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Bernie Sanders

DirkWiggler said:
All you Bernie supporters realize that he wants to tax the "rich" at 90%, right? 90 fucking percent. Do you realize that if you tax the "rich" at 100%, meaning they give it all to you for you brain dead fucks, that it won't even cover ONE entitlement for 3 years? So please explain to me how taxing the job creators. to the point that they are in the welfare line, makes sense? You are damn right they are moving their $$ out of the country! Bernie supporters don't understand basic fucking economics, yep that's you, mr you know who.
Raise minimum wage to $15? Watch the jobs shrink and the businesses close. Of course, that is the goal isn't it? Less people working means more people are dependent on the government which is the ultimate goal of Bernie. Allow me to give a Sesame Street example. If you own a burger joint and everything stays consistent except payroll what will happen? Cost of goods sold are the same, utilities are the same, rent/ mortgage is the same. You are running on tight margines because owning a business is tough. You need to staff your burger joint with 6 employees plus yourself for lunch hour. $7.25 min wage X 6 employees= $43.50 for the hour. You charge $3.50 for a burger. That doesn't include the ADDITIONAL COST of payroll tax, workmans comp etc because I don't think many of you Bernie supporters could understand advanced math. Back to the burger joint. You have an operating expense of $43.50 for the hour and Bernie raises minimum wage to $15 an hour. You have 2 choices to keep your profit margins similar. You can cut the staff in half to 3 employees for the hour or you can charge $7 for your burger. Either 3 people lose their job or you have to price your burger out of reach of your target customer. Neither option is good.
The posters above are correct. Bernie supporters are either idiots or young kids that are idiots.
For the record. I have a BS in Accounting and I make $165,000 a year, my wife has a BS in nursing and also makes over $100 K a year.
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If your business model doesn't provide your employees with an adequate wage then how is it good for society at large? I think the point is everyone is fine with your shitty burger joint going under and its market share going to companies who can provide its employees with a living wage. When you people talk about businesses going under from the minimum wage going up you sound like antebellum plantation owners complaining how unfair it is for northern politicians to abolish slavery.
 
DirkWiggler said:
All you Bernie supporters realize that he wants to tax the "rich" at 90%, right? 90 fucking percent. Do you realize that if you tax the "rich" at 100%, meaning they give it all to you for you brain dead fucks, that it won't even cover ONE entitlement for 3 years? So please explain to me how taxing the job creators. to the point that they are in the welfare line, makes sense? You are damn right they are moving their $$ out of the country! Bernie supporters don't understand basic fucking economics, yep that's you, mr you know who.
Raise minimum wage to $15? Watch the jobs shrink and the businesses close. Of course, that is the goal isn't it? Less people working means more people are dependent on the government which is the ultimate goal of Bernie. Allow me to give a Sesame Street example. If you own a burger joint and everything stays consistent except payroll what will happen? Cost of goods sold are the same, utilities are the same, rent/ mortgage is the same. You are running on tight margines because owning a business is tough. You need to staff your burger joint with 6 employees plus yourself for lunch hour. $7.25 min wage X 6 employees= $43.50 for the hour. You charge $3.50 for a burger. That doesn't include the ADDITIONAL COST of payroll tax, workmans comp etc because I don't think many of you Bernie supporters could understand advanced math. Back to the burger joint. You have an operating expense of $43.50 for the hour and Bernie raises minimum wage to $15 an hour. You have 2 choices to keep your profit margins similar. You can cut the staff in half to 3 employees for the hour or you can charge $7 for your burger. Either 3 people lose their job or you have to price your burger out of reach of your target customer. Neither option is good.
The posters above are correct. Bernie supporters are either idiots or young kids that are idiots.
For the record. I have a BS in Accounting and I make $165,000 a year, my wife has a BS in nursing and also makes over $100 K a year.
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You are an accountant, and don't understand how tax brackets work?
 
Coolwhip said:
When you people talk about businesses going under from the minimum wage going up you sound like antebellum plantation owners complaining how unfair it is for northern politicians to abolish slavery.
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Seriously. I like when history gets brought up because we've learned through our trials and there is a known way to do things. When workers are paid more, they spend more money everywhere, including the very businesses that are paying the higher wages.

