Clinton’s Speech on “The Economy”: Where’s the Beef?

If you are a long-time Naked Capitalism reader, you’ll remember that we like to use our magic markers to color important speeches, both to highlight the clever use of rhetorical figures for emulation, and to call bullshit where needed. So here we have what the Times billed as former Secretary of State and Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s “first major speech on the economy” — whenever you hear “the economy,” ask “Whose economy?” — and so it’s time to break out the magic markers again.

My first reaction, when I read the transcript, was that the speech sounded specific, but wasn’t. So as an overview, I’d like to run two simple tests. First, I’ll see where Clinton uses figures. Then, I’ll look at where Clinton uses dollar signs.

Here are all the places Clinton uses the digits 0–9, in context:

$ grep -E -o ".{0,30}[0-9].{0,30}" clinton.txt

 1 For 35 years, Republicans have argue
 2 Twice now in the past 20 years, a Democratic president
 3 Nearly 23 million jobs, a balanced budg
 4 t and provided health care to 16 million  Americans.
 5 Today is not 1993 . It’s not 2009 . So we need solutions for th
 6 l businesses create more than 60 percent of new American jobs
 7 stic product by an estimated $700 billion over 10 years .
 8 e the human genome did in the 1990s and President Obama’s ini
 9 rican workforce over the past 40 years was responsible for mo
10 re than $3.5 trillion in economic growth. 
11 he United States used to rank  7th out of 24 advanced countrie
12 labor force participation. By 2013, we had dropped to  19th.  T
13 households making around $3 million a year by almost $240,000 
14 and raise lifetime incomes by 25 percent. And –
15 I’m committed to seeing every 4-year-old in America have acce
16 uality pre-school in the next 10 years. But I want to do more
17 re their own children in that 0 to 4 age group.
18 ysically formed by the age of 3. That’s why families like min
19 ek-old or a six-week-old or a 10-week-old, but we do it becau
20 ergarten, she will have heard 30 million more words than a ch
21 nearly 6 million young people aged 16 to 24 in America today 
22 of young black men and nearly 15 percent of all Latino youth 
23 panies do that, I proposed a $1,500 tax credit for every work

Now let’s categorize all each occurrence of a figure in the form of a table:

Table I: Figures in Clinton’s Economic Speech

Figure Class (example)	Occurrence Line Number
Years (“35 years,” “1993”)	1, 2, 5, 8, 9
Past Achievements (“23 million jobs”)	3, 4
Factoids, economic (“60 percent of American jobs”)	6, 7, 10, 11, 12
Factoids, income (“making around $3 million”)	13, 14
Factoids, children (“formed by the age of 3”)	18, 19, 20,
Factoids, labor (“6 million young people”)	21, 22
Programmatic, children (“)	15, 16, 17
Programmatic, other (“$1,500 tax credit”)	23

So, although Clinton’s speech sounds like it’s peppered with specifics, there are really only two programs that are specific enough to put any numbers to at all: One concerns the demographics of early learning (lines 15, 16, 17), and the other is a $1,500 tax credit for training. That’s pretty thin gruel. Where, for example, is reducing Social Security eligibility to 60, so as many old codgers like me as possible can leave the work force, and free up some jobs for the young people?

Here are the results for dollar signs:

$ grep -E -o ".{0,30}\\$.{0,30}" clinton.txt

1 estic product by an estimated $700 billion  over 10 years.
2 was responsible for more than $3.5 trillion  in economic growt
3 for households making around $3 million a year  by almost $24
4 mpanies do that, I proposed a $1,500 tax credit  for every wor

For this result, I don’t need to make a table, but for the sake of symmetry:

Table II: Dollar Amounts in Clinton’s Economic Speech

Dollar Amounts Class (example)	Occurrence Line Number
Factoids, economic (“an estimated $700 billion”)	1, 2
Factoids, income (“making around $3 million”)	3
Programmatic, other (“$1,500 tax credit”)	4

So, the $1,500 tax credit is the only program Clinton will commit to in dollars. (One might have thought a $15 an hour minimum wage might have been mentioned. Or the cost of pharmaceuticals. Examples could be multiplied.)

So, I think we’re quite justified in asking of Clinton — with Clara Peller, and as Walter Mondale famously did of Gary Hart — “Where’s the beef?” So with that context, let’s dive into the text of the speech; I’ll be color coding it as documented in the table below.

* * *

Category	Note
Secular religion	A mish-mash of phrases from the Framers, Lincoln and MLK echoes, and so forth
Bathos	Bathos is an abrupt transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace
Neo-liberal catchphrase	“Free market,” “innovation,” “hard choices” etc.
Populism	“Our most vulnerable citizens”
Bipartisan shibboleth	“The troops,” for example
Dead metaphors/cliche	“Ring the changes on,” “take up the cudgel for,” “toe the line,” “ride roughshod over,” etc. (Orwell)
Sheer nonsense	Word salad
Falsehood or truthiness	A terminological inexactitude
Equivocation	Lawyerly parsing and weasel wording
Boilerplate	“Ladies and gentleman,” and so forth.

To the transcript!

* * *

CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, President Van Zant, and thanks to everyone at the New School for welcoming us today. I’m delighted to be back.

You know, over the past few months, I have had the opportunity to listen to Americans’ concerns¹ about an economy that still isn’t delivering for them. It’s not delivering the way that it should. It still seems ¹, to most Americans that I have spoken with³ , that it is stacked for those at the top⁴.

¹ Which “Americans”? The economy is clearly delivering for some Americans, so who is Clinton’s audience? And who are Clinton’s programs going to benefit? We’ll see this equivocation throughout.

² “Seems”? Rather, is.

³ OK, so now for “Americans” we have “most Americans that I have spoken with” (not a large number, surely).

⁴ “[S]tacked for those at the top” reads a little oddly; more usual would be “stacked against those at the bottom,” but perhaps Clinton doesn’t want to categorize those not at the top as at the bottom.

But I’ve also heard about the hopes that people have for their future — going to college without drowning in debt; starting that small business they’ve always dreamed about; getting a job that pays well enough to support a family and provide for a secure retirement.¹

¹ Part of my privilege is that I grew up in a world where such things seem normal, so today’s conditions seem deviant, and I expect a reversion to the mean. Clearly, that won’t happen spontaneously.

