Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder"
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@MemoTercero No Kyle Kulinksi does NOT think racism and homophobia are myths. On the contrary (I heard him talk about that) - and I challenge you to quote any example where he said so. Kyle very clearly states that both parties use certain issues (that do not cost the donors anything) to rile up the base. Abortion, gay marriage, gun regulation, transgender bathroom and identity (racism is a form of that). Both parties play those issues, and the donors that finance both do not really care about the outcomes. They may have prefernces (let's say Koch versos Bezoes or Zuckerber) but as long as they can evade taxes, can outsource, pollute and the employees or consumers do not have rights they are good.
Decriminalizing weed or a higher minimum wage ? Not so much. Biden had the minimum wage on the platform but there is a reason he CHOSE not to campaign on it (and excite the base to turn out and to vote FOR something. His donors do not like it, so team Biden got it into the platform to placate the (usually better informed) young and progessive base. It gives them plausible deniability during the campaign in order to motivate at least some of these voters.
The rest of the voters do not even know about the stance that he allegedly has on minimum wage. No need to, Biden has no intention to make good on it. And he does not want to be held accountable for broken campaign promises. Obama run on Hope and Change and Biden run on: I will give you nothing, but at least I am not Trump.
Democrats have abandonded the base, and they do not have much to differentiate themselves from Republicans. They feel entitled to the Latino vote and are shocked that those voters (or the blue collars in the Rust belt) do not have the same blind loyalty as the (older) black voters.
A lot of voters care most about their economc interests. They should be enraged about the stances of Trump on BLM, dreamers, his misogyny etc. etc. - but it does not register much. people are self centered, you could call that casual tolerance of racism shown by other people. Well the elites have sold them out, and they are financially much better off - so who is to blame the voters (who are often by no means financially secure) for their: "Everyone is on their own stance". The elites (incl. the Democratic establishment) pushed for a society with that mindset.
Trump in 2020 did better with every gender / ethnicity _except for white males (especially those w/o a college degree). Black women, white women, Latinos both genders - he improved with them. Obama won Florida once and Ohio twice. Both Biden and HRC lost FL and OH.
the VOTERS care more about their economic prospects and future (TPP !!) than they care about the transgender bathrooms. You cannot prevent people from being homophobic, but as long as they are not openly attacked - if they have housing, education, and legal protection from being fired, they can live a good life and ignore the few idiots (that dare to be vocal).
And it is easier to rile up people against the "other" (gays, people of color, Muslim) if they have economic worries. There is part that is reactionary even under the best personal circumstances, another part is potentially prone to fall for a agitator like Trump - but if they are doing good they will concentrate on their own life and not create trouble. And be content to vote for politicinas that do not violate the norms.
The way to keep the assholes quiet and not let them gain traction in society is to have (financial) stability for all. Democratic elites helped to pass the laws that made outsourcing lucrative and safe for big biz. They propped up the health insurance profiteers (with ACA). NOW they have to wonder if they are able to win Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Ohio ! is a solidly red state, and florida is off limits too.
Under Obama the banksters were saved, no one was prosecuted and 5,5, million homes were forclosed. he started more wars and pushed for TPP big time.
THESE were political decisions. The opioide crime may have started under Bush but it was allowed to fester and blow up under Obama. NOW people are addicted and die from overdoses right left and center. In areas of economic downturn there will be the "diseases of despair" people are even more susceptible to addiction in a climate of economic hopelessness. Those who have homes or inherited them, cannot sell them and move to another states. There would not be enough jobs, the rent prices there would go up even more. And: They would not get a good price if they have a paid off house now. So they lose (intergenerational) wealth, and will be made to pay a steep price for housing elsewhere.
corporate Democrats purport to be against racism - yeah if it is convenient, rhetorically and does nto interfere with donor interests. Also see: Crime Bill, and the police brutality is the worst in the large cities which are usually blue. And they picked up the cause of gay and transgender people after it became a safe thing to do. (the grassroots did the heavy lifting to gain societal acceptance. Bush did some identity politics and wanted to make it constitutional that a marriage has to be between a man and a woman. Needless to say Hillary Clinton supported that. I assume also Biden. I think they do not care, it was just seen as a chance to make brownie points for cheap. Now the D leaning citizens changed their mind, and it is convenient to be for LGBTQ rights.
ONE major way of how discrimination manifests is economics and chances to get good healthcare, education, jobs etc. Securing that for ALL would disproportionally benefit women, LGBT folks (ask black transgender people !), veterans, people of color - AND that would be a winning elelctoral strategy even with people that tend to vote Republican.
Divide and conquer games would not work with UNIVERSAL economic measures, the Republicas would lose against economic populism. That would be a fast way to improve the situation of marginalized and low income people.
Dr. King was for for reparations. But his more immediate agenda (after the Civil Rights Laws were passed) was a War On Poverty and he wanted to unite poor people of color AND poor white people in that. That was his agenda when he was killed, he was in Memphis to support a strike.
His strategy was smart as always. If he had only pushed to relieve poverty for black people, he would have missed out on a lot of allies and he undermined all attempts to play Divide and Conquer. But of course he WANTED to achieve something. Not only posing as having the morally correct position on gays, or other races when that is convenient and does not cost you anything.
The Dems are very lucky that Trump was too greedy, incompetent to embrace economic populism (and by that I mean PUSHING for policies, not the campaign rhetoric) in addition to his right wing and nationalistic stances, and all the uglyness. The grifters around Trump are too ideological and shortshighted so they did not see that this was the ticket to his sure reelection.
he would have won in a landslide.
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In single payer systems that I know well (Germany and Austria) _ the only large for profit player is Big Pharma_ (and they have standardized, internationally comparable substances - so it is to a degree a buyer's market. The EU has plus 530 million citizens and it is possible to "compare" prices even if that happens inofficially.
private insurers would guard an "information" advantage (if they have a good deal with Big Pharma). Non-profit national public insurance agencies have no such motivation to withhold information.
So it is pretty sure that litte Iceland knows what other larger countries are paying - and cannot be ripped off. Their per capita healthcare expenditures indicate that. They are in the normal range for a wealthy country - (that is 55 - 65 % of what the U.S. already spends per citizen. - almost all wealthy European nations, Canada, Australia are in that range).
Small pharmacies and doctor practices are "private" (they must be small, no chains allowed). They are companies, the profit is the "wage" or income of the doctor. But they are not able to game the system, they do not have enough power.
Their professional representations (also a non-profit of course) negotiates on their behalf with the public agency - but that representation is NOT a profit maximizing corporation that is engaged in the daily business. They will fight for the advantage of the members - but they cannot offer courses in "creative billing" for instance (you bet U.S. doctors and hospitals do such trainings).
Only in the U.K. the doctors with practices are employees of the NHS.
The doctors with contracts run companies - but they are not entrepreneurs - there is a regional quota and other regulations. Per region or 5,000/ 10,000 citizens only a certain number of doctors get a contract. (they can open a truly "private" practice, but they need to find the patients). The regional quota ensures that all doctors with a contract have a chance to have enough cases. They do not get very much per case under the contract. It also makes sure that new doctors will consider a more rural region for their practice. If that is an open slot. So the whole country is covered not only the most attractive areas.
They are also not allowed to advertise (it does not matter if they have a contract with the public agency or not). So they better be good so they have word of mouth recommendations. usually it is some of the dentists, eye doctors, TCM, sports medicine, ... or if they are a known capacity in their field.
(Lawyers are also forbidden to advertise for ethical reasons).
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Their sales pitch to the investors is that the chance that a person once in prison will come back is pretty good in the U.S. (they have brochures on that - so it is presented as a safe investment, almost like a monopoly on a street or something).
They lobby to undermine social services for ex prisoners, for instance that they are excluded them from social housing, student loan grants - and they make sure there are EXTREME punishments for relatively harmless substances like marijuana in place and stay in the law books.
And Bill Clinton implemented the "3 strikes and you are out" rule (and cut welfare at the same time). Some folks are now !! imprisoned FOR LIFE for relatively minor NON-violent drug charges. Which is unethical AND extremely costly. And has devastating effects on those families. Most of those prisoners are men (of color) - and they often have children.
Those laws came before for-profit prisons became a thing - but of course that started filling the public prisons, having so many prisoners is expensive (much more expensive than prevention).
So they started getting creative in the attempt to cut the costs w/o changing the contempt for the people that are much more likely to get caught up in the system (school to prison pipeline).
Corrupt politicians INVENTED a safe investment niche for their buddies. Or their buddies gave them ideas.
Needless to say: the "investors" are also DONORs to political campaigns.
So now they collude to make sure there is NO PRISON SYSTEM REFORM (do we really want to lock up people for so long for non-violent crimes ??)
They have and GET contracts where the state guarantees their revenue - no matter how many prisoners the company that runs a prisons "takes care of".
In Sweden they closed down a prison in the recent years - they do not need it. In the US the private investors would continue to get their money (in the theoretical case that would happen).
They cut the costs for health care, food safety, heating and cooling of the prisoners and make a buck in this manner.
And let's not forget that prisoners are an extremely cheap workforce, not even the 3rd world countries can compete with those wages (the expensive housing and security is paid for by taxes). They cannot unionize, no legal protections, and cannot really refuse to work (they have ways to make them "volunteer". Slavery by another name.
They let them pay extreme rates for using the telephone. They curb in person visits and let them (or their relatives) pay huge money for video conferences.
Visits and contact with family and friends are extremely important, people that are visited have a much better chance of not going back to prison. And the prospect to getting a visit (or the privilege being removed !!) makes them cooperate in the prison.
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WORLD BANK per capita health care expenditures ** in USD in 2014: UK 3,900, U.S. 9,200 !!!! average for wealthy * European countries and Canada 5,000 - 5,500. Note these are the 2014 expenditures, likely the costs in the countries with single payer have risen with inflation rate (or above), while the U.S. costs have risen steeply. Getting those costs down by going in the direction of the systems that have been much more cost-efficient means: less economic disruption for high medical bill, less STRESS, lower and middle class income people will have MORE disposable income. People are free to start businesses and change jobs - no need to stay with a company because they offer a plan. The paper shufflers will become obsolete, the budget will be freed up for more nurses, doctors. And businesses will have less costs, and small businesses / start ups can compete for qualified workforce with larger businesses. When it comes to healthcare it does not matter where a person works.
* the average standard of living will influence the labor costs, which are an important part of healthcare costs. Therefore you can compare Sweden, with France, or Canada - on average pretty much the same standard, but not with Hungary or Poland (wages are much lower).
** all that is spent in the country on healthcare (no matter if paid for out of pocket or by a private insurance company, or non-profit public insurance agency) divided by the population (it does not matter if the person needed the system in that year, or even has insurance/coverage - in the U.S. many have not)
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Frederic Bastiat i assume you are old enough to not care ("... after me the deluge") - do you have children ? Nieces and nephews ? - your argument does not hold - I recommend the youtube channel of potholer54 - if you are interested in facts.
And facts and science is what you are going to get. He is a paleontologist, worked as prospector for the oil industry and for 25 years as science journalist. He debunks the deniers, clueless claims (yes there was climate change before humans were around, three main factors, solar irradiation, CO2 and the wobbling when revolving around the sun (that's a very long cycle). So this time it is CO2 - and nothing else. Temperature rising with UNPRECEDENTED SPEED (that means scientist cannot find hints that EVER the globe warmed as fast - cooling yes - when massive volcano erupted or a meteor hits the earth and the dimming brings about the big freeze. But never such quick warming.
And that a warming happened in Europe does not mean it was GLOBAL. There are cycles where the Northern or the Southern hemisphere gets colder or warmer. Which can suit some areas just fine and bring them into trouble. - the warming is measured globally, on the surface, the oceans (two thirds of the globe ! water can absorb a lot of heat), and the atmosphere.
1 degree (or even 0,6) in that short time is HUGE. the warming that has already happened is 0,6 degree (Celsius) - most of it over a few decades only.
During the ice age the global average temperature was only around 4 degrees lower.
6 degree more than now and there would be for sure a mass extinction event in the oceans (there was a time when that happened PBS eon channel The Last time the globe warmed) Even the oceans in the Arctic and Antarctic region would have around 20 degree - that is enough to go swimming (not yet balmy but not too fresh either).
All temperatures in degree Celsius.
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@jjw6961 Ashli Babbit ploughed ahead, then police shot the idiot. THEN the group she was with thought better of it. To be sure the officer could not know if they had firearms, and if so - if they would use them. _These_intruders were riled up Trump cultists, they (most of them) were like the dog that catches the car and now he does not know what really to do with it.
which was lucky, or that could have had a bloodbath. Either police shooting more of them, or some of them using explosives. They were carried away but they had no intentions to die for the cause. Or even get harmed.
Ashli Babbit SAW the police officer gun drawn right at the other side of the door her group and he were only separated by the large locked door and fixed side panels. (wood and lots of glass). that closed off part of the ward was visible from a distance., although they were already very close to one of the last constructive obstacles to entering the Senate chanber.
That was the reason the officer stood at the left side close to the the wall as to not become a target, people had to come close if they wanted to shoot at him with a firearm.
Before the rioters / intruders had enccountered police in soft uniform (some of them waiving them through even, others helplessly letting them roam * inside the building. Or outside in riot gear (so not soft uniform, but helmets, shields, ...) but ALSO no guns drawn.
When she and the other members of that group saw him with the weapon in hand she should have thought - this was different. She was a vet after all, if police was overrun they would concentrate forces at crucial points, would they ? And then they would use deadly force.
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In the case of Eurgene Goodman at the staircase detering them with smarts and only a baton in hand from the ward with a then probably still unblocked door (furntiture) to the Senate. Not to take away from Goodman's performance - but that would not have worked with more determined, ruthless "revolutionaries".
*
I do not know if theses idiots even realized how close they were to the Senate chamber - then still with legislators in it. ** (Mike Pence was not in it anymore, but still somewhere nearby with his family. He had Secret Service with him, they would have shot to kill as well).
