OT: So What Could Hillary Clinton Have Done Differently?

Sadly, I think that the result of Hillary's campaign was set up during Bill's tenure. A lot of people (frankly, including me) resented H's presence in cabinet meetings, neither elected nor confirmed by Congress. The org chart of her proposed healthcare system was an abomination and people remembered that. Then there was the controversy about the Foster death (I am not assigning blame, just saying that it had an effect with a lot of people). She ran and won a Senate race in New York where she had no history until she and Bill bought a very expensive house which they shouldn't have been able to afford. Finally, there was a pretty lackluster performance as Secretary of State which culminated in the Benghazi mess. Again, not all her fault but on her watch.

Now, despite all of this, which made her arguably the most divisive candidate in the history of US elections, I held my nose and voted for her because I thought, and still think, that she was marginally better qualified to be President than that six times bankrupt, morally bankrupt, fat ass clown that ended up in office. Unfortunately, enough people in the right states believed that he would save them.

It's just sad that neither party could do better. I hope they've learned their lesson. :-(

san_jose_fag: "What Could Hillary Clinton Have Done Differently?"

Not run.

She could have gotten into a time machine, gone back 40 years and not have been so utterly corrupt and transparently self-interested.

SJG if you think she was a good candidate you clearly suffer from severe sickness.

Trump had like 12 women come forward right before the election with sexual allegations against him, Trump had the grab me by the pussy comment right before the election, he was a reality TV star! And Hillary still couldn't beat him SMH. Just pathetic. SJG you might have able to beat Hillary.

Hillary was the worst candidate the Dems could have put up, smug,arrogant, and full of shit. There were plenty of better choices but the arrogant, elitists felt like they had the election in the bag, as much as I despise DJT I'm glad she lost.

Three quarter of the voters wanted to throw every bastard in Washington out of office. Trump understood this. Bernie kind of did. Hillary listened to her 30-something campaign manager who told her to run a conventional campaign and tout her experience. In fairness, she didn't have a chance of running as an outsider.

Idiocracy.

"Trump had like 12 women come forward right before the election with sexual allegations against him, Trump had the grab me by the pussy comment right before the election, he was a reality TV star! "

It doesn't get much better than that.

Nothing...country was terrified of some bogeyman. The real one got elected.

Bu, b, b, bbut, but, but she got 3 million more votes

^ That's one of the nice things about the Electoral College system. She could have gotten 600 million votes in California, but that is offset by the states that frown on cheating.

She lost bc she's a manager from an outdated system that everyone is sick of. The old tricks of "helping women and children," while throwing a bone to big business, and gaining their financial support while at it, is now obvious and tired. At least with Trump in office, the other party gets another chance in four years, but if she got elected, it would be eight.

The private email server was a mistake. Was it as huge of a deal as some republicans thought? No. Did it look bad? Yes.

In hindsight she took the white working class vote for granted in states where unions have been destroyed.

She needed to be more of an economic populist in her messaging.

She also isn't that likeable. A lot of Bernie supporters held their nose and weren't making calls and campaigning.

She also may have just had bad luck. Trump is likely a once in a lifetime phenomenon.

In my opinion, she might have been able to win if only she had been more anti-war, anti-trade, and anti-immigration. That's the direction the country's been moving. 9/11 was a major catalyst, as was the recent financial "crisis," the chaos in Iraq and Syria, and the generally stagnant growth so far this century, but there were also some huge anti-globalization riots and rallies all the way back in the '90s (in keeping with the paranoid undercurrent of that decade). And let's not forget Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan, both of whom made a mark long before any of us knew who Osama bin Laden was, so who really knows how this movement got started? Now it seems that, with each passing election cycle, the American people become more and more isolationist. Trump ran as an isolationist. He was against war, immigration, and trade. Back in 2008, Obama ran against NAFTA, while Clinton tepidly defended it. And of course Obama beat her. She also had a long record of supporting various wars, while Obama ran as a peace candidate. And we know from her private comments (that have been made public through leaks) that she supports free trade, open borders, and a common market. For the record, I'm anti-war, but I'm very pro-trade and pro-immigration. I can't stand Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and I voted for Gary Johnson. Trump is slightly better than Clinton would have been, by my standards.

She could have lied more. She could have said she did not want open borders with South America and Mexico and believes US immigration laws should be upheld so that drug cartels and criminals are not allowed to travel freely in and out of the US. I heard her say she wanted open borders. She could have said she would nominate a Supreme Court justice that would uphold the right to bear arms and that she wasn't going to ban guns. There are a lot of additional lies she could have said but instead she was arrogant and when asked if she wiped her servers, she asked "you mean with a cloth?" If I had damaging emails, I would have erased them too. She did good hiding all the evidence and then her husband met with the lead person in charge of the investigation so you know something was up with that. Our choice for president became an arrogant lying person or a rich billionaire who at the time appeared to have a brain. Since then he has appeared to have a brain malfunction. I was really surprised he kept winning primaries. I did not vote for him in the primary. The state I live in has voted republican for president no matter how I have voted for decades, I have had the impression my vote doesn't make any difference. I usually vote liberaterian sort of like a 1% protest vote.

Trump ran a good campaign. He appealed to the middle class worker in key states. He even flew to those key states right before the vote but Hillary acted arrogant and saw no need to go there or not as much. If the people in one key state heard Trump was visiting and seemed to care about their needs, then that could have changed the election. If the election was held today, Trump would lose with his stupid blunder defending both sides in Charlottesville. I'm not even sure he realizes the mistake he made in the eyes of some people. I don't think he is that smart but his campaign outsmarted Hillary which gives me hope that the people he selects know how to run our government well. What I do and decide has made no difference. If someone thinks anything I have done has changed anything, I might be able to sell some bridges.

I just know if they don't get some middle class tax relief passed, republicans are likely to lose some elections. The problem is the Republican Party is more like 2 or 3 parties.

Well, no one trusts her bc she changes her stand on issues based on what her real backers want, but a president must be a leader and visionary, capable of instilling confidence.

^^^ And the current throne sitter ?

Hilary did a lot to rub people the wrong way. Her post-FLOTUS jobs all seemed like experience padding to run for POTUS some day. The way handled the DNC delegates 4 years ago to lock in the Democratic party nomination over Bernie Sanders rubbed me the wrong way.

Personally Im not a fan that she used her maiden name during Bill's first Arkansas Governor run (she fixed that the second run, though). It's nice that she's concerned with the female glass ceilings for the highest offices (CEO or POTUS), but that only really affects like 0.5% (top 99.5%) of women. It's hard to relate to. So while that's nice and all, she and the elite liberals/progressive seem out of touch with typical people.

She was also heavily criticized by the right for Bill's affairs. She did just what the Right would except a (betrayed) wife to do: stay in the marriage, work it out, forgive, look past it. Those are all things Christians would expect but still se was criticized for it.

I'm also not a fan of her corruption and money dealings. As much of a feminist supporter as I am (and I am) I think if she's more arranged her life to look like a "socially acceptable wife" instead of a too-career driven, too elitist East coast lawyer, who knew her role, she might have had a shot at POTUS. It's sad if she'd been a man, she'd probably have been given pass. It's a double standard for women, for sure.

It wasn't an either/or. She had nothing to offer a lot of Bernie supporters, who are more left leaning and libertarian than either Hillary or republicans. In the eyes of Bernie supporters, she's no better than Trump, and at least there's another shot in four years. I voted for Johnson bc I'll take right leaning libertarian over either fascist. Least I'll get personal freedoms w my lack of corporate regulation.

I wanted to vote for Johnson but the guy was as dumb as a rock, if Bill Weld would have been the top of the ticket I would have voted for him, I ended up writing PROTEST on the ballot.

Wasn't she on the board of Walmart during his first run? I'm really not sure. It was during their biggest expansion period, I know that. It's funny how she never bragged ab that, considering it would show her financial and business savvy.. oh wait! No, it's not surprising bc labor unions are part of the democrat base, and hate walmart. That's how she is. That's why no one likes her.

It is sort of hard to figure out what she stands for. Walmart is a sort of a funny issue with labor base. It's one of those teachable moment for sure, but no one will do it. Or the labor base won't listen.

(We were on the receiving end of Walmart eliminating small biz retail jobs and WMT graciously offered to hire everyone back at half their old wage (so generous!) or pay for 12 months school / job skills rehabilitation, some 30 years ago. We took the schooling. It was some 30 yrs before I'd even set foot it one or buy stock other than to wipe my ass with it.

WMT is an excellent idea of what efficiency and automation can do in capitalism. It's not a bug but it's the feature. It's a hard lesson for middle America. Instead of a race to the bottom one can use specific knowledge to do something useful to command a decent living. ... instead of trying to keep ones place in line and being overly concerned it "line cutters" as working class calls them.

I wonder how many women voted for Hillary just because she was a woman? If a man ran a campaign like Hillary did, I would not have voted for that man either. I know I heard women say they voted for her just because she was a woman. Yet I keep hearing from some women they think she lost because she was a woman. I think they are misguided. If the Republicans select an intelligent conservative female versus Hillary, I would vote Republican. I don't care about the gender of the president, I don't think most Americans do, The state of South Carolina voted for a female Republican governor twice and they have voted Republican for decades in their choice for President. If there had been better choices, I would have voted for someone else. The republican vote got splintered with like 17 choices in the primary and the loudest mouth won.

Anyway the election is over. I hope people push congress and our president to do what is right and tell them if they are doing something wrong. Not say they hope someone assassinates one of our leaders like a Missouri congress woman said. There used to be a time when saying something like that would get you immediately investigated by the secret service.

In West Virginia I saw her smile when she said a lot of coal miners were going to lose their jobs. I think she just thought, oops, forget that state. I thought that was arrogant and sad. Whatever happened to democrat promises of clean coal?

--> "Whatever happened to democrat promises of clean coal?"

I think some people didn't understand that a lot of clean coal requires a liquification of coal, which not every realized would take new power plants. It's not like putting screens and scrubbers on existing smoke stacks. And it you're going to buy a new plant (for liquid coal), why not just go (cheaper) natural gas or maybe a renewable.

The coal miners, when they hear clean coal, just assumed they could still sell to their existing market and existing plants. But it's not a retrofit or as cheap.

That's the way I understand it.

I saw a news broadcast where an old coal miner opened a computer science start up in WV. He would give job applicants an aptitude test. Then miners who showed promise, he'd each them to code (PHP and a web programming stack or Python) and hire them as coders. I think the starting salaries were $40k. Not great if you're used to a $80k mining job, but it's a start, and maybe it's a future.

Bj99 implied that Clinton lost because she changed her stance on the issues to make her backers happy, i.e., she was a flip-flopper. Well, yes she was. But so were the last half a dozen presidents AND their opponents. I didn't think anyone could flip-flop as much as Romney did... until I heard Trump give a stump speech! Listen, I grew up in NYC back when Trump was a fixture in the tabloids. Back then he would talk politics with almost anyone who took him seriously, so we occasionally got a big dose of the Donald's political opinions to go along with his sexual escapades and outrageous comments, and I can vouch that he held exactly opposite views to those he says he holds now. He was still a registered Democrat until around 2009, and he really sounded like one, too. He literally changed his position on every single issue except for trade, which he's always been against. Gun control, taxes, healthcare, gay marriage, abortion, immigration, regulation, you name it. Everything. So I doubt that Hillary lost just because she was a flip-flopper, because she wasn't the only obvious flip-flopper in the race. Hell, if consistency were the key to winning in November, Gary Johnson would probably already be president. And as for Clinton not having anything to offer the Sanders supporters, well, if that's what they believed then I guess they just weren't paying attention to the election coverage in the news. She was in favor of increased regulation, higher minimum wages, higher taxes on upper income earners, a carbon tax, universal pre-kindergarten, harming the coal industry, a bailout of most student loans, etc. Plus she pushed single-payer healthcare all the way back in 1993, and a "public option" more recently. I'm personally against all of that shit, but aren't those exactly the things that the Sanders people wanted? Oh, and she's MUCH more pro-immigration than Bernie Sanders ever was, just for good measure. I don't buy it. I'm glad she lost, but I just don't think that's the reason why she lost.

I think Bernie would have beat Trump.

It really depends on how much the voters cares that you are flip flopping and what you are flip flopping on. Trump's constituents didn't care much what he said bc they believed he was doing it in order to appeal to other people, but would really represent them. Clinton's base believed the same thing, but many of the Bernie voters, believed they were the ones being tricked into voting for her, and would not be represented once she was elected. Those who voted for Bernie were expected to fall in line and vote for Hillary bc she was better than Trumo, but there has been little difference between democrats and republicans, on the issues most important to a lot of Bernie supporters.

I agree w founder. Bc the Hillary supporters are good solider democrats and would have fallen in line, whereas the Bernie supporters were not loyal to the democrat party in the first place, and only got involved bc of Bernie.

I'm willing to bet that both the Democratic and Republican parties radically change the rules before the next election to try to prevent a recurrence of this past cycle, but sadly money trumps reason, and until our elections are free of the rich special interests, this will be the end result. I think it's pathetic yet we do get exactly what we deserve, for allowing demagogues to keep breaking every ethical rule on the books !

Hillary could have won if she was dead and they used her Weekend at Bernie's style, she'd be more likeable that way.

@Bj99, I also agree that Sanders would have won, but only because the polls said he would have beaten Trump, and they were well beyond the margin of error (whereas Hillary was shown beating him by less than the margin of error). But which issues that are most important to Bernie supporters do they believe there has been "little difference between Democrats and Republicans"? Being unable to accomplish something is very different from not believing in something. Without support from the opposition, you would need huge majorities in congress to accomplish the Bernie agenda. Is that their "proof" that Democrats aren't supportive?

@twentyfive, The GOP already changed the rules... back in 2012! And it didn't do much good. They were trying to prevent another Rick Santorum or Ron Paul. Santorum, you may remember, gave Prince Romney a real run on his way to the coronation in 2012. And Ron Paul was able to use the confusing delegate rules to "win" states where he had lost the primary popular vote that year, and to install people loyal to himself in local and state Republican parties. Those rules that Paul used were originally meant to ensure that the establishment favorite wins the nomination, but he went to school on their asses and it was embarrassing for them. So they changed the rules right at the convention... and then 4 years later, Trump got elected anyway, beating all of the establishment-backed candidates. So political parties don't have as much power as you think they do. And no, money doesn't "trump reason," and the "rich special interests" aren't totally in control. There was a shit ton of money backing Trump's opponents; whereas he had very little special interest support and spent very little money. And yet he still won. And it's not the first time I've seen that happen. Money just doesn't mean much if, at the end of the day, people aren't willing to go into a booth and vote for someone.

What's w the passive aggressive quotes? Lol. That's that's how politicians manage to never follow through a their promises. The parties are divided on a few controversial topics that Americans have been getting emotional about for decades. They write something up, and thow in some impossible demands that the other side simply can't allow, and then throw their hands up and say they tried their best. Why should voters be okay with that? as far as what issues Bernie supporters cared about, that Hillary flopped on, the biggest example is her corporate ties. She also changed her stand on gay rights. Many Bernie supporters have no issue w gays, and see it as a personal freedom issue. Bernie supporters are more libertain and more in favor of corporate regulation than either democrat or republicans, and female Bernie supporters see themselves as bennefitting more from systematic changes than traditional feminist special treatment.

The most campaign money spent doesn't always equal a win, but it does coorelate strongly, which is enough to say that it gives special interest groups a bigger vote than everyone else. You still have to spend it right though.

I think the proof that Dems weren't for Bernie since they colluded against him.

I hate to be the one to break it to you burlington but it's always the money, when there's an aberration, look and see where the money is. Clinton had the money so did Trump, difference was they both sucked, he just managed to get more traction. Neither ran effectively, they just made so much noise and threw so much shit it was a blizzard and there was no visibility for anyone else I hope we never see such a terrible choice ever again.

Sorry about all the air-quotes. I agree with what you said about the parties offering uncompromising legislation that they know the other side will block. But trust me, Bernie supporters are MORE uncompromising than mainstream Democrats, not less, so I don't think they have this reasoning in mind. As for gay marriage, most Bernie supporters eagerly supported Obama, despite his craven flip-flopping on that issue; Obama finally came out in favor of it in 2012, because Biden accidentally let the cat out of the bag in an interview. And Hillary followed suit the very next year. As for special interest money, well, it helps. But the special interests tend to follow the polls: they just want to be on the side of the winner. (This is very different from ideological donors.) And just for the record, Bernie had corporate ties, too. For example, his kickoff was sponsored by Unilever, and they were literally there handing out Ben and Jerrys samples to his fans. Lastly, the thing about his supporters being libertarians who nonetheless support corporate regulation, that is a contradiction in terms. I know this because I actually am one of those libertarians that San_Jose_Guy is always complaining about, and I can tell you that there is nothing more un-libertarian than corporate regulation. It's kind of like Libertarianism 101, you know?

Democrats have no one to blame but themselves. The American people wanted Bernie as the Democratic candidate, but the Democratic Party colluded against Bernie, they already had their mind up that Hillary was gonna be the Democratic candidate. We had 8 years of Obama, and Hillary is talking about doing the same exact things as Obama?? How the fuck did she think she was gonna win? Bernie would have beat Trump handily.

Well, thanks to everyone here for their ideas.

Yes, I am sure that Bernie Sanders could have brought lots of people to the poles, which Clinton did not.

Yes, Clinton is hawkish and she throws bones to business. I don't know about being on the Walmart's board, but the Clintons were considered to be anti-environmentalist and anti-labor because they were close to Tyson Chicken.

Hillary made a big mistake with the private email server, and many people are still disturbed over Vincent Foster. Always seemed to me that someone was sending the Clinton's a message.

Other than that, I don't think Hillary Clinton ever really did anything wrong, not in the White House, in the U.S. Senate, or as Secretary of State.

I feel that her '93 health care plan was better than Obama Care. She delivered on what people have always alleged, that we already spend enough on health care to cover every American. In her plan there would be no personal payments, just business payments, when not offset by tax credits. So really, no one would have seen any cost increases over their present practices.

But the consequence of this was that with its Health Maintenance Pools, it was complex, and the health care industry was able to run Thelma and Louise type ads, and so even with a Democratic majority, it never got through the Senate. Obama's plan was inferior, but he was able to get it passed.

Hillary was such a centrist candidate, being part of the anti-liberal and Southern formed Democratic Leadership Conference, that most everyone has things they don't like about her.

Now post election analysis of why a side lost is not new. And the Democrats usually do form their firing squads in a circle.

But still, no one has spoken directly to it, the allegation that the Democrats were using a flawed demographic model, and that Hillary needed to go directly after the White Working Class.

She had lots of negatives coming from all sides, and I feel that much of it is just based on stereotypes of ambitious women. I liked it when she used her maiden name, said, "I'm not Tammy Wynette", and made the cookie baking comment. Now of course, in each such incident she would get tackled by 20 handlers, and you would not see her again until she had a new hair style designed to set people at ease, but I still admire her for making the statements.

What exactly could she have said or done which would have influenced the White Working Class voters?

Listening to people on this forum, it always sounds like they don't want a repeat of the job creation delivered by Bill Clinton's extra 2% tax on high incomes, they don't want to be able to send their kids to college, they don't want our nation to continue to reap the benefits of having the world's most educated work force and high worker safety standards, they don't want to strengthen families with parental leave, and they want disputes to be handled with gun fights.

So what could Hillary have said or done?

Now I do understand that there are many people, both rich and poor, who want someone who talks like Donald Trump. Even the Republican Party was not initially on-board for that. And it still might not be. But for those who might have voted for Hillary, what should she have said or done?

Anyway, I'll be reading Arlie Hochschild, she is looking especially at the poor Trump supporters, and mostly she is listening and trying to understand.

I look at some of it. I know someone, not from Louisiana, but from Arkansas. And she is a Pentecostal Evangelical, and she talks just like the people in the book do, and she supported Trump, and for reasons I find incomprehensible.

I believe that reflecting on Hochschild's title we can get an idea of what has happened, and why none of it makes sense at a rational level.

SJG

Stones - Under My Thumb youtube.com

Libertarianism is the scale of personal freedoms. It is not inherently right or left socially, or financially. Someone can be pro personal freedoms, and for corporate regulation. Corporations are not people and are not necessarily privy to personal freedoms. Before you get defensive, I do realize that they play an important role in national security, and in global financial stability, but that doesn't give them personal rights.

@twentyfive,

If it's always about the money, then perhaps you could tell me why we never had President Ross Perot. Or Steve Forbes. Or Mitt Romney, for that matter. Back in 2008, Romney swooped into Iowa with tons of money. By comparison, Mike Huckabee only had himself, his family, and Chuck Norris. And yet Huckabee won Iowa in a huge upset. Sorry, but usually it's the Party that decides, not the money. And after 2016, it's apparent that the voters have more power than the parties ever did. That's a real problem with no solution.

Libertarian reduces all of life to property rights, and it even makes children into property. So of course it is a movement of the Right.

SJG

Iowa does not have a primary, just a caucus. A very different thing. And even primary voters are very different from General Election voters.

Remember that Perot and Forbes had never before run for elective office. Hard to take seriously, or for the Republicans to get behind.

Romney really hurt himself with that 44% comment, and it reinforced the way he was already coming across.

SJG

^ you are referring to the economic right, where modern "libertainian" parties are. Complete personal freedoms and the economic right is anarchy.

@Bj99, You're right, libertarianism isn't inherently about right or left, it's about more government control vs less government control. Corporate regulation means MORE government control. And of course you can be for more personal freedoms and still be for corporate regulation. You just wouldn't be much of a libertarian. We have many words today for people who believe that way: liberals, leftists, progressives, etc. There's nothing wrong with admitting to being a leftist or a progressive. Words have meaning. And as for corporations not being people... if you and I form a group, we still retain our individual rights and personal freedoms. You don't lose your rights just because you've formed a group for the purpose of making money. That's what corporations are: groups of people trying to make money.

Investors are gamblers. And you are referring to the financial left. I find it unproductive to classify people according to broad political parties, which change constantly.

corporarions are not necessarily bad, but they are not people. No one gets all emotional ab our communist military, where every job gets equal pay, and medical is free. The military is not a person, but soldiers are. Similar concept.

@Bj99,

No offense, but you're the one who classified yourself as a libertarian. The word still has meaning, in America at least. And yes, investors are gamblers. So what? All of business is gambling. Libertarians are in favor of gambling, too. You don't lose your rights just because you're gambling. Seems obvious to me.

Not the political party. Ugh. I prioritize personal freedoms over my stand on financial regualarion. If I could vote for Bernie, I would, but I'd vote for a "libertainian" (the political party) before I vote for a fascist dem or republican.

For the record, I'm not thrilled with our communist military, and the way it behaves, how it compensates it's personnel, and especially how big it is. But the military is part of the government. That is what curtails its rights. If it were private (which I'm not advocating), then, yes, it would be people, legally.

The investors have rights. The corporation itself does not. You are making this really complicated bc you are going off your knowledge of political parties.

@san_jose_guy, "Iowa does not have a primary, just a caucus. A very different thing. And even primary voters are very different from General Election voters."

So? How does that negate my point? Voters are voters and they're usually dumb and uninformed. The system encourages it.

"Remember that Perot and Forbes had never before run for elective office. Hard to take seriously, or for the Republicans to get behind."

Well, neither had Trump and it didn't seem to hurt him. Unless you count 2000, when Trump ran for the nomination of the Reform Party. And besides, Perot ran twice and so did Forbes, each doing more poorly the second time around.

"Romney really hurt himself with that 44% comment, and it reinforced the way he was already coming across."

Romney made the 47% comment in 2012. But I was talking about 2008. And he still lost. And so did Nelson Rockefeller. And Horace Greeley. And Ted Kennedy. And lots of other rich guys.

@burlington Perot quit, Obama raised more money than Romney. @ BJ99 I think our military is a socialist more than communist organization.

@Bj99, The investors signed a contract that empowers the corporate board and its employees to speak for them and act on their behalf in all corporate matters. Without that agreement, no corporation would be able to accomplish much of anything. Without rights, the corporation wouldn't be able to execute its duties. Haven't you ever owned a stock before? Or known someone who has?

@twentyfive, Romney raised way more money than Huckabee in 2008, and he was supposed to win Iowa, but he lost big. Yes, I know Obama raised more money than Romney. My point is that the correlation between money and election results only goes so far. Popular sentiment matters more, and it's just as bad as money. All this stuff about getting the money out of politics just comes across as crazy Oliver Stone conspiracy theories, to me. And often it's just an excuse to curtail the free exercise of political speech. Oh, and "Communism" is the theoretical end-goal of "Socialism." That bit of insight comes straight from Karl Marx, himself. People act like Communism is some kind of authoritarian version of Socialism, but they are supposed to be one-and-the-same.

That means nothing. The qualification of stock market gamblers as "investors" is a construct that is not inherent to personal freedoms. Many concepts are debatable. I explained why Bernie voters didn't vote for Hillary, and how a Bernie coyote might identify more w someone like Johnson.

25 no. Not once you are in, and the draft certainlyn isn't. Tho it's not pure communism. The difference between socialism and communism is that the individual still has personal freedom in socialism, where there is no personal freedom in communism.

BurlingtonHoFactory, Corporations have been recognized by the courts as "persons" under the 14th Amendment. They can do things like poison a whole town (as in the case of Monsanto and PCBs in Aniston, AL) and get a minor financial penalty for what amounts to mass murder. They can also make political donations, since as "persons" they have 1st amendment rights. Back in the old days, before socialism was a thing, there were corporate charters and they were formed for a purpose and had to stay on task.

Making a new life form that can't be imprisoned or actually punished in a meaningful way seems to me to be more anti-libertarian since the government is compelling people to recognize a corporation as absolving the privileged few from things like mass murder.

@Bj99,

1. What difference does it make if you are gambling or investing? Rights are rights. You have a right to your life, liberty, and lawfully acquired property (which Jefferson called "the pursuit of happiness"). You can do with your life, liberty, and property whatever you wish. It isn't subject to being voted away. It isn't subject to the whims of the government or the voters. That's what freedom means. The stock is your property. The corporation is your property. You can make it do whatever you want, as long as you don't hurt anyone else. This is inherent to the definition of freedom.

2. The difference between socialism and communism has absolutely nothing to do with personal freedom. You're obviously very smart, but you really should educate yourself on this. Bernie Sanders was able to fool an entire generation (my generation and presumably yours, too) with the little rhetorical trick about "democratic socialism." But socialism is a system under which the government controls or owns the so-called means of production, better known as businesses and their assets. There are other aspects of it, but that's the meat and potatoes of the concept. According to Marx, the goal of socialism is to one day get to communism, a theoretical society without classes, without money, without the profit motive, without even a government, in which people would just magically cooperate with one another in all matters of production and consumption. In order to get to communism, every person who would not cooperate with their utopian vision would have to die first. That's what the socialists said. Seriously, it's true, read it for yourself. But there has never been a socialist or communist country ever in world history. And there has never been a capitalist country, either. All countries exist on a continuum from theoretical capitalism to theoretical socialism. The most capitalist countries are in Europe, North America, Australia, and some small Asian nations, but none of these countries have anything close to pure capitalism. The most socialist countries are/were the Soviet Union, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Cambodia, etc., but even these countries do not have anything close to pure socialism. Every country has a mixed economy that varies in terms of how much is socialized.

@burlington-So you believe the correlation between money and politics, is a crazy Oliver Stone conspiracy theory, Romney still ended up with the nomination even though he lost the caucuses in Iowa, and Obama became president, those facts sort of bear my statement out correctly and contradict what you are saying. @Bj99- you are confusing the meaning of socialism and communism neither system has much to do with personal freedom here is a definition from Investopedia BTW I strongly disagree with you guys equating investing with gambling google.com

@ppwh, Assuming you're right, and that a company poisoned a town, you would first have to prove either intent or strict liability. It doesn't make much sense to jail someone who had no way of knowing that their actions would kill people. A fine would be appropriate. A civil suit with a huge settlement would also be very appropriate. But if you can prove intent, or even just that the company should have known that there was a small possibility that people would die or be injured, then yes, every corporate official who signed off would belong in jail. That's how it should be. Obviously. As for speech and political donations, again, the stock is your property, and the corporation is nothing more than the group of people who own the stock. You can amend the corporate charter every day, if you want to. Today we're making cars, tomorrow we're growing kiwis, on Wednesday we're contributing to candidates. Whatever. Just don't hurt anyone.

Communism is financial regulation by the government. It would also include government regulation of personal freedoms such as who you can marry, how many kids you can have, what job you will do, what you will eat, and what medical procedures you will get (whether you want to or not).

Socialism is also financial regulation by the government, but the government would not regulate what people can do in their personal lives. It's confusing bc we really do see financial freedom as personal freedom in this country, and it's hard to see it otherwise, even for the sake of argument. but we don't have a lot of personal freedoms compared to financial freedoms bc our govt is mostly facist (lack of govt financial regulation, and govt regulation of personal freedoms)

In the military, before they let the gays in, it was technically not allowed to get a blow job from your wife. You could choose to marry and all of that. Like I said. It wasn't complete communism by any means, but not socialism.

^^^So you should force people to pay personal taxes, on the money corporations donate to a political campaign, after all money is speech, and corporations don't have political biases only interests, SMH

@twentyfive, Again, I was talking about 2008, not 2012. McCain actually got the nomination in 2008, not Romney. But my point is that money is only one aspect, it's not the whole ballgame. Sometimes the guy with the money wins, sometimes he/she loses. Check out some of the examples I listed if you don't believe me. Or look at some individual Senate and House races in, say 2006, 2010, 2014, etc. Yes, money is essential if you want to pay for stuff to keep your campaign rolling. No kidding. But if all you have is money, you won't win much. Just ask Jeb Bush. Think of it this way: almost everyone today hates Hitler, right? So if Hitler could somehow magically come back to life and run for office, how much money do you think Hitler would have to raise to have a good chance at winning? Yes, I know it's a silly example. And yes, I know some nuts really do like Hitler. But don't be ridiculous, you know he would lose any election anywhere. That's my point. Money can buy some things in politics, but it doesn't buy everything.

@Bj99, These definitions you're using just aren't accurate. Those aren't the definitions of communism, socialism, or fascism. You can have authoritarianism without it necessarily being a communist society. And fascism DOES NOT mean lack of financial regulation with heavy regulation of personal matters. That simply isn't true.

I didn't say what anyone should or shouldn't do w their money. I do have thoughts on that, (and my issue is more the role of corporations in our country and I do think they have an important role) but it's not the topic. My only point is that some voters bigger concern is what people can do with their personal lives, which is why a Bernie supporter might vote for an anti financial regulation/ anti personal freedom regulation "libertarian" over a facist democrat or republican bc both of those party's regulate personal freedoms far more. They just regulate different ones, and market that to their voters.

I personally liked McCain, better than Obama but even in 2008 Obama raised more money than both Hillary and McCain and eventually the money won, yes there anomalies but generally the big dollars prevail. If you could run the campaigns without influence money, I'd say go for it, but it won't happen, you know this as well as I do. If there were no big donors with interests in certain types of legislation, your congressmen and senators would actually have to legislate (the work we pay them for) instead of spending 3-10 days a month doing nothing but raising money for the next election. Feel free to be a Pollyanna, any time you like, money does buy everything, in politics, in our country.

Burligton. I don't see how you figure. But yes, you can have authoritianism without govt financial regulation. That's fascism.

Well BJ99, in 1930s Germany, the Nazi party was the socialist party, like it or not, that is a historical fact.

@Bj99,

I absolutely agree with that point. I've known a few libertarians who supported Sanders. And even I think he was slightly better on a few issues. The drug war comes immediately to mind. It's totally possible to prioritize this issue over that issue and choose to support a candidate even though you don't agree with this or that part of the platform. I do it all the time. So we agree. But you still aren't using the correct definitions of communism, socialism, or fascism. It's a shame, I hear tons of people misusing these terms nowadays. See my above points.

P.S Libertarians come in all stripes, Socialists, Communists, Capitalists, even Anarchists, and Fascist so do Democrats and Republicans, they just don't admit it.

Okay. I guess you can do some decent govt regulation of finances and still be a facist. I tend to think of the extreme categories.

25, are you sure you aren't thinking of political party's that ppl self identify with?

I don't see how hitler was socialist at all. that makes no sense. Just bc he called it socialism, doesn't make it so.

