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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Luminosity Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Lovey-Dovey
#112526: Feb 19th 2016 at 8:40:44 AM

I will admit that Sanders isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd still take Clinton as a reasonable second choice, even if I have my own personal beefs with her - she's both a weathervane and someone who is all over the place in terms of focus, which is a very bad sign. Sanders you know will stick to his commitments even if he can't implement them, I'm just not sure I can trust Hillary to promise certain things and then not immediately break her promises upon election. I'm not keen on trusting someone who in bed with big business. Sure, she's not Tony Abbot, who promised he wouldn't make cuts to a lot of things and then proceeded to do so anyway, but still. I'd rather take her over any GOP candidate any day, but I'm not expecting much of her. Sanders does have a very reputable history as a senator, though, he's called the "amendment king" for a reason, and likely greatly respected by less crazy Republican senators, at least, so that's an asset for him. But I suppose the problem is still whether being ambitious is a good thing or not. I mean, the GOP loathes Hillary with a passion, does anyone really think they'll be less obstructive towards her than Sanders or even Obama?

[awesome]

Pretty much what I've been trying to say, repeatedly. Yet apparently this makes me a katana-wielding Sanders obsessivist. Really, I'd carry a saber instead...

edited 19th Feb '16 8:41:15 AM by Luminosity

Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#112527: Feb 19th 2016 at 8:40:58 AM

@ Fighteer:

What bugs me more than anything is that the rhetorical tactics being employed by many Sanders supporters are indistinguishable from the tactics of the hard right: establish your own body of custom facts and attack anyone who points out flaws with them as tools of the system.

Or the hard left, either, particularly of the Marxist-Leninist-Trotskite crowd. There's a reason why there are so many splits amongst their number. Then again, are they making a comeback in the US, as they are in the UK?

I've known for a long time that the left wasn't immune to the lure of "truthiness" — witness the anti-vaxxers and anti-GMO'ers. But now it's becoming clear that the difference between right and left in terms of ignorance of how facts work is less stark than I had hoped.

It isn't. As Silas mentioned, the anti-Nuclear, anti-drone (anti-aircraft?) and I think anti-war crowds are the same.

Keep Rolling On
Luminosity Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Lovey-Dovey
#112528: Feb 19th 2016 at 9:08:17 AM

Benajamin Dixon speaks against Paul Krugman. Yes, it's feelies vs feelies, but if I have to choose feelies, this guy has much better feelies. Because these are feelies that aren't claiming to be analysis, like Krugman's do.

And before someone tries to summon the "He's another blind Sanders loyalist"(because I know someone will try to paint all of us as reactionary radical leftwingers again), he questioned the entire Democratic strategy in the "Black vote pandering" video, Sanders included(though he IS a supporter, like Krugman is a Clinton supporter).

edited 19th Feb '16 9:21:54 AM by Luminosity

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#112529: Feb 19th 2016 at 9:16:48 AM

Out of curiosity why is everyone so convinced that the Dems can't possibly win the house? There are competitive House seats out there, the Republicans are having more incumbents stand down then the Dems and the Dems did actually get more votes in 2012. Yes taking the House wouldn't be easy, but is the Dems gaining 30 seats that impossible?

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Ekuran Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#112531: Feb 19th 2016 at 9:37:19 AM

Who the hell is benjamin dixon

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Luminosity Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Lovey-Dovey
#112532: Feb 19th 2016 at 9:40:52 AM

[up] Criminally underviewed news reporter and commenter. He's not an authority on anything, he just puts what we've been trying to say pretty well.

Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#112533: Feb 19th 2016 at 9:58:38 AM

[up] Do you think Sanders is left-wing enough, or should be be more radical?

