President Trump has an easy win in 2020

[watisthis]

How about not taxing anymore, not spending anymore than we do already?

Seems Dems think they are on a higher moral ground because they think they are supporting the party of the "poor" when in fact they are the party of the "rich hedge fund managers".

I haven't seen any switching back and forth, the war on poverty since the sixties has been the most racist thing they ever could have done.

I understand capitalism just fine. My point was the money is moved offshore because they think people like Bernie will steal it from them. My other point is, if that $32 trillion were here in the states being invested in jobs and people it would make our economy even that much greater.

I understand inflation and capitalism just fine, I am not sure someone who can support a socialist can teach me anything about capitalism, business, investing, inflation etc. I stated that there were 2 options on how to weather a financial crisis, save money ahead of time or expect to be taken care of by the government.

Super pacs, PACS, superdelegates or whatever don't mean anything as far as Bernie goes. By his own admittance and his published "platform" he fully intends to steal money that I have worked for and saved and give it to someone else that hasn't done that. Nobody that is successful and has any means would support that unless they thought they could be involved in the dispersement of said ill gotten gains. You can wrap it up in all the morality, progressiveness, "wokeness" new age whatever and it all boils down to stealing wealth from one person and giving it to another.

PS. where is QCman? Even debating a Canadian makes more sense than a socialist.

Ironic that the dems are trying to tax the rich, medicare for all, and you're asking who is going to pay for all this stuff Bernie is talking about yet they are the party of the rich. I've already gone over all these points in other threads so I'm just going to copy/paste whatever is relevant.

"In capitalism, companies compete with each other to get the highest profit margin possible. In order to get the highest profit margin possible, they must keep their costs as low as possible. Labor is a cost. Ergo, the goal is to pay as low as possible for employees. There is essentially a race for the bottom for who can pay their employees the least while still being productive.

This race for lowest production costs possible means things like automation, changing full-time employees to contract/temp work, outsourcing, nixing things like retirement pensions, fighting against minimum wage increases, anything to drive down this cost.

So if you consider the above then think about this: Capitalism depends on consumption, i.e. people buying things. People need to buy the basics, stuff like food and shelter. But capitalism also needs them to buy things like iPads, purses, skateboards, etc. Basically, people need disposable income.

So it looks to me like there is a conflict between the need for lowest labor costs possible and the need for consumers to spend their income. But wait it gets better! They found the solution. Debt. Rich people loan poor people money with interest to buy all that stuff. Medical debt, mortgage debt, student loan debt, car loan debt, credit card debt, etc.

As a result of this race to the lowest production cost possible, wages aren't going up despite very low unemployment. It also why you hear about how Americans don't have enough saved to cover a $400 emergency. It's not that wages aren't going up because capitalism is failing, on the contrary, wages aren't going up because capitalism is achieving its goal of streamlined low-cost production extremely well. Wages are essentially becoming as optimized as they can get. It's also why there are so many "Millenials kill x industry" stories, categories of products and services are being "killed off" because they depend on a level of disposable income that the newest generations just simply do not have."

"In the 50s-70s the marginal tax rate for the highest income brackets was somewhere between 80-90% (that is, all dollars earned above $200,000 were taxed at some 90 percentile); this was during one of the biggest boom periods in American history, and during this period the unemployment rate was at one of its lowest points, apart from during WWII

It wasn't until the 1980s when there was an oil bust that we got above a 10% unemployment rate again; it can likely be argued that Reagan's tax cuts helped ease this, and during depressions/recessions tax cuts can be the right move for GDP growth. But the years of growth before when the marginal rate of 91% was holding strong counter the claim that higher taxation causes higher unemployment, but another point is that unemployment and GDP don't tell the whole picture of the health of the economy:

Since the late 70s, average CEO pay has grown almost 950% while average worker pay has only grown by about 12% (both adjusted for inflation) as of 2018 per an EPI report released in August 2019

This tells us that even though our GDP has grown considerably, it's a very small pool of people who are seeing any tangible benefit from this. This widening pay gap means that unemployment isn't quite the right metric, we also need to look at underemployment.

