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Bernie Sanders' 404 page

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Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#141

Post by eli_gottlieb »

marktd wrote: post #75
jerf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this phase in the run, the punditariat is greatly, greatly more confident than the facts justify. I don't mean that specific to this year... I mean generically at this phase of the campaign. If the punditariat was correct at this phase, Hillary Clinton would not currently be able to run, because she'd be finishing out her second term, having defeated Rudy Guiliani in the 2008 campaign by a small but significant ma…

In 2000, both Gore and Bush were always the frontrunners, and then they both won the primaries in landslides. I believe they both won every state, except Bush lost New Hampshire to McCain. Also in 2008, you're exaggerating the extent to which the punditry favored Giuliani; he was a frontrunner, but not at all considered a shoo-in the way Hillary is. The problem with Bernie is that he has very limited appeal outside o…

>In 2000, both Gore and Bush were always the frontrunners, and then they both won the primaries in landslides. I believe they both won every state, except Bush lost New Hampshire to McCain.

I think the question is: does the ability of pundits to predict elections correlate or anticorrelate with voter participation rates?

Or in simpler terms: do pundits predict well when primaries are democratic and reflect the will of the people, or when they're isolated, low-information games that mostly reflect punditry itself?

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#142

Post by ruraljuror »

Yhippa wrote: post #102
acslater00 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet we've got a lot of "political experts" but probably not that many political experts.

What exactly is a "political expert"?

The distinction being made is between an expert in politics and someone who is political and an expert in something else (like tech).

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#143

Post by eli_gottlieb »

philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

Some experts appear to consider it unlikely but plausible: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/this-is-how-bernie-sander...

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#144

Post by mdemare »

MrJagil wrote: post #126
mdemare wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He has no chance of winning the general election even if he were nominated. Well, that depends who he is up against. Imagine Sanders vs. Cruz with Trump as a 3rd party candidate...

Could you unfold that statement?

If Sanders is up against Cruz, and Trump is a 3rd party candidate, it's unclear who'd win.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#145

Post by alwaysAttending »

MrJagil wrote: post #122
alwaysAttending wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny because that's a general sentiment among Sanders supporters. They like the way he sounds but don't really follow politics. The reality is his policy isn't all that good. It's just very utopian sounding so people love it. Take his Free College For all Bill. It sounds nice doesn't it? Free College for all! I can support that! But in reality it's quite flawed. Beyond the fact that it's just a new 50 billion d…

I'm wondering how this compares to countries who actually has his "utopia" implemented, to a certain degree at least. I mean, in Denmark, the government pays you $1000 a month to study college/university. In the implementation stage they must've had similar problems to the ones you're describing. Is it a hockey-stick graph and are these obstacles just necessary for future prosperity?

The European model is somewhat different than the American one even at public universities. It would require some compromise even from the left. I'm not sure exactly but I think there are more Lecturers and fewer Profs in Europe, for instance. In Denmark, the avg Prof only makes $70,000. Adjuncts make around $50,000. I imagine professors (actual tenured Professors) are paid much better in the US.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#146

Post by eli_gottlieb »

artimaeis wrote: post #116
matwood wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious why you like him. I don't really understand the appeal because whenever I listen to him speak it is along the lines of 'we have people starving and oh we have millionaires.' Okay, great so what? Should we not have either? How does one fix the other? Anyways, I've been asking people who like him to really explain because I don't get it and often just see 'he speaks truth, you are an idiot if you…

Not sure if you were looking for someone to tell you why they like him - if not, I apologize for misunderstanding. His platform - though overly ambitious - contains a bullet list of the exact things I believe are in desperate need of fixing in the nation. For the sake of brevity I'll stick with only 3: > Rebuild Infrastructure > Reverse Climate Change > Health Care as a Right for All I honestly don't understand how e…

>Reversing climate change (or at least reducing the effect of it) is another I can't believe that every candidate isn't running with. The longer we wait to address the problem with meaningful change the worse of a future we guarantee.

Half the continent of North America is already on fire[1].

[1] http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/08/24/everything-is-on-f...

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#147

Post by gadders »

philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

I think this was a good summary of Bernie Sanders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fspZiT8TdBE&feature=youtu.be

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#148

Post by eli_gottlieb »

alwaysAttending wrote: post #145
MrJagil wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering how this compares to countries who actually has his "utopia" implemented, to a certain degree at least. I mean, in Denmark, the government pays you $1000 a month to study college/university. In the implementation stage they must've had similar problems to the ones you're describing. Is it a hockey-stick graph and are these obstacles just necessary for future prosperity?

The European model is somewhat different than the American one even at public universities. It would require some compromise even from the left. I'm not sure exactly but I think there are more Lecturers and fewer Profs in Europe, for instance. In Denmark, the avg Prof only makes $70,000. Adjuncts make around $50,000. I imagine professors (actual tenured Professors) are paid much better in the US.

Positions corresponding to "Lecturer" do exist in the American university system. Tenure is more about job-security than about high pay, so actually "real" professors aren't that expensive[1]: $65k/year for a starting assistant professor, and $95k/year for a full professor (and most tenured professors only make Full Professor towards the end of their career, if at all).

[1] -- https://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?Survey...

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#149

Post by grecy »

slg wrote: post #138
TimJRobinson wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was born in Australia and now lives in Amsterdam I feel like he's the most sane politician in America. I still don't understand why Americans are so insistent on keeping their "Bad for the people, good for business" policies. If you're in the 1% sure that makes sense, but for everyone else life is so much nicer with free healthcare, good vacation time, maternity leave, good public transport, proper pri…

It all comes down to our "freedom" fetish. Why should the government force me to take 4 weeks of vacation when I can make due with 2? Why would I want to build my day around a train schedule when I could just get in my car and drive? And so on.

You missed the point entirely.

Just because those things are available, you are not forced to use them.

You would have the best of both worlds, because you would have more choices, not less like you have now.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#150

Post by ihaveajob »

jules wrote: post #129
oluwie wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the U.S. and why universal health care potentially wouldn't work is in terms of scale. The U.S. has over 300M people living in it, over 8x as much as the most populous European country. We also have a history of hating and evading taxes at all costs (Boston Tea Party). I'm not saying it can't work but the economics gets truly tricky when you're dealing with a country that big.

What does size have to do with it? If anything, size should be beneficial because of economies of scale.

If anything, the EU is larger and more populated than the US, so even in that case it should be easier to implement anything in the US.
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