Keep Rolling On
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#112534: Feb 19th 2016 at 10:02:21 AM

Sanders is rad enough. He is also cool, awesome, fresh, and, above all, gnarly.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#112535: Feb 19th 2016 at 10:03:05 AM

Per Piketty, a wealth tax is pretty much the only thing that will fix inequality in an environment where returns on capital are likely to be higher than economic growth by significant margins in the future. The math is pretty simple: if the rate of return on your asset is higher than the rate at which the economy as a whole is growing, that means that you're taking more of the pie and growing richer at someone else's expense, in the aggregate. So that means that not only does income from wealth need to be taxed better, but the wealth itself needs to be taxed at a fairly low rate, to knock off some of the difference between rate of return and the rate of growth (rate of return is around 4-5%, growth in developed countries is 1-3, so a total-asset wealth tax of 1-2% of a person's net worth per year is enough to make sure that they'll still grow their fortune, but grow it at a rate that's closer to the growth of everyone else's income).

Luminosity Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Lovey-Dovey
#112536: Feb 19th 2016 at 10:04:30 AM

Do you think Sanders is left-wing enough, or should be be more radical?

He's left-wing enough for me. Though I'd entertain the notion of an even more left-wing candidate, someone like Sanders needs to lay the groundwork for that first.

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#112537: Feb 19th 2016 at 10:05:46 AM

Criminally underviewed news reporter and commenter. He's not an authority on anything, he just puts what we've been trying to say pretty well.

Oh.

I don't think that's a fair comparison.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#112538: Feb 19th 2016 at 10:32:34 AM

The Economist on Sanders: A vote for what?

HOW radical is Bernie Sanders? The self-declared socialist likes to remind voters that many of his policies—say, on health care, or on paid family leave—simply copy most of the rest of the rich world. Compared with left-wingers there—Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, for instance—Mr Sanders is no socialist. It is freewheeling America which puts Mr Sanders on the far-left. The truly socialist thing about Mr Sanders’s admirably detailed economic plan is not its goals. It is that it is completely unworkable.

That is true. Corbyn over here a far more left-wing than Sanders — I bet he's never worked with actual Communists, unlike Corbyn.

Under President Sanders taxes, particularly on high earners, would soar. Mr Sanders wants to make public universities free, increase infrastructure spending and expand Social Security (pensions). His most ambitious policy calls for the government, rather than private insurers, to pay health-care bills. That would cost $14 trillion over a decade, requiring new taxes on most workers worth 8.4% of their income.

Expanding Social Security means a further big tax rise for those making more than $250,000. Income-tax rates would become more steeply progressive, too. Totting up all the levies, the top marginal rate of federal tax—which would be levied on households earning more than $10m—would rise to about 67%. (Adding in state taxes would take it higher still.)

That is not without precedent: in the 1970s, the top rate was around 70%. This would probably dent growth, and it is at the high end of estimates of the rate which maximises revenue. Taxes might have to go higher still. Mr Sanders plans to tax capital gains as ordinary income. High earners can decide whether or not to sell assets, making this tax easy to dodge. Partly because of this, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an advocacy group, reckons Mr Sanders has highballed his revenue estimates by $3 trillion over a decade.

Mr Sanders knows that soaking the rich can get him only so far. He is also banking on health-care costs tumbling. Health spending per person is two-and-a-half times the average for the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. The immense bargaining power of a government buyer could help to control waste. Medicare, government-funded health insurance for the over-65s, already provides care at a lower cost than private insurers. Mr Sanders predicts $6.3 trillion of savings over a decade.

That looks like wishful thinking. A costing of Mr Sanders’s plans by Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University, using more conservative assumptions, found that the plan was underfunded by nearly $1.1 trillion (or 6% of GDP) per year. If Mr Thorpe is right, higher taxes will be required to make the sums add up. In 2014 Mr Sanders’ own state, Vermont, abandoned a plan for a single-payer system on the basis that the required tax rises would be too great.

