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And people wonder why we want a socialist for president
by 58028641 10y ago
And people wonder why we want a socialist for president
- elgabogringo 10y agoBecause you are gluttons for punishment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12115982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12115982
- jolux 10y agoVenezuela is nowhere close to what Bernie Sanders believes in.
- elgabogringo 10y agoNow Bernie supporters wouldn't get caught dead with Maduro, but Hugo Chavez was quite popular with the American left back in the day: https://www.google.com/search?q=hugo+chavez+american+celebrities https://www.google.com/search?q=hugo+chavez+american+celebri...
- Joof 10y agoIt's a somewhat poor comparison because Venezuela is primarily an oil economy.
- marknutter 10y agoBut if Millennials are earning less money, who will pay for socialism?
- sanderjd 10y agoI'm not suggesting that I'm in favor of this, but the idea is that the country has plenty of wealth, it is just concentrated in older generations who were able to build it through decades of economic largesse, so, well, that's who should should be paying for it.
- meritt 10y agoAnd I'm still not clear on how taxing the shit out of everyday working citizens somehow redistributes the wealth which is already hoarded by the 0.1%.
- aioprisan 10y agoWell we could start with some common sense tax reform, like not letting anything above $112k not be taxable for social security, a system through which old people are living off the backs of the young and straddling them with debts for services they will never see themselves - a ponzi scheme
- meritt 10y agoWait are you for increasing the SS cap (which is 118.5k btw) or just eliminating it entirely?
- aioprisan 10y agoI think having no cap on income for SS would make sense and make the system solvent - so basically, cut a tax only for the wealthy retired folks living off of backs of young folks, who are not exempt and they will never get there by subsidizing old folks in exchange for interest payments on private loans in the 7% range.
- meritt 10y agoBut the super wealthy -- the ones the Sanders crowd really dislike -- don't tend to have earned income anyway. They primarily benefit from capital gains which are entirely exempt from SS and Medicare entirely.
- aioprisan 10y agoThere's still a huge gap from $112 to having income in long term capital gains tax. Just because there are more things to do with capital gains tax reform, doesn't mean we can't have common sense reforms like this one.
- damptowel 10y agoThat's the same as asking who will pay for laissez faire statism, so inconsequential.
- WalterBright 10y agoGovernment at all levels already spends 35% of the GDP. It's hard to see how increasing that will make things better.
- jolux 10y agoThat's not an argument. You're just asserting that it's not possible.
- WalterBright 10y agoThe rise in government's share of the economy correlates with the rise in the economic ills. What is the basis for thinking there is an inflection point where the correlation reverses?
- ACow_Adonis 10y agoWell, if the correlation exists because government spending is a lagging/sticky indicator, and what's actually happening is that globalisation is hollowing out the manufacturing/wage earning class,there's no evidence that it will reverse, but the causation of this phenomenon is the opposite direction: government expenditure is increasing as a percentage of the economy because the other private part is collapsing, not because government expenditure is crowding private expenditure. In this instance it is an early indicator of distress, but not necessarily the cause.
- jolux 10y agoEconomic ills? Well consider that numerous other developed nations have large amounts of state-owned industry and that if anything their economies are stronger than ours.
- WalterBright 10y agoConsider a 25 year return on investment in the economy. Adjusted for inflation and including dividends, it's about 9% for the S&P 500: http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm Are there any developed economies with a higher figure?
- AckSyn 10y agoLet's just call it what it really is: Ignorance of the masses. I can guarantee most of those burnouts have neither paid attention to history nor basic economics.
- aioprisan 10y agoAre you talking about Trump's white supremacist campaign?
- eanzenberg 10y agoYou're right, it's pretty ignorant to think socialism is worthwhile economic or political policy.
- badsock 10y agoBernie Sanders is a social democrat, not a socialist. It's insane that social democrats haven't rebranded considering how common the confusion is.
- umanwizard 10y agoBernie Sanders has been branding himself as a "democratic socialist" (not social democrat) for decades.
- badsock 10y agoYou are 100% correct, and I'm wrong. Thanks for the correction!
- Mao_Zedang 10y agoNationalism is the only thing that fixes globalization.
- gozur88 10y ago"We" do not want a socialist anywhere in government.