obama talks policy with wall street journal; mccain loses his wallet

ok, so all of y'all obama haters who think he's soft on policy or doesn't have any prescriptions or is too god damned radical can shut up.

dude gave a lengthy interview with the wall street journal about his economic policies.

while he's been getting the typical anti-left attacks of "socialist" and "liberal" and so forth, it's clear that this is a man who understands the power of the free market, and how it can radically transform society.

That's why I say that the combination of globalization and technology and automation all weaken the position of workers. I would add an anti-union climate to that list. But all weakens the position of workers, particularly blue-collar workers, in the economy, and some of it is just historical. You know after World War II, we were in this unique position where Europe was decimated, Japan was decimated. China was off the grid because of Mao. And so we didn't have a lot of competition out there, and now other countries are rising and automation has supplanted a lot of work that used to be done by middle-class workers.

We have drastically increased productivity since 1995, and there was the theory that if you increase productivity enough some of these problems of living standards would solve themselves. But what we've seen is rising productivity, rising corporate profits but flat-lining or even declining wages and incomes for the average family.

What that says is that it's going to be important for us to pay attention to not only growing the pie, which is always critical, but also some attention to how it is sliced. I do not believe that those two things -- fair distribution and robust economic growth -- are mutually exclusive.


meanwhile, in out-of-touch land:

McCain's view is that government's hand still weighs too heavily. 'Small businesses are what make the American economy run," he told business leaders recently. "The federal government shouldn't make your work any harder."

The centerpiece of McCain's economic plan is cutting taxes and government spending. He wants to shave the corporate income tax, eliminate the alternative minimum tax for middle-class taxpayers, and reduce the estate tax. He promises to veto needless government spending. And he says he'll balance the budget without "smoke or mirrors."

reduce the estate tax, huh? yeah, let's keep clipping off meritocratic regulations. why should children of rich people ever have to work? paris hilton is clearly contributing more to society this way, by being a superficial alcoholic socialite.