Is Clinton now the Dem's Presidential hope, or just a strategy to get people to like Biden more?

After the horrible battles of 2016, and 2020, it seems as if things could not become worse, but now they are, with Hillary Clinton being put forward much to many's disgust.

I think the Democratic leadership may be so terrified of winning they are deliberately trying to lose in 2024, or maybe they are trying to make people more open to Biden by making it clear that iof we dont like him, we will get another HRC candidacy. I think this is quite possible, maybe even likely.

No matter whatever they do, however I will never vote Republican, nor will I vote for either Clinton or Biden. And I have heard many others say things to that effect, well then, who will we vote for?

I would vote for a great many people who I trust, just not them, neither of whom I trust even the tiniest bit. And I won't vote for Bernie Sanders as I did in the past because of his concealment of GATS which has deceived a great many young people hiding the real reason for our problems, the 1994 joining of the WTO. (Which blocks all progressive platform planks, and is pushing us to privatization of all that once were public services, including Medicare and Social Security, which dont conform with WTO rules, so are now in grave danger.

Thats what they are all really trying to hide. So of course the Dems dont want to win as people would expect them to do something good. Look at how problematic it was when Obama won in2016. They expected him to fix healthcare even though the WTO put everything he could have done off the table. But it seems as if foreign countries who had been demanding an end to protectionism thats holding back the globalization of healthcare in the US, might have made some deal with Washingtonto let Washington save face, continuing to hide GATS for a hile. So the dysfunction continues on. They must owe India a big favor for that one. They want one thing, and one thing only, lots of good US jobs.

Share
up
11 users have voted.

Comments

Pluto's Republic's picture

On the other hand, Biden is not a viable choice.

They will have to go with another fake Leftist.

Why does it matter? Elections just make things worse.

up
13 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Shahryar's picture

@Pluto's Republic

but of course when we express ourselves they freak out and undo it. I'm thnking of Lamont and Lieberman or Walton and Brown in Buffalo.

up
13 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@Pluto's Republic Mayor Pete is bankrolling another campaign even though he hasn't declared for anything.

And Mayor Pete is the sort of "leftist" they want. CIA, says a lot, doesn't mean anything.

There's also of course Hillary Clinton, though everyone knows she's a crook by now, and Kamala Harris, who would spoil their plans for having a series of fake elections. How would she get votes if she can't campaign? They don't want it revealed that the Democratic nomination is a smoke-filled-room appointment.

2024 will be perfunctory. The Republicans will win the White House and both houses of Congress.

up
11 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

janis b's picture

@Cassiodorus

I wonder why so many americans follow a formula of self and universal sabatoge? Your sardonic comments reflect how masochistic a society we live in.

There's also of course Hillary Clinton, though everyone knows she's a crook by now, and Kamala Harris, who would spoil their plans for having a series of fake elections. How would she get votes if she can't campaign? They don't want it revealed that the Democratic nomination is a smoke-filled-room appointment.

I think the vision of ’smoke filled rooms’ is becoming progressively more obvious these days, no matter what perspective one holds. Sadly, I don’t see the awareness held by different tribes coming together to create productive change. I think society is increasingly polarised by the most common source, media.

I wondered what Lieberman was up to these days.

On May 17, 2017, Lieberman was interviewed by President Donald Trump for the position of FBI Director, to replace recently fired James Comey.[109]The interview took place against the background of the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate issues connected to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[110] Speaking to reporters while meeting with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, Trump said he was "very close" to choosing a new FBI director to replace James Comey, and when asked if Lieberman was his top pick, Trump said yes.[111] The President also stated that the odds were "better than 50-50" that his pick for FBI director would be made before he departs for his first trip abroad on Friday.[112] However, no announcement was made publicly on Friday.[112] On May 25, 2017, Lieberman officially withdrew his name from consideration.[113]

On July 17, 2018, Lieberman published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal imploring people to vote for Joe Crowley, who was defeated in the Democratic primary by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Crowley would run on the Working Families Party line, without support of a major party, similar to how Lieberman defeated Lamont in 2006. Lieberman has continued to remain critical of Ocasio-Cortez, stating that “With all respect, I certainly hope she’s not the future, and I don’t believe she is.”[114]

In January 2019 Lieberman officially registered as a lobbyist working for ZTE but has stated that his work for the corporation will be limited to assess national security concerns and will not include actual lobbying.[115]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Lieberman

Oh, and it says in the last sentence quoted from wiki that he’s a lobbyist working for ZTE, which is a Chinese company that specialises in telecommunication.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTE

up
10 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@janis b -- it's weird that the Democrats feel obliged to generate all this publicity for their party primaries and then the decision ultimately made bears all the marks of having been made beforehand. The out-in-the-open fraud accompanying the 2016 vote counts, for instance, or the freakish way in which early 2020 lockdowns accompanied a political situation that looked like there was someone in a back room with an itinerary planning out the movements of every candidate but Bernie Sanders -- let's see, Klobuchar is conceding and endorsing Biden, so it must be Tuesday, and so on. It's like they don't really care if such a routine and customary charade blows up in their faces, by golly they're going to have a "competition" that is about as "real" as what happens in WWE Wrestling.