It had been all fun and games, as soon as police was willing to use force, even deadly force and not only defended themselves when being viciously attacked by a few rioters - the courage of the overwhelming majority of the intruders collapsed.
In other words had they met half the resistance BLM protersters storming the ground let alone the building would have faced - that would have ended at the doors of the building.
** One state legislator of ? PA was an organizer, he announced to the crowd on the ground that "a few Senators have left the Chamber". That means someone that was inside must have texted. Not sure if some rioters could see them escorted away by police. It was so soon that I think only Mike Pence, his family and the highest ranking members had been secured, the rest followed a little later.
It suggest that one of the Republican lawmakers INFORMED the rioters of what was going on. I hope THAT becomes an issue in an investigation too.
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Obama (his betrayal) set up the country for someone like Trump. The NEXT wannabe fascist or staunch right winger that will get his or her path cleared by the Biden admin may not be so incompetent as Trump. That is the only good thing about Trump. He is so incompetent.
Either candidate could have won this in a landslide. Trump is too stupid, the grifters around him are too ideological and too shortshighted, and Biden put the theory to the test that big donor service is more important than everything, even winning the general.
More important than making damn sure to win thisand getting rid of Trump by giving the voters something to vote for. The Dems act under the premise: Our voters have nowhere to go, what are they gonna do, vote for the _Republican ?
That cavalier attitude failed in 2016 (for the country, the Democratic elites are fine, despite all their handwringing about Trump). In 2020 Biden eeked out a win. Just about.
The 6 million more votes for Biden come from the large blue states AND there was no third party competition this time. The democrats even got the Greens off the ballots in some states, in order to limit choice for voters. Biden needed to win 2 out of the 4 nail biter states. And with another candidate than Trump AZ and GA would not be in play. One out of the 4 would not have been enough - not even PA with 20 electors. Any combination of 2 or more of the 4 meant that Biden won the EC (with WI and AZ it would be just 270). Well he did pull off a narrow win in those 4 states.
But lost handily in Ohio and Florida.
It should have been a landslide and it is way too close for comfort - considering that Trump had been in action for 4 years.
Biden won those 4 states (all of them) with a total of 125,000 more votes (and Jo Jorgenson the Libertarian has roughly double the votes in the 4 states).
If Trump won a state - he won them with solid margins. Also Florida, Ohio, TN, and TX.
Michigan and Nevada were O.K. wins for Democrats, they were no nailbiters (Trump won Michigan in 2016 with 0.23 %)
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2 scenarios presented by the fairy godmother to the Corporate Dems
1) They can win the midterms in a landslide with a veto proof majority (so they can do damage control on Trump), even force a DACA bill, gun control etc through. AND they win the presidency in a landslide. And continue to have a supermajority in the Houses
They can save the country (partially even the world - think of Global Warming) undo the damage of the Trump presidency with a Sanders style platform: healthcare, immigration reform, prison reform, gun control, huge green New Deal and infrastructure bill
Getting reelected is easy, campaigning is mostly pleasant - it is a love party, really.
Their jobs, the salaries and benefits are secure
Oh - and they MUST switch to publicly funded campaigns, no Big donations, no SuperPacs, restriction for ex-politicians after they leave office.
Elections are also won with grassroots efforts and/or a politician has made him/her-self a good name over time with the voters.
And they must be content with the pay they are getting. And it is necessary to be informed on what they vote on.
The must serve the citizens - the majority
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OR 2) The keep the MONEY in POLITICS. They keep getting the Big Donations for party leadership and individual campaigns: Massive election spending is one of the things that also fuels the cushy jobs and lucrative contracts for ex politicians.
There are higher risks involved, one can lose a seat - it is important to have served the party leadership + the Big Donors well to be taken care of.
The advantage is: one does not need to read the bills or know something about an issue. the lobbyists who write bills tell the representatives how to vote and they provide the talking points and thought stopping clichés.
Some need jobs provided by party and/or Big Donors when they lose elections , some plan their career like that, a few years in Congress, they build the connections, then they become lobbyists. That can be much more lucrative than the 150 or 170k they get as representative.
They spend time with well educated, wealthy people, they serve only a tiny part of the population (the Big donors) and interact with a small not-representative part of the population (the people who work for the donors) . - They have nice parties, good food, splendid mansions and real estate though. Chic people.
(Mark Blyth: the most often mentioned location in the leaked Podesta emails was either the Hamptons or Martha's Vineyard. And then some locations on the Coast, San Francisco or New York).
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The Corporate Dems can chose only ONE scenario
What would the Dems choose ?
Well, scenario 2 - MONEY - OF COURSE.
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@williamcortelyou4524 read the currentaffairs article All about Pete - they talk about his book, and what he says (and what not). He is posing as folksy boy all stunned by Havard and the big world. - describing how the sophisticated setting impressed him. He (or more likely his ghostwriter) forgot to mention the many homeless that are at the place that he described so in detail (incl. the newstands with INTERNATIONAL newspapers ! and clocks at the wall - imagine that).
He is intelligent - but either completely unaware - or a sell out careerist. Likely both.
I also wonder if the Afghanistan deployment was a calculated move to help with his planned political career ?
I mean - he got a safe job processing data (and given his education he could be sure to get such a post).
The pay may have been lower than as mayor but it would look good at the CV.
Not to sound too cynical, but he does not come from a military family (or one with agency background like Edward Snowden). His parents are professors - people coming from such a background rarely enlist with the army (and this was long after the patriotic frenzy directly after 9/11).
He also completely uncritically got a post with McKinsey (the vultures) after Havard, and I am sure that paid well enough.
When recently asked about some of their questionable projects (like helping to market opiodes to U.S. citizens, or counseling dictatorships) he claimed to not have followed the details.
Huh ?
But McKinsey taught him to crunch the numbers (so he applied that to the sewage system9. Yes that is what accounted for the contributions of Roosevelt (Theodore) FDR, JFK, LBJ, or even Lincoln - they were technocrats and good in number crunching (it would explain his dislike to be associated with any vision or policy).
The guy is supposed to be intelligent - that should also help with being AWARE.
(However, selfishness and group think easily undermine the advantages of intelligence and education. Intelligence and other mental capacities (like a good education) can also be used to NOT BE AWARE of certain inconvenient things (that would undermine your own privilegeds and advantages if you allowed yourself to take notice).
Like the fact that one of the richest universities in the world - Harvard - is besieged by homeless people. A countryboy that is on principle very impressed with Harvard, and is is bright would wonder how THAT is even a thing ? And would remember the astonishment about the contradiction even after years and would not forget to mention it in his book (and how that shaped his political views or his actins as mayor).
Senator Sanders: When I came to university a whole new world opened to me. .... I met people that were involved with the Civil Rights movement. We found out that the university of Chicago discriminated against black renters .... - which propelled that simple boy into action. he felt CALLED into doing something about it.
Mayor Pete mentions in passing in the book that during his time at Harvard some students helped the staff of Havard (kitchen staff , janitors) fighting for higher wages - so they could afford to live not too far away, and did not need extremely long commutes. Needless to say he did no get involved in that struggle - but we are glad it did not completely evade his attention.
As mayor, Sanders let himself be influenced by his wife (Jane was divorced and raising 3 children on her own before she married Sanders). So youthcenters, childcare, etc.
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The LEADERSHIP of unions has become corrupted (or that of NGOs that hope to be financed by the Democratic party when governing - even Planned Parenthood). The oligarchs would prefer to not have unions at all. But some still exist. The second best way to deal with it is to bribe their leadership and also to make them so afraid of the Republicans that they will support the less evil Demorats. (that is a point of Thomas Frank, might be partially true, apart from self serving leadership).
It works like that with the elected board of workers in the large German industry as well. They must have a seat at the board of directors in the large companies, it is a law.
Well they get high salaries, they get to park side by side with the CEOs, they are also invited to the trips with wild parties and loose women. (there has been a scandal and a court case around corruption and that came out - Daimler's CEOs and the workers boad "reprsentatives" if memory serves).
The men (almost always they are male) that are elected into the workers representation of the LARGE companies are also always big shots in the unions and also destined to to hold leadership position in the SPD.
The SPD is the center-left Social Democratic party of Germany, one of the two traditional, (former) dominant parties of the German political landscape.
The SPD is now in a free fall: GE 2017 20,5 % (down from 25,7 % in 2013 - that is the party that used to be good for a majority or almost majority). The CDU (conservatives ) that could get 50 % of the populare vote are down to 26,8 % - from 34,1 in 2013.
The former titans have to form a coaltion to even be able to govern and to keep the outsiders (incl. the far right) at bay.
Turnout for that election was 76,2 % which is not too high for a European country (in a controversial race it should be well over 80 %). In Germany they have proportional vote with a 5 % threshold. And such a tiny party CAN be the hinge that swings big doors in a coalition government.
NOW the SPD (and the large unions) play nice with the neoliberal consensus, they also make sure no small or outsider unions (which could be out of control) can be formed. The SPD is again in a coalition with the Conservative party (until recently dominated by Angela Merkel). The larger party in the coalition gets to nominate the chancellor, so Merkel.
But the seat warmers of the SPD get some posts as well. - damned be the base that is getting restless - some former SPD voters switch to the Greens, a few to the Left party. Many switch now to the new pretty right wing xenophobic AFD which does the usual populist economic rhetorc (these parties always do - as soon as they are in power they side with the oligarchs. the working class base is placated with kicking the scapegoat - usually the foreigner, the immigrant, in Europe in the 1930s it used to be also the Jews. Not only in Germany btw).
Voter participation is not overwhelming (only in the 70 % range - that would be high in the U.S. but not in Europe), but a few have given up and do not vote - if 2 - 5 % of your base cannot be bothered to vote at all - that is all it takes for a big shift.
After the end of WW2 Germany got a provisory government (the country wass still occupied by the Allied forces for many years). Some of the members and political actors came straight out of prison or a concentration camp (there were camps that were not as bad as Auschwitz, where they put the higher profile prisoners, like political prisoners. They had much better chances to survive and stay healthy enough to be functioning right after being freed).
Other former left supporters (if they were not leadership or stood out) had to keep a low profile, and most of the able-bodied men were drafted as soldiers anyway. That is if they did not have any skills that were essential for the (war) industry. So being an engineer, doctor, scientist could keep a man away from the front. The Nazis in most cases were willing to overlook a biography of left activities in the past provided that person kept their head down. (did not work for people of full Jewish descent though).
Either way - being a Social Democrat or a member of unions in the 1920s and 1930s was a matter of conviction and spine. It was not the way to a cushy position nor was it a carefully crafted career path. And being a "leftie" it was not for the faint of heart - even before the Nazis took over, the fasicsts made a point of beating up "lefties" when they assembled and the police and justice system was comprised of enough right wingers that they could do so with impunity. (Many members of police and even the justice system leaned very much to the right, they became ardent, if still covert Nazis - the Nazis were smart they knew how important it is to undermine and infiltrate the institutions). So the "left" grassroots, unions, parties did not get sufficient help from the justice system and law enforcement, those in position of authority often looked the other way.
Back to Germany post WW2: More often than not the conservative party was part of the government. As dominant or only party - long time in coalition with a tiny libertarian party. They lost enough support (like the SPD the other large popular party) so that in 2005 they had to enter a coalition with the SPD. The SPD that is only a shadow of it's former self (in size and when it comes to truly representing the regular citizens.)
the LEFT could be the working class party now - the establishment parties incl. the sneering mainstream media despise them. Especially the SPD and the bourgoise Green Party which are reminded of what THEY should be like. And then the LEFT also harbours some youthful phantasts, which are more concerned with identity politics than a genuine blue collar message that would be appealing to the masses.
Neoliberalism took over in the later 1990s - in Germany that was triggered by the costs of the completey botched unification (economic illiterate or treacherous handling by the conservatives under Kohl). That the Soviet Union stepped down from the Cold War and let the Warsaw Pact states secede meant now the defenders of capitalism did not have anymore the burden of proof that their system was better for the majoritiy of citizens.
In the former Warsaw pact nations there was a pool of well educated people that could be economically exploited and the domestic workforce got some competition. Outsourcing to Romania or Bulgaria was almost as cheap as outsourcing to China. True: labour costs were higher, but there were other major logistics and legal advantages.
These countries were quickly integrated into the EU to help with the effort to cement a certain level of unemployment in the wealthy countries that would undermine the negotiation position of labor.
Outsourcing to Eastern Europe meant not too long distances (just in time logistics !) . Also very import! - legal security. They could prevent patent and copyright violations. That CAN be enforced within the EU (but not with China for instance). The multinationals can set up their own companies in the former Warsaw Pact states, there is no mandate to have Chinese partners (or Saudi partners). Also the languages are much easier to learn than the Chinese main language (there are many, but mandarin is the lingua france in China). They use the same alphabet, cultures are not that different.
Before neoliberalism hit Germany the country had a Social Democratic Party that deserved that name, the Conservatives had to implement policies that worked for the majority - or they would be voted out of government. The conservatives always had serious competition by the major opposition party and had to be moderate.
In the mid 1990s the war generation was replaced by a class of sleek, well educated careerists, many of them did not have the working class / genuine union (struggle !) background like the former guarde. That class of allegedly left or liberal aspiring politicians identified with Big Finance, and with the needs of affluent and well educated professionals, got cozy with Big Biz and could not be bothered to challenge the neoliberal paradigm.
In the U.S. Bill Clinton (HE could get elected with the help of the unions and then break his promises regarding NAFTA. Bush1 could not get it passed, Clinton could sideline the unions). In the UK Tony Blair played that part.
In Germany Gerhard Schroeder could partially dismantle the welfare state and social contract in Germany (Kohl would have liked to do that but then the SPD was the opposition, so he couldn't). Same with the French "champaigne socialists" - be it Hollande, and now Marcon.
Macron is part of the bankster class, and it shows that he is a neoliberal and a warmonger on top of that.
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+ Sune They could have had that "insight" for cheap. The Gates are like benevolent absolute monarchs. Their money gives them too much power (they also have a chilling impact on other charities in Africa - no one dares to "oppoose" them). It is a feudal mindset even if they mean well. It is hard to keep your vanity in check when you are so rich, live in the bubble and everyone is always so respectful even deferential.