The "velocity of money" is known to be faster at the lower end than it is at the top. As it is now, a parasite caste of corporations and their oligarchical masters are hoarding trillions of capital that won't see its way back in circulation at the lower end any time soon. Do you think the CEO of X MegaCorp eats at Mom n' Pop's Burger Joint on the Corner? No. And that's just a micro example. We're talking vast sums of money.

Imagine if all Americans were +/- $30,000 richer. Don't imagine it for their sakes, imagine it for where that money would be headed. To businesses and commerce in general.

This is known shit and if you learn anything from history it tells you that when people have more money, they spend it more and it moves around more equitably.

Edit: And Droppy, wtf with the Bachelor's in Econ? Who was teaching your class, friggin' Ayn Rand?
 
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While absent from the site recently, I have been closely following this election cycle. I still support Sanders, but I did eventually begin to see what appear to be cracks in his platform. Of course, I want someone who fights for single-payer healthcare and cheaper college tuition, but in light of some of his comments about economic policies and criticisms of Wall Street, I have to admit that a part of me feels that his platform does appear a bit contrived. Wall Street reform is one of his major talking points, but his understanding of Wall Street does not appear to be so great. Glass-Steagall's repeal isn't what caused the market conditions that led to the downfall in 2008, yet Bernie has a major call-to-action to restore it. I do agree that Wall Street needs major reforms, and in that sense I support Bernie, but man... How has he not come up with a more nuanced policy towards Wall Street, when it is his main talking point? I think a few more economists on the campaign may have helped.

On a side note, has anyone received their Birdie Sanders stickers yet? =D
 
DirkWiggler said:
All you Bernie supporters realize that he wants to tax the "rich" at 90%, right?
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source?

I realize he says that there was a time (the 1950s), when official rates among the wealthy were 90%. Which is true. He's also said he's not as socialist as that commie Eisenhower.


Droppersneck said:
Well not quite lol Econ
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Just pointing out that getting a doctorate at a major university is going to take a bit longer to pay off than a technical license or something similar.
 
I think that it is common for conversations on this topic to lack nuance. This is from a NY Times article where this question of the effect of Glass-Steagall's repeal was posed to Elizabeth Warren:

When I called Ms. Warren and pressed her about whether she thought the financial crisis or JPMorgan’s losses could have been avoided if Glass-Steagall were in place, she conceded: “The answer is probably ‘No’ to both.”

[...]

In my conversation with Ms. Warren she told me that one of the reasons she’s been pushing reinstating Glass-Steagall — even if it wouldn’t have prevented the financial crisis — is that it is an easy issue for the public to understand and “you can build public attention behind.”

She added that she considers Glass-Steagall more of a symbol of what needs to happen to regulations than the specifics related to the act itself.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/reinstating-an-old-rule-is-not-a-cure-for-crisis/


I think that Bernie should be talking about which specific parts of Glass-Steagall were effective and should be brought back, or even just specific reform measures that could be implemented. When Glass-Steagall was repealed, it was rife with loopholes and wasn't preventing the risky behavior that led to the financial crisis. Surely the basis for modern reform measures should be an improvement upon that bill and look to take into account the risk shifts that have been introduced into the market since 2008.
 
The thing about glass-stegall is it was written in the early 1930s. The financial system has evolved (quite a bit....as in taken over....) since then. The main focus of the act should be the barring of using customer cash and credit for commercial betting. That's just a given. Much, much more will need to be added to a new bill to catch up to the mayhem unleashed by Reagan and Wall Street.
 
cashfl0w_d0nkey said:
While absent from the site recently, I have been closely following this election cycle. I still support Sanders, but I did eventually begin to see what appear to be cracks in his platform. Of course, I want someone who fights for single-payer healthcare and cheaper college tuition, but in light of some of his comments about economic policies and criticisms of Wall Street, I have to admit that a part of me feels that his platform does appear a bit contrived. Wall Street reform is one of his major talking points, but his understanding of Wall Street does not appear to be so great. Glass-Steagall's repeal isn't what caused the market conditions that led to the downfall in 2008, yet Bernie has a major call-to-action to restore it. I do agree that Wall Street needs major reforms, and in that sense I support Bernie, but man... How has he not come up with a more nuanced policy towards Wall Street, when it is his main talking point? I think a few more economists on the campaign may have helped.