78% of American workers live paycheck-to-paycheck and can't weather a loss in income without taking on debt. Further 11.1% of employed Americans are underemployed, as defined by the Economic Policy Institute as a part-time worker who wants full-time work, and has searched for work in the past year but has given up actively searching for it and this is a fairly narrow definition that doesn't include people who are just not making enough to meet their needs. It has been admitted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that underemployment is tricky for them to get data on and they don't have a stat to track it.

Now to be as fair as possible here: these figures are ones that weren't tracked in the 50's-70's, but something we do know is the average net worth of people who entered the workforce at certain times, and almost universally people who entered the workforce between the end of WWII and the beginning of Reagan's presidency (or the end of Carter's) own significantly more wealth than those who entered the workforce in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s, and those folks own significantly more wealth, and owned significantly more wealth at the same stage of their employment (we don't have that data for the boomers) than people who entered the work force around the time of the housing crisis in the late 2000s and onward from there. More people from past generations of workers were able to get more wealth, were able to buy affordable housing, were able to save for retirement, than are able to at present.

Also in the interest of fairness, I will grudgingly accept that at the most basic level, having some income is better than no income, if you don't first take into consideration means testing on government safety nets; anecdotally, when I was unemployed for a few months due to taking time off at my previous job (military ETS), my unemployment was contingent on me remaining unemployed (which makes sense), but it also created an incentive to only accept job offers that would clearly beat my unemployment benefit checks, as I think almost anyone when presented the choice of "work for $X, or stay at home and get $X while you look for a job that pays more than $X" will choose the latter. I was fortunate enough that I didn't have need of things like SNAP or Medicaid, but it can be demoralizing to find work that might be good, but you end up essentially earning less for working since you are now over the threshold for some programs like that. Based on that, in some instances I think the underemployment numbers are much more worth noting in the conversation about unemployment.

The fact that we need to face, and that tax cuts won't help, is that the economy isn't working for a vast majority of the American work force, but it is working to prop up numbers."

Sponsored

 

[watisthis]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/apr/10/new-york-high-tax-states-see-exodus-wealthy-americ/
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/26/800...lee-new-york-california-because-of-taxes.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-rich-new-yorkers-are-moving-to-miami-taxes-apartments-2019-6
https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/americans-flee-high-tax-states

If they don't move themselves they move their money offshore, see your own point further down.
Enough said

Another post I had in the Elizabeth Warren thread.

"https://www.irs.gov/businesses/income-from-abroad-is-taxable
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/expatriation-tax
To prevent rich citizens from just renouncing their citizenship, there's a big tax imposed on you (treating you as if you'd sold all your assets) if you expatriate while being rich.

Most high income Americans can't just up and move nor would they want to. There's tons of money to be made in the US, even with slightly higher taxes. For any rich person who gets upset at having to contribute their fair share of taxes and leaves, there will be at least 2+ people fighting for that business opportunity. You think the oil and rail barons just left when we taxed the shit out of them, or how about large car manufacturers, Citi bank, etc. You think that only being #89 on the Forbes top 100 wealthiest individuals in the world instead of being #1 on that same list is somehow going to disincentivize people from trying to build a company? In either instance you have, for any practical life purposes, unlimited money. A relatively small tax is not going to destroy the best and brightest or stifle success if anything the Amazons, Apples, Microsofts are doing that by monopolizing literally everything. Plenty of geniuses and successful people have done far greater for far less.

The 4 most powerful companies in America are headquartered in CA which has some of the highest tax rates and regulations. Large companies and wealthy people simply do not pay their fair share in taxes currently. Yes, I also understand business are moving out of CA, however, next to none are moving outside the U.S. nor will they ever. Many states have already called their bluffs.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/double-irish-with-a-dutch-sandwich.asp"

 

[Weather Man]

Doc has the patience of a saint. I put the retards on ignore except for Qcman, he has good taste in Mustangs at least.

 

[Docscurlock]

Doc has the patience of a saint. I put the retards on ignore except for Qcman, he has good taste in Mustangs at least.

I do try and present a reasonable argument for them but sometimes.....
As my grand daddy used to say, be careful arguing with stupid people because after a while no one can tell the difference.

 

[watisthis]

I do try and present a reasonable argument for them but sometimes.....
As my grand daddy used to say, be careful arguing with stupid people because after a while no one can tell the difference.

What reasonable argument?

 

[Jimmy Dean]

What reasonable argument?

you want a simple argument?

