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John Duffield
Mountain climber
New York
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Apr 13, 2016 - 12:10pm PT
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Of course, none of that will apply to the .01%. That's just for us plebeians. They will continue to live off of the rest of us.
True enough. Consider the situation in Chicago. Going gets rough and the .01% get going.
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/millionaires-fearing-civil-unrest-are-fleeing-chicago-by-the-thousands_042016
As time goes on the city of Chicago is rapidly turning into a crime infested hell hole, rife with poverty, debt, and racial tensions. The city is well on its way to joining the likes of Detroit, and there may be no escaping that eventuality. That’s why many of the city’s wealthy elites are getting the hell out of there.
The Chicago Tribune reports that roughly 3,000 millionaires have left the city over the past year alone, which amounts to about 2 percent of their wealthy population. This is the largest exodus of wealthy people in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. Paris and Rome are the only cities that lost more millionaires than Chicago in the same time period.
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dirtbag
climber
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Apr 13, 2016 - 12:15pm PT
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I think the left has a lot more soul-searching to do in explaining why economic inequality increased so greatly during the current administration.
Obama had, at most, two years before the hard right wing of the Republican Party acquired enough power to block everything proposed by the President, and they have steadfastly refused to compromise on just about everything. Instead, they "govern" through threats of debt defaults and government shutdowns. They are not interested in actual governing or compromising to reach common goals, and need to be reined in.
Likely republican presidential nominee Ted Cruz is the leader of this band of puke chunks.
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John Duffield
Mountain climber
New York
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Apr 13, 2016 - 12:19pm PT
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Nice. Ole skool 60s stuff. I'm liking the little handwritten speech too.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Apr 13, 2016 - 12:42pm PT
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Dirtbag posted:
Obama had, at most, two years before the hard right wing of the Republican Party acquired enough power to block everything proposed by the President
Well, that's what opposition parties do. If you really want to get something done, compromise on the bill, otherwise the opposition will block it to their best ability (unless you sweeten the pot).
I will say that Obamacare is the largest federal program ever to pass on a strict party line vote...ram it though, punch back twice as hard, yada yada.
Takes two to tango. Both parties reside in the Washington DC elite bubble of policy makers who shield their own personal lives from the policies they impose on us (Public vs private schools as one example)
Check this link. Unless I interpret the Wikipedia chart wrong, it looks like Obama had 4 years of a Congress controlled by Dems?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_States_Congresses
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 13, 2016 - 01:01pm PT
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Well, that's what opposition parties do.
No, that's not what opposition parties do. Opposition parties participate in governing and try to sway things their way to the degree possible. What the newly fringe right gop does is attempt to stop, stall or obstruct governance at all costs and by any means.
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dirtbag
climber
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Apr 13, 2016 - 01:01pm PT
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Well, that's what opposition parties do. If you really want to get something done, compromise on the bill, otherwise the opposition will block it to their best ability (unless you sweeten the pot).
Larry, where the f*#k have you been the last 6 years?
The republicans have loathed compromise. Threatening to come close to defaulting on debts (and utterly destroying the economy) or shutting down the government unless the republicans got what they wanted is not compromising in good faith.
Obamacare is based on a conservative, market based health care proposal, which sounded great until a democratic president offered it, and is loaded with concessions to republicans. It's a compromise solution, yet they rejected it. Six years later it's still unclear what republicans would offer as an alternative.
Spare us your "both parties do it" spiel. The Republican Party has not been interested in governing.
Edit: and no, you clearly have not been paying attention:
Check this link. Unless I interpret the Wikipedia chart wrong, it looks like Obama had 4 years of a Congress controlled by Dems?
Republicans gained control of the house in 2010, and conservatives have presided over the Supreme Court since the 1970s.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Apr 13, 2016 - 01:09pm PT
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Interesting replies to my challenge of why inequality increased so greatly during this administration's terms. The mode is that the Rpublicans blocked him from doing anything. One other response was that it just proves tax cuts and trickle-down economics don't work.
Fortunately, all of the replies so far come from posters whose opinions I value highly, so I'm responding because I think you deserve a response, not to punish you by making you read more of my rambles.
;>)
Legislation adopted by or with the support of this administration included not only the ACA, but "middle class tax cuts," significant public works spending, and Dodd-Frank. In addition, regulators under the control of the executive branch enacted numerous regulations affecting the economy, including but not limited to, changes in Reg. X under RESPA prohibiting intiating a foreclosure unless the borrower is more than 120 days delinquent, regulating the internet as a utility, expanding the definition of waters of the United States, and the so-called clean power rules. In addition, there were innumerable actions by regulatory authorities designed to make legal but disfavored activities difficult, such as Operation Choke Point, and decisions threatening Boeing if it opened a new plant in a non-union jurisdiction. The left generally views these activities as positive. Conventional economic theory views some as positive. Conservative economic theory generally does not, as set forth below.
