s meet the press and greenspan first of all he was asked about the conservative you know the republican's argument that the tax cuts for the rich need to stay in place because they even though add forty billion to the deficit that they'll pay for themselves well greenspan first says they do not i'm very much in favor of tax cuts but not with borrowed money and the problem that we have gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money tax cuts with borrowed money and at the end of the day that proves disastrous yes the borrowed money has simply been shuttled off to off balance sheet entities and it's not included in the national statistical reporting about let's say g.d.p. people don't realize it for every dollar of g.d.p. that has been grown in the u.s. economy the past fifteen to twenty years has taken more and more units of dollars of debt to the point where just recently something like ten dollars of debt was needed to just create one lousy dollar of really you can't even call it g.d.p. really because the interest on the debt is now getting to be bigger than any the

greenspan, the dow. an important barometer.s you said before on this program because there's real money there. are we out of the woods in the sense that dow 10,000 plus you think is here to stay? >> i wish i could answer that one. it's critical issue because as you point out and as i've always believed, we underestimate the impact of stock prices on economic activity. asset prices are having a profoundly important effect and created the extent of the contraction globally and collapsed the value of collateral system and disabled finance. we have come all of the way ck, maybe more than halfway, it's had a positive effect. i don't know where the stock market is going but i will say this. that if it continues higher, this will do more to stimulate the economy than anything we've been talking about today or anything anybody else was talking about. >> final political point, mayor bloomberg. congressman rangel, should he stay in his job or step aside? >> it's not good for new york. he was going to be a poweul representative that could

. >> we have seen none other than allen greenspan testify in front of congress in 20 8:15 a.m. and 8:45 in 2008. he found a flaw and when allen greenspan, the high priest of free market finds a flaw we should take it seriously. if the pope went on tem vision and said god i made him up. we would be a little surprised i think. >> never mind go ahead. i'm sorry. >> but when allen greenspan says there is something in the free market that is wrong, that greed doesn't necessarily lead to the best of all possible world's, we should take him seriously. >> he admitted that and everybody knows this. how are we going to change this? because i see the powerful who are the ones who are the movers and shake kers who do this are the ivy league people. they have the ivy league degrees in their resume's and they seem to be the ones who have, who are the haves who have the power and then there is the rest of us dancing as fast as we can to put food on the table. it is not the $150 plows. >> what be need is organized political change in this country and certainly demanding from our representative

louise greenspan who is a endocrinologist here in san francisco.hank you for being here. >> you're welcome. >> can you tell us what a endocrinologist does. >> a endocrinologist takes care of hormone related illness. i take care of kids can issues of peburty and >> what are you seeing in the kids . i know it is a huge problem. >> we are seeing diabetes, sleep apnea. they get so much fat in the tonsils and it blocks their airway at night. they can get a hip fracture where they need a hip fracture in adolescent . it is associated with depression and mental health problems. >> it is something we shouldn't ignore. the trick is how to get them to eat healthy food with all of the fast food out there? >> exact low. - exactly. >> i have limited the weet drinks. they should not be drinking anything with sugar in it except for milk and water. those should be their main beverages . limiting the juice and no juice is the best . should eat their fruit . veggies. >> my kids know that juice and soda. juice is in the same category as cookies and candy as cake. >> h

alan greenspan, to his enormous credit, but it was the political operation that fixed it. that was done by it dan rostenkowski and tip o'neill. what we're talking about in 2010, the overriding and driving and organizing principle of conservative candidates is no compromise, no politician in any way. that in itself is an act of treason. the senate candidate from nevada, colorado, across the board, this is what you are talking about, not the kind of climate that is necessary for that kind of problem lies. >> i thi he is right. the system will not break before it gets -- the system will have to break before it gets fixed. neither side will compromise the way they did and the good old days just 20 or 30 years ago. on the health care reform law that was passed, they took a shot and trying to fix some of the medical costs. we will see if the reforms do any good. if they don't, we have to wait until the system collapses upon us. >> colby, trawls fixed social security for us. can you fix medicare? -- charles fixed social spirit for us. can you fix medicare? >> in one minute? >> i