It would spoil the best of people.
Schools - and the people in Africa - CAN find their own solutions. Some help, some input yes. - But it is very hard to say NO to such volumes of money. The impact of the funding gets a life of its own, there are unintended consequences, it can strangle local forces instead of strengthening them.
And too much money can attract the wrong kind of people.
They are too detached - from common sense and from some straight talk/criticism . - Vanity could inspire the wish to re-invent the wheel instead of relying on the humble experiments (alternative schools for instance) that many before them tried out.
Not every experiment was good - but w/o the huge amount of money there is a chance for a grassroots element. and the ability to self-correct.
No human - including smart nerd Bill Gates - can beat the swarm intelligence of a diverse, cooperative group of pretty average but dedicated people who KNOW, who have lived the experience. (And he likely interacts a lot with "experts" who have not lived the experience. With luck they listen to the foot soldiers. But the more centralized ! money enters the system the less likely the people that are willing to LISTEN will be involved in the process.
(It is a little bit like the clueless but extremely well funded Clinton campaign. The authors of the book "Shattered" were allowed access to the campaign , and gave interviews to promote the book. Very enlightening in regard to how organizations can take on a life and a logic of their own.
A lot of intelligent well educated people who should have known better engaged in a highly expensive circle jerk. Bill Clinton was one of the few who sensed that not all was right, that the Rustbelt needed more attention. Political instinct beats "consultancy").
There are systems that work. Emulate them. (Bill Gates would automatically do that in HIS field of expertise)
I think Gates is also a logic guy - but education is about emotion, relating (FIRST to the teacher and then to subject - that is especially true for younger children) and feeling safe.
Itis not like coding. It is not linear. Not everything can be MEASURED. If you trust the intrinsic constructive motivation of children and teachers - then you can let go of the desire to micromanage, to grade.
Feeling safe and well is essential - For children AND the teachers !
And neither can divorce themselves from the reality of their lifes when they enter the school building.
He could have gone into a few underperforming schools and stay there for a week. LISTEN to those who keep the system afloat. Visit the countries with excellent results. Distill the essence. Learn from their victories and failures.
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Daddy John McCain was a danger for the U.S. troops, he had a reputation as reckless / rogue pilot and caused the death of many U.S. soldier - I think he unloaded by mistake his bombs on an U.S. ship - he had to parachute out, the plane crashed on deck with all the ammunition/bombs, something like that - more than 70 U.S. soldiers died. Grand-Daddy (who was an admiral) cleared it up for the son and prevented a tribunal.
It is described as more than a mere unlucky error, real negligence and caused by someone who was either not qualified as pilot or was reckless and thought himself above the rules.
W/o his daddy (Grand-daddy) being an admiral he likely would not have made it as pilot to begin with, fellow pilots did not like to fly with him, he was considered a security risk.
There are audio recordings that were "misfiled" by the CIA and only "found" recently (2017 or 2018) that prove that he cooperated as POW with the Vietcong, which likely gave him better treatment in return. (Among other things that recording made him open to blackmail by the CIA, it could have ruined his political career). I would not condem him for playing nice with the Vietcong once he was a POW - who can say they could have withstood bad treatment even torture, and he was injured and needed medical help.
What is proven: (only) pleasant words about the people running the POW camp that were played over the loudspeaker to fellow POWs. Although those who refused to bow and got mistreated were bitter about it - and kept the story alive. In the age of the internet something like that resurfaces.
But the legend of the war hero was created with help of his father and fawning media. I think he got a medal when he returned - Grand-daddy saw to that as well. And at least he refused an earlier release - ahead of fellow POWs. so maybe another man that was not lucky to get better treatment could return earlier.
McCain came back to the wife that had waited for him. She was sick if memory serves, and he got soon after his return involved with a much younger heiress (from a beer dynasty), divorced his first wife and married into really big money.
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If I remember correctly 40,000 white males had the vote in the new republic. I also read that the reason for breaking away from the empire was the unwillingness of the British to support more expansion into native land and that the "founding fathers" wanted some real estate deals.*
The revolutinary leaders (the oligarchs in the colonies) no doubt had a deal with the French absolute monarchy - without their military and financial help they would not have dared to challenge the superpower that Britain was back in the day.
* That may or may not be true - but the intentions for sure were not as noble as the legends would have you believe.
Many well educated people and even European monarchs (covertly) read Rousseau and were impressed with the ideas of the enlightenment which spread like wildfire then - does not mean they applied that. Even the tsareska of Russia Katharina received proponents of the enlightenment (foreigners ! - in Russia that was certainly suppressed) and read the books - and Russia was more backwards than the rest of Europe.
Giving religious freedom and having it written down was necessary in the new Republic - they needed to attract ongoing immigration from Europe to take the land from the natives and hold it together, that would mean many protestant sects and Catholics - many of them quite fundamentalistic and often fiercly proselyting. So taking the issue off the table alltogether was the only safe way to deal with it for the young nation.
the people then were indoctrinated to accept their place in life and the god given rule of the monarch. There was not nearly as much upward mobility in the colonies as the myth would have you believe. Rich people from Europe came over and seized the chances to increase their fortunes, they despised the poor peasants at home and that did not change on the "new" continent.
Of course the political process relevant for the colonies would favor their interests over that of the underclass in the colonies, even if it was a little more difficult to control the unwashed masses in the new setting. (It worked like that in U.K. the merchant class had gotten at some point very wealthy and therefore uppity and had forced the British monarchs to accept a parliament - but that was no democracy).
It did not really matter what the pioneers did or thought. They mostly did not get wealthy, scrambled by, were under danger form the first nations and sometimes almost starving if only one harvest season was bad - they were the destitutes from the Old continent trying to carve out their niche. They were the shield against the natives, held the frontier land and protected the cities and densely populated areas - where the money could be made.
The founding fathers knew breaking away from the empire would mean war - and they needed the unwashed masses for that. They had no intention of giving THEM any real influence in governance or the vote - but the underclass had to be convinced to be the cannon fodder for the new project.
A good story needed to be created why NOW they did not need to obey the king all of a sudden but should obey the richest top 10 % in the colony - oh and expect war and economic difficulties along with that. Here the ideas of the enlightenment come into play - which after all challenge the rule of monarchs and aristocrats.
You better have a good story to sell that. Well, they had ! And to be sure considering the circumstances the constitution is very well designed - it is better than the men and their intentions. They were also eager to control EACH OTHER which may account for the separation of powers and the provisions to allow for a formal process to change the constitution.
And they made provisions to not give the voters (the only 40,000 ! with some wealth) undue influence (Senators were appointed not elected then - replicating the Britsh House of Lords). The system was modelled after the British parliamentary system (which the rich merchant class in Britain had demanded from the Biritsh monarch and nobility. The British parliament and the system in the new republic was still the rule of the few over the many.
One of the desired effects was a to cement a two party system, eliminating a lot of political competition. The provisions (along with the influence of money on elections since 1976) is so effective that the Republic never ever had more than two parties that played any role. In two cases one party was REPLACED by another - but never more than two parties.
In theory states could elect Independents as representatives here and then. It almost never happens (most Independents leave their party while holding their seat). Vermont is the glaring exception of the rule, it is no coincidence: VT is a tiny state, independent rural population with an influx of hippies in the 1970s and no major industries or natural resources, so the Big Donors and their shills in the party leadership did not bother to intervene with lots and lots of money and dirty tricks.
....that is why an Independent was allowed to survive by the Democrats - Sanders had grown popular as mayor and it would have been a major effort to get rid of him in the mid and late 1980s. And then he did not shy away from 3 party races - where the Democrat was the spoiler - so the Republican then won the seat, after that the Democratic party did not run candidates against him.
He agreed to caucus with them in Congress. For all intents and purposes he was almost as good as an elected Democrat. He could reliably defeat Republicans and needed almost no funds of the Democratic party for that. - And how much of a danger could he be - coming from that unimportant state and w/o Big Money backing him up ?
No doubt they now regret their severe mistake.
The underclass in the 1770s would have to accept the economic difficulties and shortages and money inflation that is typical for war - never mind the risk of losing health or life. War with the British empire was riskier for them - the rich people that started that project ran the risk of losing their plantations and at least a part of their fortunes - but I am sure they had money in French controlled territory, and the intention to flee there if things did not turn out well in the Independence War.
The upper class in the colonies did not expect that the war expenditures and additional hardship for the poor in France along with bad harvests would be the straw that broke the camel's back and would lead to the French Revolution only a few years later.
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"We do not even need to read the intelligence reports" - well if you DO read them (the one of January 2017 that was a bow to the outgoing admin. The alleged "hacking" was soon worded as "Russian intervention in the U.S. elections". It was about the alleged hacking of the DNC and also the RNC seems to have been targeted - although we have no proof WHO tried to hack them (no proof regarding DNC and even less information on the alleged RNC hack). And then there are allegations thrown around regarding Austria (even Sanders repeated that nonsense) and France - the motto seems to be: throw some dirt maybe something will stick.
The DNC never handed over the allegedly hacked server to the FBI for an independent investigation as Comey recently testified, only their dependend private IT firm (which they hired after the suspected hack) supports the claim that they were indeed hacked. And as far as I know they did not say so under oath. And the DNC refused to get help from Homeland Security as well.
Note: the Podesta emails published by Wikileaks are supposedly the result of that hack - THAT IS THE WHOLE "INVERVENTION in U.S. elections". This is why the wording was changed from "hack" to "intervention in elections" - and recently they switched to "meddle with out democracy".
It suggests ! to the naive audience - and obviously it worked on biased Majority Report as well - much more than is definitely claimed (even by those who cry Russia, Russia). They carefull avoid ever specifying WHAT THEY MEAN by it. By repeating for months "Russia interefered with our elections - which has recently become "Russia interfered with our democracy" they hope the unproven claim will stick and people will forget about the initial event, the initial suspicion and accusation, and will abstain to ask for concrete and detailled PROOF.
Only when they are unlucky enough to be explicitely asked they have to admit that they have little to no concrete proof. (Nancy Pelosi in January 2017 : Report about Russian hacking is stunning. Pelosi in April: No proof for hacking. (Also Dianne Feinstein in May after being briefed by the CIA: At this time we have no evidence for collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia - another topic they were screaming about for months on end).
The agencies could SAFELY PRESENT the PROOF (no methods and sources would be revealed - that is according to William Binney, former NSA technical director). They CHOSE not to submit the evidence - they did so for instance very quickly in the case of the Sony hack.
And we have the claim of Craig Murray, former UK ambassador, who says he got the data (Podesta emails !) on a thumbdrive from a disgruntled DNC insider in a park in D.C.
Binney and as McAfee agree: IF the Podesta emails were obtained by a hack the NSA ! MUST have some proof thanks to complete surveillance. (Binney is an expert on those kinds of programs). If the data was handed over on a thumdrive or other physical device - well then it did not travel over the web, so of course in that case there would be no evidence to show. The claim of the agencies that it would be unsafe to show the evidence is contradicted by Binney and also by McAfee.
From the alleged 17 agreeing agencies (incl. Coast Guard, Wildlife ...) actually only 3 issued the report and claimed medium (NSA !) and high confidence regarding the conclusion of the report. Interestingly the NSA - the specialists on hacking ! - were the agency with only medium confidence.
The report is a general listing of HOW Russia would have done it IF they indeed performed the hack. And then they obsess with a psychological profile of Putin ("Why he has a personal grudge against HRC that would lead him to order a hack on the DNC") and even more with RT - yes, that's right a media outlet using freedom of the press, and free speech to inform the U.S. citizens and the world about the things the MSM sweep under the rug.
The fault the report finds with RT ?. They INCITE DISSATISFACTION, they talk a lot about Wallstreet greed and fracking. (The report does not explicitely say so: but HRC was not treated too kindly on RT - they usually described her as the war monger and neoliberal moderate Republican that she is. Although Thom Hartman was adamently against 3rd Party voting and encouraged to vote for HRC to keep Trump out of office.)
Can you imagine the audacity of RT ? Instead of dutifully telling the U.S. citizens that they live in the best possible society they STIR UP DISCONTENT over Wallstreet and fracking. (I am sure they had derrogatory word - confirming their potential for being dangerous - for such subversive persons and institutions in the Soviet Union and under the Nazis.
True: on MSM you will hear hardly anything about Wallstreet greed, inequality, or the dangers of fracking - one could see it as counterbalance. - But no, it is clearly against the national interest (you just have to define WHOSE national interest) and if the First Amendment wasn't in the way the government would have already closed RT and their subversive messaging down.
Sadly, they get their funding from the Russian state so unlike with the independent (internet) media defunding by advertising boycott does not work on them.
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+Mantonio Have you ever had contact with children, babysat some ?? - Indeed, it is a good idea to house them in a facility, the former admins did exactely that - and the adults stayed TOGETHER with the children !
How do you KNOW that the children (of Guatemala) are not with a legitimate caregiver? Sources please - with DATA, not just some claims.
And a caregiver can of course also be a parent, older sibling, other relative. As opposed to someone who wants to exploit the migrant children.
There may be some cases of human trafficking.
I however do not assume there are so many cases as you claim (the "vast" majority ? 70 % 90 % - logic wil tell you that cannot be true. If so it would have been heralded by the speaker of the White House in Press Conferences etc.).
And then there is DNA testing.
The separation (which is only necessary since this admin CHOSE Zero Tolerance = every adult is CRIMINALLY prosectued and is put into jail) costs 750 USD per day per child.
One DNA test does not cost as much.
In a facility staff can see them interact. And it is much cheaper, less stressful for everyone (incl. STAFF and ICE, do you think it is fun to be in a room with children crying for the parents ?)
And it would not be such an adminstrative clusterfuck.
The children did not howl when they were with the adults and were picked up by Border Control. But they started crying (or looking really scared and in shock) when taken away.
Staying with your parents/care givers in a foreign environment is the instinctive and survival promoting reaction for a small homo sapiens.
