It's frankly ridiculous at this point to discuss whether these are good ideas. These are tried and tested ideas in perfect incubators: less rich countries with tens of millions of people in them. In Germany's case we're talking about 80 million people. When you give something basic to everyone, the government is virtually powerless to ever take it back. On a per capita basis, the US has more money to do it minus the war money. The backstory here is: how the F are people saying a richer country can't afford what a poorer country can afford, and can benefit from? Where is all that money if you're so rich? Are you spending a much more insane amount of your GDP on war, defense, bribing foreign officials, nation building, assassinations where the results are skewed towards better business opportunities for those who have already ransacked your country for money? Income is going to the wealthiest, spending on war is mind boggling on a world history level, assets are hoarded outside the country, debt is being forced onto the middle class and the poor, jobs are being shipped out to people with lesser rights hence lesser demands. Wealth redistribution must stop now. You guys are on the brink. They used debt for decades to patch it up. Now your credit card is maxed out, student debt can't be negotiated, and your mortgage is always 8-10 years away from going belly up. You can't afford any more wealth to be redistributed to such a tiny percent of people. You can't afford for the Kochs to keep getting fossil fuel subsidies while students wallow in desperation. You can't keep living in a world where CEO's provide a bit more value to the economy but get paid literally hundreds of times more than everyone else. You can't afford the vacuum created by reckless stock traders who assume things will work themselves out in the long term if asset value is optimized the moment their commissions are maximized. Well, you can afford it if you restructured your economy. You just can't afford to do it with someone like Hillary who will keep the pillars steady for those engaging in class warfare against you for decades. You can keep diving slowly into the same mistake empire after empire made. Thanks to human progress and (as glynch's article describes) a stroke of luck, there's another option. You can have another golden age, like you did for decades after FDR's new deal. You don't recognize it because you didn't experience it. Neither did I. But the more I look into the context of it, the more I realize that wow, that was revolutionary. Centrists were saying the same things most people are saying now, and right wingers were as furious as they are now. Look what ended up happening. Decades of prosperity. It was possible, although even the strongest of believers had doubt creeping into their heads. "Is it imaginary? It has virtually never happened ever in history." Why could it happen? The big businesses would tear it apart immediately they said. People would get greedy and money would be wasted they said. Almost shockingly, a lot of those negatives did happen, but they were dwarfed by the resulting positives. People weren't applying a fair weighting to the positive vs negative benefits it turned out. The British empire and the empires before them were less generous as a function of social progress. This could be a historic moment in the world, a galvanizing time for the globe although you may not see it right now. It could transform Europe which has for years been sitting on the fence, playing tug of war with their oligarchs. England will follow suit, southern Europe will do the same soon after. This is bigger than Hillary's obsession with being President. Americans have a chance to build on Obama's work and take a bigger step forward. Hillary can deliver part of what Obama did, but Bernie can deliver a once in a lifetime huge step. Nothing will be fixed overnight, there will be a lot of pain a lot of stress, but the destiny of your country can IMO change under Bernie, and the downside is he'll deliver Hillary-lite reforms. Do we want to start talking about the downside of a Hillary presidency? How much more likely is another major war under Hillary? Man. You guys have to be fed up with that.
Mathloom, that was a great post! Will rep you once I get on my desktop. Myself and my beautiful wife will caucus on behalf of Senators Sanders today. The status quo is indeed unacceptable, as represented by the Bushes and Clintons. Indeed, there is a reason Bernie and Trump are doing do well --- people are fed up.
I don't know exactly what you think I do on a daily basis but I really don't spend that much time on the markets and what I do read about the markets is simply news. The bulk of what I read is not short term trading related stuff. Btw you sound like the republicans and my dad who constantly complain about the news media being biased against them. I will read some more from nakedcapitalism. They had an interesting looking article about the Chinese yuan peg. However I did a search for Bernie on their site and I saw about 8 stories in a row that were only pro Bernie. I'm guessing that is why you accept the news from this site versus others. I think I've been pretty clear with my viewpoints. I've explained them to you multiple times, but you seem not to accept them. I'm pretty open minded and my view points are not set in stone. They are pretty dynamic and I will change my mind if I see good info. The problem with Bernie is he only seems to be wanting to throw money at problems. All of these plans he has effectively cost the same as they do under our current system it is just another source supplying the funds. Btw Glynch if you get bored and want to read a good book about some of the real problems with American healthcare then check out Overdosed America. I'll even buy it for you.
