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Forums - Politics Discussion - Who Should Run For President on the Democratic Side?

Still too early to say but hopefully none of the neoliberal types like Obama such as Hillary, Biden or Warren if they want a chance at victory ...

Globalism is a dying ideology so Democrats need to rethink their strategy in world where nationalism surging in both directions whether right or left wing ...

A Democrats best image is that their anti-austerity but Hillary was not all that competent in defending that image because the Rust Belt's interests aligned with Trump's trade protectionism and pro-industrialism solutions ...

Politics is a game of maneuvering to capture social capital ...



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Snoopy said:
Bofferbrauer2 said:

1. Still, since they are still a developing country. But China is growing much faster than the US and will overtake them soon. US Has a total GDP of 20 Trillion while China is at 15 Trillion and growing at twice the speed of the US. 20 years ago the US economy was still 3 times bigger than the Chinese economy, now that's down to 25%

2. Or just cut the military budget and get some taxes from corporations and the super-rich, as they are paying next to nothing now, and certainly much, much less than they should, even some of them acknowledged that, and that was before Trumps tax cuts.

Also, drop financial aid? You do know that the US already pay much less then every other developed country as part of their GDP, and that financial aid generally pays out in the long run as these countries tend to like to deal with you in very generous terms.

3. Because it's unsustainable on the long run. At some point even the banks won't be willing to lend that much money without guarantees anymore - but what guarantee do you have to make it to your diploma and get a well-paid job that you can present to the bank beforehand? Especially in times of crisis and/or recession there's nothing you can give them unless they have rich parents who can guarantee to pay it back or poorer families who will have to gamble on their house and/or car as guarantees to the bank - at which point many poorer people will not be going to get higher degrees as the risks get too high. This then means less income for the Universities, thus jacking up the prices even higher to compensate, resulting finally in just the rich being able to afford an University degree. That's also why I said you imply a degree only for the rich, as that would be the result in the long run if nothing changes.

Youtube videos? Tell that to headhunters and employers who only look at your diplomas.

1. China eventually learned about capitalism. Glad you notice how capitalism is the way to go. However, the United States is still ahead and China is plateauing right now. Not to mention the capita per income in China is embarrassing.  Also, I forgot to say the United States has more GDP than the whole European union lol.

2. Even though we spend a lot of money on the military, it still won't cover the cost of social programs. Even if we drop the cost to $0. Not to mention military spending when done right does come up with useful inventions (Internet, GPS, microwaves, etc) and makes other countries think twice about starting wars with us. Which saves us a lot of money in the long run. The rich pay the majority of our taxes as it is. If we tax them to death, they will eventually leave and we get nothing. That includes jobs. We can drop financial aids and other countries will still do deals with us because we are leading in pretty much every relevant industry.

3. Except private banks won't be lending a lot of money compare to the federal government because private banks will be pickier. Therefore the price will go down because Universities will have no choice. Also, there are no guarantees, but there are statistics to see which loan is the best bet. Not to mention Universities can downsize on useless stuff and curriculums. Universities have a lot of ways to generate money. Just look at the sports program.

Youtube videos can teach you many things young padawan. I've made over $15,000 side money online last year thanks to some youtube videos. You can learn to program and build a portfolio, run a landlord business (which I am doing on the side now) and more. If you can prove to people you can do the job, they won't care if you have a degree unless the government forces it of course. I still remember my doctor using google/ a youtube video to help diagnose an issue I was having. What a time to live.

1. Yes Capitalism is the way to go - however not unrestricted, there need to be some rules and regulations in place to protect both people and small companies. @bolded: In nominal GDP, they do. Bring it up to purchase parity power and the US drops to the third spot, behind China and the EU. Main cause is the slow growth in Italy (1.2%), UK(1.4%), France (1.6%) and Germany (1.9%), which taken together form over 50% of the EU's economy. But the rest of Europe is growing much faster, and mostly faster than the US, too (eastern EU member states consistently grow by 4%+, as do Luxembourg, Malta and Ireland ) but they are yet too small to make a big impact in the total EU growth.

