Big Think

baraca yo-bama commented on Does Pete Peterson Look Worried? on February 2, 2008, 2:33 AM

A Crusader in CloverPete Peterson, Enemy of Social Security, Counts Journalists as FriendsBy John L. HessWhere does the man find the time to earn all that money? You can%u2019t turn on the tube but there%u2019s Peter G. Peterson, telling some awestruck talking head that Social Security and Medicare are gobbling up our kiddies%u2019 porridge. Or he%u2019s writing it on your favorite op-ed page, or in magazines, or relaying the message through a thousand media converts. Or he%u2019s presiding over the Council on Foreign Relations or the Concord Coalition, or gracing the society page in a dinner jacket, at all the really important social functions, sometimes as host. Or you can find him more informally at Sunday brunch in the Hamptons, with such useful tablemates as Diane Sawyer, Mort Zuckerman, Leslie Stahl, Peter Jennings, Barbara Walters and so on.Vanity Fair (8/93) called on the great crusader at his spectacular beachside retreat in 1993 for an admiring profile. It said the interview was interrupted by telephone calls arranging the appointment of Leslie Gelb (ex-New York Times) as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and of James Hoge (ex-New York Daily News) as editor of the organization%u2019s journal. Peterson made another call inviting former Sen. Warren Rudman (R.-N.H.) to join the board of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health-policy appendage of the great health supply company Johnson & Johnson (of which Peterson%u2019s third wife is a director).Peterson told Vanity Fair he was writing about health policy at that very moment, for his second book, Facing Up: How to Rescue the American Economy From Crushing Debt and Restore the American Dream. That would be the chapter that said: %u201CThe issue isn%u2019t whether these new [universal health] benefits would be nice to have. They would. The issue is whether we can afford it. We can%u2019t.%u201DThat%u2019s our boy. His remark lends piquancy to his wife%u2019s explanation that her husband needed his $2.5 million, $1,500-an-hour helicopter to safeguard his health.The question is not whether this kind of health care is nice. It is. The question is whether he can afford it. He can.While he is reticent about his income, Vanity Fair put his take-home in 1992 at $7 million, not an excessive sum for an investment banker of his rank. His partner Stephen Schwartzman, who is regarded in the financial press as the sparkplug of their firm, the Blackstone Group, said that year that investors in its venture fund should expect returns of 25 to 30 percent during the 1990s%u2014again, not unreasonable, since the Dow Jones average rose more than 26 percent last year.Such rates of return are, again, piquant, because Peterson has described the indexation of Social Security, which lately has raised benefits by roughly 3 percent a year, as %u201Cone of the greatest fiscal tragedies of American history.%u201D Piquant? Wait. Peterson was at President Nixon%u2019s side as his economic adviser and secretary of commerce when that %u201Ctragedy%u201D was enacted in 1972. (Conservatives thought making the cost-of-living adjustment automatic would deter Congress from voting more generous benefits.)Peterson denounces the %u201Cmad, drunken bash%u201D of the Reagan years. That would be the time when the top income-tax rate was cut from 70 percent to 28 percent, military spending went sky-high, and trillions were made (and lost) on savings and loans and takeovers financed by junk bonds. He was himself, of course, making out like a bandit, hustling for his share of the action, and contributing his bit to Republican campaign funds. He also led a chorus of corporate executives who keened about the exploding federal deficit. His contribution was a key series of articles in the New York Review of Books in 1982 (12/2/82, 12/16/82) that prepared the intellectual climate for the 1983 Social Security %u201Crescue,%u201D which raised payroll taxes and lowered benefits.The series purported to prove with mathematical certainty that the entitlements of the elderly were snatching food from babies and driving the nation toward bankruptcy. George Will called it %u201Cthe most important journalism of 1982.%u201D (Washington Post, 12/19/82). Its charts persuaded such liberals as Tom Wicker and Anthony Lewis. Leslie Stahl of ABC said Peterson %u201Creally began to educate me.%u201D (She has since repaid the favor with appearances by her mentor on 60 Minutes.)All the journalists he met seemed impressed by his expertise, and by his generosity in offering to surrender his own entitlements. It does not seem to have occurred to any of his interviewers that a rise of 1 percentage point in his income tax rate would cost him perhaps twice as much as his Social Security and Medicare benefits combined. Nor have any observed how policies he has supported have transferred the tax burden from the wealthy to the wage earner. Indeed, in Facing Up, Peterson remarks with pleased surprise that nobody had clamored for a cut in the Social Security payroll tax to match cuts in benefits.If opinion-makers consider Peterson an expert on finance, experts on finance tend to consider him more of an opinion-maker. Ken Auletta%u2019s book Greed and Glory, about the near collapse of Lehman Brothers in the 1980%u2019s, describes Peterson as, in the eyes of his partners, an arrogant bungler dying to make killings in leveraged buyouts, an obsessed reactionary, a name-dropping snob, and, all told, so much a pill that his partners paid him $18 million to get rid of him.Now to return to the question with which we began: How does Peterson find the time to make all that money? It would seem to be the new-fashioned way of tapping the gusher of wealth flowing from the economy. Peterson took his severance pay to Schwartzman and formed the Blackstone Group, which played the arbitrage game, bought up failing companies, shopped the savings-and-loan auctions, and made money.A towboat operated by one of their subsidiaries and piloted by a man who had flunked his licensing exam seven out of eight times hit a railroad bridge and caused 47 deaths. Another Blackstone company drilled a hole in the Chicago River and caused that city%u2019s costliest disaster since the Great Fire. A major partner resigned last October under the cloud of an ugly scandal alleging fraud.These things happen. Peterson is a busy man. Journalists may be forgiven for not connecting him with these misfortunes, or even knowing about them. What is not forgivable is their swallowing his ideological book, line and sinker.

