Bernie Sanders 2016 Feel the Bern!

I have nothing to say to those first two questions you put forth. They are dramatic and don't answer anything I was asking. Not everyone is trying to fight here.

To the last question, I agree there is a lot of money wasted in finance, but a lot of the excesses have been pushed out. It is cheap and sometimes to free to invest and the expense to own a huge portfolio of stocks is very cheap compared to 20-30 years ago due to the rise of exchange traded funds. I did some very quick Google research and didn't see a chart that showed finance as a percentage of GDP, but I do know that the financial sector as a percentage of the S&P 500 has declined (from about 22.5% to 16.5%) since the bubble popped.

You could make that argument if you think inefficiency and being stuck in the past is great. You could make that argument if you want to turn people in automatons that are simply processing payments rather than innovating and using their free college education that Bernie is paying for. We don't need to send people to college if you think there is an argument to employ millions of people as billing clerks. New jobs in new industries will develop.

To your point about traders, the vast majority of traders don't make money. It's not an ATM .

Lastly, I am not 100% gung ho pro stock market. I honestly don't even know what purpose it serves anymore other than a way for owners of privately held companies to cash out. There is a lot of waste and bs that public companies have. Trying to satisfy people with quarterly earnings reports is kind of silly and often counterproductive to running a successful and innovative business. Further, privately held companies now have access to very liquid debt and pre-IPO markets to grow their businesses rather than taking them public. Also, the guys at the top of the public companies often don't have skin the game for the long term success of since they do not own the company.

 

I agree 100% that it would increase competition and likely the flow of money in our economy. I tell everyone that is in the market for a loan to go to a credit union over a big bank. Big banks are clumsy and terribly inefficient. The new financial regulations aren't really the best either. They frustratingly annoying to deal with.

And I've read through this list on his site before, but I'll go thru it.

I support these. Financial institutions need to be properly capitalized to exist. Part of the issue back during the crash was the institutions that had insane leverage ratios. However, I don't know how you start the break up of extremely large financial entities.

This is a silly and uninformed proposal. He equates high speed trading with something risky while not realizing it has helped reduce trading costs and improve liquidity. Both of which are beneficial for investors and markets. If he wants to tax "Wall Street" then he should just raise the dividend and long term capital gains tax rates to regular income tax. That would be much more effective and would eliminate those loopholes.

No problem with this I guess, but how many bank executives leave their jobs to work in the government? I don't really know.

I don't even know what this means, but it sounds rah rah **** you Wall Street speculators!!!

Sure whatever I don't care. It will just mean less credit cards. Maybe a good thing, maybe a bad thing. I don't know. Go for it Bernie let's see what happens.

No problem with auditing the Fed. They have a lot of money. They made a **** load of money during the bailout. I'm genuinely curious what is going to happen to that money.

Cool.

What bankers got rich from the taxpayer bailouts? I guess that point sounds cool, but I think they were busy getting their asses handed to them when the market was crashing. They made their money before the bailouts happened and had no skin in the game after the ****ty businesses they built collapsed.

 

I'm sure Bernie is feeling great tonight.

I like some of his ideas, and I'm open to listening when he really decides to be specific. I just don't know if he can win a general election.

Nearly winning Iowa is one thing. Bringing America home is another.

I'm not a big Hillary fan whatsoever, but as of now, my views align more closely with hers than Bern's. But, equally important, I think she has a significant lead in the electability factor, even if Sanders thinks it bogus.

Interesting night.

 

If Hillary ends up being the nominee, she will need to ask Sanders to be the vp. The enthusiasm created by Sanders is real and must not be ignored for general election purposes.

 

I'm more than certain Sanders would not accept being VP..given Clinton's campaign is funded by a SuperPac with the interests in mind to benefit those billionaires and corporations' interests.

Furthermore, Democratic nominee or not Sanders isn't backing out of the election with the steam he is building. He'd run Independent. He's already hinted at Elizabeth Warren being his VP, which is ****ing fantastic. She's exactly the economics genius (former Harvard professor) that Sanders really needs too support his ideas, with the calculations and numbers.