Conventional "Keynesian" economics says that a tax cut while maintaining existing spending levels, or a government spending increase while maintaining existing tax levels, or both should stimulate the economy. The conservative critique of the those policies says that a cut in the marginal rate of taxes should stimulate the economy, but the other changes simply replace private spending with government spending. The Democrats cut overall tax rates, but not marginal rates. In my opinion, that action helped the economy, but far less than lowering marginal rates, as Kennedy and Reagan did. The failure to lower marginal rates - done in the name of "fairness," failed to provide much relief to those it intended to help.
I think the infrastructure spending also helped a bit, but my own observations of how it worked demonstrated more a failure of execution than of concept. I know locally, we spent an awful lot of money for dreadfully little benefit. I suspect a lot of that money went to those who were most politically connected.
The regulations, on the other hand, have been unambiguously detrimental to the recovery. While I'm sure you disagree, my own perception, and that of most business owners I know, is that this administration treats business as the enemy rather than as an engine of prosperity. I could most charitably describe the bulk of the regulations enacted by the CFPB, EPA, NLRB, FCC, IRS and others during this administration as costly to businesses. The business owners I know (and whose opinions I read) are more likely to describe them as hostile to business and counterproductive.
Conventional and conservative economic theory agree on one thing. Increased business investment increases employment and income. I doubt that there's much disagreement with the proposition that if a business perceives an ability to make money by investing, it will do so. The cash hoarding we see testifies to a perceived lack of profitable investment opportunities. The most common explanation I get is that the regulatory and legal climate currently makes investment too uncertain, so only something offering enormous returns seems prudent (and please understand, I base this on interviews I've conducted for specific clients and projects only. Please don't take this as saying that I spoke to a representative sample of the economy as a whole.)
One truism in macroeconomics is that a fall in profits leads to a fall in employment. Unfortunately, the converse, i.e. a rise in profits leads to a rise in employment, is not true. You need a rise in investment. While the economy has produced a rise in investment capital (by the rising profits), it has not produced a rise in investment opportunities, as represented in the businesses with which I've spoken, and as demonstrated by the weak recovery.
Finally, an economy rises when it is free to change. Government-directed economies ususally don't do well in peacetime. In wartime, central government control may be necessary to winning a war - at least if it's against the Axis - but governments tend to resist fundamental changes in demand, supply and preferences in peacetime.
Again, sorry for the length of this response, but I thought your responses desrved more than a clever sentence or two.
John
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crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
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Apr 13, 2016 - 01:12pm PT
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I'm Voting for Bernie, but on One Condition
“He’s not going to get the nomination, is he?” my wife asks anxiously as she gazes out of the kitchen window at the Bernie for President sign on our front lawn. No, I assure her, and he certainly won’t win Maryland on April 26. I’m voting for Bernie, and my wife may, too, but we’re doing so on the condition that we don’t think he will get the nomination. If he were poised to win, I don’t know whether I’d vote for him, because I fear he would be enormously vulnerable in a general election, even against Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, and I’m also not sure whether he is really ready for the job of president.
Why, then, vote for him at all? For me, it’s entirely about the issues he is raising, which I believe are important for the country’s future. Hillary Clinton and her various boosters in the media have made the argument that it’s impractical and even irresponsible to raise a demand like “Medicare for all” and “free public college” that could not possibly get through the next Congress, even if Democrats eke out a majority in the Senate. They presumably want a candidate to offer programs that could be the result of protracted negotiations between a Democratic president and Speaker Paul Ryan – like a two percent increase in infrastructure spending in exchange for a two percent reduction in Medicaid block grants. I disagree with this approach to politics.
What Sanders is proposing are political guideposts – ideals, if you like – according to which we can judge whether incremental reforms make sense. He is describing, whether you like them or not, objectives toward which we Americans should be aspiring. That’s a central activity in politics. Should it be confined to issues of Democracy or National Affairs? Or is it the kind of activity that is entirely appropriate for a nominating contest? Ronald Reagan and the conservatives thought so during the 1970s. And I think Democrats should be thinking this way now. So I applaud Bernie Sanders for not limiting his proposals to what might appear on a President’s often-ignored budget requests.
