Not sure if any of you caught it, but I was in the middle of another project and had CNN on in the background, and President Obama was speaking to the Business Rountable. The prepared speech was stuff I had heard before, including some from his speech to Congress a couple weeks ago, with some reiteration of certain points (no one will have their taxes increased in the short term, etc.). Afterwards, there was a Q and A session, and it seemed to be a very cordial meeting. I have no idea of the political leanings of the Business Roundtable, whether they are considered conservative or arch-conservative (I’m going to rule out liberal right off the bat), but they seemed to be very eager to work with the President’s team and seemed to suggest they have already been working closely with the team.
One point that seemed to be very important to them had to do with deferrals, which I gather has something to do with international tax laws. At any rate, did anyone else catch any of that? Your thoughts?
*** Update ***
Video here.
TenguPhule
It’s long past time Obama broke out the Sap and started beating heads in with it.
Blue Raven
@TenguPhule:
Or finally get angry and turn into "The Rock" Obama. Throw a few conservatards out of a first-floor window and see how quickly the rest fall into line.
Face
Being that the table is round, it implies that all participants are co-equals; this would then portend that the makeup of such group as liberal. However, if the table is made of marble, Malkin’s Rule therefore dictates that they’re probably Phony Libs, only there to make Republicans look bad.
Zifnab
Not everyone in America goes stupid after they make their first million dollars. I imagine that the Business Roundtable has enough savvy businessmen who remember where Bill Clinton got us in eight years and wouldn’t mind seeing Obama make a repeat performance.
And Obama is nothing if not a skilled staker-outer of friendly middle ground. I imagine it went well because he’s easy to work with.
Comrade Stuck
My thought is, if we were going to have a national crisis, why couldn’t it have been something like a food or water shortage, a plague of Locusts or other biological disaster like falling sperm counts or the end of sunlight.
But nooo, it had to be about business and finance, the two subjects I’ve spent my entire life trying to ignore.
El Cid
The Business Roundtable is estimated by some scholars to at times have been the most influential U.S. domestic issues lobby group. It was they (i.e., the corporate community which founded the BR and then the BR itself) who launched and have since led the business effort to roll back the New Deal-prompted gains in labor power and productivity benefits, often referred to as the "right turn" of the late 1970s and which erupted into business-led Reaganism.
and
TenguPhule
The prospect of hanging in the morning concentrates the mind wonderfully in the here and now.
scarpy
Deferrals are basically the tax breaks for companies shipping jobs overseas. The rule is, if you’re a U.S. based multinational, any profits earned by your foreign subsidiaries aren’t taxed under U.S. law unless and until the money is brought back here. That can encourage some companies to go and open up shop in countries with lower corporate tax rates than we have (there are a lot of those these days) and shift operations from the U.S. to those companies.
Obama has said he wants to do something about international tax issues, but he hasn’t gotten specific (there are other tax provisions that fit that "tax-breaks-for-companies-shipping-jobs-overseas" description). He’s working on detailed plans that will come out end of March/early April. A lot of biz people are trying to make sure the deferral thing isn’t super-draconian, because they say it would make U.S. companies uncompetitive abroad (and they have a point, as do the folks who say the rules move jobs offshore).
jonas
The BR guys are probably just grateful that Geitner and Summers have been following their advice so closely. Just keep the money coming, boys…
smiley
I caught part of it and I think that President Obama guaranteed so cial ism by the end of the year.
Seriously, I expect what he said about free markets, education, and health care will result in another 200-300 rise in the Dow tomorrow… but what the fuck do I know.
I’m taking bets: Who will be the first who claimed that the prospect of a president Obama caused the markets to (edit: continue to) tank last Fall will be the first to claim that rises in the markets (however temporary) now were coming anyway because of Bush administration policies? I’m guessing Jonah Goldberg.
Cat Lady
They know that Obama’s also the smartest guy in the room, and he has all of their numbers – figuratively and literally. They need him more than he needs them right now. Stock market likey*.
*today
media browski
When I worlked w/ them on energy issues I found that they made the US Chamber of Commerce seem like Marxists. Secret meetings, Clinton paranoia, we’re talking wingnut overdrive.
I stole a nice marble coaster from them for my trouble.