Getting health-care costs down is easier than it sounds. Mr Sanders hopes to save a bucketload on administration. But 20% of health spending flows to doctors, nurses and the like. A study published in Health Affairs, a journal, in June 2015 found that the average nurse earns about 40% more, and the average doctor about 50% more, than comparably educated and experienced people in other fields. To bring costs down to British or Canadian levels, these salaries would have to fall. Half a million Americans work in the private health-insurance industry, which would shrink or disappear if Mr Sanders had his way. His plan is “radical in a way that no legislation has ever been”, argues Henry Aaron of Brookings, a think-tank.

Mr Sanders has bold plans for monetary policy and banking, too. He supports a movement headed by Rand Paul, an erstwhile Republican runner, to get politicians more involved in decisions on interest rates, because he thinks Fed policy is too tight. To loosen it, he would bar the Fed from raising rates when unemployment is above 4%.

Mr Sanders’ plans tend to suffer from a fallacy of composition. Although the average American might not mind paying higher taxes instead of a health-insurance premium, some—such as firms that do not provide health insurance—would face big losses. With such concentrated costs, Mr Sanders’s plans would have no chance of making it past Congress, even an improbably friendly one.

edited 19th Feb '16 10:33:32 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#112539: Feb 19th 2016 at 10:40:32 AM

I'm just going to butt in to express my astonishment that we can post more than one video in a single post now.

Oh God! Natural light!
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#112540: Feb 19th 2016 at 10:43:09 AM

[up] Thanks Obama,

You wicked, wicked devil

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#112541: Feb 19th 2016 at 10:49:02 AM

Out of curiosity why is everyone so convinced that the Dems can't possibly win the house? There are competitive House seats out there, the Republicans are having more incumbents stand down then the Dems and the Dems did actually get more votes in 2012. Yes taking the House wouldn't be easy, but is the Dems gaining 30 seats that impossible?
Not strictly impossible but it's hampered by two factors:

A) The Republicans have sufficiently remapped enough districts throughout America using the 2010 Census Data to build ideological fortress districts where there's a large number of Republicans outweighing Democrats, and shoving Democrats into their own districts.

B) The DNC is very. Very. Very. Very. Very. Very lazy, and is more focused on the coronation of Hillary than they are about legislative party health. If it wasn't for Scalia biting the big one, they might of half assed the Senate, and may still do so. The current DNC gains most of its power by focusing on the presidency, instead of allowing rivals to their preferred presidential candidate to grow. Which is why we have such a lack of Democratic rising stars: The DNC half-assed things to not let them grow.

Wyoming Governor wants to expand Medicaid, but the Wyoming Republican legislature insists on work-requirement alternatives.

(Daily Kos) Center for American Progress is "Proud" of Its Donors, Like Walmart and the United Arab Emirates

SolipsistOwl Since: Jan, 2016
#112542: Feb 19th 2016 at 11:33:14 AM

Earlier this week, four economists — Alan Krueger, Christina Romer, Austan Goolsbee and Laura D’Andrea Tyson — wrote an open letter accusing Friedman of making "extreme claims" in that study that "undermine the credibility of the progressive economic agenda." Krugman then published multiple blog posts citing the letter as evidence that the Sanders campaign was engaging in "fantasy" and "voodoo."

The problem with these condemnations, according to former JEC Executive Director James Galbraith, is that none of the economists involved in the fracas actually crunched any numbers to show why Friedman's study was supposedly such a sham. Galbraith now teaches economics at the University of Texas at Austin.

"You write that you have applied rigor to your analyses of economic proposals by Democrats and Republicans," Galbraith wrote in a letter to Krueger, Romer, Goolsbee and Tyson. "On reading this sentence I looked to the bottom of the page, to find a reference or link to your rigorous review of Professor Friedman's study. I found nothing there."

Friedman, who is a political supporter of Hillary Clinton, had projected a 5.3 percent economic growth rate under Sanders' platform. That rate is high relative to the current figure of about 2.4 percent, but Galbraith said it is clear from the paper that Friedman reached the figure by relying on "standard impact assumptions and forecasting methods."

