I will be voting for Bernie Sanders

[MJSfoto1956]

After last night's debate I'm thinking Kamala Harris is the one to beat.

 

[alpine44]

In the following article, they do make a compelling case that Socialism and Democracy are incompatible.

Socialism Is Not Democratic

The arguments presented in this article are hard to refute in light of the recorded history of Socialism on this planet.

How people who complain about over-reach of our federal government and dis-empowerment of the individual can seriously propose any form of Socialism as the cure is beyond me.

"Socialism" is an economic system, and "Democracy" is a political system. The two can co-exist, even if history shows that most of the time they don't co-exist. The same can be said for "Capitalism", which also has succumbed to various levels of authoritarianism(Pinochet's Chile, modern Singapore, Mexico, even the modern U.S. as examples of capitalistic nations where any notion of Democracy is dead from a functional standpoint, regardless of the illusion of one perpetuated by government/corporate propaganda).

Socialism takes many forms, arguably the most successful of which is the Nordic model, a sort of hybridization between Socialism and Capitalism. The nations that have also successfully adopted this or similar economic models have one thing in common: they are far less authoritarian than the other nations on Earth and the people tend to have a larger say when it comes to the policy of the state they live under, and also people tend to be more free to live their lives as they see fit than in the other places. They're not anarchist or libertarian utopias of course, as there are certain criterion that more authoritarian nations can claim to be more free with regard to(such as the U.S. with its right to bear arms not yet fully eviscerated but for the most part absent in these countries, and the fact that it is still almost unheard of to have the totalitarian "hate speech" laws in U.S. states that some of the Nordic model countries have adopted).

I grew up in Germany next to one of the colossal failures of Socialism/Communism formerly known as the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik = German Democratic Republic). The two systems of former East and West Germany started at the same time, at the same level of destruction after WWII, with a very similar if not identical pool of people. Almost like an ideal lab experiment for comparing the merits of two different economic and political systems.

About a decade after the Wall was built, we (in the West) had a joke in school about how to turn a banana into a compass. Go to the Berlin Wall, hold the banana up, and the end bitten off points to the East. Unfortunately, this was not just a joke. The "Democratic" state that promised equal wealth for all delivered privileges for very, very few and poverty for the rest. The right to vote where you wanted to live was terminated with a bullet or shrapnel from mines along the "antifascist bulwark" as the Eastern propaganda called the Wall. If you know a better example for adding insult to injury, please let me know.

"Never again" was the mantra I grew up to, referring to what Hitler's rise to power had done to Germany and the world. After the Berlin wall came down, the same mantra should be applied to that ill-fated idea of a superior system.

Western Germany also had socialistic tendencies, even if it may not have gone full retard like East Germany. East Germany was a democracy in name only, and as you pointed out, had many of the same problems more capitalistic nations were criticized for having, except those problems existed in greater abundance.

The stark difference between the two when it came to civil liberties and social freedoms also can't be ignored, and in my opinion, was possibly a larger driver of East Germany's misery than the economic system East Germany was under. All of the domestic spying, crackdown of dissent, and general totalitarianism that engulfed East Germany existed to keep the privileged privileged and the powerful in power, by rendering meaningful opposition nearly impossible.

China's social credit system today is a more comprehensive method of achieving the same goal.

The idea of Socialism is generally favored by people who feel underprivileged in the current system. They seek a more just distribution of wealth and resources. They complain about greedy, rich people who have all the money and all the power.

If their desire for Socialism would materialize, these people would then complain about those who mooch more off the re-distribution system than they do. A change of the political system is never going to change a personal philosophy of self-victimization. There is no political prophet who will miraculously guide us into a happier future. But there is one person, one savior, who can turn our lives around. The best way to find this person is to stand in front of a mirror.

Changing ones self is always possible. Oft times the problems a person experiences do not originate within the self, but by circumstances imposed upon that person by external variables out of their control, imposed upon them by people given more power over their lives than themselves due to economic disparities and the advantages a certain subset of people reap from these disparities. THAT is why socialism has appeal. Victimhood is real. Exploitation is real. When one acknowledges a system that has stacked the deck against them, it is not whining, but simply accepting the parasitic relationships that exist in society. Those in power skewing society towards their favored outcomes are doing so with a given goal in mind, and are usually getting their desired and predicted result.

Blame the victims all you like, but all the recommendations for self help will not change the underlying circumstances that create the victims or their perception of themselves as such. The increasing cries for socialism from tens of millions of people, misguided or otherwise, do not occur in a vacuum and generally do not occur without good reason. There is a cause and effect relationship at play that do involve factors outside the control of the individual people demanding a change in the economic system. Ignore them at your peril.

When a small elite get to horde the vast majority of society's wealth for themselves, that is an indicator of an economic system that fails to reward the rest of the population no matter how hard they work and no matter how much they try to improve or change themselves. When a small elite also have a disproportionate influence on public policy and the future of a nation, this is also an indicator of a political system that allows the few to control the collective futures of the many. Functionally, that is what is going on, as the empirical facts show.

https://journalistsresource.org/stu...oups-and-average-voters-on-american-politics/

Define your goals, develop a rational path towards these goals, and make a compelling value proposition to whoever you expect to fund your aspirations, be that a customer, an investor, or an employer.

I've done that many times, and got nowhere due to a lack of resources and/or getting screwed over by unplanned events totally outside of my control. My only choices are to keep trying or to quit. I still haven't given up on my goals, in spite of family members trying to convince me to do so. They have no goals of their own, based upon what I asked them, and some of them have similarly been beaten down so many times they just gave up on themselves, while others had no goals to begin with or a desire to do anything with themselves only to squander opportunity that the others never got.

Then again, it's kind of hard for someone to metaphorically pull themselves up by the bootstraps when their arms have been cut off and those who are born into privilege keep a boot on their chest because it is more profitable for them to do so.

Companies owe you as little wage for your mere existence as a customers owes you payments, or an investors investments.

If you are poorer than you think you should be, then you are the one who has to fix that. You have to convince others that you are worth more than they initially think.

All fine and good, except you're no longer allowed to live independent from said companies. Almost all the land and resources that nature has given humanity have been commodified and "owned" by a small group of privileged people who own said companies, and who are willing to use men with guns to restrict access, little different than the Lord of the manor refusing to let the serfs hunt on "his" land with his vassals assigned to enforce the edict.

At this point, there are plenty of motivated, intelligent, hard-working people that are being denied the right to exist because they don't have money, are kept away from having enough money to get what they need in exchange for their work, and are given few if any viable alternatives.

Most of the Earth has been rendered into a giant company store from which there is no escape, and the number of "winners" and "losers" is already determined in advance thanks to a small elite hoarding all the resources and controlling access to money, who are choosing who gets to have access to the resources, how much they get to have access to, and who doesn't get any.

Unlike the Federal Reserve Bank, the average person can't just create money out of thin air, either.