2. a. Yeah, but the US military is bloated to death. It could work just as efficiently with just a third of the expenses if they just limit the different equipments to one per kind instead of a dozen per kind. That alone would already help a lot.

b. They do, as it should be - but just barely. Also, if you look it from the income perspective, it's far from enough: while the total adjusted household income has been multiplied by 6 since 1980 (from 1.6 Trillions to 9.7 Trillions), the top 1% income rose from 138 Billions to 2 Trillions, so multiplied by 14.5 and thus much more than twice the mean value. In fact, it's them who push that value up to 6x in the first place, as the bottom 50% only rose by 3.8x, from 288B to 1.095T. In other words, they went from earning twice what the top 1% does to half of what the Top 1% gains. No wonder the Top 1% pays the most taxes if they earn much more money than half the population in the first place.

3. You missed the point. The Universities will continue jacking up the prices, as there will always be enough to pay for it, but never enough for their insatiable hunger for money, thus pricing higher and higher. you can see a similar thing happening in the Videogame industry already, with DLCs and Season passes that cost more than the base game itself.

4. I know Youtube videos and the like can teach you very much (i'm using Udemy btw, which works similarly). But again, you missed the point. The point was that you might learn everything there is to learn in a domain, but you get no diploma, no proof that at one point in your life you learnt all that stuff. If a company only looks at the diplomas and sees you appying for a job but miss the necessary diploma, chances are you get filtered out despite being the best for the job.

For example, my wife learnt everything there was for a Six Sigma Black Belt on Udemy. However, since you get no diploma or certification of any kind, her knowledge is useless unless her boss sponsors a black belt teaching session, which costs over 10000$, way too much for the company she's working for (that's more than her yearly income in the Philippines).



Out of the people who have announced I like Gabbard and Yang.



I've been checking the results and early pools of previous presidential primaries for both parties in the last 20 years or so, and it seems that right now, even if there's still 18 months to go, we should have a good idea of who's probably going to win (or at least narrowing the field to a handful of candidates). Anyone with less than some 12-15% (let's make it 10% since the field is so crowded) is a no-go at this point.  So that means one among Biden, Sanders, Harris, Warren and O'Rouke (which I'm assuming will go above 10% when he declares his intent to run) are very likely the nominee.

The only exception to this rule was Trump - but then, he didn't declare himself as a candidate until mid 2015, and went to immediately lead the polls or close to it thereafter. I'm willing to discount earlier (90s and 80s) primaries since there was no internet etc. back in the days. But even then, Bill Clinton for instance wasn't the non-entity before 1992 some like to claim when advocating for a surprise or outsider candidate.

It might seem a boring choice, but I'm starting to bet on Biden. He'll run a smooth campaign, based on his experience and moderation, much like Bush and Romney did before, and cruise to the nomination with it.



 

 

 

 

 

SpokenTruth said:
Snoopy said:

I thought you were going to join the caravan and teach America the wonders of socialism and how it will work this time despite it failing for the hundredth time.

See boys and girls.  This is why you don't debate with Snoopy.  Because he argues from a stand point of ignorance.  So instead of just debating him, you have to debate him AND educate him.  And you end up spending time and energy on an education he doesn't want, ignores, twists and/or clearly doesn't understand.  He could also be trolling...in which case he wins no matter what because his goal is to waste your time.

Sorry that the caravan kicked you out because they didn't want you as a leader. Maybe you should go to Tumblr and make another blog.



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Bofferbrauer2 said:
Snoopy said:

1. China eventually learned about capitalism. Glad you notice how capitalism is the way to go. However, the United States is still ahead and China is plateauing right now. Not to mention the capita per income in China is embarrassing.  Also, I forgot to say the United States has more GDP than the whole European union lol.

2. Even though we spend a lot of money on the military, it still won't cover the cost of social programs. Even if we drop the cost to $0. Not to mention military spending when done right does come up with useful inventions (Internet, GPS, microwaves, etc) and makes other countries think twice about starting wars with us. Which saves us a lot of money in the long run. The rich pay the majority of our taxes as it is. If we tax them to death, they will eventually leave and we get nothing. That includes jobs. We can drop financial aids and other countries will still do deals with us because we are leading in pretty much every relevant industry.

