Elizabeth Warren recently wrote an opinion piece for Medium contending that another economic crash on par with the Great Recession is brewing, owing to the U.S. economy's total dependence on steadily escalating levels of both household debt and corporate debt that are now at crisis levels and marked by a now-proven recession in manufacturing, the inversion of the Treasury yield curve for the first time since 2007, and other serious danger signs. In particular, she warns of the phenomenon of "leveraged lending", which refers to the practice of lending to companies that are already significantly in debt; a high-risk practice, which she compares to the infamous subprime mortgages that led directly to the 2008 crash, that has increased by 40% since the start of 2017.

And of course, she outlines proposals to address each of these problems, the best of which, IMO, is a structural change in how the American economy works: a law giving workers at large American corporations the right to democratically elect at least 40% of their board members (here are some of the details on that). Lots of other policy change proposals are mentioned as well.

I really thought this article was compelling in highlighting serious problems with the way our economy is currently working that haven't been much of a focus in the news and that the solutions she outlined make sense. THIS is the kind of reason why I think Elizabeth Warren is the best candidate for president running!

I also love how she has provided all those links as proofs for what she's saying, and I agree.

However, there's one thing I fear: Since the downturn will pretty much be Thanos inevitable and start pretty much at the very beginning of the next presidential period, I somehow want Trump to be reelected so the whole mess falls into the lap of the person who provoke it in the first place instead of the republicans having a field day on blaming the democrats for the economy for the mess they themselves created.

Alright I'll respond, though the issues I'll discuss relate mostly to my country and not the US.

I am Palestinian-Israeli, and the past few years have been depressing for me.

Trump has been doing seemingly permanent damage to our cause, essentially taking away the most important bargaining pieces that the US has relied on in the peace talks.

He doesn't even pretend to be neutral, and that's emboldened the government to do some brazen things. The settlements are accelerating, land that belonged to families for centuries is being confiscated probably more than ever before (including in my town, which is located inside Israel proper), and a bunch of other stuff.

I saw this really detailed article last week about how now the government is even removing documents about atrocities during the formative years of the country:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-how-israel-systematically-hides-evidence-of-1948-expulsion-of-arabs-1.7435103

(This isn't exactly something new, but it seems to have picked up the pace recently).

This hits very close to me personally, because when my grandpa was 8 years old, his uncle was killed in one of these massacres. Before the general who gave the order died last year, he confessed that it was linked to a never fulfilled plan to expel the town's residents:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-general-s-confession-links-massacre-to-israel-s-secret-plan-to-expel-arabs-1.6550421

But guess what? Many many documents about his trial were never released, and probably won't be anytime soon. My grandpa was 8 when that happened, he's in his 70s now, and he's going to die without closure on this subject.

I went on a bit of a tangent there, but basically from what I've read about Harris, her history doesn't inspire confidence that she'd be that much better on this issue. I know that it's a bipartisan thing and that she's not the only candidate who'd go soft on this, but she sounds like one of the worst among the Democrats in that regard.

Sorry for the jumbled post, but it's hard to be optimistic for the future.

Wow, thanks for sharing, that's a really interesting perspective. I hadn't looked very closely at the candidates Israel-Palestine positions, I just knew that I liked Bernie's position on it. While the problems Palestine is facing are the result of bipartisan support of the Israeli government, there are definitely a lot more dissenters on this subject in the Democratic party. There are quite a few contenders for 2020 that have the courage to stand up to the Israeli government and Netanyahu.

I never understood America's loyalty to Israel. I don't get why both parties are so lenient towards them.

