Bill Clinton speaks to the Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task at the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting in New York. Clinton has some good ideas on how America can now retool itself for greater energy efficiency, rebuilding infrastructure and self-sustaining farming and how all of this will help create the desperately needed intelligent ‘made in America” jobs for the 21st century.
“While the development of a global economy and the information technology revolution caused upheaval for many workers, Mister Clinton says these trends were accelerated by “the adoption of two bad ideas”:
Turning Stakeholders into Shareholders: About 35 years ago, the notion of what a corporation is changed, Clinton notes. Previously, corporations were “more or less” equally responsible to shareholders, employees, customers and the communities where they operated. “Now, shareholders are up here and everybody else is way down there.”
Government as the Enemy: Clinton cites a “30-year anti-government rant,” which is a uniquely American phenomenon, as another root cause of joblessness. “Instead of figuring out how the government and the private sector can work together, saying that ‘government is the source of all problems and if we just choked it off, never another regulation, never another tax, never had another program all will be well.’ There is not a single, solitary example on the planet where that’s worked, including in America.”
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Bill Clinton is trying to rewrite history by basically claiming that the industrial revolution, global trade, and technological progress is harmful to the middle class that it created. The myths that corporations were formerly some kind of charity and that government interference and control of the market are somehow are utter nonsense and shows a complete lack of understanding of free markets and capitalism. No capitalist robber baron ever had the power or the ability to devastate economies which progressives have demonstrated over the past hundred years in the Western World. I can’t understand why Danielle would post anything concerning Bill Clinton other than to rip his ignorant and economically illiterate opinions to shreds.
His comments about government I don’t agree with. It’s not that we don’t need government but we just don’t need such a massive government. The size of government has grown unwieldy and the amount of legislation and bureaucracy is ridiculous in the western economies.
I’ll agree with his green initiatives to a point. But it still has to have an economic return to it. If after building the wind farms and solar panels they still have to create enough cheaper power than it’s alternative.