uh, i think the extent to which greenspan, for instance, you know, the turn that greenspan put that came along, uh, there was a belief that if you got into too much trouble, you would sort of be bailed out. >> roger, did we miss the signals, did we ignore the signals, was it purposeful that we ignored the signals? >> some of it was purposeful. you know, we came out of the high-tech bubble, uh, and we had a big collapse in business investment. and the dollar was relatively strong and so imports were cheap. and exports were draggling--straggling, struggling. and so we had a big deficit. and basically, the best chance for getting out of that uh, economic slump, was through housing. and so basically, all policies were designed to try to promote more home building and more uh, shall we say, activity in housing. and that included very cheap money by the fed, it included regulatory forbearance on what was happening in the mortgage market in terms of liar loans and sub-prime mortgages, people getting big mortgages at zero down payment. these things didn't exist before. uh, i think that uh, i don

no concerns about the economy he has no concerns about a housing bubble he was an architect with greenspan of the fed's policy saying you know what we really don't see any housing bubble at all he was right there right there with greenspan in two thousand and seven in july of two thousand and seven and right before the credit markets froze up within weeks he said i don't see any of the some prime build up spilling over into the markets literally as what he said weeks later it spills over into the markets even in two thousand and eight when we already had this friday markets freezing up and they went through this whole process of billing out bear stearns he and geithner were saying really we don't see that these things are going to extend much further sure the economy's nor it going well so trying to manage confidence i would argue that that's their job too well that's what they say their job is to me is confidence but it's one thing to manage confidence another thing to just straight up be wrong and you know if they knew it was if they knew that the economy was not going to be growing if t

former fed chairman allen greenspan has cautious words about the economy.he bloomberg business report straight ahead. >> critical backup as soon as tonight. see what's ahead coming up. >> and university of san francisco saying good-bye to single-use water bottles. up next what the school is doing to encourage students to go reusable. >> astronauts are being asked to perform an eme [ male announcer ] fact -- no pain medicine is proven to last longer than advil. not tylenol. not aleve. nothing lasts longer than advil. pain relief that lasts. one more reason to make advil your #1 choice. caltrate delivers 1200 mg of calcium plus vitamin d to help reduce your risk of osteoporosis. it's never too late for caltrate. and now big news -- the same caltrate comes in a new, smaller, easy to swallow pill. >>> welcome back. here's a look at your california forecast. look at the clouds. they keep the coast cool. eureka and big sur in the 60s. sunshine arounds l.a., 82. san diego 72. upper valley 90s. sacramento 91. not bad tahoe, 78. yosemite, the lower levels, 107 for t

on "meet the press" former federal reserve chairman alan greenspan said washington should let those tax cuts expire to reduce the deficit. he disagreed with republicans who say tax cuts help pay for themselves. >> tax cuts would borrow money. at the end of the day that proves disastrous. >> reporter: unemployment numbers come out friday and greenspan does not expect much improvement this year. he said economic uncertainties have put the recovery on hold. >>> pelosi said she is not nervous at all of the possibility that democrats could lose their house majority. she said yesterday she is confident about how far the democratic party has come, where it's heading and what that means for the u.s. >> you know what? i'm speaker of the house. i have a great chairman of the democratic congressional campaign committee, chris van holland. we have a solid plan of messaging, mobilizing the grassroots level and management of our campaigns. and we have a 2-1 advantage money-wise. we feel confident about where we are. >> pelosi also downplayed complaints about her hyper partisan atmosphere in washingto

this i'm relying on what chairman greenspan said. if you're accusing him of washington games, he said tax cuts that around paid for they are not cutting the deficit. they're not paid for. it's borrowed money. do you believe tax cuts pay for themselves or not? >> i do believe that we've got to get more money in the hands of small businesses and american families to get our economy going again. the only way to get that economy going again is to do that and get arms around the spending. >> all right. one of the ways you talk about getting your arms around spending was something you suggested back in june. that is that social security, the retirement age, ought to be raised to the age of 70. is that something that the gop will campaign on in the fall? >> david, i think it's time for the american people to have an adult conversation about the problems that we face. these entitlement programs serve tens of millions of americans and are critically important. we know that these programs are unsustainable in their current form, and i really d

