Two Dem Economic Policy Think Tanks - Which Will Prevail?

[OzarkDem]

Now that Dems have won a majority in Congress, they are poised to implement public policy that will bring about long-needed economic reform, particularly addressing the shrinking middle class and pressure placed on them by globalization of the economy.

Clinton's guru Robert Rubin is heading up the Hamilton Project, funded by corporate donors and focusing on using investment in research, education and technology to boost the middle class


http://www1.hamiltonproject.org/es/hamilton/THP_Strategy.pdf

Economist Mark Levinson and a group of other economists have developed the Economic Policy Institute, whose policies focus more on a more active economic agenda that seeks to de-link global trade policy from wage compression

http://www.epinet.org/

Will investment in research and education be sufficient to save the US economy and stop pressure on the middle class? Will it be enough to protect health care and safety net programs as well as , Medicare and Social Security and retirement for a growing number of baby boomers? Or is more intervention needed to sustain economic policy that protects the middle class, as proposed by the EPI?

EPI's plan will be out in January, but its certainly worth discussing these approaches now...

[applegrove]

1. I think you need ALL of them. If they share your values and are for

the middle class. You need dozens of them. If you get all your ideas from one place..you end up like *.

[Kolesar]

2. My opinion is that trade deals do not have broad support

The political climate is certainly not right for the "free" traders to advance their agenda.

Enrollments at electronics and engineering schools have dropped in the United States, reflecting a pessimism about high-value jobs staying in the US.

[nickshepDEM]

3. A friend of mine pointed me to the Hamilton Project the other day...

So far I like what I've read.

[Joanne98]

4. I don't think I like either of them.....

I don't want to tax the rich anymore. Now I want to seize their assets. ALL OVER THE WORLD. I don't think my plan is in there.

[Peace Patriot]

7. I'm with you, Joanne98. Corporations and the super-rich have proven

themselves to be greedy, ruthless, lawless, murderous, and anti-democratic beyond belief. Multiple tax cuts, and out of control thievery, for corporations and the super-rich, while they saddle the poor with a $10 TRILLION deficit to pay for their corporate oil war and military-industrial hogpen in Iraq. This, in essence, is what global corporate predators have been doing to third world countries for some time. We, in the U.S., are now just one more of their "banana Republics." Sometimes it's been by World Bank loans--the fascist elite steals the money, and leaves the poor with the onerous debt; the IMF forces the country to slash all social programs, and labor and environmental protections, and open itself to rape and rampage by global corporate resource extractors and slave labor pirates; the economy crashes and the society begins to come apart (example: Argentina). Or this may be combined with dumping U.S. ag products on third world markets at cheap prices to destroy local agriculture and the country's ability to feed itself (example: Jamaica--tragic destruction of Jamaican dairy industry, and banana industry--and well, name your third world country; this combo has crushed the poor worldwide).

Now us. Bush has done us the favor of ripping the scales from many Americans' eyes. Those who have used our resources, our middle-class-paid-for infrastructure, our school system, our legal system, our military, our CIA, our tax breaks, our loyal and productive work force, and our once healthy creative democracy, to turn themselves into global piranhas, have turned round to feed on us in a savage bloody attack on all fronts that is leaving our people destitute in their own once prosperous land. It started with the S&L lootings, the tax code rewrite, the assault on labor unions and deregulation under Reagan; followed by the "free trade" Clinton agenda (more deregulation--including, totally, notably, removal of restraints on news media monopolies; removal of all restraints on global free piracy, slashing welfare, forcing poor mothers to take 3 McJobs, growth of the prison-industrial complex, etc.); and now, under Bush, the completion of the process--corporations (like Enron and Halliburton) outright stealing billions and billions of dollars from the poor and from our federal treasury, total deregulation, super tax cuts for the super rich, usurious credit card rates for the poor, removal of bankruptcy protection for the poor, unfettered pollution and environmental destruction, and on and on. There is more to loot here, so the picture is more complex. It was also more difficult to pull this off in the "land of the free, home of the brave," so the election system was given over to Bushite electronic voting corporations who are "counting" all the votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code.

This complex picture includes such bizarre items as: one of the two Bushite electronic voting companies that now control all vote "counting"--ES&S, brethren to Diebold--was initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals (among other things).

The unholy wedding of the super-rich with the 'christian' nutball right. Result: faith-based elections, and such weirdos as Orrin Hatch, Katherine Harris and Jean Schmidt--and George Bush--getting "elected," and, when they royally fuck up our country, getting "re-elected."

The solution to all this is not minor reforms. A bit of re-regulation. An increase in the minimum wage. The solution is deconstruction of the Corporate Welfare State, busting up all the news and other monopolies, pulling the corporate charters of predators like Halliburton and Exxon-Mobile, and seizing their assets for the common good. For starters.

And right there you could just about solve the $10 TRILLION deficit. Take it back from those who stole it.

The Corporate Democrats have already started talking about "balancing the budget." You have to laugh. All horses out of the barn, now stabled in Swiss banks and the Cayman Islands--time to squeeze the poor.