If you can read this and feel compelled to argue with this, then you are not part of the small group that has to be taken care of by society because they lack the mental facilities to run your their own lives. I other word, unless you are a certified moron, you are the master of your destiny. For better or worse.

"Master of your destiny"... What a cruel joke.

I suppose I could start robbing and killing people to get what I need/want? Then maybe that would be true, so long as I don't get caught up in a bloated legal system designed to control my destiny for me. Perhaps I could start selling dope, since I can't simply put a gun to someone's head and force them to hire me at a fair wage for honest work? Maybe I should just TAKE everything I need and want? You know, that actually WOULD give me some modicum of control over my destiny, more than I've ever had.

I'm much more a fan of the non-aggression principle, however. Because of that, if no employer hires me and I lack the monetary resources/tools to employ myself at a minimum of subsistence level, perhaps I'm just worthless and should go crawl into a gutter and die somewhere, as that is what today's Capitalist society would dictate? The inverted totalitarianism most of the Capitalist Western World is living under is actually a sort of opposite of that non-aggression principle, where those higher on the socio-economic hierarchy have the state use forms violence, whether direct or implied, upon those lower in the socio-economic hierarchy, in order to maintain their privileges and "property rights", and to keep those on the lower tiers of the socio-economic hierarchy from being able to support themselves by denying access to the land/resources that nature provided.

It is for that specific reason that more theoretically egalitarian economic and political systems have mass appeal. From a purely functional(and not theoretical) standpoint, people are enslaved under this "free" Capitalist system, and many of them know it and can perceive it. If one who isn't already independently wealthy and who doesn't have access to the means of production isn't able/willing/given an opportunity to make someone else money off of their hard work and limited time on this Earth, their right to even exist is in jeopardy, and they are completely subject to the terms and conditions of others who have access to the land/resources, no matter how unreasonable or degrading those terms and conditions are. At the same time, everyone is paradoxically told how they are "free" under this Capitalist system, while biological necessity and the resources needed to meet its non-negotiable dictates doesn't ever stop.

The notion that the whole productive output of the human race gets to go towards enriching a small group of billionaires definitely needs to be reconsidered. The civil strife, environmental degradation, desperation, and misery that will result from this not being addressed WILL destroy society otherwise. In fact, the level of division and discord in today's society is already prima facie evidence that society is beginning to unravel at least in part as a result of this, and given the size of the Earth's population, the degraded natural environment, and all of the life-destroying technologies and systems already in deployment that require constant upkeep to keep their consequences in check, it is questionable that humanity will even survive such an unraveling if taken to its logical conclusion, and no individual would be able to change that outcome all on their own.

If you take a closer look at the biographies of the richest people in the world, you will see overwhelmingly more 'rags to riches' stories than 'born with the silver spoon' upbringings. That is not a coincidence. These folks were not content with their status quo and they did something about it. They identified an opportunity in the marketplace and found effective ways to capitalize on this opportunity by working their a$$es off since they were little. Even heirs of family fortunes like the Waltons have to prove their mettle daily against relentless competition from all sides.

The difference between them and you is not where they came form, it is where these individuals enabled themselves to go.

I can guarantee you that anyone who interviews you will pick up in a few minutes that you are not committed to success 'no matter what it takes', that you are easy to blame others for your failures, coupled with an attitude of entitlement for more financial reward. Would you want an individual like this to solve your problems?

What kills your opportunities is your perspective, evidenced by the whole diatribe about some rich people holding you down. Guess what, they have more important things to do, like working towards their dreams and visions. At some point in the history of Amazon Jeff Bezos wondered about how he could buy a forklift. I guess he figured it out rather assuming that there is a global conspiracy of withholding forklifts from small companies. Look at folks like LFP, Arlo1, etc. here on this forum who persisted with their garage-built dreams and now have customers knocking at their doors. As far as I can tell they were not born into money either.

Companies make money from people with disposable income. If you are convinced that there is a global effort of making your life economically more difficult then why don't you pitch a venture that monetizes making poverty worse to some venture capitalists and see where that goes. Hint: High school math will show you that you do not get billions of dollars in revenues from folks who do not have two nickels to rub together even if the entire world population would be your customer base.

In our society it has become popular to blame people for being successful rather than blaming the ones who repeatedly fail due to being locked in their ways of approaching life's challenges. Years ago, I developed a database system for a state's department of human services and had access to the case files of the so called less fortunate. The number of cases that had 'fallen on hard times' was remarkably small and these individuals did not stay in the system for long. The overwhelming majority of the department's clients took great effort in screwing their lives up. If they just had rolled the dice, instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again, they would have been better off by far. There is a certain number of individuals who will never 'get it' and we should take care of those. But depriving the rest of the population from opportunities to excel, even to billionaire level, is not the way to do this.

Germany, who was a formidable contender if not leader in high-tech during WWII is now in the ranks of 'further running'. Bosch makes some neat, albeit expensive, mid-drives for e-bikes and AMG a breath-taking EV for the über-wealthy. However, it took folks in the USA to breathe new ideas into the transportation sector. Why would anybody plow millions of his own money in a company challenging 'big auto' in a country that rewards you for success with a tax of over 50% on income exceeding 285 thousand dollar? If you have issues with the tax man taking too much, don't bother putting Germany on your list of desirable societies.

OK, money is not everything. So, lets look a environmental conscience. Germany leaned left and voted to get rid of nuclear and pretty much forced solar panels on people's roofs. The result is more CO2 production per capita in the future and no technological edge. That's worse than par for the course. Then, there is the EU and their apparatus in Brussels who was very quick in limiting the top speed of e-bikes and did zilch for development of battery technology, motor controllers, etc. to improve range and/or efficiency.

As far as land ownership is concerned, please show me a country in the world that has more public land than the USA. Granted, that land is not suitable for homesteading but consider that a blessing for you. Most people who complain how hard it is to be successful in a society that supposedly disadvantages them have no idea how hard it is to support yourself in the wild. Mother nature is merciless and has zero (0) empathy for the feeble, lazy, or ignorant. It is much easier to (legally) put food on the table in our society than it is in nature. I enjoy living off the land not as a break from hard work but as an opportunity for honing my edge to survive and thrive. And everybody I meet several days away from the closest trail head feels the same way. Your complaint about not having a cushy corporate job is simply a first world problem.

That's all I have to comment on your political vision of how to easily fix your personal dilemma. I think we would both be better served if we now put our nose to the grindstone and make something happen in our lives rather than arguing the merits of another political fantasy. As I said before, if wealth would be redistributed forcefully, you would have to compete against those who will be better at scamming the re-distribution systems.

 

[alpine44]

After last night's debate I'm thinking Kamala Harris is the one to beat.

There was never a chance for a white dude running for the left anyway. The demographic group that is deciding the outcome of the next election are college educated, white women. The rest is going to stand where they stood the last time.

