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2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary fans have convinced themselves that she is a progressive. You really have to willfully [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)36. When they reach retirement age, they probably won't remember what happened to Social Security.
The author was a Chicago Boy helping implement the privatization scam for Pinochet, ITT and the globalist crowd:
President Clinton and the Chilean Model.
By José Piñera
Midnight at the House of Good and Evil
"It is 12:30 at night, and Bill Clinton asks me and Dottie: 'What do you know about the Chilean social-security system?' recounted Richard Lamm, the three-term former governor of Colorado. It was March 1995, and Lamm and his wife were staying that weekend in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.
I read about this surprising midnight conversation in an article by Jonathan Alter (Newsweek, May 13, 1996), as I was waiting at Dulles International Airport for a flight to Europe. The article also said that early the next morning, before he left to go jogging, President Bill Clinton arranged for a special report about the Chilean reform produced by his staff to be slipped under Lamm's door.
That news piqued my interest, so as soon as I came back to the United States, I went to visit Richard Lamm. I wanted to know the exact circumstances in which the president of the worlds superpower engages a fellow former governor in a Saturday night exchange about the system I had implemented 15 years earlier.
Lamn and I shared a coffee on the terrace of his house in Denver. He not only was the most genial host to this curious Chilean, but he also proved to be deeply motivated by the issues surrounding aging and the future of America. So we had an engaging conversation. At the conclusion, I ventured to ask him for a copy of the report that Clinton had given him. He agreed to give it to me on the condition that I do not make it public while Clinton was president. He also gave me a copy of the handwritten note on White House stationery, dated 3-21-95, which accompanied the report slipped under his door. It read:
Dick,
Sorry I missed you this morning.
It was great to have you and Dottie here.
Here's the stuff on Chile I mentioned.
Best,
Bill.
Three months before that Clinton-Lamm conversation about the Chilean system, I had a long lunch in Santiago with journalist Joe Klein of Newsweek magazine. A few weeks afterwards, he wrote a compelling article entitled,[font color="green"] "If Chile can do it...couldn´t North America privatize its social-security system?" [/font color]He concluded by stating that "the Chilean system is perhaps the first significant social-policy idea to emanate from the Southern Hemisphere." (Newsweek, December 12, 1994).
I have reasons to think that probably this piece got Clintons attention and, given his passion for policy issues, he became a quasi expert on Chiles Social Security reform. Clinton was familiar with Klein, as the journalist covered the 1992 presidential race and went on anonymously to write the bestseller Primary Colors, a thinly-veiled account of Clintons campaign.
The mother of all reforms
While studying for a Masters and a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University, I became enamored with Americas unique experiment in liberty and limited government. In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the first volume of Democracy in America hoping that many of the salutary aspects of American society might be exported to his native France. I dreamed with exporting them to my native Chile.
So, upon finishing my Ph.D. in 1974 and while fully enjoying my position as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University and a professor at Boston University, I took on the most difficult decision in my life: to go back to help my country rebuild its destroyed economy and democracy along the lines of the principles and institutions created in America by the Founding Fathers. Soon after I became Secretary of Labor and Social Security, and in 1980 I was able to create a fully funded system of personal retirement accounts. Historian Niall Ferguson has stated that this reform was the most profound challenge to the welfare state in a generation. Thatcher and Reagan came later. The backlash against welfare started in Chile.
But while de Tocquevilles 1835 treatment contained largely effusive praise of American government, the second volume of Democracy in America, published five years later, strikes a more cautionary tone. He warned that the American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money. In fact at some point during the 20th century, the culture of self reliance and individual responsibility that had made America a great and free nation was diluted by the creation of [font color="green"] an Entitlement State,[/font color] reminiscent of the increasingly failed European welfare state. What America needed was a return to basics, to the founding tenets of limited government and personal responsibility.
[font color="green"]In a way, the principles America helped export so successfully to Chile through a group of free market economists needed to be reaffirmed through an emblematic reform. I felt that the Chilean solution to the impending Social Security crisis could be applied in the USA.[/font color]
CONTINUED...
http://www.josepinera.org/articles/articles_clinton_chilean_model.htm
Democratic solutions work because they are Democratic, not capitalist.
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Hillary fans have convinced themselves that she is a progressive. You really have to willfully [View all]
cali
May 2016
OP
She doesn't have to be "progressive" to get my vote. She just has to competent, caring, and
Jitter65
May 2016
#133
Got that right... Hillary a progressive? Yeah, that's why all those Rethugs are dumpin Trump and comin over to support her.
InAbLuEsTaTe
May 2016
#61
Really! "A progressive democrat would support the most progressive candidate."
Buzz Clik
May 2016
#37
If you want to call a democrat that voted for the Iraq war, made themselves a millionaire
Loudestlib
May 2016
#46
To call a right-winger a progressive only serves to move both poles of the political spectrum
Broward
May 2016
#51
Hillary's the one who gets to decide... not surprising then she appeals to Rethugs who can't wait to vote for her over Trump.
InAbLuEsTaTe
May 2016
#64
you think Lindsay Graham is cut of the same Cloth as Hillary simply because he disavows Trump?
Sheepshank
May 2016
#164
Half the repukes are getting behind her, how progressive can she be? nt
ChisolmTrailDem
May 2016
#177
And another Sanders supporter demonstrates complete lack of ability to address the issue.
Buzz Clik
May 2016
#39
Buzz Clik, maybe you haven't been a Democrat long enough to understand that Democrats won't shut up
w4rma
May 2016
#90
I am shamefully aware that a large fraction of Democrats spend all their time complaining.