As for Joe, it's amusing that he's found a job working for a Chinese corporation "partially" owned by the Chinese government. I'd like to know how many "war with China" advocates in Congress are also working for ZTE.

up
8 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

janis b's picture

@Cassiodorus

" ... by golly they're going to have a "competition" that is about as "real" as what happens in WWE Wrestling."

up
10 users have voted.

than the person who lost to him last time?

up
13 users have voted.

They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway
They say that life's a game and then they take the board away
They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story
And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret-- A. Moore

enhydra lutris's picture

3rd party candidate, it doesn't matter who, they'll have no chance anyway. What is needed is a moderate groundswell of people voting other so that at least a chunk of the rest of the world and a handful of the more perceptive of our (S)elected officials to realize that we aren't buying what the uniparty is selling.

A legitimate government is, by definition, one which governs with the consent of the governed. We need to make clear that the US is no such government. Our motto, banner and bumper-stickers should be simply "I do not consent (to this)".

be well and have a good one

up
17 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Pluto's Republic's picture

@enhydra lutris

...."non consent" can only be demonstrated by the people's statistical refusal to vote.

Followed with continuous demonstrations of "We did not vote for this."

Heads of State would avoid meeting with the US. The UN would call for new elections.

up
4 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic

up
1 user has voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Bisbonian's picture

@enhydra lutris

The key is to vote for an independent or 3rd party candidate, it doesn't matter who, they'll have no chance anyway. What is needed is a moderate groundswell of people voting other so that at least a chunk of the rest of the world and a handful of the more perceptive of our (S)elected officials to realize that we aren't buying what the uniparty is selling.

No effect, yet.

up
5 users have voted.

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

enhydra lutris's picture

@Bisbonian @Bisbonian

in '68 and others off and on since. I don't really expect much success, but the uniparty has never been my friend and I cannot conceive that it ever will be.

be well and have a good one

up
4 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

zed2's picture

You remember when Bill Clinton intentionally threw his victories away.

My friends and I, sick of scndal politics naively thought when his dallience with Monica Lewinski came out that America would finally grew up and start acting like grown ups. But no, that was not to be. Instead, what did we get? The beginning of endless lies.

The reason I was pissed was because at some point Before he was elected president it became knowledge among everybody I knew, it seemed at the time that the Clintons had an open marriage. Years before the "Monica scandal". SO if that was true and I have no reason to beleive it wasnt, because it is consistent with everything else I knew about it. Ive recently verified that that was others understanding. When I was much younger, I had an open relationship, and it was not uncommen, as it is today for some of my friends to be "poly". At the time I lived in California and it really is and was a lot different than many other places.

So, anyway, was it okay for HRC to play the injured wife when she really was in an open relationship, depriving the country of the benefit of a Democratic victory, and putting her own political aspirations first by pretending to be the herocis stoc wife, when in fact it was a big lie?

I swear that this is the truth as I remember it. My knowledge of this began around when Bill Clinton became known on the national scene. I lived in San Francisco. It was a very different place then than it is today. It was before corporations had taken over SF as they have now.

And I blame much of that on them. This totally amoral and dishonest DINO couple.

Also, several years later, a close old friend of mine at the time, S. her BF had told her this too, and he was a "primary source". But it seemed to be common knowledge in SF. I don't remember that much more, as it was a long period we are talking about that went on for many years, but I am certain that a very very large number of people knew, and had discussed it because it was something that came up in discussions from time to time. and I have to say that had it not become an issue that speaks to HRC's moral values, and directly to her patriotism, and honesty, OR LACK OF IT, I wouldnt discuss something like this, some other person's being open or poly or whatever, I would just keep my mouth shut. HOWEVER, since even after putting the whole country through this ordeal twice... now this is coming up again. As I said I didn't hold their merital situation, whatever , as somethng detrimental, I had great hopes at the time that it would mean a breath of fresh air, however as we now know, that was not to happen.

