"We need to transform this economy"
Bernie Sanders is emerging as shaping this democratic primary field. Something he says a lot, in response to nearly every question, is "we need to transform this economy".
In the questions related to Trump comments about Baltimore, somehow, he says something like, "Donald Trump's comments are racist, we need to beat him, and do what we can to transform this economy".
It's not new that he repeats himself, but, in his policy arguments, this statement is constantly used as a conclusion to set his overarching agenda.
What do you think it means and what should be the response to this rhetoric?
Statements that convey no meaning don't warrant responses. Let him blow smoke.
Statements like this are the best we have for assessing fit for office and policy stance. Most campaign policy plans don't show a lot of detail, just broad overtures. Maybe you're right, in that it will never materialize, but I think this is one of those ones where if he/another democrat wins, it will almost certainly materialize throughout his administration.
What will materialize though? What are we even talking about? I hate that shit. What does he think he's saying is what I'm curious about. Does he even know or did some team of PR people just decide that's an adequately vague statement where nobody can call a bluff on it and you can't say he didn't keep his word because that's all it is - words, no meaning at all.
I get why broke dummy Lefties cling to statements like that. It's more a battle cry than a conveyance of meaning or intent. It's yelling, 'I'm tired of being powerless! Big Pappa is gonna get in office and give my people power!' It's never happened. The idiot masses can never have true power. They haven't even mastered their own lives.
Bernie sucks. Can't believe I actually supported him last election. Yang Gang all the way.
Oh yeah I like that guy a lot. He's clearly so much better than a guy like Bernie. I heard him on Rogan talking on UBI and he took me from "fuck no" to "maybe" on that issue.
yeah I actually don't know if I support UBI but the dude is really convincing. Also seems to be attracting a lot of trump supporters. Only thing I don't like about his campaign is his minor policy proposal to increase capital gains tax but lol refer to my sig
oh yea i like him too... also butigeg is a smooth mfer - regardless of if i agree with what he says his presentation skills are pretty sharp
I like Yang too. Don't think he'll win though. But, I'd be willing to vote for him, as he seems like he understands that more debt is not being able to afford more stuff.
I agree with Yang on precisely zero policy positions but I would vote for him in the general because I like his public personality. It's exactly the kind of personality we need right now to avoid a proverbial civil war.
Yang is chill. I think he needs a better PR person to help him focus his ideas. Right now I worry he comes off as smart, and nobody likes to feel like someone is smarter than them. He needs to take a tip from David Letterman and pretend to be the dumb guy so that people like him more.
Yang can make a late surge if he stays fairly relevant
I actually think this is not wrong. He was somehow being Tweeted like 6th to Trump, Biden, Kamala, Barry O, Mitch during the debate time. He should stay focused on the economy. Let Warren and Bernie talk about the wonky stuff. Because people care about the economy, it's the topic you can bet will last the longest through facing off against Trump. It could be just noise too. Yang's crowd are mostly young, politically active people, likely to be on social media talking politics anyway.
Nobel Prizing Winning Economist Paul Krugman has argued that MBI is a bad idea because it is way too broad of a way of addressing income inequality.
I don't like it because of the deadweight loss that comes from taxation needed to pay for the subsidy. It makes a whole lot more sense to have targeted programs to reduce DWL in markets. That being said, policies that benefit everyone like MBI tend to be a lot more popular than targeted programs because people don't think of it as income redistribution as much when you get a piece of it. Also, giving people money is a far better method of helping them than creating a nanny state that says that you can't buy ravioli at the supermarket because you're poor (SNAP/food stamps regulations). Let people decide for themselves what they need.
Who's that pretty good Libertarian guy who was making some noise last time around who isn't Ron Paul?
gary johnson?
Yeah! I remember liking him too. He in the game?
Bernie Sanders and his "revolution" are fringe. He has certainly succeeded in dragging the Democratic party further to the left, but he personally has zero chance of winning this election because his "revolution" isn't popular among the American public.
That is why you have people like Elizabeth Warren, who is also relatively far to the left, reaffirming that she is a capitalist. Socialism/social democracy is a losing argument in a general election, regardless of how well it gets cheered for at debates or in liberal echo chambers.
