Caroline Kennedy Says She Will Back Hillary Clinton, Warren camp says NY Post article...

[JDPriestly]

99. You should read the book.

Hillary, in my opinion, has far too much of the wrong kind of experience. I do not like some of the things that Hillary has been a part of doing.

It also troubles me that when Hillary was hired by a law firm, she admits she did not do that well in litigation. I don't think she has the personality or the ability to think on her feet to win the White House. She doesn't relate to people the way Elizabeth Warren does.

Hillary has all the wrong experience. Voting for the Iraq War is one example.

She was unable to get health care reform through Congress.

And as I pointed out the TPP and Keystone Pipeline were negotiated in part under her time in the State Department. She served in Congress. But most of her political reputation is due to hanging onto Bill Clinton's coat-tails, and she is no Bill Clinton. She does not have his personality.

Elizabeth Warren taught law for years. She can explain complex ideas in simple language so that people understand. She has written books that took more intellect and judgment than Hillary's.

Elizabeth Warren understands the numbers. She is the person to reform our economy. And that is what we need. What good does it do if you have done a lot, but you are not prepared, willing or able to do what really needs to be done. Hillary's problem is that a lot of her experience is not relevant to solving our very fundamental economic problem.

And this is what I see our economic problem as being: We were founded as a nation of mostly farmers. We were mostly small farmers who were very independent. That's what we were in 1776-1813 and beyond. Then came the industrial revolution. We became a country of farmers and factory workers and miners. Workers organized. Farmers organized. Our economy was reformed -- somewhat but by no means enough for what came next.

In the 1930s, many farmers were driven from their farms. To survive, a farmer needed large expanses of land. People who left their farms began to move to the cities. This was part of what moved African-Americans from the South to the North. The sharecropping of small plots of land did not produce even a very basic living.

So, in the 1940s, 1950s and through to the 1980s and even the present, Americans moved from rural America into the cities or from farms into towns. People continued to work in factories until in the Reagan era and beyond. Increased international trade, i.e., cheap labor and the cheap imports that cheap labor produced resulted in the closing of those factories.

Now and since the 1990s the age of technology has changed our economy. People still live in cities. But the tax base that industry provided is gone. The service economy does not result so much in products that can be sold. The production of consumer products is done outside of the US. Incomes are falling in terms of buying power. We are in a crisis. It's getting hard for ordinary Americans to live well, to maintain a decent living standard in this service economy. It is not working. And it will get worse.

If we don't change things, sooner or later basic infrastructure like the supplying of clean water and providing working sewage systems could fail in cities. I don't need to tell you what disasters that would mean for Americans.

An example: I wanted to buy a pair of sandals. I knew what brand, what color, what size I wanted. I went to a department store in my area. They had my brand and size but not the color I wanted. So I ordered it online. Theoretically, the company I bought them from paid taxes to my state. But it did not pay them to my city. And it did not hire anyone to sell me the shoes here where I live. Jobs and taxes lost to my area.

Gradually we are all changing our lives to do more and more on the internet. But our economy, and especially our tax system, is still based on the old, industrial economy.

I do not think that Hillary (or any of the kinds of advisers that she is likely to pick if Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, etc. is any indication), is prepared to deal with this new economy, with the challenges it will bring.

We will have to change the fundamental concepts behind our tax code. We will no longer be able to rely primarily on personal income taxes. We are going to have to find something drastically different. The personal income taxes that can be easily collected, those on hourly wage earners and salaried employees are dwindling as the job market is changing and the incomes of ordinary people decreasing. We are going to have to make the 1% pay most of the taxes because they are enjoying most of the benefit, most of the increases in income from this new economy.

Hillary Clinton's social, political and personal ties, her ideas are bound to that old economy. Elizabeth Warren's too to some extent. But Elizabeth Warren is not as beholden to those who still see our country as it was 25 years ago. She has close relationships with a lot of young people -- her former students, her daughter and her grandchildren. Hillary -- not so much. It isn't a matter of having photo ops with young people. It is a matter of living in the economic reality that young people live with. Elizabeth Warren as a law professor has done that over the years. Hillary not so much.

On edit, I need to add here that Elizabeth Warren with a team did extensive research on why individuals file for bankruptcy. She understands why people get into debt and how they deal with it. She understands how families earn their income and how they spend it. She was instrumental in doing and writing about important economic research. That is why I think she is uniquely qualified to select people to make proposals on changing our economy. She is a leader in that area, the most important issue for America right now.

It's the economic challenges of our time and of the future that I think Elizabeth Warren will respond to better than Hillary. That's why I favor Elizabeth Warren.

If you read her book, you will learn many, many facts about her early life and her work. I cannot summarize them for you. You have to read it yourself. When you have read it, then I would like to know what you think.

Again, on edit. I could write a book on why I think that Elizabeth Warren will make a better candidate than Hillary Clinton. I won't do it here on DU. No. I'm not paid by Elizabeth Warren. She has never heard of me I am sure.