Previous generations of Americans built the greatest economy and strongest middle class¹ the world has ever known on the promise of a basic bargain:² if you work hard and do your part, you should be able to get ahead. And when you get ahead, America gets ahead. But over the past several decades, that bargain has eroded. Our job is to make it strong again³.

¹ “Middle class” is a notoriously mushy and nebulous term.

²A “bargain” between “Americans” (or “most Americans” (“that I have talked with”) or “the middle class” and whom? “Those at the top”? A bargain between equals? An unconscionable contract? What? Again, “whose economy”?

³ Bargains are not geological; they do not “erode.” And what is “eroded” is not “made strong,” although it may be repaired or replaced. To a reader, we have language that is both hazy and curiously flat, as if it’s been worked over by too many advisors or focus groups. And does Clinton even get the social contract right? She states:

[I]f you work hard and do your part, you should be able to get ahead.

We’re in secular religion mode here, so I’ll refrain from pointing out this “basic bargain” doesn’t now and never did apply to all “Americans.” But I don’t see “getting ahead” as the only clause in the bargain. How about not being thrown away like garbage when you’re old? Or entering a job market that isn’t a wasteland of crapification when you’re young? Phillip Bobbit (hat tip to alert reader ex-PFC Chuck for reminding me of Bobbit’s Shield of Achilles) frames our basic bargain in these terms:

The “market-state” is the latest constitutional order, one that is just emerging in a struggle for primacy with the dominant constitutional order of the 20th century, the nation-state. Whereas the nation-state based its legitimacy on a promise to better the material well-being of the nation, the market-state promises to maximize the opportunity of each individual citizen.

Bobbitt further argues that “the past several decades,” as Clinton has it, has been marked by a change in the constitutional order from nation-state to market-state. And note well that Clinton’s “get ahead” formula is much closer to the latter than the former.

For 35 years¹, Republicans have argued that if we give more wealth to those at top by cutting their taxes and letting big corporations write their own rules, it will trickle down, it will trickle down to everyone else. Yet every time they have a chance to try that approach, it explodes the national debt, concentrates wealth even more and does practically nothing to help hard-working Americans.

¹ 16 of which were under Democratic Presidents, and current Republican dominance of the House and Senate beginning on Clinton’s watch. Neoliberalism is a thoroughly bipartisan project.

Twice now in the past 20 years¹, a Democratic president has had to come in and clean up the mess left behind.²

¹ Come on. Bush II was a mess — although on income inequality, supposedly one subject of this speech, Obama has been worse than Bush (2012; 2013) — but Bush I wasn’t.

²At least according to Stephanie Kelton the Clinton I surplus, of which Democrats is so proud, led to the recession in the early years of Bush II.

I think the results speak for themselves. Under President Clinton — I like the sound of that — America saw the longest peacetime expansion in our history.¹

¹ No matter the causalities, and no matter the dot com bubble — and at least we got “the Internet” out of it, instead of a continent’s-worth of McMansions — that record is why the Clintons are remembered, by some, with a degree of affection. (“Back then my salary kept going up, and I even had dental!”) The left would do well to remember that delivering concrete material benefits — the needs at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy, not the self-actualization stuff at the top — is critical; that’s why FDR put several generation’s-worth of good will on the asset side of the Democratic balance sheet (although if Bobbitt is correct, under a different constitutional order.)

Nearly 23 million jobs, a balanced budget and a surplus for the future ¹, and most importantly, incomes rose across the board, not just for those already at the top. Eight years later, President Obama and the American people’s hard work pulled us back from the brink of depression. President Obama saved the auto industry, imposed new rules on Wall Street and provided health care to 16 million Americans. ²

¹ Democrats should must abandon the view that balanced budgets and surpluses are a sign of virtue; they are not. And until they do, they will be in the policy straitjacket that they helpfully donned after people like the Peterson Institute helpfully held it for them; always a grand bargain of one sort or another; always “pay for.” How did FDR help win World War II, after all? By cutting domestic spending? With a balanced budget? Fiscal policy matters only for the effects it produces in the real economy.

² Clinton is a lot more equivocal on Obama’s record than one might expect; perhaps the Clinton campaign has in fact managed to get a dim sense of reality about what people outside the Beltway are experiencing. “New rules” on Wall Street isn’t prosecution of criminal banksters for accounting control fraud, after all; and “16 million” is a useful reminder that ObamaCare is by no means universal.

Now today — today, as the shadow of crisis recedes and longer-term challenges come into focus¹, I believe we have to build a growth and fairness economy. You can’t have one without the other.² We can’t create enough jobs and new businesses without more growth³, and we can’t build strong families³ and support our consumer economy without more fairness. We need both.

¹ There’s something about the language of this speech that really bugs me, but it’s hard to put my finger on it (and that’s perhaps by design). Granted, I’m used to parsing Obama’s “soaring rhetoric,” so I may be holding Clinton to a standard that’s too high (!). But look at those cliches carefully. First, although “crisis” and “challenge” are commensurate conceptually, and also help sound patterning by both starting with “c” (as does “come,” following them), “shadow” and “long-term” are not commensurate: “Shadow,” though a dead metaphor, at least nods toward the real-world, but “long-term” is just a stale bureaucratic formula. And we move from the space in which shadows appear, into time, the realm of the “long term,” and finally the visual field of the photographer or optometrist, with “come into focus.” I’m not sure whether these hazy, blurry transitions between incommensurates are the results of the collective speechwriting process in the Clinton campaign, or the candidate’s habits of the thought, or are obfuscatory by intent as well as in effect, but this haziness is pervasive throughout the speech. Also pervasive is lack of agency: There is a “crisis.” Why? For whom? But it “recedes.” Why? For everybody?

² Sure you can. “The economy” is growing perfectly well for the 1%. (Clinton will square the circle on what NCers call “groaf” and climate with infrastructure below.)

³ Odd, perhaps even a category error. I would have thought that jobs and new businesses (in their aggregate and including network effects) created growth, and not the other ay around. The abstract (“growth”) creates the concrete (“new businesses”).