No no no, I'm just adhering to the meanings of the words that you are misidentifying, not talking about anyone's identity just trying to to get you to clarity, most of your thinking is correct, but you are defining terms differently than their actual meanings.

@twentyfive, Well, I personally didn't like McCain, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Romney, Trump, Huckabee, Santorum, or Sanders. But some of them won anyway. And lots of big money was poured into the campaigns of the losing candidates, too. So I guess someone needs to tell the "big money interests" to stop wasting all their money. You seem to be pretty well informed, I just don't know how you can look at all my historical examples and say they're only anomalies. I don't get that. But the most important thing to remember is that big money usually goes to candidates who already agree with the donors beliefs, so I don't think it's really changing anyone's mind. For example, Rick Perry got donations from oil companies because he was already predisposed to being pro-oil to begin with. But I doubt donations from oil companies would do much good in changing, say, Elizabeth Warren's views, so they don't donate to her. Just an example. Americans, including rich people and special interests, spend less money every four years on campaign contributions than they do every year on Halloween candy. It doesn't control as much as you think.

I also don't agree that the Nazis were a true socialist party. They were a fusion of Nationalism and Socialism, and they had a nationalist wing and a socialist wing. Their opponents in the street battles during the '20s were mostly socialists. The Nazi party had many socialist aspects in their party platform, but so do modern American Democrats and Republicans. None of these are purely socialist parties.

@Bj99, Hitler wasn't a pure socialist, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't "at all" a socialist. He hated socialism and capitalism equally and preached a "third way," which would blend the two systems. He had many many aspects of his platform that were socialist, from the "People's Car" program (Volkswagen), to price controls, to nationalizing select industries, to massive government-sponsored land conservation programs, etc. What Hitler was pushing was the same mixed economy that I described above. It certainly wasn't unique to Nazi Germany. Back in the '20s, Mussolini described his system of government, which he called fascism, as being the same as "corporatism." And 90 years later, lots of dopey Americans read that (or heard something second-hand from someone who did) and said "Aha! I knew corporations were evil! See, fascists want to put them in charge of the government!" But that's not what Mussolini meant at all. Italy in the 20s hardly had anything equivalent to modern American-style corporations. He meant corporatism as in "Corpore," which is Latin for "the body." He envisioned a country in which all segments of society would act together like organs in the body. Businesses, labor, soldiers, bureaucrats, etc., all acting together to further the interests of the Government, which he viewed as the embodiment of the "will" of a race of people.

I agree with you that the large donors tend towards their self interests, but most people understand this so we agree there but I'll try to expose my thinking this way. Trump has been all over the place with his bullshitting, he is a real con merchant, He has a lot of money, so he gets a ton of publicity because he acts like an ass, I think intentionally. He has been playing with the idea of running for president since the 1980s, if you lived in NYC or its suburbs you'd know this. He has weighed in on many local NY issues over the years usually on the wrong side,( i.e.;the Central Park jogger rape, the Tawana Bradley case among others) he whitewashed his failures and he has had a lot over the years. My point is if you have the ability to make a lot of noise people forget the spaghetti on the floor and only see the spaghetti stuck to the ceiling. Any way his accomplishments are loud and in your face, so here is where the money and publicity come in. He claimed Obama was born in Kenya noise all over but he hasn't put forth one iota of evidence and won't admit to it either. He promised he was going to self fund his campaign yet he quietly let the Republican Party foot the bill. He promised to show us his taxes, you know where that is. How about his line in the sand with the Russians and Syria. How about all of the dealmaking he was going to do, the Mexicans haven't given him one peso for his wall, health care is stalled, tax reform hasn't even started, well what about his legislative accomplishments he got a fucking judge confirmed, nothing else. Now the money is starting to turn against this bully let's see how the Republicans treat his agenda in the fall, bet it's more of the same and it's all about the money.

No. He was not a socialist. He wanted to unite the classes, but based on race. You cannot kill off a huge section of your people (who should have personal rights and freedoms), and call it a social program. He is best classified as a facist, if you must include a psychotic party into your definition of politics, and was closer to being communist that socialist. If I remember right, the main issue he hated about the current communists was that Stalin's communism outlawed religion as part of their regulation of people's lives. Hating them doesn't make them that different tho. Look how some democrats and republicans will hate each over just one or two topics that matter to them.

Socialists tradiationlly believe that race is a construct to prevent the poor from identifying as a class and voting together, so that they can be manipulated into voting against their personal interests, by primarily identifying as their race.

Socialism is defined as a common undertaking for the good of society, the army for example
Fascism is defined as a fanatical belief in the state that all.

@twentyfive, I agree with everything you said except: "He has been playing with the idea of running for president since the 1980s, if you lived in NYC or its suburbs you'd know this. He has weighed in on many local NY issues over the years usually on the wrong side."

Dude, I know. I grew up in NYC and I've been watching Trump in the local media for a long time. Read my comment from last night. That's what I said. Also, yes, the Party footed the bill, but CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News sponsored so much more, every night on the news.

That is so fucking true goes to the heart of my statement of him being a con man, getting others to pay his bills. He sure conned the media, can't say they didn't have it coming.

@Bj99, Yes, he was a fascist. Fascism has aspects of Socialism and capitalism blended into it. That's exactly what I said. And being a socialist doesn't preclude you from killing whole segments of your society. Just look at the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The thing about Hitler disagreeing with the communists because of Stalin's outlawing of religion was pure propaganda on Hitler's part. He used fear of socialism and the Soviet Union to his advantage whenever it suited him. For example, he used it to impose a 110% marginal tax on the wealthy in occupied Holland, always saying that the money was needed to fight the Red Army. So basically, he was saying that we need to impose socialism in order to fight socialism LOL. But if you're still talking about the difference between socialists and communists and saying that Hitler is closer to one or the other, then I would say that you didn't read a what I wrote above. It isn't true.

On the other hand, what you wrote about socialists and their views on race are exactly accurate, and that is one of the many many distinctions between the Nazi party and various socialist parties.

The Khmer Rouge were communist, and they were funded by communist china. They did not seek to unite the classes, they systematically murdered anyone educated, and all of the professionals to leave only a peasant class that could be most easily controlled. That's not socialism. Those were some particularly murderous communists.

@Bj99, Okay, I know what you're saying, but communism and socialism aren't two different things. Socialism is the caterpillar and communism is the butterfly. Socialism is supposed to be what leads to communism. That's what Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Castro, Che Guevara, and every socialist party in history has always said. Why do you keep saying they're different things? Read my comments above. A "communist" is just a socialist who doesn't want to wait.

Hell, Hitler sold killing Jews and Slavs as a social value, his book " Mein Kampf "calls for ethnic cleansing as desireable for society. That was sold as socialism.

And just for the record, socialists don't want to unite the classes either. They want to take the wealth from the wealthy, thereby ending the upper class and the middle class, by force if necessary. That's the point. They want to unite the "workers" against the capitalist class.

It doesn't matter. The ends does not justify the means. A thing is, what it is, and Hillary is the same in the eyes of lot of Bernie supporters as a republican.

@Bj99,

That seems fair enough to me. We agree on that.

You are basing all of your larger concepts on your limited knowledge of some dated self identified political parties. No wonder you can't figure out why Bernie supporters wouldn't vote for Hillary.

Oh good. If you see that, then I managed to explain something. Also, Hitler was not a socialist, and the Khmer Rouge were communists funded by communist china.

@Bj99, I understand why they didn't vote for her, I just think it's crazy that they would throw away 80% of their platform for the other 20%. That's called making the "Perfect" the enemy of the "Good." Hillary was closer to a socialist than any major party nominee since at least George McGovern. And they still wouldn't vote for her. It's amazing.

About the Khmer Rouge, Hitler's platform, socialism, communism, etc., did you or did you not read what I wrote? Do you disagree with my definitions of communism and socialism? Because those are the academic definitions. I didn't make them up.

I do disagree with your definitions as a means of classifying based on a greater political theory, but it's a good explaination of how socialist ideas of the time related to Marxist communism.

The reason it's not surprising that Bernie supporters threw away 80 percent of their platform is that (while percentage helps to classify based on a larger theory) voters weigh different issues more heavily than others based on their individual values.

Nobody voted for Hillary because she only gives air dances. Then again, we should consider ourselves lucky for that.

As for the definitions, I guess you win, you beat me. Sometimes you just can't even convince someone about facts (let alone opinions). If you don't agree with my analysis, or with historical definitions, and you believe the Khmer Rouge, or the Soviet Union, or Red China, or North Korea, etc., are "communist" countries, as opposed to "socialist" countries, can you humor me with some examples of some countries that you believe actually are socialist, either historical or present day?

With the Bernie thing, I agree with you: they really thought they were just weighting certain issues higher than others and being principled. My opinion is that they were mistaken: on most economic issues, Hillary and Bernie Sanders were very close. This is the petty narcissism of small differences. What issues do you believe they weighted so highly that would make them refuse to support her?

^ Secretary Clinton gave paid speeches to wall street (or that's the impression .. wall street, goldman sachs, large banks, whatever).

RE: "My opinion is that they were mistaken: on most economic issues, Hillary and Bernie Sanders were very close. This is the petty narcissism of small differences."

Correct. Secretary Clinton did have a detailed plan for Wall Street reform (link: hillaryclinton.com ). Senator Sanders showed less nuance and less understanding: "break them up" ..." too big to fail is too big to exist." were his battle cries. Yet HRC has a detailed plan, including having corporate officers go to jail for some infractions. 14th Amendment is a cold bitch.

IMO ( and this is IMO) The Sanders' supporters were drawn to the understanding that Wall Street does not (in their views) play by the same Libertarian and free market principles that you and I do. The Gov't rigs the playing field for them so that Wall Street doesn't suffer losses like you are me or small business. And the Gov't uses them to shoulder the debt, which Gov't rates safe without risk (I think that's the wrong word). So Gov't appears to need the large banks for this purpose.

I think the Sanders' supporters, millennials, Occupy Wall Street (OWS), etc. just want to have the banks play by the same rules as the rest of us. They naively think that more gov't is the answer. However what they don't underestimate, and perhaps BurlingtonHoFactory does underestimate, is that Wall Street is very powerful and money is free speech and power. So they have that in spades.

I think if Wall Street would be made to play by the same, fair, libertarian, free market rules as the little guy. That would make the supporters happy.

It's just how can HRC be the answer, when she's over there taking money for speeches? It makes it seem like she's in bed with that and makes it seem like she's endorsing the problem. From their POV.

Bernie wanted to turn our country into Venezuela with all his taxes but I'm sure if the democrats hadn't rigged the primary against him so he had no chance of winning, he wouldn't have been able to get anything past congress. So far though, neither has Trump. Bernie might have been an amusing grumpy old man to listen to making you think it's just a matter of time before you got free this and free that but a lot higher taxes for everyone and everything, if he got anything past congress.

I remember a time when republicans said if they could control congress and the White House, they could get things done and create a booming economy. Appears to be bs from the republicans so far. It's been almost a year and no tax cuts, still have Obamacare.

I do think of most of the Senator Sanders supporters I talked to, the most common theme was free stuff. Free college, reduce debt for student loans, free healthcare.

I think a lot of that naiveté does wear off as the millennials start to get jobs, decent income, and start accumulating capital assets. It's not unlike the welfare state, but here the millennials are replacing the bank of mom and dad (or roommates, or school) with the bank of government.

And you and I know Gov't is never the answer.

We can't stop deep-throating off the entitlements and the welfare state.

Plus the death of the family structure does not help. Plus none of you guys are teaching primary, secondary, or post secondary education. Which doesn't help and re-enforces the liberal bias.

This goes back to what I said last night in my first comment. Since Clinton and Sanders were so close on so many issues and since there was so much passion from the Sanders supporters, why did she lose in November? Well, as I've said, I believe the answer is foreign policy. It's the same answer to why she lost in 2008. She's pro-war, pro-immigration, and pro-trade, in a country that is increasingly becoming more isolationist. Sanders was mostly anti-war, very anti-trade, and at times took an anti-immigration stance. And in 2008, Obama also claimed he was anti-war, and "skeptical" of trade. And of course, Trump was super isolationist on all three issues. Sanders and Obama approached it from the Left, Trump from the Right, but they all came to similar conclusions, and they all enjoyed remarkable success. Yes, you're right, if you're trying to appeal to an anti-capitalist movement, giving speeches to big investment banks is not such a good idea, especially since there's this impression that they don't play by the same rules as everyone else. But I think the foreign policy stuff is the biggest issue in analysing why some Sanders supporters didn't vote for her and why she ultimately lost.

If they had a protest to remove statues ahead of the election, might have cost Trump the election. I just read today Trump said there were fine people on both sides of the protestors. I did not hear or read those comments before. I'm wondering what rock Trump crawled out from. Maybe he was too busy tweeting to actually hear the real news.

However I do believe some of the tear down every statue people ar going overboard asking to take down statues of former presidents because they had slaves when people did not realize that was wrong. That's like someone 100 years from now condemning everyone alive today that drove a car that runs on gasoline because 100 years from now they think that is evil putting your own needs above the needs of the planet.

I shudder to think Bernie could have been president.

One last thought for all of you Republicans that refuse to call out Trump for his blatant pandering to hate groups. Remember the French Vichy government during WWII !

Burlington: "Why do you keep saying they're different things? Read my comments above."

Agree Communists and Socialists have exactly the same goals: dictatorship of the proletariat. Workers own the means of production. But that means neither the Khmer Rouge nor the Nazi were Socialists. It was not the workers who controlled the means of production, but a very small elite in the ruling parties.

Burlington: "Socialism is supposed to be what leads to communism. That's what Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Castro, Che Guevara, and every socialist party in history has always said. "

Incorrect. Hard core communists believe that Socialist elements in a Capitalist system make it tolerable enough to delay The Revolution inevitably and is thus a bad thing. They, thus, would advocate letting Capitalism run rampant with all its misery. Thus giving it enough rope to hang itself. BTW, the men you cited were no communists at all but Bolshevists: i.e. Fascists but calling themselves Socialists. The system the setup was not workers controlling everything in society, but rather a small ruling part doing so. Zero difference from Fascism.

Burlington: "A 'communist' is just a socialist who doesn't want to wait."

Sort of true. It was Lenin and Bolshevists who introduce the notion of a "Vanguard Party" arguing that the proletariat were currently too stupid to run society so a party of elites would have to take over and pave the way first "for a little while". Thus Bolshevism became Fascism. I think that, whatever their rhetoric, it was what they wanted all along. All power to themselves, not the workers. Not intention to ever give it back. So you phrase is probably accurate with the colloquial misunderstanding of terms, but would be more accurate as

"A 'Bolshevist' is just a Fascists who doesn't want to wait but, falsely, calls himself a Socialist".

@Dougster

First things first, I specifically said Hitler WAS NOT a socialist. But I also said that he had socialist aspects of his platform. Just like FDR, Winston Churchill, Charles DeGaul, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, etc. None of these guys are socialists, either. Hitler advocated a 'third way' between capitalism and socialism. This takes various forms and goes by various names throughout the world (a mixed economy, dirigism, etc), and in practice, most countries have it today in some form or another. So it's not fair to call Hitler a socialist. Having said that, once again, as I've said, the Nazi party was a fusion of socialist and nationalist elements. It had a socialist wing and a nationalist wing. Eventually, Hitler purged the socialist wing. But Hitler still had lots and lots of socialist planks in his platform. So it's also not fair to say that he wasn't 'at all' socialist. He was something in the middle. As I tried to explain. Sorry if I wasn't clear. The confusion here is that socialism is both an absolute point on the political spectrum and a direction. Some people ARE socialists. Other people are just "more socialist" than others. It's like compass direction. In the US, New York is in the East. California is in the West. Nevada is east of California. But that doesn't mean that Nevada is "in the East." I hope that makes sense.

You're right that none of these countries ever actually set up a dictatorship of the proletariat. But it's an accepted part of socialist dogma that a vanguard party with a ruling elite needs to take over first in order to make the transition. That's the Khmer Rouge or the Bolsheviks. I'm sorry if you feel they didn't "do it the right way." They did what they did.

I disagree with the thing you said about the difference between communists and socialists. You're incorrect. You're just talking about the difference between Fabianists and revolutionaries. They're just different schools of thought among socialists, that's all. If you read about these people you'll see that they're very good at disagreeing with each other and counting the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

Lastly, I totally 100% disagree with you about comparing the Bolsheviks with fascists. Words have meaning. The Bolshevik party was just the name of the vanguard Marxist- Leninist-Socialist party that took over the Russian government and formed the Soviet Union. I think the name means majority or majority party. They weren't fascists at all. Fascism has a specific definition. Fascists believe in nationalism, exalting the State and the military as the embodiment of a race of people, a race-based class system, militarism, government intervention in the economy, and government control (but not ownership) of businesses. That describes Hitler pretty well, but it does not describe the Bolsheviks.

I think dougsters correction was good. You are still getting historical political parties, their own self identity and propaganda, and political theory all jumbled up. You did say that "Hitler was a true socialist" and went on to give a few examples of some govt run programs.

No, I did not. About 20 hours ago, in responding to twentyfive, I said:

"I also don't agree that the Nazis were a true socialist party. They were a fusion of Nationalism and Socialism, and they had a nationalist wing and a socialist wing. Their opponents in the street battles during the '20s were mostly socialists. The Nazi party had many socialist aspects in their party platform, but so do modern American Democrats and Republicans. None of these are purely socialist parties."

I'd also said repeatedly that, although Hitler wasn't a socialist, he did have many socialist aspects built into his platform. And so do most modern politicians. Hitler was not a socialist. I don't know what else I can say to you to convince you. I don't think you're even reading most of what I'm writing. After all, you never answered the question I asked you last night.

Just to be crystal clear I never said Hitler was, or Nazi Germany, was socialist, all I said was that was how they sold their murdering 6million Jews.

At the risk of reverting back on topic, I believe that 1/3 of Americans vote purely base on likability. Not the issues. Not positions. In an evenly matched horserace, they become the swing voters.

Hillary is hated by many. Has been for decades. Trump was thought more likeable. That middle 1/3 enjoyed his populist ranting. That middle 1/3 enjoyed his ripping on his opponents. That middle 1/3 enjoyed the sound of "Make America Great". Game over. President Trump.

For the exact same reason, unless the Dems step on their dicks again, virtually anybody should beat Trump the second time around as his ridiculous tweets have dramatically decreased his likability. Trump is quite vulnerable and should lose. He might not even win his own primary, if he even chooses to run again. Wouldn't be surprised if he declined to run in 2020.

IMO, the most likeable, dignified, "Presidential" candidate, regardless of ideology, will win in 2020 if, for no other reason, as a boomerang reaction to Trump.

Burlington: "But it's an accepted part of socialist dogma that a vanguard party with a ruling elite needs to take over first in order to make the transition. "

Incorrect. There are plenty of socialist who do not believe in this. Only Fascists who want to gain power by incorrectly calling themselves Socialists or Communists believe in a vanguard party.

Marx came up with the philosophy of Socialism/Marxism so he gets to define it: dictatorship of the proletariat. If others want to depart from it, 180 degrees (and not talking about spin 1/2 particles either) later to something different, okay, but give it a new name: Since the Bolshevists came up with that one, let's just call it Bolshevism.

I don't see how Hitler implemented anything having anything to do with a dictatorship of the proletariat. Therefore there is nothing socialist about him. Nor the Khemer Rouge. Nor the Russian Bolshevists. Nor Mao. Dictatorship by a vanguard party is completely antithetical to Marx.

"I believe that 1/3 of Americans vote purely base on likability. Not the issues. Not positions. "

+1

I always thought of Hillary as a moderate policy wonk, not much different on policy than Obama. Maybe slightly to the right of Obama. Biggest difference is that Hillary had absolutely no charisma. Zero. By and large, that's why she lost.

So 1/3 will vote Democrat not matter what. 1/3 will vote Republican no matter what. And then the 1/3 who cast the tie breakers go with likability?

Burlington. I'm sorry. It's a lot to sort through. You say a lot :P you said he "wasn't a pure socialist, but that doesn't mean he wasn't at all socialist" (I wouldn't suggest that any historical form of govt was not at all socialist) and then went on to give examples of his govt run programs. Also, you said that in defense of 25's statement that nazi Germany was socialist.

I didn't answer your questions bc they were relevant or useful. It gets to a point where it looks like someone is just arguing to argue and hoping to find any sticking point to keep going. I like a good discussion, but that kind of thing is just a waste of energy.

Maybe we should stop because this is getting totally insane. If you really want to argue that Marx was a real socialist and Lenin wasn't, that's fine, whatever you say. In point of fact, you may be right, I don't know that Marx himself ever specifically used the term Vanguard Party. I know Lenin and the Bolsheviks used it. In practice, I can't imagine how a government could ever transition directly to a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" without some kind of revolutionary party taking power first, unless you just want total anarchy and mob violence. And even then. But then again, I'm not a socialist at all, so what the hell do I know? Someone should ask a real socialist, I suppose.

I still maintain that there has never been such a thing as a socialist country or a communist country ever in world history. But there absolutely have been individual people who were socialists, and in my view Lenin was definitely one of them, and the people he surrounded himself with were definitely socialists, too. Whether they succeeded in creating a socialist society is debateable; personally, I say they totally failed. The Soviet Union may have been far more socialist than most other countries at the time, but it was absolutely not pure socialism. But anyway, in my opinion, the first major difference between Hitler and Lenin is that Hitler never intended to create a Socialist society (and in fact he frequently talked about how much he hated socialism), whereas Lenin did intend to create a socialist society. That's one way to know for sure that Hitler wasn't a socialist. You can institute some socialist programs without being a full-blown socialist yourself, as I've said, and that's exactly what Hitler did. There's much more to socialism than merely the dictatorship of the proletariat.

I'll never understand the mental gymnastics people will go through to defend the concept of socialism from the criticism of all the horrors unleashed by people who supported it throughout history. I used to hear this all the time in school. The basic gist of the argument is, "This was bad. Therefore it couldn't have been socialism and the people who did it couldn't have been socialists." What nonsense. They love socialism but they don't love any of the socialist dictators who tried to implement it. But in my view, if you're going to disown Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc., then you're going to have to disown socialism, too, because these guys were all socialists, even though they all ultimately failed in their goal of creating a worker's paradise.

And for the record, there were other socialist thinkers long before Marx.

@Bj99,

I wasn't defending twentyfive's statement at all, I was arguing against it. twentyfive said that Hitler was a socialist, I didn't. Then he took it back and said he wasn't. Then you said that he wasn't at all a socialist. I guess a better way to put it is that Hitler wasn't a socialist but he also wasn't the opposite of a socialist, either. As I said, he was something in between. Anyone who says that Hitler was a socialist would have to apply that same description to almost every major political figure of the last 90 years. If it makes you feel better, even though he adopted many of their programs, Hitler really hated the socialists, that much is true. People insist on associating socialism with only good things, so there you go.

I'm sorry you didn't think my question was relevant.

Anyone care to speculate who will be the Democrat nominee in 2020 ? Hillary hasn't said no yet. Neither has Bernie.

@BurlingtonHo First go back and read what I wrote show me where I ever said Hitler was a Socialist. The Nazi Party in Germany was the National Socialist German Workers' Party, translated from German to English that is indisputable! Whether or not I believed that they were socialists was not mentioned. I did tell you that they used socialism to sell their program of ethnic cleansing to the Germans. Also Indisputable ! The rest of your arguments are academic, as nobody really cares about the distinctions, without a difference, so please don't attribute to me what I didn't say or write.

@twentyfive

No problem. Yesterday in responding to Bj99, you wrote: "Well BJ99, in 1930s Germany, the Nazi party was the socialist party, like it or not, that is a historical fact."

Then you amended your statement with the following comment, also to Bj99:

"No no no, I'm just adhering to the meanings of the words that you are misidentifying, not talking about anyone's identity just trying to to get you to clarity, most of your thinking is correct, but you are defining terms differently than their actual meanings."

So technically you're right, you didn't say that Hitler was a socialist, you said that the Nazi party, which he led, was a socialist party. I disputed that fact. Just because it's in the name doesn't mean they adhered to it in practice. They may as well have called themselves the National Capitalist German Workers Party, because their platform was approximately 50% socialist and 50% capitalist. They were no more capitalist than they were socialist. As I've said, fascism has aspects of both capitalism and socialism. In the 20s and 30s there were actual socialist parties in Germany that competed directly with the Nazi party in elections (and fist fights).

^^^ Again a distinction without a difference, the actual Nazi Party, with Hitler, as it's leader used Socialism, as a tool to kill and rob, those that they wanted to cast out of their society, all done in the name of Aryan Purity.

How far back to we want to challenge the theory: Who would you rather be stranded in an airport bar with? Comparatively, who is more likeable? Which one is a dolt or a stiff?

Trump v Hillary Obama v Romney Obama v McCain Bush v Kerry Bush v Gore Wm Clinton v H.W. Bush H.W. Bush v Dukakis Reagan v Mondale Reagan v Carter Carter v Ford Nixon v McGovern Nixon v Humphrey LBJ v Goldwater JFK v Nixon Eisenhower v Stevenson

I can argue 16 out of the last 16 elections were won by the more likeable, classy or Presidential of the two. Examine the losers: dolts, morons, dorks, robots, criminals, fossils, stiffs . . . think about it . . . very few exceptions to the rule. Gotta seem slightly more likeable or regal first and foremost!

It's not an unintelligent way to vote, for a percentage of the population. The president isn't just a high level manger; the presidency is a leadership role, which is different. A leader must have vision, and an ability to see solutions rather than excuses. A leader's ability to charm, exhibit deplomacy, and instill confidence in their ability to asses risk and make difficult judgements is a huge part of their role, in any leadership position. A lot of that is really perception, but the perception of that portion of the population who is not party loyal can be a good indicator of how the president will be perceived globally, and as party lines blur during change.

@Burlington: I agree that a communist/socialist society has never existed. I think the modern day US comes the closest, however. Workers here own the means of production, thanks to stock ownership in retirement and non-retirement accounts more so than anywhere else in the world. I also think the fact that we are the most socialist society is what has made us the most successful.

As for people differentiating between socialism and Bolshevism, I think they just do b/c they are polar opposites. I think it's the people who try to equate them who the disingenuous ones. IMO, the one the biggest lies in history and most successful strawman attacks. I think the Cold War was part of what contributed to the success of this lie. We did indeed have to fight Bolshevism very hard and it would have been a terrible world if they one. But Capitalists were able to cash in on the fact that they were calling themselves socialists when they weren't to also discredit Socialism. I've was always amazed they were able to get away with this.

^ yep. Excellent point.

This is partly why it is confusing to bring up self identified political parties, when discussing voters and political theory. There's no great way of telling someone that you are referring to scales, and not the parties that have self identified once they are down that path. Even political scales are not flat, but more like a globe unless you simplify for the sake of discussion and comparison. It's especially hard when in reference to existing parties. I refuse to self identify w a party bc of everyone's bias in weighting issues, so that their perception doesn't represent my own values accurately.

Okay, I give up. You guys win. I almost don't even know what any of you are talking about anymore. I think dictionary definitions exist for a reason. Academic definitions exist for a reason, and that includes the academic definitions of different political philosophies. Definitions don't change based on whichever party you identify with. And it amazes me how people will tie themselves into knots trying to prove that all the bad people in history weren't socialists and all the good people were. Personally, I hate socialism and everything about it. I hate Social Security. I hate Medicare. I hate the fucking TVA. It all seems like theft to me. Inefficient theft. But what can you do? People love it. Socialism is here to stay. Whatever. Let's move on.

A cautionary tale about what can happen when a politician declares his/her ideals are correct and opposing ideas are too corrupt to be discussed. I honestly think the fear of this energized the opposition to Hillary. There are modern day videos from US college campuses that parallel this history.

China’s Cultural Revolution was triggered by a group of students at Beijing University, the most elitist college in China. They called themselves the Red Guards because they worshiped China’s communist dictator Mao and his socialist/communist ideology feverishly. In their manifesto, they questioned the usefulness of knowledge, and condemned their professors and university administrators for harboring “intellectual elitism and bourgeois tendencies” and for stalling China’s progress towards a communist utopia.

Mao immediately realized that he could use these over-zealous and ignorant teenagers as a political tool to purge his enemies and shape society to his own liking. He elevated the Red Guards’ status by appearing at a massive Red Guard rally on August 18, 1966 at Tiananmen Square. This event lent Red Guards political legitimacy, and officially kicked off the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards’ ideas quickly spread from colleges to high schools.

No one on campus dared challenge the Red Guards. Capitulations from school authorities only emboldened them. They led students to strike, refusing to take classes from people who were deemed less than ideologically pure. Professors, teachers, and school administrators were paraded and forced to make numerous public self-criticisms about “transgressions” against government-sanctioned orthodoxy. Soon, college entrance exams were suspended and many schools, from universities to high schools, were closed. The entire education system was paralyzed.

Without schools to go to, the Red Guards traveled all over China to spread their ideas and tactics to the “real world.” Other people, such as factory workers unhappy with the shortages, organized their own groups to challenge leadership of their own work units. Since no one was working, businesses, factories, and many government agencies were shut down. The entire country fell into lawlessness and chaos. Tens of millions died.

@Burlington: Got some bad news for you. Academics get things wrong all the time in the political and philosophy arenas. They are also very subject to promoting war/cold war propaganda. One particularly notorious example was when they tried to ascribe support of National Socialist beliefs to Nietzsche. Will Nietzsche hated racists, especially when his sister was going to marry one. His work is very explicitly against those beliefs. Nevertheless the war propaganda machine ascribed those beliefs to him.

Similarly during the cold war: part of academia, especially those boys in Chicago, was interested in portraying Capitalism as "perfect". Some even said they could prove it mathematically. And at the same time they were willing to equate Socialism and Bolshevism to give them a strawman to argue against.

I think you have things a little backwards. It's not people who are able to make the obvious differentiation between Socialism and Bolshevism who are doing "mental gymnastics". It's those who are trying to equate them who are. All so they can prove how evil Socialism is, not by arguing against it, but by arguing against its complete argument, but by calling the opposite Socialism.

I must have lost about 3 lbs. when I had my morning shit.

Bataille was the first one to rise to the challenge of rescuing Niezsche from the National Socialist taint.

amazon.com

One who will never be rescued from it is Martin Heidegger.

None of you have said what Hilary Clinton could have said or done differently to come out better in the election.

Which Is A Bigger Scam - The Libertarian or Republican Party? youtube.com

SJG

The Doors and Eddie Vedder youtube.com

What could Hillary have done ? Adopt a populist economic message focusing on better trade deals. Aggressively promote this message in the rust belt. She would have won the election easily.

Populist economic message? You don't mean like repeating Bill Clinton's massive job creation with his 2% upper income tax?

Trade deals, you mean repealing them, like Nafta, or do you mean making more?

Rust Belt, do you mean setting up tariffs?

I'm not trying to be argumentative here. This is very interesting. Might you be willing to elaborate further?

SJG

SJG. I said what I meant and I genuinely think this would have won her the election. Carry a populist economic message to Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. It almost doesn't matter what the details of her policy was, as long as it left a sense that she would pull for them and their jobs. Improve NAFTA on the margins, or almost anything else. Just give the impression she cared rather than taking their votes for granted, like she did in Wisconsin.

"Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania"

Yes I understand that those are rust belt states, and they also ended up being critical swing states which Hillary needed, and lost.

"populist economic message"

This is where you are loosing me.

"It almost doesn't matter what the details of her policy was, as long as it left a sense that she would pull for them and their jobs. Improve NAFTA on the margins, or almost anything else. Just give the impression she cared rather than taking their votes for granted, like she did in Wisconsin."

It sounds like you are just saying that she should have said something which sounded good and made them feel good, but lacked actual substance. And understand that her campaign was based on credibility, that her promises would stand up to scrutiny, and that the entire country would be listening to what she said. She did not want to be like her opponent.

Wearing a hard hat? Overalls?

What she did promise was a repeat of the jobs creator 2% upper income tax, and debt free college ( as opposed to Bernie Sanders and free college ).

Wouldn't these things make rust belt swing state workers feel better?

After the 1929 crash, our country moved to a Keynesian system, using the government's power to tax and spend, to compensate for business cycles, and to transfer wealth downwards in order to create economic growth. It worked very well for 40 years. Then Reagan dismantled it, and so we have had these boom and bust cycles, as well as the formation of this Rust Belt. But everytime we have at least partially restored Keynesianism, it has paid off.

