2016 US Presidential Election Thread - VIII

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Irvine511 said:
yeah, see, this is what's starting to get to me about this cycle. because i've criticized Sanders, i'm now filled with "Clinton bias" -- as if preferring one candidate to another after careful consideration means one is incapable of clear thinking. when you do this, you sound like a conservative pundit claiming "media bias." it's feeling like the "true progressive" card is being played in moments like these.

Sanders has consistently said that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few is the root cause of all of America's problems. he blames the banks, and the "millionaires and billionaires." that's non-specific, he's offered no real solution beyond taxes, and it's a message designed to appeal to lower socio-economic classes (and their sympathizers). that IS the definition of a demagogue.

i have searched myself, deeply, as to why i can't get on the Sanders train this election cycle. i obviously admire Obama, and have never loved HRC, especially in 2008. but as this campaign wears on, and i increasingly come to the realization that Bernie is scapegoating me by virtue of vowing to raise my taxes and tax me at the same rate as people who make double or triple my salary, and for him to say that i'm the problem, somehow, is really irritating. i agree with progressive taxation. i think single payer is better. i believe in regulation. but i also find myself right in that income bracket that's going to be squeezed the most, and also feel the most pain because i look rich on paper to Sanders -- who lumps me in, through his tax plan, as a "millionaire and billionaire" -- even if reality is vastly different.

maybe i've changed. maybe you do get more conservative when you get older. maybe if you have actually laid down roots and put stakes into the present you do have something to lose in a way that you don't when you were 23. i have every reason to want the present to get incrementally better, i have no reason to want some sort of vague "do you hear the people sing" white nonsense. adults know that problems aren't solved with "political revolution." what a dumbshit, empty phrase. if we want to take the most successful social movement of the past 10 years, same-sex marriage, we have to go back to its roots in 1993 in Hawaii. and then Vermont. or even the AIDS crisis. and then dozens of tiny battles waged over decades that culminated in a sea change. there is no revolution. there is only the hard work and toil of people willing to roll up their sleeves and do the work necessary. people like Evan Wolfson, for example.

finally, i am quite sympathetic to people who have worked for the Democratic party for years, who have worked to win the Senate, the Congress, to put up viable candidates so we can have a national party that can compete with the organized and disciplined Republicans, and then a candidate for their party's nomination turns around and calls them "establishment" and pretends that they are the enemy. i can understand the irritation of NARAL or Planned Parenthood at being called "establishment." a lot of these people are very much "fuck off, Bernie. where the fuck have you been these past 25 years? awfully fucking easy to be pure when you only have to win a state of 660,000 people. the rest of us live in the real world."
Click to expand...

This is one of the best posts i've read in a long time. Very much what I'm feeling.
I started out a Bernie supporter. I don't think anyone can argue with the wealth inequality problem, or that campaign finance needs to be overhauled. The list goes on. At first blush, it was easy to get swept up in the VERY broad strokes that he sells.
But to me, just the smallest amount of digging a little deeper, and what he says doesn't necessarily fall apart (although some of it does), but me, as a 41 year old guy with a family, and a current job that I've worked hard at for a decade, where i started at 12 bucks an hour (after getting 2 degrees, with substantial debt) and now am making a comfortable living - AND as a lifetime Democrat, I feel a real sense of animosity (that might be a bit strong) for a guy that hops on the Dem train, and then trashes almost everything about the party.

It makes it more clear every day that Clintons angle on College, and Minimum wage, and equal pay, and environment, child care costs, and wall st. reform, etc... etc... actually makes much more sense to me. and I feel much more secure in her approach, than anything that Bernie is putting out there.

It also just infuriates me, that he has labeled every single superdelegate as "establishment" and 'corporate shills" and then, he thinks he's not just going to be able to work with them if he were president, but he thinks he's going to get them to actually switch their support to him during this primary!