. >> what about people like alan greenspan who says that you know he very much favors these tax cuts that you know not with borrowed money. >> i saw alan greenspan speak at aspen and why he is depressed because he doesn't think this congress is capable of reducing expenditures. he may be right that this but alan greenspan is old enough to remember we have elections every two years and we are not stuck with this congress forever. and this november, this is an opportunity to change the house house and/or the senate to stop the bleeding. that doesn't mean you turn everything around with one house or the other. you can't perform things if you don't have 60 votes in the senate and majority of the house and president but you can't stop the bleeding. and as we saw in 1994, when the republicans took the house and senate with the capacity to stop new bed things, that alone was fairly helpful in turning economic growth around and getting stronger economy. so, we have been talking about spending. on the other side, if you open the door to tax increases, you never get the spending restraint, bec

. >> alan greenspan said we're in a pause in a recovery and that's not what the country can afford so for obama it's really tricky. >> a deeper question about the people behind these numbers. does it really reflect some people who have been out of work for a very long time and who are -- who just are no longer looking for jobs and aren't being counted and isn't that group now swelling? >> well, that's right. and that's why the unemployment rate, even though we lost 131,000 jobs, the unemployment rate stayed fixed at 9.5%. the only reason that's possible is because so many people actually gave up looking for work. they're not counted in the unemployment numbers that we count statistically. so they're out of the work force altogether. but they're going to be voting in the fall. so those people are experiencing a lot of pain right now. gwen: we saw an interesting thing happen in the senate which they passed a jobs bill that was targeted toward state and local employees. which is -- which is one of the -- the segments that took a big hit according to these latest numbers. and then the hou

already fallen into the early stages of a long depression really and even former fed chairman alan greenspan saying a double dip recession can't be ruled out so here to discuss this so-called recovery with me is derek thompson from the atlantic now derek first of all welcome to the show thank you for being here. what do you make of timothy geithner's argument welcome to the recovery first of all i didn't say that. you know what is his case for optimism do you buy it you know i don't buy it i think an analogy here is useful and it's a cliche but i think it's useful cliché. the recession was an inferno right to threaten to consume this building and here came the firefighters with tarp and the stimulus and the bank stress test and they put out the fire but all we have is we have a house that has a charred kitchen a second floor that's about to crumble on top of the first floor and the firefighters welcome the people in the house back and they say welcome to your home it just it doesn't make a lot of sense the house about to fall apart if nothing else is done to it so. it was just in your forecl

federal chair allen greenspan, mike bloomberg and pennsylvania governor ed rendell. >>> plus, high unemploymentethics scandals. our round table on the president's tough political challenges. all this morning on "meet the press." >>> thanks for making us a part of your morning. our next newscast is tonight at 5:00. "meet the press" with david gregory is next. have a great sunday.

alan greenspan on this program august 1st said the following. watch this. >> look, i'm very much in favor of tax cuts but not with borrowed money. the problem that we've gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day that proves disastrous. my view is i don't think we can play policy here. >> you don't agree with republican leaders that say tax cuts pay for themselves? >> they do not. >> the cbo made it clear that the long-term picture for the economy, for the deficit, is very dark if you extend the bush era tax cuts without somehow paying for them. >> what we're talking about here is tax increases in the middle of a recession. we are going to have the third year in a row under this administration of an annual deficit of more than $1 trillion. that's not because we're taxing too little. it's because we're spending too much. >> senator, you are being unresponsive to a question. are tax cuts paid for going forward or is it borrowed money at a time when you and other rep

