Today's Obama Moment
"I love the smell of Socialism in the morning!"
"Globalization and technology and automation all weaken the position of workers," he said, and a strong government hand is needed to assure that wealth is distributed more equitably.
From WSJ here and here.
He also blames a "anti-union climate" as one of the other things that "weakens the position of workers".
We've seen an additional three billion people added to capitalism, partly because of the success of the U.S. creating a working liberal economic order, but also because of technology and the rapidity with which technology is moving. You look at a place like Flint, Michigan, where the old industrial structures have been completely uprooted and we've got to help the residents here transition to this new economy...
We have drastically increased productivity since 1995, and there was the theory that if you increase productivity enough some of these problems of living standards would solve themselves. But what we've seen is rising productivity, rising corporate profits but flat-lining or even declining wages and incomes for the average family.
What that says is that it's going to be important for us to pay attention to not only growing the pie, which is always critical, but also some attention to how it is sliced. I do not believe that those two things -- fair distribution and robust economic growth -- are mutually exclusive.
Sen. Obama: Bill Clinton had a lot of good ideas.
WSJ: With the cap-and-trade system, the estimates are as much as $100 billion a year of income coming in, and you're proposing to spend $15 billion of it. Is that right?
Sen. Obama: I think that's right. $100 billion is conservative, but I think $15 billion is about what we can wisely spend on R&D and some of the other proposals that I put out here. And we're going to have to rebate a whole bunch of that money to consumers to accommodate what will undoubtedly be efforts by these [inaudible] industries to pass on the cost of retrofitting the plant or changing processes to consumers. Consumers, potentially, and I've said this publicly, will see a spike short-term in, for example, electricity prices
WSJ: Why do you think the additional money is needed? I mean, there's tons and tons of money in Silicon Valley now for clean energy. What is it in your view that the government can do that the private sector can't?
Sen. Obama: "Well, there are a couple things. Basic research,..."
He thinks only the government spending money that it generates from his fair and equitable taxation of corporations and the top 10% of wage earners is the only way that BASIC RESEARCH can be accomplished? And people made fun of Pres Bush, calling him stupid and a cowboy. At least Pres. Bush has an MBA and knows something about American business, American capitalism, and even American history.
For those who want to vote for Obama because you say you want change, are you really wanting to change America into the old USSR?
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