⁴ Along with general (1) haziness and (2) lack of agency, we see a third general characteristic of this speech: (3) Unclear constituency. Of course, Clinton and the Democrats are supposed to be making a populist turn, so this claim may seem outrageous, but look at the language. The people — dare I say, “classes” — for whom “the economy” is supposed to “deliver,” were “Americans.” Then they were “Americans” Clinton talked to. Now they are “strong families.” Leaving aside the unmarried adult, for whom presumably the growth and fairness economy will not deliver, these abstractions, again, are incommensurate. The Waltons are a strong family (as Clinton surely knows well, being on the Walmart board). Will Clinton’s economy deliver for them? Deliver as the Waltons conceive it? (And it’s not an answer to say “Everybody will benefit!” The lesson Obama has carefully taught us is that everybody doesn’t benefit.)

Because while America ¹ standing again, we² are not yet running the way we should. Corporate profits are at near record highs and Americans are working as hard as ever. But paychecks had nearly budged in real terms. Families today are stretched in so many directions, and so are their budgets. Out of pocket costs of health care, child care, hearing for aging parents, are rising a lot faster than wages.

¹ There are several glitches in this paragraph: “America [is] standing,” “had nearly” for “have nearly not”, “hearing for” instead of “caring for.” I hope these are transcription or teleprompter errors.

² What to you mean, “we”? (This is another way of saying “unclear constituency.”)

I hear this everywhere I go. A single mom talked about juggling a job and classes at community college while raising three kids. She doesn’t expect anything to come easy. But if she got a raise, everything would not be quite so hard.¹

¹ I’m coloring this populist because it is (even though I share the presumed empathy).

The grandmother who works around the clock providing child care to other people’s kids. She’s proud of her work, but the pay is fairly¹ enough to live on, especially with the soaring price of her prescription drugs.

¹ Another glitch.

The young entrepreneur whose dream of buying a bowling alley where he worked as a teenager was nearly derailed by his student debt. If he can grow his business, he can pay off his debt and pay his employees, including himself, more, too. ¹

¹ Clinton’s language really improves with these examples; the haziness is gone. The plain style works for her, here.

Millions of hardworking Americans tell similar stories. Wages need to rise to keep up with cost, paychecks need to grow. Families who work hard and do their part deserve to get ahead and stay ahead¹. The defining economic challenge of our time clear². We must raise incomes for hard-working Americans³, so they can afford a middle-class⁴ life. We must drive steady income growth that lifts up families⁵, and lifts up our country. And that…

¹ Unclear constituency, and echoes of the Victorian “deserving poor.”

² Another glitch; should be “is clear.”

³ , ⁴ , ⁵. Unclear constituency.

And that will be my mission¹, from the first day I am president to the last. I…

¹ “I will be your champion” seems to have been scrubbed.

I will get up every day thinking about the families¹ of America, like the family I came from, with a hard-working dad who started a small business and scrimped, and saved, and gave us a good middle- class life. I will be thinking about all the people that I represented in New York ² and the stories that they told me, and that I worked with them to improve. I will, as your president take on this challenge against the backdrop of major changes in our economy and the global economy that did not start with the Recession and will not end with the recovery.²

¹, ² Unclear constituency. I mean, Clinton represented Wall Street banksters in the Senate, and all those banksters were very hard-working and most have families (“like” her “hardworking dad”).

² Translation: “Economies persist over time.” The parallelism, conceptual and sonic, of “Recession” and “recovery” conceals… nothing. There is nothing to conceal.

You know, advances in technology and expanding global trade have created new areas of commercial activity and opened new markets for our exports. Too often they are polarizing our economy, benefiting high skilled workers, but displacing and downgrading blue-collar jobs and other mid-level jobs that used to provide solid incomes for millions of Americans.¹

¹ Notice the difference between “high-skilled workers” and “blue collar jobs”; the first are people; the second is an abstraction. Who are the Americans who have “blue collar jobs”? Is the “single mom juggling a job and classes one of them”? Clinton does not say.

Today’s marketplace¹ focuses too much on the short-term, like second to second financial trading, and quarterly earnings reports, and too little on long-term investments. Meanwhile, many Americans are making extra money renting out a small room, designing websites, selling products they design themselves at home, or even driving their own car.² This on-demand, or so-called gig economy is creating exciting economies³ and unleashing innovation.³

¹ By which Clinton means the stock market as opposed to, say, the ObamaCare MarketPlace (or Bobbit’s “market state”).

² Unclear constituencies. Are the “Americans” who own homes in big cities and rent out rooms out “blue collar”? How about the website designers an online sellers? Maybe yes, maybe no. Presumably they are not on the Walmart board. But Clinton does not say. Oh, and the car is “their own” unless they decided to go into hock with Uber for it with a subprime loan.

³ “Exciting economies” of what? Scale?

⁴ “Unleashing innovation” is a double cliche! It’s also worth mentioning that both Uber and AirBnB enter markets by breaking local regulations. That’s called “disruption,” and is their real innovation. Otherwise, they’re about as innovative as CraigsList.

But it is also raising hard questions¹ about work-place protections and what a good job will look like in the future.

¹ Unclear constituency: “Hard” for whom? (At least in Southeast Asia, the advantage of Uber is that you get a “professional” with a phone, as opposed to a working class person with imperfect teeth and dark skin from growing up working in the fields. I imagine a similar dynamic applies in this country.)

So, all of these trends are real and none, none is going away. But they do not determine our destiny. The choices we¹ make as a nation matter. And the choices we² make in the years ahead will set the stage for what American life in the middle class and our economy³ will be like in this century.

¹, ² Whaddaya mean, “we”? I’m going to stop marking “we,” now. Presumably readers are sensitized.

³ Unclear constituency. Does “American life in the middle class” include “blue collar”? “Americans”? “Americans I have talked to”? “Hard-working families”?

As president, I will work with every possible partner to turn the tide to make these currents of change start working for us¹ more than against us, to strengthen, not hollow out, the American middle class². Because I think at our best, that’s what Americans do. We are problem solvers, not deniers. We don’t hide from change; we harness it.³

¹ Hazy. “Currents of change” don’t “work for us.” We might “navigate,” or “sail” them.

