Rachel just PANTSED Axelrod on Chained CPI

[radiclib]

"He (Obama) will feel the ground shift under his feet"

Axelrod responded with meaningless bloviating.

[summerschild]

1. She did. And he did.

[ebbie15644]

26. This interview just proved to me

that this has been this administrations plan all along. They offer up Social Security at EVERY chance, hoping they can deal it away! I think this has been their agenda from day 1!

[adigal]

28. I don't understand what Obama has to gain with this

It is just stupid and wrong on every single level. And, yes, he will feel the ground move under his feet. The only way the Dems will do well in 2014 is if every single one loudly speaks against this, their own President.

[riderinthestorm]

39. Because he's getting pressure from the moneyed class to NOT raise income tax levels to repay SS

The government has borrowed $3 trillion from SS and the only way to pay it back is to begin taxing the wealthy again.

Obama is beholden to his masters it appears...

"In fact, there is an even bigger lie concealed by the fiscal scolds and ignored by witless media, too. Again and again, self-righteous critics have portrayed Social Security as the profligate monster borrowing from the Treasury and sucking the life out of federal government. Guess what? It's the other way around. The federal government borrows from Social Security. The Treasury has been borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund for 30 years, and the debt to Social Security beneficiaries now totals nearly $3 trillion. The day is approaching when that money will be needed for its original purpose: paying Social Security benefits to the working people who contributed to the fund.

That is the real crisis that makes the financial barons and their media collaborators so anxious to cut Social Security benefits. They would like to get out of repaying the debt—that is, giving the money back to the people who earned it. The only way to do this is cut the benefits—over and over again. Count on it. If the president and Congress succeed in this malicious scheme, they will come back again and again to cut more and more. If the politicians join this sordid conspiracy, voters should come after them with pitchforks and torches."

The whole thing: http://www.thenation.com/blog/173771/will-voters-forgive-obama-cutting-social-security

[adigal]

40. Well, I am getting my torch ready

I am appalled at this. I had hoped when Obama won, we wouldn't have to,fight this fight for 4 more years. Now, our guy is working against us. It really sucks.

[ebbie15644]

41. We definitely have to keep the pressure on!

[OhioChick]

2. Rachel looked pissed when she said that

Axelrod sidetracked the whole issue with a bunch of worthless drivel.

[Volaris]

5. I havent seen it yet (ill catch the replay later on)

but I can imagine. Rachel is a member of "The Professional Left", and while she might get paid by an otherwise heartless corporation, and at times, has been a cheerleader fot the Administration even when (I) thought she should not have been, SHE has editorial control over what she airs, and I don't doubt for one second that she isn't ANY less pissed about C-CPI than any of the rest of us.

I am looking forward to Axelrod's defense of the indefensible, and many thanks to you for the heads-up.

(On Edit) I wonder if maybe Axelrod thought he was going to get a sympathetic audience with her, maybe get an oppurtunity to convince us all that this isn't somehow the bone-headed thing we mostly know it to be. He should have known better.

[aquart]

14. Wow. Did you really just sneer at Rachel for making a living?

Impressive condescension over all.

[Volaris]

17. That was NOT my intention,

and if it reads that way, I will re-write that post so as to more correctly express what I meant.

I don't blame Rachel one bit for earning a living doing what she loves doing, I think she is very good at what she does, and I think she is a VERY important voice not just for Democrats and Liberals, but for the very high example she sets of what Journalism SHOULD be in America.

I just caught the replay. I can't believe Axlerod didn't have a better answer than "well, it's part of a bigger legislative package, you see.."
Yeah, he got rolled.

Again, sorry to offend by not being more concise with the language of my original post. I will correct it if needs be.

(ON EDIT) When I say Rachel is a member of the "Professional Left", (the term that the White House used at one quite derisively) I mean that with absolutely no condescension whatsoever. I consider it a thing to be PROUD of, and I only wish we had more of them working in Journalism.

I hope that helps clarify somewhat what I meant.

[tularetom]

29. Actually I thought that post was very complimentary towards her

And appropriately so. The poster merely recognized that she is most likely under some constraints because she is employed by a large corporation, then went on to praise her for the assertive way she responded to Axelrod's evasiveness.

[lob1]

3. Axelrod is a smart man, but he wasn't even making sense.

He was spouting a bunch of gibberish and tried to say it was an answer.

[ReRe]

7. Rachel nailed him....

...reminded me of Senator Elizabeth Warren questioning a bank regulator, and the bank regulator mumbling some stupid unintelligible drivel back to her.

[progressoid]

8. He made about as much sense as chained CPI

[cthulu2016]

16. He was being a spokesperson armed with dreadful talking points

[magical thyme]

33. trying to defend the indefensible

there isn't enough lipstick in the universe for a pr person to smear on this pig.