I hope that the targets of populist lures thrown in the water have learned enough in college to see the pesky issues with proposals like fining companies for paying women less than men.

First, how do we factor in the figure of merit for positions that have the same title on paper but contribute differently to the bottom line? Secondly, are we giving intersectionality points for other minorities and risk that a gay, african-american man may end up with more money than a straight, white woman? And thirdly, was equality not about being blind to gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation?

 

[neptronix]

When Bernie announced that he'd tax financial transactions to pay off student loan debt recently, i realized he was not serious about becoming the president. Banks and other financial institutions are mainstays in democratic party funding, and it should be obvious that any candidate who is interested in working against their interests will not receive funding. Dude shot himself in the foot.

It reminds me of what Ron Paul did. He'd propose a bunch of goodies that are politically unattainable, and knew he was unelectable, but ran anyway, just to get the word out about libertarianism. I suspect Bernie is doing the same thing, except i haven't seen the same moment of honesty from him. Maybe later..

 

[Dauntless]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/28/us/princeton-grad-found-guilty-murder-trnd/index.html

Woe be to all who oppose basic minimum income. The reason Democracy and socialism cannot coexist is because they require the other to not exist. The basic unit of democracy is choice, the basic unit of socialism is force, a la Obamacare fines you for not paying for it.

 

[The Toecutter]

When Bernie announced that he'd tax financial transactions to pay off student loan debt recently, i realized he was not serious about becoming the president. Banks and other financial institutions are mainstays in democratic party funding, and it should be obvious that any candidate who is interested in working against their interests will not receive funding. Dude shot himself in the foot.

It reminds me of what Ron Paul did. He'd propose a bunch of goodies that are politically unattainable, and knew he was unelectable, but ran anyway, just to get the word out about libertarianism. I suspect Bernie is doing the same thing, except i haven't seen the same moment of honesty from him. Maybe later..

You need to ask yourself why these things are politically unattainable even though they have mass popular appeal among the population living within the so-called "Democracy" or "representative Republic" whose so-called representatives claim to exemplify the interests of said population.

Bernie is nothing like Ron Paul, however. Bernie is a statist and leans authoritarian, even if he's not nearly as extreme as the rest of the democrats when it comes to his tendency towards authoritarianism. When it comes to a composite of the views of the American people today, Bernie is about the closest thing to an actual centrist in the race, in a sea of right-wing totalitarian corporatists pretending to be liberals because they have a "D" next to their name and pander almost exclusively to identity politics issues that affect a small minority of the population. I personally do not trust him, even though he says lots of things that need to be discussed, things that have prompted the corporate media to censor him and his message.

Once again, I don't have a horse in this race. None of the candidates are good. Of them, Tulsi Gabbard is the least offensive to my sensibilities, but she's also a gun grabber like the rest of them. In spite of this flaw, she's the only one talking about at least scaling back the endless war paradigm and even broaching the subject of pardoning Snowden and Assange, who did us all a massive service by revealing another layer to the corruption of this countries governing institutions. It's not a surprise that Tulsi is receiving even less coverage from the mainstream media than even Bernie, given that the endless war racket has been a gravy train for the fake journalists for decades, while practicing actual journalism has been rendered a crime in the land of "freedom of speech" which gets one persecuted(Glenn Greenwald), imprisoned(Julian Assange) or even killed under highly suspicious circumstances(Michael Hastings, Gary Webb).

If the DNC shoves a Biden, a Booker, a Harris, or any other fascist pretending to be center or center-left down our collective throats, it will likely seal a 2020 victory for the Orange Thing again, which while a terrible outcome, would probably be no more worse than if the DNC's Manchurian candidate got placed into the oval office in the Orange Thing's stead.

James Howard Kunstler had some interesting commentary on the Democratic Party "debates":

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/say-anything/

 

[The Toecutter]

If you take a closer look at the biographies of the richest people in the world, you will see overwhelmingly more 'rags to riches' stories than 'born with the silver spoon' upbringings. That is not a coincidence. These folks were not content with their status quo and they did something about it.

The above article linked obfuscates the real story. It lumps someone who could be said to come from "rags" under a very broad range of socio-economic positions including being upper middle class.

The truth is that about 1/3 of Forbes 400 were born with or inherited directly enough wealth to automatically qualify. Another third received significant advantages and/or capital that 95% of the population never will have that they used to help expand upon their wealth. Only about 1/3 came from middle class backgrounds or below, and being middle class is quite a large advantage compared to someone who started on the very bottom.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/49167533

http://www.faireconomy.org/press_room/1997/born_on_third_base_sources_of_wealth_of_1997_forbes_400

In the U.S., your odds of moving from a lower socio-economic status to a higher socio-economic status are among the lowest in the developed world, lower than even those 1st world countries that are among the most socialist in economic policy:

https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/

They identified an opportunity in the marketplace and found effective ways to capitalize on this opportunity by working their a$$es off since they were little.

They also had hundreds of thousands/millions of laborers work to make them that fortune. That fortune was accumulated by not rewarding them anything close to a fair share of that generated fortune in exchange for their work.

Even heirs of family fortunes like the Waltons have to prove their mettle daily against relentless competition from all sides.

At one point, six of the Waltons collectively owned more wealth than more than 40% of all Americans put together.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/walmart-heirs-waltons-wealth-income-inequality/

I highly doubt those 6 Waltons put together did nearly as much work as that number of Americans did. In fact, when I was employed, a percentage of my tax dollars, taken from me without my consent, were used to subsidize the Walton's grossly underpaid employees who were paid so little they relied upon Section 8 housing, Obamacare/Medicaid/Medicare, and food stamps to meet their basic needs, even though they had jobs.

The difference between them and you is not where they came form, it is where these individuals enabled themselves to go.

They didn't merely enable themselves to go places. They were enabled with plenty of outside assistance that most people will never see and presented with once in a lifetime opportunities that most will never come across to better their positions.

I can guarantee you that anyone who interviews you will pick up in a few minutes that you are not committed to success 'no matter what it takes', that you are easy to blame others for your failures, coupled with an attitude of entitlement for more financial reward.

That's rich. I've only gotten two job interviews out of hundreds of resumes/applications sent out, when I have 9 years of experience in a field that is supposedly in such huge demand that H1B Visas need to be approved to fill the positions because people with my skillset are claimed to be in such short supply and can’t be found. To boot, I was excellent at what I did and have no shortage of good references to line my resumes.

I know competent people with skillsets similar to mine that are homeless or living in their parents' basements unemployed, still mired in student loan debt that has defaulted and risen to levels that are mathematically impossible to repay if the best one can get is a normal job, while companies beg the government to allow foreigners to fill unfilled positions(at greatly reduced wages).

Something is very broken here. Today's crony capitalist system punishes the very people who try to be responsible, and encourages irresponsible debt taking by severely limiting one's options else-wise.