I also have to say that there is something about groups of people who have sex with ne another that can be unwholesome. One time a long ago, an old friend, who was a strikingly pretty lady, she must be around 60 now and she still is. Anyway, she worked for a while for ths computer store near Stanyan and Lincoln in San Francisco, that was run by a kind of poly cult. They werenthiding it, quite the opposite, they used to publish a newspaper about their (bizarre I thought)"control freak" lifestyle.

Anyway, my friend, from when she started working there as she described, cam under intense pressure to become sexually involved with the other members of this group and she had to leave this job. She had been a Mac expert and at that time which was during the Power PC Mac II era, before Apple and Mac really took off, and she mistakenly thought she would have trouble finding a job. Which they took advantage of. But she didnt submit to their pressure. She got another job. So basically what I am trying to say is that most people who have promiscuopus sex with one another are not so different than the rst of us, but some of them are. And I personally steer clear of them because they can be kind of coercive. They just "rub me the wrong way" so to speak. I will just leave it at that.

So,
Frankly, to me it looks like there are material facts which deprived the nation of the benefit of a Democratic victory by a sleazy trick. In our country's recent past. And some of them may have been a lot more recent than the 90s.

Maybe it is why the Hillarians were so quick to accuse idiot Trump of treason, which I am not arguing, about anybody who converged ion the Capitol on January 6, 2021. But that may just be the tip of the iceberg.

Maybe some other conspiracy exists to steal something very valuable from all of us.

But, it should be seen in the perspective of things like the GATS and WTO and the material misrepresenation we were subjected to and many others. Its oligarchs, rich people trying to get themselves an unfair advantage on the rest of us.

Returning to HRC. Both Clintons should have said, right away, that the alleged infidelity was not an issue, that she and Bill had an arrangement. Yes, that is common in the US, and in fact the use of that word in the sense I used it is French and its quite common.

Note: I am not currently in such a relationship, And have no intention of being in one.

This country is sick of dishonesty and politicians who revel in deceiving all of us.

The healthcare situation is particularly evil, its a huge crime, against all of us.

Suppose all the GATS had been exposed and those who forced it on us prosecuted and punished as is appropriate. In a Nuremberg-like tribunal.

Then by now, You would have gotten healthcare that no HMO would never have given you, unless you paid a kings ransom for it. If you have been through health related bankruptcies, then at lest as far as having been striped of everything you own by an illness, that would not have happened.

And you know, the worst aspects of the US insurance system, all the bad things that existed in 1998 like rescission and various hoirrible things like no guaranteed issue, thousands of conditions making people uninsurable, retroactive cancllation of policies, (rescission,or post claim underwriting its often called), etc, are all likely to come back, soon, on demand, they just have to ask for it and the US then has to change the laws back to the way they were when we promised to freeze them forever in Feb 1998. I swear I am telling the truth. If you dont believe me, lets put this issue up to a test by asking experts.

Look up what standstill clause means And rollback clause. I have right before me a book that discusses standstill in the context of the WTO, at length its "recolonialization" by Chakravarthi Rhaghavan. Its published by Zed Books in the UK.

Also, you can ask the EU's association of insurers what it means. Please do that now before you swallow another lie.

And lets clean this party up of big liars.

up
6 users have voted.

@zed2 "big lie" if you in fact place a great deal of importance in knowing the real truth of people's marriages, which in my book is their own private matter and has no relevance to how they would govern. See, e.g, FDR, JFK. And LBJ's even more prolific womanizing had no rational relation to his decision making as president.

up
7 users have voted.
zed2's picture

Its the LYING that bugged me, such as a wife claiming after the fact that a arrangement which in fact was common knowledge had not existed if indeed that was the fact.

Former employees would know. But they might not be truthful feeling it was a matter of trust. However, this information was not kept private. Somehow it became public knowledge. And when two who should have known better made a private deal to share the Presidency, and hide a particular truth, and perhaps many more, it became relevant to the country and a matter that should have been dealt with by the Federal Government, truthfully.

As it spoke to democracy, like January 6, it became fair game.

I think both Clintons are habitual liars.

I think GATS, changes everything because it is a plot to violate the Constitution by stealing ALL of our un enumerated rights. Do you understand what GATS is, if you do please explain it to me here. If not just say whatever. But if you want to know, read these:

Facing the Facts, a guide to the GATS Debate

Ellen Gould video for Talking Stick.

up
5 users have voted.

@zed2 only to the extent the MSM of the time and Clinton's political opponents wanted to make it so. Otherwise, the "common knowledge" is no more than common gossip, as you seem to concede. To this day I don't know if they had a mutually agreed upon open marriage or not. My attitude then and now remains, who cares either way. And if one partner is lying about it in public, my response is I would probably do the same. It's no one else's business.