The fact that Big O has them pacified speakd to both his skills and the titanic cluster fuck that is today’s GOP.
demkat620
@Cat Lady: Yes, and they want to have a hand in any regulation legislation. Can’t have it be too strict now can we?
scruncher
I bet they’re solidly behind universal health care. Why the republicans ignore that fact is beyond me.
nepat
I can tell you my first thought. How did GWB ever get elected? Can you imagine him sitting and talking extemporaneously like that, on as many subjects? These kind of things just remind me of how rudderless the ship of state had been for eight years.
Scott H
Um, sorry. I was mesmerized by a President answering complicated questions off the top of his head. I don’t begin to understand the tax deferral thing, I was following along just fine until that question, but the Business Roundtable appeared to think they had the ear of someone who does understand it – and Obama, after demonstrating to the guy by outlining the problems of the question that he does understand it, had an answer for them.
alamacTHC
Well THAT is bad news.
According to Chomsky (been decades, but I think I’m remembering this right), the Business Roundtable literally met in the mid-’70’s to plan the expenditure of millions of dollars to found the "think" (sic) tanks which were so instrumental in promoting Milton Freedman/Alan Greenspan gut-the-government-and-give-everything-to-the-pigs conservatism. The result was the founding of such lying propaganda outlets as Heritage, AEI. Hoover, and others.
If they are happy with Obama–and so far, I don’t see why they wouldn’t be, since instead of indicting and imprisoning the banksters, he’s put them in power and has, so far, promised them 2 trillion dollars of our money–then things bode very ill for the rest of us.
Hope that report is wrong…
JenJen
@smiley:
Seconded. Possibly Andy McCarthy as wildcard.
Cat Lady
@demkat620:
I think Obama knows that ship sailed, and sunk. He’s going to have get his regulations while Frank and Dodd are in place. The time is now. The GOP will be distracted "look! another shiny Rush-shaped object!" and they’ll be steamrolled, because they’re ridiculous grandstanding hacks, and business needs government help. Obama +Dem committee chairs = government. Timing is everything. How times have changed.
demkat620
I am watching the roundtable now. God, it is so much better to have an adult in charge.
gwangung
Note that this is a function of tackling multiple agendas at once. Opposition, as well as attack, is spread out, and Obama DOES have a mandate and popular support to get EVERYTHING done.
Tacking only one thing at a time invites the danger of spending your political capital on only one thing and STILL getting blockaded by a concerted opposition.
demkat620
Although, I will say, liveblogging press conferences and these kind of thingys is not as much fun anymore.
gbear
East coast for ‘the ferals’. They wanted to know what is Obama going to do about those crazy leftover republicans.
Litlebritdifrnt
@scruncher:
Speaking of which, did you see this from the AP today:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HEALTH_VALUE_GAP?SITE=VTBEN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
the US spends more than any other nation on health care and gets the worst results. While the writers of the study did not find that government run healthcare was the way to go (while I do) they found that government run healthcare spends less money and gets better results that the US system currently in place.
I have said it before and I will say it again, a National Health Service would save the small business owners of this country trillions of dollars a year (it would save my boss 20K per year, it would save another poster’s company 250K per year) and remember taxes are not that much different (when you take into account all of the various taxes), people in the UK are NOT taxed at 75% to pay for health care, they pay pretty much what we do here in the US, and yet they are getting way more bang for their buck.
Cat Lady
Barney Frank is my rep, and I go to his town meetings. He really is something to behold in person. He’s a regulatory true believer, and this is his time to go to work. Say what you will about his past lapses, and there’s a lot to say, but if this is the time to regulate, and I can’t imagine a more favorable environment in which to regulate, no one knows more than he does how and where the fucktards bury the bodies.
Dennis-SGMM
GOP, December, 2008:
"Don’t worry guys; no president could possibly know all that stuff and no president could possibly tackle more than one problem at once."
Balconesfault
@Scott H:
Wait – don’t you know the new meme:
He can’t convey complex thoughts without a teleprompter. The liberals at the NY Times said so.
Martin
Except for the insurance/pharma/hospital folks, yes, most likely they are. But the exceptions are a pretty big group themselves.
My stepfather is a c-level at a large health insurance company. I think it would be fair to say they are beginning to panic. His is a pretty good one, but there seems to be a general acknowledgement that the insurers are going to get taken out both due to the industry not self-regulating and the state insurance boards not really doing their job as well as they should have.
flounder
My favorite part was when Obama led them in a chant of "drill, baby, drill."