If you watched the debate last night, you are starting to see the backlash as well. While the media loves to highlight the Bernies and OACs of the world as mainstream thinking for the Democratic party, and those on the far left love railing against "corporatist" Democrats, the reality is that most registered Democrats are simply center-left. Someone last night, maybe Delaney, accurately pointed out that when Democrats nominate a further left individual, they often lose. In contrast, when they nominate a center left individual, they usually win.
I get all that, that's why I prefaced it with, Bernie is emerging as the leader in the field. He's already had an impact with AOC and her popularity.
A thought leader, perhaps, but I think he's hit his peak at 15%-20% and is still well behind Biden. Warren is going to win the far-left lane this election. I'm personally not a fan of hers, but she comes across as far more driven, more intelligent, and frankly more presidential than the old man yelling at clouds.
fuck any authoritarian, especially all those that want to steal more from me
Bernie is an anti-American commie. This is a man who openly endorsed Castro, Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and the Soviet Union. He effusively praised the Soviet Union during the Cold War, affirming it as the model of what we should emulate. As late as 2012, Sanders praised Chavez's Venezuela, saying that the American Dream is more apt to be realized there than in the U.S.
Sanders wants to dismantle our capitalist system, replacing it with a command-control economy in which the industries are nationalized, and all power stems from the federal government. Wealth and achievement will be punished, with exorbitantly high tax rates. The country will fall into economic depression, with a sizable portion of the population being dependent on government benefits to get by. A true nightmare, one that simply cannot happen.
As a conservative, part of me wants the Dems to nominate Sanders because he has as much chance of winning the general as I do. OTOH, part of me wants the Dems to moderate and go with a Tim Ryan or something like that because I think it would be better for the country to have a center-left and a center-right debating policy rather than having literal Marxists one-Republican-dropping-the-N-word-on-tape away from the presidency.
I'm a conservative Republican and I really, really dislike Trump on a very personal level. I'm pleading with the Dems to give me a reason to abstain or to even cross-parties, but I can't. They've become deranged. They'll never nominate one of the moderates that was on stage last night.
We were both anti-Trump in 2016, and I reluctantly voted for him in the general but did not make up my mind until that last weekend. However, I have grown to like Trump, and his policies have been far better than I expected. I do have some issues obviously, such as his tendency to vent too much and his failure to fill key appointments with competent people who are onboard with his agenda. Unlike with 2016, I will enthusiastically vote for Trump in 2020 and plan to max out my individual campaign contributions as allowed by election law.
On the Democrats, I actually want to see a healthy center-left party, the party of Bill Clinton and heck, even 2008 Obama/Hillary. It's not healthy for the country when one of its two major parties is a de facto socialist open-borders party that wants to fundamentally restructure the American economy, eliminate the Electoral College, pack the Supreme Court, lower the voting age to 16, decriminalize illegal border crossings, give illegal aliens free government benefits, neuter the energy industry, and use identity politics to enforce equal results based upon race/gender/sexual orientation. We can have reasonable policy disagreements on say whether the marginal tax rates should be higher or whether Obamacare should be expanded. But what the Dems are proposing now are fundamentally antithetical to core American values, our history, and our system of government.
Tulsi Gabbard would be the dems best chance at beating trump because he can't bully her. If they put up bernie (which they will) Trump is going to crush him in front of the whole nation because Bernie, like everyone other than Gabbard, is a huge fraud.
If they were smart they would back Gabbard because she's a women veteran who can walk the walk. Trump won't be able to tweet bash the shit out of her background and views without coming across as a huge asshole. Not that he is not a huge asshole, but when he shit storms bernie sanders or liz warren everyone and their mother knows it is at least justified.
On top of that, Gabbard's political views have the potential to pull in a ton of trump voters that actually do not like voting for him but see no other alternative.
BUT, the dems won't do that. They will put up bernie and try to fight trump with every increasing radical leftist views which will further polarize our country and trump will go on to dominate sanders in 2020.
At least we can look forward to trump putting bernie in a body bag on national TV.