. >> what about people like alan greenspan who says that you know he very much favors these tax cuts that you know not with borrowed money. >> i saw alan greenspan speak at aspen and why he is depressed because he doesn't think this congress is capable of reducing expenditures. he may be right that this but alan greenspan is old enough to remember we have elections every two years and we are not stuck with this congress forever. and this november, this is an opportunity to change the house house and/or the senate to stop the bleeding. that doesn't mean you turn everything around with one house or the other. you can't perform things if you don't have 60 votes in the senate and majority of the house and president but you can't stop the bleeding. and as we saw in 1994, when the republicans took the house and senate with the capacity to stop new bed things, that alone was fairly helpful in turning economic growth around and getting stronger economy. so, we have been talking about spending. on the other side, if you open the door to tax increases, you never get the spending restraint, bec

our economic roundtable with alan greenspan and ed republican dal about why recovery feels so much like recession. >> we'll be watching "meet the press" later on nbc. thanks very much. >> thanks. >>> up next on "today," summer of sharks. sightings on both coasts have beaches cd d beachgoers on edge. we'll fish out fact versus fiction right after this. by more doctors. only miralax is clinically proven to relieve constipation with no harsh side effects. miralax is the only one. restore your body's natural rhythm with miralax. [ female announcer ] start your morning... hey. what are you doing up? i thought i'd take a drive before work. want to come? [ female announcer ] or make his day. yeah. [ female announcer ] maxwell house gives you a rich, full-flavored cup of coffee, so you can be good to the last drop. [ female announcer ] maxwell house gives you a rich, full-flavored cup of coffee, have you tried honey bunches of oats with real strawberries? wow. it's seriously strawberry. they're everywhere. it's in the bunches, on the flakes, even real strawberries in the mix. can i have some mo

states where we have for decades condoned asset bubbles and turned the other cheek, whether it's alan greenspan or ben bernanke under the false presumption that we can always clean up the mess afterwards, china's quick. they move aggressively. they build firewalls between asset markets and the real economy. so last april it was very clear to them there was a very serious property bubble building in luxury housing in 10 to 12 coastal cities. they imposed really tough administrative measures on multiple home purchased by speculators and they've stopped dead in the water. and they've stopped before they ended up distorting the real economy, unlike the case of the united states where we not just allowed our property and credit markets to form bubbles but we allowed those bubbles to infect the real side of our economy. we're going to be paying a price for that as the japanese are for years and years to come. >> rose: what did they do in china about this... the tension between on the one hand growth and on the other hand climate change and pollution and all those things that they are aware of are app

yesterday, alan greenspan says all of them should be allowed to expire. as you know, the president wants the tax cuts for the wealthiest americans to expire as well. are you willing -- i know you want to extend all the tax cuts, but in order to do something about the debt and deficits, are you willing to tie the extension of the tax cuts to some kind of specific long-term commitment to reduce the debt and reduce the deficit? >> okay. as you know, george, for four years i helped balance the federal budget, and we paid off $405 billion in federal debt while cutting taxes. it was done by controlling spending. i don't think this president will control spending. i don't think the democrats in the hos anill ng. so they want the right to thgst rd i history, more than any teenager in america and then turn ad and tell the rest of us we have to pay for their credit card. i think to raise taxes on people who create jobs in the middle of a 9.5% unemployment rate is, frankly, crazy. it's going to increase the number of unemployed americans because the people the presi

alan greenspan was asked about it over the weekend. here's what he had to say. >> i've never seen anything like this. i've been in and out of wall street since 1949. and i've never seen the type of animosity between government and wall street. >> there does seem to be something of a cold war between the president and wall street right now. and i spoke to several wall street executives recently. some who supported the president in the past. and they all use exactly the same phrase. he turned on us. >> we had a deep obligation, the president did, to reform, to fix what was broken. there's nobody here or across the country, that would argue that our system worked. that would argue, it was not broken. so, our job was to make sure we put reforms in place to prevent a crisis from happening again. >> no apologies for the reforms? >> we're in a moment where people are still deeply unhappy about what happened to this country. we have to earn back all of us, the confidence of the american people. where you need oversight, the government's going

