Bill Blasts Bernie Backers As Unrealistic, Offers Tone-Deaf Fairy Tale Answer for Inequality

Bill just doesn’t get it. No one in the Clinton camp seems to understand why so many young people are flocking to Bernie Sanders or how to connect with them in a way that would unify the party in November should Hillary win the nomination. Most of their explanations so far have pegged these supporters as hopelessly naive, unrealistic and idealistic.

Not long ago Hillary waxed poetic about the fact that it’s exciting to be, in effect, “protesting” by voting for Bernie. Ah, I was young and foolish once, too! Bill doubled down on the idea that young people are just drawn to the idealistic and unrealistic on Friday, and decided it would be a good idea to joke about shooting people all at the same time:

"One of the few things I really haven't enjoyed about this primary: I think it's fine that all these young students have been so enthusiastic for her opponent and (he) sounds so good: 'Just shoot every third person on Wall Street and everything will be fine,'"

Let’s leave aside for a moment the irony of Slick Willie complaining about a political rival who just “sounds so good” as if Bernie Sanders oozed charisma at a rate surpassing the last two Democratic presidents combined. I’m not even going to jump on Bill for joking about shooting people on Wall Street as if he somehow really is advocating violence or something. What I do take issue with is the idea that it’s somehow Sanders who has an unrealistic understanding of inequality and what to do about it. Because here’s the realistic solution Bill offered:

He then added, "The inequality problem is rooted in the shareholder-first mentality and the absence of training for the jobs of tomorrow," he explained, as he elaborated on her support for Dodd-Frank.

Ohhhhh. So that’s all it is. Ninety some percent of the wealth created in the country is going to less than 1% of the people and the reason is “share-holder first mentality” and an “absence of training for the jobs of tomorrow.” Ohhhh. I get it now. We just need more and better job training! That will solve everything!

But here’s my question for Bill: What about the jobs of today? And just how many of these high paying jobs of tomorrow are going to be around when we continue to pass bad trade deals and the entire productive process becomes more automated all the time?

I think that not only young people but anyone who has been on the ground having to try and make a way in our current economic “recovery” can tell Bill that he fundamentally is missing the point. We have lots of people out there with training, with degrees, with years of experience and the like who are either unemployed or vastly underemployed. The problem for many of these people isn’t that they don’t have training. It’s that the jobs that actually exist in the real world right now aren’t paying enough to even pay back the cost of that training!

This is true for older workers who lost jobs in the recession as well. In doing political field work I’ve spoken with dozens if not hundreds of them who are not only trained but who have decades of experience in their fields. But many of them remain unemployable by companies who don’t want to pay a higher rate to someone who DOES have that training and experience.

And as for the younger people—even if we train everyone out the wazoo there are only so many jobs to go around. We’re graduating more people from our colleges than ever before. Unemployment is back down around 5%. But just as they have for the last 35 years, wages remain flat!

In fact, if you just google search “strong economy flat wages” you will find articles just like that one published roughly every quarter for the last five years! Even as some companies are hiring again, many of them are relying on temporary jobs and treating people as independent contractors instead of as employees. That keeps wages and more importantly benefits down and leaves job security at absolute zero.

Taken together, it’s clear to those of us who are out there IN the rigged economy that it’s Bill who is being completely unrealistic about how to fix the problem of inequality. We need to call “share-holder first mentality” what it really is—out of control corporate greed. And we’re not going to change that “mentality” by going to Wall Street and asking them to “cut it out” or by hobnobbing with the billionaire class and politely asking them over cocktails to share a little bit more of that wealth.

They have been taking the wealth of the middle and working classes for nearly four decades now. It is time we take it back.

And you can’t do that unless you are willing to get tough on Wall Street. And you can’t do that unless you’re willing to cut the cord that leaves you dependent on them. And that’s why young people who have more training and education than their parents ever had yet still lag behind those same parents in wages and standard of living look at the Clintons and see that it is THEY who are out of touch and completely unrealistic about today’s problems.

