Posted on 04/24/2015 11:05:22 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Hillary Clinton reportedly may want to "topple" the 1%, but that does not make the multi-millionaire presidential candidate a hypocrite, says Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economist and author of "The Great Divide".
"The reality is that if you are going to get a voice to represent change in America you have to get elected first," says Stiglitz. "And until you get elected, you are not going to be able to change campaign finance reform and the other issues that have distorted our democracy and economy."
Stiglitz added that Clinton's sincerity will be tested if she wins the election, because she will then need to prove she is indeed serious about campaign finance reform. That's a test President Obama has thus far failed, according to Stiglitz, although he absolves Obama's inaction in the wake of the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court.
"The President made a great display that he was getting a large amount from small donors, but he also got a lot of money from big donors and in the last few years things have gotten worse," says Stiglitz. "But not because of him. It's because of the Supreme Court."
Stiglitz also gives Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A) Warren Buffett a break, despite the fact that the billionaire investor profited greatly from his investments in Goldman Sachs (GS) and many of the other financial companies that Stiglitz rails against in "The Great Divide" for causing the Great Recession.
"I think like everybody, he is complex," says Stiglitz. "However, I think when he says it is wrong for him to pay lower taxes than his secretary as a percentage of his income, I think he is genuine about that."
As for the Great Recession itself, Stiglitz primarily blames the mortgage crisis on predatory lenders taking advantage of gullible average Americans than a lack of personal responsibility.
"I think personal responsibility is important, but disproportionately a lot of the people who ran into the problem were first time home-buyers and elderly people who didn't understand finance," says Stiglitz. "If you are a blue-collar worker or a janitor and a professional tells you that they are an expert in finance, it's very natural for people to trust their bankers. That was their mistake, they trusted the bankers."
He pushes all the leftie buttons.
I heard an in depth conversation with this guy earlier about his book. He is a legitimate idiot. His Nobel is about as reliable as Obama’s or Krugman’s. It is a paper weight at best.
what words can I use when referring to leftist buffoons without getting kicked off the site. and how do you members that have been around a while control yourselves.
right now my preferred method is to just curse at the screen and then type.
So leftwing pols need big bucks to get elected to pass campaign finance reform so lefties can get elected, because lefties never get elected under the current system? How did our current Marxist president slip through?
Hillary is benign
We hear it all the time
We hear it on the news , you know
We hear it on the late night show,
We hear it everywhere we go,
Hillary is benign.
All she wants is good
It must be understood.
Money must come in, you see
For favors to go out from me
I’m sellng out, but not for free.
It’s really for your good.
Your future is a bust
In her you put your trust
And while you slept, she cheated you
Security’s now far from you
And soon you will be glowing, too.
But vote for her you must.
Stiglitz is an Inglorious Basterd.
Hillary is a hypocrite. Did she ever condemn the Statue of Liberty for being sexist because it’s female? Or the statue of Justice for being female?
Translation: “Our plutocrats are saintly, because they have pure motives. Your plutocrats are just greedy.”
After Hillary gets elected and topples the one percent, she and Bubba will shed all their wealth, right? It will be like the old Soviet Union where everyone was equal.
I just saw a VICE News dispatch from the Ukraine where this Texas communist was fighting for the separatists. And even this loony leftist correctly saw that Obama is the tool of oligarchs. How is Hildebeast any better?
“Stiglitz added that Clinton’s sincerity will be tested if elected.”
No more testing needed: Nurse Wretched’s sincerity and integrity have been tested for 50 years. The Results are in: From youth to old age, Hillary is the most fake, cynical, dishonest, manipulative, greedy, self-seeking, self-righteous, thieving trash in generations.
..says Stiglitz. “However, I think when he [Warren Buffett] says it is wrong for him to pay lower taxes than his secretary as a percentage of his income, I think he is genuine about that.”
Something stopping Mr. Genuine from making a huge voluntary contribution? Or organizing the top 100 plutocrats to do the same?
“He is a legitimate idiot.”
LOL, well said. He certainly sounds like one even in this brief piece. Did they ask him if Romney was evil? I’m sure if they had he’d agree.
I thought McCain-Feingold was the Do-All and End-All of all Campaign Finance Reform!
“Nobel prize-winning.......”
That’s as far as I had to read until I already knew that the article was about.
I think we have had our fill of “Nobel prize-winning” “liberal gas bags.” Especially of the prize winning president we now have...and he never did anything to earn it other than by being born a zebra.
Sometimes I have to get away from the computer for a while and cool off. If I posted my first thoughts, I would have been banned long ago. This also applies to replying to particularly stupid posters.
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