Even the Aspen Ideas Festival, an annual gathering of the country's brightest lights, isn't Obama country anymore. Lloyd Grove on the president's waning support among the intelligentsia. Youâd think the well-heeled and enlightened eggheads at the Aspen Ideas Festivalâwhich is running all week in this fashionable resort town with heady panel discussions and earnest disquisitions involving all manner of deep thinkers and do-goodersâwould be receptive to an intellectually ambitious president with big ideas of his own. In a way, the folks attending this cerebral conclave pairing the Aspen Institute think tank with the Atlantic Monthly magazine might even be seen as President Obamaâs natural base. Apparently not so much. âThe real problem we have,â Mort Zuckerman said, âare some of the worst economic policies in place today that, in my judgment, go directly against the long-term interests of this country.â Obamaâs top economic adviser, Larry Summers, and his departing budget director, Peter Orszag, can expect heavy weather when they land in Aspen later this week to make their case to this civic-minded clique of wealthy skeptics. âIf youâre asking if the United States is about to become a socialist state, Iâd say itâs actually about to become a European state, with the expansiveness of the welfare system and the progressive tax system like what weâve already experienced in Western Europe,â Harvard business and history professor Niall Ferguson declared during Mondayâs kickoff session, offering a withering critique of Obamaâs economic policies, which he claimed were encouraging laziness. âThe curse of longterm unemployment is that if you pay people to do nothing, theyâll find themselves doing nothing for very long periods of time,â Ferguson said. âLong-term unemployment is at an all-time high in the United States, and it is a direct consequence of a misconceived public policy.â Ferguson was joined in his harsh attack by billionaire real estate mogul and New York Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman. Both lambasted Obamaâs trillion-dollar deficit spending programâin the name of economic stimulus to cushion the impact of the 2008 financial meltdownâas fiscally ruinous, potentially turning America into a second-rate power. âWe are, without question, in a period of decline, particularly in the business world,â Zuckerman said. âThe real problem we haveâ¦are some of the worst economic policies in place today that, in my judgment, go directly against the long-term interests of this country.â Zuckerman added that he detects in the Obama White House âhostility to the very kinds of [business] culture that have made this the great country that it is and was. I think we have to find some way of dealing with that or else we will do great damage to this country with a public policy that could ruin everything.â Ferguson added: âThe critical point is if your policy says youâre going run a trillion-dollar deficit for the rest of time, youâre riding for a fallâ¦Then it really is goodbye.â A dashing Brit, Ferguson added: âCan I say that, having grown up in a declining empire, I do not recommend it. Itâs just not a lot of fun actuallyâdecline.â Ferguson called for what he called âradicalâ measures. âI canât emphasize strongly enough the need for radical fiscal reform to restore the incentives for work and remove the incentives for idleness.â He praised âreally radical reform of the sort that, for example, Paul Ryan [the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee] has outlined in his wonderful âRoadmapâ for radical, root-and-branch reform not only of the tax system but of the entitlement systemâ and âunleash entrepreneurial innovation.â Otherwise, Ferguson warned: âDo you want to be a kind of implicit part of the European Union? Iâd advise you against it.â This was greeted by hearty applause from a crowd that included Barbra Streisand and her husband James Brolin. âDepressing, but fantastic,â Streisand told me afterward, rendering her verdict on the session. âSo exciting. Wonderful!â Brolinâs assessment: âMind-blowing.â http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-...ma-loses-support-of-nations-elite/?cid=hp:exc
I thought is was kinda funny that they were quoting such great economic minds like Streisand and Brolin. Even the idiots who threatened-to-leave-the-US-for-Canada-after-Bush-won-but-never-did* agree with the article's subject. * but then again look who your neighbors would be from ET if they moved to Canada
along those lines - unemployment insurance should taper off over time. eventually that will force more people to take jobs.
Which means that there are so many jobs available, which means that the economy is not so bad, which means Obama is not doing a bad job.
Anybody who says that has traveled at least one step down the road from liberalism to reality. Still, it would be more correct to say The curse of <del>longterm</del> unemployment is that if you pay people to do nothing, you punish people for working and reward them for being unemployed.
Yeah, if they keep hiring census workers it should be no problem making that case. Other than that, you got to wait for the next guy.