² Unclear constituency. I would have thought that “blue collar workers” were hit hardest by the “hollowing out” process, as private equity shipped manufacturing overseas, leaving industrial wastelands behind.

³ This “hide”/”harness” dichotomy/parallelism (conceptual, sonic) is about as high as Clinton’s plain style soars.

The measure of our success must be how much incomes rise for hardworking families¹, not just for successful CEOs and money managers¹ and not some just arbitrary growth targets untethered to people’s lives and livelihoods.

¹ Unclear constituency. What is it that differentiates CEOs and money managers from “hardworking families”? (Presumably also “Americans,” “Americans I have talked to,” the “middle class,” “skilled workers,” “blue collar jobs,” as well as, by courtesy, those who are not married.) What is it? What could it be? And whatever it is, do “successful” CEOs have it, and “unsuccessful” CEOs not?

I want to see our economy work for the struggling, the striving and the successful¹. We’re not going to find all the answers we need today in the playbooks of the past², we can’t go back to the old policies that failed us before, nor can we just replay the successes.

¹ A trichotomy with sonic parallelism.

² Sonic parallelism.

Today is not 1993. It’s not 2009. So we need solutions for the big challenges we face now.

So today, I’m proposing an agenda¹ to raise incomes for hardworking Americans², an agenda for strong growth, fair growth and long-term growth.³

¹ An agenda which, if we go by the speech to this point, will be (1) hazy, exhibit (2) lack of agency, and have (3) unclear constituencies.

² Which includes, or does not include, “successful CEOs”? And “families”?

³ Trichotomy with sonic parallelism (“growth”).

Let me begin with strong growth.¹ More growth means more jobs and more new businesses.² More jobs give people choices about where to work.

¹ One problem with the speech generally is the lack of signposting. When the “growth” trichotomy was introduced, it just seemed like another example of rhetorical patterning. Now, with “let me begin,” it turns out Clinton will use it to structure the speech.

² As above, Clinton reverses the causality.

And employers have to offer higher wages and better benefits in order to compete with each other to hire new workers and keep the productive ones.¹ That’s why economists tell us that getting closer to full employment² is crucial for raising incomes.

¹ Hasn’t happened so far! I will, however, give Clinton credit for saying that wages should actually be raised. No doubt there’s already panic on Wall Street.

² “Full employment” however that number may be gamed.

Small businesses create more than 60 percent of new American jobs on net¹, so they have to be a top priority. I’ve said I want to be the small-business president, and I mean it. And throughout this campaign, I’m going to be talking about how we empower entrepreneurs with less red tape, easier access to capital, tax relief and simplification.²

¹ Leaving aside whatever “on net” might mean, and leaving aside Clinton’s ready acceptance of the “job creators” concept, “more than 60 percent” is a dubious factoid, turning on how “small business” is defined. For example, a small business can employ 500 people, so Clinton’s agenda might not be relevant to the guy who wants to start the bowling alley at all. So, underneath the dubious factoid lies an unclear constituency.

² Stealing the Republican’s clothes programmatically as well as conceptually. And what the heck is the difference between “less red tape” and “simplification”? Simplification of what?

I’ll also push for¹ broader² business tax reform to spur investment in America, closing those loopholes³ that reward companies for sending jobs and profits overseas.

¹ At this point, I think I’m going to have to add a fourth characteristic to the three — (1) haziness, (2) lack of agency, (3) unclear constituencies — already mentioned: (4) Can-kicking. As we are about to see, Clinton’s agenda is no such thing. An agenda is actionable. That Clinton’s agenda — with the country in the state that it’s in — turns out to be a laundry list with no specifics whatever, despite the ginormous scale of the Clinton policy machine and the “progressive” nomenklatura should be a scandal. It won’t be, of course.

² Hazy. Broader than what?

³ Can-kicking. Which loopholes? Whose oxen get gored?

And I know it’s not always how we think about this, but another engine of strong growth should be comprehensive immigration reform.¹

¹ Can-kicking. What does “comprehensive” mean?

I want you to hear this. Bringing millions of hardworking people¹ into the formal economy would increase our gross domestic product by an estimated $700 billion over 10 years.

¹ I thought, on first reading, that Clinton meant people who have left the workforce to join System D because of Obama shrank the workforce permanently. She means immigrants, however, so apparently the permanently disemployed aren’t “hardworking people.” So, once again, under the haze we have an unclear constituency.

Then there are the new public investments that will help establish businesses and entrepreneurs, create the next generation of high-paying jobs.

You know, when we get Americans moving, we get our country moving. So let’s establish an infrastructure bank that can channel more public and private funds¹…

¹ Ah, “public-private partnerships.” Ka-ching.

… channel those funds² to finance world-class airports, railways, roads, bridges and ports.

¹ Of course, since the United States, a currency issuer, “must” balance its budget, there’s no alternative but to seek private capital for public goods. Ka-ching, and especially ka-ching for the Clinton network as it “channels” the funds. See, if Wall Street will just stop reacting, and look at how Chicago works under Rahm, they’ll see they don’t really have to worry much about the whole wage thing at all. Ka-ching. Ka-ching.

And let’s built those faster broadband networks and make sure there’s a greater diversity of providers so consumers have more choice.¹

¹ Can-kicking. How fast? Where? Who does the building? What about anti-trust?

And really, there’s no excuse not to make greater investments in cleaner renewable energy right now.

Our economy obviously runs on energy, and the time has come to make America the clean-energy superpower. I advocate that because these investments will create millions of jobs, save us money in the long run and help us meet the threats of climate change.¹

¹ Can-kicking. What on earth can “these investments” mean?

And let’s fund the scientific and medical research that spawns innovative companies and creates entire new industries, just as the project to sequence the human genome did in the 1990s and President Obama’s initiatives on precision medicine and brain research will do¹ in the coming years.

¹ Can-kicking. We don’t know what Obama’s initiatives will do, and plenty fall flat.

I will set ambitious goals in all of these areas in the months ahead.¹

¹ Can kicking. The very definition. Everything Clinton will propose in the coming months is sitting, right now, in some drawer or server at the Center for American Progress. Why not be specific now? No good reason I can think of.