The world is currently experiencing the closest thing to peace it has ever seen. And it does so solely because of American Hegemony. America is able to achieve this through a few different factors, natural resources, isolated location, and very importantly our drive to create the next big thing, which is of course largely driven, or financed, through a drive to make money.

Many of our allies practice socialistic principles, free tuition, free healthcare, etc etc. However, they are only able to do so due to living underneath the protective umbrella that America has provided them for over 70 years. Without this umbrella these practices would not be possible, history alone has proven this, as instead the vast majority of their expenditure would not be on 'free' services for the middle and lower classes at the expenditure of their upper classes, but instead would be spent on defense budgets, and waging countless wars resulting in millions of lives lost of those very same middle and lower classes.

You can make the argument that the world has changed, that people have changed. But again, we have significant enough evidence to show otherwise. Anywhere that the U.S. refuses to cover with it's umbrella, or directly threaten with it's guns, devolves into utter chaos. Europe has been at non stop war for not years, not, decades, not even centuries, but millennia, until the U.S. and Russia came in and waived their big sticks around. After we got done staring at each other for 40 years, and the U.S. came on top of that, we have provided the (near) entirety of Europe with our protection. Even before then, no two major powers have (directly) gone to war with each other since 1945.

There have been multiple contenders to the throne, and while the U.S. is by no means perfect, the alternatives to the U.S. as the sole world superpower is horrendous. Can you honestly say that anyone, and I mean anyone, other than the top circle of those countries, would be better off with China, or Russia, in the lead?

So, why can we not spend all of this money elsewhere at the expense of some of our massive defense budget? Because the cost is simply unfathomable. It takes a lot to stay the big dog, especially when the big dog doesn't have to worry about a single contender, but about an entire pack coming to knock him down while he stands alone.

Go ahead and say that I have some stupid, naive view of the world, or some rose colored glasses about the U.S. But I have seen the alternatives, studied the alternatives, and none of them provide us with the security and wealth that we enjoy right now.

We can also look at history and see the effects of every single country that has moved too far over with socialistic ideals. They have all faltered, and failed, and collapsed into great ruin. Some of it, imo, is because removing the drive to be great, removing the drive to do better than others, allows those few who seek power to amass it, until the sheer weight of the power at the top brings the entire tower down to it's knees.

So I'll keep my guns. And I'll keep my capitalism. And I'll keep my bloated military. Because so far, the status quo, has provided this world the best opportunity to move forward than anything else that has ever been tried in the past. To give up these things, to remove our drive, our desire, for global equality, will only invite our own destruction when those who do not seek these same things prevail. And they would prevail, if we were not there to stop them.

You can talk about how great these things are that some countries are doing, but given all of this time to play with their experiments, to do all of these things that 'make humanity better', I have yet to see them reach the levels that America has been at for decades. They are in no way, shape, or form to attempt to take over as the world's overseer from America. And it does not look like anyone will be able to rise to that challenge any time soon.

So to those who choose to move us too far into socialism, I say nay. We have chosen a task to perform for the people of Earth, and we need to stay strong, and steadfast in our resolve. We need to stop giving into petty infighting. We need to stop trying to make everyone equal in result, and cling to our origins of making everyone equal in opportunity. Let the best rise to the top, but let them never remain unchallenged. Let others always strive to achieve, and to overcome.

-JD

 

[watisthis]

you want a simple argument?

The world is currently experiencing the closest thing to peace it has ever seen. And it does so solely because of American Hegemony. America is able to achieve this through a few different factors, natural resources, isolated location, and very importantly our drive to create the next big thing, which is of course largely driven, or financed, through a drive to make money.

Many of our allies practice socialistic principles, free tuition, free healthcare, etc etc. However, they are only able to do so due to living underneath the protective umbrella that America has provided them for over 70 years. Without this umbrella these practices would not be possible, history alone has proven this, as instead the vast majority of their expenditure would not be on 'free' services for the middle and lower classes at the expenditure of their upper classes, but instead would be spent on defense budgets, and waging countless wars resulting in millions of lives lost of those very same middle and lower classes.