But even IF you are right that most adults that come with the children are not legitimate caregivers : Even then the policy of the former admins would be better.
Let the "parents" be together with the children. With smaller children you can SEE if they are with a family member. (Again: have you ever taken care of a child ?)
You can't make a 4 or 2 year old fake that, even if they are afraid.
And if an older child/teenager is afraid of the purpoted adult relative, staying some time with a trustworthy staff in the detention center could help.
As for child abuse by biological parents - yes that happens, inside and outside the U.S.
But how does BY DEFAULT traumatizing the children who are with loving parents help with that ?
You cannot just take ALL The children from their biolgical parents because some abuse them.
If you take 2000 U.S.citizens I grant you some of them mistreat (or even sexually abuse) their children.
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@Nickle314 ACA (Obamacare) = private insurers, doctors with their own practice and for-profit hospital chains (also some non-profits). Medicare is like a single payer agency but only for those over 65 (plus the Medicaid programs for low income people). And also the VA (Veteran's affairs).
The private for-profit part in the U.S. is completly overpriced (that has been the case before ACA as well, there was a reason a reform was promised - even if it was hardly an improvement, and did nothing for cost control.
so lots of subsidies necessary to keep the system afloat.
Oh, and middlemen for the pharmicists, that is another rip-off. Pharma Benefits Manager. PBS video Why a patient paid 285 USD co-pay for a 40 USD drug. - Drives the small pharmacies out and the chains take over.
Medicare ageny beats the heck out of the private insurers: max. 3 % administrative overhead (less ! - I do not remember the exact number) vesus over 20 % of the private insurance agencies. ACA was supposed to limit that to max. 20 % but the Capitalistic ! companies found of course ways around that.
VA is the only agency that is ALLOWED to negotiate drug prices and brought them down by 40 % (the "socialist" agencies all do, that is why the rest of the world pays much less). Medicare can't negotiate.
The private insurers won't. Wendell Potter former Cigna Senior executive turned Whistleblower: the U.S. insurance companies have no interest to bring costs down, they want to have more and more and higher deductibles so that they can pass on the costs to the patients.
The lobbyist wrote the laws - extension of patents, or renewal (Obama), fast track of approval (Trump) and forbidding the public agencies to negotiate drug prices (Cheney / Bush). That is very much in line with Capitalism it serves the goal to maximize profits by all means necessary.
"Socialist" would be to develop, produce and distribute drugs without profit and profit incentive, either to provide them to the pharmacists as grossists or to run the shops. The only socialist thing is the basic research that is funded by the U.S. taxpayer - or the taxes in other countries.
The rates of Medicare (for hospitals and doctors) are of course lower than that of the private insurers - that is normal: Globally all public non-profit healthcare insurance agencies ("socialist") beat the heck out of private healthcare insurers. They just have more negotiating power
In no universe - parallel or otherwise - is ACA a socialist system. Welfare for corporations, yes. Quite a capitalistic thing.
(you could call Medicare, Medicaid and VA "socialist")
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Homo sapiens is a deeply social creature, with an instinctive desire for "fairness".Because of our deeply social instincts honed by evolution, inequality between tribe members makes us uneasy - solidarity and sharing have been key for survival of homo sapiens. That poses a conflict with the also natural selfish impulses. In small groups of hunter/gatherers our instincts ensure very social, generous, self-less behavior and they restrict very effectively the use of violence among group members. It avoided frictions in small groups who needed to have each other's back for survival.
The stronger shoulders quite naturally had to carry more of the burden - but they were richly rewarded for that - with status.
As for the instincive tendendy to appeal to "fairness". Watch for instance tax discussions. The libertarians and their opponents all argue with "fairness", they instinctively assume that if they convince the participants and even more the audience of the "fairness" of their argument - then they successfully made their point. People advocating on behalf of the wealthy could just say: I want to keep it all to myself. That would be perfectly rational from the point of self-interest - but it is not a good enough point to convince others. For that "fairness" is required, and to me it looks like those making the argument need the convinction that their proposal is "fair" as much as those whom they try to convince.
In fractured, anonymous large ! societies the selfish impulses (and the reluctance to use violence against another human) are much, much less checked. Homo sapiens still shows solidarity with the "tribe". And they are as eager as ever to have status - especially within the tribe. But the definition of "who is a tribe member" has changed.
The evolutionary tendency towards "fairness" is STILL STRONG - even in the posh upper classes.(back in the day "god" had placed them on the top of society THAT provided the sugar coating an placated the social and empathic impulses)
The "elites" NEED to cultivate a belief in the inherent "fairness" of our system a) the non-privilged outnumber them, they need to be placated and b) they need it for their own peace of mind.
So they cultivate ideas like: "Others can make it like I made it" - glossing over the fact that they often did not make it on their own. They like to have the impression that there is an objective reason that not everyone is as well off as they are - again glossing over the fact that it is not about inequality per se, but about the extent of inequality.
They need to have a high capacity for double think - the illusion that they are better, that they deserve to live so much better. Part of it is of course suppressing knowledge. Even if they were indeed better, and made it all on their own, the top 9,99 % get almost all the the wealth. The most effective way to avoid psycholocgical conflicts about it is to remain in blissful ignorance, staying in their bubble (which happens anyway) and looking the other way.
These people often use their acadamic training and intelligence and rhetoric abilities to NOT KNOW and to obfuscate. Before they fool others they need to fool themselves (to quiet down their better inner self rattled by evolutionary instincts).
Watch economic news on mainstream news, the hosts, their "experts", the politicians, think tank trained speakers - double think exercised by people who had the privilege of a good education. Many of them are certainly not stupid, they have access to information, how can they be THAT wrong. (Case in point: the abyssmal quality in healthcare discussion in the U.S. - that is mind boggling for persons who know the systems outside of the U.S.).
there is a saying - there is no fool like an educated fool. Intelligence can help to maintain a bias and double think.
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Warren has been flip flopping a lot. She acted like a typical politician - incl. NOT wanting to offend the Clinton or party machine. - Every president that really ! wants to bring change will have a LOT of opposition. Warren staying silent when she could have shown bold leadership or playing nice with the Democratic elites is NOT a good sign she would be even TRY to fight.
She meets with the big donors and superdelegates. Another bad sign.
Last but not least: she NOW gets nice coverage in meainstream media (other than Fox). obama got that (very much opposed to how they treated Sanders during the campaings)
- the owners of the networks KNEW that Obama already had agreements with the donors incl. the banksters during his campaign. see citibank mail Oct. 2008 (Wikileaks) - they provided a list to chose appointees from. Good to know that the banksters (citibank also got a LOT of help under Obama) vetted the foxes that would be put in charge of the henhouse.
Never mind the hope and change rhetoric, Obama was not going to rock the boat
So the owners / managment greenlighted friendly coverage on him. something like that must be going on now. Maybe they see Warren as the lesser evil and the most likely to be able to contain Sanders. And she is already sending lots of signals to big donors and superdelegates that she will compromise.
They would rather have Harris, Booker, Biden or Buttigieg of course - neoliberals with some folksy or progressive veneer. But they would certainly prefer warren over Sanders.
(less determined, she already proved that she will stay at the sidelines, chicken out. Not endorsing Sanders, remaining silent on Assange, on DAPL, does not dare to cross the Israeli lobby (watch Sanders at the recent J Street event), voted for the bloated military budget.
SHE does not talk about rallying the masses to push bills through (like Medicare For All - the real bill not some hijacked copy-cat version that seems to be good but is a gift to the industry (like any ! form of public option). She does not say that she will campaing in states where members of Congress and Senate stand in the way - Republicans AND Democrats).
Plus Warren likely IS the weaker candidate in the crucial Rust Belt States. So Trump wins (which is fine, the donors got to keep their tax cuts).
Trump just needs more time and rope to hang himslef then enough Republicans will dare ! to turn on him. In comes Mike pence, the donors of BOTH parties are happy.
The Democratic establishment can continue to clutch their pearls for another 4 years - and enjoy their perks. Most are going to keep their seats, if not the donors will compensate them with cushy positions.
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"Individually tailored programs" would mean a HUGE BUREAUCRACY - what became of small government ? And religious programs can force people to submit to religious rules when they are in economic despair. The rules for helping are arbitrary and depend of the whims of the local church leaders. Imagine a person is living together with a sexual partner - then they may be not DESERVING of help (and that would be arbitrary, some churches would help and others not). - The SECULAR society has an interest that people have the basics (food, housing) - it should nto be left to the whims of religious organizations.
Or you have to come to church service because then they give out the help. - Knowing the Republicans you can take for granted also an overreach into the privacy of the welfare recipients. There is at least one state where there is mandatory drug testing (one of the Carolinas ?). Completely ineffective, they made a lot of tests (a handout for the for-profit corporation(s) who process the tests - of course paid for with tax dollars). They caught almost nobody. Just a waste of time, money and humiliation for the tested. Humiliation may be a desired effect in the Republican mindset, maybe, just maybe that would keep people from asking for those benefits, because it is made so SHAMEFUL. And at the same time they have a contract they can give to one of the donors
And I think the budget for the tests counts towards the welfare budget. Another way to take out a chunk of the income of people in need of assistance and steer it to the top.
An ideological win, too. It has the benefit of propping up a certain image of welfare recipients - as lazy, useless drug users (an image that bigotted and smug well-off people have cultivated for a long time).
A combination of shaming and insulting people (drug testing everyone, nurturing prejudices), intentional ignorance (welfare recipients are not more prone to substance abuse, which BTW includes medication and alcohol), violating their rights as citizens (drug testing w/o probable cause), giving money to people / institutions who do not need welfare (drug testing labs and their owners).
And BTW even IF they take drugs - if would be cheaper to let these people have the basic minimum than recycle them through the police, justice and prison system. *
Regarding the drug testing "scenario": time to remind people that the police/FBI does not have the money and resources to process rape kits. Alleged rapists (or not yet identified rapists) are walking free, because the probes are taken from the victim but never processed. There are known cases were the man continued to rape - and the information to arrest him would have been available had the rape kits been processed.
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......voting records are a good place to start - like Biden, who wrote much of the 1994 crime bill and, as head of the Foreign Relations committee_was instrumental in ensuring the _Iraq war vote
Insiders (so certainly Biden, the Clinton's) KNEW that Cheney / Bush were putting massive pressure on the UN weapons inspectors and on the CIA to PROVIDE the "evidence" to justify the war.
Those mf'ers agreed on some things:
1) it would be profitable for the Big Donors
2) none of their kids, friends, relatives are in the army - certainly not in positions where you risk something or are engaged in the battle on the ground (risking injuries, death, killing ! people, and that inevitable means harming civilians too)
Joe Biden was never a member of the military (and he also did not protest the Vietnam war, he had a folksy line for that, why he left it to the hippies - I am paraphrasing).
3) the vote was politically "safe" - if it turned out later that there was no reason to invade, it could be sold to the votrers as (trivial) understandable mistake. They deluded themselves of course that it would be easy and quick (in which case sadly the public really would not have cared if the war was against international law - after all no one cared about the terrible effects of the sanctions under Bill Clinton)
They knew of course that media would support them with the narrative and drown out every reporting to the contrary.
Iraq turned out to be a disaster, and it was much longer and costly, so there was some unexpected backlash negating the calculation about political expediency.
But not much
4) being for the war was the DEFAULT position, being against it could paint you as unpatriotic and at the minimum you had to EXPLAIN, even justify the anti-war position.
And the big Donors (incl. Wallstreet) like war - so why even make an effort.
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@bigcrackrock good thing that single payer healthcare costs LESS per person than the private systems in the U.S. (or in Switzerland, they have at least a good, if expensive system, pay staff well and everyone has coverage). ALL single payer systems have lower expenditures per capita than the U.S. the vast majority between 5,000 and 6,000 USD per year versus 9,200 in the U.S. (World Bank).
To be clear: that refers to wealthy nations (Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Australia, Canada, ...)
That's 55 - 65 % of the of the U.S. per capita expenditures. (in the U.K. a record low of only 44 % = USD 3,900 - but they are clearly underfunded, that is not enough for a well run first world system, the NHS is hanging on for dear life).
If in the U.S. everyone had coverage and got care in time the gap would be even larger (expenditures means ALL that is spent in the country no matter who pays for it divided by number of people).
In the U.S. also already 65 % of the expenditures are paid by government. That is not as bad as it sounds. Medicare covers the plus 65 people - which naturally and everwhere account for a good chunk of the expenditures. (Of course the citizens have paid into the system for years).
The government funding in a single payer systems is also generous (to keep the mandated wage deductions - a percentage that is matched by the employer, and there is a cap) LOW. But those governments funds go into a streamlined system with many (or exclusively) non-profit hospitals run by cities or states.
There is little overhead, they do not finance much profits - largest for-profit player is Big Pharma. Which is well contained (comparable standardized products, a good fit for negotiations - and the non-profit public agencies CAN negotiate. In the U.S. that is FORBIDDEN.
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per capita healthcare expenditures of nations: U.S. USD 9,200 then (now 10k), Germany 5,600, most wealthy European countries between 5,000 and 5,500, Canada is in that range too, Australia has 6,000. World Bank data 2014 -
There are outliers like the U.K. (only 3,900 but they are definitely underfunded - but with only HALF the U.S. expenditures their non-profit NHS which delivers most of the services would run like a charm).
On the other hand Norway had 8,400. (High wages, likely very high standard incl. dental).
Or Switzerland 9,600 they were even higher than the U.S. - but then they pay staff very well, and everybody is insured.
Switzerland is one of the very few developed countries that do not have a non-profit public insurance agency but let the for profit private insurers have that niche . Well, it shows.
I do not know of any larger country (except the U.S.) which lets for profit actors handle (most) of the healthcare insurance market. Switzerland has less than 10 million people, I think Singapore might lean strongly towards a private system, too.
Let me add that most developed countries beat the U.S. when it comes to life expectancy and infant mortality.
Most (or all) wealthy European countries have a population that is on average older than the people in the U.S. (so that should result in LOWER expenditures for the U.S.)