We had our greatest period of economic growth when Dwight Eisenhower was President, and the top personal income tax bracket was 91%.

That money, and the fact that the government spends it, is what holds open the middle wage tier of employment, and hence the middle-class.

en.wikipedia.org

SJG

Prof. Richard Wolff - Be Very Very Careful About the Stock Market…Here’s Why youtube.com

SJG: The question was whether Hillary could have done something different and won the election. I think she could have and I explained how.

You seem to be saying she had the perfect economic message and she made the right decision by not campaigning in the Rust Belt. If so, do you believe it just comes down to voters being too stupid to understand ?

No, clearly she misjudged where it was most important for her to spend time. Some of the Democratic polling was off.

Her messages were all quite conservative. I would have liked to see more.

As far as voters being too stupid, well that is what Thomas Frank and Arile Hochschild are very politely saying. Like I said, our country has a spiritual sickness.

Marx called the issue, "Political Consciousness". White Americans do not do well there.

SJG

And, there it is, whites are too dumb to understand.

Now that we've established that, I'm going back to discussing strippers. All this political stuff is way above my head.

@san_jose_guy,

Yes, I did. Twice in this thread I volunteered my opinions for what Hillary Clinton could have done that might have helped her win. It would have made her even less popular with me (if that's possible), but I think the voters would have responded favorably. And I, too, think the voters are very stupid. That's how we ended up with Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush in the first place.

I do want to clarify one thing. In his 2004 "What's The Matter With Kansas", Thomas Frank explains that voters are begin duped into voting their identity, instead of their interest. Interest here means economic interest.

Some though took exception to this right off, like Doug Henwood ( "How Wall Street Works and for Whom", and Left Business Observer ) and

Corey Robin amazon.com

So Arlie Hochschild cites Thomas Frank's book as her jumping off point. And she talks at length about Louisiana, and then states the view of the people she talks with. The Thomas Frank thesis really would seem to fit. But her book seems to be an attempt to take the analysis deeper, and to show how these people are not actually being duped.

I think what it will come down to is simply that they have always lived in an anti-democratic world and they just see it as obligatory to worship power barons. In this case it would be the Petrochemical Industry.

BurlingtonHoFactory

Yes, lets start with anti-war, anti-trade, anti-immigrant.

Well part of the problem with Ms. Clinton is that she is not that anti-war.

And as far as anti-open trade treaties, its more Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump who think that way.

And as for anti-immigrant, I don't know what she feels, but she certainly can't say that. Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein would have been better.

And anyway, how is any good candidate ever going to get elected if we have a white working class that is anti-immigrant. Not good.

And sorry, Libertarianism is a doctrine of the Right. The only people who would not see this, are those who are themselves on the Right. Libertarianism offers and idiotic okey-doke as the solution to complex problems of making out society work. No wants unneeded regulations, or unneeded taxes. So the Libertarian doctrine really means nothing, except embracing radicalized capitalism, capitalism without bounds and without regard to societal context.

SJG

The Paranoid Style in American Politics harpers.org

amazon.com

amazon.com

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America amazon.com

@san_jose_guy

No offense, but many people here have a serious problem with reading comprehension. You seem like a smart enough person. Very strange, perhaps, but smart. Which is why I don't understand how you could read what I wrote and yet take it to mean the EXACT opposite of what I was trying to say. What I said was that Hillary is PRO-war, PRO-immigration, and PRO-trade, but the American people have been heading in the opposite direction at least since 9/11, and probably earlier. Specifically, the voters have been becoming more and more ANTI-war, ANTI-immigration, and ANTI-trade with each passing election cycle. So Hillary is now on the opposite side of the issues from clear majorities of American voters. On these issues alone, I'm closer to Hillary than I am to the voters (except on war), but who cares about me? I'm just one vote. If you're trying to win an election, the whims of the majority matter.

As for libertarianism, back in the 18th century, it was a doctrine of the Left. Today, in America, it is generally thought of as a doctrine of the Right. But Left or Right isn't relevant to me. And I don't care if it seems idiotic. I don't even care whether or not it works. I care about morality. To me, libertarianism means freedom, and infringing on someone's freedom is simply immoral.

Just a quick question for you opposed to government on all levels guys, now that Harvey has smashed a bit of Texas are you still opposed to any government assistance for these folks ? Or will you remain consistent and let them fend for themselves?

Libertarians, like me, are in favor of LIMITED government. That's always been the case for all of us.

The constitution states that it is the role of government to protect its citizens. Clearly, acting in response to natural disaster is an essential role of government. I'd argue it more properly belongs at the State level, but the Feds also have a role.

Liberals frequently set up a false straw man that we want to eliminate all government, then they knock down that straw man. That's because they know the argument for limited government is the proper position and an argument they can't win. It's a tired, and false, ploy on liberals part.

SJG: Here's another example of a liberal professor claiming that Trump supporters are racist and dupes. His article is more opinion piece than research. It's thin on documentation and long on righteous condemnation. It gives comfort to liberals that they are superior while insulting half the country.

The University of California, Santa Cruz recently highlighted a professor’s claim that Donald Trump supporters are characterized by traits like “authoritarianism” and “prejudice.”

In a post on the UCSC Newscenter website, the university touts an article by Professor Thomas Pettigrew that was recently published the Journal of Social and Political Psychology, in which he asserts that "authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, prejudice, relative deprivation, and intergroup contact” are the five social-psychological factors that led voters to coalesce around the “male nativists and populists who were less educated than the general population” who he says made up the “core” of the “Trump movement.”

I see so you keep saying that I'm a liberal and that's your argument. You can repeat the same thing over and again till the cows come home, it isn't so nor are you correct. I didn't set up the straw man you did with your arguments and I'm just pointing out the flaws in your logic. Your new found Republicanism, smacks of totalitarianism, you guys need to look up this word "compromise". Truth be told The United States is a high functioning country despite its disfunctional government, !

Um, no, you actually did set up the straw man in your post, no matter what label you want to apply to yourself. Go look at what you posted. "Are you still opposed to any government assistance for these folks ?" That's the straw man. I certainly never said anything like that. These words are coming from you, then you argue against them. That's called a straw man argument.

That's not a straw man that is a legitimate question.

Do all you people on the left still believe in microscopic government control of every aspect of life ?

By your definition, that's a " legitimate question ".

You can argue with a smart person and find someplace to agree, but to argue with an idiot just makes you an idiot.

Libertarians would say that the only role of government is to protect people from violence and to enforce contracts (according to some the latter is just an extension of the former). So I guess in the case of a hurricane the government should be there to protect people for looting and others attacking each others. Making sure insurers pay up. But help people otherwise? I can't see how a Libertarian would say that is governmental as opposed to individual responsibility, actually "option" since Libertarians will certainly say there is no obligation for people to help one another although they may choose to.

Dougster, I mostly agree. The original question was whether we should let the people fend for themselves. We shouldn't. We should do exactly what the government is doing now to protect these people. We should provide shelter, food, water, and transportation during this crisis. We should also repair all the schools, dams, roads, electric, water, and sewer in the aftermath. Finally, the repair and replacement of homes and businesses will be handled through private insurance, as it should be.

That seems a bit "lefty" for a Libertarian. Won't a hard-core Libertarian says things like schools, roads, utilities (including damns) should be private responsibilities? As for providing charity to those who need it right now: again a private endeavor? You sure you're not secretly one of those "Libertarian Socialists"? :-)

^^^HaHaHa there you go all these Randroids come across as idiots when you start to question them, the best they can do is deflect and tell us we're the lefties !

In the 1800s, the term Liberal meant someone who believed in individual liberty and the free market. It relied heavily on the works of Adam Smith and John Locke. The definition was very close to what we now call Libertarian.

In the 1900s, as Communism and Socialism became popular, the term Liberal was appropriated by the left to describe someone who believed that government should play a more active role in looking out for the welfare of citizens. Scholars now call this Social Liberalism to contrast it from Classic Liberalism of the 1800s. When someone refers to Liberals today, they are referring to Social Liberals.

In times of crisis, it is appropriate for the government to step in and repair essential infrastructure. That's an extension of its duty to protect citizens in crisis.

In general, I'd like to see more privatization of schools and roads, but the government needs to play a role in contracts and coordination of this.

Sounds good works lousy.

Duties to protect citizens in crisis? Beyond just keeping them from shooting each other? Sounds like a kinder, gentler Libertarian than they taught me growing up.

Truth be told most libertarians are basically cheap fucking misers at heart.

On the left, there's a false meme that Libertarians don't want any government. That way, when a Libertarian comes out in favor of reasonable, and constitutional, government involvement, they feel justified in accusing them of being inconsistent. The only thing I'm inconsistent with is your imagined premise of libertarian beliefs. That's another form of Straw Man argument, but I know you don't understand that.

Name calling, the last resort of someone who is losing an argument.

If the truth is name calling, than look inward. How am I losing an argument if the best you can come up with is "straw man" or lefty. BTW you are absolutely being inconsistent.

This argument was started, and framed, by you 3 hours ago when you said that, and I'm paraphrasing, people who oppose government at all levels are wrong to oppose helping the victims of Harvey.

First off, the only people who oppose government at all levels are anarchists. There's been no sign of them since 1914. I don't think they are posting on TUSCL.

Second, I'm not aware of anyone on this board, or in real life, who opposes the government helping the victims of Harvey. The only issue for debate is how far that help should go, but that wasn't the question you asked.

So, your entire premise was demonstrably false. Where I'm from, that's considered losing the argument.

I didn't say that at all are your reading comprehension skills on a level with your other skills. Just asked a simple question of guys like you, should the government help those who were harmed by hurricane Harvey ? There was no editorializing, no judgement in my original question. Your basic answer an attack not an answer. Go back and reread the entire thing if you like, if you had answered yes or no, there would be no discussion.

You asked a question of "guys like you" that implied we either didn't want to help the victims of Harvey or that we were inconsistent. " if you had answered yes or no, there would be no discussion ". Of course not, since you were presenting a false choice.

It's similar to the the classic "Are you still beating your wife ?" question. A yes or no answer will not get to the truth.

It was a passive/aggressive way to start an argument but pretend you were just " asking a simple question".

Asked of guys, "opposed to government on all levels" never said " guys like you" that's your paranoia talking to yourself.

BTW I'm far from passive, aggressive that's some other person I'm just aggressive.

What?

"Guys like you" is a direct quote from your post of 25 minutes ago referring to who you asked the question of.

I said it was a passive/aggressive way to start an argument, I didn't say you were passive/aggressive.

See, I'm very careful with my reading skills. You, not so much.

Yes, but not my original post from earlier this morning, my original question was never posed that wide open, my answer to you was "guys like you", and no I've never beaten my wife, so you are way off base,and as I said paranoid.

Meat you got the that right.

You've never beaten your wife. Good to know, though I was using that as an example, not asking the question.

@twentyfive asked:

"Just a quick question for you opposed to government on all levels guys, now that Harvey has smashed a bit of Texas are you still opposed to any government assistance for these folks ? Or will you remain consistent and let them fend for themselves?"

Speaking only for myself: Yes and Yes. I live at the Jersey Shore and I was also opposed to relief after Hurricane Sandy for me or my neighbors. I took government money when it was offered (because I'm not crazy), but it was immoral for them to be handing out other people's money that way, even if it went to a good cause.

@Dougster said:

"Libertarians would say that the only role of government is to protect people from violence and to enforce contracts (according to some the latter is just an extension of the former). So I guess in the case of a hurricane the government should be there to protect people for looting and others attacking each others. Making sure insurers pay up...."

Thank you, yes, that's exactly how I feel and that is the standard libertarian view of government. Government doesn't clothe the naked, feed the hungry, tip the strippers, or make small batches of organic gluten-free ice cream. Those are jobs for other segments of society. Government is there to protect you from violence, fraud, and coercion. That's what it was created to do. Having said that, every libertarian believes in something that goes against the party line. For example, I'm a libertarian but I believe in voter ID laws and mandatory vaccinations for children. These aren't very libertarian positions, and they may even be immoral, but, whatever, that's what I believe in. Milton Friedman believed in the Earned Income Tax Credit. Barry Goldwater supported aggressive confrontation with the Soviet Union. Ayn Rand hated gays and thought that we should take sides in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Tucker Carlson is against trade and immigration. And there is no end to the apostasies that Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and Gary Johnson took and take in order to get elected. I wouldn't throw any of these folks out of the libertarian tent. So mark94 supports aid to disaster victims. He's probably still a libertarian.

Part of the problem is that government has squeezed out charities that might have stepped in. Would I rather that charities be more involved in recovery ? Sure, but the practical situation is they can't. I'm a libertarian, but I guess I'm on the realist part of the spectrum.

@BurlingtonHo said "Speaking only for myself: Yes and Yes. I live at the Jersey Shore and I was also opposed to relief after Hurricane Sandy for me or my neighbors. I took government money when it was offered (because I'm not crazy), but it was immoral for them to be handing out other people's money that way, even if it went to a good cause."

Fair answer, as you can see @Mark94, I stand by the statement that I made

Truth be told most libertarians are basically cheap fucking misers at heart.<<

I say this because now that you got your handout, your excuse being that you're not crazy, you would deny the same opportunity to those who have now suffered a similar misfortune.

Refusing to spend someone else's money doesn't make one a miser. Forcing someone else to pay for your personal causes makes you a thief. And a miser.

You can word it any way you like it's still the same result. I pay my taxes and so do you, I hope, so I'm just as entitled to say how they should be spent. That is the price you pay for living in a civilized country, sometimes you don't get your way and in my view that's ok you are the one complaining about how the money is spent. Learn the meaning of the word " compromise".

"Truth be told most libertarians are basically cheap fucking misers at heart"

Yeah, probably, basically, you're right. But stealing is still stealing, as mark94 said. Which is worse? The real question is whether you believe that the ends justify the means. Most libertarians don't; but most adherents of other modern political philosophies do believe that the ends justify the means. That's one of the things that sets us apart, I think.

twentyfive also said "I pay my taxes and so do you, I hope, so I'm just as entitled to say how they should be spent." Oh, man, we could have a field day with this one. In practice, you're somewhat right. (Or maybe it's 'in theory,' whatever.) But if you want the government to be able to hand out money to disaster victims, then just amend the constitution. We'll have a public debate. Some will oppose it, others will support it, let's follow the rules and see who wins. If the General Welfare Clause or the Commerce Clause allow the government to hand out money to whomever for whatever, whenever they think it's right, then what's the point of even having a Constitution? In fact, what's the point of America, which is supposed to be an experiment in limited government? And what's to stop the government from shutting down all the strip clubs because they need to build homeless shelters or orphanages?

My point is kind of simple, our constitution gives just about everyone the same "inalienable rights" and at the same time "we hold these truths to be self evident' in my mind "to those whom much is given much is expected of'' Maybe if we held a public debate and then voted on how to disburse money the government would be even more dysfunctional than than it already is which is as I see it the result of trying to have a debate about everything, at the same time. This important to understand We live in an extremely high functioning country and society, tremendous things happen every day, many of them happen without any input from our government whatsoever, but in times of catastrophe, when the common welfare is endangered be it natural in origin like a hurricane, a tornado, or earthquake, or a man made disaster like a war, a pipeline breach sending billions of gallons of oil into the ocean or whatever someone or something needs to take charge, and restore order, the rest can be sorted out after those in need are in a position to fend for themselves again. That is what separates us from most of the world, and elevates us to the greatest society ever on the face of this earth.

^^^^^^ twentyfive, would you agree that our present economic system has created and insane and unending crisis, such that something has to be changed?

SJG

No I think that the crises are more a matter of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

Well, wouldn't you agree that it is our economic system which allows these crooks to do what they do?

One friend said to me, "There is nothing wrong with capitalism, only with crony capitalism."

I tried to tell him, there never has been any other kind. Capitalism needs labor, land, resources, and capital. And the way it has always gotten these is from the government. Think British East India Company. Our system is entirely defined by the rules the government enforces.

SJG

How Capitalism is Killing Itself youtube.com

Santana - The Game Of Love ft. Michelle Branch youtube.com

@twentyfive, "to those whom much is given much is expected'' You do know that Kennedy was quoting the Bible, not the Constitution, right?

"That is what separates us from most of the world, and elevates us to the greatest society ever on the face of this earth" No, trust me, that's not what sets us apart. Most civilized wealthy nations do exactly the same thing. And honestly, I'm fine with the government evacuating people and even erecting temporary tent cities for the evacuees, and providing them with food and water and necessities while they're there. But this should last for a few weeks, not a few years. Eventually they have to leave. And the government absolutely should not be handing out checks, rebuilding private property, applying price controls, or telling insurers to pay more than the policies say they have to (unless there is evidence of fraud).

And I absolutely don't want the people to vote on every spending issue. That really would be anarchy! Remember, Congress and the State legislatures get to vote to amend the constitution, not the citizens themselves. The public debates would be held in congress, state capitals, town hall meetings, and on cable news.

Hey, san_jose_guy, did you read my response from 12 hours ago?

BurlingtonHoFactory wrote: 12 Hours Ago @san_jose_guy

No offense, but many people here have a serious problem with reading comprehension. You seem like a smart enough person. Very strange, perhaps, but smart. Which is why I don't understand how you could read what I wrote and yet take it to mean the EXACT opposite of what I was trying to say. What I said was that Hillary is PRO-war, PRO-immigration, and PRO-trade, but the American people have been heading in the opposite direction at least since 9/11, and probably earlier. Specifically, the voters have been becoming more and more ANTI-war, ANTI-immigration, and ANTI-trade with each passing election cycle. So Hillary is now on the opposite side of the issues from clear majorities of American voters. On these issues alone, I'm closer to Hillary than I am to the voters (except on war), but who cares about me? I'm just one vote. If you're trying to win an election, the whims of the majority matter.

As for libertarianism, back in the 18th century, it was a doctrine of the Left. Today, in America, it is generally thought of as a doctrine of the Right. But Left or Right isn't relevant to me. And I don't care if it seems idiotic. I don't even care whether or not it works. I care about morality. To me, libertarianism means freedom, and infringing on someone's freedom is simply immoral.

Yes, Hillary is actually quite pro-war. And she is pro-unlimited and untarrifed trade.

And she is somewhat pro-immigration, or at least pro fair treatment of immigrants. But these are long term commitments, just just fashions of the day. So she cannot change sides. These are her commitments and her party's. She was asking for the job of President in order to lead, not just to follow opinion polls. And that the Democratic Party works like this goes way back FDR.

Yes,that probably was true back in the 18th Century that Libertarianism was a doctrine of the Left. But we live in a very different kind of society today, so it is a doctrine of the Right. And every society has rules, limits, and obligations. There is nothing whatsoever immoral about this. It is necessary when you have a high population density, advanced industrialization, and a highly interdependent world. The issue is, who do regulations serve, and are these specific regulations good or bad?

SJG

How Capitalism is Killing Itself youtube.com

I know very well who JFK was quoting I thought that would be clear from my qualifier in my mind. I am mindful of your opinion and I understand those that don't think the same way I do. After all that's why we have elections and those elections have consequences, I have no problem with different ideas, but I resent the no compromise folk, let's see how all of this shakes out in both the short and long term before drawing conclusions.

You know what's funny @burlington @SJG asks asked me question and I answered honestly but he doesn't like the answer so he tries the same question posed as an editorial. Have a little respect for others SJG, stop your constant harping on the same tired old dogma and offer a reason for anyone to believe you, I don't know maybe offer a real insight instead of speculation.

Our economic system is failing completely. Its just that people are able to get away with blaming this on the poor. And sometimes these attitudes are merely a cover for racism.

SJG

Has the Economy Hit a New Crisis Milestone? youtube.com

SJG

^^^ If you're broke get a job don't blame me, I have plenty of jobs available at well over 15 dollars an hour, I'll hire anyone who can meet the requirements don't care what their race is, that is just an excuse.

For vast numbers of people, living wage employment, or $15 an hour is just completely impossible. Everyone wants to do well, but we have people here working two and three jobs, and not able to live anywhere except on someone's couch.

The reason this goes on is that people blame this on the poor. Sometimes racism is involved, sometimes it is not.

No one needs any excuse, everyone wants to do well. They only give up when they get discouraged because the see the truth, that the system is completely unfair.

Vast amounts of people in every US City, having to live by recycling cans.

Frances Fox-Piven youtube.com

SJG

This thread just won't die.

^^^^^ I've noticed that.

SJG

We also have about infinite positions for qualified people: anywhere in the world. If you're qualified we'll hire you and pay the enormous cost of relocating you to the US if you like or we don't have a local office. Pay is good too: we won't dream of insulting even our most junior employees with less than $100k. The problem is the shortage of skilled people, not a shortage of jobs.

@flagooner "This thread just won't die."

no but just like chairman mao, josef stalin, adolph hitler, idi amin, lbj and fdr eventually san_jose_guy will expire. can't wait

san_jose_guy wrote: "But these are long term commitments, just just fashions of the day. So she cannot change sides. These are her commitments and her party's. She was asking for the job of President in order to lead, not just to follow opinion polls. And that the Democratic Party works like this goes way back FDR."

First, these are not her Party's commitments, they are hers. For about 50 years now the Democratic party has been ideologically opposed to war and opposed to free trade. And for 50 years, the GOP has been the opposite: supportive of war and supportive of free trade. And then along comes Trump, and he's against war and against trade, making many people in his party very uncomfortable. So really, all she had to do was conform to her own party platform and that might have effectively countered Trump's isolationism and his claim to represent the people against the establishment. Or maybe not. Who knows? We've watched her flip and flop all over the place for years, she could have easily flipped on these issues, too. All I know is that I gave my opinion. Remember, the question was not "What could Hillary have done to win the vote of BurlingtonHoFactory?" She lost my vote almost 25 years ago, before I was even old enough to vote. You wanted to know what would have helped her win the election, maybe by getting the votes of Ma and Pa Kettle and the average Wal-Mart shopper, as she did back in the 2008 primary. So I told you.

You also said: "One friend said to me, "There is nothing wrong with capitalism, only with crony capitalism."

I tried to tell him, there never has been any other kind. Capitalism needs labor, land, resources, and capital. And the way it has always gotten these is from the government."

Okay, like I've been saying, there has never been a pure capitalist society and there has never been a pure socialist/communist society. The Soviets failed in setting up pure socialism and we failed in setting up pure capitalism. Neither of us ever even came close. But today, the MOST socialist countries are probably North Korea and Cuba. And the MOST capitalist countries are probably Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Australia, Canada, the US, the UK, etc. Neither group is even remotely 'pure,' but where would you rather live?

That is why I say you only have an opinion you haven't any real idea of the facts. Let's see if you aren't working and making anything 15 dollars an hour should be a good start, I have many employees earning 60k or more annually with health benefits and paid holiday, vacation pay and more out of my employees at least half own a home a car and most of the trappings of middle class life here in Florida. True many have working wives that always helps but remember I do not owe anyone a living but I am willing to offer a hand up,I don't like handouts.

@Dougster wrote: "We also have about infinite positions for qualified people"

It's a mystery to me why these jobs in finance remain unfilled. You could take any homeless drug addict off the street or TUSCL Libertarian, hand him a Python tutorial, give 'em a high-school text on probability, hypothesis testing, and so on ....poof! $350K to start.

...so many fucking lazy people living off the government dime.

...so many fucking lazy people living off the government dime.

you said it

I think it's because when most people go to college they are being lazy and care more about being cool rather than actually learn anything. So they'll take things like Art History/basket weaving/pre-law to take it easy on themselves and meet girls and spend the four years partying. It's a real good time for them for four years, but then they find they have no employable skills.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are millions of good paying technical jobs going unfilled because there is a stigma with not getting a 4 year degree, any degree. So, students will take on thousands in debt for a worthless degree from a marginal 4 year program instead of a 2 year degree or internship in the trades, tool and die, factory floor machine operation, mechanic, HVAC, and so on. These jobs all have potential to pay $60,000 in a short time. But, society has told young people these jobs are below them.

I don't think the fundamental thing about Libertarians is that they are miserly. I think they are people who tend to be rather asocial for reasons of genetic or upbringing or both. They also feel that they are rather superior to most of humanity whom they don't care that much for. So if you tell a Libertarian that the government is going to come along and take their money and give it to inferior people whom they probably won't like it doesn't make that much sense to them. And they see such a government as evil. Everyone's got to fend for themselves, just like your typical Libertarian is doing.

^^^Claiming to make $350k or more and complaining about paying taxes seems pretty miserly to me. As I said this is a high functioning country with a barely functioning government, but someone has to do it. Being antisocial might make one miserly or more likely being miserly would make you antisocial! Still this is the greatest societ, in the greatest country in the history of the earth.

Dougster has made this point about the finance jobs before. But it is specious. If there were qualified people, then the spots would be filled. And if lots of qualified people popped up, then the positions would be filled, and there would not likely be more.

Dougster is saying now $100k. Well, so if people making $50k were qualified, presumably they would apply.

And then of TwentyFive's $15 per hour. I know what industry he is in. I just don't rebroadcast people's personal facts outside of the context of there original posts.

So then presumably those getting $10 per hour, or those getting nothing, would apply. In fact they don't, because they know they would not get it.

Being qualified is a statement about an entire persona. I am very tough in hiring people. I need to see how the person thinks. I'm only willing to take a very small portion of the the general population, or of existing work groups. Most people just don't have it. This comes right out if you ask them the hows and whys of the things they claim on their resumes to have done.

Most poor people are working poor, even if this means living with relatives, and often even working off books and under the table. So are these people doing something wrong for not applying for Dougster's $100k jobs, or for 25's $15/hr?

People do what they can do. Most people are not really going to be able to get hired for many positions. And so this means that for many, regular rent paying employment is out of reach.

It is unfortunate that our economic system requires denigration of the poor in order to keep on going. And it is also unfortunate that the poor do not revolt.

Our society only legitimates certain types of experience. With everything else it is lies and denial. This is why I stepped in and helped three young women put their father into San Quentin. If they had instead listened to their church, they too might have ended up as the targets for that church's Outreach Ministry. In my communications with the trial court, and the appeals court, I have always made this very clear. Survivors will only come forward if they know that they will be vidicated.

Everyone wants to do well. But when they exploited by the middle-class family, it is very hard for them to ever again have a legitimated social identity. And then when this is combined with alcohol, street drugs, evangelical religion, recovery, psychotherapy, and psychiatric medications, they really are destroyed.

And RandomMember +20, for really seeing the issues clearly!

Mark94 makes good points about how the 4 year degree system stratifies people. But also, no matter what people are doing in school, this does not mean that there will ever be jobs for them. Our society has needed less and less labor since the mid 19th Century. Like it or not, welfare is the cheapest way to keep things running smoothly.

Anyway, in the organization I am building, everyone will have challenging and expanding employment, life long learning, all material needs and later life needs met, and get stripper grade complete ball draining 365 days per year.

SJG

Frances Fox-Piven youtube.com

^^^So smart guy how are you personally going to help those struggling poor people ? I'm offering a hand up what are you willing to offer, that you are so quick to knock my willingness to help people?

@SJG: so people just have to get the qualifications. Duh!

If our society needs less and less labor, why are there more people working in the USA now than in our history ? For every factory worker replaced by automation, we create 2 or 3 service jobs. Thus it has always been. We'll be fine as long as the workforce stays flexible and adapts to new industries and services.

@25: SJG's church is imaginary, of course. But let's pretend it was real. It's not going to help any of these poor struggle people at all. B/c, in his imaginary world, he says only a very small % of people are qualified. So I guess it's someone else problem to deal with. Oooppsss... Actually in the imaginary church that is only true of males. They have to be extremely well qualified. For women they just have to be good looking and willing to work as prostitutes 24/7. So it may indeed "help" struggling poor women that way.

Asking about the organization I am building? That is not for the general public. That is to be an elite group of highly intelligent people building up a base of wealth, power, culture, and free flowing pussy.

About the general public, well we have to move to be more like the Social Democracies of Western Europe. About 10 to 15% higher taxes on upper incomes.

But still nothing like the 91% of the Eisenhower Administration, or the 70% that continued after.

And we have to intercede when the middle-class family is exploiting children, and steer people away from religion, the recovery movement, and psychotherapy, and instead into political activism.

25, you hire people, and that's good. No criticism. And I am glad that you were able to start your own business, and that it has gone so well. And I know that the reason it has gone so well has been your own ability and hard work. Its just that that is not going to change our society. For everyone who works out in a job of yours, there are infinitely more who are still left out.

I am very active politically, on the ground, fighting to oust some elected and appointed officials, and to redirect public policy, and to reduce local government spending!. And I think one of the most important matters is getting renters to vote.

But with my organization, we will take care of ourselves. And we will have way more than enough jobs for our own people, at all times. Plus, many things will be collectivized. Everyone being equal helps the pussy flow more freely.

But we will also be politically active in every community we operate in, always working to educate people and steer the politics to the Left. This is what my current experience is teaching me how to do right now.

And you better believe, with all the interchanges with Right Wingers/Libertarians here on TUSCL, I have moved much further to the Left than I had ever thought possible.

I don't think there was anything practical Hillary Clinton could have done differently. Over 2.8 million more voted for her. Beyond that, it takes more than just the candidate, it takes others doing the long and hard job of educating the public, and of taking a much more leftist stand.

And I also agree that Founder was correct, Bernie Sanders could have won. Even the Presidential elections are low turn out. He'd of lost some, but he'd of brought others to the polls.

SJG

Stones - playlist youtube.com

We are seeing a vision of the future in small towns across the south. Factories that used to require 3,000 workers are now highly automated with 300 highly skilled, well paid technicians. Because of their efficiency, these factories are competitive with China. They are thriving. An entire economic support system sprouts up to support the factory and its employees. Suppliers, grocers, day care, schools, barbers, and so on. These jobs generate other jobs.

Meanwhile, in others parts of the country, technology is creating entirely new industries. Biotech, software, robotics, artificial intelligence, and so on. These jobs have never existed before. They also generate a network of supporting industries and services.

That in a nutshell is how economics works. Creative destruction of old, inefficient industries replaced by new, vibrant, efficient industries. Buggy whip manufacturers were replaced by the auto industry. The wooden schooners were replaced by wide body jets. Jobs, jobs, jobs.

Dougster wrote: "@SJG: so people just have to get the qualifications. Duh!"

But it takes the whole persona to get into rent paying employment. Once someone shows the psychological and physical marks of being stepped on, it is hard for people to get anything more than fishing for cans to recycle.

Mark94 wrote about there being more people working and 2 or 3 service sector jobs created for every manufacturing job lost.

Perhaps so. But these service sector jobs are much more shitty. People only take them because the manufacturing jobs have been lost. And job creation, especially of rent paying living wage jobs, has not kept pace with population growth. And further, the level of jobs we have is highly influenced by federal polices:

Simulataneously

1. Gutting upper income taxes
2. Maintaining many forms of deficit spending, especially military
3. Military adventurism, keeps unemployment rate down
4. Low interest rates.

Obviously the above, brought to you big time by Ronald Reagan, is not sustainable. But it does keep the stock market high and it does keep the official unemployment rate down.

What we need to be doing is letting jobs go, as they use up more resources than what they are worth. Never worth it to burn up gasoline just to keep people off of welfare.

SJG

@SJG You really don't get it do you, I have at least 5 openings right now, for skill positions, and am willing to hire trainees, problem is, there are no applicants, zero, so before one or two could possibly work out and morph into a well paying position,these people will need training, which I am willing to provide with pay and health care benefits. Problem is, there is no way that these unskilled people could generate enough income to keep my business afloat by paying more, and another reason, I can't pay more is there is no guarantee, that after I make this investment and train them that they will work out in such a way that my investment is justified. I have an obligation to those that work for me now, that I keep this business solvent, and generating income, that they and their families depend on to live, through not only my hard work but theirs as well. I can see that you really don't understand the actual concept of running a business, you are constantly talking about entrepreneurship, and trying to equate it, to the problem of running a real going concern. I know you don't really get it, because you don't understand, that I answer to my employees, as much as they take their instructions from me.

Yeah, those service jobs stink. Engineer, biologist, computer science, finance, accountant, doctor, lawyer. I mean, what idiot would stop working in a steel mill for one of those crummy jobs ?

^^^^Or even working construction as a journeyman at $35+ per hour, absolutely horrible !