What i'm seeing is a guy that has bought into his own myth. He is getting huge crowds and he doesn't care that he's losing by 3 million votes. That his appeal is drastically narrow. That I can think of a political ad off the top of my head that would decimate him in a general election. And now it seems, he doesn't care what damage he does to the candidate that he KNOWS is going to win the primary, or the party whose name he cynically took on to get the platform that he has gotten.

The latest is his campaign saying - voting for Clinton with be a "disaster"
I mean, really??? This is what he is still doing at this point? Why? Because he won and incredibly white, arguably racist state like WV?? and garnered himself 8 more delegates from it, so now he's "got the momentum"???

It's just all so disappointing from a guy that i started out respecting and really liking.
 
Pride before the fall, right?

I think a few of them know that their party is done for after this election. I think they'll get behind Trump, knowing full well change is needed (purge the Tea Party out) for the GOP to have any sort of chance at WH in 2020.

Could be wrong. Seems like we've been saying this about the party since Dubya.
 
Of course they are all going to fall behind the Republican candidate. Yes, you may have some conservative leaning country club style Republicans who will probably secretly pull the lever for Hillary in November but by and large the party leadership and most Republicans will vote for Trump. Anything else was just a momentary hissy fit or posturing for the future. This way Paul Ryan can come out and say, you see *I* had reservations about him and I did the responsible thing by not endorsing him right away, I tried to work with him, blah blah blah but in the end he went rogue and there was nothing I could do. But I tried to unify our party and so on.
 
My posts earlier weren't meant to have some confounding fuzzy math. My essential point is that Trump is going to finish this thing with like 12,000,000 primary votes (and a good chunk of those earned through the recent bandwagon effect since it became clear he would be the nominee). With his horrific favorable ratings in polling, I just don't see how he suddenly can get up to par with more well liked candidates such as McCain and Romney and then suddenly snag another pile of millions of votes to help get him across the finish line and into the White House. There's just no reason it would happen, especially when he's offended so may sub-sections of the American population and the game is becoming harder and harder for Republicans to even remotely have a chance at winning the top prize.

For example, from an analysis I posted in here months back, Democrats have about a 2.5 million voter registration advantage gained from the last four years alone due to newly registered younger voters and more older Republicans dying off than Democrats. Doesn't mean all of them are going to be pulling levers and filling in bubbles in November, but that is a massive disadvantage for Trump.
 
Today in GOP news:

Paul Ryan Keeps His Spine; At Least For the Moment.

and

Cruz Keeps His Delusional Insanity.



Interesting combo of news; Ryan still doesn't endorse Trump and Cruz seems to be starting up his campaign again in Texas and 8 other states. Apparently he thinks he can get enough momentum to open a contested convention.
 
One thing that got me wondering lately, why can Sanders take part in the Democratic primary? He's not a Democrat, AFAIK, but an independent senator. Yes, he (generally) caucuses with the Democrats, but he's not a member of the party. So why is he allowed to run for the Democratic nominee?
 
Good example of why some of us have continually said Bernie Sanders and "true progressives" have some bad ideas.

Wendy’s (WEN) said that self-service ordering kiosks will be made available across its 6,000-plus restaurants in the second half of the year as minimum wage hikes and a tight labor market push up wages.

It will be up to franchisees whether to deploy the labor-saving technology, but Wendy’s President Todd Penegor did note that some franchise locations have been raising prices to offset wage hikes.
Click to expand...

Mickey D's up next.

Wendy's Serves Up Kiosks As Wages Rise, Hits Fast-Food Group | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD

You might argue this (automation) was inevitable. But all the same, there is no doubt the cost of the wage increases for low-end jobs are and would continue to be passed on to the very people the wage increase was designed to help. So you either get those jobs eliminated - or you just increase cost of living for the people on the lower end. Yay! Didn't you hear? Money is free!

On top of this, it actually fouls up the upward mobility and the relative progression within the economy for these folks. Said another way, used to be you could work at a grocery store for 5, 10 years and be rewarded within the context of that end of the employment scale. By raising the minimum wage so high you've now (almost certainly) created jobs that all pay the same. 16 year old high school student, and 45 year old cashier that busted her ass at a pretty shit job - will basically make the same hourly wage. You've demotivated the workforce. Good luck frequenting these establishments and getting good customer service. Bad enough as it is.