One aspect of cost efficiency is mandatory participation and very affordable contributions (not according to risks but to INCOME) and everyone gets the SAME treatment. - Medical necessity not your insurance policy or risk determine the treatment - which your doctor is free to chose for you.
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Search for "youtube hillary clinton never single payer". Her argumentation: Emergencies can't wait for some high-minded ideas, I will defend the ACA, don't want the discussion to repeal ACA start all over it again ... Single payer will never ever happen IN THIS COUNTRY. - So what did she campaign for in the 90s as First Lady ? - She intentionally framed her arguments under misleading assumptions. - Single payer is not an unrealistic idea (this is why she said "in this country" - because that concept has been functioning well for decades in the wealthy European countries for USD 5,000 - 5,500 per person vs. more than USD 9,000 in the U.S. (World Bank: per capita healthcare expenditures, data 2014). While the politicians in Europe are often catering to the needs of Big Biz - at least the elections are not financed by large donors. This is why HRC said "..never, ever ... in this country".
Sanders did not just WANT to repeal ACA or frivolously attack it (like the Republicans - and she made it look that way in that campaign speech). It is possible to use the ACA WHILE working on a much more streamlined non-profit solution - that very likely iwould be implemented in several steps. Of course the tanker needs time for this major change of course.
ACA was a present with a bow for the healthcare industry. It caters to the idea that healthcare is a product like any other. That when all is said and done healthcare should be left to the FOR-PROFIT industry. - THIS is what Clinton fought for - the profits of the donors, not the well-being of the propulation.
And an amendment here and there will not cure the basic flaws of ACA - or any for profit healthcare system. - ACA is a very modest improvement to a situation unworthy of a developed nation, it is a provisory "solution" until something much more rational and better is implemented.
The healthcare industry is well versed in denying care and in ripping people off - and in lobbying politicians. Even IF politicians tried to REGULATE them - it makes things complicated (think inefficient), complexiity puts the patients even more at disadvantage, toxic incentives are hard to avoid - and the well versed profiteers will always be 2 steps ahead of the regulators.
That means even with best intentions the laws and rules will become more and more complex. That means inefficiency, intransparency and ample opportunities for overpricing for a "product" that decides over life and death, resp. quality of life.
There is a reason the ACA - from the very beginning - was such a complicated law with an incredible amount of chapters. One of the most complicated laws ever passed in the U.S.. And there is also a reason ALL OTHER wealthy nations have a very simple, streamlined, mandatory, much more cost efficent, public non-profit system *.
An EASY SOLUTION that allows a smooth TRANSITION TO A SINGLE PAYER system while ACA is in place: Lower the age for MediCare.
Fight for legislation to allow for drug negotiations, or for reimport of drugs (from Canada).
Reclassify marijuana (in accordance to science !) **, allowing it at least for medical use can help to reduce costs of healthcare AND actually help people that get relief with marijuana only - they would connect that relief with the Democratic Party.
Neither Hillary Clinton nor Obama had any intention of fighting for these issues and for quick if only partial fixes. - the donors would object to it.
** there is no way marijuana it is as dangerous as heroin, no way it is justified to classify it as schedule 1 drug. The Nixon admin implemented that classification to prosecute hippies and blacks. And no president ever annoyed the pharma and alcohol industry by having it reclassified.
Schedule 1 means very dangerous AND no medical usefulness. And that means it is almost impossible to do scientific research on it (in the U.S.). Correcting that obvious misclassification would not get the workings of the healthcare system in disarray, but it would help save costs - and it sure would rattle the donors.
Patients could use it INSTEAD of expensive drugs. It could help patients navigate chronic disease at lower costs. Patients could buy it - or could grow their own, if they are getting ripped off - there is a reason it is called WEED. - And that is why there is so much unscientific resistance against it (incl. Chelsey Clinton voicing her "concerns" that so much more research needs to be done - working hard for those contributions to the Clinton Foundation)
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It seems the panel has Judith Miller on. The shill from the New York Times that would play the mouthpiece and stenographer for the Cheney / Bush admin with the Times - cheering on the war against Iraq 2003. She - like many others in media and politics - sold out the country. But I am sure it was very lucrative and did not damage her "career".
While the New York Times FIRED Chris Hedges, Pulitzer price winner (a team won it) and long time WAR correspondent. He was always outspoken about war being horrible - but the New York Times liked that he actually went to the war zone, and these were far away wars. But when he got in the way of domestic power he was a goner.
He had seen that done to others over the years. His status as esteemed war reporter somewhat protected him, but he knew he was not completely safe. He got a reprimand, when he chose a graduation speech in 2003 to voice opposition to the war. The crowd yelled him down, cut the mic. University security removed him from the grounds (the university was not pleased with him either). He got reprimanded by his employer for bringing them into disrepute (I wonder if they did that with Judith Miller when the public found out about her collusion with the admin) - with the 2nd reprimand he would be out. So he COULD have kept his head down and he would have kept his safe position and the retirement funds.
Only that he couldn't (honoring the morale example of his father, a WW2 veteran but opposed to the war machine and likely an FDR style progressive / Democrat). So he chose to hand in his resignation (with a lot of sweating).
There were some well established media figures kicked out for daring to be against the Iraq war (in the U.K. too - Afshin Rattansi BBC, higher up management of the BBC. Piers Morgan fired by the Mirror. In the U.S.: Chris Hedges fired by the NYT, icon Phil Donahue lost his long time show. First - they got rid of people who were well known to the audience and could have an impact on public opinion and they could have a DIFFERING point of view. Second: it set a warning example to all others who had a mind to dissent to the line that the owners / management of the media and politicians found "fit to be presented to the public"
Noam Chomsky was ahead of the curve he spoke and wrote about "Manufacturing Consent" and the role of mainstream media DECADES before. He had been an early ! anti Vietnam war activist, so he knew that side of U.S. politics/media.
Jesse Ventura already had his 1 million USD contract, when the TV network found out he was AGAINST the Iraq war - he was a former marine ! how could they have suspected that ! He got the money, alright, but they never put him on air. He told them he would not shut up about the war.
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@theaviationist.5719 you have missed the privatizations they are already making. Slowly and steady does the trick. Starting with the PFI's (I think that may have been started under Labour before 2010) "outsourcing" new buildings, maybe also equipment - way too expensive of course, same with schools, the loans drain the budgets. They are not allowed to hire enough staff but are required to perform and stay open. So if that requires more doctors on site they have to pay for contracted services. Things like that.
The nasty party is not stupid. Thatcher promised to leave the NHS alone, but had no intention to keep that promise, her inner circle implored her to not go ahead, they feared the backlash, and she gave in (search on the web, came out a few years ago, and old advisor talked about it).
The Tories have been hostile towards the NHS since it was founded in 1948. They are like the Republicans in the U.S. SS (public retirement) was introduced in the 1930s by president Roosevelt. They have still not gotten over it, and still try to do away with it, cut it, privatize it etc. (Not that the Corporate Democrats would lack interest to use SS as bargaining chip, but they fear the base - at least a little bit).
Healthcare is around 10 % of the GDP in a first world country. The Tories find it offensive that such a large part of the economy should be off limits for the extraction of profit (for the most part) and only exist for the good of the population.
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@Nickle314 the Tories have run the NHS into the ground (intentionally to "justify" an ongoing privatization / more contracting, bit by bit). Johnson and surrogates during the campaign in TV interviews: "280,000 nurses work in the NHS every year 27,000 leave (in recent years)". - That is around 10 % and way too high - in other word testimony that they have driven the system into crisis.
Now they say they want to hire 31,000 nurses that makes 50,000 new nurses.
Yep, you read that right. Tory math:
We will make the NHS even a better place to work (George Orwell would be proud) and we will also convince 19,000 that were determined to leave to stay. So that makes 50,000 new nurses.
Objection interviewer: you count them double, they are not "new" if they are already part of the existing staff.
Objection Tory: but they would have otherwise left - so that is as good as new !
I am also sceptical about the hiring of 31,000 nurses. ( No EU nurses I hope - or even worse nurses with brown skin or Muslims)
Just kidding - but these numbers are not easy to find.
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The progressives did not do well in California, name recognition, complacent base (or indoctrinated with conventional wisdom) , .... Either Feinstein or Pelosi did not even have a challenger, and the establishment candidates with the money and the typical "CV" made it - if they were new. Or the incumbents.
FDR threatened to campaign against certain "Democratic representatives" if they would not support the New Deal. The Dems had a majority or even supermajority in both houses in 1933 (so they did not need the Republicans, which was good or nothing would have ever got done).
FDR did not fight with the dissenters officially but it is known that he twisted the arms of some.
On the other hand he gave in to the Dixiecrats who made sure that black and brown people got less out of the New Deal.
And in 1944 the party establishment hit back and demoted very popular VP Wallace. In 1940 there was a fight - and FDR threatened to not run at all and insisted on the progressive Wallace.
I guess in 1944 the politicians knew that FDR would sooner or later die of his dangerously high bloodpressure (which he did in April 1945) - so they did not bother to fight again and instead made sure their guy - Truman, the war monger - would be VP and ready to take over.
I think progressives should not underestimate the longterm capacity of the "establishment" to bounce back (and their contempt for the unwashed masses and the indignation when they are made to pay their fair share).
The citizens (also in California) are not doing well, and most realize they should do better - but they lack the desperation of the Great Depression - else it is hard to understand why the many progressives that were running escaped their notice.
Maybe the upcoming presidential campaign helps with that - sharpent the awareness. Last time many newcomers run a grassroots campaing with a Bernie platform.
Why the hell are people not doing a web search before elections. even if they know not much about a candidate and have litte energy, interest or time to dig deeper ? For most the status quo has not worked out too well, they can as well try the obscure candidate that says they do not take corporate donations and they usually refer to Bernie style policies.
So it remains to be seen if NEXT time there are serious challengers.
It would help if they come close, they must not even win against the big shots and longterm incumbents. Just enough to scare the shit out of them.
Sanders did not support most of these candidates btw (I think only if it did not "offend" the party establishment) - he hung out Tim Canova (the challenger of Debbie Wasserman Schultz) in Florida. Tim Canova was cheated twice, once in the D primaries and then the next time as Independent. Ongoing court case, recount of paper ballots (the backup) demanded, the court dragged their feet, and the paper ballots were destroyed - by the same clerk that came later under fire in the midterms 2018.
So for now Sanders is playing nice with the establishment. He likely COULD topple Pelosi - but he is not going to do it, for fear of alientating "conservative" Democrats, and the party establishment would go nuts. (Thinking of it: it would be unwise for him to do it, that ugly battle must be fought by the base)
It should be noted how much the people sacrifice who are willing to engage in those David against Goliath primaries (the DCCC ramped it up, every agency, videographer, marketing expert that would do work for the challenger of a Democratic incumbent will be blacklisted).
Since 70 % of the districts are reliably blue the intention is to grant the D incumbents a seat for life protection and to discourage any competition (so they can gladly ignore the constituents, they would not vote Republican - that was was Crowley did, and it worked for 16 years or so. Then AOC came around.
On the other hand those party establishment endorsed marketing experts, and election strategists suck anyway - they may be good fit for the big money circus before the internet, - but not for grassroots campaigns using social media and peer to peer recommendation.
Challenging the big money incumbent with the name recognition worked out for AOC - but a campaign is long and exhausting, especially if there is not a lot of money to grease the works. Money can buy support, services, comfort for the candidate while they concentrate on the race.
If they run from the position as mayor of a town .... well ....they cannot neglect the town or city complety. (On the other hand they have something to fall back on, the campaign may raise the profile in town - and positively - they "only" invest a year or more of their life, with uncertain outcomes. You must be ambitious and a little crazy for that).
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Not all products and services are a good fit for the "free market". Education is a bad fit - it tends towards "natural monopoly". The "choice" is non-existent for low-income families. And it is not a "nice to have, but can do without" service.
It does not make sense to privatize schools if you think about it (if you want the best for all of the citizens that is - private for-profit schools are a fabulous investment niche for rich people to extract money from the low and middle class)
Also real life results proves that it enhances inequality and poor outcomes for children of families that struggle (financially or otherwise).
Kids that come from families hwich struggle, are dysfunctional, where parents have little education, do not appreciate education, or the child has learning disabilities - do have a disadvantage anyway.
Eager and caring, well educated middle class parents can and will counterbalance for instance learning disabilities - other parents will be overwhelmed.
The child is left with much less chances for success. It is not a meritocracy when the income and dedication of the parents massively correlates with the outcomes for the children.
In countries like Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Japan to some degree also France, Netherlands, ... they have well funded non-profit school systems. The Scandinavians and Japanese are especially dedicated to offer a level playing field for all in education - it shows in the results. (btw Sweden tried out private education, one company was allowed to operate, it was a test run. The company went bankrupt, the tax payers had to pick up the tab, the children were of course not left behind. In Sweden you do not mess with the children, they are quite sensitive about that, that was the end of such experiments).
In the U.S. or elsewhere: The teachers have subjects to cover, they do not get into politics. - Although whitewashing MLK or how history is taught - especially what is left out - or a sex-ed where it is forbidden to show and explain the use of a condom seems quite polticially/religiously driven to me. Even young fundamentalistic Christians can profit of that information - they tend to marry young and might not want to have a child immediately.
From the obsession with the appearance of female students (the neckline of your shirt shows your collarbones, that is too much for some of these snowflake teachers who send female students home) - it seems that some schools or teachers are quite "conservative" (more like bigotted). Being a teacher does not make a person automatically lean to the "left" politically. The whole spectrum is assembled
Besides - in the teenage years the teenagers do not necessarily take the word of the teachers as gospel. And if some would like schools to teach their pet outsider positions - like no-sex until marriage, creationism, and Global warming is a hoax - well a) you live in a science oriented secular society b) you can make your case privately to your children (to counteract the "evil" teachings of the public school).