What kills your opportunities is your perspective, evidenced by the whole diatribe about some rich people holding you down.

What kills my opportunities is that they are next to non-existent to begin with. This is not a matter of perspective, it's a matter of reality. I can't simply will opportunities or money into existence. I have to find them, and that's easier said than done, and there's only so many hours in a day to pursue them and only so many places one can look within their immediate vicinity until they have to expend money/resources they may not have in order to expand the search elsewhere. I'm even willing to settle for menial low-paying jobs outside of my former career just to have money coming in so that I can stop the bleeding of my remaining savings and avoid starving/going homeless, and also to have some capital to invest in making prototypes of things I've been wanting to build for years but never had the cash to, which could possibly turn into a business at a later date, and thus far can't even get that menial wage job. Supposedly unemployment is at record lows, yet I can't find work and almost everyone I know who is out of work can't find work either. AI/automation is going to exacerbate this issue, exponentially, and all of the fake government statistics used to smear lipstick on this pig are not going to change the reality.

Meanwhile, as the last of my savings is spent on sustenance and keeping my ailing mother who is unable to walk or work in her home, should I fail to find an income source and end up destitute as a result, it can easily be predicted that promoters of this current reigning economic paradigm would quickly tell me that I'm at fault if I end up homeless or that I chose this fate for myself. The reality is that anyone who would make such an argument couldn't be further from the truth.

Guess what, they have more important things to do, like working towards their dreams and visions.

Those dreams and visions usually involve more profit and power for themselves or some grandiose monument to their perceived greatness, at the expense of the rest of society. In fact, they think that the best use of everyone elses' lives is being in service to their personal visions, only to be cast aside like refuse when they are no longer of use to serving that vision.

Look at folks like LFP, Arlo1, etc. here on this forum who persisted with their garage-built dreams and now have customers knocking at their doors. As far as I can tell they were not born into money either.

They may not have been born into lots of money, but they had some resources to work with to get somewhere AND had favorable circumstance whenever/wherever they had to take risk. Without resources, one is stuck, and the same happens when one risks everything and loses. The U.S. system punishes people just for being in a vulnerable position outside of their control. They are fortunate not to have gotten into that trap(as am I, considering I'm not yet destitute AND I managed to get rid of my student loan debt).

I can't speak for them, but I highly doubt they could be considered independently wealthy or among the even smaller class of people my diatribe is critical of, even though they may be well off.

Companies make money from people with disposable income. If you are convinced that there is a global effort of making your life economically more difficult then why don't you pitch a venture that monetizes making poverty worse to some venture capitalists and see where that goes. Hint: High school math will show you that you do not get billions of dollars in revenues from folks who do not have two nickels to rub together even if the entire world population would be your customer base.

Now you are getting to the crux of the problem. You see, most of the U.S. population figuratively doesn't have two nickels to rub together. The vast majority of the capital is held by less than 2% of the population, and 2/3 of Americans couldn't come up with $500 for an emergency expenditure, while 3/4 of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and are chronically one job loss, one missed paycheck, one arrest, or one medical emergency or other unplanned/unpredictable event away from losing their entire life's accumulations.

Some of the largest and most well-connected companies are generally no longer making money from disposable income, but from having a captive market for spending that is non-discretionary(housing, healthcare, transportation, ect). 90% of small businesses fail within the first year at least in part because most people don't have any spare money for frivolous things. Whatever money that the majority of people do have access to spend on frivolous things, happens to be in the form of credit, which is an unsustainable model that is going to implode on itself when the payments can no longer be increased.

The multinationals are doing great because they're making money from playing the rigged stock/derivatives market where all profits are pocketed and all losses are hoisted onto the taxpayers, hoarding all the farmland/housing and rigging the healthcare/education markets to where one must pay them a profit for access, getting government subsidies and bail-outs, feeding off of taxpayers through government contracts, creating money out of thin air through debt issuance via the Federal Reserve(debt that working people have to pay back through money earned with real labor, debt that is placed as a gateway between someone and a college education, housing, or healthcare which is used to add more 'money' into the system to drive the price up further forcing someone into debt by rendering saving for it virtually impossible), buying back their own stocks to artificially inflate the price, and exploiting what is functionally slave labor in the 2nd and 3rd world, all to get the goods on the shelves at the lowest possible cost while the small businesses who have traditionally created the most jobs are expected to 'compete' with this.

In our society it has become popular to blame people for being successful rather than blaming the ones who repeatedly fail due to being locked in their ways of approaching life's challenges.

They’re not so much blaming people for being successful as much as they’re blaming people whose success was built from the labor of hundreds of thousands or even millions of others as well as built upon unnecessary government largess and military conquest, wherein the reward of the labor from those who produced the success is proportionately unshared among those who labored to make the success possible relative to the labor they expended to make it possible.

The surplus value does not go to the people who spent portions of their lives that will never be recovered to generate said surplus value. It disproportionately went to people who did not even do that labor, but merely collected the proceeds due to the fact that they were owners of an enterprise, for whom any risks were greatly proportionately small relative to the reward they paid themselves.

Real wages in the U.S. pay less than half of what they did 50 years ago, while productivity per worker has more than doubled since then. This is why it now takes two working parents to raise a family, who are in debt for most of their lives to afford 20th century comforts, when the norm used to be one parent working while requiring no debt or so little it could be paid off within a small fraction of an expected life span. Meanwhile, the real economy has been hollowed out in the corporate pursuit of cheap labor with a government that has been captured by these corporations, a government that fails to even consider the interests of the people it claims a right to govern and people who are forced to pay taxes to it.

Years ago, I developed a database system for a state's department of human services and had access to the case files of the so called less fortunate. The number of cases that had 'fallen on hard times' was remarkably small and these individuals did not stay in the system for long. The overwhelming majority of the department's clients took great effort in screwing their lives up. If they just had rolled the dice, instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again, they would have been better off by far. There is a certain number of individuals who will never 'get it' and we should take care of those. But depriving the rest of the population from opportunities to excel, even to billionaire level, is not the way to do this.

People without resources in the U.S. are being deprived from opportunities to excel because they do not have the resources to take a risk on a chance to use their talents or follow their passions. They're working multiple jobs, living paycheck to paycheck, and have physical/mental exhaustion coupled with limited free time to go with it combined with no surplus capital, or they're unemployed altogether and are going with their basic needs unmet. Through working an honest job, wages are so low relative to the cost of a very basic mode of living that it can take an entire lifetime just to build up a single chance to roll the metaphorical dice, failure resulting in a loss of what took a lifetime to accumulate, if not outright destitution of which the odds of recovery from are highly unfavorable no matter how strong a person’s will or work ethic.

Risk of a given amount of resources looks very different to someone with highly abundant resources than it does to someone who has modest resources or none at all.

This arrangement is set as such, in order that a small percentage of the population can each individually accumulate a disposable chunk of capital that represents a lifetime's worth of an ordinary person’s savings, in a matter of seconds, and so that individuals lucky enough to be in this very small minority can do so continuously for the rest of their lives, even if they don’t work ever again.

