Roundtable discussion on Obama's economic team-2/4 Democracy Now!

[balantz]

Run time: 10:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlM6ruI0GMA   Posted on YouTube: November 26, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: November 26, 2008 By DU Member: balantz Views on DU: 587

 

[waiting for hope]

1. Thank you -

AMY GOODMAN: Barack Obama throughout the campaign continually said that well the people should be taxed, after the Bush tax cuts, but now owing to yesterday’s address, he seemed to back off, saying well, he would let them expire perhaps, that’s a possibility, in that I think it was 2011. Your thoughts?

MICHAEL HUDSON: The kicker is when he is talking about, Obama is talking about tax, he is talking about income tax. Most wealth, is not taxed, because most wealth, takes the form of return capital gain, most wealth does not pay, if I see a wage if not others, so what Obama is talking about, well, is taxation at the margin. He is not talking about kind of wealth, and the kind of returns that Wall Street gets, which are not subject to taxation at all, in fact, the give aways, that the treasury put in to the bank available, says that because the banks are bought, affiliates that have cash, they are not even going to be subject of the income taxation. So the whole issue of the devils of detail of the small print and Mr. Obama, thanks to his appointing Summers in this aim, is going to leave it there. The Russian cryptnocrats didn’t have to tax on income, as the phrase went, only the little people pay taxes, I am afraid that’s going to be the case under Mr. Obama also.

[balantz]

2. Interesting stuff, huh? Here is a link to the entire show so you can also see part three

as it is not available on youtube.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/25/naomi_klein_robert_kuttner_and_michael

[waiting for hope]

3. This was enlightening -

And I think we have nobody to blame but ourselves for that failure. So essentially, it was an electoral strategy and it was an electoral strategy that relied on intellectual dishonesty and now to continue to make excuses for Obama is a real mistake, because he is not running for election anymore. He has already won, so there is no reason to be pandering in this way. In terms of the real issue here, yes there will be stimulus. But how will it be paid for? Obama ran an election campaign promising to increase taxes on the wealthy, and Rahm Emanuel has already hinted that he might not do that right away. We are already seeing hesitation about the commitment to not renew the Bush tax cuts. Then there’s a huge fight over capital gains tax and the kinds of taxes paid by hedge funds.

Here I think its important to remember Larry Summers is coming straight from a hedge fund. He’s managing director of one of the most secretive hedge funds around. So the real question is not whether they will spend taxpayer money, they will on infrastructure, but the point is will they just just rack up huge debt and deficits or will they actually pay for this with taxes on the wealthy, which is what they promised to do and what we’re seeing Gordon Brown begin to do in Britain. Because if they do not pay for this an equitable way, in a progressive way, then what will happen is this huge investment in infrastructure will create huge economic crisis down the road. It will be blamed on Obama. And then, there will be a wave of privatizations, these new investments in public spending. There will be a whole new bubble.

[balantz]

4. Yes, thanks. I believe that was from the missing part three. n/t

[balantz]

5. Kick

[waiting for hope]

6. Kick!

:kick: - because I can! :)