SJG: " That is to be an elite group of highly intelligent people"

Hilarious. So all this time you've been criticizing me and the companies that I work, it turns you just want to do exactly the same thing. Got a little bad, for you. Given the choice between you and your psycho church and the type of companies I work for nobody sane person is going to choose your psycho church. You might have already noticed this when you mentioned how hard recruiting was? The only people you'll attract are psychos who couldn't really make it into an elite organization. Because if they could they certainly won't be willing to go to work for an obvious PSYCHO like you.

Dougster wrote: "[Libertarians] also feel that they are rather superior to most of humanity whom they don't care that much for. So if you tell a Libertarian that the government is going to come along and take their money and give it to inferior people whom they probably won't like it doesn't make that much sense to them. And they see such a government as evil."

I don't know about that. If we're only talking about taxes, I'm actually a lot more concerned about the taxes that Exxon, CitiGroup, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett pay than I am about my own taxes. The reason is that I believe in fairness and morality and order and reason. And I can't think of a single thing to justify Bill Gates paying a higher tax rate than I do. I also can't think of a single thing to justify a high-income stockholder paying taxes twice on his dividend income (once at the corporate level and again at the individual level). I would prefer a system in which the Koch brothers pay less than they currently do and I pay more than I currently do, as long as we get closer to a system in which every dollar is taxed at the same flat rate, regardless of how much income the earner made that year. If it's selfish to want a simple, predictable system that isn't irrationally prejudiced against the wealthy, then I guess I'm selfish.

As for not approving of welfare, again, I believe in a simple, predictable, transparent government that is easy to understand and navigate. When the government starts taking money from some people and giving it to others through dozens of transfer programs (that many people don't even know exist), that sounds like a complicated mess to me. Transforming the government into a cross between an insurance company, a casino, a thief, and a babysitter really seems insane to me, especially when one considers that the government is the only segment of society that is legally empowered to use deadly force to end people's lives. But that's exactly what we've turned the government into. Anyway, although it's not ideal, I'd be willing to compromise by saying that everyone can have a guaranteed minimum income, paid for directly by Uncle Sam (from tax revenue), so long as we completely end all other forms of welfare, including social security. It would not be ideal, but at least it would be simple and easy to understand.

Why is it about an equal tax rate? Why not same amount of tax per person? (Of course people below a certain income would need a break since they just can't afford it. So say starting around $75k maybe, everyone pays the same amount of tax?) I don't really think this is a good idea, just want to see why in Libertarian logic it isn't.

@mark94 LOL, I totally agree. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and the American people in general have so fetishized manufacturing jobs that there's just no way to rationally communicate with them about manufacturing anymore. There's no other way to say this: most manufacturing jobs just weren't very good, and I've never met a kid who was college material but still wanted to work in a factory when he grew up.

@Dougster,

Yes, you're right, I think a Head Tax is a great idea. Almost anything would be an improvement over the complicated and distortionary system we currently have. A head tax, in which everyone pays the same nominal dollar amount each year (perhaps with a smaller additional surtax for minor children) would be my preferred system. It's the simplest, the most fair, the least distortionary. But anything would be an improvement. I'm fine with a flat tax, a national sales tax, the so-called FairTax, etc. If we each share the burden equally, there would be fewer demands for additional future spending, fewer demands for unnecessary wars, or high-speed trains, or subsidies for farmers, or border walls. Politicians wouldn't be able to promise free things on the backs of the rich for the benefit of the middle class because we would all be on the hook for everything the government does.

Ok, gotcha!

Just curious @BHF how much would that cost per person ? And would it raise enough to fund our needs, like infrastructure and who would determine those needs ? Sincerely I'm just asking how this was thought out on the Libertarian side.

@twentyfive,

I have no idea exactly how much, but I can estimate. In 2018 the government is going to spend around $4 trillion and some change. And I believe there are around 250 million adults in America. Let's assume that children under the age of 18 don't pay anything (even though I do believe their parents should pay something additional for each of them). If you do the math, it comes out to around $16,000 for every adult man and woman. If you assume a balanced budget, which I also would like, then we would each owe 16 grand to the government next year. As I implied, the dollar amount would be lower for childless adults and higher for those with kids, but that's the gist of it. This would put enormous pressure on Congress to hammer out a budget far in advance so that the voters aren't caught off guard by a suddenly higher-than-expected tax bill (voters would probably punish them at the polls for that kind of behavior). And it would also put a great deal of pressure on Congress to dramatically decrease spending immediately because many people simply can't afford to pay a bill that's that high. Obviously, this kind of proposal has almost zero chance of ever happening, but if it ever did, we would see a few good things happen in short order. First, our stupid wars would end - can't afford them anymore. Second, all but the most popular welfare programs would end, too. Third, lots of charities would be created almost overnight to help the poor pay their share. Fourth, the poor and/or irresponsible might actually have fewer children, as increasingly children would be born mostly to those who can actually afford to give them a good life in the first place. Fifth, there would be less inefficiency in our economy as people stop wasting time and money preparing their taxes, or paying accountants or lawyers, or investing in "tax shelters," etc. This is actually close to the way that taxes were collected at many times and many places throughout history. But don't worry because, again, it has zero chance of happening today. A flat (or flatter) income tax is more likely to be accomplished in our lifetimes.

Sorry, I should clarify my previous explanation: $16,000 for a single adult, $32,000 for a married couple (obviously, because there are two people in the couple). Unfortunately, strippers and other sex workers would no longer be largely exempt. Neither would any other blackmarket participant.

^^^Not really worried I would put the odds of that happening, at somewhere in the neighborhood of winning the power-ball jackpot maybe 10 times in a row. Now how would you deal with Social Security and Medicare, for those that are in my age group who have been paying into these programs all of our lives ? Again not trying to pick an argument just curious.

@twentyfive, If you're under 50, as I am, sorry, no Social Security for you. If you're on Social Security already, no change to the system. If you're over 50 but not yet on Social Security, you'll have to retire at a later age, perhaps 75. So we'll essentially phase it out over time.

Medicare is harder. It's very existence, together with employer-sponsored coverage, is responsible for decades of skyrocketing medical costs. But you can't just pull the rug out from under people. I say, if you're on Medicare now, no change to the system for you. If you're over 50 but not yet eligible, you'll receive a voucher to go and buy a private Medicare plan from an ObamaCare-style exchange once you reach Medicare eligibility. That's basically the Paul Ryan plan, and it would hopefully slow the cost increases. I would also completely end the employer mandate to provide health insurance, and I would take away the tax deduction that employers currently receive for providing health insurance. This would discourage people from getting their insurance through their jobs. Then I would create ObamaCare-style federal exchanges so that people can purchase only catastrophic injury plans. These would be very high deductible plans, with perhaps $10,000 or $20,000 annual deductibles that most people would never meet, thus encouraging them to conserve medical dollars (because they would mostly be responsible for paying them). These would be totally or mostly unsubsidized and not mandatory. It's a system similar to Switzerland, except that the Swiss do mandate individual coverage. That would mostly solve the medical cost crisis within around 30 years. Best I can do.

Sorry, again just to clarify, the high deductible plans I mentioned would only be for those who are NOT on Medicare. Should have been more clear.

@BHF, I see so as I am 64 at this point and planning to retire at 66 I'm fucked, thank god I didn't vote Libertarian,have you forgotten this was money that I paid into the system, since my first job at age 14, that's 50 years and you are conspiring to deprive me of my own money. Now I need to wait 11 more years to collect my own money, and you don't think that's theft. No thank you, I'm very glad that the odds are stacked against this ever happening, but I think I'll take my chances with a regular Republican or Democrat.

Social Security was designed to look like an individual investment so that the older generation wouldn't realize it was just another welfare plan. There is little correlation between what you put in and what you take out.

There is no real SS trust fund, just a bunch of IOUs. It's another wealth transfer, in this case from younger people ( including the poor ) to older people ( including some of the very wealthy),

@twentyfive,

I don't think it would be so cut and dry that if you miss the cutoff by a day or a year you would have to wait an extra 9 years to collect social security. It would probably be more like people who are 50 at the start of the year would have to wait until they turn 75, while people who are 51 would have to wait until 74, and people who are age 52 will wait until 73, etc. Everything would work on a sliding scale. And perhaps there would be an age category that would be given a choice of whether or not they want to continue to pay FICA and be eligible for Social Security (perhaps those age 48 to 50 or thereabouts). The larger point is that, while I am completely opposed to welfare and to the government running an insurance/annuity company (the very definition of socialism), I just don't feel comfortable with pulling the rug out from under people who have been conditioned to expect something. However, you seem to be taking for granted that Social Security taxes

sorry... broken message... As I was saying, you're taking for granted that the Social Security taxes you paid were actually paid to the government in exchange for something. But trust me, they were just another tax. Congress can take away this entitlement anytime they choose. It's in the law. So it's not really your money anymore once you've paid it and you're no more entitled to Social Security than you are to, say, crop subsidies. It's all based on what congress says this year. What they say next year may be different. Listen, obviously, you're already eligible for Social Security and no one's going to take it away from you. And no one will ever reform it until they are forced to, possibly by some kind of currency crisis. If and when that happens, no one will get any more checks from any government. At least nothing worth spending because the currency would be worthless. I could be totally wrong, but that's what we're trying to prevent. If we spend beyond our means for any length of time we will eventually be forced to live beneath our means.

@mark94, I couldn't have said it better.

I'm not sure whether you feel the same way, but I find it a little amusing that some people here are talking about libertarianism as if it's something truly dangerous and perhaps even threatening to 'take over' if it isn't aggressively countered. But libertarianism hasn't been a real governing philosophy of anyone in power in well over a hundred years. And even then, only briefly. And that's HERE, in the alleged cradle of liberty, let alone the rest of the world. We haven't won a presidential election since Grover Cleveland and we probably never will ever again. We are destined to be a small quasi-intellectual movement, probably forever. Nothing to be afraid of, folks.

@BHF @Mark94, That is a ton of crap I don't know where you are getting your facts from but like it or not SS was a promise made before I was born, and you are welcome to try and spin it anyway you like, but that money wasn't taken from everyone, as a result it is not a tax, it is an entitlement. If you worked for the Post Office, you receive a pension not from SS but the Federal Government, if you worked for the railroads you received a pension Railroad Retirement Board, Police and Firefighters are exempt from SS, many State and Local Government workers are exempt from SS and are covered by a other sources, so lets be real, SS belongs to those ratepayers that paid into the system and absolutely is an entitlement, it isn't welfare it isn't some giveaway to poor people, it isn't subject to a means test, no matter if you think it should be, sorry but you really need to get the facts, and what I have stated here is factual, not some dopey political bullshit that you guys are spouting.

In the real world, I helped a number of companies design a transition from a Defined Benefit plan to a Defined Contribution approach. Typically ( and legally ) you freeze the dollar benefit then contribute to a new 401k-type plan. You don't eliminate the already accrued benefit. That's really the only fair way to do a transition from SS.

Under this approach, younger people come out ahead. And, since people in their 60s have accrued most of their benefit, they do fine too. The biggest problem is with people age 50-55. They don't have enough time to build up a sizeable account. You typically make an extra contribution in this range.

Twenty Five: unlike a real investment, you can't find out what your individual account is worth. And, there is no money set aside to pay the benefits. Yes, there is something they call a SS trust fund but if you could look at its balance sheet, the only assets you'd find would be IOUs from the government in the form of T-Bills. That's the scam to pretend it's an investment.0

So, you are taking money from people who are already working and this money goes into the governments coffers, in return for IOUs. At the same time, benefits are paid to retirees directly by the government from general funds. It's a wealth transfer from one group to another. That's welfare.

There is no means test but, in fairness, there should be. As it works now, money is taken from a 21 year convenience store clerks pocket and paid to a 70 year old Donald Trump. That's ridiculous.

@twentyfive,

Lots of people think the word welfare means "money received from the government in exchange for being a living, breathing, human being, with no strings attached." Or, they may view it in the narrow definition of "money from the government intended for poor people or to relieve poverty." You can use these definitions if you want to, but that's not the precise definition of welfare. It really means "payments from the government for which no work is performed in exchange." Therefore, a police officer who works for the government and gets paid by the local government is not on welfare by definition; the officer performed work and was paid for it. But anyone else getting money from the government is receiving a form of welfare. I actually looked up the dictionary definition of welfare and Google says it means "financial support given to people in need," and then the first synonym listed actually is "social security." I'm not kidding, that's what it says. By the way, being 'in need' doesn't necessarily mean being poor. It could mean being "elderly," or being a victim of a natural disaster, or living in the Tennessee Valley, or being uninsured, or being a farmer. The government decides what it considers to be a needy person. Entitlements are a form of welfare. They are one and the same thing.

Just because money was only taken from certain people and not from others doesn't mean much. Estate taxes are only taken from large estates. Capital gains taxes are only taken from people who sell capital assets. Local property taxes are only taken from property owners. And FICA is only taken from certain categories of people who work. I never said it was a handout to the poor. It is a handout to former workers, some of whom are poor, some of whom aren't. And as mark94 said, it is paid from the general fund of the federal government, not from the assets of a trust fund.

I don't even see the stigma in taking welfare. The fault is in those who hand it out, not in those who meet the established criteria.

^^^i knew a guy a few years ago who was one of those Sovereign Citizen types if you remember that scam about the government not having the right to levy taxes, and he ended up broke from his willingness to believe in that crap. Your logic to me seems similar with regard to SS. I will stop debating now because it is a totally impossible argument not because I agree with you and I wish you well, but

BHF: Here's the proof that FDR did a great job making people believe they've earned SS. All it took was labeling a portion of taxes as Social Security taxes and claiming there was a trust fund. LBJ did something similar with Medicare. It will be almost impossible to adjust these programs to the realities and demographics of today.

Mkay! Time for this thread to die it's well deserved death with honor.

25: I wasn't talking to you. I thought you'd gone away.

@mark94,

Yeah, I totally agree, the trust funds were completely disingenuous. Partly as a result, the programs are virtually impossible to unwind at this point. All the moderate solutions and compromises and phase outs are a waste of time because the truth is that most people will brook no compromise when it comes to 'their' money. Other people should pay, not them. Other people should face cutbacks, not them. Anyway, the thing is, even if these programs were completely solvent and even if they weren't going to bankrupt the government one day and even if there really were money sitting in an account with each of our names on it, I would still be against this because it's socialism. It's the government performing a function it was never intended to. But as I've always said, the American people love socialism, they just hate the name. And then along came Bernie Sanders, and now, young people at least even like the name! Those kids are going to grow up one day, open a book and read more about what socialism really is and they're going to demand much more of it. There's not much hope for rolling back the tide of domestic welfarism when older people hate the word 'socialism' but love all the socialist programs, while young people love the word 'socialism' but think it means 'things that happen in Denmark.'

I went to a town hall held by my Republican congressman where person after person, all Republicans I suspect, stood up and said they were in favor of smaller government. However, each of them then named one or two particular programs that should never be touched. That's the day I knew we were doomed.

@mark94,

Right, it's like "get your government hands off my Medicare." I remember the heady early days of the Tea Party, with all the angry townhall meetings, and for a moment I remember thinking "well maybe this is an authentic libertarian grassroots movement." Turns out... no, it wasn't. Not when you poll them about cutting specific programs. Or immigration. Or gays. Or drugs. Or the war on terror. Or the defense budget. Or trade. Or tax cuts for the wealthy. Or even guns! What they all did seem to agree on was that Obama was secretly a gay Muslim atheist from Kenya. Oh, and that we should cut waste, fraud, and abuse. Perfect. They were good people, and I supported their crusade against government spending, to the extent that they even believed in it themselves, but I stopped kidding myself after a year or two. And they're mostly gone now.

Anyway, you're in Arizona, right? What do you think of Jeff Flake? I've always liked and admired him, personally. Kelli Ward isn't bad on some issues, even if she is crazy. And the other potential GOP challengers are just empty Trump placeholders. If I lived in AZ, I would enthusiastically vote for Flake, but I think there's room for disagreement. This feud with Trump has created a rift amongst libertarians, just as it's created a split in the GOP. Which side do you fall on?

(And BTW don't you think Krysten Sinema would look great pole-dancing on stage?)

McCain has bothered me for years. For 5 years, he sides with Democrats so he is the "good Republican" and gets national media coverage, then he talks conservative for the year before his re-election. He's followed that pattern for 20 years.

I was a Flake fan at first, but I now sense he is using opposition to Trump, similar to what McCain does, to be a good Republican and raise his profile. I'm tired of Flake. I'm not a fan of Trump, the man, but his policies are the best we've had since Reagan, so I'm hanging with him. He's only 20% libertarian, but that's 20% more than we've had for 40 years.

Kelli Ward is her own kind of opportunist. Still, I might donate to her just because she isn't McCain or Flake.

As far as Sinema, ugh ! Listen to her preach and scold for a while and you'll lose interest.

I love is post.

Not!!!

Yeah, I'm not a fan of McCain, either. I would have voted for Ward against McCain in the primary last year. And I've noticed the behavior that you're describing in McCain, myself. Do you remember "Just build the dang fence, already"? That was McCain in 2010. And Flake also flip-flopped on immigration reform in 2012. So they're both dishonest politicians. I happen to support amnesty and semi-open borders, myself. But hypocrisy and flip-flopping might be worse than being consistently 'bad' or wrong on an issue. Still, I like Flake personally. And the dude was the director of the Goldwater Institute. That has to count for something. Flake often sides with McCain, but what can you expect? They're both senators from the same party and the same state, so they help each other out. As for Trump, I hate him personally, but whenever I'm asked in a survey whether I approve or disapprove, I usually say that I "somewhat approve." So far, he's been about 45% good, 45% bad, and 10% 'meh.' I'm grading on a curve, so he gets a solid C+ or B- which is the best grade I would give to any president in the past 30 years. And Flake has voted with the president and supported his agenda on almost every issue except trade and immigration. To me, that says a lot. After all, McCain was the one who killed healthcare reform, not Flake.

(And to be fair, I never said I would vote for Sinema. I would just, you know, have a lap dance with her if I could. LOL)

Dude, no way will I give any credit to Flake! Flip flopping or not, which he is, he is a politician much the same as Hillary Clinton bullies her way through with bullshit spread onto hard working citizens.

Point in case, Flake's nephew owned a dog day care and with neglect over 20 + dogs died due to severe neglect. Nobody bothered to look in overnight and with terrible electrical work done on the facility to make it cheaper to operate, the air conditioning/ventilation went out. His family member played ignorance and thought his xonnnections would exonerate them. They got a slap on the wrist, mostly because of their LDS status. If it wasn't for a few organized people who were pissed off, theynwouldnt wven have had their wrist slapped.

Close friends of mine lost their dogs in this mishap, and basically they were disregarded and felt disrespected due to the fact that their wouldn't be any consequences of neglect because they were Flake's family members. LDS runs deep here and the quid pro quo system means working folks/tax payers get left behind. No thanks on Fake(flake)!

@Meat72,

Seriously, this really happened? I'm not sure you could blame Flake for it, but that sounds like quite a story. Anyway, yes, Jeff Flake is a politician. And so is Trump. He became one the minute he started talking about running for office... in 1987. Being a politician doesn't make you a bad person; it makes you a human weathervane who's scared of everyone else's opinions and of being on the wrong side of the majority. So in that one sense, Flake and maybe even Hillary Clinton are better than most because they've mostly stuck to their guns and supported free trade and immigration reform, despite the fact that the country is now against both things. Mostly, anyway. I give credit where it's due.

^^^ The story is true as the day is long, and because of my personal involvement I will be encouraging the opposing candidate to victory.

I had something along those lines with Sheriff Arpaio. The son of a friend of mine was choked to death by his deputies in jail. They tried to cover it up. From that point, I despised Atpaio.

The story about Arpaio seems more believable to me, somehow, probably because I dislike him. So maybe I'm not being objective enough. Also, it turns out that Kelli Ward is not nearly as crazy as I thought:

politifact.com

I would still vote for Flake but I take back the comment about Ward being crazy. Anyway, it sounds like Joe Arpaio is thinking about primarying Flake now, too. At this point, is there anyone not thinking about running? I mean, I know Flake is unpopular, but if these people don't all agree to get behind one candidate, they're basically guaranteeing that he will win.

Is it possible to put a thread on ignore or just people?

What type of gun is being held to your head, forcing you to read this thread ?

TwentyFive, When people know that they will not be able to obtain a position, or not likely be able to keep it, they don't apply.

I'm not in anyway criticizing your business practices. I'm only pointing out that there is a large portion of the population which is not wanted in the jobs market. And this is not going to change anytime soon.

Dougster, My elect elite group will be doing very well. But we will also be fighting for Social Democracy for the rest of the population. You and the people you stand with want a two tier society, as evidenced by the positions you hold. So if your side wins, it will be the task masters armed with whips, humiliating people by making them scrub the sidewalks with their tooth brushes.

Through the mid 1960's, the US was basically in sync with the nations of Western Europe in moving to the left and democratically setting up a moderate socialist nation.

Then by the late 1960's, they kept moving to the Left, and we started moving to the Right. We have continued to mover further and further to the Right ever since.

Part of the Reason was Nixon and his Southern Strategy, using our country's history of bad race relations to achieve a Republican takeover.

Another is just the rise of the Right Wing think tanks and media. Another is our country's heavy involvement with religion, and Nixon, followed by people like Paul Wierich and Lee Attwater coming up with divisive wedge issues and ways to make coded appeals to racism.

Another is just a conservative backlash against the Women's Movement and the Civil Rights Movement, and then new conservatism in the form of dual income households, and wanting to gut progressive income tax.

Europe continued moving to the Left, while we reversed direction and moved to the Right, and since very very far to the Right.

Actually, in Strangers In Their Own Land, Arlie Hochschild starts off chronicling this shift to the Right. It is surprising.

Since the 2016 Election though, we have seen renewed calls for Universal Single Payer Health Care, and for something never much talked about in the US before, Citizenship Pay. So it is possible that the US is now finally ready to start catching up with Western Europe.

SJG

Polly Superstar themoralminority.net

And in the UK she was with: houseofharlot.com

Tiny House, San Jose. Does this come off of the trailer? State law specifies 13' 6" max on the roads. Does look to be a clever design. mercurynews.com

drivinglaws.aaa.com

ops.fhwa.dot.gov

sanjoseinside.com

SJG: "My elect elite group will be doing very well. But we will also be fighting for Social Democracy for the rest of the population."

Sounds like the only thing you'll be fighting for is women dopey to join your church and work as 24/7 prostitutes for the promise of $125k/y. Which, apparently, you'll be using black magic to conjure out of thin air.

@Dougster,

Oh for goodness sake, he isn't serious about this. It's like a form of satire.

Look up "the tragedy at Green Acre dog boarding, Gilbert, AZ" if you care to know much about Flake's family using their connection to side step consequences of neglect. This reminds me of the days Rep Samon and all his LDS buddies got free rides on taxpayer dime, due to connections.

"What type of gun is being held to your head, forcing you to read this thread ?"

You are right I don't have to read it.

I stopped following it at a long time ago, right about the time a few losers tried to impress one another, an themselves, with their ability to Google articles and regurgitate their interpretation of what communism, socialism, libertarianism, circlejerkjism, and other things are.

But the damn thing keeps popping up when I'm looking for interesting threads. I'd rather read about vincemichaels being a gay, pedophile who lies about being a war hero or great packing and moving rates to India.

Shit, make it go away!!!!

Apparently, those few losers are living rent free inside your head. Make it go away ? This is the Internet. Nothing ever goes away.

@Meat72,

It's an interesting story, for sure. I'm not clear whether Jeff Flake himself had anything to do with it. But even if he did, I would still vote for him. I like Matt Salmon, too. On the issues that matter to me, Flake and Salmon have been great. Especially when Flake was in the House, he was a true friend to the taxpayer. I'm not sure if their being Mormon means anything, but I would assume that the average Mormon congressman is more frugal than the average non-LDS congressman. Then again, Harry Reid was a Mormon, too, so IDK. Personally, I'm an atheist, but I would bet that the majority of the closeted atheist congressmen are much less frugal and responsible than the typical believer. The only current congressperson who has openly indicated that she might be an atheist is that hot piece of ass, Kyrsten Sinema, and she's a total commie.

Anyone who spends enough time in Washington becomes corrupt. Republican. Democrat. Billionaire. Millionaire. Community organizer. Christian. Mormon. Atheist. Mr Smith goes to Washington, then sells out.

@flagooner,

It's pathetic - if Bj99 hadn't said anything I doubt you'd have much to say about this thread. It's one thing to be a PL in a club where you might at least get some action. It's another thing to be a total eunuch on the internet for a girl you'll never even meet. And she was kidding when she said we should stop the thread anyway.

Mmmm Kristen Synema....

Oops I thought you said cinnamon! I think I'll make me some cinnamon toast right now.

LOL. Check your timeline. My comment in this thread about having taken a shit was my passive aggressive way of saying this thread was played out. It was long before any comment about it by BJ.

Ahh guys now that we know that BJ99 is really Emily that changes everything. ;)

Not my type, but I can see how her school marm style might appeal to some.

google.com:

No black magic, just a very high wall of security to keep my f2f affairs separate from this board. And not really a church, and certainly no prostitutes.

But definitely guys using all of their skills to make our business ventures go, and women who have signed up to apply all of their skills too ;)

A counter cultural group like never seen before.

SJG

From today's vantage point of using a bike for very high commute mileage instead of just for recreation, cogs, sprockets, and chains wear out too fast. And the new indexed shifting stuff is not as durable as the old friction shifting systems.

What SJG plans to get, if not even make himself, is like this, Shaft Drive, Internal Gear Hub, Disc Brake, Hub Lighting Alternator: telegraph.co.uk

Clapton's Greatest Hits, 2017 youtube.com

SJG: "A counter cultural group like never seen before."

More like a psycho + faggot group like never seen before.

@Dougster "More like a psycho + faggot group like never seen before."

can one solitary psycho faggot moron constitute a group?

SJG what kind of retard are you other than a communist who needs or wants the government to take care of everything for him. Make things shittier for everyone so everyone is equal and miserable. "When people know that they will not be able to obtain a position, or not likely be able to keep it, they don't apply." So people get one job and stick with it there whole life they never try to change jobs or move up. You start as as a grocery bagger you live that way your whole life. CEO have been CEO's since high school...you are a moron.

And for fucks sake Lloyd Schoene and his imaginary "just a very high wall of security to keep my f2f affairs separate from this board." Only this fucktard doesn't think everyone knows who he is. Moron.

Speaking of a head tax (Aka poll tax) another idea I've seen come of out some libertarian blogs was the idea of replacing income and cap gains tax with a VAT tax or consumption tax. But to make it slightly less regressive the first say $12000 (or FPL) of VAT would be refundable. The rate would be 17-21%, IIRC.

The idea being, you aren't taxed on income or wealth, just consumption. And if you consume at the poverty level, regardless of income, then you are largely tax free. If you want to consume more, that's just to you, and you're choice.

It's a hare-brained idea with 0% of passing.

But you do think a VAT tax like that would encourage saving? Or do you think the working/middle/upper-middle classes would still spend -- on homes, opportunity, education, sports, etc -- so that their kids would make a better shot? that's the rationale I see for a lot of people to spend today. What do you think?

^^^Most libertarians are actually goofy as fuck.

tagging @twentyfive @dougster @mark94 @BurlingtonHoFactory @meat72 @rickdugan @dallas702

^^^what does that mean?

@twentyfive,

I think it means that those are the people he is directing his question to.

@Dominic77,

I'm okay with a VAT tax, I just want to make sure that it isn't applied in addition to the income tax. It's like this: I live in New Jersey, and here we have a steep progressive income tax, a moderate sales tax (just under 7%), very high property taxes (including county taxes, municipal taxes, school district taxes, library taxes, fire department taxes, "open space" taxes, etc.), tolls on our major highways, licensing fees, etc. Any one of these on its own wouldn't be so bad and I wouldn't be complaining. But then the government starts acting like a pig and applies multiple layers of taxation. They do this in order to diffuse the costs of government so that no single tax seems very high on its own. But I believe people should be able to see the full amount of taxes they're paying all at once, and no one should be responsible for paying anyone else's taxes for them. So I'm fine with a VAT tax but only if it's not in combination with additional taxes, which would obscure the true costs of all the services that the voters have been demanding.

As for encouraging investment, well that's great news if it happens, but I personally wouldn't set out with that as a policy goal. It's not the government's job to encourage investment. Feels like social engineering to me. The goal should be to only perform the functions that the private sector can't do, and then to do these things as cheaply, efficiently, and transparently as possible.

@twentyfive,

"Most libertarians are actually goofy as fuck."

That's been my experience with them as well.

Consumption taxes are an interesting idea. Don't really know how that would work.

I find the idea of going more to property tax to be interesting, like working in stages to substitute that for income tax. Property tax is the easiest to enforce, where as income tax is not.

Statue of Frauds requires that real estate contracts be in writing, and deeds have to be filed. That is after all one of the main functions of government anyway.

Also, most New Age Lint Heads are actually just a flavor or Libertarians.

SJG

about the failed Clinton Campaign: amazon.com

Though I find Hochchild's Strangers In Their Own Land to be more interesting. There is a deep rooted problem in this country. More interested in that, than in how to get Hillary Clinton's elected. I want people to the Left of Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein anyway.

Finite And Infinite Games, James P. Carse

goodreads.com

jamescarse.com

en.wikipedia.org

Evanescence - Bring Me To Life (Live In Las Vegas) youtube.com

^^^Problem with consumption taxes is that they actually hit those with the least the hardest. Perfect example is gasoline taxes add about 40% to the cost of fuel that a working man needs to get to work, many probably most places in the US are underserved with public transportation or a mother just above the threshold needs to feed her children she often will be force to choose calories Ives nutrition.

^^^Ives= over spell check fucked that one.

"hit those with the least the hardest"

Agreed.

SJG

The other problem with consumption taxes is they are hidden, like the VAT. They start out small, then the percentage is increased by politicians year after year and no one notices. At least with income tax, the tax payer is forced to calculate the amount.

I agree with @Mark94 about citizen pay and I'd go farther in that I would requiring welfare recipients who are able bodied and under the age of Retirement to work, there are many public projects that never get done for lack of manpower.

Way, way back when the government comprised of just a small permanent military and federal courts, we funded the federal government by things like a whisky tax or stamp tax. We didn't need an income tax until the government got into the redistribution business. We've hit a limit on how much the federal government can do and find ways to fund it.

All you have to do is look in the yellow pages for construction contractors and, providing that they are paid, what every project you want will get done. Labor is in surplus.

Making ritual denigrations of the poor is in humane and it also destroys our democracy.

SJG

Modern industrial economies only function because the government is in the re-distribution business.

SJG

I totally disagree that it's denigration of anyone. Contributing to society is exactly the opposite of denigration.

Labor is in surpluss that's delusional thinking.

But they already make welfare recipients rake up park leaves and stuff like that. The work is very inefficient. You can't make people labor just for their survival. The reason people want it is to keep the lower half of the work force in line. Welfare recipients are being used like some countries use war captives, as a symbol, to keep people compliant. People don't try to unionize or demand higher wages, when they see what could happen to them if the lost their jobs.

By the way, because of their low wage system, its why the South opposed Richard Nixon's 1969 Family Assistance Package. This had both strengths and weaknesses, but in the South, like with Russel Long ( D ) from Louisiana, it was strongly opposed.

Denigrating the poor is what makes all workers compliant.

Having people do make work is denigration. Freedom Through Work history.com

Real Good: youtube.com

SJG

Want to end the labor surplus? Just outlaw farm machinery.

SJG

(Labor)x(Capital)=Wealth

If there is no labor, there is no wealth.

Money doesn't "circulate". It is earned, then spent by those that earned it.

Keynes has been disproved. We know that the Great Depression would have lasted 2 years if it had followed its natural path. The intervention of the Federal government delayed recovery for years. Thank you Milton Friedman !

There is other uses besides raking leaves I could think of a thousand things that need to be done from providing childcare to accounting functions if you need to be provided for at least you should have some value.

We have labor, too much, because of industrialization and automation. We have capital to use where needed.

To say that money is earned implies a moral entitlement. Money is obtained, but the more one is getting, the more suspect the means are. Those who do the things mose essential get little or even nothing.

Mark94, you sound like you are campaigning for Herbert Hoover.

"Another 8 years of the same polices and poverty in America will be ended", 1928 campaign.

Twentyfive, Childcare and accounting are good places to EMPLOY people, and to pay them well and give them good benefits and job security, and union representation.

