Comments by "wvu05" (@wvu05) on "Senator Bernie Sanders" channel.

15 years ago, I called it the Paris Hilton tax. Would it be the Baron tax today?
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luvcheney1 Yeah, "voluntary." Try going without it and getting sick, or try having it and getting sick and watch them drag their feet when it comes to paying rather than try to find some technicality so they don't have to pay.
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Between this and "Foxcatcher," Mark Ruffalo has done some great and good work exposing awful things done by the Dupont Company and its heirs.
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He wouldn't have to keep saying the same thing if the powers would have listened lo these many years.
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Just a thought. The term "climate change" was coined by Frank Luntz to make it sound like something that just happens. If you look at the point where global warming skepticism increased, it was around that time. (When it was still called "global warming," Pat Robertson and Newt Gingrich, of all people, cut ads supporting action!) Why do we keep letting the right dictate the terms for everything? Maybe we should start calling it the climate crisis to force people to acknowledge the reality.
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While my economic beliefs are probably closer to Bryan than Debs, I think we have definitely gotten to the point where capitalism is harmful to far too many people.
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The American right has been doing this ever since the midnight appointments of 1801 when Adams lost to Jefferson.
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@zoephin6205 You trust Zuckerberg with your information? It is in his interests to sell your information to as many people as possible, and then to play dumb with his half-hearted apology. I'd much rather trust someone I can vote out if I had to choose.
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@zoephin6205 So, having multiple user accounts us worse than one company literally controlling information on almost every human being alive?
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If you don't clear cut, trees grow back.
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@AcmePotatoPackingPocatello Elon Musk? The libertarian who wants to build underground tunnels to remove himself from us commoners who get in his way on the road?
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@AcmePotatoPackingPocatello He is not trying to mass produce electric vehicles. He wants to keep it a niche object so he can charge six figures, thus ensuring that fewer people will buy it, and he isn't actually proposing more mass transit. Therefore, his actions are a net negative. Enough said.
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@AcmePotatoPackingPocatello Who has $35,000? How many of the underpaid and maltreated workers at his factories can afford that? Something seems more than a little off on your math. You said that you could drive from LA to Seattle and back for $97 and a 300 mile charge costs $4. Cross multiplying tells me that it would be 5000 miles to Seattle. Also, another question about the carbon footprint is what materials that they use in the manufacture of the engine. Some methods mean that it actually uses more CO2 than traditional vehicles in hybrids. There is evidence that, just to break even compared to a traditional car, it will take over 100,000 miles to do so on emissions, not to mention how many more rare earth materials they use, which affects water supply. If he wanted to really do something for the environment over and above virtue signalling, he should be trying to make electric mass transit and investing in renewable energy.
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@AcmePotatoPackingPocatello I'm not saying everyone has to do things the way I ask. What I am saying is that people have to look at the totality of one's actions, and a high-end car with building materials that cause a lot of water pollution isn't going to save us all.
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@AcmePotatoPackingPocatello You said $4 for 300 miles and $97 from LA to Seattle and back for the electricity. Now, I initially miscalcluated in based it on 400 miles instead of 300 miles, but that would mean that one dollar of fuel is 75 miles. 75×97 is actually closer to 7300 miles, and I knew that there was no way that a round trip could be that far, because that is Boston to LA territory. Also, I am well aware of the effects of CO2. My point was that you said that your car is "carbon neutral." It isn't. Never mind the question of where your electricity comes from, the actual production of the car causes a lot more pollution, including greenhouse gases, than conventional cars. Hence, the notion that you would have to own that car for a long time to break even compared to a conventional car. It's not that your intentions are bad (far from it), but thinking that any car is carbon neutral is incorrect. So, if you buy another one relatively quickly, you are actually causing more pollution than just keeping a conventional compact or sub-compact for a very long time.
