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Hello, Hillary? Hate to wake you, but it's 3 o'clock in the morning, and we have a real crisis. It's your campaign, senator. It's Hail Mary time. You've lost the bid for a revote in Florida and, it seems, in Michigan, which means your prospects for prevailing over Barack Obama in the primary popular vote by June are vanishing fast. The Illinois senator, meanwhile, has just delivered a JFK-like speech on race in America--a savvy move that may well have stanched the hemorrhaging of his campaign over the controversial remarks made by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. The mood could be...

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Higher U.S. taxes are inevitable in order to reduce soaring budget deficits because foreigners will not finance U.S. shortfalls forever, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said on Thursday. "You cannot solve the nation's fiscal problems without increased revenues," Rubin told the Economic Club of Washington, adding that he did not believe U.S. economic activity would suffer if such action was taken. "I think if you were to increase taxes right now, you would have probably about zero negative effect on the economy," Rubin told a questioner after a dinner address to about 200 people.

If John Kerry becomes President he will find himself on the horns of a dilemma - which close friend to ditch when he chooses a new Secretary of State. According to today's Washington Post, Kerry would pick his national security team within a few weeks after winning the White House and two of his closest friends, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) or Richard Holbrooke reportedly want the job of running the State Department.

It was harsh enough when former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin last weekend called on fellow Democrats to reject President Bush's proposed bipartisan commission on curbing runaway entitlements. It was all the more stinging because six weeks earlier, at a White House dinner, Bush had made a personal appeal for Rubin's help on the project. ... For Bush to make a third try at a bipartisan commission signifies the triumph of hope over experience. The Social Security and tax commissions were dominated by former Democratic senators (the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan and John Breaux, respectively) who came up with products that...

Harvard University is ordered to pay back over $20 million to the US government as part of a settlement deal resulting from a multi-million dollar scam. Two Harvard employees are also ordered make restitution bringing the total settlement to $31 million. Two senior Harvard University advisors, Andre Shleifer and Jonathan Hay were paid under a US Agency for International Development grant to lead a project to provide advice to the nascent Russian economy on privatization following the fall of communism and the creation of fair and open markets and the rule of law. The US Attorney's Office alleged that instead,...

By Joan Veon May 3, 2005 NewsWithViews.com At the spring meeting of the IMF/World Bank in Washington, D. C. it was announced that a number of countries will be used to test a $1 tax on airline tickets. This global tax idea has been around for the last twenty years and is now back as a tax that would be relatively easy to put in place. Furthermore, an “International Financing Facility” for immunization will also be set up on a test basis. How could we be this far? For the last ten years I have followed the topic of global...

What a difference a news leak from the Federal Reserve makes. Ever since this newspaper ran its December 2 page-one article, "Fed View Shifting on Inflation: Rate Rises Likely," the world's leading indicators of future prices have been heading back down. David Malpass of Bear Stearns points out that gold has since dropped to $434 or so from a peak of $456, oil is back down to $41 a barrel and the dollar has been firmer in currency markets. Amazing how that works: The Fed finally signals that it is going to print fewer dollars, and inflation expectations begin to...

John Kerry’s Economic Advisor, Robert Rubin, will be on CNBC's "Closing Bell" today and will hopefully respond to current Nobel Prize Winning Economist Edward Prescott's critique about the negative impact of the Rubin tax increase during the Clinton administration made yesterday on CNBC's "Street Signs." Robert Rubin is the former Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton and Chairman of Citigroup’s Executive Committee. Prescott also called for further marginal rate tax cuts to increase employment and federal revenues which is generally considered opposite of Rubin's call for tax increases as the approach to restore fiscal soundness. Rubin feels this is...

With markets at last recovering from the turn-of-the-century crash and the attacks of September 11, it is an opportune time to debate America's future in a rapidly changing world economy. America's establishment of liberal economists and media pundits, however, are joining in a cramped new nationalism that jeopardizes the future of American technology and prosperity. Like reactionary jingoes of the past, they are priming John Kerry with the delusional view that the U.S. and its workers are somehow victims of global trade and capital movements.... In a popular image, "Benedict Arnold CEOs" are seen to be offshoring factories and outsourcing...

"My family is more important to me than my party," declared  Senator Zell Miller, a Georgia Democrat, as he spoke from the podium of the Republican National Convention on September 1. "There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush." [1] Many Democrats howled in outrage at Miller's "betrayal" - former President Jimmy Carter in particular. In an angry personal letter to the Georgia senator, Carter accused Miller of "unprecedented disloyalty" and declared, "You have betrayed our trust. [I]t's quite possible that your rabid speech damaged our party..." [2] But...