Cat Lady
@gwangung:
Exactly. That’s how Bush blew his anti-american agenda past everyone – there were so many outrages, no one, including, and especially the supine press, could focus on one thing. Lessons have been learned.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Litlebritdifrnt:
DUH! head hits keyboard the study was done by TA DA "The Business Roundtable" I need to read more on my links. HA HA.
Martin
Well, the free market has had its chance to work and it’s failed the nation. Now, maybe a lot more government regulation would make it work, but that seems to be every bit as unpalatable as single-payer. Since the opposition doesn’t seem willing to help find an effective middle ground, why fuck around with the middle ground at all?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Martin:
As I think he should, the health insurance industry has been raping this country for many years, and their time is up. The $20 for an asprin is not fiction, it happens on hospital bills every single day. My DH was in the hospital for 2 and a half days last year, the bill? $15,000.00. I could stay in the best hotel on the planet for 2 and a half days and not get a bill for $15,000 it is absolutely absurd.
kay
The Verizon CEO’s question was odd, and a little disturbing. I think he said that if the gubmint plan for health care is better than the Verizon plan for health care he worries that he won’t be able to effectively control his employee’s lifestyle choices by passing along healthy living edicts issued by his health insurance carrier?
I think he was making the health care moral hazard argument. Maybe. Or, he just really likes offering healthy living advice to his employees. In a friendly, non-coercive way.
Martin
@Litlebritdifrnt:
And the reality is that they overcharge people that don’t have top insurance plans because they need to recoup the costs of the uninsured who can’t pay. The more uninsured we have in this country, the more expensive insurance gets, and the more people drop it because they can’t afford it.
As soon as this nation decided that you can’t turn away patients from hospitals, a voluntary insurance system was doomed to failure in time. It was 100% foreseeable. At that moment they should have insisted on single-payer.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Martin:
It is time for a National Health Service, period. The system as it is has failed to work, people are dying because of the current system, every single day uninsured people are dying because they cannot afford health care, it is an absolute disgrace in the world’s richest country. An absolute disgrace.
scruncher
Anyone have a video link to the Q&A? TIA.
demkat620
Here you go
This is CSPAN.
Punchy
Boy, watching my first 0.5 hr of Lou Dobbs ever (seriously), I am dumbstruck by his faux indignation and general douchebaggery. I feel like I’m watching my senile grandfather, ranting about the most inane and arcane news items of the day. Trying WAY too hard to seem important and smart.
How does this fuckstick keep this gig?
MikeJ
He has an onion tied to his belt, which was the style at the time.
Zifnab
@alamacTHC:
No President was ever going to do that. I mean, what were the other options? Was Clinton going to ride into town guns blazing? Little Miss Queen of the DLC? Fuck no. McCain / Palin? Are you kidding? Bill "we need lower taxes" Richardson? Mitt Romney? Not in a million fucking years.
You’re asking for the Kuccinich / Paul ticket to pixie away all the nation’s problems and if you see how well they polled you will realize its NA-GA-NA-HA-PEN.
Take Obama being on good terms with the Business Round Table for what its worth. He’s not leaving enemies in his wake. Maybe – if we’re really, really luck – some of the Business Round Table folks will start looking at universal health care or sustainable energy and start thinking, "Hey, maybe these are smart economic decisions that will benefit me and my firm in the long run," rather than having them run off screaming into the night screaming the S-word.
scruncher
@demkat620:
Thank you!
Comrade Jake
TPM has a clip of him addressing the "is OBAMA TAKING ON TOO MUCH?" meme that’s developed over the past week or so. I think he’s starting to get a bit ticked off that the mediots haven’t come to the realization yet that he’s a heckofa lot more competent than W ever was.
KDP
@demkat620
My thanks as well. Listening to it now.
My, it’s good to hear a rational thinker speak
scruncher
@Litlebritdifrnt: Thanks for info. The republicans claim to be the party of small business. As I said, why they don’t get the health care issue is beyond me. Well, actually, it’s not. Why I believe anything they claim is beyond me ;-)
Waingro
People shouldn’t forget the element of control that comes from employer-based healthcare. It’s been a great way to discipline the working-class so they will put up with shitty working conditions because "at least they have health insurance".
This was a great situation for the ruling class until it started costing them money. They don’t give a shit about medical bankruptcy or the uninsured. If they don’t offer employees health insurance they may have to offer better working conditions or (gasp!) better wages.