Buzz Clik
May 2016
#94
I love the way you Clintonites create your own fantasy world and pretend it's real.
w4rma
May 2016
#104
I love it, your reply shows you the emptiness of so many of the Clinton supporters on this board.
JumpinJehosaphat
May 2016
#185
I find that the only positive response to non-substantial insults, like Buzz Click's, is to repeat
w4rma
May 2016
#200
Kind of like Obama's changing position on gay marriage. And that guy could never get elected...
fleabiscuit
May 2016
#70
Great points. But you forgot the most egregious one of not being able -- even almost a year into the
Number23
May 2016
#172
No.. no, he said it on Maddow the other night... he called it "collective energy" will change the...
uponit7771
May 2016
#196
Wow. Surreal. You have just decribed (lol albeit with the most generous interpretation of
JumpinJehosaphat
May 2016
#186
That reflects the obvious facts that really progressive legislation never makes it out of committee
eridani
May 2016
#190
that 93% figure is misleading.Where they differed with respect to the votes that have been cast
JumpinJehosaphat
May 2016
#206
Hey, whenever a Bernie supporter rescinds a pledge to never vote for Hillary,
Nye Bevan
May 2016
#122
The states that help him the most are the ones that don't look like America. eom
fleabiscuit
May 2016
#136
The privileged think they can define who's progressive, they can't so they rant on forums like this
uponit7771
May 2016
#197
Bernie fans have convinced themselves they are the gatekeepers of progressivism.
JaneyVee
May 2016
#17
You are spending too much time in the BS echo chamber. Hillary was one of the most liberal Senators
redstateblues
May 2016
#183
Sherrod Brown and Barbara Boxer backed her up. John Lewis says she was there in the civil rights
Cheese Sandwich
May 2016
#23
Hillary Clinton Is A Progressive Democrat, Despite What You May Have Heard
LiberalFighter
May 2016
#31
Part of the genius of the Clinton's is that they have pushed the party so far to the right
Beowulf
May 2016
#87
You sound like you don't think there can't be nuts on both sides of the branch. n/t
fleabiscuit
May 2016
#96
Your premise is only true if you think Bernie is the only definition of 'progressive'.
CrowCityDem
May 2016
#32
Sanders supporters have convinced themselves that continuing to attack the Democratic nominee
Trust Buster
May 2016
#33
Do you know what she said to the Wall Street Banksters who had stolen our money and brought
B Calm
May 2016
#42
So says you. I think, like Trump, there's got to be a reason Sanders has bucked tradition here.
Trust Buster
May 2016
#119
Her supporters do more mental gymnastics than fire and brimstone Talibangelists. nt
VulgarPoet
May 2016
#35
When they reach retirement age, they probably won't remember what happened to Social Security.
Octafish
May 2016
#36
No they haven't. They know she's not a true progressive and that's exactly
NorthCarolina
May 2016
#38
Progressives know there isn't a definitive definition or representative of progressive. eom
fleabiscuit
May 2016
#98
I don't think her supporters are that stupid. They know she's not a progressive.
EndElectoral
May 2016
#45
Most Democrats in Congress had the good sense and decency to vote against the Iraq War
tabasco
May 2016
#54
The SOS does not approve gun sales in the US, or grant them immunity in the US. eom
fleabiscuit
May 2016
#137
They can gain access to senators to pitch for immunity for gun makers. eom
fleabiscuit
May 2016
#150
My take: Hillary voters worship Hillary and Bill; Bernie voters want his platform.
CobaltBlue
May 2016
#62
I guess almost 13 million Americans (about 3 million more than Sanders' vote count) have...
George II
May 2016
#74
+1000 Her voting history, SOS actions, & financial backing are RIGHTWING CONSERVATIVE
senz
May 2016
#112
that's what she's done to the party: Clinton's power is that she can tell you, to your face, what
MisterP
May 2016
#101
Hillary is exactly as progressive as the corporations/ 1% allow her to be
Teamster Jeff
May 2016
#109
Perhaps we should think of progressive as a direction, rather than as a resume item.
Orsino
May 2016
#121
GOP infiltrates normally liberal gatherings to plant doubt about likely Democratic candidate.
Jackie Wilson Said
May 2016
#128
She's gonna court "megachurch moms" now, that is her brock beltway geniuses' strategy.
Warren DeMontague
May 2016
#155
Why wouldn't she court right/left women. Sounds smart to me. You do want smart in your Pres, right?
seabeyond
May 2016
#158
Smart would be courting Millennials, not anti-choice right wing Xtian conservatives.
Warren DeMontague
May 2016
#159
Clinton is courting Millennials and right women damn well know who will be put in Supreme Court.
seabeyond
May 2016
#161
We do want smart. And I think she's smart. But her advisors live in a beltway time warp bubble
Warren DeMontague
May 2016
#162
Having a '95 and a '97, I say, that it is on us. I certainly know this generation.
seabeyond
May 2016
#169
She's on the record as being OK with a constitutional amendment to curb reproductive rights
Doctor_J
May 2016
#167
Can you name one bill that Obama signed in his first two years, when Democrats controlled congress,
StevieM
May 2016
#163
its pretty damn clear that Hillary supporters dont care about truth and honesty
AZ Progressive
May 2016
#199
That is correct. We are corrupt lying m*therf*ckers who should be worshipping you.
Buzz Clik
May 2016
#203
You have no problem supporting one of the most corrupt Democratic candidates ever
AZ Progressive
May 2016
#209
nah, just not convinced that the used car salesmen on both sides are being honest
uponit7771
May 2016
#207
Oh like voting in favor of the NRA and against the Brady Campaign? For lighter
synergie
May 2016
#208