselves ran these enterprises?  How would that work?.......
> 
> Barsamian: Can the government pay for the sort of jobs programs you recommend 
> without more deficit spending?  
> 
> Wolff:  The reason the U.S. government takes in less than it spends is 
> because it chooses not to tax corporations and the rich at the rates applied 
> to them in the 1950's and 1960's.  Then they turn around and borrow 
> money....etc. (Both sides have voted for unbalanced budgets for the last 50 
> years.  He believes that the rising deficits are a result of an unjust tax 
> system).
> 
> Barsamian:  The Right says the government should not be in the job-creation 
> business.  That should be left to the private sector.
> 
> Wolff:  Much of the rhetoric on the Right is less an ideological debate than 
> it is a thin fig leaf for private business interests.  When the Right says 
> it wants the government to "create jobs", it means it wants subsidies for 
> private business and bigger defense contracts, but not higher taxes to 
> provide funds to hire government workers.  Direct government hiring of 
> people to produce goods and services threatens private business with actual 
> competition - and they might lose - so the Right opposes it."
> 
>  
> 
> 
> ________________________________
>  From: authfriend <jstein@...>
> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
> Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 5:46 PM
> Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: A Wikileaks lawyer runs into Atty General Eric 
> Holder at Sundance
> 
> 
>   
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@> wrote:
> >
> > And takes the opportunity to ask him a few questions. Excellent
> > article/film review/reminder of what America's priorities really
> > are.
> 
> That would be, of course, not what *America's* priorities
> are, but what *the Obama administration's* priorities are.
> 
> Priorities that Obama did not reveal during the campaign.
> Not only did he not reveal them, in fact, he explicitly
> claimed his priorities were the opposite.
> 
> Barry bought the claim and viciously attacked those of us
> who were skeptical.
> 
> But now that he knows we were right and he was wrong, he
> has to characterize Obama's real priorities as those of
> "America" rather than Obama.
>