You can make the argument that the world has changed, that people have changed. But again, we have significant enough evidence to show otherwise. Anywhere that the U.S. refuses to cover with it's umbrella, or directly threaten with it's guns, devolves into utter chaos. Europe has been at non stop war for not years, not, decades, not even centuries, but millennia, until the U.S. and Russia came in and waived their big sticks around. After we got done staring at each other for 40 years, and the U.S. came on top of that, we have provided the (near) entirety of Europe with our protection. Even before then, no two major powers have (directly) gone to war with each other since 1945.

There have been multiple contenders to the throne, and while the U.S. is by no means perfect, the alternatives to the U.S. as the sole world superpower is horrendous. Can you honestly say that anyone, and I mean anyone, other than the top circle of those countries, would be better off with China, or Russia, in the lead?

So, why can we not spend all of this money elsewhere at the expense of some of our massive defense budget? Because the cost is simply unfathomable. It takes a lot to stay the big dog, especially when the big dog doesn't have to worry about a single contender, but about an entire pack coming to knock him down while he stands alone.

Go ahead and say that I have some stupid, naive view of the world, or some rose colored glasses about the U.S. But I have seen the alternatives, studied the alternatives, and none of them provide us with the security and wealth that we enjoy right now.

We can also look at history and see the effects of every single country that has moved too far over with socialistic ideals. They have all faltered, and failed, and collapsed into great ruin. Some of it, imo, is because removing the drive to be great, removing the drive to do better than others, allows those few who seek power to amass it, until the sheer weight of the power at the top brings the entire tower down to it's knees.

So I'll keep my guns. And I'll keep my capitalism. And I'll keep my bloated military. Because so far, the status quo, has provided this world the best opportunity to move forward than anything else that has ever been tried in the past. To give up these things, to remove our drive, our desire, for global equality, will only invite our own destruction when those who do not seek these same things prevail. And they would prevail, if we were not there to stop them.

You can talk about how great these things are that some countries are doing, but given all of this time to play with their experiments, to do all of these things that 'make humanity better', I have yet to see them reach the levels that America has been at for decades. They are in no way, shape, or form to attempt to take over as the world's overseer from America. And it does not look like anyone will be able to rise to that challenge any time soon.

So to those who choose to move us too far into socialism, I say nay. We have chosen a task to perform for the people of Earth, and we need to stay strong, and steadfast in our resolve. We need to stop giving into petty infighting. We need to stop trying to make everyone equal in result, and cling to our origins of making everyone equal in opportunity. Let the best rise to the top, but let them never remain unchallenged. Let others always strive to achieve, and to overcome.

-JD

What are you talking about? We literally had most of these social practices and even more so back in WW2 thanks to FDR, there is no better country to look at when it comes to growth and social welfare programs than the US. You literally just proved my point by neglecting history.

No one is arguing against a defense budget but if you don't understand how defense contracts work then of course you won't understand the fraud, waste, and abuse that the system entails. We've had a balanced budget before and lo and behold we got intuitive and built drones. Technology is changing the landscape of our budget and in doing so we are able to reorganize funds. Taxing the 1% (and enforcing it as that is the problem) is even better for the military as that is where we get most of our budget.

https://www.ssa.gov/history/pdf/histdev.pdf
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go

 

[Jimmy Dean]

What are you talking about? We literally had most of these social practices and even more so back in WW2 thanks to FDR, there is no better country to look at when it comes to growth and social welfare programs than the US. You literally just proved my point by neglecting history.

No one is arguing against a defense budget but if you don't understand how defense contracts work then of course you won't understand the fraud, waste, and abuse that the system entails. We've had a balanced budget before and lo and behold we got intuitive and built drones. Technology is changing the landscape of our budget and in doing so we are able to reorganize funds. Taxing the 1% (and enforcing it as that is the problem) is even better for the military as that is where we get most of our budget.

https://www.ssa.gov/history/pdf/histdev.pdf

Apparently your reading comprehension is bad. I did not say NO social programs, but we also cannot afford to go with too many. And while perhaps there is a better balance going with some additional ones, there is a tipping point somewhere that direction too. and quite frankly, the cost of tipping far outweighs the benefits of moving, or at least moving to quickly. I would much rather we look deeper into the reasons for such increased higher ed costs, medical costs, housing costs, wage stagnation, etc. and work on those with a somewhat more capitalistic mindset than 'tax the fuck out of everyone who works their asses off and give it to everyone else' that some people espouse.