But they are not places to send people just so they can get their welfare benefits.

SJG

I'm a Calvin Coolidge man. Compared to him, Hoover was a hippie.

:)

Hoover was Stanford's first admitted student, 1895. Also, as estimated in 1912, he personally held $1 Billion in Russian timber and mining assets. $1 Billion in 1912 was a lot of money.

It would not be an exaggeration that Hoover would go on to spend his adult life trying to get that money back.

SJG

it's better that they do ANYTHING that gives back to the community that makes it a better place. Bullshit it is denigrating to rake leaves, any work is good work, and anyone should be far prouder of doing something to help out when they are getting paid from other people's money than just sitting on their ass and collecting a check.

One of the problems with redistribution, not the only one, is how inefficient the process is. The government takes a dollar from citizen A, spends half of it to pay for the bureaucracy, then gives citizen B $.50. Then, they take from B to give C. They take from C to give to A. And so on and so on. Just about everyone has money taken from them, then some other money given back to them. So much money flows through the D.C. Bureaucracy, that hundreds of Billions simply disappear.

I am not necessarily a taxation is theft guy, but anything that you get less out of than you put in then it is not a good deal. Hardest thing is how do you really quantify it. Taxes go to military which keeps people safe, infrastructure we need, but redistributing it to other people just takes my money and gives no benefit. The government is about the most wasteful entity there is. Fucktards like SJG want the government to be their mommy, daddy, religion, just give your money to the government let them do everything for you. Fuck that.

Things are so much better since I've ignored tixtittyfag

My Ingore List

DrPhil DrPhil. IME Meat72 san_jose_gay tixtittyfag

Well, business is inefficient too. And on top of that it tries to extract a profit. At least with government redistribution the salaries should be kept within the sanity realm. And then consider that administrative costs are employment for someone. Government spending is what holds open the middle wage tier of the jobs market.

Keynesian theory does address the issue of just how big government should be. Its never anything like what we saw in the Soviet Union. I used to remember what the key ideas about its sizing were. Need to review it. Keynesianism is a way of "saving capitalism from itself". That is, it is a doctrine of moderation, not extremes. Calvin Coolidge would be considered an extremist, and the results were patently obvious in 1929.

Part of the difficulty with our federal government is that it is in the Corporate Welfare Business, and this is because our Democracy does not work very well, because of corporate money, and because our society still runs on scapegoats, be the racial, or scapegoating the poor, or those in the middle-east, or across our Southern border.

SJG

Well, at least we agree about Corporate Welfare.

I happened to attend the Ways and Means committee hearing in 1986 when the last major tax reform, killing a lot of corporate welfare, was introduced. We need to do it again.

Interesting that you attended. That was also the era when the upper tax brackets were gutted and our country started to run on voodoo economics.

amazon.com

Since the 1986 boom and bust cycle, how many have their been? Each one of these leaves the rich richer and the working poor poorer. Each of these boom and bust cycles cannibalizes our society.

After the Trump boom, the biggest and the most vacuous to date, we will have the Trump bust. And it will be bad. The sooner, the less severe, and the less innocent people hurt.

And trying to stigmatize welfare recipients, all it does is just make the working poor afraid to speak up.

SJG

If we forced welfare recipients to work for the government in exchange for their welfare, then all of a sudden the government would be involved in the childcare business, the construction business, the accounting business, the leaf raking business, etc. Certainly more so than it already is. Plus the government would have to train all of these people to perform these jobs in the first place. After all, most of the long-term jobless and welfare recipients have minimal skills, little or no attachment to the labor market, and in some cases have a hard time even showing up on time and sober. You tell me, do you really want to drive across a bridge that was built by welfare recipients and homeless people? Do you want your children being supervised by welfare recipients? Even if we here on TUSCL are open-minded, how do you think the average citizen would feel about this? Doesn't it make more sense to just end welfare programs rather than make poor people jump through hoops or perform busy-work, such that only the most determined rather than the most 'needy' receive money?

@san_jose_guy said "Calvin Coolidge would be considered an extremist, and the results were patently obvious in 1929."

That is beyond ridiculous. SJG, can you give us a list of some things that the government should never pay for? My guess is the list would be brief, so are you sure Coolidge is the extremist? And what makes you believe that he caused the events of 1929?

There is really no Tromp boom this country is running on autopilot fortunately for us because Mr. Trump is unable and unlikely to accomplish a thing, even tax reform is going to elude this guy. He will snatch defeat, from the jaws of victory, that is becoming more obvious to even the most diehard of his voters every day.

@san_jose_guy "My Ingore List

DrPhil DrPhil. IME Meat72 san_jose_gay tixtittyfag"

you yourself have proved that to be a lie over and over again. you stupid shit for brains fucktard

Burlington, I think you are half right. Other countries have better job retraining, before people get to the welfare level. But once they are, we just have to live with it. Welfare has always existed to regulate the poor. While denigrating them is wrong, just paying out welfare is better than total anarchy.

Basic Income, if done right, would eliminate the need for welfare, unemployment money, and the minimum wage.

Coolidge wanted Laissez-faire, that's what is beyond ridiculous.

Some things are better done by the private sector and some by government, and I guess some are mixed.

And I agree with you TwentyFive about Trump!

Not knowing that much about corporate taxation and accounting, as I know small and medium corps offer the promise of stock growth and also just salaries and bonuses. So they don't pay dividends, or corporate income tax.

But with a large widely held company, about all they can really offer shareholders is dividends, effectively taxed twice. Maybe this is an over simplification, but I think it still basically correct. So it is only the largest of corporations, those with the least growth potential, which would benefit from Trump's plan.

This, and other Laissez-faire stuff Trump might do is what has created this huge expectations bubble.

SJG

I think if the people are on welfare for two years (or God help us, five years) that we've failed. I'm all for the safety net -- and believe me, as one of the resident broke (or poor) Tuscl members -- I believe in the safety net to let people bounce back from job loss, etc.

As for bureaucratic waste, I'm there. Part of waste (supposedly, if reports are believable) if the enforcement of what the recipients can spend on. But there is a lot of voter support for limiting what and how welfare can be spent. I get it, it's distribution (or even theft) in many people's eyes. But if the real cost of $24,000 in welfare is $48,000 (because of all of the enforcement, bureaucracy, and compliance) would just just assume give the recipient $48,000 -- live without the enforcement -- and just call it a day. That's sort of (of the many) the rationale behind basic income.

I am not opposed to work requirements. Actually I endorse it (up to a point).

Not sure how I feel about a head tax. At least it would affect my tax bill quite a lot. Right now I pay about $9000 in federal taxes, due to marriage bonus. Under the head tax plan, I'd pay $32,000. The difference would 15% effective rate versus 53% effective rate.

I understand the fairness in theory. And believe me, getting the lower 47% to pay some (aka 'skin in the game' according to President Obama) would help address some Washington waste, but man that (effective) rate jump. Though I think you're expecting me to run to charity and beg for assistance. I'd do that if I have to but I'd rather not. It's sort of sad if someone at the 54th percentile had to resort to handout. I don't think we've slipped that far.

@Dominic77

"As for bureaucratic waste, I'm there. Part of waste (supposedly, if reports are believable) if the enforcement of what the recipients can spend on. But there is a lot of voter support for limiting what and how welfare can be spent. I get it, it's distribution (or even theft) in many people's eyes. But if the real cost of $24,000 in welfare is $48,000 (because of all of the enforcement, bureaucracy, and compliance) would just just assume give the recipient $48,000 -- live without the enforcement -- and just call it a day. That's sort of (of the many) the rationale behind basic income."

A lot of the waste is those bureaucrats, and when you eliminate their jobs by getting rid of them, as you put it that creates a whole new group of people that need assistance. Not exactly a winning formula !

Unemployment benefits are paid for a limited period of time. These limits shift around during different times. Studies have consistently shown a bump in the ability to find a job immediately after unemployment benefits end.

Welfare benefits began in earnest in the mid 1960s. The benefits were structured to pay more if no husband was present supporting the family. Beginning in the mid 1960s, the number of households without a father began climbing, and kept climbing.

These are just 2 examples that, if you pay for a certain situation, you will get more of it.

The War on Poverty began under LBJ in the mid 60s. Rather than ending poverty, $2 Trillion later we have a large segment of the population that has an unending cycle of poverty and dependence. That's because the government rewards those situations and makes them dependent.

Some states have begun requiring that Food Stamp recipients must have some sort of job to receive assisstance. The number with jobs jumped and the number on food stamps dropped.

Incentives work.

@Twentyfive. Nope. You are correct. Negative feedback loop! You are very correct. In fact, one of my side gigs was writing computer programs for a company that contracted for the government -- various latino things with regards to benefit, cards, identity, food assistance, fingerprint scans, etc. Big databases. We had top secret access to FBI database and head to be vetted for clearance, etc. Very big contract. I think it was $178MM one year and $287MM the second year. I got paid $45/h, which I thought was a lot. (Normally I get $30/h or $20/h).

But yes, if that goes away, so does a lot of a middle class jobs. So the irony is not lost!

Academically and logically I See the conservative and libertarian stance on this. But really -- I see that it's the old smoke screen again:

1. Income flows up.
2. Hate flows down (for the poor and the middle class).

The billionaires are playing us.

mark94 --> "Some states have begun requiring that Food Stamp recipients must have some sort of job to receive assisstance. The number with jobs jumped and the number on food stamps dropped.

Incentives work." --> end quote mark94

I wish we would have had that in the '80s. When mom was on food stamps, there was a "cliff" income-wise where the benefits got taken away. It was like $187/mo deficit. Which was a lot back there to a working mom.

We understood why and didn't complain. But God, that was tough live through. We "preferred" the work option, even though, they way the benefits phased out, it hurt us versus earning less or staying under the threshold.

My only gripe today, is a lot of us are just learning how hard it is. We were fed a lie of:

1. say in school; get good grades
2. go to college, graduate
3. and you won't have to struggle like the rest of us.

The problem is, #3 was incomplete. (our parents were too over-worked or under-educated themselves to impart the full awareness to us, plus after 30y/o, a lot of parents just run out of steam! but we can figure it out ourselves!) We still need to struggle because competition is real. It's just the available opportunities change. It's not like it's easier or it's not like a good life is given to you just because you got good grades.

Plus too much emphasis is spend on spending money to live in the right ZIP code, to be safe and go to the right school districts, to go to the right colleges. Hell, that faggot dougster still rips on community colleges! Fuck him. CC is a good deal for a lot of 100 and 200 level classes.

Waiting for Hilary's book to come out soon, that will add to the fodder we munch on and spit out here. She lost, she lost, she lost. I hope her and Bill get kidnapped by a wolverine in the woods up there and eaten bit by bit.

:)

@mark94 said: "The other problem with consumption taxes is they are hidden, like the VAT. They start out small, then the percentage is increased by politicians year after year and no one notices. At least with income tax, the tax payer is forced to calculate the amount."

I know what you mean, that's why I said I would only support a VAT if it wasn't in addition to other taxes. Let's say we have a 30% VAT tax with no other federal taxes. If politicians raise that to 35% and everyone's costs go up as a result, trust me, people would notice and they would be pissed. It would also be front-page news. It's not my preferred method of taxation, but I still think it's better than our current system.

@san_jose_guy said:

"Basic Income, if done right, would eliminate the need for welfare, unemployment money, and the minimum wage."

Probably. At a minimum, it would be more effective and efficient than any of those other programs, and more simple and transparent, too. I also half-heartedly endorsed a minimum basic income in a post on this thread a day or two ago, but again, only if it's a replacement for all other forms of welfare, entitlements, and transfer payments, NOT in combination with all of our current bullshit programs. That means no more food stamps or social security.

You also said: "Coolidge wanted Laissez-faire, that's what is beyond ridiculous."

He wasn't completely laissez faire, but let's assume you're right. So what? How did that cause the depression?

Dominic77 said: "Not sure how I feel about a head tax. At least it would affect my tax bill quite a lot. Right now I pay about $9000 in federal taxes, due to marriage bonus. Under the head tax plan, I'd pay $32,000. The difference would 15% effective rate versus 53% effective rate."

It would be a huge increase in taxes for me, too, as it would be for most people in this country. For that reason, among others, neither a head tax nor a balanced budget amendment are likely to be passed, and definitely not in combination with each other. It's just a thought experiment, really. A flat income tax (or a flatter income tax) is much more likely. But hypothetically, if we could somehow impose these rules on Congress, namely a head tax and a balanced budget, I guarantee they would dramatically cut spending. I personally believe the federal budget should be about one-tenth of its current size and each childless adult should pay around $1,000 annually, with the rest of the revenue coming from surcharges on children. Surely $1,000 isn't too much for most people to afford.

twentyfive said: "A lot of the waste is those bureaucrats, and when you eliminate their jobs by getting rid of them, as you put it that creates a whole new group of people that need assistance. Not exactly a winning formula !"

People survived somehow before the New Deal and the Great Society. I'm sure they would find a way. Even former bureaucrats.

Dominic77 said: "1. say in school; get good grades 2. go to college, graduate 3. and you won't have to struggle like the rest of us.... ...Hell, that faggot dougster still rips on community colleges! Fuck him. CC is a good deal for a lot of 100 and 200 level classes."

Well, not to get too far out on a tangent, but going to college just to get a job was probably never a good idea. Don't get me wrong, I think college is a fine thing, and if you love learning for its own sake and can comfortably afford it then maybe you should go. But let's be clear: college isn't trade school. It's not meant to give you job skills.

Back when my parents were young, it was just understood that college was intended for exactly two groups of people: the intellectually gifted and the wealthy. Therefore, my parents didn't go to college. They were neither intellectuals nor wealthy. It was really a good system, if you think about it. The wealthy paid the full tuition rate and the intellectuals got scholarships and grants. So the wealthy voluntarily subsidized the geniuses. The intellectuals would later go on to cure diseases or discover ancient ruins after graduation, while the rich kids got laid during Spring Break and earned "gentlemen's C's." So far so good. But then came the G.I. Bill, which gave free rides to lots of former servicemen who wanted to go to school, and before long lots of colleges were dramatically reducing their academic standards to capture the flood of federal subsidies. Then came Vietnam, and a wave of student deferrments, as young men flocked to colleges to avoid the draft. Many of these students, frankly, didn't have the requisite academic skills to remain in college. Their liberal professors were rightly horrified by the war, and didn't want to condemn these young men to death on a battlefield. So they often gave them passing grades when they deserved to fail and be kicked out. So academic standards kept declining. And sadly, they never went back up after the draft ended, which means that today almost any literate 18-year-old should be able to get into and eventually graduate from college. This is sad because, again, it's supposed to be for intellectuals, and how can everyone be an intellectual? Realistically, no more than 20 or 30 percent of the kids attending college really belong there. At most. But if you weren't college material to begin with, then why would having the degree suddenly make you more employable? We've been trying to hammer square pegs into round holes for more than half a century now, and I'm not impressed with the results. If you weren't an intellectual (or rich) before you went to college, then life after college will still be a real struggle for you. And rightly so, because you just wasted four or more years trying to be something you're not, when you could have been working a job instead.

A lot of my beliefs have, at their core, a belief that the average person can look out for themselves most of the time. At some point in most people's lives they'll need a helping hand, whether from family, charity, or (lastly) government. More times than not, government assistance has unintended consequences that are harmful.

Look at student loans. The government allows anyone to qualify for huge loans no matter what they study. First, this provides colleges the incentive to spend on huge infrastructure like luxury dorms and fitness centers. These make the campus more attractive to 18 year old "customers". They also raise costs astronomically, with the real bill coming due years later to loan holders. It allows students to go $200,000 in debt in pursuit of French Literature and Gender Studies majors, with no prospect of getting a job in their area of study. A Starbucks barista is created !

A better loan program might have lower caps on loan amounts, forcing colleges to be more efficient, apply only for majors that have a likelihood of a good paying job, and require students to work to pay part of the cost. There would still be unintended consequences, but they'd be less severe.

The words " We're from the government, we're here to help", should raise suspicions every time.

Seems kinda funny debating about Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover in modern times trying to compare the late18th and early19th centuries to now,just a bit past the point of an intellectual exercise and not really relevant to the world today.

How would the Bull Moose Party work out in today's political environment?

Oh, wait, that has nothing to do with what Hillary could have done differently.

See, that's the sort of thing government does. Or Google. Try to shut down a lively discussion if it doesn't fit the prescribed rules, or conform to accepted viewpoints.

Quoting Braveheart, Freedom !

Expecting Welfare recipients to do some sort of 'work', is simply a way of humiliating them, because the work is inefficient and they are being under paid. The reason this is done is to keep the entire labor force compliant.

LBJ's war on poverty did not cause or exacerbate poverty. We have less need for labor, and we have an increasing portion of the population which is just shut out even by the time they reach adolescence. The middle-class family only exists because it is expected to exploit and abuse children. LBJ's War On Poverty failed in only one way, it did not go far enough to change our economic system.

College needs to be made free, no matter what people study and no matter for how long. It creates jobs, and it keeps people out of the job market, so things go easier.

The organization I am building is private, but within it, everyone will be getting a life long education. And we all need to do this to keep from going senile.

Like Van Jones explained, it used to be that College Education and Home Ownership were the ladders to the middle-class. But they have become trap doors to financial ruin.

Some things to read:

The euro : how a common currency threatens the future of Europe / Joseph E. Stiglitz

End this depression now! / Paul Krugman 2012

The global minotaur : America, Europe and the future of the world economy / Yanis Varoufakis ; with a foreword by Paul Mason 2015

Raising the floor : how a universal basic income can renew our economy and rebuild the American dream / Andy Stern, with Lee Kravitz

britannica.com

wisegeek.org

SJG

Yes, yes, everything should be free. Work is demeaning. Everyone is a victim. We just need to pass laws to make all this work. No need to worry about who will pay the bill. The upper 1% is evil and has infinite money. There is no limit to how much we can take from them. It will be like the happiest Star Trek episode ever made. What a wonderful life it will be.

Work is not demeaning, work is a natural part of life's rhythms and spirituality. But expecting people who have already been shut out of the jobs market to do jobs which are largely make work and inefficient, is extremely demeaning.

The money is arbitrary. The real wealth is in life support, the things which let us live on spaceship earth. So far we have been running on an us against them logic. Now we need to start running on an everyone included model.

We already produce more than we need of everything. The best Star Trek episode would be one which helps people see how ridiculous our present situation is.

SJG

Paint It Black youtube.com

Right here is about the way it is, in industrialized countries that have not opted for social democracy:

youtube.com

And of those proclaiming the virtues of Red States, like Rick Perry of Texas, it is exactly like the above, people worshiping non-sense!

SJG

mark94,

Even if the loans only went to the most qualified students and even if they had much lower caps, and even if the colleges could somehow guarantee that every student would be employed after graduation, I would personally still be totally against the government making loans to students. It's not the government's role to educate adults, and theoretically that's what college-age students are: adults. We're paying an awful lot of money for four extra years of extended adolescence, in college, but legally they are grownups. And furthermore no one has a constitutional right to a job, and it's certainly not the government's responsibility to help anyone get a job, whether through education or otherwise. That's my opinion anyway. I understand what you're saying, about how the programs can and should be designed better, but I think that's a slippery slope that could open the door to more govt programs. All they would have to do is claim that their programs are as efficient and cost effective as the private sector and you would then be forced to accept their premise that the govt should have been performing this role in the first place.

"It's not the government's role to educate adults"

Sorry:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. usconstitution.net

That covers it.

SJG

m.youtube.com

Like this one? :)

I always liked that one. :)

SJG

this is good, Andy Stern: youtube.com

@twentyfive, @flagooner,

Listen, we're just shooting the shit here. No one's trying to change the world. Even if mark94 and I could convince everyone here that we're right and that you should therefore vote a certain way (which is absolutely NOT my intention), there would still be about 200 million other voters who might have something to say about that come next election day. So I understand that it seems academic and irrelevant, and certainly we've deviated pretty far from the original discussion about what Hillary could have done differently - you can and should blame me for the original tangent, with my 'Reductio ad Hitlerum' comments. But trust me, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party wouldn't give a fuck what we have to say anyway.

On a related note, ponder this: TUSCL is dedicated to men with disposable income who skirt the law by paying cash for young girls to perform semi-sexual acts. Meanwhile, many of the girls don't pay any taxes on their earnings. Oh, and many of the dancers are illegal immigrants who went through hell just to get here so that you can BBBJCIM. So if we can't sell libertarianism to THESE people, that should prove to you just exactly how unpopular it really is. We have very little influence. Nothing to be afraid of.

I think my favorite Star Trek moment would include the Holodeck and Dabo girls.

I'm involved in local political fights on a daily basis. So it is not just shooting the shit.

SJG

@san_jose_guy,

Regarding adult education... if you say so. But as I said a few days ago, if the General Welfare Clause simply means that the government can do whatever it wants, regardless of whether the constitution specifically spells it out, then what's the point of having a constitution? Why not just a single sentence: "The government shall do whatever it feels is necessary in order to make everyone's life easier." That would cover it, right?

Also, you said "LBJ's war on poverty did not cause or exacerbate poverty."

That may be true, but the poverty rate was falling prior to the start of the Great Society programs, and then it abruptly stopped falling and has remained fairly consistent since then. You folks should probably answer for that.

And last, are you going to answer my question about Calvin Coolidge, the depression, and laissez faire?

@BHF I am not trying to shut you guys down I was just pointing out an absurdity but have to it,?enjoy yourselfs no criticism intense from me.

This may be the last place in America where I can say something like "Welfare is theft" without risk of being hit on the head or being called a racist. Honestly, I think everyone here has been quite polite in the way they responded to libertarian thought. I appreciate your tolerance. But, much like an excited dog at a dog park, I'm starting to wear down. Thanks for letting me run for a while.

Wow. 355 comments, and they are all just inane ramblings.

Whatever. Burlington is so close to winning it all!

356 ;)

LOL. 357

359

358

360 bitches ROFLMAO

Uh oh.. I was wrong! Better get copying and pasting the glossary from your polilitical science text book, Burlington. 25 has taken the lead with those last two brilliant points he made. I'll be voting how he tells me next time, since the winner of the of tuscl discussion boards knows best.

And 361. :P

Just noticed. That's all very helpful and amusing :)

; -D

Burlington, in ratifying the Constitution we did give the government an open ended mandate. It was intended to create a stronger central government. And actually, mostly it protects property rights against the constituted popular sovereignty championed in the Declaration of Independence.

But remember, there is some sanity in all of this, as the government is just those which you and I elect.

Having a more educated populace gives us huge economic benefits. It also creates jobs, and the more people it can hold out of the labor force, the easier things go.

The example always cited to promote this is the tremendous success had with the GI Bill.

Like they say at Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco, poverty is caused by social marginalization.

Social marginalization may include racism and homophobia, but it also includes hatred of poor people promoted by Right/Libertarian rhetoric, amidst a nation which needs less and less jobs, and where people still have children so that they can use them to gain an adult identity.

Laissez Faire will always lead to Boom and Bust, ie the Great Depression, and a world wide depression, which also included currency collapse in Weimar German.

We went the correct direction. Germany went the opposite.

And today?

And Mark94, Welfare has always existed, not to provide for the needs and well being of the poor, but rather to regulate and stigmatize the poor. I for one would not let you go on making statements against the poor, or against welfare recipients.

SJG

I just first learned of this Bernard A. Lietaer. He has written books. He talks about how the rules of money and the rules of sex are closely related. Duh!

Seriously, are people into owning or controlling, or into openness and sharing.

And also along those lines: amazon.com

Saying that in hunter gatherer times there was no monogamy. Rather, when land ownership was invented for agriculture, then also was monogamy invented.

@san_jose_guy,

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Most of your assertions sound like opinion and conjecture to me, albeit informed opinion. It's not really clear to me that the Declaration endorsed popular sovereignty. And I doubt that the currency collapse in Weimar Germany had anything to do with a free market economy... because they didn't have one. I was always taught that it had more to do with the enormous debt imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, and the subsequent lack of confidence in Germany's ability to pay. I could be totally wrong about all of this, of course.

I have my opinions about what caused the depression and you have yours. I'm gratified to know that many economists would agree with my explanation, but I'll also admit that tons of left-leaning and even mainstream economists would prefer your explanation. It is what it is.

The one area where I really take exception to what you said is about how libertarians and right wingers hate the poor. I'm sure that isn't true. First off, libertarians and conservatives tend to view welfare slightly differently. Libertarians generally blame the government that hands out the welfare money, NOT the people who just happen to qualify for it. The welfare recipients are merely responding rationally to an incentive that the government created. As a result, we tend to advocate that these programs be repealed or phased out totally. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to dislike the programs, too, but they also sometimes demonize the recipients as "welfare queens" and they say that they should be forced to get mandatory drug tests, or that they should be forced to perform community service in exchange for their welfare payments. Sometimes conservatives even advocate that welfare recipients should be publicly outed and shamed. Conservatives just seem to be more community oriented than libertarians are, and so they may not actually want the programs to end because they believe that some people might really 'need' them; they just want to embarrass the recipients enough so that there would be fewer of them. I wouldn't claim to speak for all libertarians and certainly not for all conservatives (I'm not even a conservative myself), but this is what I've observed, anyway. And I'm just talking specifically about welfare here. This is to say nothing of the various other reforms that both conservatives and libertarians support specifically because they believe they will HELP the poor.

@BurlingtonHoFactory, the cool kids these days are voluntaryists, not libertarians.

^^^^^^^^ ppwh, +100, most insightful comment I have yet seen on TUSCL.

And yes, libertarianism has always been about sounding cool.

BHF wrote,

"not really clear to me that the Declaration endorsed popular sovereignty"

What revolutionary manifesto is anything other than an endorsement of popular sovereignty?

"And I doubt that the currency collapse in Weimar Germany had anything to do with a free market economy"

Great Depression was world wide. First world wide depression was in the 1870's, caused by over production in the steel industry. As a result a lame duck Grant was pressured to end re-construction. So the South was to be a consumer base, like an internalized 3rd world, and the West was to be a raw materials base.

BHF, I'm not sure what you could think caused the Great Depression, other than the over production and over consumption and the resulting boom, as Laissez Faire always brings.

Mostly Libertarianism is just a cooler sounding doctrine than Conservatism. It sounds cool because it seems to advocate freedom, but these freedoms are actually just social conformity. It is Conservative because it is centered on property ownership rights and makes that the center of its world, and so the traditional powers continue.

SJG

How Reaganomics Killed America’s Middle Class youtube.com

@ppwh,

Yeah, that sounds like the weird stuff that emerged along with the Ron Paul campaigns back in '08 and '12. He's gone now but some of his followers are still hanging around. I voted for him, too, but it always seemed like these people wanted to dice us all up into thousands of little categories: anarcho-capitalists, anarcho-syndicalists, paleoconservatives, paleo-libertarians, classical liberals, voluntaryists, etc. Seems obscure to me. As twenty-five said, "Most libertarians are actually goofy as fuck." No arguments there. We're strange people.

"Were all Keynesian's now." Richard M. Nixon

Speaking to a generation of educated Americans, able to go to college because of the GI Bill. Effectively renouncing Republican opposition to the New Deal.

youtube.com

SJG

firstprinciplesjournal.com

The difference to me is that libertarians acknowledge that they are doomed in politics, yet focus all their energy at the political level anyway, while voluntaryists go about helping one another despite a useless state having claimed responsibility for something.

E.g. the guys get together to fix potholes on their street that the government never bothered to get around to. The libertarian solution might be to sell the road to a multinational corporation who would then let bus drive on it for $1 per mile, and being a monopoly probably still wouldn't fix the damn road.

^^^^^^^ Very good!

But I assume then that you are grouping Libertarians and Voluntarists together, because neither wants to do anything about the established power. Neither wants to try and raise political consciousness and actually steer things in a more progressive direction. Both types are tuning out, effectively collaborating with existing power, or we could say, being Uncle Tom's.

SJG

Dave Brubeck Live in 64 youtube.com

@san_jose_guy,

I agree with much of what you said about the 1870s, although we also had some bad depressions earlier in the 19th century and some prolonged stagnation in earlier centuries. Depressions probably were localized in the pre-capitalist era, before the nineteenth century, because there were fewer ties between nations at the time. But that doesn't mean there were no depressions back then; they were just more local, concentrated in only one or two countries or regions.

As for what caused the Great Depression, I believe Republicans in congress caused it. The GOP was the more protectionist party at the time, and although they had had some enormous successes in winning landslide elections for the presidency and winning big majorities in congress, they still had to do something to make voters happy in the rural swing districts out west. Otherwise those seats would be at risk in the 1930 midterms. So, since western farmers were still hurting over the effects of overproduction caused by World War I, and the eventual loss of government supports for agricultural products after the conflict ended, the Republicans decided to implement a large new tariff to 'protect' domestic farmers from competition from overseas producers, which were coming back on line after recovering from the war. This was the Smoot-Hawley tariff. Tariff rates had been fairly stable for a while and global trade had flourished, contributing to the prosperity of the 20s. Even though he didn't like the new tariff, Hoover nonetheless signaled that he wouldn't veto the tariff bill in late 1929. The stock market found out about it in October of '29 and a huge sell off was sparked. Other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs. Much of the stock market's previous gains had been based on global trade, so the big crash made sense. But with global capital markets seizing up, businesses couldn't raise capital or even borrow short-term to make payroll. And there's your depression. I think Coolidge might have vetoed the tariff, for all the good that would have done. But we know that Hoover didn't. So I blame him and especially the GOP in congress. That's my opinion. Many (but definitely not all) economists agree with me.

ppwh said: " The difference to me is that libertarians acknowledge that they are doomed in politics, yet focus all their energy at the political level anyway, while voluntaryists go about helping one another despite a useless state having claimed responsibility for something."

Yeah. Personally, I talk about politics and I vote mostly because I think it's fun and interesting. I'm not trying to change the world. I'm definitely not trying to tell people how to vote. What's the value of one single vote anyway? And I don't even know for sure if my ideas would make things better at all. They might make things much worse for all I know. I can only voice my opinion. But one thing's for sure, I'm not fixing a fucking pothole LOL.

Well, to have a depression you have to have an economy which is no longer needs based, otherwise demand cannot drop off. In the US, this was exemplified by the automobile industry. If one wants it to, an automobile can last just about forever.

So when people see jobs being lost and get scared, they will stop spending. And then for the automobile industry to shut down, this closed down about 25% of the economy.

These depressions only occur when there is some seemingly inexplicable reason that it all comes to a halt. Things like war or crop failures, or fires or earthquakes are not looked at the same way. And Herbert Hoover was clueless, as originally was FDR.

During the 1920's I don't think anyone was trying to promote Keynesianism. Most everyone went along with Laissez Faire.

One small exception might have been someone like Al Smith of NY. He had made his place in the world over worker safety, the after math of the Triangle Shirt Waste factory fire.

And when he ran for President in 1928, Hoover's campaign was one of the most mean spirited, xenophobic, and anti-Catholic yet.

When the economy crashed, Hoover had no idea what to do. He just advocated belt tightening.

When FDR was elected, it took him time to learn otherwise. And many feel that initially FDR was just doing what Al Smith had already been doing as Governor of NY.

And then FDR was further challenged from the Left, in the 1934 Upton Sinclair bid to be Governor of California. This was where you had oranges rotting on the ground, the retail demand to low to pay the costs of taking them to market. Something was wrong with the system itself. And so the only way to change this is for government to get involved. And so ever since we have had federal money being paid to farmers to limit production, and also to hand some production over to the government.

Our Daily Bread, 1934 youtube.com

amazon.com

I don't know about these tariffs of which you speak, but the stock market had long ago already become a Ponzi scheme. It would not take much to break the bubble.

SJG

Dave Brubeck Live in 64 youtube.com

@SJG, according to the Wikipedia article on Voluntaryism:

"They rejected electoral politics "in theory and practice as incompatible with libertarian goals," and argued that political methods invariably strengthen the legitimacy of coercive governments. In concluding their "Statement of Purpose" they wrote: "Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate the withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which state power ultimately depends."

In other words voluntaryists don't seek to beg at the ballot box for the state to do what they ask. Instead, they seek to go their own way and make the state irrelevant.

That's pretty much the polar opposite of progressivism which is essentially the militant political form of mansplaining where everyone has to do what a smug know-it-all says, even when they know it's wrong.

