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"No, Mr. Summers – it’s not the politics of envy. It’s the politics of responsibility."
The Politics of Responsibility – Not Envy
Next New Deal - Blog of the Roosevelt Institute
2/11/2015
Americans are looking for politicians who ask the wealthy to take responsibility for their fair share of our society.
According to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers – who is emerging as a key economic advisor to Hillary Clinton – the big political challenge in addressing economic inequality is not to embrace “a politics of envy.”
No, Mr. Summers – it’s not the politics of envy. It’s the politics of responsibility.
Summers was quoted in The New York Times about “what has emerged as a central question of her [Hillary Clinton’s] early presidential campaign strategy: how to address the anger about income inequality without overly vilifying the wealthy.”
The rich may imagine that blaming them for the struggles of the rest of us is driven by envy, but that’s their own conceit to make them feel good. Americans don’t resent the rich. While we might fantasize about winning the lottery, we are not consumed by jealousy. What most Americans understand is that they are struggling financially because the wealthy have rigged the economic and political system to benefit them at the expense of the rest of us. That’s not envy: it’s reality.
Summer’s formulation is meant to give intellectual cover to the real problem that Democrats like Clinton face: taking on those who finance their political campaigns. As the Times puts it: “And she [Clinton] must convince a middle class that feels frustrated and left behind that she understands its struggles, even as she relies heavily on the financial industry and corporate interests to fund her candidacy.”
...For example, wages are stagnant because corporations engaged in concerted strategies to limit the proportion of profits shared with workers, including: busting unions, rather than negotiating with them; shipping jobs overseas rather than paying higher wages to American workers; and aggressively using campaign contributions and lobbyists to undermine labor standards (minimum wage; overtime protection; etc) and labor laws. Corporations spent their huge profits on stock buybacks and CEO pay, rather than better compensation for workers.
Then there’s Wall Street’s culpability for using its political clout to shred financial regulations and oversight while engaging in the orgy of financial speculation and predatory lending that triggered the Great Recession.
Or tax policy, where corporations pushed to reduce their proportion of taxes paid to the federal government and by the wealthy so that they now pay a lower share of taxes than the middle-class. The result: working and middle class families pay higher taxes and more for public services. A glaring example is the enormous rise in the cost of public higher education, as funding for public colleges and universities has been slashed.
The economic story about who is responsible requires acknowledging the democratic story. One thing that Americans on the left and right agree on is that the wealthy and corporate lobbyists have hijacked our democracy. That’s not cynical – it’s true....
http://www.nextnewdeal.net/politics-responsibility-%E2%80%93-not-envy
Next New Deal - Blog of the Roosevelt Institute
2/11/2015
Americans are looking for politicians who ask the wealthy to take responsibility for their fair share of our society.
According to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers – who is emerging as a key economic advisor to Hillary Clinton – the big political challenge in addressing economic inequality is not to embrace “a politics of envy.”
No, Mr. Summers – it’s not the politics of envy. It’s the politics of responsibility.
Summers was quoted in The New York Times about “what has emerged as a central question of her [Hillary Clinton’s] early presidential campaign strategy: how to address the anger about income inequality without overly vilifying the wealthy.”
The rich may imagine that blaming them for the struggles of the rest of us is driven by envy, but that’s their own conceit to make them feel good. Americans don’t resent the rich. While we might fantasize about winning the lottery, we are not consumed by jealousy. What most Americans understand is that they are struggling financially because the wealthy have rigged the economic and political system to benefit them at the expense of the rest of us. That’s not envy: it’s reality.
Summer’s formulation is meant to give intellectual cover to the real problem that Democrats like Clinton face: taking on those who finance their political campaigns. As the Times puts it: “And she [Clinton] must convince a middle class that feels frustrated and left behind that she understands its struggles, even as she relies heavily on the financial industry and corporate interests to fund her candidacy.”
...For example, wages are stagnant because corporations engaged in concerted strategies to limit the proportion of profits shared with workers, including: busting unions, rather than negotiating with them; shipping jobs overseas rather than paying higher wages to American workers; and aggressively using campaign contributions and lobbyists to undermine labor standards (minimum wage; overtime protection; etc) and labor laws. Corporations spent their huge profits on stock buybacks and CEO pay, rather than better compensation for workers.
Then there’s Wall Street’s culpability for using its political clout to shred financial regulations and oversight while engaging in the orgy of financial speculation and predatory lending that triggered the Great Recession.
Or tax policy, where corporations pushed to reduce their proportion of taxes paid to the federal government and by the wealthy so that they now pay a lower share of taxes than the middle-class. The result: working and middle class families pay higher taxes and more for public services. A glaring example is the enormous rise in the cost of public higher education, as funding for public colleges and universities has been slashed.
The economic story about who is responsible requires acknowledging the democratic story. One thing that Americans on the left and right agree on is that the wealthy and corporate lobbyists have hijacked our democracy. That’s not cynical – it’s true....
http://www.nextnewdeal.net/politics-responsibility-%E2%80%93-not-envy
And btw, isn't it GREAT that one of the men responsible for repealing Glass-Steagall, and thus helping bring on 2008, during Bill Clinton's tenure is now a key economic advisor to Hillary?
Run, Hillary, Run!!
Summers hailed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which lifted more than six decades of restrictions against banks offering commercial banking, insurance, and investment services (by repealing key provisions in the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act): "Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century," Summers said.[17] "This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy."[17] Many critics, including President Barack Obama, have suggested the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis was caused by the partial repeal of the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act.[18] Indeed, as a member of President Clinton's Working Group on Financial Markets, Summers, along with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Arthur Levitt, Fed Chairman Greenspan, and Secretary Rubin, torpedoed an effort to regulate the derivatives that many blame for bringing the financial market down in Fall 2008.[19]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers
82 replies
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if she's got this guy 'informing' or speaking for her. 
of the banksters. How can people not see this? 
Let's use Chelsea Clinton as an example.
Here first job out of grad school paid over 100k a year because of her "rolodex".
During the economic meltdown when poor unemployed people were sternly lectured to "network" with other poor unemployed people, Chelsea got to choose between meetings where potential employers asked her what she wanted to do next.
Chelsea wanted to be the visible medium of her Message (about "social issues"
next. For doing what she wanted, she was paid $600k/year.
The Bush girls got the same sort of deal at NBC - I didn't use them as an example because I didn't know the tidbits from their previous work history like I happened to know about Chelsea's.
This is what the super-connected get, and then they have the gall to set policies for the rest of us that deprive people of food because they don't magically have a job - even though a 6% unemployment rate is considered normal and the current actual unemployment rate is more like 20%!
TO HELL WITH YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON LARRY SUMMERS!
9about "social issues
