The Collapse of America? The Dire Message of Mr. David Walker

reply to post by hotrodturbo7


[edit]

Peter G. Peterson Foundation
In 2008, Walker was personally recruited by Peter G. Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group, and former Secretary of Commerce under Richard Nixon, to lead his new foundation. The Foundation distributed the documentary film, I.O.U.S.A., which follows Walker and Robert Bixby, director of the Concord Coalition, around the nation, as they engage Americans in town-hall style meetings, along with luminaries such as Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan, Paul Volker and Robert Rubin.

Peterson was cited by the New York Times as one of the foremost "philanthropists whose foundations are spending increasing amounts and raising their voices to influence public policy." In philanthropy, Walker has advocated a more action-based approach to the traditional foundation: “I do believe, however, that foundations have been very cautious and somewhat conservative about whether and to what extent they want to get involved in advocacy.”

David Walker was hand picked by Peter Peterson to replace him as the head of Peter G. Peterson Foundation which is who he is speaking for in the video. The video I posted of Peter Peterson from 1984 is the same thing David Walker as Peter's replacement is saying now.

This is so old. He resigned, I think right before the economy tanked last year? I blogged about him over a year ago. I mean, this stuff is still important, but I'm pretty sure there is at least one old thread hanging around from before.

Okay, I found one, but it wasn't as active as this one, go figure.

[edit on 15-9-2009 by AmethystSD]

Originally posted by JBA2848
www.nytimes.com...

“The Education of an American Dreamer” ,Peter G. Peterson

At 83, Mr. Peterson is a child of the Depression, but his résumé puts most modern-day multitaskers to shame. He is a self-made billionaire and philanthropist as well as a former ad executive, manufacturing mogul, Wall Street financier and secretary of commerce. What distinguishes this book from most memoirs by business titans is Mr. Peterson’s ability to mix insider tidbits with humor, painful self-revelation and candid skepticism of the Eastern establishment that eventually welcomed him as a tuxedo-wearing member.

He says he was expelled near the end of freshman year for “borrowing” portions of a class paper from Roy Cohn (later a right-hand man of Joseph McCarthy). Sobered, he later graduated from Northwestern and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Admitted to being a cheat.

In 1970, two Republicans, Douglas Dillon and George Shultz, lured Mr. Peterson to Washington, where he became a special economic adviser to President Richard M. Nixon and later was commerce secretary. He says he bridled under the “Palace Guard” led by H. R. Haldeman. After a “deepening estrangement from the White House,” he left the Commerce job in 1973, before the Watergate scandal upended the administration.

In so deep yet knows how to abandon ship clean as a whistle.

Mr. Peterson is both overly modest and a bit too sketchy in accounting for his business success, which he repeatedly attributes to “pure dumb luck.” In fact, he demonstrated a rare gift for combining his pioneering market research statistics with keen insights into human behavior in analyzing business and political issues.

Sketchy about details of how he made his money and says its pure dumb luck?

The point of my post is that this post with your description Peter Peterson is not germaine to this topic whatsoever.

reply to post by AmethystSD


I agree, nobody was trying to hear it in 2006. Too busy jamming on Ipods and driving Daddy's Mercedes or something.

reply to post by hotrodturbo7


Well that is a perfect discription of the shoes hes wearing because that is shoes he is filling and hand picked to put the shoes on.

Originally posted by JBA2848
reply to post by hotrodturbo7

 

Well that is a perfect discription of the shoes hes wearing because that is shoes he is filling and hand picked to put the shoes on.

I understand where you are coming from, but I think the point you're trying to make is a stretch, without doing a side-by-side comparison of Peterson vs. Walker.

Show me where Walker and Peterson have done the same things in the same situations and I would call it valid.

I have heard Mr. Walker speak several times (he was the keynote speaker at Association of Government Accountants conferences). Even before the current economic crisis, he was warning that US spending was on an unsustainable path. He is not a gloom and doomer - he is warning us of what the truth is. He was, in essence, a "guardian of the books" when he was comptroller general of the US. Nobody would listen to him. Now I think it is way too late...