I have no issues with us balancing the budget, certain spending needs to be reigned in. I'd start with private prisons, an holding law enforcement more accountable. While we're at it we can increase the federal income through legalization of marijuana. while these three things alone won't balance the budget, they are some very obvious and very simple shortfalls in it right now.

I do think we need to look into raising taxes on higher incomes at a certain point, exactly where, well not my area of expertise. Granted I think my preference would be that we find a way to tax money that isn't moved (spent, invested, etc), i.e. held in savings. Even when your money is making money through simple investing, that money is helping to create jobs, and do research. But when money is held in account, be it business accounts or private, it is doing significantly less for the economy. Money used for things like mortgage loans and small business loans is pretty slow moving.

I am aware of how the fraud, waste, and abuse of the defense contract system works. I also disagree with a complete overhaul of that system for reasons of security and stability. there is some fat that can be trimmed for sure. But there are reasons for some of it as well.

Lets take a jackscrew for the landing gear on a C-130 for example. Pertinent part, required in order to keep the airplane flying (or rather, landing....). Required that it is made in the US for security reasons. Now, in normal training and flight hour maintenance ops, the entire fleet of hundreds of planes uses, a dozen a year? But when entering a major war type scenario, where the Herc is expected to perform it's primary role of combat landing and takeoffs routinely, we would expect to see the number of jackscrews needed every year increase to a few hundred. So, while we only order 12 a year from Bob's C-130 jackscrew emporium, we require that he maintain capability to make 300 jackscrews a year. Which means that he needs to have 10 times as many lathes available, a significantly larger factory floor on standby with equipment ready, possibly even more than enough machinists on standby. And this all costs him money. Of course he isn't doing this for free, so all of these extra costs every year get rolled into the price of those 12 jackscrews, so we're paying excessively more for each one than they actually costs to make, because we are paying him to have more capacity every day. Of course, Bob isn't letting his 11 extra lathes and machinists and 20,000 sqft factory floor sit idle every day, he is going to make widgets for Ford or Chevrolet or whomever. So he is double dipping right? No. We are paying him a premium on the jackscrews so that we have primary access to his equipment and capacity. So that he can do normal business during normal times, and break the Ford contract and have the needed capacity whenever we need him to.

'course there's also the 'hidden' money, the 10,000 dollars for a hammer, or 20,000 for a toilet seat type of thing. But pretty sure we don't have a budget line item for skunkworks, or super-duper-secret CIA ops.

Now, the graft, the bribery, there are some things we could certainly work on getting under control in the defense contract world.

 

[Docscurlock]

Apparently your reading comprehension is bad. I did not say NO social programs, but we also cannot afford to go with too many. And while perhaps there is a better balance going with some additional ones, there is a tipping point somewhere that direction too. and quite frankly, the cost of tipping far outweighs the benefits of moving, or at least moving to quickly. I would much rather we look deeper into the reasons for such increased higher ed costs, medical costs, housing costs, wage stagnation, etc. and work on those with a somewhat more capitalistic mindset than 'tax the fuck out of everyone who works their asses off and give it to everyone else' that some people espouse.

I have no issues with us balancing the budget, certain spending needs to be reigned in. I'd start with private prisons, an holding law enforcement more accountable. While we're at it we can increase the federal income through legalization of marijuana. while these three things alone won't balance the budget, they are some very obvious and very simple shortfalls in it right now.

I do think we need to look into raising taxes on higher incomes at a certain point, exactly where, well not my area of expertise. Granted I think my preference would be that we find a way to tax money that isn't moved (spent, invested, etc), i.e. held in savings. Even when your money is making money through simple investing, that money is helping to create jobs, and do research. But when money is held in account, be it business accounts or private, it is doing significantly less for the economy. Money used for things like mortgage loans and small business loans is pretty slow moving.

I am aware of how the fraud, waste, and abuse of the defense contract system works. I also disagree with a complete overhaul of that system for reasons of security and stability. there is some fat that can be trimmed for sure. But there are reasons for some of it as well.