Holy shit, on that subject of Israel/Palestine, this is quite interesting: https://israelpalestinenews.org/democratic-candidates-on-israel-palestine-a-guide-updated-regularly/

Did you know Biden identifies as Zionist? Or that Booker voted to outlaw boycotts of Israel or its government? Regarding Kamala, it shows she is indeed very pro-Israel, though not necessarily anti-Palestine, but she doesn't seem to acknowledge the realities of what the Palestinians are going through and Israel's contribution to that. You can do much, much worse than Harris though, unless this site is missing something from her. Not sure how much worse you could get than electing a Zionist that wants to work with Republicans, so even Proxie-Pie should be able to admit that Biden is the worst of the options. Though the Times of Israel apparently considers Klobuchar as the candidate most aligned with AIPAC, so there's that. Warren seems to recognize some of the issues, but is very wishy-washy overall. I'll let you read her section and decide for yourself, but there are some disappointing things in there for me. Yang seems to be completely ignorant on the subject, which was sad to see.

Meanwhile Buttigieg, Castro, Gabbard, Gravel, Wayne Messam, Seth Moulton, O'Rourke, Swalwell, Williamson, and of course Bernie all show some degree of nuance in their understanding of the situation, and an understanding of the seriousness of what the Israeli government has done to Palestinians with our financial support. Personally, of the quotes they list here, I'm most impressed by Sanders and Gravel. Sanders because he shows he's very principled about condemning violence no matter where it came from (even though he himself is Jewish) and wanting to support peaceful protest and stop the settlements, Gravel because he has what looks to me to be the deepest understanding of the whole situation and is the only one with a clear plan on what to do about it. Some of the others mention a two-state or one-state solution, Gravel supports one-state and defines what that means for him.

Now mind you that site seems biased against Israel, but it's the Palestinian viewpoint that is currently underrepresented in the media and it's that underrepresentation of that side that has led to such an unsolvable foreign policy mess in the region, so I think it's useful to take a look at what they find noteworthy about the candidates' positions.

The classical global power in the 20th centuriy for america works with alliances and enemies: you're either with us or against us. The US is with Saudi-Arabia and against Iran, although lookign at them both are repressive religious regimes, the main difference is that Iran at least has partly democracy while Saudi-Arabia has none at all. And yeah, their repressive religious ideology has some differing ideas who worships god the right way.

Israel is one of these classic partners and Palestine one of the classic foes of the US. Remember, that this is the classification of the US, I gather most Palestinians have nothing at all against the US. The parts in the republican and democratic party are mostly old and establishment, that want to keep these classical political blocks, that were formative of the cold war. So politicians that aren't accepting that (like Bernie Sanders) are seen for this reason alone (there are many others) as a threat to the political status quo - which is accepted by both parties.

Donald Trump attacked the political status quo in big parts, that is why the republican establishment was so interested in stopping him, they even supported Ted Cruz back then. Now the political establishment of the GOP has mostly arranged itself with Trump and tries to save as much as possible, like relations with Israel.

I admit I didn't read up much on Biden, all I know is that he was Obama's VP and Obama is extremely unpopular here, because he at least tried to look fair, lol.

Netanyahu referred to the Obama administration as "hostile", but you're free to look up how much support he's given the country during his presidency.

I'll clarify something that sometimes gets lost in the nuance: Being a Zionist doesn't conflict with supporting peace, it just means supporting Israel's right to exist. I support a 2-state solution, so in some sense I am a Zionist as well.

American support for Israel began during the Cold War era as Mnementh explained.

To me it's surprising that America doesn't support Palestinian statehood as much as they can. The PA wants to establish a secular country as opposed to the many Islamists in the region, and something I can personally vouch for is how much Palestinian Muslims and Palestinian Christians get along, and are equally patriotic.

Just seems like something the US would support considering all their statements about separation of Church and State and religious freedom.

I hope I'm not derailing the thread.

The US have by far the largest group of Jews outside of Israel. It's also a powerful lobby since the 1930's and they are supposed to vote en bloc for the party who supports Israel most - though that's not really true anymore. But yeah, the prospect of losing millions of votes is terrifying for any politician, especially if those votes can be the reason of being elected or not. That's why both parties woo them and are so lenient to them and so supportive of Israel.

Be careful what you wish for. I definitely wouldn't want to endure another recession, and especially not under this president, who will do nothing to address it, just as he's doing nothing to prevent it, but instead actively making the inevitable worse when it does finally hit by encouraging the lowering of interest rates so that more even more debt might be accumulated.