P.S. Bill should have just defaulted in that Paula Jones lawsuit that got him into so much trouble as Rs tried to use his narrow, lawyer-like responses against him to elevate a personal matter into a major affair of state. Yes, impeachment-obsessed Rs at the time made a big deal of the alleged lying under oath, which is debatable, but what they were really after was to find the slightest pretext to damage and embarrass Clinton sufficiently in the public eye so as to damage Gore in the 2000 election. Mission sorta accomplished. Gore was sufficiently spooked by the entire matter that he went off the cliff trying to inoculate himself against it, as with his defensive, unhelpful Lieberman selection.

up
4 users have voted.

is going to become unpopular here saying bad things about the Clintons. For my part, I speak only to the womanizing or lying about it issue raised here. As for the rest of his presidency, it looks worse the more we view it in hindsight, though even in the 90s, as BC himself acknowledged, it was apparent he was governing more as a moderate Republican than true Democrat. He gets a major share of the blame of course, but dishonorable mention also has to go to the pathetically weak, scattered and disorganized progressive left of the time, who offered little political pressure to nudge him back to his liberal roots.

As for Hillary, even more detested in these parts than her hubby, I recall numerous posts from the 2020 election cycle speculating about when in the process the Dem Party would play their hand and force feed us Hillary for another election defeat. Didn't happen then of course, and won't happen in 2024 is my guess. I don't detect even the slightest groundswell of interest right now, and doubt much will change as the 2024 cycle begins.

up
5 users have voted.
zed2's picture

She loves it.

I dont swallow assertions that she led in votes. In any case, I wouldn't vote for her ever. The skeletons in her closet guarantee that the country would be left wide open to blackmail.

up
5 users have voted.

@zed2

The skeletons in her closet guarantee that the country would be left wide open to blackmail.

it is *now*...

up
5 users have voted.
zed2's picture

wife when in reality she didn't care if her husband was doing things with that woman.

Are you really saying that doesnt matter? Even in the light of the effect of that episode on the country. especially black people. Do it now. Or face the consequences.

Do you understand why GATS may have created a strong incentive to have the Democratic agenda nullified for other reasons than We signed away our right to regulate in a trade agreement.

Certainly, arent Democrats desperate to figure out ways to not succeed at anything and not look too obvious about it. For example, they even ran and then excluded a candidate to falsely create the mistaken, false impression that the President could still (if they were successful) make changes like a single payer healthcare system, when in fact we had literally formally promised not to, internationally in a formal, binding way which actually creates huge penalties in the WTO if we do. Having promised away the millions of jobs to other countries, if they could do them cheaper. (Thats what we did) So fake "green New deal" was a similar act of deception, and cover up, under the circumstances, aimed at hiding whatsgoing on from young people. they have still gotten away with this, thanks to our gullible democrats failure to wake up. If journalists seem as if they might tell the truth they get threats which makes them think they will lose their jobs.

We are increasingly flirting with totalitarianism. Its easy to prove that the real misinformation is coming from whoever is trying to hide this betrayal of our young people with lies and press intimidation.

Also hasn't Bill's behavior since the Clinton Administration strongly suggest, if not prove that indeed I am right, and that his involvement wit people like Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, has relevance, given what they did. I think that Hillary and Bill's behavior back in the 90s was consistent with a deception of the country over what actually happeed. IMHO, they committed a crime by deceiving whomever investigated these events if they failed to make it clear that Bill was not "cheating on" HRC as they defined it.

This is important because with GATS they were stealing our rights to democracy as we Americans define it. Nobody know this better than I because I have had countless discussions about GATS with people who did not know about it, going back ten years of more. Countless. Not a single person has thought it was anything other than a huge wrong on the country. Nobody wants it. They really screwed us, and they know it. Who else would they be going to ALL THIS TROUBLE to hide it. Like encouraging daughter's best friends father to run, remember that. All this was reported by ABC News. I am not making this up. How could I ever beat all this.

Unrelated story.

My friend, L, grew up on a commune in Colorado, She has a friend whose father is really her father, while HER father is really her friends father. Genetically.

Other than that, she and her (female) friend are unrelated, Genetically. Needless to say she is still very close friends with her "sister". They both grew up in this weird situation where their parents had had a fing resulting in both of their births. And the parents found it convenient to not tell anybody except them, fairly late in life (both at the same time!) No she was never abused and in fact her parents treated her very well, she's also very smart and now she has an advanced degree in physics of all things. She is a rocket scientist. A real one. Her main interest is space and getting us there. Thats her job. She just has this bizarre family secret.

Read up on GATS, people, would you, or you're going to lose your minds when you find out whats been done. But by then it will be even more impossible than it is today to do anything.