At some point we need to talk about what's going to happen when/if the Sanders campaign faces real scrutiny from opponents more hostile than the DNC. I've seen it suggested that his numbers, especially among independents and socially conservative democrats, would absolutely crater if the Republicans ever start ramping up the attacks against him that they've heretofore reserved for Hillary. So far the Dems have been playing reasonably nice. It probably would hurt Hillary more than help if she were to run a seriously negative campaign against Bernie. But the Republicans are holding back for very different reasons, IMO. While I'm a Sanders supporter, and I think he'd beat Trump easily, I do think that Rubio would be a really, really tough matchup for him in the general. And the idea of a Rubio presidency should terrify Democrats just as much as the thought of a Cruz presidency. Marco's just as nuts. He just has the advantage of NOT being universally despised by Beltway Republicans.
I think the GOP is going to crush both candidates. No matter who it is running. Cruz or Rubio would make both look awful in a debate setting.
This is absolutely true, but there's also much to be said about how many Americans just START to tune in to these things when it reaches the national level. He is still a relative unknown to most Americans and I feel like he might achieve a higher turnout than Obama did in his first campaign. New voters always lean heavily to the left, will be hard to beat. He's doing shockingly well against the more known republicans right now, which is a promising sign. We'll have a clearer picture though when the republican pool shrinks to a smaller size.
Cruz would do well in debates, but the Republican primary is already opening a lot of peoples eyes with regards to his slimy character. He's so extreme, and has so little support within the establishment, that I suspect he'd have a reverse-Romney effect and keep a lot of moderates away from the polls, even against Sanders. Rubio's a bit of a lightweight on the debate stage. He'd be a tough out in a national election, but his oratory skills wouldn't be what wins him an election.
lol come on now, no one is going to out debate Bernie. Let's not get carried away. He's virtually impenetrable to personal attacks and his positions are far more aligned with the American people than anything a right wing establishment candidate has to offer. I don't know if you're noticing, but he is really crushing Hillary in post debate polls. It's easy to miss because major networks are reporting otherwise (shocking right?) despite what voters are saying, but he really dominates these things. Don't let the hair fool you. If those guys have a chance against Bernie it will be because of money. I think people need to start acknowledging that IF Bernie is able to beat Hillary, it will mean that all the traditional means of skewing votes will have become severely weakened and Republicans are the last people who would be able to adapt quickly. Think about it for a second. Right now, Bernie is struggling in 3 areas: really old people, strong advocates of gun control and minorities. Two of those 3 are going to become positions of strength to him. Can you even imagine a debate where one guy is pushing to expand the ACA and the other is pushing to repeal it? The alarm has sounded on that stuffed, ACA is the minimum and it's very very popular.
Hilary is awful in debates. Obama ripped her to shreds last go at it. I think people underestimate Rubio's intelligence and speaking ability. There is no Chris Christies anymore willing to commit voter suicide in order to make someone look foolish. Fox has a financial expert on claiming Bernie's free handouts are going to increase the middle class's taxes by 10+% when its all said and done. How are people going to rally behind that? Heck how do you rally behind someone who thinks almost all law enforcement is corrupt? I don't get it. Free hand outs sound nice, but I have a feeling it won't be very free.