Oh man, if you hate when American politicians praise illiberal regimes, wait til you hear how Trump has praised North Korea, Russia, and Saudi Arabia
Substantive difference between wanting the United States to become more like those countries (Bernie) and Trump flattering the egos of those leaders because he wants to make a deal with them. One can argue that the latter approach is not prudent, but it is not the same as Bernie's insistence that the Soviet model was superior to that of the United States.
It's not just Bernie that is openly saying ""We Need To Transform This Economy"", it's all the Democrats. AOC's campaign manager has openly said that the Green New Deal is about taking control of and re-directing the economy:
>“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” Saikat Chakrabarti, chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said in May. A reporter for The Washington Post Magazine was at a meeting with Mr. Chakrabarti for a profile piece released last week.
>“We really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing,” Mr. Chakrabarti said.
>For many on the left, fighting climate change is primarily about increasing government control over the economy, not carbon.
Bernie Sanders has a networth of $1,000,000+. I respect him getting arrested for civil rights but what he is suggesting doesn't sound rational. No one is going to support his "Democratic Socialism". No one successful owns people money because they aren't as successful as other people.
as much as you can hate his beliefs, gotta admire his consistency, he's been batshit crazy since the get-go.
back to work!
I agree on the consistency but not on him being "batshit crazy." What he is proposing in health care is not much different from the health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Of course, its implementation would be very expensive. I am willing to give it a try because what we have now is terrible.
However, I would take a different approach. There is no need to have a middle man in health care. For me, the ideal system would be where consumers go directly to medical care providers and pay entirely out of pocket. Each US citizen would have a maximum out of pocket expense. If one goes over the maximum, the government pays the rest. If health insurance was eliminated from the system, prices would plummet and both doctors and patients would have a better experience.
U.S. healthcare is actually pretty amazing (cancer survival rates are best in the world and when adjusted for accidental deaths and murder, the U.S. has the highest life expectancy in the world despite the notoriously terrible American diet), but the U.S. model for payment is one of the worst in the world--with that I agree. We have a laughably bizarre system, with about half under socialized medicine and the other half largely in employer-based insurance programs, all this with a gargantuan regulatory burden at the federal, state, and local levels and few people using catastrophic plans. It's a terrible system for payment.
This is a completely reasonable approach and if we had a reasonable political system this is the one that one get traction. Unfortunately, we don't have a reasonable political system.
While I agree that he can't/won't win the general election, I think Bernie's impact will be felt one way or another. - Socialized healthcare (more extensive than Obamacare was) is coming in some form or another although I don't think the government will abolish private insurance - too unpopular. - Student loan forgiveness is coming in one form or another, although I don't think it'll be total loan forgiveness like Bernie espouses. - Some sort of environmental reform around climate change is coming in some for or another, although the green new deal is obviously ridiculous. - Trump tax cuts are going to be rolled back, and income taxes on the rich are likely going up - so are capital gains taxes.
This is whether or not Trump wins in 2020. In fact, you can count on the aforementioned items leaning further left IF Trump wins in 2020. The backlash by 2024 will be monumental - AOC will also be eligible to run. So, in a sense, Bernie has already won. Look for him to be on a vice presidential ticket or something if a moderate is nominated.
How do I feel about the aforementioned policies?
Here's a plug for criminal justice reform, a smaller military, and legalized weed at the federal level, while we're at it.
Hate to say it, but I don't disagree with any of your policy predictions. My problem is, none of them solve, like, any problem at all.
The reason I'm not super worried about U.S. debt, for example, is that if economic growth keeps pace with the debt, it's not really a huge problem. We will never balance the budget by raising corporate taxes but we may end up slowing economic growth, thus actually worsening the nation's debt burden as debt rises faster than economic growth. What really threatens America’s fiscal future is the entitlement system, which is on the brink of fiscal collapse. Nobody—not the Dems or Trump—seem remotely concerned about this. Raising taxes $100 billion/year won’t solve this problem.
Loan forgiveness, as a policy, is counterproductive to the mission of affordable higher education. It creates a perverse incentive for institutions to double down on their glut of administrative hiring and palace-building financed by the American public.
Socialized medicine and universal health care are not synonymous. The Swiss have probably the best system on earth in terms of coverage, cost, and service yet they haven’t socialized the system.
Finally, any modest, U.S.-based climate policy is going to do almost nothing for the climate but will actually hurt Americans.