Rhetoric  JOHN KERRY: “It’s time for a President who understands that a stronger America begins at home. It’s time to stop rewarding companies for shipping jobs overseas …” CHYRON: John Kerry. CHYRON: Stop shipping jobs overseas.  The Facts  Outsourcing Not Cause Of Major Job Loss Only Two Percent Of Layoffs Were Due To Foreign Outsourcing. “Shifting jobs overseas accounted for only a tiny fraction of U.S. job losses in the first three months of the year, according to a first-ever report released … by the Labor Department. … About 2 percent of the major layoffs in the first three months of the...

MEMORANDUMFROM: BC'04 POLICY DEPARTMENT John Kerry’s economic adviser, Robert Rubin, appeared on ABC’s “This Week” show with George Stephanopoulos yesterday.  Contrary to Kerry’s claims, Rubin confirmed that Kerry’s proposed tax increase on U.S. companies competing abroad would not stop outsourcing.  Rubin said outsourcing is good for our economy and part of trade liberalization.  He outlined several steps for an international trade agenda – all of which President Bush is already doing.  Rubin never mentioned Kerry’s agenda of economic isolationism. Rubin said outsourcing is not a problem, that instead it’s beneficial and good for our economy: RUBIN: “It's part of trade liberalization, and trade...

ABC'S GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: “Senator Kerry has said that he would take away the tax break that allows companies to not pay taxes as they as long as they keep the income overseas. Will that stop the outsourcing problem?”  KERRY ADVISOR ROBERT RUBIN: “No, I think that outsourcing is part of a much larger issue. It's part of trade liberalization, and trade liberation, as Senator Kerry has said and President Clinton used to say, is very much beneficial to our economic well being ...” (ABC’s “This Week,” 9/12/04)STEPHANOPOULOS: “It sounds like outsourcing isn’t that big a problem for the economy.” ...

...Democrats are afflicted with the Curse of Robert Rubin. They think that Mr. Rubin persuaded Bill Clinton to boost taxes in 1993 and that, while the move was unpopular (it helped cost Democrats control of both houses of Congress for the first time in four decades), the tax hikes cut the deficit, which, in turn, reduced the "crowding out" of private investment by government borrowing, which, in turn, drove down interest rates.... Unfortunately ... there is no correlation between budget deficits and interest rates. In fact, no sooner did Mr. Clinton sign that tax legislation than interest rates began a...

THEY are a motley team, the four members of John Kerry's war room for economic policy. Remember Roger C. Altman, the high-ranking Treasury official in the early Clinton years, forced out for being too loyal to his boss in the Whitewater investigation? He is one of them. Gene Sperling, a White House insider in all eight Clinton years, is another. Then there are two less-known 30-somethings: Jason Furman, a Harvard-trained economist, hired so recently that he is still working out of his Greenwich Village apartment, and Sarah Bianchi, who was Al Gore's policy adviser in 2000 and is now Mr....

<p>Robert Rubin will never admit it, but the recession that began in the third quarter of 2000 was the direct result of the Clinton administration's attempt to pay down the federal debt. The Clintonites did this, you'll remember, by leaving tax rates high enough from 1995 to 2000 so as to direct a larger and larger share of the surge in growth of personal income to be paid in federal taxes. In the four quarters from the second quarter of 1999 to the second quarter of 2000 individual income tax receipts of the federal government increased by 11.4% -- exactly twice the 5.7% growth rate of personal income.</p>

Who are the G7 finance ministers? Posted: February 10, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Joan Veon© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com BOCA RATON, Fla. – To most people the G7 finance ministers are just a bunch of guys who get together throughout the year and talk over the economy, but it is not just the U.S. economy – it is the global economy. In order to understand their position of power, we must go back to August 1971 when President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. The Group of Seven first met in 1973, two years after Nixon severed the last attachment the dollar...

Bob Rubin Print Mail All Wet By James K. Glassman Posted: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 ARTICLES Washington Times Publication Date: January 22, 2004 Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary, is back and he's everywhere. He's written a book. He's delivered a paper before the prestigious American Economic Association. He's giving loads of TV interviews. Among Democratic candidates who realize the election will turn on the economy, he's a popular guy. His endorsement is worth more than anyone else's even Clinton's. He could be the next Fed chairman. There's a lot to like about Bob Rubin, who is a graceful, intelligent...

<p>In his newly published memoir, Robert Rubin recalls the day in October 1997 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 554 points. He was U.S. Treasury secretary, and a lot of people felt he should come out of his office and say something, but really he didn't want to.</p>

Investigative magistrates are threatening to stage a direct confrontation between two of the alleged masterminds behind the Parmalat scandal this week in an attempt to trace €10bn ($12.6bn) estimated to have disappeared from the bankrupt dairy group. Investigators in Parma on Monday subjected Fausto Tonna, Parmalat's veteran chief financial officer, to a day-long grilling. They are expected on Tuesday to turn to Gian Paolo Zini, Parmalat's chief legal counsel who helped set up many of the foreign and offshore companies now under scrutiny. If there are discrepancies between their testimonies, investigative magistrates are expected to organise a direct confrontation between...