But today, let me emphasize another key ingredient of strong growth that often goes overlooked and undervalued: breaking down barriers¹ so more Americans participate more fully² in the workforce, especially women.

¹ Can-kicking. What barriers? My prediction: Anything programmatic will be Dick Morris-style “small ball,” at the school uniforms level of triviality.

² Can-kicking. What does “participate more fully” mean?

We are in a global competition, as I’m sure you have noticed. And we cant afford to leave talent on the sidelines. But that’s exactly what we’re doing today. When we leave people out or write them off, we not only shortchange them and their dreams, we shortchange our country and our future.

The movement of women into the American workforce over the past 40 years was responsible for more than $3.5 trillion in economic growth. But that progress has stalled.

The United States used to rank 7th out of 24 advanced countries in women’s labor force participation. By 2013, we had dropped to 19th. That represents a lot of unused potential for our economy and for American families.

Studies show that nearly a third of this decline relative to other countries is because they’re expanding family-friendly policies like paid leave and we are not.¹

¹ Small ball. If Clinton really wants to help American women she could (a) propose a Post Office Bank so every woman could have their own bank account, and (b) propose a Jobs and Basic Income Guarantee that, in essence, would pay for unpaid housework and childcare. Those measures would help women more than anything mentioned here — and every “American” citizen, too, whether middle class or blue collar or skilled or in a family or not in a family and whether Clinton talked to them or not.

We should be making it easier for Americans to be both good workers and good parents and caregivers. Women who want to work should be able to do so without worrying every day about how they’re going to take care of their children or what will happen if a family member gets sick.

You know, last year –

– last year while I was at the hospital here in Manhattan, waiting for little Charlotte to make her grand entrance, one of the nurses said, thank you for fighting for¹ paid leave. And we began to talk about it. She sees firsthand what it means for herself and her colleagues as well as for the working parents that she helps take care of.

¹ I hate that locution. Democrats always “fight for.” They very rarely deliver

It’s time to recognize that quality, affordable childcare¹ is not a luxury. It’s a growth strategy. And it’s way past time to end the outrage of so many women still earning less than men on the job and women of color making even less².

¹ Can-kicking. What’s “quality”? What’s “affordable”? Public or private? Free at the point of service, or fee-driven?

² Can-kicking. Where’s the beef? Let’s make it easy and start with the CEOs. How does Clinton propose to ensure that men and women are equally represented in the C-suites, and “earn” the same?

You know, all this lost money adds up. And for some women, it’s thousands of dollars every year. Now I am well aware that for far too long these challenges have been dismissed by some as women’s issues.¹ Well, those days are over.

¹ Not by me (although you will note that the Post Office Bank and a Jobs and Income Guarantee really would benefit everybody, starting with the ability for a woman to leave one situation easily and seek another).

Fair pay and fair scheduling, paid family leave and earned sick days, childcare are essential to our competitiveness and our growth. And we can do this in a way¹ that doesn’t impose unfair burdens on businesses, especially small businesses. As president, I’ll fight to put families first, just like I have my entire career.

¹ Can-kicking. How do we know “we can do this in a way”?

Now beyond strong growth, we also need fair growth¹ and that will be the second key driver of raising incomes. The evidence is in. Inequality is a drag on our entire economy. So this is the problem we need to tackle. Now, you may have heard Governor Bush say Americans just need to work longer hours. Well, he must not have met very many American workers.

¹ Again, poor sign-posting. This is the second item in the growth trichotomy, though you may have missed it in the haze.

Let him tell that to the nurse who stands on her feet all day, or the teacher who in that classroom or the trucker who drives all night. Let him tell that to the fast worker² marching in the streets for better pay. They do not need a lecture. They need a raise.³

¹ Glictch. “Fast [food] worker.”

² You will note, from Table 2, that one dollar figure that Clinton does not mention is a $15/hour minimum wage. That’s a very specific policy Clinton could support in this speech. She does no such thing. What does that tell you?

³ Can-kicking. How much?

The truth is the current rules for our economy do reward some work, like financial trading, for example much more than other work, like actually building and selling things, the work that has always been the backbone of our economy. To get all incomes rising again, we need to strike a better balance. If you work hard, you ought to be a fairly¹. So, we do have to raise the minimum wage², and implement President Obama’s new rules on overtime, and then we have to go further.

¹ Glitch. “Ought to be fairly treated”?

² Can-kicking. How much?

I will crack down on bosses who exploit employees by mis- classifying them as contractors or even steal their wages.¹To make paychecks stretch, we need to take on the major strains on family budgets. I will protect the Affordable Care Act and build on it to lower out-of-pocket health care costs.

¹Can-kicking. It’s good that Clinton mentions this problems, but what does “crack down” mean? Jail time?

¹ Pathetic. Clinton claims to make decisions on evidence, and ignores single payer. And as if out-of-pocket costs were the only problem, and narrow networks, high deductibles, and asset seizure under Medicaid didn’t exist!

And to make prescription drugs more affordable.¹ We will help families look forward to retirement by defending and enhancing Social Security² and making it easier to save³ for the future. Now, many of these proposals are time-tested and more than a little battle scarred. We need new ideas, as well, and one I believe in and will fight for is profit-sharing. Hard-working Americans deserve to benefit from the record corporate earnings they help produce.

¹Can-kicking. What does “more affordable” mean? Which drugs?

²Can kicking. What does “defend and enhance” mean? How about making benefits age neutral and lowering eligibility to 60?

³Can-kicking. What does “easier to save” mean? Sounds another scheme for fees to Wall Street, to me. And if Clinton really wants to make it easier to save, a Post Office bank is a fine option.

So, I will produce ways to encourage companies to share profits¹ with their employees. That is good for workers and good businesses. Studies show that profit sharing that gives everyone a stake in the company’s success can boost productivity and put money directly into employees’ pockets. It’s a win-win. Later this week² in New Hampshire, I will have more to say about how we do this.

¹ I will await the detail, but why not take the cut from the top line, not the bottom? Especially since — as any crooked Hollywood accountant knows — the bottom line is easy to game.

²Can-kicking, albeit for a brief period.

