Nobel Prize economist Paul Krugman yesterday said Hillary Clinton’s plan on reforming Wall Street is tougher than Bernie Sanders’ plan : ” Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders had an argument about financial regulation during Tuesday’s debate but it wasn’t about whether to crack down on banks. Instead it was about whose plan was tougher.
For what it’s worth, Mrs. Clinton had the better case.
… the financial crises arose from “shadow banks” like Lehman Brothers, which don’t take deposits but nevertheless wreak havoc when they fail. Mrs. Clinton has laid out a plan to rein in shadow banks; so far, Mr. Sanders hasn’t…”
I’m not an economist but I believe Dr. Krugman is the wisest liberal economist writing today. He doesn’t lie. I would take his words to the bank ! 🙂
Fred Rich Lariccia
n/t
http://www.alternet.org/economy/krugman-why-wall-street-tycoons-are-panicking-about-2016-election
That’s what I’m thinking. Sloganeering “Break Up The Banks”, “Too Big Too Fail” that’s one thing. But what was the cause of the baking failure, it was shadow bank activity, they are able to avoid regulatory oversight. No liquidity/capital requirements which led to the failure.
I fear the cheer-leading for our side and their side may obscure the crucial key point from Paul Krugman’s excellent (as usual) column (emphasis mine):
Out “victorious candidate” (to use Paul Krugman’s gracious phrase) has the best opportunity in EIGHTY YEARS to resurrect the famous and famously inspiring words of FDR about this same cabal:
I think it is essential that Sanders makes the ideological argument that we, and that includes far too many Democrats, have allowed the inmates to run the asylum when it comes to regulating Wall Street. It’s a simplistic truth, but an accurate one, and one that really connects and resonates deeply with voters regardless of party affiliation. This is the poetry our nominee has to speak with.
That said, Hillary is proposing very specific policies tailored to effectively curtailing the power of Wall Street in the here and now. Policies that could actually pass Congress in the short term, laying the foundation for future changes. This is the prose our nominee has to commit to.
So I think they reinforce one another, Sanders is a very eloquent and direct spokesmen for the anger and frustration too many Americans have felt. And Hillary has a very specific policy agenda to alleviate their pain. I hope to see such reinforcement as the race continues. It’s a debate that is moving our party forward.
Prof Krugman gave a few scant extra points to Hillary Clinton because of specifics. Bernie Sanders calls for splitting up banks that are too big to fail, supports a modernized Glass-Steagal, and tougher rules on hedge funds and what banks can use as collateral. I don’t think there is a major difference in the direction of financial reform. Bernie’s rhetoric is an “everyman” approach so people understand. Clinton has taken the wonkish route that few voters can tune into.
Where Ms. Clinton has drawbacks where Sen Sanders does not is in her voting record, and where she is getting her campaign money from. Her advisors also have a WS coloring to them.
So give her points on specifics, but on the face of her monetary support, and some of her votes she ends up less consistent than Bernie Sanders on what needs to be done.
I understand where you’re coming from. Yours is not the first comment to make these observations. These seem to be YOUR views, rather than Paul Krugman’s.
For example, here are the first two paragraphs of his piece (emphasis mine):
You cite YOUR concerns about where Ms. Clinton’s campaign money is coming from. Here, in contrast, is what Mr. Krugman says (emphasis mine):
And, finally, here is how Mr. Krugman wraps up his column (emphasis mine):
I get that you support Bernie Sanders. So did I, until last week’s debate. I also get that you want you want to make persuasive arguments in favor of your chosen candidate. So do I.
What I think you may NOT do, at least without wandering into the wilderness of misquoting and outright deception, is twist words of respected public figures like Mr. Krugman (whom we each admire) into your views of the two candidates.
Mr. Krugman writes — clearly, as usual for him — that:
a) Hillary Clinton has the stronger plan
b) Each candidate will be far tougher on Wall Street than any Republican
c) Each candidate is despised by Wall Street
d) Each candidate requires a Democratic majority in Congress to achieve what they propose
Perhaps you might walk back your mischaracterisation of his column, so that your own views may stand on their own.
Mr. Krugman’s piece was assessing the details as they were uttered at the debate by the two candidates. By what was said he gave a nod to Ms. Clinton. However as you have stated this was not a yawning difference compared with Republicans. He did not include breaking up the banks, removing citizens united, taxing speculating financial exchanges, and his continued insistence that a bank(or shadow bank) that is too big to fail should not exist.