Lets take a jackscrew for the landing gear on a C-130 for example. Pertinent part, required in order to keep the airplane flying (or rather, landing....). Required that it is made in the US for security reasons. Now, in normal training and flight hour maintenance ops, the entire fleet of hundreds of planes uses, a dozen a year? But when entering a major war type scenario, where the Herc is expected to perform it's primary role of combat landing and takeoffs routinely, we would expect to see the number of jackscrews needed every year increase to a few hundred. So, while we only order 12 a year from Bob's C-130 jackscrew emporium, we require that he maintain capability to make 300 jackscrews a year. Which means that he needs to have 10 times as many lathes available, a significantly larger factory floor on standby with equipment ready, possibly even more than enough machinists on standby. And this all costs him money. Of course he isn't doing this for free, so all of these extra costs every year get rolled into the price of those 12 jackscrews, so we're paying excessively more for each one than they actually costs to make, because we are paying him to have more capacity every day. Of course, Bob isn't letting his 11 extra lathes and machinists and 20,000 sqft factory floor sit idle every day, he is going to make widgets for Ford or Chevrolet or whomever. So he is double dipping right? No. We are paying him a premium on the jackscrews so that we have primary access to his equipment and capacity. So that he can do normal business during normal times, and break the Ford contract and have the needed capacity whenever we need him to.

'course there's also the 'hidden' money, the 10,000 dollars for a hammer, or 20,000 for a toilet seat type of thing. But pretty sure we don't have a budget line item for skunkworks, or super-duper-secret CIA ops.

Now, the graft, the bribery, there are some things we could certainly work on getting under control in the defense contract world.

Thanks for taking over for me

 

[watisthis]

Apparently your reading comprehension is bad. I did not say NO social programs, but we also cannot afford to go with too many. And while perhaps there is a better balance going with some additional ones, there is a tipping point somewhere that direction too. and quite frankly, the cost of tipping far outweighs the benefits of moving, or at least moving to quickly. I would much rather we look deeper into the reasons for such increased higher ed costs, medical costs, housing costs, wage stagnation, etc. and work on those with a somewhat more capitalistic mindset than 'tax the fuck out of everyone who works their asses off and give it to everyone else' that some people espouse.

I have no issues with us balancing the budget, certain spending needs to be reigned in. I'd start with private prisons, an holding law enforcement more accountable. While we're at it we can increase the federal income through legalization of marijuana. while these three things alone won't balance the budget, they are some very obvious and very simple shortfalls in it right now.

I do think we need to look into raising taxes on higher incomes at a certain point, exactly where, well not my area of expertise. Granted I think my preference would be that we find a way to tax money that isn't moved (spent, invested, etc), i.e. held in savings. Even when your money is making money through simple investing, that money is helping to create jobs, and do research. But when money is held in account, be it business accounts or private, it is doing significantly less for the economy. Money used for things like mortgage loans and small business loans is pretty slow moving.

I am aware of how the fraud, waste, and abuse of the defense contract system works. I also disagree with a complete overhaul of that system for reasons of security and stability. there is some fat that can be trimmed for sure. But there are reasons for some of it as well.

Lets take a jackscrew for the landing gear on a C-130 for example. Pertinent part, required in order to keep the airplane flying (or rather, landing....). Required that it is made in the US for security reasons. Now, in normal training and flight hour maintenance ops, the entire fleet of hundreds of planes uses, a dozen a year? But when entering a major war type scenario, where the Herc is expected to perform it's primary role of combat landing and takeoffs routinely, we would expect to see the number of jackscrews needed every year increase to a few hundred. So, while we only order 12 a year from Bob's C-130 jackscrew emporium, we require that he maintain capability to make 300 jackscrews a year. Which means that he needs to have 10 times as many lathes available, a significantly larger factory floor on standby with equipment ready, possibly even more than enough machinists on standby. And this all costs him money. Of course he isn't doing this for free, so all of these extra costs every year get rolled into the price of those 12 jackscrews, so we're paying excessively more for each one than they actually costs to make, because we are paying him to have more capacity every day. Of course, Bob isn't letting his 11 extra lathes and machinists and 20,000 sqft factory floor sit idle every day, he is going to make widgets for Ford or Chevrolet or whomever. So he is double dipping right? No. We are paying him a premium on the jackscrews so that we have primary access to his equipment and capacity. So that he can do normal business during normal times, and break the Ford contract and have the needed capacity whenever we need him to.

'course there's also the 'hidden' money, the 10,000 dollars for a hammer, or 20,000 for a toilet seat type of thing. But pretty sure we don't have a budget line item for skunkworks, or super-duper-secret CIA ops.