The very existence of concentrated wealth and the skewed level of purchasing power it brings to those who are the "haves" as well as the effect this skewed wealth has on market dynamics and upon the prices of goods/services/productive assets deprives the vast majority of the rest of the population of opportunities to excel. It's a highly skewed playing field, and the statistics linked above in this post bear this out.

Lassieze-faire advocates will never understand this facet of reality because their dogma blinds them to it, but this facet of reality is precisely why socialism and communism can gain appeal among the masses, in spite of the faults of these economic systems. There is a cause and effect relationship playing itself out directly as a result of a wide swath of the population functionally having no freedom, a swath of the population that is routinely denied any real independence in the current form of capitalist society as a direct result of their lack of monetary resources or access to the means of production.

Germany, who was a formidable contender if not leader in high-tech during WWII is now in the ranks of 'further running'. Bosch makes some neat, albeit expensive, mid-drives for e-bikes and AMG a breath-taking EV for the über-wealthy. However, it took folks in the USA to breathe new ideas into the transportation sector. Why would anybody plow millions of his own money in a company challenging 'big auto' in a country that rewards you for success with a tax of over 50% on income exceeding 285 thousand dollar? If you have issues with the tax man taking too much, don't bother putting Germany on your list of desirable societies.

I'm not a fan of taxes on labor. Like a company taking excessive profit, labor taxes similarly rob a person of the fruits of their labor. Whether it goes to a board of directors in the form of profit or a horde of irresponsible bureaucrats in the form of axes, the end result is the same: less money in the hands of the person who labored to generate it, and in the hands of those whose appetite for that money has no boundaries.

When you add up all of America's hidden taxes in the form of fees, permits, licenses, various credentials, inspections, various compliance costs, and fines, on top of a Federal Tax burden that requires 105 out of 365 days in a year to pay, one can be taxed a similar percentage to that 50% rate for some German making $285k, but with a greatly lesser income in the U.S. In fact, Federal Income Taxes in the US account for only 40% of Americans' total tax burdens.

https://taxfoundation.org/publications/tax-freedom-day/

https://www.ipi.org/ipi_issues/detail/hidden-taxes-how-much-do-you-really-pay

Meanwhile, take a look at all of the multi-billion-dollar transnational corporations who don't pay anything as they simultaneously collect the surplus value generated by all of those who labored to generate it AND get to call first dibs on all of that Federal Reserve "money" printed out of nothing:

https://itep.org/60-fortune-500-companies-avoided-all-federal-income-tax-in-2018-under-new-tax-law/

At the same time as this goes on, a small business in the U.S. with a 90% chance of failure within the first year, will likely be taxed at 25%, not even counting all of the hidden taxes in the U.S. And an employee who has to work for their money, most of whom live paycheck to paycheck, has to pay a higher percentage of their earnings in tax still than the major executives within the Fortune 500 corporations.

In your nation of Germany, one is able to get an education or access healthcare without being shackled to a lifetime debt burden, because your taxes actually are spent on something useful instead of being squandered on a military-industrial complex that is preparing to wage open warfare upon the very taxpayers forced to support it, and in Germany there's provisions taken to assure that there’s less of the money spent lost to parasites acting as gatekeepers to education and healthcare, parasites that drive costs up and deny access to those unwilling or unable to pay. Small businesses in your country also don’t have to deal with the U.S.’s level of healthcare costs for employees, giving them an advantage that American small businesses do not have.

OK, money is not everything. So, lets look a environmental conscience. Germany leaned left and voted to get rid of nuclear and pretty much forced solar panels on people's roofs. The result is more CO2 production per capita in the future and no technological edge.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-climate-targets

Then, there is the EU and their apparatus in Brussels who was very quick in limiting the top speed of e-bikes and did zilch for development of battery technology, motor controllers, etc. to improve range and/or efficiency.

I agree that the EU’s e-bike laws are retarded. This is probably by design. Ebike sales and use generate less GDP than automobiles, and provide nothing near the same tax revenue. So of course it is not a surprise that they'd enact laws seemingly designed to prevent them from being a real viable alternative to automobile use.

As far as land ownership is concerned, please show me a country in the world that has more public land than the USA. Granted, that land is not suitable for homesteading but consider that a blessing for you.

The public land in the U.S. is not free for members of the public to use. Just ask Cliven Bundy. Then there's all the permits and licenses one is forced to have to live off of it(hunting/fishing licenses) which cost money while industry is frequently allowed to rape the land with wild abandon, often without having to pay anything. This land is gradually being handed over to large energy/timber/mining companies to exploit and desecrate, without any of the profit having to go to the American people while the American people are forced to bear the costs of the externalities.

Most people who complain how hard it is to be successful in a society that supposedly disadvantages them have no idea how hard it is to support yourself in the wild. Mother nature is merciless and has zero (0) empathy for the feeble, lazy, or ignorant. It is much easier to (legally) put food on the table in our society than it is in nature.

Individuals living in hunter/gatherer societies spent well under 20 hours a week to provide for their basic needs. The rest of the time could be spent on leisure and actually living.

http://rewild.com/in-depth/leisure.html

Modern humans have been thoroughly robbed of that, as working 40-80 hours a week is now the norm for those who have a job around the world, and deprivation is the norm for those who don’t and are also not lucky enough to be independently wealthy. The environment today is degraded and the Earth's natural carrying capacity is not what it used to be, largely thanks to industrial capitalism, and biodiversity and productive biomass per unit of land is in rapid decline.

Meanwhile, the financial elites reap most of the gains while the need for labor itself shrinks due to technology and automation. Deprivation of one’s basic needs is a function of an individual’s scarcity of money, and little else, which has little to do with how many hours one works given that the prevailing wages in most of the world fail to meet the costs of one’s basic needs. The consequence is that the majority of people are mired in debt. This is not a coincidence or accident. This was a deliberate policy decision forced into place by those with the most advantage in society, all so that they could have more.

I enjoy living off the land not as a break from hard work but as an opportunity for honing my edge to survive and thrive. And everybody I meet several days away from the closest trail head feels the same way. Your complaint about not having a cushy corporate job is simply a first world problem.

I’m asking for a job, period, not necessarily a cushy one. Even moreso, I’m dreaming of an economic paradigm where I’m not deprived of everything I need for not having a job. I was saving for land when I had a job, and planning to become independent, until life circumstances got in my way once again. The cushy corporate job was an attempted means to an end, and not the end goal itself, and I'd have greatly preferred a viable alternative.

That's all I have to comment on your political vision of how to easily fix your personal dilemma. I think we would both be better served if we now put our nose to the grindstone and make something happen in our lives rather than arguing the merits of another political fantasy.