By the way, be aware that this is such a big international thing that the rest of the world will never believe us when we tell them we have been conned. They just wont believe that anybody could be so ignorant and stupid about such a major thing, which to some countries is one of the major thing thats happened in the world to them. They also wont beleive that our leadershipwas so dishonest as to do this to us. Or that so many people have died because of our dysfunctional healthcare system being thrust upon us the way it has been. (A lot, a real lot, and for the worst possible reason.)

up
1 user has voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@zed2 that spending a year on an infrastructure bill that was tortured to death in "negotiations" and still failed to pass will made the Democrats look rather obviously a party of "not succeed at anything and not look too obvious about it." So the masks are off.

up
5 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

It's a threat. "Watch out Republicans, you're letting that populist thing get out of hand. Toe the corporatist line or we'll give you Hillary!"
Of course their response will be, "Thanks for the Hillary, now we don't have to actually come through with those populist lies!"

up
3 users have voted.

On to Biden since 1973

zed2's picture

against us in the WTO and the future of the US middle class is hanging by a thread?

If we lose, or win, if its what we want, which is quite possible, maybe even probable, its going to be a real fiasco for millions of working people, kind of like throwing them in a frozen lake.

Millions probably tens of millions of people. Or maybe even moe. According to a former Clinton Administration economist. (Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton)

And I think he made a deliberate mistake in his research to hide soething which makes his igures off by quite a bit, as much as 20-40% The effect of this might be unspeakably horrible. He seems to be trying to warn people about it now but he still made this huge mistake by leaving out public services jobs. Which are target #1. Nothing less. As far as peoples, especially public service jobs which especially employ a great many nonwhite people. Thats why I am worried for their mental health because of whats likely to happen.

This is why I am worried about their being able to maintain their mental health. Given their loss.

You know, I know its "only business" but this thing is so bad that that argument is just not only notgoing to fly, its unspeakably evil in this context. Given the history.

I swear what I am saying is true and that its the real reason I have been trying to get what I have been across. ALl you people who think HRC is justgreat and that I am some goon who has an axe to grind for no reason, you are all so so wrong and you are really going to regret our behavior so very much. And youre really going to wish you had listened to me more closely. If any of you are civil servants you are going to feel like I do, just like I do right now. THESE FACTS NEED TO BE OUT IN THE LIGHT.

i VENTURE THAT 99% OF YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM SAYING, BECAUSE YOU'VE NEVER MET A SCHEME OR PEOPLE LIKE THIS IN YOUR LIVES, AND GOOD FOR YOU THAT YOU DiDNT. i WOULDNT WISH IT ON ANYBODY.

There is a kind of person that cause all the major disasters and wars and murder in the world. A wildly disproportionate amount. They are the great deceivers.

And they seem to revel in it.

Pray for all of us and our country and planet.

Some people just have no limits.

I suspect Kamala Harriss may and she may have gotten much more than she bargained for in seeking the VP position now. Its something that terrifies me because I really dnt want to see this country blown apart by racism like we have never seen before, Again, PRAY pray like our lives absolutely depend on it because they really really do. YOU HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA YOU HERE.

I have totally FAILED. I am only one person, and I cant save the whole world, if you understand me, I need your help, we need your help. please help me.

We have to stop madmen who know no limits from stealing the entuire future from our children. They think they are very slick. Too slick. But its a huge lie, a huge con. Like a boot in the teeth.

Have you ever been raped? Well imagine that. An international rape of both others, and us. A real moral dillemma for both others and us, more for me the more I learn about history.

We have to prevent World War III

You know HRC defended a rapist. Its an interesting story.

up
1 user has voted.
zed2's picture

that they dont agree with it which is too big of a risk for them. The scheme they have been cooking up for 30 years. Its SO SORDID.

And nomatter who wins its going to be SO bad for the people of this country, and the rich will end up kicking millions outon their asses and taking all their money and kicking them out of theirhome and jobs. Just wait and see, you all really have no fucking idea. Not even remotely.

Its "just business" they say.

No limits are allowed to our greed and pillage..

Like mass economic sodomy of the country. And planet. People will be freezing and trying to survive in their wet moldy frozen cardboard boxes. And they will probably be blaming everything thats happened on you. (and its justified by the facts, too) on all of us because nobody could ever have possibly been that stupidly evil :o unless it was intentional. We The people will be so angry they wontbe able to speak. ThePTB want to steal everything by tearing this country apart. First.

Read up on how the British Empire did it. They were and are the real pros. They probably killed as many as Hitler, but unlike him almost nobody knows it. And they got away with it, and hid all that money for more than hundreds of years.