But that it NOT how you prevent the coming "mother of all Great Depressions"--as FDR knew. You can't "balance the budget" with millions suffering chronic poverty, in this case often death by a thousand cuts--skyrocketing energy costs, skyrocketing medical costs, skyrocketing education costs, skyrocketing interest rates for the poor, etc. (And who knows? -we may just end up with millions in bread lines with no jobs at all). You HAVE TO SPEND. The lifeblood of our once prosperous economy has been sucked out. You can't impose MORE austerity measures and bring it back. Hoover tried that. It FAILED.

How do you SPEND--with a TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT? Well, in this case--considering what the Bush Junta has done--you start by seizing the assets of criminal corporations, after you dismantle them, and rescinding all the tax cuts for the super-rich twice over. Make them pay for PAST tax cuts.

It's pretty simple, really. All the money, resources, land and other assets have been vacuumed up by wealthy individuals and corporations. You take some of it back.

And you don't have to be a "communist" to advocate this. It is our RIGHT as a sovereign people to regulate our economy, to allow or disallow certain corporate behaviors, and to allow or disallow the chartering of their activities. Bust 'em up. Create a TRUE free market--made up of innovative, competitive small businesses. And tax everyone at a fair, progressive rate.

This is our right, but the mechanism for exercising our rights as a sovereign people--our right to vote--has been taken away. This is even evident in the recent Democratic midterm election win. The result was a carefully crafted Congress, designed to let a little steam out of the system and to prevent any real reform.

But the elections did show that people can outvote the machines--with a mighty effort of grass roots fundraising and organization. It's just that the system is gamed from the start--from the primaries (in who gets to be the candidate), and by our filthy political campaign contribution/lobbying system--and then can be further tweaked at any point to favor corporatists, fascists and war profiteers.

Priority no. 1: Restoring transparent elections. Then you start to elect officeholders who TRULY represent the interests of the majority of Americans, as well as the desire of most Americans to be peaceful, generous and just toward the rest of the world.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Right, I recall reading that foreign aid to Third World countries is

often pocketed by the local elites and salted away in foreign banks. When Mexico's economy was in crisis, one writer (I forget which one) noted that it was estimated that billions of dollars worth of foreign aid to Mexico and tax revenues from the Mexican people had been moved offshore to private hoards.

I have come around to the view that the greed of local elites is the greatest obstacle to Third World development, assuming that a given country isn't currently at war, a condition often fomented by local elites for their personal advantage.

Exhibit A: the Philippines versus South Korea

Both considered Third World in the 1960s, both eligible for Peace Corps volunteers.

Both were dictatorships, the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos, South Korea under Park Chung Hee.

Marcos treated the Philippines as his private plantation and a playground for his friends. It's still a poor country, still wracked by violence, still eligible for Peace Corps volunteers.

Park was a dictator, but a Confucianist who believed that the ruler must exhibit a fatherly concern for his people. He built up education and health care and improved the infrastructure.

Today, South Korea is one of the world's industrial giants.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

[Greyhound]

10. Kicking this excellent summary.

:kick:

[Joanne98]

11. I'm with you Peace Patriot. What we seen in the last 25 years...

Is a huge transfer of wealth. It's global, it's gigantic, and it's not going to stop. I want all they money they have stolen BACK and I don't care what we have to do to get it.

[rocktivity]

5. Don't forget the think tank you voted you in

We the people can think, too. Don't tell us to vote, go home and shut up, and definitely don't lock youselves in an ivory tower can come up with something to force feed us. Who's better qualifed to discuss the needs of the masses than the masses?

:headbang:
rocknation

[OzarkDem]

6. Column by Harold Myerson - Dems Economy Wars

Frames the debate pretty well

snip

For the Democrats who now run Congress, not to mention those planning to run for president, the fact that the party's economic gurus have devised a policy that they themselves believe isn't up to the challenge at hand can't be greatly heartening. Happily, this is not the only project whose work the Democrats will be able to access. This June, in response to the Hamilton Project's creation, a group of some 50 liberal economists loosely affiliated with the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) began work of their own. Their project, yet to be named (its founders have resisted the temptation to call it the Aaron Burr Project), will be unveiled in January.

The fundamental difference between the two projects -- that is, between the two primary schools of Democratic economics -- is that Rubin's largely believes the rules of the market to be immutable and sound (though it's precisely the rules of the market that are depressing American incomes), while EPI's, in the words of economist Mark Levinson, "rejects the notion that what has happened to this economy is inevitable. Policy can turn this around." (Full disclosure: Levinson is an old friend.)


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101220.html

[Peace Patriot]

8. Any Dem economic policy that doesn't START WITH transparent elections--

--restoring our right to vote, seizing it back from Bushite electronic voting corporations--ain't worth diddle.

Transparent elections = good economic policy, of benefit to all.

Non-transparent elections = the Bush Junta and Corporate Rule, i.e., bad, bad, BAD economic policy that benefits the few and impoverishes the many.

Transparent elections are the no. 1 requirement for ECONOMIC reform.

[primative1]

12. I vote an emphatic NO!

Follow the bouncing orange ball.
As Americans we have a proud history of creating new technologies only to have them exported away before we can so much as recover the cost of the rersearch. See a pattern here?
Change needs to be more profound. If not we will just be exercising new examples of the now famous insanity (repeating the same things over and over and expecting different results).