Now, the graft, the bribery, there are some things we could certainly work on getting under control in the defense contract world.

We literally can, this has been outlined numerous ways in many of the articles I've posted as well. Taxes which we already pay, Except this time they don't go to Wall Street, subsidies, donor funds, charitable giving, or any other tax loop hole to hoard money outside of the economy. However, there are problems with his ideas too. Some of the money is double-counted. For example, Sanders purposing the FTT to pay for free public tuition for all, but also counts it in his Medicare for all, so he's screwing with numbers or he plans to balance the two which I don't understand how he can. This is what I would argue for. Most of this stuff wouldn't happen as we have seen with Obama and congress fighting over the budget and how to fund such things, which both sides coming to a compromise is necessary, imo. Futhermore on taxes,

"One of his biggest tax proposals is a tax on Wall Street transactions such as stocks, bonds, derivatives, etc. Essentially, a couple of basis points on each trade.

1 basis point = .01% = .0001

So it may not seems like a lot, and it really isn't, but many people and institutions in the financial world make money on those small changes in stock movements through high-frequency trading. Instead of buying an Apple stock and waiting it to increase over months or years, they buy stocks and trade it within seconds, making a 1 or 2 cent profit. There's already fees that go with that, so trading one share in this manner may only net .1 cents, but when you trade thousands or millions within a few seconds, that's when you can make money.

If you go to this link (page 34), it'll show you how much revenues this tax will bring in. It is one of the many ways Sen. Sanders would like to fund his policies. .01% is 1 basis point; .1% is 10 basis points; and .5% is 50 basis points."

Moreover,

"Under Sanders' "tax on extreme wealth," married couples worth more than $32 million would pay a 1% tax on their wealth above that threshold. The rate would rise to 2% on net worth between $50 million and $250 million, climbing in increments to a 8% tax on wealth above $10 billion.

The levy would raise $4.35 trillion over a decade, according to University of California Berkeley economics professors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, who analyzed the plan for the Sanders campaign. It would eliminate the gap in wealth growth between billionaires and the middle class."

If someone is hoarding 500 million dollars, that money has left the economy. If the wealthy spent a proportionate amount on creating jobs or increasing wages we wouldn't be having this discussion. Though what our government would actually do with said tax money is up for debate. Jeff Bezos could spend 40k/day and still not go broke. That is more than his warehouse workers make in a year.

I don't expect my net worth to ever be high enough to be affected, but if it were I wouldn't mind or complain. I'm already in the 10% for gross net worth, and these proposals only look at people doing 15-20 times better than I am. I'd easily vote for a candidate that asked the entire top 10% annually a little more, on a sliding scale obviously, if it meant eliminating the deficit and significantly improving social programs. I could find a few grand a year in my budget to cover additional taxes with no meaningful decrease in my quality of life.

Welfare programs tend to be successful at reducing poverty in developed countries including the US (history.) Reducing poverty is a benefit to society that outfights any of the harms attributed to welfare programs, including a disincentive to 'better oneself.' Therefore, welfare programs tend to provide a net benefit to society in developed countries.

I could do a whole other discussion on government contracts fraud, waste, and abuse. But no all defense spending is amounted and allocated for even if it isn't labeled as what it is or who it is for.

 

[watisthis]

Thanks for taking over for me

By all means, give me your suggestions or arguments for or against.

 

[Docscurlock]

By all means, give me your suggestions or arguments for or against.

I think you should just vote for Bernie, there is no argument that will help you understand how foolish that would be. The good thing is he will never get the Dem nomination, even if he wins the primaries they will never let him run. They will just come up with enough "superdelegate" votes to put into place the candidate that they want. Much like they did in 2016. After this cycle he will go the way of the dodo bird.

 

[watisthis]

I think you should just vote for Bernie, there is no argument that will help you understand how foolish that would be. The good thing is he will never get the Dem nomination, even if he wins the primaries they will never let him run. They will just come up with enough "superdelegate" votes to put into place the candidate that they want. Much like they did in 2016. After this cycle he will go the way of the dodo bird.

Don't be foolish, there are arguments against voting for Bernie. How foolish what policy would be?