So yeah. $15/hr minimum wage is the brainstorm of someone without both feet planted in the real world. Adults understand these are bad ideas. And for those of us who have no interest in supporting the Authoritarian Asshole, we might not be enamored with HRC but the world is a messy place where ideals go to die. And HRC is fine if only because she doesn't need such lessons. It's Bernie and the 19 year old college students, the perpetual hippies and the intellectual children like the famous Hollywood Play-Pretenders that don't understand these basic things.

Sorry to be so condescending but it gets frustrating. I'm just glad to see so many of the smart people around here echoing similar feelings. If I could dumb down my feelings into a 'bumper sticker slogan' I'd say - the world is ugly and sometimes you're better off fighting fire with fire. It's a paradox, and that's a huge reason why it's so hard to fix. The most honorable people (Bernie Sanders) always have the worst ideas, an adherence to fantasy. And the most unlikable people (HRC) are actually the smart people in the room, that end up having to pander, contort and twist, just so we can keep the crazies out of power.
 
I don't know why anyone would support John Kerry. He already lost an election. Is it a good idea to put the same candidate out there twice? I'd say definitely not.
 
U2DMfan said:
Good example of why some of us have continually said Bernie Sanders and "true progressives" have some bad ideas.







Mickey D's up next.



Wendy's Serves Up Kiosks As Wages Rise, Hits Fast-Food Group | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD



You might argue this (automation) was inevitable. But all the same, there is no doubt the cost of the wage increases for low-end jobs are and would continue to be passed on to the very people the wage increase was designed to help. So you either get those jobs eliminated - or you just increase cost of living for the people on the lower end. Yay! Didn't you hear? Money is free!



On top of this, it actually fouls up the upward mobility and the relative progression within the economy for these folks. Said another way, used to be you could work at a grocery store for 5, 10 years and be rewarded within the context of that end of the employment scale. By raising the minimum wage so high you've now (almost certainly) created jobs that all pay the same. 16 year old high school student, and 45 year old cashier that busted her ass at a pretty shit job - will basically make the same hourly wage. You've demotivated the workforce. Good luck frequenting these establishments and getting good customer service. Bad enough as it is.



So yeah. $15/hr minimum wage is the brainstorm of someone without both feet planted in the real world. Adults understand these are bad ideas. And for those of us who have no interest in supporting the Authoritarian Asshole, we might not be enamored with HRC but the world is a messy place where ideals go to die. And HRC is fine if only because she doesn't need such lessons. It's Bernie and the 19 year old college students, the perpetual hippies and the intellectual children like the famous Hollywood Play-Pretenders that don't understand these basic things.



Sorry to be so condescending but it gets frustrating. I'm just glad to see so many of the smart people around here echoing similar feelings. If I could dumb down my feelings into a 'bumper sticker slogan' I'd say - the world is ugly and sometimes you're better off fighting fire with fire. It's a paradox, and that's a huge reason why it's so hard to fix. The most honorable people (Bernie Sanders) always have the worst ideas, an adherence to fantasy. And the most unlikable people (HRC) are actually the smart people in the room, that end up having to pander, contort and twist, just so we can keep the crazies out of power.
Click to expand...


$15/hour minimum wage nationwide is a completely terrible idea. Pushing labor towards automation will hurt labor in cities, but that doesn't even remotely compare to remote and poor areas. I have to think of Yuma, Arizona, which basically has Mexico's labor productivity with the American minimum wage, with the result of 25% unemployment. Or even worse, Puerto Rico. A $15/hour minimum wage probably won't have a huge effect in NYC or SF, but it will be terrible for many places in this country.


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If pushing labor towards automation is an inevitable product of technology, shouldn't we just jump on board and start planning now on how to offset the unemployment setback?
 