I’ve been trying to make something happen with my life my entire working life. I’ve worked for every last thing I have, even if it’s meager(the sad truth is, considering I have no debt, it’s more than the majority of Americans have, even though it will only keep me afloat a few months at best). I’ve made mistakes here and there, but I can say with confidence that I’d have a lot less problems if I wasn’t forced to pay student loan interest in order to finish college which amounted to enough money to buy a house without the house to show for it just to get a permission slip to work to even get the jobs I had(scholarships covered the vast majority of my tuition and I’d have had to have been Valedictorian of my high school to have done better on that front), if I was paid closer to what I was actually worth while I was employed(for every $30 I was paid, my employer made over $100, and almost never gave me raises even when I was a top performer), and if I wasn’t forced to pay exorbitant healthcare costs mostly to entities that had no actual participation in the labor involved delivering my healthcare with the alternative of being deprived of said healthcare altogether. THEN there’s all the taxes taken from me over the years, which do not amount to nearly as much as the aforementioned items but are still quite significant.

That's all money I could use right now, paid to people and entities that didn't actually have to work for any of it, money that I had to earn with my labor expending time that will never be recovered. It's a large enough amount of money that I could pursue my dreams and possibly even retire if I had access to it, but alas. I was very frugal with what I was able to keep, but ended up having to spend that hard won minority of everything I generated on saving my mother's house from foreclosure, a house that would have already been paid for were it not for interest charged by parasites and would have cost considerably less were all of the debt money not created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve in the first place.

As I said before, if wealth would be redistributed forcefully, you would have to compete against those who will be better at scamming the re-distribution systems.

Wealth already is being redistributed forcefully. It is being redistributed to the wealthiest among us, from those with less. The fact that there’s a legal framework to support this arrangement or that those living within this arrangement are constantly told how free they are does not change its forceful and violent nature.

We already are competing with scammers. They're scammers who defraud en-masse virtually all laborers of the surplus value generated by their labor, and who use the power of the state to maintain their unfair advantages at the barrel end of a gun.

 

[The Toecutter]

After last night's debate I'm thinking Kamala Harris is the one to beat.

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/kamala-harris-is-an-oligarchs-wet-dream-d689182ba99b

...

The goal of a political debate is to make yourself look appealing and electable to your audience. You can do that by having a very good platform, or you can do it with charisma and oratory skills. It turns out that Kamala Harris is really, really good at doing the latter.

...

Harris won the debate despite fully exposing herself for the corporate imperialist she is in the midst of that very debate. While answering a question about climate change she took the opportunity to attack Trump on foreign policy, not for his insane and dangerous hawkishness but for not being hawkish enough, on both North Korea and Russia.

...

Harris is everything the US empire’s unelected power establishment wants in a politician: charismatic, commanding, and completely unprincipled. In that sense she’s like Obama, only better.

Harris was one of the 2020 presidential hopefuls who came under fire at the beginning of the year when it was reported that she’d been reaching out to Wall Street executives to find out if they’d support her campaign.

...

It was reported two entire years ago that Harris was already courting top Hillary Clinton donors and organizers in the Hamptons. She hasn’t been in politics very long, but her campaign contributions as a senator have come from numerous plutocratic institutions.

...

The reason the heads of those power structures despise Trump is solely because he sucks at narrative management and puts an ugly face on the ugly things that America’s permanent government is constantly doing. He’s bad at managing their assets.

Kamala Harris is the exact opposite of this. She’d be able to obliterate noncompliant nations and dead-end the left for eight years, and look good while doing it.

...

 

[MJSfoto1956]

Harris won the debate despite fully exposing herself for the corporate imperialist she is in the midst of that very debate. While answering a question about climate change she took the opportunity to attack Trump on foreign policy, not for his insane and dangerous hawkishness but for not being hawkish enough, on both North Korea and Russia.

If Harris is a corporate imperialist because Caitlin says so, then I guess it must be true! Couldn't possibly be because half the time Caitlin has a bug up her ass about everyone except herself?

M

 

[Dauntless]

I'm still looking for some sort of documentation that anyone believes Harris won the debate. There's always the people who scream 'Hurray for OUR SIDE' when the left wing nut rampages, but beyond the goofy CNN editorial saying she proved blacks are tired of accepting lousy politicians (Oh, but it was okay when OBAMA was the lousy politician to be accepted) there's not much confirmation that her outburst was a properly 'Presidential Pout.'

With the great identity crisis of the Democratic Party continuing, I can just see the DNC cringing at her objecting to working with 'The Other Side.' These people tell themselves that they want,they NEED these candidates to thin their numbers quickly, so the also ran Harris is NOT on their short list, but now she's undermining someone who is. They won't want these barely rans hanging around and taking up enough of the delegates in the early primaries to make it impossible to lock up the nomination before the convention. Remember the ruckus the Bernites caused? Hillary did have it locked up. The DNC thinks that is the CAUSE of their defeat, not just a symptom of it coming.

This is actually a good thing for Biden. Nothing like what he faces after he gets the nomination, but he calmly let it pass. Which is going to be the best way to be the 'Not Trump' candidate this time around. Dang, John Kerry would win this one, I'm sure. Biden is no John Kerry. And Harris is no presidential contender. I just picture her crying when she can't handle Trump. No, she won't look good. She'll look like just another wardrobe heavy wannabee supermodel who is 'Not Cyndi Crawford.' (Whom I think would stand a better chance of beating Trump.)

This is almost as bad as the night before, when what's his name won. You don't remember him, do you? Harris is close to that. Her big claim to fame was when Obama called her a 'AGILF.' Being Madame 'I don't have a position yet' isn't swept under the rug by being pouty. Nor is her past record. https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/zmp74w/kamala-harris-baggage-could-be-just-as-big-of-a-problem-as-bidens

You guys are leaving out the part where Bernie is carrying on about polls showing 8-10 Democrats beating Trump head to head. Yeah, these are the same pollsters who showed Hillary way out front all the way to election night. Dang, Trump was what? 7th among Republicans this time 4 years ago? 4%? Not sure I could remember, or see the need.

So far, the best thing the Democrats have done for themselves is to LET Trump have his wall funding. One hot potato that worked against them out of the way. Harris' has kept her mouth going against it. The best thing they could still do is to finally agree to repeal Obamacare, thus taking away another weapon used against them so successfully almost a decade now. I don't think they're smart enough for that.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are all where the Republicans were in 1996. After denying things were so bad in 1992 (As Democrats did in 2016) they just HAD to try to be negative about how much better things had gotten 4 years later. Kamala Harris has already put that foot into her mouth. You complain, but things are better than they were when YOU guys were in charge. . . .

 

[Dauntless]

Dang, this is gonna need a new thread.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/05/opinions/joe-biden-lockhart/index.html

This covers the subject of how the grandstanding Harris defeats her and at least gives Biden a chance to do a little proving he can take the heat. Harris isn't running for president, she's running for attention, as did Obama. Accidents happen, but not this time. Awww, look who can't raise money.