paul volcker fought it and defeated it successfully in the early 1980's and alan greenspan was vigilant about it. but deflationary, that is actually quite terrifying. it is the idea that the fed will just keep pushing on a string and things will keep falling in price. it visited japan several times over the past 20 years and it is really where we sum for an economy our size -- especially after this epic intervention by the fed reserve. host: a tweet -- we are talking about the economy. next is a call from sacramento. this is bill, independent line. good morning, you are on the air. caller: sorry, my minutes went out and my btery went down. i am right on top of what is going on. i and a statistician. not an economist. i deal with analysts' and i -- vetting of projects. what i am following in the media, when you bridge the gap between the old ways and what they need to be, what the new ways are, that is where jobs are not being found. i am content -- contacting a gentleman again who is in a very good position to change waste. if you take waste management and turn it around and put it in u

greenspan, i agree, it is slow growth, a disappointing recovery, one of the slowest since world war ii. >> doctor johnson, you are a member of the cbo panel of economic advisers. i am sure you have predicted that economic growth will fall by 1.4%, if the 201 and 203 tax relief is allowed to expire. why does cdo expect that it will slow down our economy? cbo expect that it will slow down our economy? i am looking to get it going faster. i want everyone to realize cbo is the independent scorekeeper here. you expect a 1.4% decrease. >> i am only on the panel, and not responsible for -- >> >> i did not say that, but maybe you can explain. >> if you are worried about stimulus, you could look at other ways to stimulate the economy -- >> i have looked at them. >> i would expect and support continuing tax cuts. >> kentucky has a $2 billion shortfall, out of an $18 billion budget out of a two-year period, and they are coming to the government for $240 million. are you kidding me? so there budget can be balanced? what if all 50 states did the same thing? >> senator, we are obviously in a difficu

paul volcker fought it and defeated it successfully in the early 1980's and alan greenspan was vigilant about it. but deflationary, that is actually quite terrifying. it is the idea that the fed will just keep pushing on a string and things will keep falling in price. it visited japan several times over the past 20 years and it is really where we sum for an economy our size -- especially after this epic intervention by the fed reserve. host: a tweet -- we are talking about the economy. next is a call from sacramento. this is bill, independent line. good morning, you are on the air. caller: sorry, my minutes went out and my battery went down. i am right on top of what is going on. i and a statistician. not an economist. i deal with analysts' and i -- vetting of projects. what i am following in the media, when you bridge the gap between the old ways and what they need to be, what the new ways are, that is where jobs are not being found. i am content -- contacting a gentleman again who is in a very good position to change waste. if you take waste management and turn it around and put it in

sound -- to go write rules that said you could only make sound investments, and bernanke and alan greenspan just refers -- refused to do so. you have such an inside the beltway mentality right now that there is a lack of and accountability -- a lack of accountability on the part of these regulators. the ultimate accountability, though, rest with the american public. if the american public does not like the javed congress is doing with it again -- the job that congress is doing with a catalytic, then both about. -- if the american public does not like the job that congress is doing with accountability, then vote them out. the caller is absolutely right, the banking regulators today when this job. in the original bill that senator dodd put out for consideration in november of last year, it would have changed that. it would have eliminated some of these banking agencies. it would have created a new and single agency with better cars. and more accountability -- with better powers and more accountability. the banking industry came in and lobbied very heavily. at one point, they were spending ton