Another priority must be reforming our tax code. Now, we hear Republican candidates talk a lot about tax reform. But take a good look at their plans. Senator Rubio’s would cut taxes for households making around $3 million a year by almost $240,000, which is way more than three times the earnings of a typical family.

Well, that is a sure budget busting giveaway to the super wealthy, and that’s the kind of bad economics you are likely to hear from any of the candidates on the other side. I have a different take…

… guided license principles¹. First, hard-working families need and deserve tax relief and simplification². Second, those at the top have to pay their fair share. That’s why I support the Buffet Rule³, which makes sure millionaires do not pay lower rates than their secretaries. I have called for closing the carried interest loophole, that lets wealthy financiers pay an artificially low rate.⁴

¹ “Take guided license principles” is surely a glitch.

² Unclear constituency (“hard-working families”). And can-kicking. What relief, and what simplification>

³ Hazy, in Clinton’s usage. The issue isn’t whether Buffet’s rate is less than his secretary’s, but what the rate for people with Buffet’s income should be. “Confiscatory” springs to my mind, though doubtless not to Clinton’s. Or how about reverting to rates under that Communist, Dwight D. Eisenhower?

⁴ UPDATE ZOMG! How could I have missed the “carried interest” principle? Well, partly because “I have supported” isn’t equivalent to “support”, partly because Clinton doesn’t give any dollar figure for revenue raised, but, on consideration, mostly because I’m uncertain taht the tax code is the right place to look for solutions here (as opposed to the criminal justice system).

And let’s agree that hugely successful companies that benefit from everything that America has to offer, should not be able to game the system and avoid paying their fair share¹ , especially while companies who can’t afford high-priced lawyers and lobbyists end up paying more.

¹ Can-kicking applause line.

CLINTON: Alongside tax reform, it’s time to stand up to efforts across our country to undermine worker bargaining power, which has been proven again and again to drive up wages.¹ Republican governors like Scott Walker have made their names stomping² on workers’ rights, and practically all the Republican candidates hope to do the same as president. I will fight back³ against these mean-spirited, misguided attacks. Evidence –

¹ Presumably Clinton means that “bargaining power” drives up wages, and not “efforts to undermine.”

² There’s only one writer I know of whose been using “stomping” together with “Walker” consistently for months. Just saying.

³ Can-kicking. Say, how’s card check coming?

– evidence shows that the decline of unions may be responsible for a third of the increase of inequality among men, so if we want to get serious¹ about raising incomes, we have to get serious about supporting union workers.

¹ Can-kicking. What does “get serious” mean?

And let me just say a word here about trade. The Greek crisis as well as the Chinese stock market have reminded us that growth here at home and growth an ocean away are linked in a common global economy. Trade¹ has been a major driver of the economy over recent decades, but it has also contributed to hollowing out our manufacturing base and many hard-working communities².

¹ “Trade,” like “growth” has no agency. Trade doesn’t drive anything. For example, “trade” didn’t “hollow out” factories. The owners and investors of private equity firms did.

² Another unclear constituency!

So we do need to set a high bar for trade agreements. We should support them if they create jobs, raise wages and advance our national security. And we should be prepared to walk away if they don’t.¹ To create fair growth, we need to create opportunity for more Americans.

¹ Not a word on loss sovereignty under ISDS. What does that tell you?

I love the saying by Abraham Lincoln who, in many ways, was not only the president who saved our union but the president who understood profoundly the importance of the middle class and the importance of government playing its role in providing opportunities. He talked about giving Americans a fair chance in the race of life. I believe that with all my heart, but I also believe it has to start really early, at birth.

High quality early learning¹, especially in the first five years, can set children on the course for future success and raise lifetime incomes by 25 percent. And –

¹ Can-kicking. Just as with child care, so with early learning. Public or private? Free at the point of service, or fee-driven? And notice that, unlike childcare, Clinton does not say that early learning should be “affordable.” What does that tell you?

– and I’m committed¹to seeing every 4-year-old in America have access to high quality pre-school in the next 10 years. But I want to do more. I want to call for a great outpouring of support from our faith community, our business community, our academic institutions, from philanthropy and civic groups and concerned citizens, to really help parents, particularly parents who are facing a lot of obstacles, to really help prepare their own children in that 0 to 4 age group.²

¹ Can-kicking. What does “high quality” mean?

²Just for the record, I don’t hate children, or women. It’s just that I don’t interpret vaguely helpful gestures as actual intent to help, as Clinton and Democrats generally seem to do.

Eighty percent of your brain is physically formed by the age of 3. That’s why families like mine read, talk and sing endlessly to our granddaughter. I’ve said that her first words are going to be enough with the reading and the talking and the singing.¹

¹ Here again, the haze disappears from Clinton’s language.

But we do it not only because we love doing it, even though, I’ll admit, it’s embarrassing, you know, reading a book to a two-week-old or a six-week-old or a 10-week-old, but we do it because we understand it’s building her capacity for learning. And the research shows by the time she enters kindergarten, she will have heard 30 million more words than a child from a less advantaged background.¹

¹ Again, I don’t hate children. And my mother read to me (the encyclopedia). So what Clinton is saying resonates with me as a private person. But not as a citizen!

Think of what we are losing because we’re not doing everything we can to reach out to those families, and we know, again, from so much research here in the United States and around the world that that early help, that mentoring, that intervention to help those often stressed-out young moms understand more about what they can do and to avoid the difficulties that stand in the way of their being able to really get their child off to the best possible start.

We also have to invest in our students and our teachers at every level, and in the coming weeks and months, I will lay out specific steps¹ to improve our schools, make college truly affordable² and help Americans refinance their student debt³.

¹, ², ³ Can-kicking. Shocking from a supposed policy wonk. What does “improve” mean? What does “truly affordable” mean? Free? What does “refinance student debt” mean? Not a jubilee, I trust?

And let’s embrace –

– let’s embrace the idea of lifelong learning. In an age of technological change, we need to provide pathways to get skills and credentials for new occupations and create online platforms to connect workers to jobs.

There are exciting efforts underway and I want to support and scale the ones that show results.

As we pursue all these policies, we cant forget our fellow Americans¹ hit so hard and left behind by this changing world from the inner cities to coal country to Indian country.