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

darkmatter's picture

Clinton has used the word "training" as a magic shield ever since NAFTA. "Oh, I'm sorry, I rewrote the trade rules so that your factory is now being outsourced, here, have some TRAINING." "Lost your job? What you need is TRAINING." Etc. etc. Meanwhile the only jobs that are actually available are low-wage food service and big-box store jobs.

What sort of jobs is Clinton talking about? Usually, it's the technocratic dream--he imagines that the 52-year-old factory worker is going to go get a bioengineering degree and stare into a microscope for his last few years of work, or a finance/real estate dream in which our former factory worker trades real estate with other laid-off, 52-year-old factory workers (until the next bubble hits).

One of the many problems with Bill's flimsy defense is that the sort of high-tech jobs he is talking about are getting outsourced as well. Also, high-tech jobs tend to be in computerized/automated industries, so they are unlikely to be available in sufficient number. But, you know, TRAINING.

up
0 users have voted.
Steven D's picture

for years. What the hell does he know about employment issues today?

Nada, zip, zilch.

up
0 users have voted.

"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

had to send out resume after resume -- wonder how many of her fellow Stanford grads have been as fortunate?

up
0 users have voted.

i heard she sits on the board at the daily beast.

mommy & daddy are only worth a paltry 150+million, while she & hubby struggle to get by on a couple mill a yr. life is so tuff.

up
0 users have voted.

Remember how embarrassed George Bush I was when he went to the store and had no money? I tried to locate a link, but Google isn't my friend today. If anyone knows about this, please put it in a reply.

So anyway, about Bill Clinton, if I was worth many tens of millions, I could afford an aide to pay for whatever I bought, and I wouldn't have a clue about how the 99% lives, or what they pay for things. I just hope that I'd not be as arrogant about my wealth as the Clintons have become.

up
0 users have voted.

Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

up
0 users have voted.
Hawkfish's picture

That's part of what I do for a living. I sometimes wear a shirt to work that says "Made in USA. By robots." Just to remind my coworkers of the moral dimension of this.

It is also part of why I support Bernie. This is going to happen, and we need to establish who owns the work product of all this automation now, because in 20 years it will be too late.

The one bright spot is that the most automatable industry today is finance. Half of those jobs won't exist in 10 years. So if you see any Bankers for Bernie, be nice to them. They get it.

up
0 users have voted.

We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

Hillbilly Dem's picture

up
0 users have voted.

"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey

of Silly Con Valley (and one of the reasons I give it that title), I've heard the stories of people having to train their replacements who'll be working in some overseas office before being let go from their jobs. I'm not against globalization, but those overseas offices should be supplementing offices here, not supplanting them.

High-tech jobs could be available in sufficient quantity -- any company that uses computers needs folks to keep them running. We had a decent sized IT department way back in the 1980s when we relied on batch processing to send information from our home office in California to the main warehouse in Wisconsin. But of course not everyone needs to work in high-tech, or should. We need plumbers, electricians, bus drivers and other blue collar workers as well -- and all of them are deserving of a living wage. I go back to FDR in 1933:

In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.

Putting it as a "shareholder first mentality" is too simplistic, and makes it sound like there's nothing that can be done.

up
0 users have voted.
orlbucfan's picture

We need Vo-Tech school trained (or site trained) blue collar folks to fix our collapsing infrastructure. It's disgusting (cracked sidewalks and roads), and dangerous. Look at all the rusting/rotting pipe systems responsible for moving water and sewage. The bridges need to be inspected and totally overhauled either by repair or rebuilt. Eisenhower would vomit as he turns in his grave if he saw the current state of his Interstate road system. And this is the richest country in the world? Really? No wonder I'm behind the Bernster all the way to Philly and on to Washington, D.C.

up
0 users have voted.

Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

thanks for sharing it Smile

go bernie! on to the convention!!

up
0 users have voted.
thanatokephaloides's picture

What sort of jobs is Clinton talking about? Usually, it's the technocratic dream--he imagines that the 52-year-old factory worker is going to go get a bioengineering degree and stare into a microscope for his last few years of work, or a finance/real estate dream in which our former factory worker trades real estate with other laid-off, 52-year-old factory workers (until the next bubble hits).