In other words, all of Sanders' policy influences are essentially counterproductive to the health of our nation.
Good points on U.S. debt, entitlements, and loan forgiveness, but I think that you're jumping to conclusions when you say all of his policies are counterproductive. That being said, Medicaid, Medicare, and SS are expensive, but they are not on the brink of collapse; either cut the programs or raise taxes to pay for it. It really isn't that hard.
Your line on climate policy doesn't make any sense. Even marginal increases in the tax rate on fossil fuels have been shown to drastically reduce C02 emissions and harmful pollutants emissions. https://www.reviewecon.com/externalities has some pretty basic Demand/Supply models to demonstrate how negative externalities in markets can be corrected by taxation.
It doesn't say on here what area of finance you work in? What area are you in/role?
I would not worry about him, he is a widely respected politician among those on the left but he is outside of the cabal that actually runs the DNC. When the dust settles after the primary you will have one the old guard milquetoast neoliberals and all of the boldest voices from the Democrats, AOC, Bernie, Warren, etc will just continue to "challenge" the party line.
Just FYI -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/labor-fight-roils-bernie-sander…
Someone sent me this, thought it was an interesting read. This is regarding Bernie Sanders workers wanting wage increase to meet what Bernie kept preaching about minimum wage. Bernie, if I am correct, stated that workers at the bottom are not worth the $15.
Thoughts?
He's a total crook. Marching with people seethingly knowing all he wants is a power grab.
Thank God for Donald Trump, the only man with the force of personality to defend against the Leftist hordes Trump is God's candidate
Dude you need to screw your head back on right. The guy has directed people in homeland security to take babies from their mothers at the southern border and additionally has the audacity to not even keep proper records of whose kid is whose. That alone should justify calling you a wacko, but anyone on here who's paying attention could go on for days about other stupid shit he's tried to pull or already pulled.
The apathy of the people doing this stuff is absolutely breathtaking. When the Nazis pushed the envelope on what was acceptable, no one pushed back to stop them forcefully enough. Bystanders did nothing to stop them, and day by day things got worse and worse until they were exterminating people by the tens of thousands a day.
If you think that making comparisons to Nazism is inappropriate you should read literally any book about the Holocaust, then get back to me. Tyranny doesn't just appear, it slowly arises.
Trump, as the head of the Executive Branch, enforced the Flores Act of 1997, which calls for a maximum separation of 20 days when kids enter illegally with adults. We do NOT place kids in the same facility with adults as that is extremely dangerous. After 20 days, ideally, the kids are reunited with the adults or a family member living in the U.S. (or any other appropriate adult who is willing to take care of them). The problem is that due to the caravan surge which began in 2018, government agents are overwhelmed and understaffed, resulting in massive delays and overcrowding. This requires a legislative fix as well as more funding. We are making good progress, with the Guatemala third country agreement, Congress approving additional funding, and SCOTUS ruling that Pentagon funds can be used to build a wall. But much more work needs to be done.
The comparison to Nazis is so absurd that it is hard to believe that people actually fall for this.
Yes, people voluntarily coming to the United States en mass and being held for processing for their court hearings is the same thing as people being forced into camps for processing of their corpses.
Your take is the fully retarded take of 2019.
I hate Bernie so much. He has caused mindboggling amounts of damage to the democratic party. He is genuinely the worst. He actions will play a role in getting Trump elected again, just like they did in 2016. Old bitch.
I feel like too many of the candidates are winging it on policy, instead of carefully researching the issues and then going from there. The whole shitting on Obama's record thing at the last debate I thought was pretty stupid though. Like at least Obama knows how to win an election... I can totally see them fumbling around and messing it up.
Any climate issues are a waste of fucking time here in the states. We could be 100% renewable but China, Russia, India, Africa, etc don't give a fuck. It would have to be something brought up in the UN at the minimum and China and Russia would get on board.
In fact Global warming would probably benefit russia as their Siberian wasteland slowly becomes habitable.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-warming-climate-brings-new-crops-to-frig…
this is already happening in canada.
Let's weep in the fact that a generic conservative like George W. Bush will never be elected again. It's all going to be far-left propressives or right-wing nationalists from here on out.
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