Indigenous (native born) Americans of all races will learn first hand, by experience, what we do to poor, powerless, *indigenous people*.

NO MERCY, that would violate the GATS rules, now, wouldnt it.

Take everything from them and leave them with nothing. Not even a moldy wet cardboard box to live in.

Pray!

-----------------------------------------------------
Read between the lines.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-world-economic-forum

42nd President of the United States: 1993 ‐ 2001
Remarks to the World Economic Forum
January 26, 1995
Good evening, and thank you, Professor Schwab, for that introduction. I'm pleased to join all of you, especially Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali, Councillor Cotti of Switzerland, and Prime Minister Carlsson of Sweden. And I'm delighted to have this opportunity to speak to the World Economic Forum.

Let me begin by saying I've very much enjoyed listening to the questions you asked the Secretary-General and to his answers. I was profoundly moved by the wisdom of his answer about the media. I wrote it down, and now I will use it in the next press conference. I noted you also talked about the academic wisdom and the media power represented in your group. I hope also there is academic power and media wisdom in your group.

The thoughts that you shared and the projects that grow out of your meetings clearly are going to play a vital role in determining the issues that dominate all of our international agenda. Your opinions will play a key part in shaping the debate on some of the most important issues of our time.

Two years ago, I took office with the strong conviction that the American people, as all the people of the world, were facing a new and rapidly changing global economy. I believed then, and I believe more strongly now, that the incomes and living standards of Americans are tied directly to what happens outside our borders. It is now impossible to separate international and domestic economic concerns. As soon as our administration began its work, we devised a detailed strategy to set a new direction. And during the last 2 years, we have devoted ourselves to preparing our country and our people for this global economy and to creating an international system of free and expanding trade that benefits not just the American people but all the world's people.

We've made good strides. The essential first step for us was to put our own house in order. Let's not forget that, 2 years ago, it was a very open question whether the United States could summon the political will to cut our deficit significantly. But as many of you who specialize in global economics had urged for years, we changed that dynamic. We did the hard work. We cut the deficit dramatically, more than $600 billion, or about $10,000 for every family in our country.

This year, the deficit will shrink for the third year in a row, for the first time since Harry Truman was the President of the United States. Cutting the deficit has helped us to create almost 6 million new jobs in the last 2 years, to keep the inflation to 2.7 percent and to boost our exports by 11 percent. The combined measure of unemployment and inflation is at its lowest point since 1968. In fact, a survey of your own members last year concluded that the United States is now the most competitive economy on Earth, and we appreciate that, and we're going to do our best to keep it that way.

To ensure that, we know we must continue to invest in our own people, to empower individuals to take advantage of the opportunities of the global economy and to make the most of their own lives. Today, when exports account for so many of our high-skill, high-wage jobs and when what we earn depends so directly on what we know and what we are capable of learning, education is more important than ever before.

That's why I proposed as part of my middle class bill of rights, that we make education and training more accessible than ever before in the United States, through a range of tax cuts for students of all ages and through a system of cash vouchers for people who have been laid off and must be retrained. Another part of our strategy has been to lay the foundation for a new era of global growth and open markets in the century to come.

Already, after 7 years, we've made some real progress by adopting the GATT treaty. Those negotiations were begun here in the United States under Presidents Reagan and Bush. They were completed, they were approved by Congress, and I was proud to sign them into law last year. That's the most ambitious trade agreement ever.

We also brought the NAFTA treaty into force with support from both Democrats and Republicans, and since then, trade with our NAFTA partners have accounted for 100,000 new American jobs. On the basis of the agreement forged at the Summit of the Americas last month, we've begun to create a free trade zone for our own hemisphere. And finally, we've extended our efforts to the booming economies of the Asia-Pacific region. At the APEC summit in Jakarta, we forged an agreement to create a vastly more open trade area there by 2020. All told, these 2 years in the United States have been one of the most intense and productive periods of economic innovation, both domestically and internationally, in recent times.

But while the promise of these new arrangements is clearly enormous, their benefits will not simply fall into our lap. Indeed, with the completion of this array of trade agreements, we're entering a new and difficult phase of the global economy. Now, we face the challenge of turning visions into concrete realities, a time for painstaking efforts, for dismantling the old barriers and creating the new arrangements, brick by brick, for implementing these new trade pacts and completing the architecture of the international economy.

It's also a time for careful reform. We must reexamine the international institutions that have played such an important role in the post-war era and consider how they are adapting to the new realities. These institutions have served us well for nearly half a century. In many respects, they still do. They have evolved with the changing world economy, discarding old missions and assuming new ones.

