Hillary Clinton Agrees With Thomas Piketty: Inequality Is 'Very Threatening To Democracy'

[highplainsdem]

Source: Huffington Post

Rising wealth and income inequality is a threat to democracy, Hillary Clinton said in an interview published Tuesday in the magazine Der Spiegel. Clinton was responding to a question about the recent best-selling tome "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," written by French author Thomas Piketty and translated into English.

-snip-

"I think he makes a very strong case that we have unbalanced our economy too much towards favoring capital and away from labor," she said. "And I agree with his principal concern, which is that we have devalued labor."

The German magazine noted to Clinton that "Piketty argues that the growing gap between the rich and the poor is threatening democracy."

Clinton seconded the notion. "I do agree with that," she said. "We've had this huge experiment known as America that was a diversity of populations, and we have held it together because we had a democracy that slowly over time included everybody. Even during the Great Depression people in the streets believed that they could make it and they would be better off. Now the relative wealth is much higher, but the disparity makes people believe that they're stuck. They no longer believe that things are going to get any better, no matter how hard they work. People have lost trust in each other and the political system and I think that's very threatening to democracy."

-snip-

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/08/hillary-clinton-piketty_n_5567101.html

[HooptieWagon]

1. Was that before or after collecting $7M from Goldman-Sachs? nt

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

8. Seriously! Hillary's just a wee bit late to this party...gimme a break!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

22. Her minions have been following places like this

and decided to stanch the flow. If they can.

Having glanced at her latest book, I keep wondering why she wrote it. If she were running for office, I would have expected more meat, less fluff.

[billhicks76]

24. Duh! Yawn...

The best thing for Democrats would be to have Bush family friend Hillary Clinton go away. I'm so sick of her.

[RufusTFirefly]

2. Egads! If this trend doesn't end, she could wind up "dead broke." n/t

[Ikonoklast]

27. If I work another 709 years, I will be as "dead broke" as Hillary Clinton.

But I can't spend any of the money I make in order to get there in that time frame, I'd need to save every penny.

[DonCoquixote]

3. veddy interestink

Especially after Obama stpped talking about inequality. Hillary, are you going to dress yourself as a liberal again?

Ms. Clinton...some of us lambs still have the wolf teeth stuck in our flesh, so do not even bother wearing the sheep's clothing. Whatever votes you get from the left will be the begurdging votes that are not for Jeb, Rand or Chris, but we have no illusions about the fact that you will target us the minute you are sworn in.

[yurbud]

4. then start acting like you believe that and go after some of your wealthy patrons.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

11. lol, like that will ever happen! Hillary's not gonna lose out on all that cash.

[arcane1]

5. We don't "believe" these things, Clinton. We KNOW them.

This isn't a matter of us changing our minds or belief systems.

[MannyGoldstein]

6. LOL. nt

[Phlem]

7. What she didn't say,

"and I'ma gonna get some, cause you know I'm broke!"

[Demeter]

9. Waiting to hear what the Hillary Solution is.....

:crickets:

[closeupready]

10. Uh-huh. I'm sure she means that.

[JDPriestly]

12. But who will she consult when she appoints the Fed chair, the Commerce secretary,

the Treasury secretary, the heads of the SEC, Commodities, Communications, etc. agencies. Because that is where a president shows where she stands on the issues.

What has Hillary done in the past, what did Bill Clinton do in the past, to lessen the advantage of capital and increase the value of labor? Not nearly enough.

I'm very skeptical, not as to whether Hillary sincerely believes what she has said, but whether she knows how to change the situation.

The TPP will not lessen the devaluation of labor in our country. It will not strengthen our democracy. Is Hillary ready to admit that? Is she willing to admit that the Keystone Pipeline would have been a disaster for our farmlands?

Is she willing to admit that NAFTA and CAFTA and GATT were mistakes and have seriously harmed American labor and our democracy? Is she willing to give our students a break on their student loans and tell American technology firms that rather than hire foreigners on H1-B visas, they need to train and educate Americans to fill the jobs.

Is she willing to shut the door on some of the cheap products we import so that we can at least become much more self-sufficient?

[antigop]

19. as recently as April, she was still supporting an increase in the H-!B visa limits

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/04/08/hillary-clinton-comes-to-san-francisco-talks-tech-immigration-and-whether-shell-run-for-office/

Asked by Marketo’s Fernandez about how she would deal with the shortage of H-1B visas, which tech companies rely in to bring in non-U.S. workers such as computer engineers, she suggested thinking longer term and working with colleges –using cash from Silicon Valley – to train people in the U.S. to fill those jobs,while in the shorter term pressing for more H-1B visas.

