The Donald and Crazy Bernie

[Starlight]

I guess if you love to see rich fat cats getting richer and hard working full time employees unable to negotiate pay rates high enough to feed their children, then yeah, that's a good thing.

Then you must have hated the past 7 years.

Yes. Although Obama has at least talked about the problem of inequality, and called on congress to raise the minimum wage. But my dislike goes all the way back to around the late 1970s / early 1980s:


(from here. Both lines are adjusted for inflation.)

GDP has steadily climbed since WWII at a pretty linear rate of about 3% per year, as a result of continuing technological advancement and a gradually increasing amount of women entering the workforce. Until about 1980, the amount of income the median family was getting grew with GDP, reflecting a fair and proportional distribution of profits to the workers who were creating them.

But since 1980 economy has continued to increase the same way it always was, but the amount of money going to the median family has basically flat-lined (other versions of the above graph actually show it decreasing slightly rather than increasing slightly as the above graph does, I think it depends exactly what is data-source is used in the plot and how inflation is accounted for). Basically ALL of the profits from increased productivity since 1980 have gone to the wealthy few. The average worker has seen approximately zero benefit in terms of wage rises from their ever-increasing productivity.

Due to the fact that the historical minimum wage was not pegged to inflation, it is now common to hear stories of people who work full time but are still below the poverty line because the amounts they are being paid are simply too small to live on.

So yes, I'm not pleased about Obama's relatively ineffectual actions to address this, but the problem significantly predates him (I largely blame Reagan), and will require a much more serious solution along the basic lines of: Raising the minimum wage and tying it to inflation, strengthening the powers of unions to negotiate fair wages with employers, lowering taxes on the poor and middle-class and raising taxes on the rich, strengthening social security. When you live in the wealthiest and most productive country in the history of the world there's not really any excuse for having people who work full time yet don't earn enough to feed their families and pay their rent.

That's basically why I consider Bernie Sanders the only credible candidate in the current US election cycle. He's actually serious about addressing this. Hillary pretends to care in order to win votes, but everyone who follows politics knows she's sufficiently corrupt that any action she does take is likely to be half-hearted and carefully crafted concessions to try to appease Wall St and big business as much as possible. Whereas the Republicans are so corrupt they don't even try and pretend, they outright admit they'd love to cut taxes and cut welfare and push the accelerator peddle of inequality down as hard as possible, and they just try to pretend to their voters that that's a good thing, and their base is so stupid that they just nod and say "well if you tell me that taking more money from me and giving it to rich people will be best, then I guess it will be, so I'm going to vote for you!"

[Cow Poke]

I'm utterly unsurprised that you would a) cite a Canadian speechwriter that b) fails to support your contentions.

He normally doesn't cite anything at all.

[JimL]

1. Yes Sanders is honest. if I was a progressive I would vote for him.

2. And no Walker does not have a terrible record. He broke the public sector unions (a good thing) he lowered property taxes (gave rebates), passed voter ID laws, and made Wisconsin a right to work state, lowered business taxes, froze education spending, etc.... All things close to my heart. And if he was so bad why was he elected twice by popular vote and survive a recall, in fairly liberal Wisconsin?

Yes, Walker did all the things you like, just like Christie did in N.J. and Brownback did in Kentucky, and the results of their conservative policies, those policies that you like, are that the wealthy and the corporations are even wealthier, and that their pretend constituents, you know, the majority of the people, as well as their states overall economic health, are worse off than when they took office. And you wonder why republicans have trouble winning national, ungerrymandered elections. Thats why the conservative think tanks come up with ideas like "voter suppression laws". They know that in fair elections, their chances of winning are slim. They can't fool all of the people all of the time, but if they can fool enough of you, and suppress a bunch more, they may have a shot at winning, enriching further still their true constituency, and destroying the entire economy once again.

[seer]

Yes, Walker did all the things you like, just like Christie did in N.J. and Brownback did in Kentucky, and the results of their conservative policies, those policies that you like, are that the wealthy and the corporations are even wealthier, and that their pretend constituents, you know, the majority of the people, as well as their states overall economic health, are worse off than when they took office. And you wonder why republicans have trouble winning national, ungerrymandered elections. Thats why the conservative think tanks come up with ideas like "voter suppression laws". They know that in fair elections, their chances of winning are slim. They can't fool all of the people all of the time, but if they can fool enough of you, and suppress a bunch more, they may have a shot at winning, enriching further still their true constituency, and destroying the entire economy once again.

Grow up James, socialism doesn't work - it never did.

[seer]

Grow up James, socialism doesn't work - it never did.