Healthcare is another area that is a terrible fit for the "free market" - it shows in the U.S. expenditures (see the U.S. vs. the other rich countries, you could add 70 % to the expenditures where I live - Germany- and would land at the U.S. level. Never mind everyone is fully covered and the U.S. does worse in parameters like life expectancy and child mortality than most wealthy countries)
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@Kevin Michael BoJo is a narcissist. Brexit is a lose/lose scenario, even now. Some hardliners among the MPs and the riled up supporters * want a hard Brexit.
The Leave base seems to be blissfully unaware of the economic challenges / dangers behind a hard Brexit and not willing to be informed - "Brexit means Brexit !" and "We won" - that seems to be important: people that were fucked by the system or they do well but are culturally irritated that so many "foreigners" are in the country.
"Strongly disliked" foreigners can also include people from Eastern Europe (as citizens of EU member states they can work in other EU nations even though the member states can restrict access of such EU citizens to unemployment benefits, disability and other benefits or demand that they must have a job within 3 months).
These EU migrants are usually very well integrated, working and WHITE. Doesn't help their cause with many U.K. citizens and they tend to be in the Leave camp (and feel now emboldened to show their hostility towards "foreigners").
The last proposal BoJo has got is a SOFT Brexit w/o worker's rights (even Farage called it a softer proposal than the last one May had - but Farage supported the Tories nontheless, the Brexit party did not compete for seats where the Tories had a chance to win, or they would have split the vote).
soft Brexit: selling that to the exited base in a deeply divided country (the Frankenstein monster he created) - or crashing out of the EU with no deal (which means hard brexit). Which is likely very bad for the economy and the business community that normally supports the Tories is panicking about that.
Boris Johnson was not happy the morning after the referendum with the result Leave (in summer 2016) - watch the footage. He should have been, he campaigned for it, so he "won" against the odds. But he had no firm position on leaving (or many other things, he is like Trump in that) before he took up the cause.
BoJo wanted the position of party leader Cameron who is a traditional sleek Tory. BoJo had his base which liked his antics, but he could not beat Cameron - so he had to find a crusade to distinguish himself.
He pestered Cameron and riled up the base with anti immigrationrhetoric as well (also not so subtly agains the legal migrants, many of whom are from other EU countries). the xenophobia of the Tories used to be more subtle. Cameron solved that inner party rivalry by promising a referndum on the EU during the GE 2010. The Tories winning in 2010 made Cameron the Prime Minister of the U.K. (he stepped down after the referendum, he had of course supported Remain along with the business community).
The plan of BoJo: build up your right wing street creds in the Leave campaign, lose honorably. Use the national platform then to challenge Cameron with an activated base AND at that point the people that always vote Tory but would not want to leave the EU had no reason to not vote for him as party leader = PM. The consistent Tory voters are usually well-off, affluent or rich, many do not go for character as long as he will serve their interests (and is not too uncough).
That obstacle (Tory base not in favor of Leave) would have been dealt with in the referendum, surely the referendum would end with Remain, but Boris could present considerable support by the base to bolster his claim that he could appeal to the masses and win a GE for the party. The disappointed base that wanted Leave would be told that "We must respect the referendum" - but if they voted for him now as PM he would do something about immigration nontheless.
He did not want to "win" the Leave campaign (he campaigned along with Farage who also did not strike me too enthusiastic the morning after the referendum, not sure about him, but BoJo was flattened) .... because of course Boris Johnson did not want to deal with Brexit as Prime Minister.
On the other hand some of the oligarchs - not those in manufacturing - but those in finance could see the advantage of a hard brexit and to use the ensuing economic crisis to turn the U.K. (or England) into a tax haven and to crush the rights of workers, consumers and environmental protection while they were at it.
So the tabloid press supported Brexit (anti immigrants) and helped to rile up the masses.
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Duh - look at countries with the best schools and results: most teachers (well most people) are in the middle or slightly above average in their capacities. Embedd them in an excellent structure and they - as group, as organsim will CREATE excellent outcomes together with the children. The forest is more than the sum of the trees !
The ability to nurture children and to teach them how to learn learning - does not lend itself well to competition, to being graded. Humans have an innnate desire to do good work, they are not only motivated by exterior factors .. TRUST a person that likes children and likes to teach and arrange for the right environment - and there will be no need for micromanaging.
How they do it in Finland:
Select for people who LIKE children, have no major personality flaws, have an interest in their subject (it they teach to older students). Select carefully who gets to be a teacher, give them enough funding, embedd them into a nurturing structure, don't appoint jerks as director or (head) adminstrators, pay them enough - and then LET THEM WORK.
And reduce the red tape. The adminstrators should SERVE not run the whole place. There are schools in the U.S. where the adminstrators make much more than the teachers. How so ? I mean one needs some management and people skills sure. but there is no entrepreneurial skill necessary and it is certainly not rocket science.
(I forgot the state, the teachers complained in a meeting the the adminstrator got himself a raise, but not the teachers, the police forced her out of the schooboard meeting).
Testing and grades are overrated. Learning of content/ facts is overrated as well.
Education used to be about useful skills but also and very important - to show off to which socioeconomic CLASS you belonged.
There are not many skills that one absolutely must have (reading, writing, basic calculation, some compter skills, driving a car, operating a mobile phone).
People can get through life and be unable to practically apply the rule of proportion (it does not even enter their mind that they COULD use it) and to solve simple equations. Now, that - unlike a lot of more advanced maths that they also "passed" - is actually useful. Those who did not completely fail must at some point of time have passed the related tests successfully.
And since it is a process and builds up one would expect it to be like when you learned a language or to ride a bike. It should stay with you and be easy to reactivate, as well.
But they never made MATHS their OWN. They learned plenty and more advanced maths. But it is meaningless if the process of acquiring that knowledge is not (mostly) enjoyable.
Anything "maths" is treated by many adults like a minefield (of humiliation !) Some rescue themselves into the admission of their stupidity. To avoid to ever again having to engage with that frustrating/scary/boring/annoying topic. What's the use of being an adult when you cannot refuse to ever again have anything to do with maths.
One can do well w/o the rule of proportion - but if you do not master reading and at least basic writing you are really in trouble. So schools MUST master the art of teaching all children (that do not have developmental problems) to read well.
Some inner city schools fail at that, a sizeable portion of their "graduates" had poor or very poor reading skills. In the lawsuit the judge decided that the students do not have a right to be taught in a way that would raise the overall level of reading skill to the average level in the U.S..
It is a combination of background, stressful environment at home, the area where they live, an underfunded school, likely most teachers flee if they can. Good funding AND making the school a safe haven would help (plus some outside mentoring if the school is so dysfunctional). Lots of social work, nurturing the teachers, the children take the hostility and hardship with them into the social structure of the school.
Teach non-vioent communication.
Learning does not happen when the amygdala is not engaged and gives the green light. Survival and or emotional distractions beat picking up factual information.
For efficient learning a relaxed, SECURE, agreeable environment with a tinge of positive excitement and a little bit of friendly competition is ideal. An adult that is mobbed will underperform in the workplace - it is worse with children.
Motivation, curiosity, ambition can compensate if the subject is boring. And some stuff is boring but you must learn it anyway (in architecture or law, or anatomy. Of course teenagers and young adults can be expected to withstand more drill and boredom - but it is toxic for smaller children. It conditions them to dislike learning and school in general. That happens very often with the subject of mathematics.
School as the place to fill up students with facts/content to which they do relate (to which they do not bond)
I notice that with college students, they like Sanders - but cannot tell the difference between Socialism, or Social Democrat, I wonder if many understand what single payer system means). And THEY are supposed to be the intellectually ambitious. They are enthusiastic about him - but could never be bothered to search even for a short definition ??
They have a certain verbal skill level and I notice a tendency to gloss over with word salad over the embarrassing fact that they did not even know the basics. And if they can they do not simply admit that they are - yet -underinformed.
They have been trained to parrot things, and to do so with a certain degree of eloquence. They were not trained to question, to detect on their own. Admitted that is more challenging for the teachers. And if the goal is that the children should be able to parrot a certain volume of facts at a certain time (teaching to the test) - then you cannot allow for the slow, deep, meandering, organic process where a child immerses itself into a self-chosen ! subject.
In the end it does not matter if they become experts on dinosaurs (you would be surprised how many exist among the young ones) or Japanese tea ceremonies. And it does not matter if they know nothing about the history of the nation. If they are not ALIENATED from LEARNING they will be in the habit of wanting to know and explore things - and as for geography or history: if the bug bites them (at 15, 10, 25 or 65) they will get the information.
School and even more university used to be the hub for information, and to some degree libraries - now so much info is available in digital form, and many colleges have some lectures that are publicly availabe online.
Most of the things we learn in school (history, geography, ...) we forget. Part of it is that the subject was forced upon the students. A good teacher can of course make the subject interesting for MORE children, but will never reach all.
Being bored is the ultimate turn-off for the human brain, and it is worse for the brain of a young homo sapiens. It might be necessary to inflict that on them when they get some drill when it comes to concentrating. Or reading. ... although. Who says every child must learn it at age 6 -7. Some learn it with 5 while for others the age 9 might be right (and then they learn it w/o hassle). Motivation (either fear or ambition can deliver the necessary excitement to overcome boredome, especially with increasing maturity and frustration tolerance).
Example: Finland, Denmark: they make the extra effort to level the playing field. Which is also the reason they never had the underclass like the U.S. - these countries never allowed such an extent of inequality for adults and children.
In a country with a lot of inequality, where children are living in a harsh environment - give GENEROUS fundung for social work, have some anti-mobbing programs, let the school be save havens.
Have programs that watch out for kids who do not integrate well, and do not have good social skills.
School is about learning to learn, learn to concentrate, social skills, learning to present.
And let's be real: to watch over the children while their parents are working in a job.
Especially when they do not live in a nice area and the parents are busy, abusive, will not or cannot help with homework - school can level the playing field. And with after school programs for teenagers it can stand between them and drifting apart form society. The young men ending up in jail and the young girls getting pregnant. Dropping out of school, hanging out on the street.
Philadelphia stopped their Zero Tolerance policy (often minor offenses, could get a teeanger arrested. Like having a fight. Or small amounts of weed). That was very successful.
In Sweden a major part of the 6 - 7 year olds get extra help. when they have a harder time learning to read. It does not depend on the patience, teaching skills, commitment of the parents if the kids are getting help. And since so many get extra attention it is not shameful for the children. (Littel children are highly sensitive to being the "stupid" ones in their class, that is another thing that is completely overlooked.
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Former aristocrats, landlords and monarchs had it easier. The churches colluded with them and supported their claim that they deserved to be on the top, and a crusty class system helped as well. Plus they were the ones that could dress nicely, had "cultivated" speech patterns ("posh accent - especially in the U.K.) and they were educated and at leisture to pursue academic interests (if they wanted to) while the rest of the population was kept undereducated or at least away from the NOBLE institutions of higher learning and clubs. Especially the underclass overworked.
When people are getting more wealth and education (females, citizens in general, the British merchants in the empire, the landlords in the American colony, people of color) - w/o fail they challenge the right of the upper classes to dominate and govern them. They want participation - at least for themselves. (The British merchants or the American revolutionaries did not want a democracy for everyone, THEY wanted more influence on governance).
Back in the day it was not hard to maintain the illusion of superiority. "good manners" and insider rituals of the upper classes, private schools, clubs, marriages within their circles were other means to exclude the masses. Or even trivial things like having access to books and newspapers. Or medical care, good living areas, better food, clean water.
The wealthier commoners were busy trying to emulate and to imitate the 1 %. To some degree they challenged the upper classes but they did not challenge the structure itself - it is just that THEY wanted to be accepted in the club as well. (So wealthy British merchants married their children to broke aristocrats to get a foot into the door of "better" society.)
See for instance in 1776 the wealthy landowners of the American colony who shook off the reign of the foreign parliament (dominated by rich Brits and their nobility) and the foreign king. These landowners allowed some freedoms (like religious freedom) but it was by no means a democracy. Only around 40,000 white males with some wealth had the vote. The did not shake off the reigns to have freedom for everyone - THEY wanted more freedom and influence for themselves, the wealthy / rich commoners.
All these justifications and a lot of the traits of poverty / wealth (education, being well groomed, access to information) have widely vanished in modern secular society. The upper class is much more inclined to deny there is such a thing as class - while cultivating feudal attitudes.
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+ M. Fink the Nazis, the Italian fascists increased gun ownership (they founded gun clubs, civil militias etc.). In Germany only the Jewish people that had firearms were forced to give them up.
No one expected them to use them btw, at that time they were not yet arrested or taken to camps, they started stripping them of citizens rights (government employees, teachers were fired, they could not sit on public park benches, go swimming, etc.)
This was another way to harrass them, humiliate them. Some of the men had of course served in WW1, it is possible that officiers could keep their weapong. Even though they did not idolize weapons like many U.S. citizens do - this was a degradation.
Firearms were expensive - they were not that widespread (also not in the U.S. apart from hunters and famers).
Hunting is not as widespread as in the U.S., the countries in Euirope are more densely populated.
So for people who did have firearms in Germany in the 1930s that meant usually having served in WW1 at a higher rank or being a hunter or farmer - and as Jewish people were rarely farmers - a hunting weapon or being a collector would indicate wealth.
Being forced to give up the firearms was more a measure of degradation.
If any Jews had gunned down police, Gestapo, etc. - they would have brutally killed them and their whole family (and taken it as pretext for more violence). So that was no danger for the tyrannical state.
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I think it must be a sandwich. OPTION 1) Running grassroots candidates w/o Big Corp. Donor money (and hope that they don't do an Obama = dupe the voters and change course as soon as they are in power - see IDC in New York). Moreover there is always the possibility that they LATER get corrupted, integrated into the machine, intimidated.
For a senator for instance it is approx. USD 172,000 before taxes with good benefits (healtchare). That is not bad, but they need 2 households and one in expensive D.C. So they needed to be content with that pay. Plus going against the machine (which can be exhausting)
Or much more money * and going with the flow.