believe he said before he became the other quick point before i ask my question is as far as alan greenspan pointed out robert giggs and saying he needs to revise, recently has nothing on his issues. if he should be called out for his conduct. i have seen very little criticism on the left concerning the racial policy scam that is being played with maxine waters and charlie rangel saying that they are being called out on ethics violations because they are african-american. . . if you don't serve him he won't be president is sort of asking to give them a license to, you know, support pharma and boeing just as the republicans looked to the war on terror. i think it's an unfortunate game that both parties are playing. i think it's the people that are getting trapped in the middle of it. host: next call for jane hamsher -- i'm also thankful for another television wen tv. unfortunately our various networks have worked together to -- what the corporations wants for us to know as american citizens. i think all of the racial congressional republicans, democrats, independents, arguments are just trai

greenspan, i agree, it is slow growth, a disappointing recovery, one of the slowest since world war iioctor johnson, you are a member of the cbo panel of economic advisers. i am sure you have predicted that economic growth will fall by 1.4%, if the 201 and 203 tax relief is allowed to expire. why does cdo expect that it will slow down our economy? cbo expect that it will slow down our economy? i am looking to get it going faster. i want everyone to realize cbo is the independent scorekeeper here. you expect a 1.4% decrease. >> i am only on the panel, and not responsible for -- >> >> i did not say that, but maybe you can explain. >> if you are worried about stimulus, you could look at other ways to stimulate the economy -- >> i have looked at them. >> i would expect and support continuing tax cuts. >> kentucky has a $2 billion shortfall, out of an $18 billion budget out of a two-year period, and they are coming to the government for $240 million. are you kidding me? so there budget can be balanced? what if all 50 states did the same thing? >> senator, we are obviously in a difficult pla

greenspan, i agree, it is slow growth, a disappointing recovery, one of the slowest since world war ii. >> doctor johnson, you are a member of the cbo panel of economic advisers. i am sure you have predicted that economic growth will fall by 1.4%, if the 201 and 203 tax relief is allowed to expire. why does cdo expect that it will slow down our economy? cbo expect that it will slow down our economy? i am looking to get it going faster. i want everyone to realize cbo is the independent scorekeeper here. you expect a 1.4% decrease. >> i am only on the panel, and not responsible for -- >> >> i did not say that, but maybe you can explain. >> if you are worried about stimulus, you could look at other ways to stimulate the economy -- >> i have looked at them. >> i would expect and support continuing tax cuts. >> kentucky has a $2 billion shortfall, out of an $18 billion budget out of a two-year period, and they are coming to the government for $240 million. are you kidding me? so there budget can be balanced? what if all 50 states did the same thing? >> senator, we are obviously in a difficu

the democratic speaker of the house, and they supported a commission headed by then-chairman alan greenspan that promoted reform on the tax side and spending on social security. it was able to put back several decades of difficulty with our social security program. we can do this again. social security is in very good shape for the next two decades, but then we're going to have a mismatch between our projected spending in the tax revenue coming in. but it is very fixable. it is fixable. we just need tough decisions on both sides of the political aisle. so, it has got to be done simultaneously. to pick one out alone is not the way to do it politically. you have to have a bipartisan commission that signs on with the leadership of both parties. you have president reagan on the republican side. speaker o'neill on the democrats' side. you have to agree, we will not attack you for this element of or that element in it. it improve the situation for several decades. we can do it again. host: what if unemployment does not get that low? what if it stays or maintained that the current level? guest: th

alan greenspan, former chairman of the federal reserve, said last week there's tragic unemployment and the recovery that he sees is more limited. there's still a housing crisis out there. very difficult to make the argument that things are really moving forward when there's still such a huge weight on people's shoulders because of joblessness. >> let's get to this proposition 8 story. the federal judge who overturned that law says basically that there is no rational basis in sing ring oling out gay, men an lesbians for denial of a marriage license. david axelrod says president obama opposes gay marriage but supports equality for gay and lesbian couples. he got 70% of the gay vote in 2008. is he going to have to reconsider his stance or revise his stance on this issue? >> well, if he believes that political imperative, he certainly got through the election without changing that stance. he writes in his own memoirs, he may be on the wrong side of history on this. neither he nor hillary clinton supported gay marriage, but they did support equal rights. and he opposed proposition 8. even t