Or a high-tech electronics dream where a year of TRAINING will make you into an engineering assistant, wielding a calculator and an oscilloscope while having the time and space to think about the problems he's solving, when the real world's jobs using that kind of TRAINING require instantaneous, near-infallible decision making -- and still end up abolished or offshored anyway.

Been there, done that......

Or, as you put it so well:

One of the many problems with Bill's flimsy defense is that the sort of high-tech jobs he is talking about are getting outsourced as well. Also, high-tech jobs tend to be in computerized/automated industries, so they are unlikely to be available in sufficient number. But, you know, TRAINING.

Bomb

up
0 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Hawkfish's picture

One of the things that the high tech boosters don't get is that the barriers to entry are incredibly low thanks to all the open source software out there. Computers are cheap (if not recycled) Linux is free and so are all the major scripting languages (Python, Ruby, Lua, ...). Not to mention web servers (like Apache) and databases (like Cassandra or Hadoop). Plus, they all come with documentation in multiple languages. The only real barriers are network access and electricity. And time to mess around.

Which is why countries like India freak out when people like Zuckerman try to control network access for their poorest citizens. They know that their citizens are as smart as anyone in the west, and these technologies are the way out of poverty for a significant fraction of their populace.

up
0 users have voted.

We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

enhydra lutris's picture

not a protester of any sort. The stupidity or her statement is enormous.

up
0 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 --

"The revolution never came; I waited for it."

I still maintain that if you're sitting around waiting for revolution rather than out there fighting for it, maybe you don't really want revolution after all.

up
0 users have voted.

Maybe we could put some Wall Street crooks in prison for fraud. Lots of bankers were prosecuted in the wake of the savings and loan crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The 2008 financial sector meltdown was much worse. Why no criminal cases?

up
0 users have voted.

"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."

primary. And I noticed the comments there, once heavily, nay, massively, against him, are now filled with the "I've seen the light" crap so often seen at GOS. The Kraken have been released.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/15/why-i-havent-felt-the-bern/

up
0 users have voted.
featheredsprite's picture

How many people in the US have even heard of Krugman? He can say anything he wants to say and still will have only very limited influence.

I'm not going to worry about him.

up
0 users have voted.

Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

They are lure written by the Brock people
Just like all the "I have lurched for decades but became a gos member 15 minutes ago". Diaries that are posted on gos are.

It's become kind if funny

up
0 users have voted.

Orwell was an optimist

Thumb's picture

Reminds me of an anecdote from years ago when chat rooms became a thing, and I was reading about a woman who ran an early lesbian chat room, and a few months after it became popular she chimed in and said, "Do any of you realize you're all dudes pretending to be lesbians?"

The shills are so DAMNED obvious.

It's amazing how effective we were at marginalizing Karl Rove by identifying him and his tactics, but we seem totally flat-footed knowing Hillary has her own Karl Rove in David Brock. It is the same exact playbook.

up
0 users have voted.

"Polls don't tell us how well a candidate is doing; Polls tell us how well the media is doing." ~ Me

Lookout's picture

The hired mudslingers like Brock (from wiki)

Brock began his career as a right-wing investigative reporter, but in the late 1990s switched sides, aligning himself with the Democratic Party, and in particular with Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 2004, he founded Media Matters for America, a non-profit organization that describes itself as a "progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."[4] He has since also founded super PACs called American Bridge 21st Century and Correct the Record, has become a board member of the super PAC Priorities USA Action, and has been elected chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).[5][6]

The Nation has described Brock as a “conservative journalistic assassin turned progressive empire-builder”;[6] National Review has called him a “right-wing assassin turned left-wing assassin”;[7] and Politico has profiled him as a “former right-wing journalist-turned-pro-Clinton crusader.”[5]

I bet Krugman has been promised a position as well as John Lewis. Things are pretty good if you're in the club. Wouldn't want to upset a cozy situation. All that corrupt money has to go somewhere.