Let’s now consider the proposals themselves. I have my doubts about Bernie’s banking plans, and I am not going to consider climate change because I think Clinton and he agree about that. I’ll confine myself to what I think of as his big three:
1) Free public college education: Sanders’ argument for this seems to be unobjectionable. A half century ago a high school education was required for a decent job; and every American was entitled to free public high school education. We’re coming to a time when a college degree will be essential for a decent job. Shouldn’t all Americans be able to get one, even if they come from a low-income family? And there’s another consideration. Shouldn’t today’s parents be freed from the anxiety of worrying about whether they can afford to send their children to college? I just returned from a visit to a friend in Europe who has been unemployed (from no fault of his own) for several years, and whose wife recently died. His children are of college age, and in America, he would be in no position to send them, but in the country where he lives, he can send them for free, and they are doing splendidly. Shouldn’t the United States aspire to this? (And note that it should be done as a universal New Deal-style program, as Sanders proposes, and not as another neo-liberal means-tested program that will invite all kinds of Tea Party-type resentments.)
2) Medicare for all: I wouldn’t recommend extending the current Medicare program, because it is becoming a Byzantine mess (I was recently denied Medicare coverage because of some regulation about registration that neither I nor the people I asked at AARP had ever heard of.) What Sanders is proposing is that healthcare coverage began at birth for every American and be financed through taxes rather than through a crazy quilt of premiums, deductibles, co-payments, welfare subsidies, tax credits and what have you. Yes, that suggests that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is inadequate. I am not prepared to defend that assertion against the health experts who stand ready to insist that it is the be-all and end-all, but I have had enough experience with my family and friends to know that it, too, is a mess. It’s not universal, it depends too much on the middle class insured subsidizing the uninsured (again a cause for resentment), coverage is very spotty, and the rules regulating small businesses, the self-employed – you name it – require a degree in health care accounting to comprehend. Amend it for the time being, but in the long run, America should aspire toward a system much more similar to those in Europe, where, besides guaranteeing universal access, makes medical school free to those who qualify and go on to practice, and where, as a result, doctors don’t need to make $400,000 a year to pay back loans. (See proposal #1)
3) Political revolution: I am not sure if Sanders specifies how he wants to reform our oligarchic system of financing campaigns. Americans might not want public financing. They may prefer the direction we were going in 1974 – limiting contributions and spending – that the Supreme Court short-circuited with Buckley v. Valeo in 1976. But something has to be done. And it would probably require a new liberal-dominated Supreme Court, which stands in reach if Democrats win in 2016. (And this is a reason why I hope Hillary Clinton does wrap up the nomination and wins in November.) But the point is more than that. With some interruptions, the American system since 1896 has rested on disenfranchisement of large parts of the people: some people not being allowed to vote, others simply not voting. And the possibility of major reform, as sketched out in #1 and #2, rests very much on an invigorated electoral majority that goes to the polls and on politicians that are forced to compete on their merits rather than on the money they have raised. Clinton boosters scoff at the term “political revolution,” but something like that is what is needed to turn the country around.
Does the country really need turning around? Sanders has been derided for holding up Denmark and other Scandinavian countries as examples. They are far different from the US, and they are also beginning to experience problems sustaining their own social democracies. But I think in comparing life there with life in the United States, there is one useful point to be made. . What people in these countries enjoy is not assured lifetime employment or control over their workplaces, but a degree of basic security about their lives that is missing in the United States. Americans endure needless anxiety about access to education and healthcare and about being left penniless or homeless. Our social safety net doesn’t just need mending, but replacement. It’s worn out. And Sanders provides a set of guidelines in his proposals that will move exactly in that direction That’s why he gets my vote on April 26 – even if I hope Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/voting-for-bernie
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Apr 13, 2016 - 01:14pm PT
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Frankly, you Bernieites are getting on my nerves. You act like you're the most principled people on the planet
I'm right with you there, Cranky. Nothing like a reformed drunk, eh?
But as you're well aware I love to point out parallels in history.
Robespierre was known as the conscience of the Assembly until he fell
in love with power and a particularly sharp tool. There's nothing new
under the sun.
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Gary
Social climber
Where in the hell is Major Kong?
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Apr 13, 2016 - 02:32pm PT
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I'd be curious to know what parts of the New Deal you think were squashed, Gary, and how this led to less opportunity.
For one, the emasculation of the National Labor Relations Board. Corporations now run roughshod over American workers. Regulatory angencys gutted, giving us the Savings and Loan Crisis, for example. The safety net in general has been discarded, except for Wall Street, of course, them we bail out. Taxation policies that punish work and reward capital.
I say this because there exist many more educational opportunities now than then, and a great many programs offering specific opportunities for just about every group perceived by the government to be disadvantaged, with the possible exception of poor white males.
As a poor white male I benefited from New Deal and Great Society educational grants, which seem to have vanished. Kids can still go to school, but then leave saddled with a crushing debt.
My personal belief is that a strong economy is the best generator of upward mobility, and a weak one the best generator of inequality and economic stasis.