I used the word “may” not exactly, and was expanding with my own thoughts about what other factors were at play to deal with corrupt financial practices. Although shadow banks were the main players in the collapse of the economy, this does not mean that Bernie is unaware that they need to be reigned in.
From Sen Sanders website
So we both have shown our preferences for candidates, but I thought there were things left out which also impinge on the banking system plus I thought clarity was more on Bernie’s side.
How many people watching know what “shadow banking” is? I also felt Clinton’s approach ensued after the fact rather than some strong preventive safeguards. He has spoken often of reining in financial firms like Lehman brothers. Yes that’s me talking, but I do not think I was alone, and felt Krugman’s piece concentrated only what was said during this debate.
Prof Krugman’s comments was mostly a critique of Republicans, not a heavy endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Maybe we’ll get a different sense after debate#2.
Getting aside from the fact of whether or not Krugman’s assessment is even accurate, Tom, are you sure he said that Wall St. despises Hillary Clinton?
Are you sure Krugman said that Wall St. despises both of them?
Here are Mr. Krugman’s words (from cited above):
The last sentence, in particular, is what motivated my phrase “Each candidate is despised by Wall Street”.
That’s my understanding of Mr. Krugman’s words.
So indeed I am sure that he meant both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (“… any Democrat, Mrs. Clinton very much included, …”).
Which bills related to Wall Street have they voted in opposite ways?
A legislator who favors INDUSTRY X could still be liked by INDUSTRY X even after consistently voting against INDUSTRY X. Why? If the legislation was likely to pass anyway, but the legislator in question was able to get some amendments in, some changes to language, etc. that make the bill less bad for INDUSTRY X, they might well recognize the political realities facing the legislator.
Another example: rhetoric. Some legislators vote against INDUSTRY X with little fanfare, downplaying the issue. Others go on the Sunday morning shows and to large rallies, playing populist cards while railing against INDUSTRY X. Same vote, totally different impact on the vox populi.
I’m not claiming either of these specific situations for candidates Sanders or Clinton, merely pointing out that voting record doesn’t tell the whole story.
…so that is what I asked about, and ultimately the only result that matters regardless of emphasis, motives, way of getting there, etc.
They disagreed on some major banking bills.
An amendment to the bailout bill.
The bailout bill itself.
And a resolution to not extend TARP.
Which seems to indicate to me they are no longer convinced Hillary is in their corner. She lost some friends over her recent reversals on Keystone and TPP, whether these were calculated moves or not, she is going with the base of the party and away from finance.
“Clinton Reopens The Door To Supporting TPP“
I don’t WANT a President who says “I’m against it, I’ll always be against it, there’s nothing that could ever change my mind, and I don’t know why you keep asking”.
You posted a fragment of an interview. I hear Ms. Clinton saying clearly that she is against it now, and suggesting a scenario that might cause her to change.
I think that’s just what a president — or a candidate for president — should do.
It’s no more of an argument than “Let’s wait and see,” which is itself the same sentiment expressed by her in the video (and which she used as justification in a debate answer for her “evolving” on so many issues).
That’s fine, and nobody’s telling you that you should want such a candidate. I’m not even aware of any voicing that they themselves want a Democratic candidate that would make such an obstinate declaration.
I think that Clinton’s professed reasoning is sound for changing one’s position based on new information. Perhaps though you can understand why some would be skeptical of her positions having changed after the newly adopted ones had become politically advantageous. If one feels as a politician that his or her position should simply reflect the will of the people, then I guess that’s a legitimate argument. It’s just disrespectful to the intelligence of the rest of us who are told that these changes of positions are the result of new information other than that available through polling (What other new information could possibly be available to get Clinton to go from stating on the Senate floor that marriage was between a man and a woman to then go on to selling pro-same-sex wedding paraphernalia from the Hillary Clinton campaign after the USSC legalized it?)
As young and ambitious Texas manipulator, LBJ was as racist and segregationist as any of his Southern contemporaries. Should we therefore dismiss his eventual championing of the Civil Rights act as meaningless opportunism? There were certainly those on the GOP side of the aisle who similarly dismissed his “Great Society” as another opportunistic “giveaway” intended to buy minority votes for his party. Are you suggesting that those GOP detractors were correct? Would Barry Goldwater (who was surely less openly racist) have been a better President in 1964?
John Kerry was severely damaged by his statement that “I was against it before I was for it” — he, and we, allowed that to be spun as an indicator of spineless opportunism. Is that a path towards the government we want? The winner of that campaign was George W. Bush. Were we better off as a result of Mr. Bush’s apparent constancy?
