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Bernie Sanders' 404 page

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Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#171

Post by slg »

xeromal wrote: post #154
slg wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 are kind of simplifying it to make it seem more stupid than it already is. My dad would be annoyed that he has to pay for all this "extra" stuff in order to grow his business. Simple as that. He believes that the big companies already provide some semblance of benefits so really the only people hurt are the people with small businesses. You can go get another job if you don't like it.

I wrote it somewhat tongue in check from the employee's perspective. No one would refuse being offered more vacation. However, like you said people don't want to be forced to offer and/or pay for that vacation. The belief is if people really want the vacation, the free market will force employers to give that vacation and therefore any government requirement is either not needed or overly onerous. It is a simplification, but when combined with Cold War fallout of Capitalism v. Socialism (which is often just a softer term for Communism in this country) it explains most of the things described in the original post.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#172

Post by knoble »

grecy wrote: post #153
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.

You are in the richest country in the world, and you're telling me that universal healthcare can't work because of scale? I'm shocked the average person on the street believes these lies. Universal Heathcare doesn't work in the US right now because some very powerful and rich people will be a lot less powerful and rich, and they don't want that. Open your eyes for a second and realize you are the only developed count…

I don't think the problem with scaling is as much economic as it is a product of the number of disparate motivations at scale.

The more people you have, the more difficult it becomes to have any sort of general consensus.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#173

Post by rmxt »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #127
Someone1234 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sanders and Trump are doing well for similar reasons, they've both rejected the corruption which has become so commonplace in American politics. Trump is famously self-funded, and Sanders has a great grassroots campaign which has help keep him afloat. Neither has yet really resorted to corporate bribes. That's why you're seeing them do so well with their own respective bases. While it is undeniable that the general p…

Trump has no extreme positions that I've heard. Totally mainstream populist. People are downvoting me, but if you don't realize that any policy comments Trump has put forth poll great you are just out of touch. You would be by definition "extreme."

Right, because calling Mexican immigrants to the United States "criminals, drug dealers, rapists" is a completely reasonable position. I'm sure that many of the 100+ million people in the United States that are non-white would definitely agree with that.

http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-epic-statement-...

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#174

Post by Techowl »

ceejayoz wrote: post #12

There seems to be a trend to interesting/funny 404s for presidential campaigns. https://www.barackobama.com/45325r/ has a "thanks, Obama" GIF meme. https://www.bobbyjindal.com/dfka blames the 404 on Obama with #ThanksObama" too.

There are some wild 404 pages outside of campaigns, too: Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/404) has a pretty nutty one.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#175

Post by ThatGeoGuy »

oluwie wrote: post #120
hyperbovine wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He favors European style social democracy. His whole point is that there actually exist functioning countries where health care is universal and free, college is accessible to all, gay people have rights, etc etc., and that America could be one of those countries if we wanted to. Btw I learned this by spending five minutes last night reading about him and watching a short interview, so I think your comment gives him…

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.

> The problem with the U.S. and why universal health care potentially wouldn't work is in terms of scale.

I believe grecy commented on this quite well, but as someone from Canada, I hardly believe this to be true. Sure, you have 318M+ citizens, while Canada only has around 35M+ citizens. However, the United States is more wealthy than Canada, by a similar factor of ten:

US GDP 2014: 17.42 Trillion Canada GDP 2014: 1.79 Trillion

[1] http://data.worldbank.org/country/Canada [2] http://data.worldbank.org/country/United-States

To say it wouldn't work at scale is a gross exaggeration. I would argue that you shouldn't just assume that healthcare wouldn't work. If most of the money wasn't appropriated between Big Business (TM) and the Military Industrial Complex, I'm sure it would hardly be an issue to introduce Canadian-style healthcare at a country-wide scale.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#176

Post by slg »

grecy wrote: post #149
slg wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are asking me to defend a point that I disagree with, but as the argument goes, you pay for them regardless. Because these type of things are provided for the government, it means they are funded by tax dollars. I am therefore in a way participating in them because I have to pay for them.

If I don't want 4 weeks of vacation, why should I pay for everyone else to get 4 weeks of vacation?

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#177

Post by bmelton »

learc83 wrote: post #168
bmelton wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, on logic, his plan simply won't work. This isn't my logical analysis, though I agree, but the considered opinion of many economists. The plan, as put forth, is proposed to levy a .025%–.5% tax on stocks, .025%–.1% tax on bonds and .005%–.02% on derivatives with the funds going to health, public services, debt reduction, infrastructure and job creation. Ignoring the claim that it's a "Robin Hood" tax, and that R…

>What will likely happen is the same thing that happened when Sweden implemented their own financial transaction tax I'm not going to argue for the efficacy of the tax your talking about, but the differences in Sweden and the US are too large to make a valid comparison. The US is the largest economy in the world, a small tax that pushes people out of Swedish markets may not do the same here--US markets may be relativ…

They are currently very attractive. Once you implement a transaction tax on them though, they become less so.

When transaction volume begins shifting to an untaxed foreign exchange, the companies will begin the process of relisting to be on the foreign exchanges. The process (obviously) isn't easy or fast, but it's preferable to unallocated shares.

Beyond that though, as transaction volume dwindles, and it simply must do so, there are less transactions being taxed. The tax might work as advertised in the near term, but will fail through attrition in out years. Of course, by then, it will have been claimed a success and Bernie will likely be out of office, so it'll be blamed on the next guy.

And, of course, let's not forget the idea that for every $1.00 we increase college subsidies, colleges raise prices by $0.65.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#178

Post by djrogers »

ihaveajob wrote: post #150
jules wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"The EU" doesn't have a socialized system - most (all?) of the countries in the EU do have distinct, different, and locally funded socialist programs, but "The EU" doesn't.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#179

Post by bmelton »

learc83 wrote: post #170
bmelton wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per capita, we aren't the richest country in the world. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/06/24/what-is-the...

That's a ridiculous article. It conveniently avoids overall GDP, by which the US is the richest in the world. In the first comparison they use GDP per capita, and in the second they use overall reserve currency? Then they use natural resources, but don't factor overall ability to exploit said resources. They're just picking metrics that don't favor the US.

But when we're talking about redistribution to individuals, GDP is a less good metric than GDP per capita.

I agree that it dances around GDP, but I disagree that it is somehow the trump metric that makes everything work. On balance, we have less cash per resident than do countries with higher per capita GDP.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#180

Post by learc83 »

bmelton wrote: post #177
learc83 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What will likely happen is the same thing that happened when Sweden implemented their own financial transaction tax I'm not going to argue for the efficacy of the tax your talking about, but the differences in Sweden and the US are too large to make a valid comparison. The US is the largest economy in the world, a small tax that pushes people out of Swedish markets may not do the same here--US markets may be relativ…

They are currently very attractive. Once you implement a transaction tax on them though, they become less so. When transaction volume begins shifting to an untaxed foreign exchange, the companies will begin the process of relisting to be on the foreign exchanges. The process (obviously) isn't easy or fast, but it's preferable to unallocated shares. Beyond that though, as transaction volume dwindles, and it simply mus…

That's not my argument. My argument is that your point about Sweden isn't valid because it's relatively much easier to avoid Swedish markets.
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