3. Except private banks won't be lending a lot of money compare to the federal government because private banks will be pickier. Therefore the price will go down because Universities will have no choice. Also, there are no guarantees, but there are statistics to see which loan is the best bet. Not to mention Universities can downsize on useless stuff and curriculums. Universities have a lot of ways to generate money. Just look at the sports program.

Youtube videos can teach you many things young padawan. I've made over $15,000 side money online last year thanks to some youtube videos. You can learn to program and build a portfolio, run a landlord business (which I am doing on the side now) and more. If you can prove to people you can do the job, they won't care if you have a degree unless the government forces it of course. I still remember my doctor using google/ a youtube video to help diagnose an issue I was having. What a time to live.

1. Yes Capitalism is the way to go - however not unrestricted, there need to be some rules and regulations in place to protect both people and small companies. @bolded: In nominal GDP, they do. Bring it up to purchase parity power and the US drops to the third spot, behind China and the EU. Main cause is the slow growth in Italy (1.2%), UK(1.4%), France (1.6%) and Germany (1.9%), which taken together form over 50% of the EU's economy. But the rest of Europe is growing much faster, and mostly faster than the US, too (eastern EU member states consistently grow by 4%+, as do Luxembourg, Malta and Ireland ) but they are yet too small to make a big impact in the total EU growth.

2. a. Yeah, but the US military is bloated to death. It could work just as efficiently with just a third of the expenses if they just limit the different equipments to one per kind instead of a dozen per kind. That alone would already help a lot.

b. They do, as it should be - but just barely. Also, if you look it from the income perspective, it's far from enough: while the total adjusted household income has been multiplied by 6 since 1980 (from 1.6 Trillions to 9.7 Trillions), the top 1% income rose from 138 Billions to 2 Trillions, so multiplied by 14.5 and thus much more than twice the mean value. In fact, it's them who push that value up to 6x in the first place, as the bottom 50% only rose by 3.8x, from 288B to 1.095T. In other words, they went from earning twice what the top 1% does to half of what the Top 1% gains. No wonder the Top 1% pays the most taxes if they earn much more money than half the population in the first place.

3. You missed the point. The Universities will continue jacking up the prices, as there will always be enough to pay for it, but never enough for their insatiable hunger for money, thus pricing higher and higher. you can see a similar thing happening in the Videogame industry already, with DLCs and Season passes that cost more than the base game itself.

4. I know Youtube videos and the like can teach you very much (i'm using Udemy btw, which works similarly). But again, you missed the point. The point was that you might learn everything there is to learn in a domain, but you get no diploma, no proof that at one point in your life you learnt all that stuff. If a company only looks at the diplomas and sees you appying for a job but miss the necessary diploma, chances are you get filtered out despite being the best for the job.

For example, my wife learnt everything there was for a Six Sigma Black Belt on Udemy. However, since you get no diploma or certification of any kind, her knowledge is useless unless her boss sponsors a black belt teaching session, which costs over 10000$, way too much for the company she's working for (that's more than her yearly income in the Philippines).

1. You're going to have to site CREDIBLE sources about "buying power". America dictates how the industry goes for the most part. Look at how AAA Video games are made to cater to western gamers for example. Also, most conservatives believe in some control regarding capitalism. Most of these "controlling factors" actually help businesses in the long run. 

2 A. Yes, there is unnecessary spending in every government agencies. My home city had a scandal where one of the education leaders was using tax money for a vacation. Pretty messed up. Glad he is going to jail. Which is why I prefer the private sector to take over most things.

2 B. It isn't "barely". The TOP 1 percent pays almost 40% of our taxes. Chances are our taxes won't pay for squat and we are not huge job creators.

3. DLC, Season pass are all optional. However, video games have actually gotten cheaper and have more value (IMO) than ever before. You can play games like Apex and Fortnite for free. Also, look at what Xbox game pass is doing. You are able to play relatively new/new games for 10 dollars a month. Recently I've played shadow of the tomb raider, Sea of thieves and crackdown 3 through game pass. Look at Netflix, for 5 dollars you can an insane amount of entertainment. That's what happens when the federal government gets their noses out of the industries.