@ppwh,

Personally I think that's great, it's just not something I would ever do. Helping someone who seems to be in distress is one thing, fixing the street lights is another. But if more people were voluntaryists, the world would probably be a better place. And if fewer people voted, I'm absolutely convinced that this country would be a better place, too.

@BurlingtonHoFactory, no worries, having identified myself as a libertarian for a time, I had already picked up on the fact that libertarianism is the fantasy football of politics. ;)

@ppwh,

Most politics is fantasy football. There are too many people living here for anyone's vote to really count. And besides, libertarianism cuts pretty sharply against human nature, so even if there were only a few dozen eligible voters in the entire USA, I still doubt that we would be putting Ayn Rand's face on the $1 bill. Or on the $1 gold coin LOL.

@BurlingtonHoFactory, Politics being more of a culmination of culture, status quo and power grabs is why doing something outside of government/electoral systems is so important. In Myers-Briggs terms, about 1/4 of people are rationals (NT - iNtuitive Thinkers), and a subset of those might come to the conclusion that libertarian ideals would be beneficial.

At least some libertarian things are happening, though, like weed being legalized in certain states. Since those places are otherwise among most the most statist, I don't think that came from the population suddenly seeing the light and deciding on libertarianism, though. :-)

The rise of crypto-currencies is definitely a win for Libertarians, no?

@ppwh, @Dougster,

Yes, I think those are both real victories for libertarians. Other recent victories include gay marriage legalization and the expansion of gun rights over the last few decades. Hell, even the rise of the internet and social media, and the invention of the 3D printer all sound kind of like libertarian milestones to me. Plus the temporary rise of the Tea Party and the sudden outrage over bailouts and government spending. And Gary Johnson receiving the highest vote total for any Libertarian Party candidate, ever. Oh, and John Boehner has been replaced by Paul Ryan. I don't even care if you hate Paul Ryan, surely that's at least a small move in the libertarian direction. And there are probably other good developments I can't think of right now to add to this list.

But I still don't think the country is necessarily becoming more libertarian. Each of these developments has an alternative explanation. And there are many areas where we are backsliding. For example, a record number of people now say they want single-payer healthcare. And, as I've been saying, the people seem to have largely turned against immigration and free trade ever since at least 9/11. Plus, young people seem to have lost all respect for free speech, which is a particularly dark development, I think. Plus Bill Clinton and Paul Tsongas have been replaced by Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders as the leaders of the Democratic Party. Again, I don't care if you hate all of these people, that's still a move in the wrong direction if you're a libertarian. And there are probably many other things I can't think of, but either way, it's clear that this isn't exactly the "Libertarian Moment" we've been waiting for. Basically, the voluntaryists are right, libertarianism and electoral politics are probably incompatible, at least for now.

Yes indeed, ppwh has got it right.

SJG

ppwh wrote, "In other words voluntaryists don't seek to beg at the ballot box for the state to do what they ask. Instead, they seek to go their own way and make the state irrelevant.

That's pretty much the polar opposite of progressivism which is essentially the militant political form of mansplaining where everyone has to do what a smug know-it-all says, even when they know it's wrong."

Well that's what you think. Progressivism is just based on the idea that we want a world which is fair and inclusive, and that the government is ours, and that we do need to organize and make sure their are changes. There is no begging involved whatsoever.

Libertarianism and Voluntarism are just cop outs.

SJG

I just say a "Bernie 20" sticker. That's another reason Hillary wasn't able to get the Bernie voters to switch over. I think some Bernie supporters wanted the republican to get the presidency, instead of a regular democrat, so that a progressive would have a chance in four years, rather than 8.

I'm disappointed. It looks like this post might actually end and we haven't even reached 400 comments yet. Quitters.

yahoo.com

"Bernie '20." Yes, we need more of these. If nothing to cover up all of the Kerry/Edwards stickers still out there, lol.

"Clinton represents establishment politics. If you’re not voting for Sanders in 2016, don’t ever again complain about Wall Street, perpetual wars, or money in politics." (H.A. Goodman, salon, 2015)

^^^ that quote sort of leaves out all of the socialistic free stuff the under 30 crowd was chanting. To them, Stassi is a stripper in Detroit, Socialism is what Norway has, and the wall is something to keep Mexicans out instead of keeping socialists in.

And with all of that I still would have rather had Bernie than Hillary.

"Bernie Sanders is a 'once in a lifetime candidate.' Clinton represents establishment politics." (H.A. Goodman)

BurlingtonHoFactory --> "This goes back to what I said last night in my first comment. Since Clinton and Sanders were so close on so many issues and since there was so much passion from the Sanders supporters, why did she lose in November? Well, as I've said, I believe the answer is foreign policy. It's the same answer to why she lost in 2008. She's pro-war, pro-immigration, and pro-trade, in a country that is increasingly becoming more isolationist. Sanders was mostly anti-war, very anti-trade, and at times took an anti-immigration stance. And in 2008, Obama also claimed he was anti-war, and "skeptical" of trade."

I shouldn't have disregarded this as much as I did. I know I flipped on President Bush in '04 because of the Iraq invasion (voted for him in '00 but not '04). I agreed with Afghanistan but not Iraq. Ditto for Obama in '08 over McCain. I don't mind strong defense of offense but Oy Vey with these endless wars. I can see Senator Sanders supporters being the same way.

@Dominic77 said:

"that quote sort of leaves out all of the socialistic free stuff the under 30 crowd was chanting. To them, Stassi is a stripper in Detroit, Socialism is what Norway has, and the wall is something to keep Mexicans out instead of keeping socialists in."

Yes, exactly. That's what I've been thinking. The scary thing is that one day all these millennials and younger gen-xers will grow up and they will eventually become the establishment. And maybe one day these kids will even open a book and find out what socialism really means. Abraham Lincoln said that the philosophy of the classroom today is the philosophy of the government tomorrow. My guess is that they'll like what they read and then they'll demand much more socialism from their elected representatives. Seems only natural, really, since most western democracies have at least one major political party with the word "Socialist" or "Social" or "People's" in its name. E.g., the People's Party for Socialism and Social Democracy. LOL. Don't get me wrong, Denmark and the UK are NOT socialist countries, by any stretch, but at the same time, people in Sweden don't seem to regard the word socialism as a dirty word either. I guess we have a lot of catching up to do.

@Dominic77,

I also voted for Bush in 2000. It was my first time ever voting for president. I voted by mail and, honestly, I'm not even sure if they ever received or counted my vote. Then I voted for Kerry, too, in 2004. That was my first and only time I've ever voted for a democrat for president. It's hard to remember now, but I think the war had something to do with my turning against Bush, but there were definitely other things, too. I also agreed somewhat with Afghanistan at the time but not Iraq. Having said that, I totally disagree with all this populism crap that's been sweeping the nation lately. Just because something is popular doesn't mean you have to like it. I'm a free trade purist and I basically believe in open borders and amnesty for illegal immigrants. But the people disagree and they have spoken and will continue to speak.

In an attempt to jump start this thread, here's a factoid and a prediction.

While the media obsesses on Donald Trump's low approval rating, it is higher than the approval rating of Congress and the Media combined. The Media never mentions that twice as many people approve of Trump rather than the Media.

Over the next few months, Trump will continue to effectively manage the rebuilding of Houston ( and, sadly, perhaps South Florida ). After all, construction is his background. His approval numbers will gradually climb. The Media will search for a new way to attack him, while their approval drops.

@mark94,

Maybe. But he's never run a government construction project before. And besides, he won't have the time to micromanage a thousand individual construction projects. People always say that we need to put a businessman in charge of the government, as if that will really make any difference. I'm skeptical. Michael Bloomberg, Harry Truman, Jon Corzine, Barbara Boxer, Howard Dean, and Frank Lautenberg all had a business background and, personally, I think they were all horrible. Ideology matters more to me than experience. They had the wrong ideology and, sadly, so does Trump. I hope Mike Pence knows what he's doing.

"While the media obsesses on Donald Trump's low approval rating, it is higher than the approval rating of Congress and the Media combined."

What a meaningless, nonsense comment, as usual. Comparing Trump's approval rating to Congress with GOP control in both houses.

In a generic ballot, Democrats are winning the race for Congress by about 10% at this time:

projects.fivethirtyeight.com

Trump's approval ratings are the worst on record which goes back to Truman

projects.fivethirtyeight.com

Democrats always lead in the generic ballot. Only 3 problems

1. You can't run a generic candidate. It has to be an actual person.
2. Republicans vote. Democrats answer surveys.
3. These surveys always oversample democrats, then are befuddled when actual results vary.

Yes, but remember that the approval rating of each individual member of congress is, on average, far higher than Trump's approval rating. People vote for their congressman or senator, not for congress in general. This is part of the reason why congress has such a low approval rating but such a high incumbent reelection rate.

Also, to continue my earlier thought, here's a few more politicians with a business background: Herbert Hoover, George W. Bush, Ross Perot, Nelson Rockefeller.... All business guys, all bad.

Rockefeller had vey limited business experience his claim to fame was governor of NY, Ross Perot never got elected to anything his business experience was limited to being a disgruntled shareholder and leading a revolt against GM, Trump is a deadbeat and has a bad rep in the construction industry, shit he bankrupted a casino his pop Fred had to bail him out of that one. I still don't expect him to finish out his term let's see where the mid elections end up.

Ultimately, there is a national debate on any major policy issue. Trump's approval is far higher than national media, higher than Pelosi, Schumer, Ryan, and McConnel. My only point is there is a narrative that Trump can't get his policies through because he is so unpopular. But, every media talking head, policy expert, and opposing politician has lower approval and credibility than Trump. Even with a lethargic 42% approval, that's higher than anyone who would oppose his policies. He is the world's tallest midget.

Interesting fact. I was once in Ross Perot's office ( he wasn't there at the time ). I recall an historic American flag, an original Norman Rockwell painting, and a statue of a Bald Eagle. Pretty much how you'd picture it.

Scott Adams talks about Skill Stacking, taking 2 or 3 things someone does reasonably well and using the combination to succeed. Between his construction knowledge and PT Barnum TV skills, Trump can turn the rebuilding of Houston to his political advantage. I'll go out on a limb and say he'll reach 50%, which will give him political leverage.

@twentyfive,

Okay, I'll give you Rockefeller. But Perot founded EDS. After all, you don't become a billionaire just by being a disgruntled shareholder. And Perot may not have won in 1992 or 1996, but he started the movement that ultimately got Trump elected in 2016. There were populists before, but Perot gave them a modern platform. And what about the dozen other guys I listed? My point to mark94 was that you can be a business person and still be a complete failure in office by libertarian or conservative standards.

They paid him to go away ha ha Ha

I wasn't predicting that Trump will be successful as President. Who the hell knows ? I was simply predicting that he can use rebuilding Houston to his unique advantage.

@twentyfive,

I don't get it. My point wasn't that I like Perot, or that he did or didn't get elected, or that he was some kind of a business genius. My only point was that he was a businessman but he wasn't a conservative and he damn sure wasn't a libertarian. I never would have voted for him. His campaign indicated that he would have had as little respect for the constitution and personal freedom as Michael Bloomberg, Harry Truman, Jon Corzine, Barbara Boxer, Howard Dean, Frank Lautenberg, George W Bush, Herbert Hoover, and all the other businessman politicians did.

@mark94,

You may be totally right. He's our generation's PT Barnum. If anyone can turn an awful image and low poll numbers around, he can.

John Anderson would have destroyed Carter in a head to head election, just as Ronnie did.

@BHF my point was Perot conned GM into way overvaluing EDS which they bought from him only to discover it was held together with kite string and chewing gum and if GM hadn't been conned he would have been broke, most of the money he made came from the movie they made from his highly embellished autobiography "On Wings of Eagles" and Trump is the same con merchant it amazes me how people fall for his shtick over again. Trump has never been successful at anything except to get other people's money he too is a major con man, this constant crisis is what would have happened had Ross Perot been elected.

@flagooner said:

"John Anderson would have destroyed Carter in a head to head election, just as Ronnie did."

Not without a party behind him, he wouldn't have. (And I think he would have been awful, too.)

@twentyfive,

How does that make Perot "not a businessman"? You can be a con artist, and a loser, and even broke and bankrupt, and still be a businessman. I'm just talking about what he did for a living and what he called himself before he ever called himself a presidential candidate. He wasn't a truck driver, or a veterinarian, or a waitress. He was a businessman.

Yeah, at least Obama wasn't a con artist. Oh, wait.......

@mark94,

That doesn't make sense. Just because many business people are bad politicians doesn't mean that most non-business people are good. I think Obama was terrible, too. And so are most other politicians with a non-business background. And I can name a few good businessman politicians: Barry Goldwater and his son, Gary Johnson, Bruce Rauner isn't bad, etc. The point is that there is almost no correlation between what you did for a living before entering politics and how you perform once you actually enter politics. People believe what they believe, and they often act on those beliefs, regardless of whether they start out as teachers, lawyers, doctors, brick layers, computer programmers, stock brokers, strippers, mongers, or beggars.

@BHF @Mark94 Yeah I do get it opinions are like noses, everybody has one, I'm only pointing out how these guys are similar, similar life stories, and we vote for whom we dislike the least and hold our nose collectively. IMHO it says more about us than them, but at least I put what IMO is reality, out there, my real problem, is all of the folks that are either uninformed or refuse to see reality, offering opinions on things that they really have little true information about.

I assume that every politician is phoney, manipulative, and self serving. In fact, the few that aren't don't succeed in politics.

I just hope that being in the public eye prevents them from the more egregious actions. That's why the national media's turn from being quietly partisan to being obviously partisan is such a problem

For example, Senator Menendez has been caught in the deepest of corruption, but the media is largely ignoring it. It used to be that a juicy story of sex and bribery of a US Senator would be worth covering.

@twentyfive,

Yes, Trump and Perot are very similar, and it isn't a coincidence. They were both leaders of the Reform Party back in the 90s. But there was a split in the party. They all agreed on economics and foreign policy, but they disagreed on social issues. Perot was the leader of the socially conservative wing together with Pat Buchanan. Trump was a leader of the socially liberal wing together with Jesse Ventura. Trump ran against Buchanan for the Reform Party nomination in 2000. Buchanan won, Trump left the Reform Party in a huff and joined the Democratic Party, where he remained for about the next 10 years. This really happened, while the rest of the country was busy thinking about Y2K and Bush vs Gore.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. That's a four point jump since Hurricane Harvey.

All is going as predicted. Expect 50% by Thanksgiving. That will give him political capital.

@SJG said "Keynesian theory does address the issue of just how big government should be. Its never anything like what we saw in the Soviet Union. I used to remember what the key ideas about its sizing were."

@mark94, on a related note, said, "We've hit a limit on how much the federal government can do and find ways to fund it."

I recall reading on Dave Ramsey that regardless of the top marginal tax rate, the U.S. Government only collects about 8% GDP in taxes. It can get as high as 10.8% but there is a limit. Sort of like the Laffer Curve but more specific. So I don't see how redistribution can work in the long term. It would seem that we should limit the size and so ding under this value ideally it should be under so we can pay down (imo) the national debt, too.

@mark94 said, "all Republicans I suspect, stood up and said they were in favor of smaller government. However, each of them then named one or two particular programs that should never be touched. That's the day I knew we were doomed."

That does seem to be the norm many Republican politicians these days. They keep trying to rebrand themselves as "conserving something" -- big C is little C I forget --. Not sure if that was Newt Gingrich's 1994 Contract with America or what. That's also when they brought in all of the Church-y stuff into the agenda. Anti-homo, anti-abortion. Kept wanting to go back to 1950. The problem is I don't remember the '50s. So it's a hard sell to Gen X and Millennials as we've grown up with gays being tolerated. So what's being sold is alien to us.

I think it would make more sense to go back to the definition of "limited government" like you say. That's the GOP I registered into. :-)

@mark94 said, "Unemployment benefits are paid for a limited period of time. ... consistently shown a bump in the ability to find a job immediately after unemployment benefits end."

And I think it makes sense for the safety net to exist like that too. Just enough so you don't lose you home and yank the kids out of school, but small enough to motivate you to get out there.

Another problem is people often raid their 401k in times of unemployment or financial trouble.

@BurlingtonHoFactory said, "[A head tax] would be a huge increase in taxes for me, too, as it would be for most people in this country. For that reason, among others, neither a head tax nor a balanced budget amendment are likely to be passed, and definitely not in combination with each other. It's just a thought experiment, really. ... I personally believe the federal budget should be about one-tenth of its current size and each childless adult should pay around $1,000 annually, with the rest of the revenue coming from surcharges on children. Surely $1,000 isn't too much for most people to afford."

Oh, ok, then. I'm cool with shared pain and shared sacrifice then. I think $1,000 for childless people is fair, too. People with children along with people with large capital benefit more from the United States, so get it from them. The US is the best land of opportunity there is. Also agree that the size of Govt is too big ATM (pun intended).

@BurlingtonHoFactory and @mark94: I agree with a lot of what you wrote earlier about grade inflation, reducing standards, college no longer for just intellectuals and the rich, the COUNTRY CLUBIZATION of college campuses for 18 yo customers, and the unintended consequences of making college loans broadly available, perhaps too broadly. I don't think this should be the role of government, either. I much preferred tuition reimbursement through work than any loans was given. Thanks for sharing.

@SJG: people IMO and IME don't do as well nor perform as best when you hand them something versus having to work for it. Just my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

@BurlingtonHoFactory: I have noticed a similar different take on welfare programs and its recipients when I talk to Libertarians or Conservatives. The Conservatives like the programs, but she you talk with them, they treat the program's almost like feminists do: as an insurance policy. I hear things like, "you've paid into that program (e.g. Medicaid) your whole life, so that money is yours. You've earned it! Better you get it and people like us, too". There seems to be a stigma that PEOPLE WHO AREN'T LIKE US whether it be culture, rural versus urban, religion, race, unwed, no-homos, etc should be ostracized from receiving it. But for PEOPLE LIKE US, it's just an insurance policy, albeit a government one.

I'm starting to think materialism, lack of savings, and break down of church and breakdown of family is causing all of these people to run to the government. Sort of as the bank of last resort last deposit. In the earlier times we would have done this ourselves.

I'm just as guilty as I've felt empathy for the broke and the poor.

@BurlingtonHoFactory said, "And maybe one day these kids will even open a book and find out what socialism really means. Abraham Lincoln said that the philosophy of the classroom today is the philosophy of the government tomorrow."

Agree. Plus the book and the teachers also leave out some of the causes for improved outcomes in those kinder, gentler SOCIALST countries. Norway has oil and gas in the sea. So extraction is less of an environmental concern. Plus the national resource helps pay for the SOCIALISTIC programs there. Also the nation had some capitalistic and pro-business reforms in the last 30 years or whatever. So a lot of the prosperity there was due to those factors and not so much the socialistic ones. The teachers leave that part out. Maybe because they don't know themselves. Yet the socialistic parts get the credit and socialism gets a bump. I fear that's what happened.

@BurlingtonHoFactory said, "also voted for Bush in 2000. It was my first time ever voting for president. .... Then I voted for Kerry, too, in 2004. That was my first and only time I've ever voted for a democrat for president. It's hard to remember now, but I think the war had something to do with my turning against Bush, but there were definitely other things, too."

It was a lot of little things. The whole DOMA -- Defense of Marriage Act -- as a Constitutional Admendment rubbed me the wrong way. I know a lot of gay people -- family and close friends -- and things like that hurt them. I know, that makes me a total SJW. Ugh. Identity politics were NOT a good idea. Glad to see that was a takeaway from 2016 to move away from identity politics. :-)

The trouble is, WHAT COULD HILLARY HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?

She could have corrected an early Obama mistake. When Obama was asked, after the 2007-2008 finacial crisis, what can us regular people do? President Obama said, (paraphrased) "just keep doing what you're doing." I think some people were let down by this statement. Many were expecting some leadership call for charge of sacrifice, yet he did not call for it. I think he missed a opportunity there. So did Hillary when she decided not to correct that statement and she decided to run a conventional campaign.

She might still not have won. But it would have been a more relevant and needed message.

Thanks for reading.

People deliver their best when there is a need for it, but not when they have pointless make work jobs just so that they can pay their bills. Marx called this latter condition Alienated Labor.

Hilary Clinton never would have called for anything like this, but what we need people to do is to stop thinking in terms of "earning a living", and instead to start thinking in terms of making the world work for everyone. This is very close to how Bucky Fuller used to put it.

SJG

America got its first lesson in Socialism and the psychology of work in 1620. The Jamestown colony at first decided that all crops would be shared equally no matter how much work each member put in. For 2 years, there was starvation. Half the population died.

Then, they allowed each family to have its own plot of land. Suddenly, there was bounty and ample food.

Four hundred years later, we are still debating what should have been settled science in 1623.

But the problem is that starting in 1929, we learned that labor is in gross surplus. It is even more so today.

If we needed all that labor to meet real needs, then there never could have been any economic stand still.

So regardless of what happened in 1620, today we need to learn to live with an increasing portion of the population out of the labor market. Making bullshit jobs costs money and resources. Basic income costs less.

Otherwise its Dougster's scenario.

soundbible.com

Scrubbing the sidewalks with our tooth brushes, but only until he gets his livestock rail cars ready.

legendsofamerica.com

Labor not needed, but it is the jobless who take the blame for this. Real stupid!

And it all plays into racism, and also the ways that the middle-class family exists only to exploit and abuse children.

We already have collective wealth production, its just privately appropriated.

Changing all of this is going to take more than it took to end slavery.

SJG

Yanis Varoufakis youtube.com

Apochcryphon of John youtube.com

Colleges have changed from seeing their role as educating their students to pleasing their customers ( also known as students ). So, rather than requiring their students to learn how to think, how to function in the world, and develop skills, they provide luxury dorms, state of the art fitness centers, safe spaces, grade inflation, and fun ( useless ) majors. Everyone gets a trophy. The Federal government financially supports this insanity through unlimited loans. Students get massive debt, no employable skills, and some fun memories. Society gets a bigger deficit and a population short on skills or motivation.

Education give you options. Most of the time it can't be job training. One needs a broader base of knowledge just to function in this world.

But no matter how long people are in college for, or what they are doing when there, this does not mean that there will be jobs for graduates.

College helps our society in two ways, creates jobs and keeps people out of the labor market for a while, and our democracy needs an educated populace or it will continue to fail.

In the private organization I am building, everyone will be getting a lifelong education, and it really won't cost any money.

SJG

There is no surplus of labor. There is a shortage of skills.

Every time there is a shock to the economic system, like in 1929 or 2007, an adjustment must be made in how capital and labor are used. Once that adjustment is made, society is stronger and wealthier.

When family farms were replaced by highly automated corporate farms, there was not an excess of labor. There was a shortage of skills for the new economy. Farmers learned technical skills and got better paying jobs.Thats the history of my family. Farmer. Factory worker. Accountant. Entrepreneur.

SJG thinks that anytime the economy shifts, the government should provide a life income to anyone who loses their job. I think the government should help these workers transition to the new economy. In other words, teach them how to fish, not provide a lifetime of fish meals.

The Great Depression never could have occurred if market forces actually required anything more than 75% employment.

New jobs have been created since, but overall, the amount of labor needed continues to decline. Wars have been one of the devices used to soak up this surplus production capacity.

But today we punish and denigrate those most effected by what should be the very benefits of industrial capitalism.

We have to make our world and our country work for everyone. And to this ends, in 1787 we ratified a Constitution.

Teaching people to fish is great. And this is why I continue to support Bernie Sanders and his call for free college. Even Hillary's Debt Free College would be an improvement.

But the simple fact today is that there is a large contingent which just never will be needed in the work force. Unfortunately our politics remains based on denigration of the poor, and because the poor haven't learned that it is necessary to respond to this at all possible levels, including a high volume of lethal force.

SJG

There is no single thing called a college education.

People who study engineering, and medicine, and computer science will find jobs and live comfortably. People who study gender studies and literature will not find good paying jobs unless they later learn skills.

One of the great scams is that people must have a " 4 year college education". Colleges lie to high school students about this to enlarge their student population. People should go to jail for ruining students lives with this lie.

Many people with narrower technical training are living under bridges. And it is rare that those who have parents with such training, will themselves seek such. Gender studies and Literature are important because they are based on critical thinking, and this is what our society needs more than anything. After college, people go on to further educate themselves. College can never really train anyone for a job, because its books and labs can never really be current. Better to keep it more theoretical and intellectual.

I do agree that the idea that everyone needs college, a 4 year degreee, IS A SCAM, and that we should be finding ways to put the people who promote it into jail.

Grey Brechin, local historian, teaches at UC Berkeley, says that even publicly funded colleges help to increase the wealth gap.

How ever, for anyone who wants a college education, I say we should provide it, free of charge.

But know also that college is still more an indicator of social class, than of anything else. We should be encouraging life long learning. UC has the youngest average age. CSU's higher, and Community Colleges higher still. People who go back to school are extremely important, as is the opportunity to do this.

Other countries, like for example Germany, do offer people money to live and stay where they are, and keep their automobiles, while going to school to learn something new. We should do this. Lots of people have gotten unhorsed, and this benefits no one.

Most long term poverty and joblessness is related to familial child exploitation and abuse. This will never change until our society starts being honest about it.

And FWIW, in the private org which I am building, everyone will always have job duties and be getting on the job training and apprenticeship, while they are also getting a life long program of supervised book learning. And we will always be waging political war against America's Right.

SJG

There is no fixed class system in America. The "poor" are people who do not currently have the skills to make a living. It is not a tattoo on their foreheads preventing them from advancing.

My first job was working as a janitor, after hours, at my high school. My next job was working for a city parks department, pushing a mower and cleaning restrooms, while I went to college. These jobs were not demeaning or below me. They were a stepping stone. I wasn't poor. I was working honorably to improve my lot in life. I fully understood that at the time.

The full time janitors and park employees I worked with were paying for their children's education. That was their stepping stone.

If you tell someone they are poor, can never improve their lives, and put them on welfare, you are destroying any chance these people have for fulfillment and happiness. Shame on anyone who champions this life of servitude for others.

Employability comes down to ones entire life history. While we may not have multiple classes, we do most certainly have economic strata. Which one you or I are in just about completely determines which sorts of employment each of us might get. And it most certainly is like having a tattoo on your forehead. One guy I worked for talked about it as stars on the forehead. He supported this.

We have people here in Santa Clara County, working two and three jobs, and the only housing they can afford is someone's living room couch.

And we have people who cannot even get that.

Glad things went well for you Mark, but that gives you no right to make moral judgements about anyone else. And I certainly hope that there is no one in this country who would let you go on dishing out such judgements face to face.

Welfare is intended to be a hand up. But in fact it has always been set up to demean and regulate the poor, rather than provide for their needs. And this is in fact a big part of the reason why many have long insisted that we must go instead to a Universal Basic Income approach.

Most long term joblessness is the direct result of familial childhood exploitation and abuse. This will never change until we start getting honest about it. It most certainly is why I extended myself very far to help 3 young women put their father into San Quentin. Otherwise they may have gone along with the lies of their church, and ended up being clients for that church's outreach ministry. Everyone who runs that ministry has designated blacksheep in their own families. Their church exists for little more reason than to promote familial child abuse. But so much of our society is also like this.

Newt Gingrich wanted to end welfare, and that was wrong and stupid. Finally at the '92 convention, Bill Clinton signed on to "ending welfare as we know it"

With this latter I agree fully. But what was actually passed was really more like the Gingrich approach.

The denigration of the poor which our politics runs on, it is just a repackaging of racism, and it is also a resurgence of social darwinism and eugenics. The worst possible way of responding to it is by open ended pledges of non-violence. That only encourages it.

SJG

Mike Honda, one of our greatest congressmen of all time, versus a neo-liberal anti-labor stuffed shirt Ro Khanna. youtube.com

Mike Honda right here, explaining why education is important, essential: youtu.be

The people making moral judgement are those who determine there is a group of people incapable of making decisions about about their own life, and improving it. If that group happens to be a certain ethnic or racial group, that's even worse.

The immorality is warehousing a group of people, paying them welfare ( or, Basic Income ), and not incenting them to become productive and self supporting. Treating people that way is soul crushing.

If we want our society and our democracy to work, we have to design out extreme wealth gaps. Welfare is good and bad, but now people are saying to go to Universal Basic Income instead.

Saying that people need to be regulated by their own survival, is just completely wrong headed.

Well, if people have a 100% safety net, they can take marginal jobs, and pursue artistic endeavors, because they are otherwise protected.

What is soul crushing is using the poor as scapegoats. And about this, people need to start standing up to it in every conceivable manner, including high volume use of lethal force.

SJG

Just who exactly is using the poor as scapegoats ?

I believe that every able bodied person is capable of making their own life decisions and improving their lives. You believe that a large segment of the population is incapable of doing what you have done, living a productive, fulfilling, self reliant life. I find that attitude to be arrogant, demeaning, and bigoted. Who are you to look down your nose at these people you call the poor ? Who are you to decide they can't accomplish what you have ?

Poverty is caused by social marginalization. You show me someone who is poor, and I'll show you someone who is being denigrated and marginalized.

I am involved in community groups which work with the homeless and near homeless. I don't look down on these people. I am opposed to those who denigrate them. And I fight to mitigate what the Born Again Christians do to them.

Much of it is tied to the kinds of abuses perpetrated by the middle-class family.

Changing this is going to take at least what it took to end slavery.

SJG

Mystery and Secrecy in the Apocryphon of John - Dr. Karen King youtube.com

"Just who exactly is using the poor as scapegoats ?"

It is built into the middle-class family. And it is the primary fuel of our political right, like yourself Mark94.

SJG

You declare the poor victims. That is marginalization.

I believe that every person has the power to improve their lives. You don't. That makes you the bigot.

Built into the middle-class family ? Is that a dog whistle for White ? What a load of crap.

No, the poor are always being denigrated and victimized, but they are also survivors, and there have been times when they have fought back. like when Piven and Cloward were part of the Welfare Rights Movement, about '69 to '74.

Striving to get ahead is simply submission to an unfair world. It is compliance. Those active in the Welfare Rights Movement were raising their own political consciousness, and that of their comrades.

The middle-class family exists because it is not just allowed, but expected, to psychically scar and maim children. People of other colors do it exactly the same way, when they become middle-class. Being middle-class is a way of thinking, not a range of income levels.

SJG

@Dominic77 said:

1. “I recall reading on Dave Ramsey that regardless of the top marginal tax rate, the U.S. Government only collects about 8% GDP in taxes. It can get as high as 10.8% but there is a limit.”

Actually it’s quite a bit higher than that, but I know what you’re getting at. The point is that the govt seems to always collect approximately the same percentage of GDP annually, regardless of marginal tax rates, because taxpayers change their behavior to avoid paying more. Nick Gillespie and Veronique De Rugy have done excellent work writing about this.

1. “I think it would make more sense to go back to the definition of "limited government" like you say. That's the GOP I registered into.”

I agree. So what’s your definition of limited government? Is there anything you would like to cut? No offense, but many people say they want smaller government, but then they blanch at the thought of, you know, actually shrinking government.

1. “And I think it makes sense for the safety net to exist like that too. Just enough so you don't lose you home and yank the kids out of school, but small enough to motivate you to get out there.”

I hear you, but what mark94 meant is that many people will remain unemployed long enough for the benefits to run out and then they miraculously find a job again. If you pay a person not to work, he won’t work. A more sensible solution would be to privatize unemployment insurance and stop having taxpayers worry about something that should be the concern of employers and employees to begin with.

1. “Oh, ok, then. I'm cool with shared pain and shared sacrifice then. I think $1,000 for childless people is fair, too. People with children along with people with large capital benefit more from the United States, so get it from them.”

The point is that we all pay the same, including people with lots of money.

1. “I have noticed a similar different take on welfare programs and its recipients when I talk to Libertarians or Conservatives. The Conservatives like the programs, but she you talk with them, they treat the program's almost like feminists do: as an insurance policy. I hear things like, "you've paid into that program (e.g. Medicaid) your whole life, so that money is yours. You've earned it! Better you get it and people like us, too". There seems to be a stigma that PEOPLE WHO AREN'T LIKE US whether it be culture, rural versus urban, religion, race, unwed, no-homos, etc should be ostracized from receiving it. But for PEOPLE LIKE US, it's just an insurance policy, albeit a government one.”

I couldn’t agree with you more. That’s a big difference between conservatives and libertarians, in my experience.

1. “I'm just as guilty as I've felt empathy for the broke and the poor.”