Hey, Hillary, THE STEM CRISIS IS A MYTH.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth

[dflprincess]

31. Don't forget the repeal of Glass-Steagall

that had a lot to do with this mess as well.

[Maedhros]

13. When she sat on the board of the nation's largest employer, WalMart,

did she insist on wage increases for workers? Health care coverage? Better working conditions?

If she did, she wasn't very effective.

[closeupready]

14. And I wonder if she cared about inequality when she was on Walmart's Board -

did she raise concerns about the low pay which Walmart's women employees were making? Or the fact that most all of these same low-paid employees were uncovered by health insurance?

And since she was on their board for seven years, she had ample opportunity to wield influence with regard to Walmart's policies.

[KamaAina]

15. So what does she propose to do about it?

Inquiring minds want to know. I want to know!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

29. <crickets>

[dembotoz]

16. what is sad is that this is news

[thesquanderer]

17. Yup. It's not about reality. It's about what people believe.

Our country is based on the Tinkerbell philosophy.

[noiretextatique]

18. i am so fng sick of politicians talking about "beliefs"

Last edited Tue Jul 8, 2014, 06:55 PM - Edit history (1)

give me some fng facts...i could give a SHIT about your "beliefs."

[yurbud]

26. give me actions you follow through on. a couple of decades of dlc lies make their words less than

meaningless.

[noiretextatique]

34. amen...actions speak louder than words

that's precisely why there is so much talk about "beliefs."

[belltower]

20. Hillary offers gutless liberals soothing words

Sure everyone agrees with Piketty.
Zero courage necessary for that.
It's the PROPOSED REMEDIES that are important.
Hillary offers none.
Oh my let's bring on her little jobs programs.
Maybe that will give us our dignity as workers back?

No Billy Junior for me, thank you.
I'm really nauseated by this primogeniture stuff.
We call it hypocrisy, folks: rage about Bush II
... and then support Clinton II.
Billy's gang was a bully's gang, don't you remember?
Don't you remember?

She's a WAR HAWK, won't you be honest?

[belltower]

21. They call her "Hillary"

as if Mrs Clinton's only incidentally relatated
to a guy who reamed us a big one
with his buddy Rubin and close advisor
... human slug Dick Morris.

It will not be any different
my friend, no different from Obama
who spends 2/3 of his time "outlining the problem"
and then 1/7 "solving the problem" in grand mediocrity
the rest, mugging for the camera.

Notice how inept Mrs Clinton is
just describing the problem.
Talking about the "melting pot"?
Give me a fng break -- that's not what Piketty was about
foolish Mrs Clinton.
It's about the relative rates of growth in an economy.

Mrs Clinton's become a concern-trolling politician.
A strange brew of Tea- and Eisenhower- Republicanism.
Clutch yer pearls, gal, about your poverty.
Weren't you paying attention when Billy said
'hey I got us set for life!' ?

[belltower]

23. Here's what we need!

A former Secretary of State
who will continue the 'globalist' distractions and lies
who vainly wants us to solve the world's problems
who wants to see a 100,000 'moderate' force in Syria
who wants to execute Snowden & other cowards
in her fine judgement.

A former Senator
who voted for the Patriot Act
and the AUMF in Iraq (the Iraq War)
and supported the 2001 war in Afghanistan
and co-sponsored increasing our armed forces by 80,000
and is a continuing deferential friend to the National Security Apparatus
and who got Harry Reid to create a Clintonesque propagandist war room
in her fine judgement.

A former First Lady
who struck a political bargain with her man
who failed miserably with a lame health care plan
who clearly suborned withholding records from scrutiny.

So here's what we need in our next President:
A Neo-liberal W-A-R Hawk
An American Exceptionalist
A Strong Supporter of Capital
A Silent Featherweight Climate Activist
A Faithful Corporate Team Player

Great idea! Let's elect this person who is guaranteed to be
as ineffectual a leader as was her HUSBAND
as much a threat to Power as her HUSBAND
as unsubstantial in history as her HUSBAND

At a moment of greatest peril for our country & planet
when, if we do not act with intelligence,
Truly means Game-Over:
... there will be blood
... and we will be dead.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

30. Hillary comes across as your typical disingenuous politician; always saying whatever is politically expedient, not what's in her heart.

[freshwest]

25. Good...

[cloudbase]

28. Said with a nod and a wink. Perhaps two winks. n/t

[whereisjustice]

32. "They no longer believe that things are going to get any better, no matter how hard they work."

Don't worry, m'lady, those are just sour grapes from the 99% whose kids aren't going to get a multi-million dollar wedding, a $10 million dollar house, and a $600K/year job on TV interviewing the Geico gecko.

You don't need 'em.

Geico's got your back.

[Dawson Leery]

33. kick