It appears to me as though you’re repeating media narrative and GOP cheapshots in an effort to discredit an opponent of your chosen candidate. I understand your desire for your candidate to win. I have more trouble with your negativism towards the other candidates. I wish Ms. Clinton had more publicly supported same-sex marriage earlier in her political career. I’m glad she supports it now.
It is true that I agreed with Bernie Sanders more often than Hillary Clinton while she was in the Senate. It is also true that I find his positions on gun control abominable. More importantly, I found him utterly unprepared for the office he seeks, in comparison to Ms. Clinton, last Tuesday night. I am reminded of “The Bridges of Madison County”, when Meryl Streep made Clint Eastwood look wooden, stiff, and passive. I saw a gravitas and presence in Ms. Clinton that was unmatched by any of the four other candidates.
In my view, the priorities, values, and decisions a candidate will make if elected are far more important than the choices made by that candidate the past, within some envelope of acceptable diversity of viewpoints.
In 2008, I chose Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, in part because of arguments similar to the one you’re making here. I now regret that choice.
I think, frankly, that we’d be better off today if we were wrapping up the final term of the Hillary Clinton administration. I think Barack Obama would be a better candidate — and better president — if he were running for his first term today. I listened to and allowed myself to be swayed by arguments like yours in 2008.
I was wrong.
I’ve used the LBJ example myself and it’s instructive, President Obama concealed his real feelings on gay marriage for quite some time before Biden forced his hand. We see him supporting it in letters to friends and in his first state Senate race and then backing off on full support as he sought statewide and later national office to a more conservative electorate. I would argue had he supported gay marriage in 2008 that Vice President Palin may be running for her own term today-something where gays and all Americans would be worse off. I think, though I don’t want to impose that thought, that most LGBT activists understood this.
I spent a whole semester studying and nearly wrote my BA on Lincoln’s political acumen, specifically his private letters showing a strong aversion to war and slavery as early as the 1840s. Yet he ran as a pro-slavery where it was candidate in 1860, it’s how he best abolitionists like Chase and Seward for the nomination. And he was an abler military and political leader than those two would’ve been. FDR ran on balancing the budget and cutting Hoovers deficit, and then immediately flip flopped on all issues when he realized even more government than Hoover was required for the times and task at hand.
Hillary’s first principles are a commitment to fairness, middle class economics, and a Wilsonian foreign policy abroad. It is that latter point where I still have substantial reservations, but it’s hard to argue she hasn’t been principled or consistent in these beliefs, even if she has had to temper and tinker with them at the margins to have the flexibility to govern.
Go to any Marxist website and you will see the same vitriol against Sanders. His own original party and former best friends at the Liberty Union Party abandoned him shortly after he became mayor of Burlington for abandoning his principles and cutting deals with developers. Those deals preserved the public waterfront and created affordable housing, but they were done in the boardroom not on the picket line. Pragmatism and a willingness to compromise is a basic requirement of government, it is our opposition that has ceased to recognize this, not our candidates.
…Lincoln’s 1860 position as pro-slavery. He was not abolitionist, but just wanting to restrict the peculiar institution to where it was already practiced was enough to make him the most anti-slavery major candidate that year. This is why the South kept him off the ballot and seceded when he was elected.
From the standpoint of abolitionist Republican convention goers, he was viewed as the most pro-slavery nominee their party could put forth, short of former Democrat. His position was certainly too mushy for Thaddeus Stevens and other radicals, I might add.
There is wisdom in the words of an early Lincoln biographer:
Lincoln was an ardent abolitionist from the 1840s when he saw his first slave auction down in Hannibal, Missouri to the day he died for the cause. Yet in 1860 he ran as a moderate who was personally opposed but politically resigned to slavery in the South, a position he held right until he announced the Emancipation Proclamation and went about passing the 13th amendment. Would anyone looking back, begrudge him the shrewd tactics and strategy of biding his time and waiting for the moment to strike?
Like Obama, he held the same position but concealed it and even lied about it to gain a power where he could actually move on the issue. Like Obama, Lincoln waited until the moderate North was ready to fight a war not just to preserve the union but to finally cleanse all of it from slavery.
I am not saying they are the same people, that the issues have the same weight, or that Clinton’s flip flopping is entirely noble, I am saying, we need both. We need the Sanders and Stevens to be envisioning the other side of the bridge, where America needs to go, and we need leaders in the middle capable of holding America’s hand and taking it over the bridge to reach that side.