[Lifelong Protester]

4. She nailed him.

I was happy to see her really upset with him. I was disappointed in him, I had a higher opinion of him, even if he is a pol.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. The episode is up...

http://msnbcpod.vo.llnwd.net/l1/video/podcast/pdv_maddow_netcast_m4v-04-10-2013-202243.m4v

[AngryOldDem]

20. First thing on my to-do list today. n/t

[myrna minx]

22. This is outrageous! This is soooo weaselly.

At least we now know this was the plan all along and not some eleventy dimensional chess move. Unbelievable.

[bullwinkle428]

24. Axelrod was like "ZOMG!!1! We have to do SOMETHING!!1!" - you could

practically see Pete Peterson working him like a marionette, feeding him talking points from behind the curtain.

[BelgianMadCow]

35. Thanks for the link

Obama doing this, Cameron with his anti-scroungers plans, Labour with their version of same, politicians all over Europe that keep sticking austerity to countries in order to save banks...

The Shock Doctrine now reads like a manual for modern times in the west.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

36. Most "respected" economists are idiots....

They didn't see the crash coming and people still listen to them.

They go by an economic theory unrelated to reality.

I read a bit that was anti-price fixing using eggs as an example. It went kinda like this, "I like eggs and would like to pay a low price but having the price fixed would be a huge mistake because if a retailer can't make a good profit they will devote that shelf space to something else."

I want to smack the crap out of idiots like that.

He ignores people expecting there to be eggs and if they hear the reason there aren't any is because of greed they aren't going to admire the store owner like a "respected economist" would.

[BelgianMadCow]

37. Quite. When I heard Steve Keene explaining how classical economists don't have banks in their model

I know enough.

He does model banks' behaviour, he predicted the crisis, and he's advocating for a modern day debt jubilee - QE for the people.

His blog is here.

His manifesto starts like this:

The fundamental cause of the economic and financial crisis that began in late 2007 was lending by the finance sector that primarily financed speculation rather than investment. The private debt bubble this caused is unprecedented, probably in human history and certainly in the last century (see Figure 1). Its unwinding now is the primary cause of the sustained slump in economic growth. The recent growth in sovereign debt is a symptom of this underlying crisis, not the cause, and the current political obsession with reducing sovereign debt will exacerbate the root problem of private sector deleveraging.

And has this on the modern jubilee (asides of many other ideas on how to solve our current predicament:

A Modern Jubilee would create fiat money in the same way as with Quantitative Easing, but would direct that money to the bank accounts of the public with the requirement that the first use of this money would be to reduce debt. Debtors whose debt exceeded their injection would have their debt reduced but not eliminated, while at the other extreme, recipients with no debt would receive a cash injection into their deposit accounts.

I also have a contribution to the debate about the economy - we should start using "It's the stupid economy" instead of "it's the economy, stupid".

[Spitfire of ATJ]

38. You REALLY know they're clueless when they claim Banks are the opposite of Wall Street.

[SCVDem]

9. This is the No Bullshit Zone!

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Yay Rachel!

[RainDog]

10. k&r n/t

[broadcaster75201]

11. Obama is an utter disaster

He folds, he's conservative, the list goes on. However, TeaBag control of America is too horrifying to contemplate. Just keep voting, esp n 2014.

[aquart]

15. Welcome to DU.

You might want to work on your adjectives.

[ladjf]

30. From the moment he said that Reagan was his role model (or was it "hero"), I knew that

his brain wasn't all there. nt

[Enrique]

12. further disproves the "it's just a bluff" argument

an argument that imho always struck me as bogus. But seeing Axelrod, it seems even more clear they want these cuts.

And by the way, it's absurd MSNBC is paying him for this crap.

[DeSwiss]

13. It's already shifted. - K&R n/t

[Berlum]

21. It's going to be a bumpy ride...

[mercymechap]

18. Axelrod - you can't BS Rachel, nt.

[markpkessinger]

19. Axelrod is positively delusional on the politics of this n/6

[PA Democrat]

23. Thank you, thank you, thank you Rachel!

She hit Axelrod on so many points that no one else was willing to raise. I LOVE that she asked Axelrod why the President would not ask for increases to the cap on the payroll tax.

Why is a program that provides a safety net to our most vulnerable citizens based upon one of the most REGRESSIVE taxes out there?

The working poor and even the ever-shrinking middle class are asked accept cuts to their Social Security payments that are barely keeping many afloat right now At the same time, the wealthiest garner an ever-increasing share of the wealth with a lower tax obligation than any time in DECADES.

[The Link]

25. He looked like a fucking slimeball in that interview.

[Puglover]

27. Axelrod was oily.

And Rachel nailed him. He was a tool. And it really showed.

[Armstead]

31. During the election I was happy to hear Axelrod. Now it's just depressing and annoying

[MNBrewer]

32. She's right. The Republicans will be exactly where they are in 2 months

3 months, 4 months.

And Obama will be the Democratic President who proposed cutting Social Security benefits in order to "strengthen" it.

[Canuckistanian]

34. She made devastating points on SS

And Axelrod was left a blithering idiot, IMO.

What I really wanted Rachel to ask though is "Who thinks cutting SS benefits is such a great idea, when even the Republicans aren't advocating it? And public opinion is at 90% AGAINST cuts?"