up
0 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Big Al's picture

up
0 users have voted.
WoodsDweller's picture

they really just can't believe that the 90s are over. Bill is held up as some sort of master politician, and he is quite talented at the shaking hands/kissing babies/remembering your name/speak at a 4th grade level aspects of campaigning. He didn't succeed because of that, but because he was the right man at the right time. The 90s was the demographic peak of the Reagan coalition, and for a Democrat to win he needed to be a moderate Republican. It didn't hurt to have Perot siphoning off 15% of the vote.
This is a new world, where moderate Republicans aren't the demographic sweet spot anymore. The Clintons are running the best 90s campaign ever, but they are a 16-bit, single-core, dial-up relic in this 64-bit multi-core gigabit ethernet age. And they just can't figure out what the problem is. So Plan B is to make Plan A work. They will take more bribes, offer more bribes, buy off enough super delegates to steal win the nomination despite the will of the voters, and then will be amazed when 90s-era lesser evilism isn't enough to get their votes in the general.
I don't think it's possible for a Republican to win the White House anymore, but if anyone could lose to a Republican it's Clinton. Even if she drags her sorry ass across the finish line, the down ticket races would be a disaster.

up
0 users have voted.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

featheredsprite's picture

I realize that I'm older than either of the Clintons but at least I try to remain engaged with the world. Today is more interesting than memories anyway. They are still living in the world of the good old days.

What's that Springsteen song, "Glory Days"?

up
0 users have voted.

Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

polkageist's picture

I'm older than they are too, but I think they are just a couple of political grifters. They know what the world is like now but don't care if everyone is in pain so long as they can keep amassing power and money.

up
0 users have voted.

-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962

greywolfe359's picture

Sorry I wasn't around earlier to comment. Went to a baseball game today and the Pirates won Smile

up
0 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

still vote for us_0.jpg

up
0 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

riverlover's picture

For some reason, the graphic above flashed me to American Gothic. Hill and Bill. Can anyone make it so? I would find it funny, I think.

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Damnit Janet's picture

let me count the ways. Wait, I don't have time. I have to get my ass to work. Something the Clintons know NOTHING about.

up
0 users have voted.

"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

Raggedy Ann's picture

Bill is a joke. I hope he jokes her right out of any possibility of getting the nom. I'll have the last laugh.

up
0 users have voted.

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

shaharazade's picture

is also doing a fine job on her own of being a sick joke. In the last debate she was hair raising, she freaked me right out. The crowds response seemed to be like mine, Boo! They both are so creeeepy....

up
0 users have voted.
detroitmechworks's picture

the position of the 1% is at this point.

Seeing as they only have another 1-2% (Military and Cops) of the population who they are relying on to keep the other 97% in line...

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

are taking aim at police salaries and pensions, I wouldn't count on the police to keep all of the 97% in line for much longer.

up
0 users have voted.
featheredsprite's picture

The young adults who are working so very hard to turn NY around are showing signs of fatigue and approaching burnout.

Is there anything we can do to help them? Or at least encourage them?

My main source for this observation is:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/new

up
0 users have voted.

Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

riverlover's picture

and in the trenches, today. I gave encouraging words.

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Offshore the job and then throw a few pennies into "retraining"; then anyone who suffers a massive decrease in income or can't find a job in that new field (today's growth job field is tomorrow's outsourced job) has no one to blame but themselves according to the people raking in the cash from the deal. Also neglected is the opportunity cost suffered by the retrainee: to change fields takes at least a year and maybe several. During that time there is no money coming in to pay the rent or mortgage, buy food, clothing, and medical care for the family, etc. Basically, the rich get richer, the politicians get richer or more powerful (resemble anyone we know?) and unfortunate members of the 99% get chewed up and spit out. It's wage slavery without the "job security" of actual slavery. I guess it does come with the "freedom" to starve under a bridge somewhere: how exceptionally American.

up
0 users have voted.

Love your avatar. 49,281- 685 days in exile, almost surpassing my previous record of 694 (like Themistocles, I don't take it personally... much).