That doesn’t make you a bad person. Feeling empathy is one thing. Wanting to rob someone to pay someone else is another.

1. “Agree. Plus the book and the teachers also leave out some of the causes for improved outcomes in those kinder, gentler SOCIALST countries. Norway has oil and gas in the sea. So extraction is less of an environmental concern. Plus the national resource helps pay for the SOCIALISTIC programs there. Also the nation had some capitalistic and pro-business reforms in the last 30 years or whatever. So a lot of the prosperity there was due to those factors and not so much the socialistic ones. The teachers leave that part out. Maybe because they don't know themselves. Yet the socialistic parts get the credit and socialism gets a bump. I fear that's what happened.”

I can’t emphasize this enough, Norway is NOT a socialist country, despite what Bernie Sanders might have said. By the way, they have far less oil than Venezuela has. Just saying.

1. “It was a lot of little things. The whole DOMA -- Defense of Marriage Act -- as a Constitutional Admendment rubbed me the wrong way. I know a lot of gay people -- family and close friends -- and things like that hurt them. I know, that makes me a total SJW. Ugh. Identity politics were NOT a good idea. Glad to see that was a takeaway from 2016 to move away from identity politics.”

Oh yes, absolutely, that was an issue for me in opposing Bush in 2004, too. He ran absolutely the most disgusting, homophobic campaign of any major party nominee, ever. I don’t think that makes you a social justice warrior for being repulsed by his campaign's bigotry.

"The middle-class family exists because it is not just allowed, but expected, to psychically scar and maim children."

Holy shit, do you have issues !

This idea that the poor need to somehow be "motivated", subjected to moral reforms, is just plain wrong. Everyone wants to do well. And the last thing we need is people employed just to obtain social approval and be able to pay their bills.

We want people who bring much more than that to the table, before we start expending non-monetary resources on their doings.

The idea that people need to be taught some 'work ethic', is simply the middle-class family's exploitation and abuse of children.

SJG

Every society has ways in which it imprints upon children. But what makes the middle-class of the industrial nations unique in all history is that the middle-class lives in bad faith. To be middle-class is a reactionary identification system. So the parents do not live up to their own values. They do not admit that they create their own values.

Rather, they have children in order to give themselves an unstigmatized adult identity.

In the middle-class family, it is the children who are the exploited workers.

And we see this in the attitudes of America's Right, such as our own @Mark94.

SJG

@san_jose_guy said: “…but what we need people to do is to stop thinking in terms of "earning a living", and instead to start thinking in terms of making the world work for everyone.”

Believe it or not, we are getting there, and libertarians are the ones taking us there, of all people. Robert Heinlein and other libertarian thinkers have long theorized about the “post-scarcity society,” which is one in which technology and capitalism have created so much material abundance without much labor required, such that there is almost no such thing as deprivation at all anymore and even working for a living is practically a thing of the past. Many tech entrepreneurs have been heavily influenced by these ideas. It’s a combination of the internet, smart phones and smart technology, 3-D printers, stem-cell research, robotics, artificial intelligence, etc. Think about how much is available for free online, or at the Google Playstore, etc. Now imagine having that in the real world. The future is bright. No offense, but people like you are still fighting the same old fights of the 19th and 20th centuries. It’s time to enter the 21st century, don’t you think?

I assume you had some kind of screwed up, middle class childhood. I'm truly sorry for that. But, saying that every middle class family exploits and abuses its children is the most incredible psychological projection I've experienced. It's simply not true.

The fact that you view religion as inherently evil must also tie into your childhood. Again, I'm truly sorry for whatever happened.

You seem to have built this utopian view of future society that, at its core, is meant to correct the abuses you had as a child. Fortunately, not every child had that experience so very few people would benefit from your utopia. It's an incredibly detailed fantasy that you have developed to give yourself comfort.

"Believe it or not, we are getting there"

Yes I do know this.

"and libertarians are the ones taking us there"

The vast majority of Libertarians are people who just want to be Republicans, but look cool.

"Robert Heinlein and other libertarian thinkers have long theorized about the “post-scarcity society,” which is one in which technology and capitalism have created so much material abundance without much labor required, such that there is almost no such thing as deprivation at all anymore and even working for a living is practically a thing of the past. "

That does not surprise me at all about the work of Robert Heinlein, and I am impressed that you know about it. I do not know though that Heinein did then, or would now, identify himself as a Libertarian. He seems more like an anarchist, not really concerned about enforcing even the property laws upon which our Capitalist system is built.

The one I know of is Georges Bataille, who in his "Accursed Share" laid out a gift economy. And this included sex. He saw this rewriting of economic theory as the only way of getting beyond the need for war to use up excess production, and social marginalization to create an underclass. Everything Bataille was saying would depend on renouncing the "work ethic". And I agree 100% with this.

Bataille was a heavy user of Paris brothels, and his ideas provide much of the foundation for Jean Baudrillard and Deleuze and Guattari. And most of these people could best be described as Post-Communists.

SJG

I am indeed a survivor of the middle-class family, as are the people who continue to propagate its abuses as adults and don't even seem to have any clue about this.

It is rare that there are people able to escape the scaring and maiming done to children by the middle-class family. Where you see it, it seems to be because of outside mitigations. But even then, the people need to work extremely hard to deconstruct themselves.

There is no utopia, only the kind of world we are willing to fight to build. Plato and Thomas More did not seriously see their utopias as ever existing. They invented them only for didactic purposes.

SJG

@san_jose_guy said (among many other things):

1. ”But the problem is that starting in 1929, we learned that labor is in gross surplus. It is even more so today.”

If that’s true, you should ask yourself why. Back in the late 19th century, probably one in three people would leave the workforce at some point in their lives to pursue entrepreneurship. Today it’s more like one in eight. During the last 150 years, we went from a minimally regulated society in which it was inexpensive and easy to open a business, to a heavily regulated society in which it is expensive and difficult to open a business. Which leads to your labor surplus. It’s a minor miracle of capitalism that any of us are still employed at all.

1. “Education give you options. Most of the time it can't be job training. One needs a broader base of knowledge just to function in this world…. Teaching people to fish is great. And this is why I continue to support Bernie Sanders and his call for free college…. How ever, for anyone who wants a college education, I say we should provide it, free of charge.”

Why? If college is nothing more than a nice mind-broadening experience, why should the government be paying for it? Why not just pay for horseback riding lessons? Or trips to Europe? And if it isn’t about job training, then it isn’t about “teaching people to fish.”

1. ”Gender studies and Literature are important because they are based on critical thinking, and this is what our society needs more than anything. After college, people go on to further educate themselves. College can never really train anyone for a job, because its books and labs can never really be current. Better to keep it more theoretical and intellectual.”

There, you finally said something that I really 100% agree with. But if you believe that the government should be training people for jobs, and if you believe that college is not job training, then why should the government be paying for it?

1. ”We have to make our world and our country work for everyone. And to this ends, in 1787 we ratified a Constitution…. the poor haven't learned that it is necessary to respond to this at all possible levels, including a high volume of lethal force.”

So you believe that we implemented the United States Constitution in the 18th century so that we can have socialism in the 21st century? And you believe that the poor should kill people?

1. ”Glad things went well for you Mark, but that gives you no right to make moral judgements about anyone else. And I certainly hope that there is no one in this country who would let you go on dishing out such judgements face to face.”

How exactly is he making moral judgements about anyone?

1. ”Newt Gingrich wanted to end welfare”

No, he didn’t.

1. ”If we want our society and our democracy to work, we have to design out extreme wealth gaps.”

Why? What does that have to do with democracy (which is nothing more than the populace voting to determine who runs the government)?

1. ”Well, if people have a 100% safety net, they can take marginal jobs, and pursue artistic endeavors, because they are otherwise protected.”

Is there some shortage of art in this country that I’m not aware of?

1. “And the last thing we need is people employed just to obtain social approval and be able to pay their bills.”

Why the hell else would they be working?

1. ”I do not know though that Heinein did then, or would now, identify himself as a Libertarian. He seems more like an anarchist, not really concerned about enforcing even the property laws upon which our Capitalist system is built.”

If you say so.

"one in three people would leave the workforce at some point in their lives to pursue entrepreneurship."

Well, those people still count as being in the work force, even if they are the "entrepreueur". The reason less labor is needed is simply technological advance. People's needs are met, their major needs. Then if they are scared, they won't keep on spending money.

Most of the time entrepreueurship only leads to a net loss of jobs. To succeed after all, the new venture needs to be more efficient.

It is the customers, with their patronage, who make businesses succeed. It is not via the rolling back of any needed safety, environmental, or labor protecting regulations.

Rolling back regulations does not create more consumer demand for things they don't need.

Our democracy and our economy need mind broadened persons, so it is a matter of 1787 collective welfare. College also creates jobs and takes pressure off the jobs market. A very constructive way of keeping people growing and learning.

The public sector should be paying for college, of a broad range of types.

The US Constitution does, like all these revolutionary states, US, France, Russia, lead to Socialism. It is a simple product of having a working democracy, amidst advanced industrialization.

The poor, and everyone, need to stand up and fight when their basic dignity is being taken away.

Uncle Tom's Cabin did not end slavery. What ended it was the fact that free blacks were highly offended by the protagonist, so they demanded to be able join state militias and formed their own when they were refused. And then when John Brown led the way, hacking slave owners to pieces with a broad sword, in Kansas, soon the entire anti-slavery movement was more militant. They came to see that slavery was already war.

180,000 black men trained with rifles and bayonets, and then served. This is why slavery ended.

To end the stigmatization of our poor, and end the middle-class exploitation of children, gains are not going to come any easier.

We build "tiny homes" communities for the homeless and they resemble internment camps, and they are designed to funnel people into the mental health system.

Making any unconditional pledge of non-violence is just being an Uncle Tom. The Right rhetoric of today is just a resurgence of the old social darwinism and eugenics.

So their will be places where killing people will be called for and appropriate. To this end I am continuing to study guerrilla and resistance wars, like Franz Fannon's "Wretched of the Earth".

There is already violence. About 300 people per year kill their parents. 2/3 of these are juveniles. No one would do anything like this unless they really felt trapped, and desperate.

Mark94's whole line of argument is that the poor are morally deficient, and this is standard with the contemporary Right.

When you have extreme wealth gaps, then those at the bottom will be stigmatized, and those on the upper tier will mostly be voting to keep those on the bottom down. Trump's entire campaing played on getting people worked up over scapegoats. And here on TUSCL we are saturated with Right Wingers, and their views a primarily motivated by the desire to keep those on the bottom down.

Art simply means displaying creativity from the bottom. We sadly lack for that, being replaced with commerical advertising and decorations. We need all the abilities of all of our people. Where as capitalism needs very little of this.

We have vast problems to solve in this society, and as it moves into the future. We need all the talents of all of our people. We cannot afford to waste people, by expecting them to simply prove that they can earn a living, and when there is no real reason for this.

Usually the Libertarian world view centers on property rights. Heinlein did not seem to care much about this. He knew that there really were no such rights, just broadly observed conventions.

SJG

Mark94's whole line of argument is that the poor are morally deficient, and this is standard with the contemporary Right.

I said nothing remotely like this. In fact I am saying the exact opposite. It is you who are saying the poor are deficient. It is you who is saying that the poor cannot help themselves. It is you demanding Basic Income ( welfare) for them because you view them as victims.

You are the bigot. You view yourself as superior. You view the poor as inferior. You don't believe these poor people, often of color, can exist without your benevolence.

You realize that is exactly the view, and justification, used by slave holders.

@txtittyfag,

Come on, man. Okay, we get it. Whoever Lloyd is, he's a pedophile who pretends to be a veteran. Or am I thinking of someone else? Whatever. But, either way, you're not bothering him, you're just making this board less useful for everyone else. And we're trying to have a civilized conversation here.

@txtittyfag,

Can't you just firebomb his house instead? ;)

@mark94,

I agree with what you said about basic income/welfare? But what if we were somehow able to end all transfer payment programs in exchange for a single, guaranteed minimum income? The GMI would be paid to every adult American citizen, but in exchange, we would end or phase out food stamps, Social Security, agricultural subsidies, energy subsidies, corporate welfare, SSI, the Earned Income Tax Credit, etc. Wouldn't this make things more transparent and easier to understand? Charles Murray has been talking about this for a few years now.

No matter what you call it, Basic Incone, welfare, Social Security......is income redistribution. It takes from one pocket and puts it in another, at the whim of whoever holds power. It turns citizen against citizen. It corrupts. It distorts the economy. It reduces liberty.

And, going back to the limit of 10% of GDP that government can collect, and that's if everyone is working, how much Basic Income could we pay to the entire population ? Maybe $3,000 per person.

If the intent is to provide a living income to everyone, our economy is a fraction of the size it would need to be to do this. We'll need to wait until 90% of work is being done by androids, not 5%.

@mark94,

I know, but wouldn't it be nicer if we only had one single welfare program that was easy to understand, instead of hundreds of them that are complicated? I would prefer to have no welfare whatsoever, but wouldn't this be at least a small improvement? The Federal Govt currently collects between 18 and 24 percent of GDP, regardless of marginal tax rates. If we eliminated all the other welfare programs I mentioned, we'd probably have enough to pay every adult $10,000 a year. They would just have to understand that they won't be getting any more if they spent it all. Again, not ideal, but I think it's an improvement.

We collect 18% of GDP based on the current labor pool. What would happen if everyone suddenly was given $10,000 ? Would everyone keep working just as hard, or would GDP drop appreciably. Anything we do would affect the numerator and the denominator.

@mark94,

You may be absolutely right. Except that if you average it out, we're giving away approximately that much already, between social security, the EITC, etc. The difference is that it's currently only going to certain people (and companies), whereas the GMI would go to every adult regardless of age and income. And besides, the people who are most likely to stop working and live on the $10,000 stipend are the people who already earn very little to begin with, which means that they're probably paying very little or nothing in income taxes right now. I doubt that the average middle-income manager at a big-box store, for example, is going to quit his job over $10K per year of free money. And of course the GMI would be taxable income, too, so I don't think we'd lose quite as much tax revenue as you think. Again, I don't like this. I'm only saying that it would be an improvement over the current system, not that it would be ideal. I would only endorse it as an incremental improvement if we were going to completely eradicate all other transfer payments altogether.

"It takes from one pocket and puts it in another," But that is the whole point, to show that people are getting money, but that's just the way they've been able to get it set up. That doesn't mean that it is going to stay that way.

Under Keynesianism, the idea was to redistribute downwards in order to keep consumption up, in order to try and get to full employment. Mostly it did work well.

Today, due to technological advance, meaning that we don't just have a labor surplus, we have a gross labor surplus, and we also have a high consumption level and environmental concerns. So we need to go beyond Keynesianism, pay people NOT TO ACCEPT EMPLOYMENT.

More than enough of everything is already produced. Its just senseless waste.

We need to be setting up things like sexual monasteries, and paying people who want to live there and devote their lives to intellectual pursuits, plus fucking.

And of course we want to minimize environmentally dicey new industries, like off shore oil drilling and hydraulic fracking. We want to use less fossil fuels, not more.

Lessening regulations in order to promote business only reduces jobs. These new ventures have to have some edge. Usually this means less labor.

So while this will happen anyway, we don't want to be rolling back on good regulations in order to promote this. Let the modernizations happen on their own.

We live in a land of plenty, and everyone wants to contribute their abilities. But because of capitalism the system is completely unfair and so we are spoiling the nest while creating senseless strife and locking many many people out, and all out of stupidity.

And yes, I guess someone like Heinlein would qualify as a Left Libertarian. But that was long before the neo-con rise of Ronald Reagan, pushing an insane supply side economics which only helps those who can get a piece of the action, and seeks to impoverish and walk on everyone else, while making an environmental disaster.

Full Show 11/11/15: How Reaganomics Killed America’s Middle Class youtube.com

Reclaiming Gotham democracynow.org

amazon.com

SJG

You keep saying there is a gross labor excess. You are completely, verifiably, massively wrong.

Unemployment, in general, is 4%. The biggest issue that many employers have is finding qualified employees.

People with 2 years of community college in a technical field can quickly find jobs that pay $40,000-$60,000. That's just a start. They can add skills and grow their pay.

Yes, if someone has no technical training and no history of work, they will not find a good paying job. However, even they can find an entry level job at minimum wage where they can start establishing a work history and developing skills.

Start work as a dish washer in a restaurant. Learn to bus tables. Become a waiter or a cook. Become shift manager. Save your money and buy a franchise. Get rich. Anyone with hustle and a high school diploma can do that.

Industries are building internship programs, with help from the federal government, where hard working people with no skills can learn on the job while getting paid. These are jobs in construction and manufacturing , among others, where interns can be making $60,000 within two years.

No matter how many times you say there is a gross labor excess, it will not be true.

We have a mismatch between skills needed and skills available in the labor pool. That's the problem.

@san_jose_guy said: "And yes, I guess someone like Heinlein would qualify as a Left Libertarian. But that was long before the neo-con rise of Ronald Reagan, pushing an insane supply side economics... ."

Listen, you may not like or agree with Ronald Reagan, or libertarianism, or neoconservatism, or supply side economics, but that doesn't mean that they are all the same thing. Libertarianism definitely isn't the same thing as neoconservatism; on many issues they are opposites. And supply side economics has nothing to do with neoconservatism. Reagan wasn't a neocon and he wasn't a libertarian either. You have a disturbing habit of lumping everyone you dislike or disagree with all into one category and it just isn't fair or accurate. This is a habit I've noticed in political fanboys all my life. Somehow it's always only two warring camps, us vs them, no nuance, the bad guys are on that side of the fence and the good guys are on this side of the fence, etc. Personally I try hard to avoid this tendency.

Reagan was a neo-con. The vast majority of contemporary Libertarians are advancing the old property centered arguments upon which the Right is based. And yes, of course the people who try and drive our society this way are bad guys.

Mark wrote, "You keep saying there is a gross labor excess. You are completely, verifiably, massively wrong."

That we had a gross labor excess was how we had a Great Depression. If we needed all of our labor to supply basic needs, then the jobs market never could have slowed down. And then there never would have been a fear induced further drop in consumption.

The remedy was Keyensian downwards wealth transfer, plus a quite large war.

That we still have a large number of people employed, is still the result of our residual Keynesianism, plus some wars.

Without gov't spending, we would not have the jobs available that we do today. But even as it is, many people could never qualify for many of the jobs being offered. Their life has not gone that way. And this does not make them bad people.

Many people in many places have two and three jobs, and are still living in very bad conditions.

FWIW, in the private organization I am building, none of these problems will exist, and we will make political war with America's Right and the Middle-Class Family.

SJG

The Great Depression dragged on and on for years under FDR and his interventionist Keynesian policies. It should have ended within a couple years as prices and markets adjusted. Instead, it took a world war to temporarily put a halt to the depression as the economy went on a war footing.

At the end of the war, it was a Reagan-esque action that finally ended the depression. If they had done this in 1932, the recovery would have taken place 14 years earlier.

"Knutson and many other congressmen favored cutting tax rates and slashing the size of government as the best measure to restore economic growth. Senator Albert Hawkes (R-N.J.) even argued that “the repeal of the excess-profits tax, in my opinion, may raise more revenue for the United States than would be raised if it were retained.” Hawkes proved to be prophetic. After vigorous debate Congress scrapped the Economic Bill of Rights and cut tax rates instead. American business then expanded, revenues to the Treasury increased to balance the federal budget, and unemployment was only 3.9 percent in 1946 and 1947. The Great Depression was over."

Mark wrote, "The Great Depression dragged on and on for years under FDR and his interventionist Keynesian policies. It should have ended within a couple years as prices and markets adjusted."

Totally untrue. We lived through 3 years of do nothing Hoover. And originally when FDR came in, he did not know what to do either.

Keynesianism has proven itself over more than 40 years. Then people elected Reagan.,

Mark, I've long felt that that you are composing your posts from Right Wing talking points sites.

Slashing the size of government does not increase consumer demand. It only serves the supply side, and the wealthy who were paying the progressive taxes.

The 20's boom started when Harding slashed upper income taxes. And it lasted, for a while.

SJG

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class with Elizabeth Warren youtube.com

The Great Depression was largely caused by a stock market bubble spurred on by massive leveraging by brokers. A labor surplus had nothing to do with the depression. If reasonable regulations had been put in limiting the ability to borrow to buy stocks, the market wouldn't have overheated. If those regs had been put in after the crash, prices and wages would have adjusted and equilibrium returned.

Instead, FDR grew the size of government and taxes rather than trusting business to adjust and grow. The depression didn't end until 1946 when government shrunk, taxes cut, and business gained confidence to invest. Reagononics ended the depression.

Do you deny the depression didn't end until 1946, when Keynesianism ended ?

@san_jose_guy said: "We lived through 3 years of do nothing Hoover."

I really can't let that slide. Totally 100% untrue. Hoover was an economic interventionist. In fact, FDR actually ran against Hoover's interventions in the economy in 1932!

You also said: "The 20's boom started when Harding slashed upper income taxes. And it lasted, for a while."

Yes, that's correct. There was a little-known depression early in Harding's administration that most people don't even know about. It was extremely sharp but very brief. Harding cut government spending and taxes, while balancing the budget, and the problem seemed to remedy itself within a few years, laying the groundwork for the so-called roaring twenties.

I have to say, I also take exception with everyone characterizing the worldwide Great Depression as ending because of the War. If you really could grow an economy by destroying things and killing people, that would be quite a feat.

You could never have a depression or a recession, unless you had a labor surplus. Its part of a broader surplus in productive capacity. And then what drives the bubble is unsustainable consumption.

Difference between a needs economy versus a luxury and wants economy.

I'm still here, just been tied up in local politics. Trying to change how things are going, take down some elected and appointed officials, or at least unhorse them.

See You Later, SJG

^^^ recession just means you have two quarters of negative economic growth. Which, obviously, is possible without a labor surplus.

SJG, you have your cause and effect revered.

The Great Depression began after the stock market collapsed in 1929. Only then, did unemployment begin. Until then, it was around 5%, generally considered full employment.

Yes, by 1933 there was massive unemployment, or labor surplus, as you call it. It was a speculative bubble in the stock market which led to the depression and massive unemployment, not the other way around.

A small amount of unemployment is generally considered "frictional". Now they talk about that number as being around 4%.

If you look back in time, the number should be a bit smaller.

And also know that the official unemployment numbers substantially undercount unemployment.

Economic collapses and high unemployment are caused by the conjunction of two things: Over consumption, resulting in depletion of personal financial reserves, and also the incurring of debt, and then this also supports the building of excess production capacity.

And then, this over production capacity, including a labor surplus created by the efficiencies of industrial technology.

You need to have both of these working together to have a depression or a recession.

We used to call such things depressions, but because of Keynesian policies of compensating for business cycles of over production and depression, we now only call them recessions, as they are less severe.

Consider a primitive society, all available labor is needed to supply food, shelter, and clothing. Usually there is skimping on the later two, just to maintain the more critical former. And so of course there would never be anything like a depression or a recession, as there is always unfilled critical need.

But in the years after WWI, things were very different. Far less labor was needed in agriculture, due to mechanization.

A very large portion of our labor supply and industrial capacity was being used to supply quite soft needs, like luxury goods, and especially the automobile.

And the demand for automobiles is very discretionary. If you want it to, an automobile can be made to last just about forever.

And so the key shut down was the automobile industry, and considering its full up line suppliers, that amounted to about 25% of the labor force. That labor was not being used to supply critical needs. But once those people are laid off, you have a downward spiral caused by fear, and just consumption drop off, and so it all comes tumbling down.

This is what so frightened people in 2008, because everyone knew that the auto manufacturers shutting down meant a replay.

Now Herbert Hoover seemed incapable of understanding what was happening. The most he could do was extol belt tightening.

At the start, Franklin Roosevelt also did not know what to do. But eventually he signed on to the idea of pump priming, and even deviated from his original ideas and instead went to deficit spending. And eventually he did go with Keynes and Veblen. And so we began what would be over 4 decades of relative economic stability, based on progressive income tax and spending, with the objective of getting as close as we can to full employment.

It worked very well, and in both peace and in war.

We need to be going back to this. Abandoning it was a huge mistake.

But, there are also some other issues which come into play now. These were present in the 1930's, but not as severe and not as well understood. For environmental and social reasons, we must not at this point be making full employment or perpetuation of the middle class into objectives.

To be discussed further at some point.

SJG

I'm tied up on f2f political matters right now, that's why I've not been posting much.

fiberglassrv.com

About the Clinton Campaign amazon.com

As far as what Arlie Hochschild is saying, having gone to the Lake Charles area of Louisiana, talking about people who live on very little income and have watched all the plant, animal, bird, and fish life on their bayous die off due to industrial waste dumping, and who are supporting Tea Party anti-environmental candidates;

you don't need to go all the way to Louisiana to find such people. There are plenty of people who think like that right here in San Jose. Only itinerant and sub minimum wage income, living in their van, teeth falling out and gum disease so bad that it is screwing up their stomach. But the last thing they would ever want is to be in a labor union, to raise the minimum wage, or to have government running their health care. All they care about is lowering the top income and capital gains tax rates, and promoting their favorite right wing disinformation youtubes.

SJG

Pink Floyd - Pigs youtube.com

I think this Pink Floyd music is great. But do you think it is a little bit weak in rhythm and the bottom end?

Different kinds of music for different situations.

^^^^^^^ The bass playing is strong, and amenable to being turned up loud. But standard bass playing is not very percussive. With this kind of music you could almost substitute a pipe organ patch bass.

Has similarity to ambient music. I guess most all Progressive Rock is intended to be like this.

SJG

I saw Pink Floyd perform The Wall at Earl's Court in 1980. It was pretty great.

Anti-environmental candidates ? There is no such thing. Every politician genuinely supports clean air and water.

What some politicians don't support is micro managing farm and industry so they need to get the approval of the federal government for every decision and action they take in the name of climate change.

Under Obama, if a puddle formed on a farm, they needed to get the government's perspective on how they could proceed. That's nuts.

Keynesianism has always failed. It failed in the 1930s. It failed in the 1970s. It failed under Obamacare.

Here is an excerpt from Forbes that explains.

"That was the nearly $1 trillion dollar so-called “stimulus” that Obama and the Democrats waived through Congress as the first major act of the Obama Administration in February, 2009. Keynesian policies failed so thoroughly in the 1970s, leading to both double digit inflation and double digit unemployment, that it is puzzling as to why Obama returned to them, as if he is ignorant not only of what happened then, but of everything that happened after then, from 1980 on. Ronald Reagan explicitly scraped Keynesian nostrums, embracing instead the new, modern supply side economics, which focuses on incentives for increased production to restore economic growth and prosperity, rather than increased demand. Inflation was quickly subdued, shocking the Washington Establishment, and the economy took off on a generation long, 25 year, economic boom from 1982 to 2007, which Art Laffer and Steve Moore called “the greatest period of wealth creation in the history of the planet,” in their 2008 book, The End of Prosperity.

That is why I have called Obama’s economic policies Rip Van Winkle economics, because Obama seems to have slept through that 25 year economic boom, and to be totally unaware of everything that happened then, in his own country.

The myth of Keynesian economics is based on a failure to take into account basic double entry bookkeeping. If the government spends more, where does the money for that increased spending come from? Either from increased borrowing, or increased taxes, which both take an equal amount of resources and spending out of the private economy as they finance in increased government spending. So not only can there not be a net increase in aggregate, or total, demand from these policies, the spending is in truth a net drag on growth, as the private economy spends money more productively and efficiently than the government. That is why this Keynesian nostrum never worked in the 1930s, as the recession of 1929 extended into the decade long Great Depression, and it hasn’t worked anywhere else since.

But most fundamentally, economic growth is not driven by increasing demand, which is insatiable, but by increased production or output (supply), which is driven by incentives for productive activity. In other words, just as an individual cannot spend himself rich, neither can a nation. Prosperity is determined by production, just as an individual increases his or her income by becoming more productive."

Well, the Lake Charles area got horribly polluted. And today many of the most effected are supporting Tea Party candidates who don't want to do anything to stop more of it from happening.

Sorry Mark94, but you are clearly reading from Right Wing media, and what they put out has no relation to reality.

SJG

Obama's stimulus worked extremely well. But he missed his FDR moment in that he did not reregulate the banks, or even straight out nationalize them.

Keynesianism gave us over 40 years of relative economic stability, as well as a prosperous post war world.

SJG

@mark94, I think your attempt at reasoning with him is admirable, but it's probably a wasted effort. It's not that he's a stupid guy - crazy, perhaps, but not stupid. He just likes what he likes and he believes what he believes. For post after post, you, me, and several other people have made a good case, but he's just not buying it. And he's not alone; many others here won't buy it. And most people out there in the real world aren't going to accept the argument, either. Honestly, I think if you need to explain that libertarianism works better, or that Keynesianism or socialism are ineffective, then you're already losing the battle. The reason is that the other side can always just point to a period of stagnation during the 80s, 90s, or 2000s as alleged "proof" that laissez faire policies don't work. Or they'll point to an equally convincing period of seeming prosperity during the 40s, 50s, or 60s. Or maybe they'll tell you about their friend who was once laid off by a private company. Or they'll tell you about a family member who was foreclosed on. Or they'll talk about "income inequality." Or about how awful it is to have to deal with a health insurance company, etc. Now, granted, I think I have good responses to all these things, but they will not care because, at the end of the day, politics and policy are a matter of opinion. Facts should hardly ever even enter the conversation. It sounds crazy but it's true.

Even if you could somehow conclusively prove that free markets lead to prosperity and human flourishing, it wouldn't matter to many people. Some just wouldn't believe you. But many others would say "So what?". That's not good enough, they'll say, because some people will always benefit more than others. It wouldn't matter to them that Keynesianism or socialism also benefit some people more than others, because at least these ideologies make it look like we're making an honest effort at community-building and togetherness. Or something.

That's why I always say that I'm more concerned with morality than with outcomes. Free-market capitalism may or may not work better than a state-managed economy. Personally, I think it does work much better, but even if it didn't, I would still support it. Because it's moral to allow people to run their own lives as long as they don't interfere with others. Anything else is immoral. Who cares if the economy tanks? No one has a moral obligation to uphold the entire economy at his own expense. (Not that I believe capitalism itself can ever lead to a collapsing economy, but you get my drift.)

But most people also want their policy ideas to work effectively. They can't help believing whatever they believe, but it would nonetheless cause a lot of cognitive dissonance for them if they thought their policy preferences led to suffering or bad outcomes. So they invent stories. Or they reimagine history. Or they discount some evidence in favor of other evidence, based on whether or not the evidence in question supports their claims. So I think you're fighting an uphill battle.

Art Laffer and Steve Moore

Two of the biggest dipshit fake economists on the planet. @Burlington and @Mark93 should get a room.

@Burlington & @Mark93 -- I've come to the final conclusion that both of you are complete nut jobs.

I've come to the final conclusion that @RandomMember should go fuck his mother.

@Burlington- I think you and @Mark93 should book a room together and jerk each other off while watching re-runs of Larry Kudlow with guests Art Laffer and Steve Moore. LOL!

...if you can get erections at your advanced age, that is.

RandomMember- You had three choices. You could ignore us. You could reason with us. You could insult us. You chose the path of the lazy and intellectually weak. The fact that you bothered to read what we posted means you are interested in, or bothered by, what we are saying. I assume you are someone who has been indoctrinated in the language of the left without being able to explain your own beliefs. You are unable to structure a few sentences that defend the groupthink that you believe makes you smart. The only thing you have in your intellectual arsenal is insults and an irrational belief in you superiority.

Here's the first couple paragraphs of the Wiki definition of groupthink. It explains why those suffering from groupthink are so threatened by conflicting ideas, unable to defend their position, and turn to insults as their only defense.

"Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.

Groupthink requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates its own abilities in decision-making and significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the "outgroup"). Furthermore, groupthink can produce dehumanizing actions against the "outgroup".

SJG has been trashed by just about everyone, including me. But, let me do the contrarian thing and say a positive word about him.

I disagree with just about everything SJG says because he starts with a foundation of Marxist beliefs. But, he is clearly an individual thinker who attempts to defend his viewpoint from a rational perspective. In other words, he is not a part of the groupthink from many on the left.

Sure, he has a lot of comments that are simply insults, name calling, or buzz words. But, he rises above it on occasion by engaging in debate on ideas. He has thought through his belief system, misguided as I think it is.