Agree with you 100% there, John. And this nation was most prosperous during the heyday of the New Deal and Great Society. Back when a humble working stiff could buy a house and put the kids through college.
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Gary
Social climber
Where in the hell is Major Kong?
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Apr 13, 2016 - 02:33pm PT
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But what bothers me is that Bernie is taking sides against the shareholders, yes I know he is a self professed Socialist and of course he will just about always favor workers over management/owners, and yes he has every right to tell all where he stands.
God forbid an American politician take the side of the little guy. A travesty! Next thing you know, he'll be chopping heads off, right, Reilly?
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Norton
Social climber
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Apr 13, 2016 - 02:38pm PT
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Larry posted
Unless I interpret the Wikipedia chart wrong, it looks like Obama had 4 years of a Congress controlled by Dems?
I think you are reading the facts wrong, sir
the Democrats never, ever, had a filibuster proof 60 votes in the US Senate during the entire time of President Obama's term
at best, they had 58 Dems in the Senate and persuaded the two Independents, Sanders and Lieberman, to vote with them on the ACA to get to 60
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Apr 13, 2016 - 02:41pm PT
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And this nation was most prosperous during the heyday of the New Deal
That seems a curious statement to me, considering the New Deal was singularly unsuccessful in ending the Great Depression. Similarly, the Great Society foundered just about the time I got out of college looking for work.
The GI bill, on the other hand, had a real positive effect on social mobility, because of the nearly universal male involvement in the military. That's where I part company with many of my fellow conservatives. I think we, as a society, invest way too little in public post-secondary education, and particularly so in California.
When I was a freshman at Berkeley, we had no tuition whatsoever. (Well, at least none to the State of California's benefit. There was a specific, mandatory fee for certain Berkeley services (e.g. the Cowell Hospital and certain other Berkely-specific matters) but it was less than the cost of most of my textbooks. We were outraged when a tuition of $100/quarter was imposed in 1970-71. The expansion of student loans, and the bipartisan effort to make them nondischargable under the Bankruptcy Code, have mainly helped raise the cost of higher education and saddle recent graduates with crippling debt. I suspect that debt has been one more reason why the economy has performed so poorly.
John
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John Duffield
Mountain climber
New York
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Apr 13, 2016 - 03:19pm PT
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So there's a battle on right now, in the internep. The CEOs, of the companies Sanders has been trollan, are now reacting. A lesson in economics, is coming up.
http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/facts-matter-jeff-immelt
We at GE were interested to read comments Monday by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who told the New York Daily News editorial board that GE is among the companies that are supposedly “destroying the moral fabric” of America. The senator had been asked to cite examples of corporate greed at its worst. Somehow that got him to talking about us.
https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/720276763629068289
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/feeling-bern-reality-facts-verizon-moral-economy-lowell-mcadam?trk=p
In fact, I share his frustration. Verizon is in Sanders’s bull’s-eye, as well. The senator’s uninformed views are, in a word, contemptible. Here’s why.
His first accusation – that Verizon doesn’t pay its fair share of taxes – is just plain wrong. As our financial statements clearly show, we’ve paid more than $15.6 billion in taxes over the last two years – that’s a 35% tax rate in 2015, for anyone who’s counting. We’ve laid out the facts repeatedly and did so again yesterday (see “Sen. Sanders needs to get his facts straight” at Verizon.com/about/news). The senator has started to fudge his language – talking of taxes not paid in some unspecified “given year” – but that doesn’t make his contention
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Apr 13, 2016 - 03:26pm PT
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So what are the odds of Bernie winning NY next Tues? anybody
following the odds?
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crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
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Apr 13, 2016 - 03:27pm PT
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Long. He's down double digits.
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John Duffield
Mountain climber
New York
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Apr 13, 2016 - 03:53pm PT
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Bernie, is leaving for Italy tomorrow, for two days. Hillary, is all over the US, doing fundraisers for even longer I saw. So the nyc campaign will be fought on Social Media for two days. I don't remember seeing anything like this.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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Apr 13, 2016 - 04:22pm PT
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Duffield ,I could not agree more.
Edit;HFCS,Care to respond ?
Well I believe Nut Again and Gary did , as I would say.
I will add though that the Senator is the only one in this race that has mentioned North Korea as a threat.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Apr 13, 2016 - 04:47pm PT
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The answer is we use our f*&ing brains. We discuss. We negotiate. -Couch
Wilbeer, remind me your college study. I want to know if we could get around to the subject of game theory... game theory in math, game theory in international politics, game theory in evolutionary ecology.
I know NutAgain has given it some thought. But you and couch I'm not sure. Thanks.
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