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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Tue Jul 8, 2014, 06:36 AM Jul 2014

SPIEGEL Interview with Hillary Clinton: 'Surveillance on Merkel's Phone Was Absolutely Wrong'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/hillary-clinton-interview-on-german-us-ties-and-presidential-plans-a-979812.html



In an interview, Hillary Clinton discusses the growing gap between the rich and poor that threatens democracy, Americans' discontent with politics, her regrets over NSA spying on Chancellor Merkel's mobile phone and her potential presidential candidacy.

SPIEGEL Interview with Hillary Clinton: 'Surveillance on Merkel's Phone Was Absolutely Wrong'
Interview Conducted By Marc Hujer and Holger Stark
July 08, 2014 – 11:34 AM

~snip~

SPIEGEL: American society is polarized as never before. The French economist Thomas Piketty wrote a bestseller "Capital in the Twenty First Century" which is making a lot of noise right now. Have you had the chance to read it?

Clinton: I haven't read it yet. I've read very long essays about it and know what his principal point is. I think he makes a very strong case that we have unbalanced our economy too much towards favoring capital and away from labor. And I agree with his principal concern, which is that we have devalued labor. He talks about Europe, but it is the same thing in the United States.

SPIEGEL: Piketty argues that the growing gap between the rich and the poor is threatening democracy.

Clinton: I do agree with that. We've had this huge experiment known as America that was a diversity of populations, and we have held it together because we had a democracy that slowly over time included everybody. Even during the Great Depression people in the streets believed that they could make it and they would be better off. Now the relative wealth is much higher, but the disparity makes people believe that they're stuck. They no longer believe that things are going to get any better, no matter how hard they work. People have lost trust in each other and the political system and I think that's very threatening to democracy.
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