 

As a famous Texan said, "the Vice Presidency isn't worth a warm bucket of piss".

The Bernie revolution is the anti-Clinton 'politics as usual' machine. He has never gone along to get along. He would never parrot policies he didn't believe in. That's why we support him so passionately.

The VP will probably be O'Malley.

 

I highly doubt it. Besides ideological differences as others have noted Clinton in her late 60's isn't going to have Sanders in his mid 70's as VP. Most likely she will pick someone who is younger with that person likely going to be groomed as the next generation standard bearer for the Democrats.

This is highly highly speculative but I suspect there might be something going on behinds the scenes with Elizabeth Warren. As much as the Sanders supporters expect Warren to support him because of ideology Warren has been remarkably silent so far. Months ago Warren met privately with Clinton and then decided not to run. It wouldn't surprise me if some deal had been reached between the two for Warren not to run in exchange for a position in a future Clinton admin..

 

I don't think OMalley is going to get the VP nod. He didn't register in the race this time and he's a white guy from Maryland that has some issues with the black community in the wake of recent Black Lives Matter movements.

 

I disagree; he brings nothing to the table. He was polling within the margin of error nationally and is from a reliably blue state.

Julian Castro would seem like the perfect VP for Hillary; a young, Hispanic, campaign surrogate who was already propped up by the party at the last convention. If she goes up against Marco Rubio, Castro would seem like a good choice.

If, against all odds, Bernie wins the nomination, I can see Elizabeth Warren as his VP.

 

You can keep on hoping that Congress will suddenly turn around but even a Sanders and Warren ticket won't translate into a pliable Congress. If you're pinning your hopes on that they will cow Republicans in congress, especially as it is likely to still be a Republican led Congress. I have some 2016 Timberwolves NBA championship jerseys to sell you.

A lot of this primary sounds like Deja Vu all over again as I remember the same things being said about Obama in 2008. I will say though that a Sanders' Admin. is likely to more ideologically pure than an Obama Admin. (as I said then we didn't really know much about Obama.) I doubt though that it will be more successful and likely less.

 

Julian Castro seems very likely but even if it isn't him it's probably going to be someone like him.

 

You might be right, but after the bad blood that will ensue between the Hillary and Sanders supporters, it will take some magical potion to heal open wounds. In 2008, it took Bill Clinton to come out and throw his support for Obama after his wife lost the nomination.

Hillary is no Obama. The latter was well liked, so in a way, it was rather easy for the enemy to come over. I am not so sure how the Sanders supporters will feel after it is all over.

 

Thank you. You win at google search glynch.

Did you happen to read or browse through the first paper you linked? It was interesting.


edit...


Also, I found some more up to date/post crash info about the financial services sector that put it at around 6.4% of GDP in 2012 after revisions were made.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c1ec53b4-a938-11e3-9b71-00144feab7de.html#axzz3z1jIZOfe

 

He needed to win Iowa and didn't .... not sure he is feeling great.

 

An almost tie here is as good as win considering how much longer the Clinton campaign had been in the state. Iowa is a state that rewards a ground game and retail politics. That is largely how Cruz won on the Republican side and Obama beat Clinton in 2008. Clinton not wanting to repeat the same mistake as 2008 built a large organization in Iowa but that was barely enough. Sanders was able to translate a campaign built on large rallies into turning out supporters at the caucus. That has a lot to do both with the enthusiasm that he generated and also that his organization did things like bus students back to their home districts to participate in caucuses to spread his support.

I'm sure Clinton will take a very very narrow victory over defeat of any form but Sanders rightfully should feel that this win gives him a boost and bodes well.

 

I think a lot of this will have to do with who the Republican side. Liberals and progressives might also want to consider what happened in 2000 when enough defected to Nader to tip the balance to GW Bush.

 

Her views align with whatever will get her the most votes. Make no mistake about it, the woman has no conviction. Unless those are the views you have in common with her.

 

Sanders is the only candidate from either party that I would vote for right now and I'm far from a left wing nut.