4. You do have proof if you apply what you learn. Learning programming through youtube? Create a GitHub account and upload a portfolio. Learned how to cook food on youtube? Great! Cook the food and sell it (actually know someone doing this part-time). Curently, I am learning how to run a side landlord business and what homes are great investments.

 

Also, I did Udemy before. You do get a certification. Depending on the industry, it can be very useful.



Snoopy said:
Bofferbrauer2 said:

1. Yes Capitalism is the way to go - however not unrestricted, there need to be some rules and regulations in place to protect both people and small companies. @bolded: In nominal GDP, they do. Bring it up to purchase parity power and the US drops to the third spot, behind China and the EU. Main cause is the slow growth in Italy (1.2%), UK(1.4%), France (1.6%) and Germany (1.9%), which taken together form over 50% of the EU's economy. But the rest of Europe is growing much faster, and mostly faster than the US, too (eastern EU member states consistently grow by 4%+, as do Luxembourg, Malta and Ireland ) but they are yet too small to make a big impact in the total EU growth.

2. a. Yeah, but the US military is bloated to death. It could work just as efficiently with just a third of the expenses if they just limit the different equipments to one per kind instead of a dozen per kind. That alone would already help a lot.

b. They do, as it should be - but just barely. Also, if you look it from the income perspective, it's far from enough: while the total adjusted household income has been multiplied by 6 since 1980 (from 1.6 Trillions to 9.7 Trillions), the top 1% income rose from 138 Billions to 2 Trillions, so multiplied by 14.5 and thus much more than twice the mean value. In fact, it's them who push that value up to 6x in the first place, as the bottom 50% only rose by 3.8x, from 288B to 1.095T. In other words, they went from earning twice what the top 1% does to half of what the Top 1% gains. No wonder the Top 1% pays the most taxes if they earn much more money than half the population in the first place.

3. You missed the point. The Universities will continue jacking up the prices, as there will always be enough to pay for it, but never enough for their insatiable hunger for money, thus pricing higher and higher. you can see a similar thing happening in the Videogame industry already, with DLCs and Season passes that cost more than the base game itself.

4. I know Youtube videos and the like can teach you very much (i'm using Udemy btw, which works similarly). But again, you missed the point. The point was that you might learn everything there is to learn in a domain, but you get no diploma, no proof that at one point in your life you learnt all that stuff. If a company only looks at the diplomas and sees you appying for a job but miss the necessary diploma, chances are you get filtered out despite being the best for the job.

For example, my wife learnt everything there was for a Six Sigma Black Belt on Udemy. However, since you get no diploma or certification of any kind, her knowledge is useless unless her boss sponsors a black belt teaching session, which costs over 10000$, way too much for the company she's working for (that's more than her yearly income in the Philippines).

1. You're going to have to site CREDIBLE sources about "buying power". America dictates how the industry goes for the most part. Look at how AAA Video games are made to cater to western gamers for example. Also, most conservatives believe in some control regarding capitalism. Most of these "controlling factors" actually help businesses in the long run. 

2 A. Yes, there is unnecessary spending in every government agencies. My home city had a scandal where one of the education leaders was using tax money for a vacation. Pretty messed up. Glad he is going to jail. Which is why I prefer the private sector to take over most things.

2 B. It isn't "barely". The TOP 1 percent pays almost 40% of our taxes. Chances are our taxes won't pay for squat and we are not huge job creators.

3. DLC, Season pass are all optional. However, video games have actually gotten cheaper and have more value (IMO) than ever before. You can play games like Apex and Fortnite for free. Also, look at what Xbox game pass is doing. You are able to play relatively new/new games for 10 dollars a month. Recently I've played shadow of the tomb raider, Sea of thieves and crackdown 3 through game pass. Look at Netflix, for 5 dollars you can an insane amount of entertainment. That's what happens when the federal government gets their noses out of the industries.

4. You do have proof if you apply what you learn. Learning programming through youtube? Create a GitHub account and upload a portfolio. Learned how to cook food on youtube? Great! Cook the food and sell it (actually know someone doing this part-time). Curently, I am learning how to run a side landlord business and what homes are great investments.

