dagblog - Comments for "A Financier in Chief"

Obama did speak to question 1

AmericanDreamer — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 16:59:05 +0000

Obama did speak to question 1 above in a press conference (likely the first one after Corey Booker's spring appearance on Meet the Press; the date is not given in my source, which is pp. 408-409 of David Corn's Showdown). In response to a question about why Romney's Bain connection was a legitimate and important campaign issue, Obama said:

Governor Romney...is saying "I'm a business guy and I know how to fix it," and this is his business. And when you're president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot...If your main argument for how to grow the economy is I knew how to make a lot of money for investors, then you're missing what this job is all about...My job is to make sure the country is growing not just now, but ten years from now and twenty years from now. This [Bain debate] is not a distraction. This is what this campaign is going to be about.

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AmericanDreamer — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 16:11:21 +0000

In reply to A Financier in Chief

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Thanks. So a few

AmericanDreamer — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:59:22 +0000

In reply to A Financier in Chief

Thanks.

So a few (overlapping) real questions--I realize we don't do real questions or answers in presidential campaigns--for Governor Romney (Obama, too) might be:

1. How, if at all, would you as president distinguish your primary measures of economic success for our country from the measure of success used in the world of private equity--the rate of an investment's growth--where you offer your experiences as proof that you "know how to create jobs"?

2. You and your party justify tax cuts for extremely wealthy individuals and institutions as desirable because, you maintain, they are "job creators". When you say they are "job creators" do you mean that their decisions lead to the creation primarily of American jobs, or Chinese jobs? Is it true that in the private equity world the widely accepted view is that investing in America is now considered passe, because we are a "mature" economy?

3. You seek to place the full weight of blame for the difficult plight of our middle class on President Obama's policies. Do you believe it is a problem for the middle class and for our society as a whole when profitable, sometimes even leading-edge companies decide to shut down and locate in China or elsewhere because they can earn greater profits due to the lower wages they can and will pay? What, if anything, do you believe the US government should do in response to this reality?