¹ Unclear constituency. Are the “inner cities,” “coal country,” and “Indian country” all “hard-working families” like the Waltons?

Talent is universal; you find it everywhere. But opportunity is not. There are nearly 6 million young people aged 16 to 24 in America today who are not in school or at work. The numbers for young people of color are particularly staggering.

A quarter of young black men and nearly 15 percent of all Latino youth cannot find a job. We’ve got to do a better way of coming up to match the growing middle class incomes we want to generate with more pathways into the middle class.¹

¹ This isn’t even kicking the can; it’s waving at it. How about a Jobs and Income Guarantee?

I firmly believe that the best anti-poverty program is a job but that’s hard to say if there aren’t enough jobs for people that were trying to help lift themselves out of poverty.

That’s why Ive called for reviving the new markets tax credit and empowerment zones¹ to create greater incentives to invest in poor and remote areas. When
–

¹ Oh no. Enterprise zones. Oh no. The one time she gets specific….

– when all Americans have the chance to study hard, work hard and share in our country’s prosperity, that’s fair growth. It’s what I’ve always believed in and it’s what I will fight for as president.

Now the third key driver of income, alongside strong growth and fair growth, must be long-term growth. Too many pressures in our economy push us toward short-termism. Many business leaders see this. They’ve talked to me about it.

One has called it the problem of quarterly capitalism. They say everything is focused¹ on the next earnings report or the short-term share price and the result is too little attention on the sources of long-term growth: research and development, physical capital and talent.

¹ Lack of agency. Who did the focusing?

Net business investment, which includes things like factories, machines and research labs, have¹ declined as a share of the economy.

¹ Glitch: Should be “has declined.”

In recent years some of our biggest companies have spent more than half their earnings to buy back their own stock and another third or more to pay dividends. That doesn’t leave a lot left to raise pay or invest in the workers¹ who made those profits possible or to make new investments necessary to ensure a company’s future success.

¹ ZOMG!!! “Workers.” Could that be the common thread between “Americans,” “Americans I have talked to,” “hard working families,” etc? Could it be that “the economy” is not “delivering” for workers? Na.

These trends need to change. And I believe many business leaders are eager to embrace¹ their responsibilities, not just to today’s share price but also to workers, communities and ultimately to our country and, indeed, our planet.

¹ Surely if this were going to happen, it would already have happened? I mean, are these business leaders somehow helpless? Shouldn’t the Chamber of Commerce be handling this, if “business leaders” wanted it handled? And please: Let’s not confuse buying the influence that the Clinton Foundation is peddling with “embracing responsibility.”

Now I’m not talking about charity; I’m talking about clear-eyed capitalism.¹ Many companies have prospered by improving wages and training their workers² that then yield higher productivity, better service and larger profits.³

¹ Hazy. Capitalism doesn’t have clear eyes; capitalists do. Lack of agency. How did capitalists lose their clear sight?

² “Workers” again. It’s certainly interesting that the term only occurs to Clinton in the context of “clear-eyed capitalism” and nowhere else.

³ Can-kicking. Presumably “companies” — Clinton nowhere mentions co-ops –stopped investing in that fashion, either because profits were higher elsewhere, or because our locust-like finance sector ate them up. I don’t see anything programmatic from Clinton that addresses this; she seems to be relying on a change of heart (“eager to embrace”) by “business leaders.” This is clear-eyed?

Now it’s easy to try to cut costs by holding down or even decreasing pay and other investments to inflate quarterly stock prices but I would argue that’s bad for business in the long run and it’s really bad for our country.

Workers are assets.¹ Investing in them pays off; higher wages pay off. Training pays off. To help more companies do that, I proposed a $1,500 tax credit for every worker they train and hire.² And I will soon be proposing³ a new plan to reform capital gains taxes to reward longer-term investments that create jobs, more than just quick trades.

¹ Actually, no. Workers are people.

² Dick Morris-style small ball.

³ Can-kicking.

I will also propose¹ reforms to help CEOs and shareholders alike to focus on the next decade rather than just the next day.

¹ Can-kicking.

Making sure stock buybacks aren’t being used only for an immediate boost in share prices; empowering outside investors who want to build companies, but discouraging cut and run shareholders who act more like old-school corporate raiders. And nowhere will the shift from short-term to long-term be more important than on Wall Street.

As a former senator from New York, I know firsthand the role that Wall Street can and should play in our economy, helping main street grow and prosper, and boosting new companies that make America more competitive globally.

But as we all know in the years before the crash, financial firms piled risk upon risk¹ Can-kicking., and regulators in Washington either could not or would not keep up. I was alarmed by this gathering storm and called for addressing the risks of derivatives, cracking down on subprime mortgages and improving financial oversight.²

¹ True, in the sense that CDOs piled risk upon risk. False, in that it ignores the role of accounting control fraud, emanating from the very same C-suites where Clinton now assures us executives are “eager” to “embrace” their responsibilities.

¹ I haven’t seen Clinton support Warren and McCain’s bill to restore Glass-Steagall, which Clinton I, under the influence of the Rubinite wing of the Democrats, signed out of existence. Like the $15/hour minimum wage, this is a very concrete proposal, already in play, that Clinton could easily support. She does not. What does that tell you?

Under President Obama’s leadership we have imposed tough new rules¹ that deal with some of the challenges on Wall Street. Those rules have been under assault by Republicans in Congress and those running for president. I will fight back against these attacks and protect the reforms we have made. We can do that, and still ease burdens on community banks to encourage responsible loans to local people and businesses they know and trust.

¹ If you think Dodd-Frank is tough, perhaps.

We also have to go beyond Dodd-Frank. Too many of our major financial institutions are still too complex and too risky. And the problems are not limited to the big banks that get all the headlines. Serious risks are emerging from institutions in the so-called shadow banking system, including hedge funds, high-frequency traders, non- bank finance companies. So many new kinds of entities, which receive little oversight at all.

Stories of misconduct by individuals and institutions in the financial industry are shocking. HSBC allowing drug cartels to launder money, five major banks pleading guilty to felony charges for conspiring to manipulate currency exchange and interest rates. There can be no justification or tolerance for this kind of criminal behavior.¹

¹ All of which happened on Obama’s watch, as Clinton fails to mention.