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@AcmePotatoPackingPocatello My larger point was about virtue signalling about making a purchase that the average person cannot afford. Maybe instead of emphasizing your own virtue, acknowledge that people with less money are making conscious decisions as well to minimize their impact based on their finances and transportation needs, instead of painting someone selling a niche product as one of only two "indispensable" people.
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"Primary Colors" put it best: they don't care about the people, only the prize (with as much disdain as you can squeeze out of that last word).
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@timmarshall7292 They have done wrong by our veterans because too many people complain about paying too much in taxes, even though it's the rich who get their taxes cut with crumbs to the rest to try to appease us.
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@timmarshall7292 While I have trouble with corporate welfare, I also realize that no one starts a business with the goal of trying to hire people, but to make a profit. This is why stocks tend to go up after layoffs. The simple truth is that it is demand, not supply, that causes businesses to grow and people to get hired. As far as "coming by their income honestly," how do you define "honestly"? If there is anything good that has come out of the last few years, it's that people are realizing just how much crime and trickery the richest among us get away with. Less accountability, more corporate corruption!
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@timmarshall7292 Yes, there are corporate Democrats, but there are more non-corporate Democrats than non-corporate Republicans in the halls of power. As far as the Ten Commandments, it's interesting that you bring that up, because I saw two reports yesterday that bring into question their adherence to the Eighth Commandment. First was that the net worth of all billionaires increased by a total of $12 trillion last year, while the poorest 3.8 billion lost $11 trillion. Another stated that the richest 26 people in the world have more money than the poorest 3.8 billion combined. Even without the question of how certain industries use and exploit natural resources, this doesn't seem to me like benevolent action helping all.
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@timmarshall7292 But that misses the question. Those people literally got money from the poorest 60% of the world. Would you consider that honest means? What do you consider wealth gained through honest means? You have mentioned that several times, and I have countered with arguments why a lot of said gains are not being gained via honest means. If someone makes more in a day than the average employee (without whom his/her wealth would be impossible) in a year, and that worker makes so little that he/she requires public assistance to avoid starvation, how is that not theft? Theft can come in many forms, and that is what I see as the main flaw in many libertarian arguments: morality and liberty are extremely narrowly defined, and there are a lot of things that many libertarians want to impose when it comes to both (i.e., the libertarian version of the non-aggression principle).
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@timmarshall7292 You keep avoiding my fundamental questions with buzzwords. I'm asking you, in plain English, to tell me what you consider honest means. Do they have to pay fair wages? Protect the environment? Not practice corporate espionage? Not profit off the misery of others? If you can't answer these, "through honest means" is just words.
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@timmarshall7292 I only saw the second response, so it makes more sense to answer the first. That's why I deleted it, because I came to realize that it was a response to something different entirely. As far as the Democratic Party solving all of society's ills, I don't think any individual or any party can do that. However, I think that, on the whole, the Democratic Party is the better of the two major parties in terms of its goals and what has happened when it has been the dominant party. I think it's interesting that you keep referring to "30-40 years," because that has been a time of dominance of the right. Yes, it is good business to do right by employees, but there is a lot of evidence that some cheaters do prosper, especially when given a free rein as they have been for decades. Watch what happens to a company's stock when it announces layoffs or outsourcing: prices go up, because it is seen as cutting expenses. There are a lot of members of the Fortune 500 that rely on sweatshop labor. As far as "make yourself more valuable," there is nothing in any job that makes its value inherent now and for always. At the turn of the 20th century, factories had some of the lowest pay rates and worst working conditions in the world. When it became unionized, those became the best jobs for blue-collar workers. As far as worshipping the King of Kings, did He not say that you cannot worship both God and Money? And, just to clarify, I'm not a socialist. Probably, the closest to my economic beliefs would be an updated version of Populism, the real kind, not this fake right-wing version that tries to divide and belittle workers. That, and a healthy mix of Keynes, the only economic theorist I've ever seen to actually to try to look at the real world instead of his ivory tower when formulating his ideas, and when we were closer to them, the economy grew faster and more people reaped those benefits than when we went to laissez faire.
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