But as all of you know, change in the world economy has taken on astonishing dimensions. Globalization has met the growth in interdependence on a scale that would have been inconceivable a decade ago, that richly rewards good decisions and good policies. But we've also seen that 24-hour markets can respond with blinding speed and sometimes ruthlessness that the statesmen of the Bretton Woods era never would have imagined.

And for that reason, at last year's summit in Naples, my G-7 colleagues and I saw the need to review our international economic institutions, identifying new needs and evaluating how best to adapt the institutions to meet the tremendous challenges of the 21st century. This review will be a central part of our discussions at the Halifax summit in June.

In just the last few weeks, the crisis in Mexico has reminded us that the road ahead will have its difficult stretches. Mexico today has an economy with strong fundamentals and a capacity to grow and to meet its obligations. But partly because Mexico relied on too many short-term foreign loans, a fallen market confidence turned into a dangerously self-fulfilling prophecy.

I am confident that the guarantee program we are putting together to put Mexico back on track will win approval in our Congress and will make a difference in the world economy. The combined leadership of the U.S. Congress, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and the Secretaries of Treasury and State are constructing a creative and unprecedented package. Some have said it's just foreign aid and a bailout. Well, they're not right. It's the kind of response to address a problem before it spreads that the new world economy demands.

Failure to act could have grave consequences for Mexico, for Latin America, for the entire developing world. More important, our approach will safeguard hundreds of thousands of Americans whose livelihoods are now tied to Mexico's well-being. So it's the right thing to do for the rest of the world, but it's also the right thing to do for America.

The crisis in Mexico has helped to show us again just how much smaller our world has become and how our stake in what happens in other countries has dramatically increased. This is not just true for economic affairs but also for a whole range of other problems, like attacking the capital movements by drug cartels and organized crime, dealing seriously with the interconnection of global terrorisms or environmental policies that have regional impact or social policies that bear on the global population issue.

The challenge before us is to adapt our international institutions, to deepen the cooperation between nations so that we can confront a new generation of problems that know no national borders. Indeed, the job of constructing a new international economic architecture through our trade agreements and the revitalization of our institutions is, for our generation, as pressing and important as building the postwar system was to the generation of the Marshall plan and Bretton Woods, the heroic generation of Dean Acheson and Jean Monnet. Then, they had the immense job of proving that democracy and capitalism could provide for fulfilling and meaningful lives in the aftermath of war and in the face of the rival system of communism. Today, our job again is to persuade people that democracy and free markets can give all people the opportunity to live out their dreams, but we must do so without the prod of a rival political system to contend with or the fresh memory of war to spur us on.

Today, as never before, we can see the extraordinary possibilities that lie before us in the 21st century. It promises to be an era in which free people, working across open borders, will have a chance to create growing prosperity, economic security, to fulfill their God-given potential and their dreams as never before in human history. But it won't happen without hard work, real dedication, and clear vision.

I am glad to be speaking to this group at Davos because you are exactly the kind of people who must help make certain that the international system we build works fairly and safely. We must rise to the example of our predecessors. We must forge a system that will benefit the people of all walks of life and all parts of the globe, not just those for whom the global economy now holds the very richest opportunities.

We must do it because it's the right thing to do, because it's the fair thing to do, and because, ultimately, it is clearly in all of our best interests.

Thank you very much.

NOTE: The President spoke by satellite at 12:47 p.m. from Room 459 of the Old Executive Office Building to the meeting in Davos, Switzerland. In his remarks, he referred to Klaus Schwab, World Economic Forum founder; United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali; Falvio Cotti, Chief, Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland; and Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson of Sweden.

William J. Clinton, Remarks to the World Economic Forum Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/222043

up
2 users have voted.
zed2's picture

the DPRK's infrastructure of repression that makes it possible for the dreaded Bowibu (secret police) to locate users of Chinese pay as you go cell phones to within a few meters. (the system measures the time delay of arrival of the signals so it requires very precise (Less than several nanoseconds precise) GPS enabled timing.

Communicating with the rest of the world is a capital crime in the DPRK. Whatever company is selling this technology to them is violating the UN's sanctions imposed on the criminal Kim family's private country.
They exert extreme control on information entering and leaving the country. People can be executed simply for possessing a foreign DVD, a Bible or porn. (typical of the contraband people are severely punished for having) Typically condemned people are severely beaten, then their teeth are broken off with pliers and a bunch of rocks jammed in their mouths, so they cant scream out, then hooded, dressed all in white and brought into an amphitheater where they are shot with powerful anti-aircraft guns, the white clothing is for dramatic effect, as it turns red from their blood as their body is liquefied. Then the audience especially their immediate family, children, parents, are forced to come up and they must handle their remains, and denounce their "crimes".