baraca yo-bama commented on Does Pete Peterson Look Worried? on February 2, 2008, 1:49 AM

I have to comment one more time. I've recently read both your books but I can't buy your rationale.The American economy is consumer oriented and driven by cheap credit. Thats it. The availability of cheap credit has been the driving force of this economy for well over 20 years. Albeit, the money is just created out of thin air.The other argument about savings is patently absurd. 401K/Mutual Funds have about $7 trillion invested in them. How much money would be in the "Social Security" trust fund had it not been raided. Had it never been raided, the compounded intrest would be enough to pay the so called entitlement. Its insulting to insinuate that the citezen is to blame for this mess.The theft of the American taxpayers retirement savings is the biggest swindle in the world.You wouldnt have to worry about the younger generation, had your generation done its job.

baraca yo-bama commented on why wont anyone really smart run for office? on February 2, 2008, 12:54 AM

Have you ever heard that old saying:"You are what you eat"Dumb people allow the electorate to elect.VOTE RON PAUL in the GENERAL Election. He will be there either as a Republican or Independant. Let the smart people elect a smart candidate.

baraca yo-bama commented on Re: When did you become conscious of race? on February 2, 2008, 12:40 AM

Man ! You are brlliant.

baraca yo-bama commented on Re: When did you become conscious of race? on February 2, 2008, 12:38 AM

I grew up in a relatively small town of 60k. It was a racial/cultural/economic diverse community. My public high school had students representing 149 countries. Kids whose parent's companies had transfered them over here temporarily.I was a social pot head, so I knew all the other pot heads from all the other countries, as well as my own. Reefer was a great levelizer. I wasnt concious of race at all, but I will admit I was alittle jealous of the local kids who had porche's and mazzaratti's.3 years out of high school and 3 years away from pot, I joined the military. It was a racial wake-up call. I found out that alot of black people hate white people and pretty much vice-versa. There was a high level of distrust. I grew up in a very unique situation that few can match. Because of my travels around America, long ago I realised we live in a segregated society. In America, what day is the most segregated day of the week?SundayRacism is an over used word. I think people let fear of the unknown overcome them.