Firstly, Bernie isn't so much the opposite of Trump as he is the same thing on the other side of the aisle, a populist, however, he isn't a corrupt scumbag. Given I did vote for that corrupt scumbag as I aligned more with his politics than Hilarys. It is important that voters understand what values are motivating a president's choices. If a president has good motivators, there is no guarantee that their decisions with have their desired outcome. However, if a president has selfish motivators, you can be confident that they aren't acting in public interest.

Bernie to most represents an unobtainable populist ideal and has a pretty difficult plan of action moving forward as congress will no doubt push back on policies. Medicare for all, minimum wage, tuition free public universities are all gaining traction and will most likely be a battle sooner rather than later with ideas of taxing the extremely wealthy and large multinational corporations and enforcing them. Because the US has a much greater GDP per capita than other wealthy counties offering these such as Germany and the UK, there are even more taxable assets available for the US to make large investments in public welfare.

Secondly he's a 'democrat' and they're extremely defensive in debates. He is terrible at playing reactionary politics which is what most debates are. No one cares about what they're offering anymore, people want to hear what the other candidates did wrong because drama sells and banter wins. However, he is extremely favorable where it matters.

Thirdly, he hasn't been very effective at getting his federal policies passed or when arguing against he usually falls on deaf ears, given that might be because many people in politics are paid off. He's effective at raising money and getting people to show up, but he's not very good at getting his ideas drawn up in a way that gets passed into law and implemented, this in my opinion, is due to him not budging on his ideals when being partisan would at least get something done, a little quid pro quo if you will.

I'm sure I could come up with more reasons if I looked over his policies again, but out of the 4 or 5 candidates I'm looking at he is the one to me that represents the least evil.

I agree on your final point, he is just like Ron Paul, he is too far against lobbyists and the like to have the backing needed to get full main stream attention. Luckily though this is the age of the internet and it is fairly easy to get your name out there, things like the Joe Rogan podcast are great examples of that and also provide the public with down to earth discourse we haven't really seen since FDR and radio.

 

[Docscurlock]

Don't be foolish, there are arguments against voting for Bernie. How foolish what policy would be?

Firstly, Bernie isn't so much the opposite of Trump as he is the same thing on the other side of the aisle, a populist, however, he isn't a corrupt scumbag. Given I did vote for that corrupt scumbag as I aligned more with his politics than Hilarys. It is important that voters understand what values are motivating a president's choices. If a president has good motivators, there is no guarantee that their decisions with have their desired outcome. However, if a president has selfish motivators, you can be confident that they aren't acting in public interest.

Bernie to most represents an unobtainable populist ideal and has a pretty difficult plan of action moving forward as congress will no doubt push back on policies. Medicare for all, minimum wage, tuition free public universities are all gaining traction and will most likely be a battle sooner rather than later with ideas of taxing the extremely wealthy and large multinational corporations and enforcing them. Because the US has a much greater GDP per capita than other wealthy counties offering these such as Germany and the UK, there are even more taxable assets available for the US to make large investments in public welfare.

Secondly he's a 'democrat' and they're extremely defensive in debates. He is terrible at playing reactionary politics which is what most debates are. No one cares about what they're offering anymore, people want to hear what the other candidates did wrong because drama sells and banter wins. However, he is extremely favorable where it matters.

Thirdly, he hasn't been very effective at getting his federal policies passed or when arguing against he usually falls on deaf ears, given that might be because many people in politics are paid off. He's effective at raising money and getting people to show up, but he's not very good at getting his ideas drawn up in a way that gets passed into law and implemented, this in my opinion, is due to him not budging on his ideals when being partisan would at least get something done, a little quid pro quo if you will.

I'm sure I could come up with more reasons if I looked over his policies again, but out of the 4 or 5 candidates I'm looking at he is the one to me that represents the least evil.

I agree on your final point, he is just like Ron Paul, he is too far against lobbyists and the like to have the backing needed to get full main stream attention. Luckily though this is the age of the internet and it is fairly easy to get your name out there, things like the Joe Rogan podcast are great examples of that and also provide the public with down to earth discourse we haven't really seen since FDR and radio.

No, really, vote for Bernie. You are much smarter than the rest of us.

 

[watisthis]

No, really, vote for Bernie. You are much smarter than the rest of us.

Alright? I'll take that as a compliment. Who will you be voting for and why?

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