These public executions traumatize school children tremendously and really, all their people and are an example of how they are truly a terror regime. he DPRK is an example of a country that is attempting to have total control over information in order to keep its people in an ignorant state - ignorant of the economic success of other nations and thinking that the oligarch run state is "a paradise on Earth" when actually the conditions people live on are in many ways comparable, or worse than those in the poorest countries in the world. The DPRK's certainly are the most repressive of speech and dissent.
They , likr Orwells 1984 are divided by the elites or core group into three castes, or hereditary groups, the core group who are expected to lie for the regime, on demand, given special privileges, the wavering class (the middle third the largest group ) and the hostile class, people with relatives outside the country, such as those who fled to the South, who are officially deemed enemies in the war which is still officially going on, who the government deprives of all scarce resources, and forces to live in rural areas, all but the core group, to varying degrees, are deprived of resources like food, decent jobs, and education. They must work in mines, and are given less rations sometimes no rations.

It actually plans to annihilate them rapidly should war break out.

All in an effort to divide the country against one another, to keep the ruling Kims in power.

up
1 user has voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

@zed2
Terrorist Regimes. No matter what veneer they use, underneath they are all the same. Violence and terror is all they know.

Being bombed back to the Stone Age by the USA during the Korean UnWar probably made things a lot worse.

up
2 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

usefewersyllables's picture

matter at all- I will not be voting for a candidate from either major party. If the dems run her again, they will get slaughtered, and they will deserve it.

Faugh.

up
3 users have voted.

Twice bitten, permanently shy.

zed2's picture

would expect them to do were promised to others.

Suppose a candidatewon who in order to win had promised peoples lives would get better in a way that reduced the profits of some corporations, thereby violating our promises -violating WTO rules. This could then be rolled back in a simple procedure. For example, what if a case was brought in the WTO accusing us of having created new financial services regulations after the standstil dte in 1998. Then a disput could be brought to determine the date of a piece of legislation. If the legislation was existing on February 26, 1998, then no problem, but if it was not it would be non-conforming and would have to be rolled back.

No matter how much people wanted it, its forbidden. Otherwise voters would be able to override the rules based system, say millkions of people were dying, it would be easy to get people to vote against it. What about the corporate rights, they would become meaningless.

Doi you understand what I mean. The US is all about giving corporations and investors CERTAINTY, Meaning forever rights and alsomaking policy into property. People here keep taking about votingas if iot does something, thats forbidden.

The creation of the WTO and a plethora of new laws in "agreements" like GATS that were voted on by countries, one country one vote, are hard to change.

which means the rules must be kept. If a President can just violate the rules at will because voters vote this and vote that, all the new corporate rights and property is endangered. Call it whatever you want thats over.

Otherwise the WTO would lose credibility and decades of hard work changing the world would have gone for naught.

up
1 user has voted.
Shahryar's picture

@zed2

and then he got re-elected and some people thought he'd actually delivered on his promises.

up
2 users have voted.
zed2's picture

would expect them to do were promised to others.

Suppose a candidate won who in order to win had promised peoples lives would get better in a way that reduced the profits of some corporations, thereby violating our promises -violating WTO rules. This could then be rolled back in a simple procedure. For example, what if a case was brought in the WTO accusing us of having created new financial services regulations after the standstil date in 1998. Then a disput could be brought to determine the date of a piece of FS legislation. If the legislation was existing on February 26, 1998, then no problem, it could exist, but if it was not it would be non-conforming and would have to be rolled back.

No matter how much people wanted it, its forbidden. Otherwise voters would be able to override the rules based system, say millions of poor people were dying because they could not get modern healthcare, , it would be easy to get people to vote against it. So what would happen, it would be violated by voters. What about the corporate rights, they would become meaningless! What about profits, they might shrink, or worse, vanish. Turn iinto losses. Never forget, in the USA, profit is job number one. Corporations are not eleemosynary iinstitutions! Charity is the job of philantropism or government, but GATS forbids that if it competes with any business. People are on their own.

Doi you understand what I mean. The US is all about giving corporations and investors CERTAINTY, Meaning forever rights and also making policy into property. People here keep taking about voting as if it does things it cannot unless the treaty allows, and it would require 163 countries votes to change the General Rules of GATS.

The creation of the WTO and a plethora of new laws in "agreements" like GATS that were voted on by countries, one country one vote, are hard to change.

which means the rules must be kept. If a President can just violate the rules at will because voters vote this and vote that, all the new corporate rights and property is endangered. Call it whatever you want thats over.

Otherwise the WTO would lose credibility and decades of hard work changing the world would have gone for naught.

up
0 users have voted.