Biden has an interesting problem, one that is far more interesting than he is. Less charisma than John Kerry, less reason to be liked, yet much in need of his staid I age to run against Trump. Which is why I say be at scored small points for his evenness as the child woman is dancing around giggling "I threwud on Biden, I threw mud on Biden." THAT is what she wants to take a victory lap for?

I cod say she sure can't take one on her viable moments: she has yet to look good for a moment, especially in that debate where no amount of fake news can erase how bad she can off all the way through. Worse, she forgot she has to run as 'Not Trump.' not only was she weak in her Trump moment, she demonstrated a lack of understanding of her party at the same time that she gave Biden the chance to flaunt his superior understanding.

There's an article from 'The Atlantic' last fall citing the studies that show at best 8% identify with the way to left wing nut identity politics that 'Saturday Night Live' would have us believe rules the country. (Unfortunately the DNC drrinks the 'SNL' koolaid.)

Meanwhile at less a quarter of the country brags of being one of Obama's "Bitter voters," even takes pride in Hillary calling them "Deplorable." Then there's the additional people whose sympathies run in that direction to some degree.

Next you need to consider the fact that 2/3rds of DEMOCRATS are rankled by any act of blatant political correctness. Republicans are more like 5/6ths on that one. And important reason why I was able to CORRECTLY predict Trump's victory 18 months before the election when he was nowhere. To be Trump was to agree with the public on political correctness.

So CNN is making fools of themselves AGAIN with their insistence that Biden HAS TO pick a woman/minority to prove his legitimacy. Prove to WHO? The article in 'The Atlantic' makes the point that he proves his legitimacy to most people by NOT behaving that way.

Also I just see the need to remind of the continued misuse of the term 'Progressive' when describing Democrats. (Possibly except Biden.) The Republican Party brought out this new term for their 'Progressive era' of Theodore Roosevelt and others who broke up monopolies and other things. Eisenhower said it best: Socially liberal, fiscally conservative. Medicare for all, do away with private insurance, tax the rich to nothing, none of this is progressive. It's all extreme left wing liberal. Bill Clinton was at first the darling of Republican analysts in the 1992 campaign, which is why he won. It was it was the 7th straight election where the Democrats we're being decried for so many extreme left candidates. They'd only won one of the previous 6.

So far, only Biden has eschewed the liberal and sought to be more progressive. Which doesn't bode well for their presidential hpoes.

The Democratic victory in 2018 was the result of center-left Democrats winning against more left-wing opponents in primaries. According to the Third Way think tank, 33 of the 40 Democrats who won in swing districts defeated someone on their left on primary day.

 

[markz]

Will you be voting for Bernie Sanders again, in the next election cycle?

There are a few dozen candidates as it stands right now, does any one candidate stick out for you?

Lets see what happens.
-methods

 

[Dauntless]

But he did see what happened. Hey, I made a post back there. Guess what, I did it. (Heh heh heh.) Joke that the whole thing was at that point. If Methods is still in California he can expect Bernie to be gone.

Oh, so guess who got pissy because she wasn't important enough for the story on the better women candidates. There's one there that WAS in the story and didn't belong.

 

[Dauntless]

Oh, I couldn't help it, I had to go bad and read the nonsense that ensued after Methods started this thread. The same guy babbling about "Debate" (???) Allso stumbled on something about a "Difference" between a " Social Democrat," (What Stalin and company called themselves leading up to overthrowing the 8 month old REAL Democracy in Russia and commencing to kill 62 million or more for being 'Inconvenient) 'Communisr' (Stalin, etc. also called themselves that, as did s certain French when they barricaded Paris and killed 20,000 in two weeks, as did other killers, etc.) And 'Socialist.' (The catch-all phrase for Social Democrats, Communists, Nazi's, Facists, plus Totalitarians in general.) Hopefully whomever can read that and stabilize.

The reason I wouldn't think that Methods wouldn't vote for Bernie this time is that he's been revealed as a 1% and admitted he has no intention of giving up HIS income inequality. Yep, Bernie's income shall remain more equal than others.

Oh, is that not proof enough about the problem of people getting all rabid because THEIR candidate is an "Idealist" whose going to fix everything, when as always you find out he's a demogogue (Excuse me --- SOCIAL Demogague) and you did all your best hating everyone else for NOTHING.

 

[Dauntless]

[youtube]adPXDTvADD0[/youtube]

 

[Dauntless]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/19/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-union-clash/index.html

 

[neptronix]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/19/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-union-clash/index.html

That's hilarious. I've suspected for the past few years that he is full of shit and just saying things socialists like to get campaign funding so he can live well every 4 years. He knows he can't win, like Ron Paul. It's readily apparent when he can't even hold a basic promise to his staff.

 

[Dauntless]

You "Suspected," I spoke openly about it. I should go read up on who it was in this thread who kept getting uptight at discussing Bernie's socialism because HE didn't believe Bernie was a socialist. As though Bernie calling himself a socialist doesn't matter, Bernie registering to vote as a socialist his entire life doesn't matter, his campaigning for every socialism candidate for president during his adult life doesn't matter.

But poor One Percenter Bernie can't afford to pay people. A whole bunch of people are going to say it's okay because it's Bernie. That's what he became a demagogue for, to tell others what's okay. Like Saul Alinsky, and of course Obama.

Ah yes, Alinsky. Hillary and Obama are among his disciples. The best working defintion I know of for "The RICH get richer and the POOR get poorer." Better call Saul.

https://chisineu.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/saul-alinsky-rules-for-radicals-1989.pdf

. . . .the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom —Lucifer.
—SAUL ALINSKY

 

[Dauntless]

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/americas-nationalist-awakening-11563574717

 

[Dauntless]

From livestly.com, net worth of some politicians. Pelosi worth almost as much as Guliani? Feinstein more than TWICE as much as Guliani? The most interesting one is where the AOC campaign apparently was misleading the public about poor, poor AOC and her net worth. Also the article from some 11 days or less after her swearing in says she would have already collected some $75,000. Dang, guess she's a millionaire by now.

Nancy Pelosi: $29 Million

Nancy Pelosi has been at the forefront of U.S. politics for over 30 years, and just about everyone knows her name. She’s had an incredibly successful career, even bursting back onto the scene more recently as the Speaker of the House and a vocal opponent of President Trump during the 2019 government shutdown. But did you know that Pelosi is backed by a financial fortune of $29 million?

That’s right — Nancy Pelosi is both more experienced and wealthier than many of her political counterparts. And it’s all thanks to her exposure in politics that she’s earned so much cash. Before entering politics, Pelosi had real estate investments that paid off big time. Now, with a resume featuring jobs like House Minority Whip and Chair of the California Democratic Committee, it’s clear that she’s capitalized on her positions to make money in avenues both political and beyond.