Let's get down to brass tacks about "corporate democracy" and "share holder value".

They don't exist.

If they did there is overwhelming sentiment against the extortionate compensation given to top executives, often in the form of stocks which, while they are supposed to tie wages to company performance, instead dilute the influence of legitimate investors.

Then there are "buy-backs" where corporations borrow money to enhance market value artificially (and that's the "good" purpose) that result in large pools of proxies controlled by current management and their hand-picked Boards.

The best you can say is that the greed is naked and occasionally (rarely) a bigger fish swims along and gobbles them up.

Yay Capitalism!

up
0 users have voted.

Retraining? We gotcher re-training right here:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2014/10/20/how-bruce-raune...

title="Making money from for-profit schools and worthless degrees"

They advertised they were accredited when they weren't.

And then there's: http://schoolingintheownershipsociety.blogspot.com/2014/02/bruce-rauners...
title="IL Gov. Rauner and education"

He's invested in and helped charter schools (S-T is the Chicago Sun Times):

Milkie and Rauner like to boast that their charter sends 90% of its kids to college. But the S-T reports that 2/3 of them fail to earn a degree within 6 years....

[T]he would-be Republican candidate for Illinois governor took control of the Academy of Communications and Technology Charter School ... handing the teacher-led school over to a national charter school operator.

And then there's the UNO connection.
Rauner’s family charity has contributed $800,000 to the scandal-tarred United Neighborhood Organization in recent years, including $750,000 to help expand the Hispanic community group’s network of 16 charter schools in Chicago
Rauner says he wasn’t aware UNO used some of his money to make up for the suspended state funding.

Yeah right. And Chris Christie didn't know about the bridge.

Illinois has withheld funding from state universities since last July. Gov. Rauner wants to knee-cap unions, so doesn't care how many are laid off, nor whether we'll be able to remain open. If we don't close, it will take decades to recover from this as we watch students flee to neighboring states. But, then, the 1% can skim more money from the 99%.

(First time posting here, links weren't working for me, sorry title is separate.)

up
0 users have voted.
Alison Wunderland's picture

That's Unconstitutional ? No, it's Uncorporational.

up
0 users have voted.
Bollox Ref's picture

...

up
0 users have voted.

Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

That is why he is running a classic psy-op to damage the confidence of Bernie's supporters and those wavering on the fence. If Bernie wins, all that nice corporate bribe money will dry up faster than El Nino rainstorms in the Mojave Desert. Neither one of them is interested in returning to a steady job which doesn't pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour. Why, they'd have to give up that 0.001% lifestyle to which they've become accustomed!

up
0 users have voted.

Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

NWIA's picture

Bill is an elitist with zero respect for anyone who earns their living through wages. Bernie, as an absolutely decent guy, has pointed out what this country needs to do without being a true politician. He has made progressive ideas cool once again. However, whoever follows his lead needs to be primed to lead with the same positive ideas without giving undue respect for the asshole wing of the D party. 25 years we have been stomaching this garbage. Hell, I lived in Virginia during Doug Wilder's sickeningly conservative administration that slashed money for education and programs. The next in line needs to call out conservative bullshit regardless of which party the speaker represents. Bernie is giving way too much deference to a couple whose ideas and corruption deserve no respect.

up
0 users have voted.
NWIA's picture

Bill is an elitist with zero respect for anyone who earns their living through wages. Bernie, as an absolutely decent guy, has pointed out what this country needs to do without being a true politician. He has made progressive ideas cool once again. However, whoever follows his lead needs to be primed to lead with the same positive ideas without giving undue respect for the asshole wing of the D party. 25 years we have been stomaching this garbage. Hell, I lived in Virginia during Doug Wilder's sickeningly conservative administration that slashed money for education and programs. The next in line needs to call out conservative bullshit regardless of which party the speaker represents. Bernie is giving way too much deference to a couple whose ideas and corruption deserve no respect.

up
0 users have voted.
jamess's picture

if it wasn't So Damn True!

up
0 users have voted.