Note to Hillary: Clintonomics Was a Disaster for Most Americans

[cali]

This is an incredibly compelling read.


<snip>

The starting point for understanding Bill Clinton’s economic program is to recognize that it was thoroughly beholden to Wall Street, as Clinton himself acknowledged almost immediately after he was elected. Clinton won the 1992 election by pledging to end the economic stagnation that had enveloped the last two years of the George H.W. Bush administration and advance a program of “Putting People First.” This meant large investments in job training, education, and public infrastructure.

But Clinton’s priorities shifted drastically during the two-month interregnum between his November election and his inauguration in January 1993, as documented in compelling detail by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in his 1994 book The Agenda. As Woodward recounts, Clinton stated only weeks after winning the election that “we’re Eisenhower Republicans here…. We stand for lower deficits, free trade, and the bond market. Isn’t that great?” Clinton further conceded that with his new policy focus, “we help the bond market, and we hurt the people who voted us in.”

How could Clinton have undergone such a lightening-fast reversal? The answer is straightforward, and explained with candor by Robert Rubin, who had been co-chair of Goldman Sachs before becoming Clinton’s Treasury secretary. Even before the inauguration, Rubin explained to more populist members of the incoming administration that the rich “are running the economy and make the decisions about the economy.”

Wall Street certainly flourished under Clinton. By 1999, the average price of stocks had risen to 44 times these companies’ earnings. Historically, stock prices had averaged about 14 times more than earnings. Even during the 1920s bubble, stock prices rose only to 33 times earnings right before the 1929 crash.

<snip>

http://www.thenation.com/article/note-to-hillary-clintonomics-was-a-disaster-for-most-americans/

[FreakinDJ]

1. Obama's Trickle Down Recovery wasn't much better

By most media accounts, the US economy at the beginning of 2015 is recovering nicely from the Great Recession. GDP is growing at a historically healthy rate, above 2 percent per year. Unemployment is about the historic average, at 5.7 percent. The stock market is near record highs. And more jobs are being created than at any time in more than 10 years. But this is all a great deception. The expansion is benefiting a tiny minority of the population only - the very rich. No one else has any money, and without significant changes in government policies, no one except the wealthy is likely to have any in the future.





http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/29447-what-trickle-down-economics-has-done-to-the-us-the-rich-get-all-the-money

[daleanime]

6. +1

[livetohike]

2. Wrong. Reaganomics was the disaster and the Clinton

administration had to come clean it up as best they could, as all Democratic administrations have to do. The unemployment rate at the end of 1999 was 4.1 %. I don't see how that is bad for most Americans.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2000/mar/wk4/mobile/art03.htm

[daleanime]

5. If you shovel the mess into another room....

can you really say that you've cleaned up.

Speaking of which, I had better get started myself.

[livetohike]

7. LOL. I think most people would agree with you

.

[jeff47]

9. Bill's last year in office was 2000. Unemployment 5.4% (nt)

[livetohike]

11. Not sure where you found that number, but I found this

Which shows the rate in January 2001 at 4.2 %.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2001/feb/wk1/mobile/art01.htm

[jeff47]

12. google unemployment rate 2000 failed me.

The widget showed UK unemployment instead of US.

[livetohike]

13. It took some looking to find this link I posted!

[Odin2005]

15. Clintonomics is just the polished version of the Reaganomics turd.

[daleanime]

3. Nope....

sure wasn't.

[pinebox]

4. Dotcom bubble. /end

[tokenlib]

8. We really are into short term gratification...

Sure the Clinton years were OK for the economy...But NAFTA, the influence of Wall Street, repeal of Glass-Steagal, planted poison pills for the future. .The rise of the Service economy with its crap wages and low benefits for the masses, etc..

[RiverLover]

10. "These cuts directly contradicted the “Putting People First” principles that Clinton espoused in his

campaign."

That's what the Clinton's do.

Run (fake) Populist campaigns to get elected and then govern as rethugs, while calling it "pragmatism".

Wake Up people!!!

[tarheelsunc]

14. I love the revisionist history.

Now so-called Democrats want to tell us that the Bill Clinton years weren't all that great despite all that was done to recover from 12 years of Reaganism. We were far better off when Clinton left office than when Reagan left office, Bush I left office, or Bush II left office. Bill is a smart enough man to realize you're not going to get everything you want and you're better off making small gains and incremental progress than refusing to compromise on anything and thereby eliminating the chance of any progress being made. I guess you would have rather had 4 more years of Bush I and then 8 years of President Dan Quayle though.