Beto O’Rourke: $9 Million

Since Beto O’Rourke is pretty new to politics compared to old guards like Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi, it’s likely that few people realize just how much money he has in the bank. O’Rourke has a net worth of a shocking $9 million — quite the total for a young politician! O’Rourke is already one of the richest members of Congress, and it’s all thanks to his short career in business prior to politics. Beto is certainly one to watch, as it’s rumored he’ll be running for president in 2020.

Elizabeth Warren: $5 Million

Another wealthy member of Congress is Elizabeth Warren, the current U.S Senator from Massachusetts who’s been in office for six years. Finance is in this senator’s background, as Warren got her start studying bankruptcy laws during her college years. Now, with millions of dollars under her belt and a comfortable job in the Senate for the time being, Elizabeth Warren is adding even more to her net worth.

Elizabeth Warren earned her riches from a mix of interesting moves. . . she taught in universities along with her husband. Together, the pair earned a pretty solid nest egg — and when Warren entered politics as the result of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, her net worth skyrocketed even more and she took on increasingly important positions within the U.S. government.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: $100k – ???

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (or AOC for short), is the youngest female member to ever be elected into the US House Of Representatives. Sworn in January 3, 2019 and serving the congressional district that largely makes up the Bronx and Queens in New York, AOC was quick to become a focal point in the 2018 mid-term election cycle. Whether it be her age, personal story, personality, or sharp-left political stances, one detail the media spent minimal time dissecting is her current–and projected–net worth .

AOC’s campaign team put out statements claiming she had less than $7000 in her checking account. Election filings show in addition to that sum, she carries another $20k to 50k in savings, and under $20k in retirement savings. This puts her way ahead of the average millennial, and when you factor in her congressional salary of nearly $200,000 per year (a 10x raise from her previous salary), plus the lucrative book deals and speaking fees sure to come her way, AOC will likely be the in 7-figure bank account club in no time. Not too shabby!

Oh yeah, it continues about how Bill Clinton left office broke but is supposed to be worth some $80 million now. Would someone REALLY pay $700,000 for a SPEECH? And Hillary a separate net worth of $45 million, Obama making a fortune WHILE president and now at $40 million while George Dubya Bush is only at $35 million even with whatever family money and prior, er, EARNINGS, etc.

 

[Dauntless]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/conservative-college-women-university-of-north-carolina-republicans

 

[Dauntless]

So they're breaking down the support of Democratic presidential candidates in the not as liberal, liberal and painfully liberal.

The latest polls show Bernie getting a secure 15% of the painfully liberal, gotta be some pain in that since those are his constituency. Elizabeth Warren has stolen away 29% of his thunder/painfully liberal supporters. Bernie tops her with liberals at 16% while the indian wannabee has just 14% of those.

Biden meanwhile has 25% of the painfulls and 34% of the regular liberals. Then he beats them back with the not so liberals. He also has them beat in tricking people into believing he can win in 2020 (36%) compared to Bernie and Warren (8% each). The rest are noshows; including Harris, the fastest falling.

So we wait and see if Bernie can pick up any support when the various 1-4% also rans drop out. The r=projection is that 8 already qualify for 3rd debate and 2 others are considered probables, which could pare down the future debates to a single night.

 

[Dauntless]

Dang, Bernie stayed alive tonight in the eventual concession speech debate. Not that he did well, he threw up his hands, etc., but I'd say he delayed his concession speech this time around.

The closest thing to winners would be Delaney and Bullock, who might also have delayed the concession speeches if they can raise the polls and money to make the next debate. Not making themselves front runners, but you have to keep going to win. But I'd say they only showed what they could do when there's no strong presence to compete with.

Klobuchar, the voice of the unpleasant reality. All well and good to be right, but largely with the message you don't want to think about. My opinion of her was so low it actually improves after tonight, but I don't think she really helped herself.à

CNN made a bit of fun of Warren's inability to answer questions and be coherent beyond her claims that she wants to be president, (I think she means it) but one of their Democratic party operative/on air commentator did quite the spin doctoring afterward, who knows how many viewers were fooled.

So tomorrow night we get the eventual nominee and the rest of the eventual conceders. I wonder if this will ever get any better.

 

[jonescg]

What surprises me is that the group of Democratic contenders can't pick a winner amongst themselves, as voted by their party's membership - that way they can't be accused of sabotaging each other's campaigns because they know their numbers. Then they can present as a united force behind their chosen leader. That makes it a bit more Westminsterial but at least they can build a profile and present a case.

Trump is marching the USA towards a full blown civil war, if not a broader international war. The only chance we have of stopping this is to elect a Democrat to change the ship's course. They might all have their flaws, but the key goal here is to remove the key enabler of incivility.

 

[Dauntless]

I'm not sure what you mean. The DNC "Picked" Hillary, not that they had any power in it. Bernie wasn't going to be a contender if the DNC favored him, he only had a winning streak because Hillary was so far out front that people cast 'Not Hillary' votes and Bernie was the beneficiary.

Sabotaging campaigns? I suppose there are impressive moments in that. 2010 California Governor race was close, then one had a maid suing them over not getting paid right. But that wouldn't have been much of a problem if the candidate herself didn't hold a live press conference and run the full range of self destruction, feeling sorry for herself, blaming and accusing others including her husband and throwing everyone under the bus to save herself, arrogance about the unimportance of some domestic servant, you name it. Landmark example of political suicide. I just don't think anyone else can sabotage you the way you can sabotage yourself.

What's this civil war nonsense? The talk of that was huge during Obama's presidency, it has now DIED DOWN. The only real talk now is about how some people obsess over hating Trump. Loud, ineffectual people. It's like they can start their own committee, 'Losers for anyone but Trump.'

When will these fools ever catch on they only make him stronger? Obama just has to dork around about his out of work staff getting together to put together their 'We hate Trump' announcement. Weak. WEEEEEEAAAAAAAAK! Their biggest failing in the debate was they kept making it about Trump. Who will kick any of their asses individually. I just go back to Jeb Bush, he who doesn't have political debates, just political BERATES, complaining about Trump. "You can't insult your way to the White House, Donald Trump." Only Jeb gets to, right? Oh, wasn't he impressive? Weren't you just dying to vote for him?

You must have been. You started acting just like him. I was just waiting for Trump to give him noogies right there in front of the crowd. And the crowd would have cheered. So would you. Admit it. That man has such a talent for bringing out the fool in you. But mostly you bring it out in yourself, he just offers the opportunity for you to be impressed with yourself as you do it. Right, Obama and staff?

Obama has brought us to the brink of war on many fronts not only with his mishandling and being intimidated by even little ant sized dictators but also with the alienation of our allies. Damn, one thing you have to hand it to Dubya for is he made great progress turning Mommar Quaddafi around. Then Obama has to bomb him and enable ISIS. Way to make an example of how GOOD it is to come over to the U.S. view of things, O Duce.

But Trump has at least made strides to improve that situation, too.