I see the issue here. Thing is, more Americans believe Obama is a very good debater. You're obviously entitles to your opinion that Obama is bad at it, but we're talking about how it will play out to voters. Obama is really really good, like historically good if you take into consideration the donation and voter turnout records he broke and how easily he discarded of a sure-fire candidate in Hillary early on. McCain was never going to mount a challenge after that. So for Obama to beat Hillary doesn't make Hillary bad. It just means she's not in the same class as Obama or Bernie. There is a reason why big crowds come to these people's rallies (including Trump) - there's a big difference between being a good public debater and being right about everything. People went to Obama and Trump and Bernie rallies because these guys know how to talk. Unless you are under the impression these debates are not largely pre-planned? Because they are. There are agreements and there are gentleman's agreements. They know the topics, they have prepared the answers as much as possible. These are not open ended debates where anything can happen. It's mostly about strategy and showmanship, and Bernie is really almost unintentionally good at it. And it shows. Humans know. Humans can tell. They know what Rubio and Hillary are and they ACCEPT that, because they believe it's fair in this kind of competition. That's fine. Bernie's going to increase taxes and lower your overall expenses. That's fine with most people. People care about their lives, their kids, their bills, their jobs, their home, their future. They care about what they can afford to buy. Most people are not in an existential war with an ideology. Someone comes up to you and says they are taking 10% from you in taxes and eliminating 30% of your expenses. Today Americans are really desperate, they're not in a position to NOT take that deal. Any capitalist would take it, given it doesn't weaken their ability in future negotiations. People are getting poor man, especially voters (typically not rich people). I won't even bother getting into the issue of accepting a fox financial report about bernie Sanders. They were giving head to the former chief of goldman sachs on tv a few weeks ago, these are not people interested in your well being. In fact if Fox is saying 10%, I would be relieved. The real figure is then certainly going to be less than 10% and you will not pay for education or medical again. He's not going to raise taxes for something which hasn't passed yet. Why wouldn't anyone take that deal? I don't know where you get the idea he thinks all law enforcement is corrupt. This is a formey mayor, he knows full well that law enforcement is a difficult and necessary job. He's saying there is a lack of regulation, and a distorted focus on smaller crimes when there are bigger criminals left unchecked. Now, that's his opinion, and not yours probably, but I'm just stating for the record, he's said in several recent speeches how much he values law enforcement and how he wants to link it more to the communities in which they're enforcing laws. There are no free handouts. Someone is going to pay for some of it (middle class) but more importantly, there are some people who need to refund a lot of money to you. He's going to be collecting that for you, and giving it back to you in the form of healthcare and education among other things. That's going to pay for most of it, and it should. Here's a great safety net: this guy doesn't take pac money, he doesn't owe people anything. He's not going to have a long illustrious career as a lobbyist or advisor, he would have done so already if he wanted it. The democrats are turning on him so you know he's not about establishment democrats taking on republicans, and he has a good record getting bipartisan stuff done. I'll repeat again though, your concerns are valid and it's hard to come to a strong conclusion when media and people with access to popular media are so dominated by big money interests. The news is a joke, and people on social media are generally not representative of everything that's going on. Takes a lot of digging and I find myself digging continuously cause I can't find a 100% comfort level about being reasonable about my position.
Niiiiiice! I sent in my $27 the other day. The site was moving at a crawl, I suppose from all the traffic. It took like four hours for them to process my donation. Hope he pulls it out today. Health care single payer, Reagan's boondoggle war on drugs, student debt, minimum wage, rip off drug prices, middle class murdering trade deals, etc. It's well past time these ideas were pushed to the forefront of American politics.
The Young Turks annoy me frequently and lean too heavily in their analysis towards Bernie, but they do a good job of covering stuff and it's interesting to hear what they believe and their past experiences. You can watch live right now if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ9kC3RHJPM The guy on the far right is very level headed, I like his analysis.
Well, we are still here. Our precinct is in a high school. Long lines. We preregistered so they quickly placed us in a classroom. 30 people, 20 for Sanders, 10 for Hillary. I live in the Southwest portion of Las Vegas, mostly a mixed community.
Not looking good right now. She's up 3% with half of the votes in. Back to hating on super delegates.
as far as i can tell this is pretty much over. bernie needed this state. is there any chance at all bernie could be the VP nominee? or is that out of the question.
Fox News calls Nevada for Hillary Clinton. Firewall holds. Looks like the 90's are back in style in the Democrat party!
Lol, The last time somebody believed this, Hillary ended up pegging the entire House Benghazi Tinfoil hat committee on the Hill for an entire day. I would love nothing more than Cruz v Hillary. Massive electoral beat down.
I don't particularly like Hilary, but what she did that day was damn impressive. Meanwhile the likes of Trump are complaining that the debates were too long.
