Hillary Clinton launches global data project on women and girls

[JDPriestly]

85. No. People in this country do not think that $250,000 family income is middle class.

Only the upper middle class think that. How can it be with minimum wage so low and so many jobs paying only minimum wage?

As for Wall Street running the company. As long as that is the case, we are in big trouble. We need reform for the banks and for Wall Street. We can't have meaningful environmental, educational, health or any other area of policy unless we get reform for Wall Street. And we need a candidate who knows how to reform Wall Street and the banks without completely destroying our economy. Elizabeth Warren is the only person who has shown the ability to figure out the policies that could attain that kind of middle-of-the road, reasonable reform. It's just not what Hillary does. But as I said, we will not improve our economy until we get away from this short-term, knee-jerk reactions to our problems that are the result of the fact that at strategy-less, rather immediate profit-oriented Wall Street kind of thinking causes. The issue for Wall Street is what stocks are hot and where is the stock market right now.

That is not unimportant but today as you point out, that is running our economy. It does not work for our economy. It has not worked. We have been left behind because we do not have even the concept of a long-term economic strategy. And the reason we never even touch that topic in our media or in our Congress or in our thinking is that Wall Street is geared to making profits right now and not thinking long-term about where our country is going.

As long as we have people running in the forefront of our Democratic Party who are beholden to the short-term thinkers (airheads) on Wall Street and not to the middle class and working people of our country, we will continue to lag further and further behind. We will still have innovators, but in terms of our economy, we will continue to have such a huge disparity between the middle class and the wealthy that our economy will just barely toddle along. We are not beginning to even think strategically and long-term about climate change. And whether it is caused by human or natural forces, we have to deal with it. Both Republicans and Democrats, at least the half-way sane ones need to understand that Wall Street is not fitted, to think about long-term issues like water shortages or shifting to new energy sources. That' not their job. Their job is to make profits for their investors today. And that is not the way to run a country.