LuckyNumber7 said:
If pushing labor towards automation is an inevitable product of technology, shouldn't we just jump on board and start planning now on how to offset the unemployment setback?
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Yes, like years ago... Automation will not take over human beings though. The service industry will realize customers will want human interaction, with automation will come new coding and maintenance jobs, so all is not lost, but yes we have to plan for it.


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BVS said:
Yes, like years ago... Automation will not take over human beings though. The service industry will realize customers will want human interaction, with automation will come new coding and maintenance jobs, so all is not lost, but yes we have to plan for it.


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Click to expand...


At a McDonald's, nobody gives a shit.
 
Irvine511 said:
A universal minimum income is on the horizon.
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One of the reasons why I support a universal basic income is because of automation. There simply aren't enough jobs that pay well enough to provide a living anymore. Our economy will continue to be more stratified with more low paying jobs and less middle class jobs. We've been seeing this trend for a while now and it's going to continue to accelerate.


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Irvine511 said:
A universal minimum income is on the horizon.
Click to expand...

Speaking of absolutely terrible ideas, this is infinitely worse than a $15 minimum wage.

If you have a problem with supporting Sanders because you feel personally persecuted vis-a-vis your taxes going up then this would be a real doozy.
 
anitram said:
Speaking of absolutely terrible ideas, this is infinitely worse than a $15 minimum wage.

If you have a problem with supporting Sanders because you feel personally persecuted vis-a-vis your taxes going up then this would be a real doozy.
Click to expand...

So what's your solution to the increasing unemployment that seems to be an inevitable consequence of automation? New technology is not yet creating nearly as many jobs as it replaces, and the jobs of designing, implementing, and maintaining these technologies require skills and qualifications well out of the reach of many of the people they replace.

I'm not saying I'm a universal minimum income advocate, since I haven't seriously dug into the issue and have some questions about the economic consequences, but your post seems rather hastily dismissive given that we're going to need to respond to automation somehow.
 
anitram said:
Speaking of absolutely terrible ideas, this is infinitely worse than a $15 minimum wage.

If you have a problem with supporting Sanders because you feel personally persecuted vis-a-vis your taxes going up then this would be a real doozy.
Click to expand...

Taxes need to go up. UP !

For the bracket or three above ME.
 
Oregoropa said:
They overshot at 15 dollars. I'm all for an incremental bump each year depending on coast of living and locality.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
Click to expand...


If they were to enact $15/hr it would be incremental. Not abrupt. The complaint is that we are not keeping up with the needs. I don't think such a change would be so ignorant as to forget that the change (or lack thereof) is critical.
 
Axver said:
So what's your solution to the increasing unemployment that seems to be an inevitable consequence of automation? New technology is not yet creating nearly as many jobs as it replaces, and the jobs of designing, implementing, and maintaining these technologies require skills and qualifications well out of the reach of many of the people they replace.
Click to expand...

People have been making the argument that automation will put vast majorities of people out of work for decades if not a couple of centuries now. But we have adapted, people have redeployed, education systems have changed, etc. We can invest in skills and qualifications, it's a better solution than diminishing the labour force and incentivizing people not to work through what would essentially amount to a massive transfer of wealth.

As a woman, I also think that this would primarily disincentivize women from joining the labour force and/or would incentivize them to remove themselves from the labour force which is not a positive outcome.

Raising the minimum wage is a very, very complex economic issue, and the article posted does a pretty great disservice to it as it focuses on a single cost (while ignoring other costs and entirely ignoring benefits). YES, raising the minimum wage would result in some job losses, whether that be through incentivizing, or more accurately, accelerating, automation or through businesses deciding to downsize. Proponents of a $15 minimum wage should honestly declare this as a cost. But just because something has a negative consequence doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. For example, you would also have plenty of businesses retain employees and those employees would now have significantly more $ to spend, thus providing a boost to the economy. That boost must be weighed against the unemployment consequences, rather than ignored. This is but one example, there are many others.
 
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