IDC in New York:
a few renegade "Democrats" in the State Senate caucused with the Republicans so despite the majority nothing (good for The People) could be passed. Needless to say the party bigshots in New York (governor Cuomo !) were O.K. with the IDC, they could govern as Republicans and had always an excuse. The State Senate was the reliable grave for all measures that would have been good for the masses and bad for the Big Donors.
It started out with one (Jeff Klein I think is the name) who defected when the Republicans had a slim majority in 2011. When the Dems took over the Senate in 2012 more Dems were "hired" or bribed by the Republicans to causus with them. So the official Republicans and the IDC Republicans still had the majority.
7 more Democratic defectors eventually joined the IDC (Independent Democratic Congress) - and one of them was a new comer, a Latina, she had run on a Bernie platform and sold out immediately. Perks for the district, better office, more money for staff - chance to hire a relative for instance.
Now she lost her seat of course as well but you bet she calculated (and likely got) a cushy post as compensation for the services rendered. True, she could not make herself a name with the Big Donors so the gamble may not have gone well. On the other hand the others served the oligarchs and Republicans longer so THEY will be taken care of....
6 of the 8 defectors got voted out in September 2018. Only in April 2018 the party leadership could finally be bothered to lean on them (took them only 7 years !). Cynthia Nixon was instrumental in that, she called the IDC and Cuomos silence out when she challenged the govenor in the primaries. So Cuomo had one meeting (!) and brought them into the fold. As far as party "leadership" was concerned all was forgotten and forgiven - but the voters were not having it, they exacted revenge for the years of betrayal.
...... In New York it is about BIG MONEY - for instance when the real estate developers get favored over the population. They can easily buy a few state senators
A possibility to make money OFF the OFFICE
* For instance the SuperPacs can buy up the books. Or hire relatives (or give contracts to relatives). or they get information where to buy real estate. Or they get offered real estate that is seriously underpriced compared to market value.
(the person that was responsible for the "mistake" to purge voters from the rolls in Brooklyn in the 2016 Democratic primaries got such a deal. In that case the civil servant could SELL a house well above market price - to someone with ties to the Clintons).
You bet they would love to buy AOC - if only to shut her up.
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The instinct of the upper / ruling class for individual charity for the deserving (like a CUTE little girl) resurfaces whenever the first go to move is to MEANS TEST assistance, even during the middle of a pandemic, even though it delays rollout, creates unnecessary buraucracy, and they could easily tax the money back LATER when they KNOW the 2019 income for a 70k before taxes family * stayed the same in 2020.
But NO, There. Must. Be. Some. Means. Testing. And. Strings. Attached.
For the citizens and smaller biz, that is.
Big biz got showered with money, early on and no string attached.
*
The same instinct kicked in in 2009.
Glossing over the criminal activities of banksters were glossed over. But finger wagging for the imprudent home buyers who had misled or duped the unsuspecting too big to fail banks.
I guess the media telling unexperienced consumers for years about the real estate prices going up and no context with former real estate bubbles had nothing to do with citizens rushing to buy before it got even more expensive. And no warning by media with their research teams about loans that were obviously meant ton entrap naive home buyers. the interests and payments were low in the beginning.
As for politicians instinct to be wary to help the regular people "too much"
Generous help for big finance. Bailout. After ! that 4.5 TRILLIONS in QE (so the fines that Eric Holder negotiated before he "settled" w/o prosecution did not really hurt the banks. Not only had they made spectacular profits before the bubble burst. They got showered with money, it prettied up their balance sheets. They "swapped" their (unsellable !) assets for money from the Fed / treasury.
So Holder had record fines for show - and they had no real financial hardships.
The program for struggling home owners was not nearly as generously funded. It was handled by for-profits who likely had an incentive to forclose not to prevent forclosue. anyway: it was a hassle for the homeowners, they did not know from on quarter to the next if they "qualified" if not they owed the whole 3 months of mortgage right there and then (and did not have it of course).
Then Larry Summers was "worried" about it and suggested it should be shut down earlier .....
If only the U.S. would be a democracy, then citizens would not have to put up with the oligarchs and the politicans that rule on their behalf.
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+Nate - when they deliver you into the hospital after a severe accident or a dramatic display of symbom they probably would not deny services. They would have people dying on the doorsteps. Does not look good. - They are only legally required to "stabilize" a patient - and they have ways to work around that as well.
If uninsured they would charge you at least double what they would bill to a public non-profit insurance agency (in Europe or even to Medicare).
There was a woman that decided to run for office becasue the Corporate Dem (relatively new in office) could not be bothered to be for Single Payer. (TYT covered her - the shill was pathetic in a townhall and she got furious. I think she lost the race sadly).
She is a nurse, her husband is a veteran. Their daughter had insurance (from a job, or from her father. She intended to start a training in autumn and then would have been covered with her father.
But in summer she was in a limbo.
She was always healthy but got pain in a leg and it got really bad. The hospital figured out that her insurance status was at least "unclear", they were eager to get rid of her.
She returned she begged for help. Her mother advised her on the phone (she was not in town, in person she might have rocked the boat big time.) The mother which also was a nurse was incredulous - maybe her daughter did not communicate right with the hospital ? Did they know the pain got worse and worse and unbearable ?
Considering this was a middle class family - even if the daughter had been w/o insurance, the bill would have been paid.
If a healthy young person gets out of the blue pain and it becomes worse over short time, the thing to think of is an embolie. They can check that out with a MR. That they did not want to do however. - If they want to err on the safe side (time is of essence IF it is an embolie) they can give her blood thinning medicaton and/or transfusions.
With the MR they would have found the clog, it caused the pain in the limb, later it swept in the bloodstream (heart attack).
The young woman had been sent away with a prescription for pain medication. - Later they had to take her in - she was delivered into intense care. When her family arrived she was there and in very bad shape. She died some hours later.
Michael Moore showed in Sicko how the hospitals get rid of elderly / poor patients w/o a family that cares for them. The ambulances take them and drop them off a few streets away. Or they just shove them out of the house so to speak. "Letting them leave" is not the correct word, when they have dementia (or are confused because of the sickness, that happens a lot with old people, they can recover from that). They may not need hospital care anymore but they need care and you cannot kick them out to let them fend for themselves.
The ambulance transport likely avoids legal problems - for the hospital.
A charitiy had set up shop in proximity to a hospital that had a reputation for doing that - so that they can rescue such patients. Which means the ambulance drivers or the adminstrative staff (the lower charges) which get maximum pressure from management to execute the ugly schemes will likely be glad to drop off the abandoned patients there - at least they can hope the person is not going to die and they participate in it.
Management likely never gave written orders for these procedures and will play innocent and blame it on the lower charges if sued or called out publicly.
A confused old woman, dragging along with her the cart with the transfusions. She might have landed herself in the nearby street with a lot of traffic had it not been for the intervention of the charity.
Staff (ambulance services and hospital) that do not want to participate in the ugly scheme can go and look for another job. And I would not be surprised if they have a Non Disclosure "agreement" in their work contract.
They cannot go against a dysfunctional system.
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in the presidential elections at least 4 candidates were running. The opposition consist of self-serving oligarchs and despite the economic troubles they could not get their act together and defer to ONE candidate / party that could lead.
Lopez was barred from running (If memory serves he was involved in the 2002 coup against Chavez) and another strong candidate also was not allowed to run: Henrique Capriles who had lost narrowly against Maduro in 2013.
Claim: irregularities, donations from abroad, not sure what to make of it.
ONE - Falcon - broke ranks and DID run against Maduro (he is well known and polled like Lopez in the beginning): He was expelled from his party and of course the other parties told the voters to not vote at all in the election. He was also smeared as colluding with Maduro - well THAT was NOT helpful in challenging Maduro. He lost heavily against Maduro.
The U.S. btw threatenrd him with sanctions. Now THAT is weird: Sanctions for challenging an incumbent that the U.S. wants to see beaten - even though the narrative was that the election was not legitimate because the opposition was banned from running ??
Falcon WAS from the opposition and from one of the parties under the MUD umbrella, and he had chances ....
Just to repeat: TWO were banned. Lopez is a highly shady character, so that leave Capriles who might have been deprived of running under a pretext (but it is entirely possible that he is corrupt and the ban was legitimate).
And the opposition (before united under the umbrella of MUD - the united opposition) could not come up with one convincing candidate in the national crisis ? ? Falcon would have been ONE logical choice.
Likely they were not at all sure they could win - or they were too self-serving to let this or that party and candidate have the advantage of winning. (The U.S. might have settled that, and might have backed up the claims of some actors recently).
it tells you something about the opposition when they cannot find ONE convincing candidate (or support the one that IS running) even when the economy is doing badly.
The voters of Venezuela might not even like Maduro - but they realize some things about the "opposition". They had them before 1998 - see per capita GDP and extreme poverty in the decades before 1998 when Chavez was voted in.
Malnutrition of children, favellas around the cities, no or bad access to schools or medical care !
Falcon GAVE the voters an option to stick it to Maduro - so why didn't they seize the chance to get rid of Maduro - never, mind if the opposition got their act together or told them to stay home. You bet the situation was hotly debated everywhere- and private media was not banned from reporting.
no doubt the U.S. assured the incompetent, fractured oppostion, that if they would refuse to participate - that it would be woven into the narrative and would help create the mythos that the elections were not legitimate.
The press and privately owned major TV channels could report negatively on Madura and they did.
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The "elites" in the party have major double think going on - and Sanders reminds them of how they SHOULD work for their constituents. And they detest him for it. - They try to convince the voters that they are for the regular people - but they are funded by the same corporations that also finance the Republicans.
They also work for the upper 20 - 30 % of the population with a STRONG emphasis on promoting the interests of the 1 %. That colludes usually (almost always) with the interests of the 70 - 80 %.
What is more: they do not like to have the (cynically honest) self assessment of being sell-outs and cowards.
Or to watch the effects when they - the Corporate Dems - roll over before being pushed. When they FAIL to fight the Republicans tooth and nail.
Well, that is not what the Big Donors pay them for. Their most important role is not to win general elections. They are supposed to win primaries to keep the progessives out. If they were obedient to the party establishment and the Big Donors they will get a cushy position if they end their political career. So losing a GE is not the end of the world for THEM.
The donors and the top of the party honor such "obligations". It reassures the shills that still hold seats that is better for them to serve the Big Donors and to do as they are told by the party leadership - as opposed to serving their constituents. The lower ranks of the political class have to earn their status with the big shots in the party (true for both parties). So the leadership can easily fulfill their obligation towards the Big Donors - make everyone fall in line.
Big money in political campaigns also provides some of the necessary employment opportunities for obedient ex-politicians. Stratgists, consultants, lobbyists - media gets a lot of campaign ads and will help out with contracts as well to keep the cozy scheme going.
So the sell-outs that claim that they represent The People prefer to stay in the insider bubble, and to avoid to SEE the effects of their policies on the voters.
That psychological mechanism made the Clinton campaign so tone deaf and unable to see the writing on the wall in 2016. Their need to protect their good self-image (typical for homo sapiens) while being sell-outs interferes very much with a fact based, honest if cynical assessment of what is going on with the electorate.
Homo sapiens is a very social species. Only outright sociapaths have the fortitude to be unashamedly selfish and corrupt and be fully AWARE of it (they do not tell others, but this is about self image).
Selfishness goes against our instincts honed by evolution: group cohesion, solidarity and avoiding infighting was crucial for survival. So we all are very much inclined to find excuses when we are selfish or cowards, to sugar-coat non-social behavior.
It is easier to harm / neglect people if they are stripped of their humanity, individuality, personhood. It also manifests in the technocratic language of war: humans are "soft targets". Killed civilians are "collateral damage", the soldiers of the other side are "the enemy".
The next level is to riducle or villify people to make it easier to neglect them. If they are seen as humans, "like us", they are automatically "members of the tribe". It is very difficult for homo sapiens to wrong a "tribe member" millions of years of evolution made sure of that.
What works best: to suppress knowledge. Stay inside the bubble. Don't dwell on conflicting information.
Well, that does not help with a brutally honest assessment of what is going on with the electorate. Self-serving politicians fall victim to their own rosy narratives.
[Edit: the real estate developers in New York can breathe a sigh of relief. Nixon was defeated by Cuomo in the primaries in Sep. 2018. He (the Big Donors) threw millions into the race. He outspent her by factor 20 or 40 - something like that. The INCUMBENT.
The mayor of New York and the governor of the state COULD do a lot for social housing and restricting WHO is allowed to buy up real estate for "investment" with the effect that rent becomes unaffordable for the people that live and work in the region.
But usually the politicians in power are bribed to side with the landlord class and the rich investors and those who build for the investors. In the U.S. they can be bribed directly, in other nations it is done with the help of donations to parties - campaign spending is restricted but not necessarily donations, and then there are cushy jobs for ex-politicians, family members, .....]
Politicians learn the sound bites that the think tanks and lobbyists are glad to provide: The thought stopping clichés that help to sugar coat policies that are hardly better than that of the GOP. *
So Sanders very uncomfortably reminds them of what THEY SHOULD BE. And they detest him for it. He shows to the public what is possible and he very much distrubs their double think.
As is usual with humans: they had once made the choice for SELFHISNESS,COMPLACENCY and COWARDICE - instead of integrity which is more challenging and much less lucrative. Such anti-social choices are usualy not revised (those crosroads lead to one direction streets so to speak, those who will have integrity make the choice early on). The usual behavior is to double down and develop contempt for anyone who threatens to burst their bubble - that way they can continue to profit from selfishness and can prevent feeling bad about themselves - even under more "difficult" conditions.
* The 2017 spring townhalls were challenging for the Republicans which were confronted by angry voters. Remarkable also the Corporate Dems when they were asked about healthcare:
They delivered the obfuscating rightwing talking points and misrepresentations.
Listen to Debbie Wasserman-Schulz or Nancy Pelosi for instance.
Even in summer 2018 when Medicare for All polled excellently even among Republicans:
Amy Goodman cornered Tom Perez, he was protesting at the border the separation of children from migrants - "access to healthcare, opportunities, values ... " the usual phrases.
