Dear Robert Rubin, please go away and never come back.....Thanks in advance

[marmar]

Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy will improve slowly and another round of fiscal stimulus probably wouldn’t be effective, former Treasury secretaries Paul O’Neill and Robert Rubin said.

Rubin, who served under Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the U.S. is “going to have slow and bumpy growth,” during a taped interview on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” aired today. A “major second stimulus” might create more uncertainty and undermine confidence, he said.

Companies concerned about demand won’t expand facilities or hire new employees until sales have improved, said O’Neill, who was Treasury secretary under Republican President George W. Bush. “We are moving forward at a pretty gradual pace,” he said. “But I don’t think things are terrible.”

The world’s largest economy may be cooling in the second half of the year as a scarcity of jobs limits consumer spending. At the same time, concern about the surging fiscal deficit has prompted President Barack Obama to urge lawmakers to let the Bush administration tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire this year.

While Rubin backed Obama’s stance, O’Neill reiterated that he strongly opposed the Bush tax cuts of 2003 and said the president and U.S. lawmakers need to focus on overhauling the entire tax system rather than on the expiring cuts. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a.4sjT0RSeG0

[lib2DaBone]

1. Robert Rubin.. the guy who spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs ...?

..the guy who was Treasury Sec under Clinton and was one of the main forces in gettig rid of Glass-Steegal?

Oh.. THAT Robert Rubin.

I don't believe a word that scum bag utters.

(* He and his buddy Chris Dodd will be back at Goldman Sachs in November... just after they destroy Social Scurity) it's all part of the plan.

[Ruby the Liberal]

2. He went to Citi

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. And take Summers and Geithner with him. Good riddance to all.

[JDPriestly]

4. I support a small value added tax on non-food items that would

also exclude children's shoes and clothing as well as medications and services (but not to include services in which goods are exchanged).

I know a lot of people think that is regressive, but I think that the current tax system we have in fact works in a regressive way on a lot of people. The big spenders get tax cuts. Businesses write off a portion of their purchase as business expenses, so the VAT is not really all that regressive.

[PufPuf23]

5. Spend $$$ on WPA-style infrastucture, environmental, social,

historical, art, and entrepreneurship projects.

Do not privatize. Management and many employees would be temporary Federal and State employees by merit.

Trickle down economics is ecologically false. grrr lol