On the other hand, several respondents on this thread have never risen above insults. They either don't have the intellectual horsepower, or haven't done the heavy intellectual lifting to organize and test their beliefs. Most likely, they've learned some phrases like " the 1%" or "white priviledge" or "Keynesian", have been rewarded when they parrot these phrases back to their professors, but have never taken the time to really develop their own belief system. That's why, when confronted with alternative ideas, they can't defend their position. They win points and prestige within groupthink members by screaming " nutjob", "nazi", or "white supremacist" to anyone who disagrees with them. But, outside that group, their lack of intellect is obvious.

@Mark93 you ponderous bore: I hardly pay attention to your horseshit at this point. I did notice you quoting something by Steve Moore and it doesn't surprise me at all that your hero is with the Heritage Foundation and basically a fake economist and TV star on the Larry Kudlow show. Moore and Kudlow are both fools.

None of this would bother me if it were not for the fact that Trump may be able to appoint up to five Fed officials. Stan Fischer (truly brilliant guy) recently resigned over personal reasons and Yellen's job is probably in jeopardy (Trump probably doesn't like smart little old ladies with white hair -- can't grab her by the pussy). And Steve Moore's name was at least mentioned as Fed chair at one time. That would be horrifying.

Like I said, I'm glad you've found a close friend in @Burlington and I hope the two of you live many happy years together.

For 8 years, the Fed served Obama, most importantly allowing him to be re-elected. Their 0% interest environment and quantitative easing artificially propped up stock prices, benefitting the investor class ( his Wall Street donor class ). It also delayed the painful adjustment from this artificial business environment to a more normal environment. That all covered up Obama's complete incompetence with regard to Fiscal action, including the ineffective stimulus package.

Whoever is at the Fed in the near future will need to gradually raise rates and sell off its balance sheet. That will give a headwind to the stock market and put stress on companies who have survived on cheap capital. Trump will certainly be blamed for this disruption although he and his Fed Chairman will simply be paying the price for Obama and Yellen running the long economic con on the country.

Oh, and thanks for the crude insult, making my point about your lack of intellect.

@mark94: I'm not so sure that SJG is an independent think. Sure everyone who always just thinks what the consensus thinks is not an independent thinker. But how about someone who just disagreed with the consensus no matter what it was? Sometimes the consensus is right and sometimes it is wrong. I think you're more likely to find independent thinkers amongst those who realize that, versus those who knee-jerk just always agree or just always disagree.

I think it was one of the two greatest accepted myths in my lifetime that the market rise since 2009 was due primarily to the Fed. In reality it was due to technological advances and accelerated speed of the product cycle.

Global warming is the biggest single contributing factor to the rapid run up of bitcoin.

This thread has been the single most example of a waste of bandwidth, except for the link to Pink Floyd's- "Pigs", one of my all time favorite songs.

Global warming is real evidenced by the hot air on this thread.

@flagooner, ok, I'll bite, why is global warming contributing to the rise of Bitcoin?

@twentyfive “Global warming is real evidenced by the hot air on this thread.”

now that may be the first and only evidence that global warming isn’t just the biggest con job on the simple minded toads that seek to be a part of a cult that will do their thinking for them. most likely all the hot air isn’t anything more than a passing sirocco but i’m open to scientific evidence to the contrary. that’s real scientific evidence not the al gore sex predator of innocent massage therapists or bill nye the mechanical engineer you can tell by looking at him he’s a pedophile, made up science

hey speaking of pedophiles wasn’t the Keynes guy a faggot who fucked little boys. yep he sure was

^ I don't really know, but I don't think that bit of gibberish is any more inane than any of the other shit spewed throughout the rest of this thread, and it is just as on topic.

@Dougster, why can't it be both? In 2009, there were some great technological advances coming down the pipeline after being developed over the past 20 years or so. AND the Fed was also expanding its balance sheet rapidly at that time.

Personally, I would like to end the Federal Reserve and have no central bank whatsoever, but that isn't likely to happen. Ever. So if Steve Moore or Art Laffer or Larry Kudlow or someone like that gets nominated, I suppose that would be a marginal improvement. I wouldn't exactly be out in the streets celebrating, though. Remember, libertarians and free-market people were very excited about Greenspan, too. But he didn't work out so well. The institution is what it is, and it almost doesn't matter who is at the helm. I still like Alan Greenspan as a person, but it's hard to be proud of his tenure at the Fed.

I also agree with mark94 about SJG. Whoever he is, SJG doesn't seem to be a mindless follower. He's really strange, and possibly mentally unstable, but he's not stupid or even ill-informed. I just disagree with him.

He's a complete psycho.

@BHF "but he's not stupid"

you obviously missed where he claims that there is no need of water for farmers to raise crops and a hundred other NON-POLITICAL truly moronic beliefs. he's an idiot. dumber than a box of rocks

@DoctorPhil, that makes him nuts/delusional, not necessarily stupid. Reasonable people can disagree, but I don't think anyone in the 21st century really believes that plants don't need water to grow. At least on an intellectual level, no one believes that. I mean, he's fucked in the head. I'm not saying we should elect him President of TUSCL. I just don't think he's an illiterate moron. That's all.

@BHO. i never said he was illiterate but he is a moron. he could look at a lit burner on a gas stove and recite the properties of flammable gases, how the gas is delivered, the need for oxygen and ignition source and then he would stick his hand in the flame, again and again, swearing that the flames can’t possibly burn. it is not ignorance of the data but it is the inability to process even the simplest data that any three year old has mastered that makes him STUPID.

LOL. The funniest part of that is that it's true.

All I was saying was I'm more entertained by a response of

" the proletariat will cast off its chains "

To

" fuck you, you racist, privileged asshole "

Anyway, that's just me.

@flagooner Never said global warming had anything to do with. Bitcoin

@mark94, I feel the same way. At least it shows that he's thinking instead of just reacting.

@twentyfive, what are you talking about? 5 hours ago he said "Global warming is the biggest single contributing factor to the rapid run up of bitcoin."

I never said that LOL

^ that's amusing

This country's political and economic system runs by scapegoating the poor. Very similar to the Social Darwinism of the 1880's, really just a repackaging of it.

SJG

Pink Floyd - Pigs youtube.com

This is the most telling piece of information I've seen yet. A friend sent it to me. Though I don't know that Ms Clinton could have done anything differently, it explains why our country's politics is going the way it is:

What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class

by Joan C. Williams November 10, 2016

hbr.org

" One little-known element of that gap is that the white working class (WWC) resents professionals but admires the rich. "

" Michèle Lamont, in The Dignity of Working Men, also found resentment of professionals — but not of the rich. “[I] can’t knock anyone for succeeding,” a laborer told her. “There’s a lot of people out there who are wealthy and I’m sure they worked darned hard for every cent they have,” chimed in a receiving clerk. Why the difference? For one thing, most blue-collar workers have little direct contact with the rich outside of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. But professionals order them around every day. The dream is not to become upper-middle-class, with its different food, family, and friendship patterns; the dream is to live in your own class milieu, where you feel comfortable — just with more money. "

" Hillary Clinton, by contrast, epitomizes the dorky arrogance and smugness of the professional elite. The dorkiness: the pantsuits. The arrogance: the email server. The smugness: the basket of deplorables. Worse, her mere presence rubs it in that even women from her class can treat working-class men with disrespect. "

" Manly dignity is a big deal for working-class men, and they’re not feeling that they have it. Trump promises a world free of political correctness and a return to an earlier era, when men were men and women knew their place. It’s comfort food for high-school-educated guys who could have been my father-in-law if they’d been born 30 years earlier. Today they feel like losers — or did until they met Trump. "

" Manly dignity is a big deal for most men. So is breadwinner status: Many still measure masculinity by the size of a paycheck. White working-class men’s wages hit the skids in the 1970s and took another body blow during the Great Recession. Look, I wish manliness worked differently. But most men, like most women, seek to fulfill the ideals they’ve grown up with. For many blue-collar men, all they’re asking for is basic human dignity (male varietal). Trump promises to deliver it. "

" The Democrats’ solution? Last week the New York Times published an article advising men with high-school educations to take pink-collar jobs. Talk about insensitivity. Elite men, you will notice, are not flooding into traditionally feminine work. To recommend that for WWC men just fuels class anger. "

" The election shows that sexism retains a deeper hold than most imagined. But women don’t stand together: WWC women voted for Trump over Clinton by a whopping 28-point margin — 62% to 34%. If they’d split 50-50, she would have won. "

" “The thing that really gets me is that Democrats try to offer policies (paid sick leave! minimum wage!) that would help the working class,” a friend just wrote me. A few days’ paid leave ain’t gonna support a family. Neither is minimum wage. WWC men aren’t interested in working at McDonald’s for $15 per hour instead of $9.50. What they want is what my father-in-law had: steady, stable, full-time jobs that deliver a solid middle-class life to the 75% of Americans who don’t have a college degree. Trump promises that. I doubt he’ll deliver, but at least he understands what they need. "

" Understand Working-Class Resentment of the Poor

Remember when President Obama sold Obamacare by pointing out that it delivered health care to 20 million people? Just another program that taxed the middle class to help the poor, said the WWC, and in some cases that’s proved true: The poor got health insurance while some Americans just a notch richer saw their premiums rise. "

" J.D. Vance’s much-heralded Hillbilly Elegy captures this resentment. Hard-living families like that of Vance’s mother live alongside settled families like that of his biological father. While the hard-living succumb to despair, drugs, or alcohol, settled families keep to the straight and narrow, like my parents-in-law, who owned their home and sent both sons to college. To accomplish that, they lived a life of rigorous thrift and self-discipline. Vance’s book passes harsh judgment on his hard-living relatives, which is not uncommon among settled families who kept their nose clean through sheer force of will. This is a second source of resentment against the poor. "

" Understand How Class Divisions Have Translated into Geography

The best advice I’ve seen so far for Democrats is the recommendation that hipsters move to Iowa. Class conflict now closely tracks the urban-rural divide. In the huge red plains between the thin blue coasts, shockingly high numbers of working-class men are unemployed or on disability, fueling a wave of despair deaths in the form of the opioid epidemic. "

" If You Want to Connect with White Working-Class Voters, Place Economics at the Center

“The white working class is just so stupid. Don’t they realize Republicans just use them every four years, and then screw them?” I have heard some version of this over and over again, and it’s actually a sentiment the WWC agrees with, which is why they rejected the Republican establishment this year. But to them, the Democrats are no better. "

" Both parties have supported free-trade deals because of the net positive GDP gains, overlooking the blue-collar workers who lost work as jobs left for Mexico or Vietnam. These are precisely the voters in the crucial swing states of Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that Democrats have so long ignored. Excuse me. Who’s stupid? "

" Back when blue-collar voters used to be solidly Democratic (1930–1970), good jobs were at the core of the progressive agenda. A modern industrial policy would follow Germany’s path. (Want really good scissors? Buy German.) Massive funding is needed for community college programs linked with local businesses to train workers for well-paying new economy jobs. Clinton mentioned this approach, along with 600,000 other policy suggestions. She did not stress it. "

" Avoid the Temptation to Write Off Blue-Collar Resentment as Racism

Economic resentment has fueled racial anxiety that, in some Trump supporters (and Trump himself), bleeds into open racism. But to write off WWC anger as nothing more than racism is intellectual comfort food, and it is dangerous. "

Joan Williams’s book, White Working Class.

The full article is good, and it also references other books, like:

Michèle Lamont, The Dignity of Working Men

J.D. Vance’s much-heralded Hillbilly Elegy amazon.com

Hard Living on Clay Street (1972) and Working-Class Heroes (2003)

Jennifer Sherman’s Those Who Work, Those Who Don’t (2009)

So, Founder voiced that Bernie Sanders could have won. And I agree, or at least I did. He would have had to have brought out other voters, but would there have been enough of them?

On what is this working class identity based, given that at least in our ideals we are a classless society. And of course Comrades Marx and Engels were calling on the working class to lead the next revolution. But in fact, in Germany it was largely workers who installed Hitler.

SJG

Stones, Soul Survivor youtube.com

youtube.com

youtube.com

This sounds reasonable to me. I don't agree with all of it, but it sounds reasonable nonetheless.

Still, your article contradicts itself in one respect. If the WWC doesn't want to work at McDonald's for a higher minimum wage and if it knows that it can't feed a family with a few extra weeks of paid sick leave, then it probably also doesn't want to attend a federally-subsidized community college either. Going to community college to learn a trade would forever brand the graduate as a lower-class person, being further ordered around by upper-middle class professional types, as the article describes. (Assuming they graduate at all, that is.) Bear in mind that these people may not have the head for school, otherwise they might already be enrolled. After all, community college is almost free as it is, and almost all community college students already qualify for tuition assistance. And let's pretend that the community college program gets implemented and that every unemployed or underemployed member of the WWC enrolls. I think that there would be a sudden glut of job applicants to plumbing and electrical companies. Which means that many of these guys wouldn't find a decent job regardless. I don't know that there is a good solution to the problem of WWC resentment.

"It is sort of hard to figure out what she stands for" Actually it isn't in the slightest and that is her problem. Hillary stands for Hillary and anyone who has taken off the blinders and listened to her for any period of time understand this. If you've ever met her or seen her in person it is even more apparent. There is a reason her staff keeps her contact minimal with the public on any level.

Thankfully she lost. Many people will never realize no matter how bad Trump is he would have to hold an anvil on the ocean floor to go lower than Hillary.

I wasn't wild about any of my choices this time around--freely admit my vote was one of more against Hillary than it was for "The Donald".

Hillary views the little people as victims who need to be protected by their betters. Hillary offers a safety net as the best the WWC can expect.

Trump offers the belief that anyone could be rich like him. This is the same WWC that buys lottery tickets and dreams of a bright future. Which candidate are they more likely to support ?

The left thinks the WWC is voting against its best interest by turning away from the safety net. The left doesn’t understand the dreams, hopes, and aspirations of the working class.

Yes, it is true that Community Colleges are almost already as close as you could get to free. But this does not mean everyone wants to attend or could attend. Still transportation, living costs, and ability. And no matter what sort of school people go to or for how long, this does not mean there will be a job for them.

And this is a complex issue, as the article talks about a WWC family sending its kids to college.

I think though the real point is that while some might look up to a woman like Hillary Clinton, being a well educated high achieving career woman, others will hate her for exactly the same reasons.

I was impressed with her in 1992, because as a career woman, she is a feminist. And also she was with Marion Wright Edleman's Children's Defense Fund. This I fully support. And also Hillary was against most of the Republican and Religious Right views. But she was never a real liberal, and certainly no radical. Had been part of the 1964 Goldwater Campaign. Was since part of the Southern lead and conservative Democratic Leadership Conference.

Many on the Left say the WWC is voting against its own interests. This idea came from Thomas Frank's, "What's The Matter With Kansas".

But since, more have taken a different position, saying that the WWC has an interest, it is just not really an economic interest, it is an identity interest, anti-intellectual, often religious, often racist, and based on this reactionary idea of who is and who is not an 'authentic American'.

Jean Baudrillard says that Capitalism is being held in place, not by ownership of the means of production, but instead by control of these Right Wing identification systems. And he was writing this decades back, and about all the industrialized nations, not just the US.

An Economic Safety Net is obviously something we need to have.

But to make the economy work again, we need to restore Keynesianism, as we did have and as many countries in Europe do have, higher top tax rates in order to transfer wealth downward in the form of jobs created by currency recirculation.

But as things are there is another issue now, the finite size of our natural environment, along with the benefits of further industrialization requiring even less labor. There are lots and lots of jobs that need doing, they just don't have money behind them to pay anyone. We need to be planning on an ever increasing slice of the population being without paid employment and without any savings or anything else, but the public still providing them with a dignified life. This is the benefit of industrialization, and so we already have all the labor and productive resources in order to do this. We cannot continue to use the poor and jobless as our scapegoats.

And yes it is true that Trump speaks to people's fatalism, just like state lotteries and financial speculations do.

Talks about specifically the state lotteries marking the end of the American Dream. amazon.com

Democracy can never work when you have people voting just to attack the welfare of those the next rung down the ladder from them. There has to be some vision of collective welfare, not of winners and losers.

Plan to read more of Joan Williams's work, like her book, and like some of the other things she cites, and of course Arlie Hotchchild's 'Strangers in Their Own Land'.

SJG

You are truly a moron, a true slack jawed fuck wit of epic proportions.

You manage to be wrong about everything.

@founder, can you delete this entire thread? Please?

flagooner "@founder, can you delete this entire thread? Please?"

better still how about deleting san_jose_guy completely

@ flag, omg no! What are thinking? This is their safe place, so they can fill this thread w crap and leave the other discussions alone. It would be like taking away a cat’s litter box.

Lol, good point

What kind of a woman could the Democrats run who would not get eaten alive like Hillary did? What kind of a man for that matter? Most all of them are lawyers, and I don't see this is changing.

A Community Activist? Another Community Organizer?

LIz Warren, with her daughter-in-law has championed for a more fair banking and bankruptcy system. Would this mean that the White Working Class would go for her?

Someone who has worked their way up from lower elected offices?

There really is a problem and that article does not give the answers.

SJG

Jeff Beck ft/ Rosie Oddie youtu.be

Flagoneer: what type of gun is pointed at your head, forcing you to read this thread ? DrPhil: when did your ignore function break, forcing you to read people with whom you disagree ?

I don't think the Democrats will nominate another straight, white, Christian male for president ever again. I notice that no one is talking about Tim Kaine running, for example. Sherrod Brown and Joe Biden are the only ones who are somewhat credible, and even then just barely. Biden is not young, and Brown has a tough re-election ahead of him (he will win, of course, but it's hard to think about running for president when your own seat feels like it's in danger).

The most credible democratic candidates for 2020 are all female: Gilibrand, Harris, Warren. I would be surprised if Tulsi Gabbard and Kyrsten Sinema didn't eventually run, as well (but probably a few cycles from now, not necessarily in 2020). Gabbard is a veteran with an independent streak and, hypothetically, if she were to run against Trump, I think she would win easily. Perhaps that's the kind of candidate the Democrats should nominate, I don't know. A few years ago it seemed like the Left was intellectually exhausted. But now it seems that they have been reenergized, so they may indeed choose an ideologue like Warren. I personally dislike each of these people, but unless the polls change quickly then any one of them would probably be able to defeat Trump.

Basically, my prediction is that the Democrats will retake the House in 2018, while the Senate will remain close to evenly divided, as it is now. After the midterms, Trump will begin moving to the center-Left, and he will bash the GOP Senate as "losers." Especially if Mitch McConnell somehow manages to keep his job as Senate majority leader, you should expect Trump to run hard against McConnell in the run-up to 2020. But he will also be running against the Democrats in the House. Being in opposition to both the GOP Senate and the Democratic House simultaneously will give Trump the opportunity to portray himself as an independent who wants to "get things done." That's his only chance for re-election and he knows it. He needs some scapegoats.

As for the White Working Class, they want what everybody else wants when they vote: to believe that they are somehow getting a better deal than everybody else is.

republicans could reconsider immigration. I heard many Muslim countries do not believe in women holding positions of authority. ISIS could take over and then we wouldn't have to worry and debate who got elected. We'd already be screwed and know it. Of course Americans are hopeful. We like thinking we're not already screwed. Actually this was the democrats plan to let as many Muslims into the country as possible but they were gong to let all of Latin America and South America come here as well. Everyone on government assistance and not enough money to go around. All these immigrants from the Americas would never vote republican and want spending cuts.

Problem is we now have 2 democrat parties with none doing government spending cuts. cnbc.com

Bernie Sanders is ( literally) the odds on favorite to be the nominee in 2020. It’s his for the asking.

An entire generation of potential Democratic leaders was wiped out under Obama as they lost state houses and governorships. If Pelosi, Schumer, Clinton and other geriatrics don’t step aside, they could lose another.

@mark94,

Bernie Sanders only ran in 2016 because Elizabeth Warren and Bill DiBlasio didn't run. When Warren runs in 2020, Sanders will either step aside or they will both run and split each other's vote (and both will lose the primary). On the other hand, ideologically, Sanders is a perfect fit for the Democratic Party base. Plus Sanders is not a straight, white, Christian male: Sanders was born and raised as a Jew. And based on his comments, he's probably an atheist now (like most other socialists). Regardless, could Sanders beat Trump? Yes, I think he easily would.

But as for further Democratic losses due to dissatisfaction with the elderly party leadership, maybe one day, but definitely not in this election cycle.

@Rick999,

I agree that both parties behave similarly on the issue of spending cuts. The party in power always wants to spend, while the opposition party always wrings its hands about deficits. Then they switch places after a few years. I happen to totally agree with the article you linked to, and I've made similar comments before. Except for one point: the article implies that the tax reform plan would have higher support from the public if the GOP would offer spending cuts to match their tax cuts. This is horseshit! The voters only want spending cuts in the abstract, but when it comes to specific cuts they are always against them.

For example, after the 2010 midterm elections, when the GOP retook the House in the Tea Party wave, Obama and the House Republicans negotiated the Sequester cuts. They then spent the next few years pointing fingers at each other, with each side claiming that the other was responsible for the Sequester. The reason? Because it wasn't popular. Specific spending cuts are never popular.

Anyway, I'm just curious, what would you cut to balance the budget yourself? I know that I could balance the budget if I were given the opportunity.

Cut the subsidies that working people have to make to these financial speculation markets. i.e. Restore the higher upper income tax brackets.

Also make some structural military cuts. Start making businesses pay much more when they are using public resources too.

And set up public run housing, as that will stabilize rental prices and make either welfare or a universal basic income much cheaper.

You can provide a safety net which is both very good and quite cheap, if you do it right by taking it out of the market place.

FWIW, the organization I am building is not the government and it is not open to the public. But it will show how a very high quality of life ( higher than all but a very few currently enjoy ) can be had at very low cost and with low environmental impact.

It will center around knowledge, spirituality, and sex. Think about it, the costs of running the whole thing do not need to be much at all. Mostly it just comes down to changes in how people think.

SJG

And set up public run housing

Because that always ends well...

I’ve read that Trump’s next big push, after tax reform, will be to shrink the size of the federal government. He isn’t ready to cut any major programs, but he will slash the number of federal employees and push some things down to the state. For example, they plan on allowing states to take control of their Medicaid plans, with wide flexibility to put in work requirements. Agencies like the CFPB and EPA will be hollowed out.

Thanks for that info Mark.

ppwh, we cannot be building a two tier society. But this is what is happening.

Public housing projects is the way to house all in good quality, but at reasonable costs. Without this a financial safety net just fattens rentiers. There is no reason why we should not have this universal basic support already.

SJG

@mark94,

I hope so. It would be a good start. When Trump proposed his first budget earlier this year it contained some really good cuts to various departments and agencies but also increases in wasteful spending on Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs. The budget contained a very small overall cut and a very small cut in the deficit. I was both happy and disappointed at the same time: happy because any cut is better than no cut at all, and disappointed because the overall rate of spending remained at around $4 trillion, and will probably continue to stay there for the foreseeable future... until the next "crisis" permanently jacks it up again. I would almost be willing to give him a pass on the first budget because I understand that he needs to get tax reform done first. The tax reform package is pretty unipressive so far, but it's still better than nothing. We'll see what the 2019 budget proposal brings (and what the House actually spends in 2018).

Public housing projects is the way to house all in good quality, but at reasonable costs.

Have you ever been to the projects?

Living there isn't something I would wish on anyone.

Eventually, we need to address entitlements but I think Trump is avoiding this until he raises his conservative bona fides. You can’t take on Medicare or SS with a 39% approval rating. He can cut taxes, fire bureaucrats, cut regulations, and devolve power. If that’s what he does in 2018, maybe he can find support for reforming entitlements, in a limited way, in 2019.

You can’t take on Medicare or SS with a 39% approval rating.

If he pretends to believe the SS that his hands are YUGE, it will probably turn out OK regardless of approval ratings.

I really doubt it for three reasons.

First, he specifically campaigned against it.

Second, he knows it's political suicide and he hates doing things that he knows are unpopular; in fact, reports say that he's been very angry in the past at advisors who convinced him to support unpopular candidates and proposals.

And third, and most importantly, Congress has already had a hard time passing bills that should have been easy for them, like taxes and healthcare, so could you imagine them ever successfully passing something like entitlement reform? Trump would have to be crazy to stick his neck out for them without a guarantee (which no one can give him, of course).

Some of this dysfunction is absolutely Trump's fault (he's a lightning rod of controversy, makes enemies easily, throws people under the bus without thinking, etc.). But also, some of it is just because the GOP is more like three allied parties in a parliamentary system pretending to be one unified party.

I’m hoping, perhaps irrationally, that the Republican majority in the Senate will grow in 2019.

Well, I hope so, but I doubt it. If the Republicans do win more seats it's unlikely to be more than just a few. By my calculations, it all comes down to five seats: Arizona, Nevada, Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota.

The Arizona and Nevada Senate seats are held by Republicans and I think they are almost certain to flip. Martha McSally (who is basically John McCain with a vagina and less imagination) will probably, but not definitely, defeat Kelli Ward in the AZ GOP primary; but regardless of who wins the primary, either of them would likely be defeated by Kyrsten Sinema in November.

It's a toss-up whether Dean Heller can win his own primary against Danny Tarkanian in NV, but almost any Democrat should be able to defeat Heller or Tarkanian in November.

Joe Donnelly is a Democrat who just barely squeaked out a victory in 2012 in Indiana, but I'm not aware of any polls. I'd say he's got a 50-50 odds of survival.

Claire McCaskill is a cockroach who seems to survive anything that gets thrown at her in Missouri; polls consistently show her losing to any Republican opponent, but they showed the same thing in 2012 if I remember correctly, so she also gets 50-50.

I say Heidi Heitkamp is down for the count in North Dakota, no matter what the polls and predictions show; she's a non-descript generic Democrat Senator whom nobody gives a good fuck about in a very Republican state.

Other than that, polls show tight races in Ohio and Florida, but I'm skeptical. Nothing would make me happier than to knock off Sherrod Brown and Bill Nelson, but this is going to be a very anti-GOP year and these are the two classic swing states. I'll believe it when I see it. So there you have it, I don't see the GOP winning more than a few seats at best, and they might even have a net loss of a seat.

To answer a question, I would hold off on any major spending cuts getting enacted until maybe after 4 years or even 8 years when a democrat might be in office. Be sneaky like them and have tax increases go into effect when the next person is in office. I don't like cutting social programs too much but the problem our country has is that the spending or growth rate is too high for our country to afford it or pay for it all. I was actually ok with Hillary's increase in social security taxes by eliminating the wage cap on social security taxes. If my pay suddenly jumped tens of thousands of dollars, I think it would be fair for myself and everyone making as much as me to not escape additional social security taxes on income above 90k or 100k or whatever the cap is at now. This is not at all in agreement with Republicans though.

I might actually look at defense programs for possible cuts to see if certain programs were not needed. I would also work on possibly cutting the size of the federal government and see if we could elimate the education department or other departments. Do we need all these huge federal departments? Could our government save trillions of dollars a year by allowing a private enterprise to do whatever is needed that they do?

One big problem, hundreds of thousands of federal employees could lose their jobs. Unemployment would be bad. Might not cut everyone loose at one time to mitigate the surge in unemployment but do it in stages so they could more easily get jobs during someone else's administration. Unfortunately our government won't have enough money to pay for all the expected increases in entitlement programs without draconian budget cuts in another 10 to 20 years when I might be collecting, 20 years that is. I prefer making gradual plans now rather than our benefits getting cut 20% or more suddenly later on. Republicans probably won't raise taxes on anyone but that's ok. I know the democrats will be in favor of raising all kinds of taxes unfortunately. Bernie wants to turn this country into Venezuela. I'd prefer to raise GDP growth up to 8% a year and then we wouldn't need to cut spending unless it was a complete waste.

I agree that most Americans hate spending cuts if it affects what they get or what their friends or relatives get. I don't want relatives Medicare benefits cut. I don't want my future social security benefits cut. However if you tell me we either enact certain tax increases and or cut a little or raise the retirement age up a little, I might not like it but it would be preferable over a sudden 25% cut 20 years from now or even 10 years from now because of government crisis. I much prefer our economy grows faster. That would solve a lot of issues. Tax the low and middle class less not more. Grow the economy faster and more tax revenue gets collected to pay for it all.

I'd also apply six sigma lean concepts to federal departments and maybe give temporary bonuses to departments that find ways to cut significant spending. Our government needs to implement Lean like corporations have done for years to cut spending and save money. Look at it form the big picture first. Would we be better off without an entire federal department of education for example? Could a private enterprise do it a lot better or for a lot less money or cost to taxpayers? Every dollar our government spends probably adds to our debt which I believe makes our overall situation worse. Some think it's already too late and we are on the titanic waiting for the ship to sink. I think that is too pessimistic. I don't want a sudden shift to a new currency devaluing our current dollars. They could suddenly outlaw cyrptos in such a crisis really hurting people trying to diversify. There is nothing politicians won't think of doing to save their own hides.

@Rick999,

I appreciate that you answered the question. And I give you credit for considering (small) cuts to entitlement programs because, ultimately, if we don't cut those then we never balance the budget at all. But it's unclear whether your plan would even freeze spending, let alone cut it. I understand that you would like to blame the politicians for our problems, but your proposals make it clear that it's the people who are responsible for this mess, not the politicians. The politicians' solutions are weak tea because the people's solutions are weak tea. No one has the stomach for the serious spending cuts that we need to make. And you want to cut taxes for the poor and middle class? They already pay very little taxes compared to the rich. Why should we only cut taxes on the group that already pays the least amount of taxes? And why are you talking about 'class' at all? Didn't you even read the article that you linked to?

Here's what I would do:

phase out Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Anyone who's not currently on it will be getting it at an older age. Anyone under, say, 45, ain't getting it, ever.

If the States like Medicaid so much then we should let them pay for the whole program outright, and let them structure it however they want.

Completely end federal unemployment and welfare payments, including SCHIP and SNAP.

End all corporate welfare, especially payments to farmers.

Zero out all foreign aid.

Close down the TVA and privatize air traffic control, the TSA, Amtrak, and the national parks system.

Sell ALL empty government land that isn't being used for military purposes and sell all vacant government buildings.

Stop funding NPR and any programs for "the arts."

Close all overseas military bases and end the overseas wars and interventions.

Close down the departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Labor, the Interior, and Homeland Security, and fire their employees.

End the Employer Mandate to provide health insurance and take away the Employer tax deduction to provide insurance to their employees. In fact, take away all individual income tax deductions; NO deductions for anything. Ever. The rate is the rate that you pay.

Done. Budget's balanced. In fact we'll have a nice little surplus after about 5 or 6 years. And I would still support these cuts even if the budget were balanced today. Because they are the right thing to do.

Oh, and to @san_jose_guy: if you read @Rick999's posts and mine, and you still can't tell the difference between a conservative and a libertarian, then you have your head solidly buried up your own ass.

One step at a time.

Use executive action to ban unions among federal employees.

Pass legislation that allows firing of poor performing employees plus downsizing, restructuring, and outsourcing.

Put the entire government through zero based restructuring. First, eliminate non-essential programs. Then, ask whether a federal, state, or outsourced approach is best.

The Energy, Education, and Commerce departments will be eliminated. Welfare, Medicaid, and HUD will be devolved to the States. Regulations and compliance burdens will be cut.

What will be left to address ? Social Security and Medicare. Only after doing the above will we be able to address them.

pphw, our underclass does live in wretched situations, but that is because our legal and social welfare systems are designed to hold them up as objects of denigration, in order to dissuade would be labor activism, to maintain work force discipline.

Those housing projects you speak of my indeed be horrors, right now. But it is not that fact that we have public housing which causes this, it is the entire situation of the people's lives. Everyone wants a good life, everyone wants to be doing things which earn them respect and admiration.

SJG

So I guess I forgot about Alabama when I was predicting the Senate composition for next year. Oops. Either way, Doug Jones makes it even more likely that we'll have an evenly divided Senate after 2018. And the House is already gone. It doesn't look too good.

^^^LOL

The Alabama pervert lost!

I guess even a Democrat is preferable to a pervert in the deep south?

^^ Yes, I know that. What I meant is that the odds don't look good for Republicans to hold the Senate in November. This was based on my predictions about the five key seats from last week. Now it's starting to look like the best the GOP can hope for is a 50-50 Senate in 2019.

"the odds don't look good for Republicans to hold the Senate"

Yippee!

SJG