Obama Doesn’t ‘Begrudge’ Bonuses for Blankfein, Dimon Update1 – Bloomberg.com

Feb. 10 Bloomberg — President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.”

via Obama Doesn’t ‘Begrudge’ Bonuses for Blankfein, Dimon Update1 – Bloomberg.com.

via Obama Doesn’t ‘Begrudge’ Bonuses for Blankfein, Dimon Update1 – Bloomberg.com.

News Analysis – A Decade of Enormous Deficits May Alter American Politics and Power – NYTimes.com

Mr. Obama has published the 10-year numbers in part, it seems, to make the point that the political gridlock of the past few years, in which most Republicans refuse to talk about tax increases and Democrats refuse to talk about cutting entitlement programs, is unsustainable. His prescription is that the problem has to be made worse, with intense deficit spending to lower the unemployment rate, before the deficits can come down.

Mr. Summers, in an interview on Monday afternoon, said, “The budget recognizes the imperatives of job creation and growth in the short run, and takes significant measures to increase confidence in the medium term.”

He was referring to the freeze on domestic, non-national-security-related spending, the troubled effort to cut health-care costs, and the decision to let expire Bush-era tax cuts for corporations and families earning more than $250,000.

But Mr. Summers said that the long-term projections of deficits were “not sustainable,” and that “through the budget and fiscal commission, the president has sought to provide maximum room for making further adjustments as necessary before any kind of crisis arrives.”

Turning that thought into political action, however, has proven harder and harder for the Washington establishment. Republicans stayed largely silent about the debt during the Bush years. Democrats have described it as a necessary evil during the economic crisis that defined Mr. Obama’s first year. Interest in a long-term solution seems limited. Or, as Isabel V. Sawhill of the Brookings Institution put it Monday on MSNBC, “The problem here is not honesty, but political will.”

via News Analysis – A Decade of Enormous Deficits May Alter American Politics and Power – NYTimes.com.

via News Analysis – A Decade of Enormous Deficits May Alter American Politics and Power – NYTimes.com.

News Analysis – A Decade of Enormous Deficits May Alter American Politics and Power – NYTimes.com

By President Obama’s own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 — years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms — they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. His budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water.For Mr. Obama and his successors, the effect of those projections is clear: Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors. Beyond that lies the possibility that the United States could begin to suffer the same disease that has afflicted Japan over the past decade. As debt grew more rapidly than income, that country’s influence around the world eroded.

via News Analysis – A Decade of Enormous Deficits May Alter American Politics and Power – NYTimes.com.

via News Analysis – A Decade of Enormous Deficits May Alter American Politics and Power – NYTimes.com.