And while institutions have paid large fines and in some cases admitted guilt, too often it has seemed that the human beings responsible get off with limited consequences or none at all, even when they have already pocketed the gains. This is wrong, and on my watch it will change.¹ Over the course…

¹ Can-kicking. Change how? What will be the “consequences”? Clinton mentions “criminal behavior,” but mentions nothing about criminal behavior on Wall Street that led to the Crash; if any Clinton staffer has gotten this far, see the link to “accounting control fraud” above. What about crimes for which the statute of limitations has passed? How about a Truth Commission for that?

… over the course of this campaign, I will offer plans¹ to rein in excessive risks on Wall Street and ensure that stock markets work for everyday investors², not just high-frequency traders and those with the best or fastest connections. I will appoint and empower regulators who understand that too big to fail is still too big a problem. We will ensure…

¹ Can-kicking.

² “Everyday Americans” has apparently been abandoned, but now we have “everyday investors.”

We will ensure¹ that no firm is too complex to manage or oversee. And we will also process² individuals as well as firms when they commit fraud or other criminal wrongdoing.

¹ Can-kicking.

² Hazy. “Process” is not the same as “indict and convict.”

When the government recovers money from corporations or individuals for harming the public, it should go into a separate trust fund to benefit the public¹ . It could, for example, help modernize infrastructure or even be returned directly to taxpayers.

¹ Bad idea, even if punishing the crooks makes it sound good. Ferguson’s law enforcement for profit movie did not end well. Law enforcement for profit will not end well at the Federal level, either.

Now, reform is never easy, but we’ve done it before in our country, and we have to get it right this time. And yes, we need leadership from the financial industry and across the private sector to join with us.

Two years ago, the head of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Terry Duffy¹, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that really caught my attention.

¹ Fortunately, Gawker comes to our rescue. “Wall Street Guy Writes a Bunch of Hilarious Lies”. For example:

2. “As the U.S. economy slowly recovers, maybe working in finance will also recover some of its attraction for graduates. But I worry that it won’t—that Wall Street has suffered reputational damage, thanks to a few bad actors.”

Ouch.

He wrote, and I quote, “I’m concerned that those of us in financial services have forgotten who they serve and that the public knows it. Some Wall Streeters can too easily slip into regarding their work as a kind of moneymaking game divorced from concerns of the Main Street,” unquote.

I think we should listen to Terry Duffy.¹Of course, long-term growth is only possible if the public sector steps up as well.

¹ UPDATE And I think I know why. Bloomberg:

Duffy may be a registered Republican, but he is a Clinton supporter as well. He endorsed Clinton in her 2008 run, saying, “We need a president like Hillary Clinton who understands the important role that financial markets play in our global economy.” He added, “Like no other candidate, Hillary Clinton crosses party lines to combine the visionary leadership and pragmatic problem-solving skills that this country needs in its President.” He gave the maximum contribution of $4,600 to her 2008 campaign.

Ka-ching!

So it’s time to end the era of budget brinkmanship¹ and stop careening from one self-inflicted crisis to another. It’s time to stop having debates over the small stuff and focus how we’re going to tackle the big stuff together.²

¹ It’s actually time to end the era where government is like a household, but you’d never know that from Clinton.

² Like TPA?

How do we respond to technological change in a way that creates more good jobs than it displaces or destroys? Can we sustain a boom in advanced manufacturing? What are the best ways to nurture startups¹ outside the successful corridors, like Silicon Valley?

¹ Startups aren’t nurtured. They’re funded, mostly by all the free money that’s sloshing about from QE.

Questions like these demand thoughtful and mature debate from our policymakers and government, from our leaders in the private sector, our economists, our academics, others who can come together to the table and on behalf of America perform their patriotic duty to make sure our economy keeps working and our middle class keeps growing.

So government has to be smarter, simpler, more focused itself on long-term investments than short-term politics and be a better partner to cities, states and the private sector. Washington has to be a better steward of America’s tax dollars and Americans’ trust. And please, let’s get back to making decisions that rely on evidence more than ideology.

That’s what I’ll do as president. I will seek out and welcome any good idea¹ that is actually based on reality².

¹ Except single payer, which must never be mentioned. Billions of dollars to save the country, thousands of lives, works in Canada…

² “Alternate reality.” Fixed it for ya.

(LAUGHTER)

I want to have principled and pragmatic and progressive policies that really move us forward together, and I will propose ways to ensure that our fiscal outlook is sustainable, including by continuing to restrain health care costs, which remain one of the key drivers of long-term deficits.

I will make sure Washington learns from how well local governments, businesses and nonprofits are working together in successful cities and towns across America.

You know, passing legislation is not the only way to drive progress. As president, I will use the power to convene, connect and collaborate to build partnerships that actually get things done, because above all, we have to break out of the poisonous partisan gridlock and focus on the long-term needs of our country.

<blockquote

I confess, maybe it’s the grandmother in me, but

I believe that part of public service is planting trees under whose shade you’ll never sit¹ , and the vision I’ve laid out here today for strong growth, fair growth and long-term growth all working together will get incomes rising again, will help working families get ahead and stay ahead. That is the test of our time.

¹ I actually like this…

And I’m inviting everyone to please join me to do your part. That’s what great countries do. That’s what our country always has done. We rise to challenges. It’s not about left, right or center; it’s about the future versus the past.

I’m running for president to build an America for tomorrow, not yesterday, an America built on growth and fairness, an America where if you do your part, you will reap the rewards, where we don’t leave anyone behind.

Thank you all. Thank you. I just want to leave you with one more thought. I want every child, not just the granddaughter of a former president or former secretary of state, but every child to be able to reach for her God-given potential. Please join me in that mission — let’s do it together.

Thank you all so much.

* * *Dearie me. That wasn’t easy. Sorry to takeaway has to grow organically out of the text, but when Clinton speaks, watch for:

1) Haziness: What does this mean?

2) Lack of agency: Who’s responsible?

3) Unclear constituencies: Who benefits?

4) Kicking the can: What’s the program?