"It is not fair or honest to claim that Professor Friedman's methods are extreme," Galbraith added. "Nor is it fair or honest to imply that you have given Professor Friedman's paper a rigorous review. You have not."

"What you have done, is to light a fire under Paul Krugman, who is now using his high perch to airily dismiss the Friedman paper as 'nonsense.' Paul is an immensely powerful figure, and many people rely on him for careful assessments. It seems clear that he has made no such assessment in this case. Instead, Paul relies on you to impugn an economist with far less reach, whose work is far more careful, in point of fact, than your casual dismissal of it."

The Fight Between Bernie Sanders And Hillary Clinton Is Officially Super Ugly

edited 19th Feb '16 11:40:29 AM by SolipsistOwl

Luminosity Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Lovey-Dovey
#112543: Feb 19th 2016 at 11:43:25 AM

[up]

The problem with these condemnations, according to former JEC Executive Director James Galbraith, is that none of the economists involved in the fracas actually crunched any numbers to show why Friedman's study was supposedly such a sham.

Well, if we're gonna get technical, Kenneth Thrope did criticize Sanders plan with numbers, but no one, even other economists criticizing the plan, has backed those numbers up or provided alternative repeatedly provable numbers. It's all "feelies" at this point.

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#112544: Feb 19th 2016 at 11:44:16 AM

It doesn't sound that ugly to me. Also yay for people fighting over serious policy issues rather than some scandal du jour.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#112545: Feb 19th 2016 at 11:45:55 AM

[up][up]If that's what you call super ugly I'm wondering what you consider polite. Because that statement is some of the most polite disagreement I have ever seen. I mean, really, just having an argument over something doesn't mean it's gotten "ugly".

In any event, I'd say economists are the ones we want discussing these things, because it's the only reason I'm getting anything resembling a coherent picture about any of this. Kind of wish they had a "for dummies" version though because once they get into the math and such I start involuntarily checking out and have to read a sentence a few times to understand it.

edited 19th Feb '16 11:48:06 AM by AceofSpades

SolipsistOwl Since: Jan, 2016
#112546: Feb 19th 2016 at 11:48:52 AM

All headlines these days are clickbait. I provide the exact headline for accuracy.

edited 19th Feb '16 11:50:47 AM by SolipsistOwl

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#112547: Feb 19th 2016 at 11:51:36 AM

Headlines have always been clickbait. That is literally the purpose of a headline. Even physical newspapers that don't have "clicks" have a different person writing the headline than the article.

Articles are journalism, headlines are marketing.

edited 19th Feb '16 11:51:57 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#112548: Feb 19th 2016 at 12:18:29 PM

nm already posted.

edited 19th Feb '16 12:20:27 PM by speedyboris

Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#112549: Feb 19th 2016 at 12:19:01 PM

I don't think the DNC will half-ass the Senate. What the DNC's problem is that if they don't think a race can be won, then they'll ignore it completely, leaving lower-level people to decide for themselves whether they want to tough it out or not. The Senate in 2016 is fairly easy pickings, with dead ducks like Ron Johnson or Pat Toomey up for reelection.

SolipsistOwl Since: Jan, 2016
#112550: Feb 19th 2016 at 1:05:43 PM

Bernie Sanders' campaign, answering a challenge from Hillary Clinton, sarcastically promised to release transcripts of the Vermont senator's Wall Street speeches on Friday and urged his Democratic primary rival to do the same.

“Sen. Sanders accepts Clinton’s challenge. He will release all of the transcripts of all of his Wall Street speeches. That’s easy. The fact is, there weren’t any. Bernie gave no speeches to Wall Street firms,” spokesman Michael Briggs said in a statement. “He wasn’t paid anything while Secretary Clinton made millions, including $675,000 for three paid speeches to Goldman Sachs.”

“So now we hope Secretary Clinton keeps her word and releases the transcripts of her speeches. We hope she agrees that the American people deserve to know what she told Wall Street behind closed doors,” he continued.

Sanders challenges Clinton to release Wall Street speech transcripts


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