Let me repeat my post to Star:

No, actually public sector workers should not be unionized in the first place - even FDR knew. My state is drowning in debt because of salaries, benefits and pensions for public sector workers, and my city is no different. And we had the two largest tax increases in the history of my state the past few years. Yes, some fell on the wealthy but the vast majority fell on the middle class. There are just not enough rich people to solve this problem. Let me give you two examples; I have two friends, one a city firefighter and one a state cop. Both retired recently, and both are in their early 50s. The firefighter will get a pension of $62,0000 a year for the rest of his life with full medical and the cop will get $71,000 a year for the rest of his life with full medical. And in both cases if they die their wives get the benefits until they die. This is unsustainable. Yes there are two classes, the public sector workers and the rest of us trying to make ends meet under confiscatory tax rates.

[KingsGambit]

I think Trump has just had his own Howard Dean moment by questioning John McCain's war heroism: "I prefer people who weren't captured." I don't imagine that too many of his would-be primary supporters are going to like that.

[Jedidiah]

I think Trump has just had his own Howard Dean moment by questioning John McCain's war heroism: "I prefer people who weren't captured." I don't imagine that too many of his would-be primary supporters are going to like that.

I doubt that many of McCain's supporters will be too interested in Trump in the first place. Those supporters are mostly liberal Republicans, I call them RINOs.

[KingsGambit]

I doubt that many of McCain's supporters will be too interested in Trump in the first place. Those supporters are mostly liberal Republicans, I call them RINOs.

I didn't say anything about McCain supporters...

[rogue06]

I doubt that many of McCain's supporters will be too interested in Trump in the first place. Those supporters are mostly liberal Republicans, I call them RINOs.

Republicans tend to big supporters of the troops and I can imagine that Trump (who, in spite of claims that he avoided the draft only due to having a high draft number, actually relied on a series of student and medical deferments) left many of them cold due to his remarks.

[Starlight]

Republicans tend to big supporters of the troops

Republican voters maybe, Republican politicians definitely not. In no practical or useful ways do the Republican politicians support the troops. Republican politicians have consistently voted at every opportunity to slash benefits for veterans, from medical care to mortgage assistance. Try googling "republicans support troops" and you'll find every single article on the first page is about how the Republicans actively vote against support for the troops.

There's a useful listing here of the Republicans various anti-veteran votes.

It's amazing how many times Republican politicians talk about how they "support the troops" when the reality is the exact opposite: No one is more anti-veteran than Republican politicians in practice. It's one of their biggest lies.

The politician who's actually done the most for veterans is Bernie Sanders, who became head of the Senate Veterans Committee in 2013, and who managed to negotiate better healthcare for veterans out of the Republicans. However, as recently as a couple of months ago, Republicans went back to voting down Sander's latest bill for better care for veterans. Sanders regularly criticizes the Republicans in his speeches for their lack of willingness to pay the healthcare costs of those wounded in the wars they so enthusiastically start.

[One Bad Pig]

I think Trump has just had his own Howard Dean moment by questioning John McCain's war heroism: "I prefer people who weren't captured." I don't imagine that too many of his would-be primary supporters are going to like that.

Trump is not a serious candidate. He's just hogging the spotlight.

[Sam]

I think Trump has just had his own Howard Dean moment by questioning John McCain's war heroism: "I prefer people who weren't captured." I don't imagine that too many of his would-be primary supporters are going to like that.

I imagine that'd be a Pyrrhic victory for the 2016 GOP candidates, at this point. If Trump flames out for criticizing a hated icon of the Establishment, he's still going to hold onto a good number of supporters who will support an attack, no matter how ostentatious or vile, because it targets the "right kind of person". These are the folks who not only allowed but perpetuated the same sort of vileness regarding Obama.

In short, the hope better be that people get bored with Trump rather than Trump goes out with any inkling of the martyrdom. Because a chunk of the base has been literally begging to go third-party for a while and Trump isn't about to yield the headlines in pursuit of this con job. The Republican party can't afford the loss of many voters, since it's not going to be picking many up.

[KingsGambit]

Republican voters maybe, Republican politicians definitely not. In no practical or useful ways do the Republican politicians support the troops.

My post strictly had Republican voters in mind so none of this is relevant.

[whag]

A comment I posted elsewhere regarding Trump's popularity:

"It's amazing how simply telling the truth has rocked this nation like a lightning bolt. We've been so desperate for so long for our leaders in Washington to simply tell us the truth that it's absurdly refreshing when someone actually does it. Seriously, it shouldn't be this way."

Yup, some lightning bolt. Seems all that refreshing truth talk is genuinely offensive:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015...-presidential/

When will you stop being a tool and recognize Trump is pandering to you?

[JimL]

Grow up James, socialism doesn't work - it never did.

Really, tell that to your parents, grandparents and all those whose lives, most likely including your own, were made all the better by the social policies intituted by the Democratic party. It is always an amazing thing to me that people are so naive as to be led to vote against their own best interests, as well as the best interests of the country as a whole, by, and in favor of, the top 10%. Propaganda works, and money is its backbone.