Zuzu's Petals
Edit: never mind, wrong thread.
KDP
Only slightly OT, I hope, at least it’s about a businessman trying to deal with the economic downturn with integrity and compassion. I find this to be encouraging. Article link here.
We need more business leaders like Paul Levy. Original post from Crooks & Liars
Comrade grumpy realist
Depending on how international the biznesses are that the guys at the Round Table have, we might see some pretty good stuff coming out.
I’m always amazed at the difference between the coverage (and editorials) I get from the Financial Times (international) and those hacks over at the Wall Street Journal. (To give an idea, the FT is running this week a series of articles titled "after capitalism") Most people outside the US realize that if you push the anti-regulatory/no checks-and-balances/free-market too far, you don’t get a nice balanced robust market economy; you get revolutions and people hanging from lampposts.
But then, the rest of the world actually tries to learn from history. We get a bunch of idiots thinking that Ayn Rand was a deep thinker.
(Oh, and part of the weirdness over international tax shenanigans is that we’re the only country in the world that doesn’t have a source-based income taxation policy. A lot of the complications in our international business tax law stem from the difficulties of interfacing a non-source-based-income-country in a world of source-based-income-countries.)
Balconesfault
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Or as I keep saying – a National Health Service would kick off the biggest wave of entrepreneurism the country has seen.
I’d estimate that there are millions of Americans who would take the risk of going out and setting up their own small business if it didn’t mean a few bad months could leave them deciding between needed capital investments in the business and their families health insurance payments.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Balconesfault:
Ditto.
Hyperion
@Punchy:
Better question:how does he get anyone to tune in more than once?
Will YOU watch again?
Steeplejack
@MikeJ:
Nice one. Noted.
Steeplejack
@Comrade grumpy realist:
Could you expand on this a bit? Not being argumentative, just haven’t heard this before and would like a bit of background. Or just basic definitions of the terms. Thanks.
Comrade grumpy realist
Gladly. "source-based income tax" means that a country charges taxes on income that is generated inside the country, but not on income which is generated outside the country. U.S. citizens pay taxes on the income they generate world-wide, rather than just on the income they generate inside the U.S. There’s a whole bunch of taxation treaties we’ve signed, so with most countries as long as you can prove to the IRS you’ve paid taxes in the foreign country on the income generated there, you get a tax credit applicable against your U.S. taxes. However, this is a band-aid that could be taken away at any time. Periodically the gov’t tries to rid of this and similar tax credits as a way of raising ca$h and gets beaten back by the squawks of companies who know full well they’d have to raise salaries immensely if they ever wanted to place anyone in an ex-pat position ever again. The other difficulty is that you can only get a tax credit on taxes you paid up on the first $87k of salary–any salary above that and you end up paying double taxation to both the US and the foreign country. One reason why the shrieks of outrage from the upper crust on a measly increase in the upper tax bracket over $250K don’t impress me–try the sudden imposition of an additional 40%-of-gross tax on any salary over $87K. Big babies.
alamacTHC
@zifnab:
"Take Obama being on good terms with the Business Round Table for what its worth. He’s not leaving enemies in his wake. Maybe – if we’re really, really luck – some of the Business Round Table folks will start looking at universal health care or sustainable energy and start thinking, "Hey, maybe these are smart economic decisions that will benefit me and my firm in the long run," rather than having them run off screaming into the night screaming the S-word."
Gotta repeat what you said: "NA-GA-NA-HAP-PEN". If you believe the Business Roundtable will EVER do anything other than work as hard as possible to uck-fay the rest of us–and stab Obama or anyone else in the back that gets between them and their pelf–then you are utterly naive. My point wasn’t that there is necessarily anything that could "HAP-PEN"–I am far too cynical for that–but simply to point out what the state of our situation actually is. The corporatists are still in power. The Dim’s and Repug’s are just different sock puppets on the same bloody hand of corporate domination. I am just decrying that fact, not proposing that "Kuccinich[sic]/Paul" have a ghost of a chance to do something which is, I readily admit, politically impossible. I am a longtime supporter of Kucinich, and voted for Paul in 1988–but have no illusions that either will ever get close to the levers of power. Amerika is corrupt. And if we continue on the same path (which, unfortunately, I believe to be likely), we will be "Sieg heiling" President-for-life Limbaugh in 2013.