On a side note, has anyone received their Birdie Sanders stickers yet? =D
Click to expand...

When you see cracks in the platform like totally free tuition and other things that do not make economic sense, do you assume what he really means is affordable tuition? And that he is dumbing-down the descriptions for the public? Ohter policy proposals would have to be gone over by experts in economics and then modified before they are implemented, or else they could be destructive. Not that the Clintons did this in the 1990s. We are well into the second decade of the damage done by their ill-conceived economic policies. But unlike other politicians, Sanders give the impression of being thoughtful and careful. Would he really do something stupid and harmful?
 
Endless war doesn't make economic sense (or any kind of sense) but rarely do people speak out about such abhorent things.
 
socko said:
When you see cracks in the platform like totally free tuition and other things that do not make economic sense, do you assume what he really means is affordable tuition? And that he is dumbing-down the descriptions for the public? Ohter policy proposals would have to be gone over by experts in economics and then modified before they are implemented, or else they could be destructive. Not that the Clintons did this in the 1990s. We are well into the second decade of the damage done by their ill-conceived economic policies. But unlike other politicians, Sanders give the impression of being thoughtful and careful. Would he really do something stupid and harmful?
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No, I agree with you, and it is why I am still a Sanders supporter. I think the Elizabeth Warren quotes that I provided do show that they are dumbing down their message. Based on idealistic priorities, I'm firmly in the Sanders camp. I just question how feasible it all is, and am concerned that for all the Wall Street bashing, there has been little in the way of technical discussion. I feel that the loss in New York last week was a pivotal moment in the campaign and a certain amount of it has to do with perceived lack of expertise in the area. Some of this was because of the media, parroting the line about Bernie's incompetence in the NY Daily Times interview (which I think was overblown), but I feel some of it is because people who are knowledgeable about finance find it hard to buy into someone calling for revolution on Wall Street but whose policy proposals are basically a call to reinstate Glass-Steagall and a poorly-defined plan to break up the big banks. It's clear that the aim of the campaign is to appeal to popular opinion, but I disagree with this strategy. Maybe it was fine for the beginning of the campaign, but a more detailed plan for Wall Street reform should have come out once people's attention had been garnered and things started getting serious.
 
GenericMind said:
If free college tuition didn't make economic sense than why do so many other countries have it?
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I think it will be difficult to implement in our country. I just got out of college recently and the costs are spiraling out of control. I got basically the full government grants every year except one and still had to take out about $40k in debt. Some of this was due to the requirement for me to have health insurance, which basically was a $2500 charge that got added to my account each year. I think that eventually getting to the point where college education is free is a worthy goal, however implementing it in our current situation does seem like a bit of a stretch.

Healthcare is a similar issue but I do think it is at least reasonably possible that single payer could be enacted.

spacejunk said:
Endless war doesn't make economic sense (or any kind of sense) but rarely do people speak out about such abhorent things.
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I agree with this too, and it is very refreshing to hear a politician with as much support as Sanders talk about the military-industrial complex. Again, this is why I am a Sanders supporter. I just think that we have reached the point where the Sanders path to nomination is quite bleak and it is worth analyzing where there may have been faults in the campaign that a future candidate could improve upon.
 
DirkWiggler said:
All you Bernie supporters realize that he wants to tax the "rich" at 90%, right? 90 fucking percent.
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except that's not true. from the democratic primary debate in iowa, 11.14.15: "We haven't come up with an exact number yet, but it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was 90%."

i've done some searching and the best i can find is his campaign saying "...for the top marginal rates, go over 50%"

can you please provide substantiation of your 90% figure? thanks.

alasdair
 
coming from a country where university education is almost free (if you exceed your minimum time + two semesters of studying, you have to pay about 300EUR each semester), I can say that it comes with problems. Nowadays, almost everybody who went to high school wants to study, often purely for economic reasons, and many even don't really like what they do, but society puts pressure on "better qualifications".

At the same time, public universities don't get funded as much as they should. but this is also another side of how tax money gets wasted and is missing elswhere... now they want to give the police force a billion EUR more over the next years, even though crime is as low as it always has been. go figure...
 
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