 

Also, I did Udemy before. You do get a certification. Depending on the industry, it can be very useful.

1. @ bolded: Bad example, most games that sell well in Europe are either made there or in Japan. The movie industry would have been a much better example imo.

If most conservatives believe in some control, then why do they always cheer when even some of the most basic controls get removed? I fear most conservatives, at least elected ones (not necessary their voters) are more anarcho-capitalists economically speaking then you think.

2. Yes, the top 1% pay 40% of the taxes. They used to pay much more, though - and the economy was thriving. For instance, remember when AOC advocated for a 70% top tax for everybody who earns over 10M (and, just for those who don't fully understand it, it means only the part above 10M will be taxed at 70%, not all of it)? Well, under Eisenhower the Tax rate for an equivalent income  was actually 90%. And both the economy was booming and new businesses, small and large, sprung up during those times. The millionaires of today don't pay enough taxes, period. They accumulate more and more wealth while the bottom 75% are quickly getting poorer and poorer.

3. I can't hear that "it's just optional"bullcrap anymore. let's apply that to real life, shall we. You'll get a 30sqm studio with a single bad and table, a pinto as your car, and a 10$ a day salary without any insurance coverage. not good enough for you? It's just optional, you got what you need to live, so be happy! Of course, we can give you a sedan for the totally not overpriced $300.000 or an 70sqm condo unit for $5.000.000. Or just a new set of clothes for $10.000. Just ask your bank to wire us the money. This is how that "optional" works, it's just highly exploitative crap.  I'd rather buy a full game at 80 or 100$ than those chopped-up abominations from the AAA publishers for 15$ and having to work (not just play, not having fun, work!) hard just to get some locked-away content. they are made super grindy just to push you into the in-game stores and buy stuff so you can start actually having some fun with their games.

Also, Netflix for 5$? It just got raised to 14$. But in any case, that works against your case. Look what you get for that money and what you get today for a 60$ game. I'd rather pay 4 months for Netflix than for a AAA 60$ game, as even just one month of Netflix has vastly more, and much better, content.

Gamepass is only worth it if there are many games in there you like, play a lot of hours in those games and don't mind paying over and over even whenthere's not much anymore that you still play and don't mind that you are just  renting games, never owning them.

4. But many don't accept those proofs. Like I said, I'm using Udemy, (and skillshare and Alison courses by the way, and in all cases it the same problem) but I have yet to find an employer to accept their certificates. it's just worthless for them because they are not certified for teaching those (with certified I mean they delivered a proof to an authority that they can teach that) (and if you want to know what I'm learning, it's languages (Tagalog and Japanese) and programmation (Unity, CSS, SEO and Web developer).



So, Beto's finally oficially running. Only Biden out of the major candidates to still declare, but since the requirements for joining the debate are so low this time around I can see many others trying to go for it (Stacy Abrahams etc.).



 

 

 

 

 

Posted this in the Yang thread:

I definitely like that Yang seems to be carving his own niche with issues specifically on the economy/business and advancing techology. He seems like he focuses on practical issues facing young people in particular rather than typical flowery words and basic Dem talking points with no substance. He also recently mentioned he was anti-circ on Twitter, so a couple of points there for me heh.. Still need to find out more. Will have to watch that Joe Rogan podcast with him to gain more knowledge about his policies and ideals, but I'm intrigued.

As of now, I'm pretty much breaking up with Bernie haha.. He's gone a bit too heavy on the identity politics bs, and I still don't like that he sold out to the Clinton machine - though I'd still be ok with him being the candidate going up against Trump and may vote for him. Battle of the policial outsiders.

As of now my preferences are: Tulsi>>>>Yang>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Bernie>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Any other Dem candidate :P

Only really care about those 3 and those are probably the only 3 I'd vote for against Trump.



 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident - all men and women created by the, go-you know.. you know the thing!" - Joe Biden

Did read some very positive standpoints of Tulsi Gabbard,might be rooting for her whenever i invested some more indepth reading about her