He could not bring himself to even mention the word "Universal healthcare" even though Goodman used that phrase in her question (What do you think about Universal healthcare, are you for it ?)
Then he turned away to the other mics. He is not even good at lying.
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Other well meaning, active abortion opponents are incapable to transcend their own circumstances, belief system and experiences. If a family WANTS a child they are overjoyed when finding out. They talk about the baby, it is already real to them, everybody congratulates, "When is the baby due ?" "What names do you consider ? etc.
Almost always their religion tells them it counts as human from the beginning, when the sperm unites with the egg, even before it attaches to the uterus. - It is fine to have that view - but the medical, legal, scientific view is that it is not yet a human, does not have personhood, it is a clump of cells, later a fetus.
And these nice people are not able to let go of THEIR view of things and accept that OTHER people have other spititual beliefs (or none), do not share their idea that a zygote, embryo, fetus is a human baby, and do not want to add a child to their life in some months. Or cannot or do not want to cope with a child with severe disabilities.
They do not come so much from a place of bigotry - but they are self-centered, often blissfully and willfully ignorant about the troubles of other people - and are very certain that their's is the right god and the right gospel - and they have the moral compass, so in the end they can tell other people to accept a massive responsibility for the next 18 years.
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Let me quote Dr. Richard Wolff who has a degree in economics from Harvard and also degrees from Yale and I think Stanford. From 3 Ivy League institutions, that I am sure about. He did not find them that superior. when it comes to content. He had a regular background with a father influenced by the French Labour movement, so I assume it was outstanding academic achievements and being bright and eloquent what got him in.
He found the approach to economics biased and narrow minded and influenced by the Cold War (all hail capitalism).
He got interested in exploring Marx - the economic and philisophic academic - if only to refute him or to compare his ideas to let's say Adam Smith (which is misquoted and misunderstood anyway, he is not nearly as libertarian as presented today). Well, he found out that it was not "allowed" to have such academic curiosity -Studying him does not even mean agreement - but Marx was taboo.
Given that then the Soviet Union and China claimed ! to follow the economic ideas of Marx and that his writings (from 1840 and later !) contunied to be considered relevant - pf course any serious academic in economcs should have known first hand what Marx did and did not say.
China and the Soviet Union had suffered extreme difficulties, war, famine during the 1920s/ 1930s and in WW2. Both countries were desperately poor agrarian feudal societies, and behind in their development (that lead to the revolution). Once the internal fighting for power was over (which cost millions of lifes) - they DID massively improved survival of their citizens, literacy rate, etc.
Despite the negative commenting - in the 1930s the U.S. state department was worried about the leap forward that the Soviet Union had made and commented on that in reports. That in 1917 there had been a revolution in Russia (where the rich were dispossessed and fled the country) likely helped FDR to push the New Deal through in 1933. It was not that long ago and showed what the under class could do to the upper class if they were not willing to improve the situation for the lower classes.
To quote Mark Blyth: "Redistribution of wealth is asset insurance for the rich." And: "The Hamptons are flat country, and not a defensible position."
(Now imagine what would have been possible in Russia resp. the Soviet Union w/o the terrible dictatorship of the Bolshevics that ended that experiment of the fledgeling democracy - an experiment that had started after the czar had been unseated and put under house arrest - the democratic phase did not last long though. As the saying goes: the Revolution eats it's children.)
During WW1 Russia was ruled by the czar and the war allies of Russia forced the Revolutionaries to continue fighting - the troops of the czar got support from the U.S. France, U.K and they even invaded Russia. So that prolonged the Civil War.
If fighting is necessary, usually the most ruthless forces take over. Those who are most likely to win in such battles are usually not the moderates that are willing to share power.
Marxism is the critique of capitalism - and a remarkable academic achievement. So it should be part of the curriculum, like Adam Smith is part of it.
The buildings in the Ivy League colleges are fine, the instructions should at least be good (if not superior) maybe they are better funded to do research in the STEM areas. The Ivy League colleges have ONE important function - to facilitate the networking of those that are destined to become the future "elite" of the country. and in former days the ladies from wealthy families had their choice for a future adequate husband.
Wolff said the value of having those Ivy League degrees were not WHAT he learned there (that he found unimpressive). Later he could inhabit the outsider niche of non-orthodox economics. And if challenged by some defenders of the established and "allowed" academic range he could always refer to his "distinguished" education from those "elite" institutions and they would back off. So when challenged why he did not think that the current system was the greatest ever and why he even thought a lot of critique was appropriate - those degrees were useful as cover.
he did not take advantage of the networking opportunities with graduates from well-off and well connected families.
Three unorthodox economists (incl. Wolff) succeeded in being hired by a university (I think in Massachussetts) - the university found the rogue economists an interesting addition. True to form they did collective bargaining and the university was so eager to get them that it accepted their demand for immediate tenure. (Wolff said then he had no real idea of the VALUE of having immediate tenure).
Then the governor had to approve of tenure (intersting - no ? politicians decide WHO gets full academic freedom w/o endangering their economic safety) - and they got short term information that the governor was influenced against them. So they came up with some impressive letters of recommendation within a few days - and the govenor approved their hiring, tenure and all.
Noam Chomsky said that in the 1940s and 1950s the Ivy League institutions (like Havard) did not accept a lot of Jews. Therefore many of them went to MIT (and maybe Yale). Like Chomsky went to MIT (then almost 100 % military funded) - it was brimming with Jewish STEM talent.
So then they tried to keep people of Jewish background out of "The Ivy Club". Well those Jews had money and good education and were not having it.
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There was a new aspect of the investigation and Comey revealed that. Likely because he too felt confident that HRC would win anyway. So it would not cost the election if he did the right thing. An agency, court or or the media do not have the role to consider what impact their revelations could have on the next election. They are supposed to do their job.
and politicians have to make sure to abide by the law. HRC should not have brazenly ignored the law to run her insecure server in her basement - set up by a rookie.
SHE shot herself in the foot and Comey was supposed to investigate that She could and should have used the means of communication that are guarded by tech wizards that work for the agencies (or the governmetn) - not by an inept staffer. But she could only let that handle by a loyal person that would cover up for her disregard of the law, being sneaky was more important than being competent while ignoring the law.
Doing it the correct and official way means she can be held accountable for her communications, if they reveal self-serving, unehtical or unlawful actions of her - or others.
And it is also subject to FOIA requests if they cannot rightfully classify it.
For instance if she plans a self serving war on Libya or proxy war on Syria, and discusses the distribution of the loot or the maneuvers to support the "opposition" in Libya and Syria - often fundementalistic radical muslin and from other countries. Like Saudi Arabia.
(I very much suspect she had that private server for that).
Even her private communications must be secure, she and Bill Clinton are of course targets, they have Secret Service protection even if they do not hold any office (like now). So it is also important if she writes a mail to a friend and it reveals their plans (she and Bill plan to be at a certain time at a certain location. The official events are better guarded and are publicly known (at least by some) - for instance if they are an attraction during a fund raiser. But there might be low key private encoutners. Ideal opportunities for attacks.
Normally she would either ask the SS for help with a private server or get a recommendation by them for a trustworthy private company. She can't be that naive. So I think she very much wanted to hide that she had a private mail server (the private serve is unusual - but O.K.)
If she only wanted a private server for private communications, she would not have needed to keep that a secret among professionals. (They would not openly communicate that to the public, because a server in Hilary's basement would attract the hackers, if only as a fun challenge. It is inevitable that the servers of google, gmx, apple, etc. are targets of hackers, but there is no reason to alert them to other targets. But the cabinet, her staff, would have known there is a private server and she needs regular technical support for that.
I also do not get why the large providers are not good enough to handle her mails. They need to be at the top of their game regarding security from hackers. She could have a code name for communications with friends and family.
Wikileaks revealed a lot of stuff that was embarrassing for HRC and the DNC in summer. And they including the legacy media hate, hate them and Julian Assange for that. That is why the Corporate medias let's him rot in prison w/o a peep. And they even help with the smears to undermine pupblic supports.
Politicians (to the right or the neoliberals" hate Assange anyway (he annoyed all of them over the course of the years) and they engage in an assault on a publisher, free media and freedom of speech because they CAN. Tehy would alsway love to if they do not like the reporting but they only can go after some people.)
The sheeple (the voters) let them and legacy media (embarrassed by the example what a fierce media should be like) creates the mood for it.
Same with whistle blowers btw: No one was every punished regarding the Bush era torture BUT the whistle blowers that leaked some material. See John Kiriakou's example.
He did not have DUE process. They just declare it all to be classified. The court "trial" is not open to the public. There are a few carefully slected judges in Virginia. The CIA is headquartered there and only a few judges do that kind of trial. They can select the jury carefully.
The judge can throw out all motions of the defense to present witnesses or other material (ask John Kiriakou).
There was some other whisteblower or intel professional that did not part ways in a cordial manner. I am not sure if he did blow the whistle or if they feared he could. Anyway, they tried to frame him with a crime BUT he had collegues that warned him and gave him the head ups. so the powers that be abstained from going down that road - if they would try again he might have had evidence for their wrong doing and if they escalated that he might get a public platform.
Manning (I think his material was only war crimes in general, see the video collateral murder where also AP war correspondents were killed for no good reason at all). The cowards of the Corporate media do not even defend AP staff.
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Sanders is content to be the eternal underdog, the educator that plays movement leader, and got scared when the chance opened to REALLY HOLD POWER. He is standing in his own way he is SELF SABOTAGING. (It can happen, when people are about to hit SUCCESS. Part of them works hard for it, part of them undermines it).
I do not think Sanders sold out or did it only to sheepdog progressives into the party. The only other logical explanations for his PUZZLING behavior that CONTRADICTS his (correct) assessment how he would get things done as president with an UNWILLING Congress and Senate (I will rally the masses, the young, Organizer-in-chief)
a) he always wanted to dupe his supporters (I do not believe that)
b) he has NOW second thoughts if HE could win against Trump. Well he is certainly a better choice than BIDEN. Wwrong assessment, they need better marketing to get out the detached voters and the detached young.
His mistake ( = not self sabotage and it could be corrected): Yes he has the young locked down (18 - 40) if they are ENGAGED or willing to be engaged. A lot of them are apathetic it seems. I do not know what they did in terms of MARKETING, social media works, but it was not enough. I guess you do not reach them with doing well attended rallies (there you have the engaged).
And it would not hurt that Sanders points out that it is even harder for working people to VOTE than for older retired people. Who tend to vote in larger numbers and rooted for Biden. Or the affluent.
The enthusiastic supporters help him in a caucus, in primaries the requirement to invest a few hours hits his potential supporters more.
having to wait HOURS is unacceptable. That is worse than in third world countries.
c) Sanders was threatened (he or his family), or they have something on him.
Not likely but I would not rule it out
I think it is a).
Of course Sanders has to do some serious double think NOW. He does the small stuff like raising money for charities. That is important but some mid level celeb can busy themselves.
NOW it WOULD be time to play the BIG game. Instead Sanders folds
Eugene Debs (a man Sanders admires) f**g went to prison. For being openly against the WW1, which was outlawed in the U.S. "democracy". He ran for president from prison.
The worst that can happen to Sanders ? He does not win his seat in 2024 again (if the wants to run again). They are so meant to him in the Senate that he choses to retire.
he has financial security. Gets a pension and healthcare. People will always love him in Burlington and Vermont.
Press will hate on him, he is an intelligent man (although maybe not flexible enough anymore, after all 78 years old). He could LEARN from Trump
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Paul Temple Nope, not nationalizing the "economy" Just railway and water - which are natural monopolies and are in public hand everywhere (if not, the citizens are ripped off until they are taken back). Broadband - the free market failed: companies are not interested outside the densely populated areas, and they are underserved. That widens the economic gap between the regions. If the government WANTS to do something for the underdeveloped regions and wants to make them fit for future jobs creation .....
Energy should be in public hand (or the communities).
Housing leans also strongly towards natural monopoly and the U.K. (and other nations) got excellent results with that - as long as it was supported. The landlord class does not like it of course - but if the goal is to help the low(er) to middle income people and to create security for working people not much beats public housing.
In Vienna they boldly invested into many projects in the 1920s. They were renovated of course meanwhile. Brick and mortar, mixed renters. Not only low income the threshhold is not that high and people can stay if they earn more later. Therefore: No "ghettos".
The renters know they are lucky if they get such an appartment, they are affordable, and if you observe the normal rules of conduct and pay the rent no one will kick you out. That means that the renters are protective of "their" house, and they make improvements (flooring, new bathroom) even if they do not get paid for it when they leave. It pays off considering people stay usually longer.
They did good back in the day. In the 1920s / 1930s and again in 1950 - 1970. People still profit from what was created then before the "free market" and the profiteers were allowed to take over the "market".
Some of those "council houses" were meanwhile privatized - most or all rich nations stopped supporting these successful policies in favor of the "free market" (wealthy and rich people got more possibilities to make unearned income). Which of course meant that politicians or ex-politicians got their cut and the privatizations of council houses include invariably some/a lot of corruption.
Less volume of affordable housing (owned by cities, the state or federal government, or public non-profits) meant steeply rising or exploding rent in the cities.
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And the Sanders campaign made big own goals. I suspect Sanders got scared of his own courage and self-sabotaged when he had it almost in reach. people often do that subconsciously and they can be split on that. part works towards the goal and part undermines them.
I remember a 2015 interview with Sandes, then an outsider * He told the journalist: I was never one of the guys that look in the mirror and say: One day I'm gonna be president. You would have to be a little crazy to want that.
I think normal people can relate to that. They are locked in, cannot ever leave w/o security. Cannot open the windows, a lot of stress. The hate Obama got. The assassination riks (FDR was shot at, Reagan was shot at, JFK and Lincoln killed, Bobby Kennedy killed).
That is why those lusting for power, the opportunists, careerists, grifters, narcissists make it into power and /or feel entitled to run for office.
I do not think he can see himself as president.
* As for the FIRST Sanders campaign:
He and Jeff Weaver planned with 30 millions in small donations - Weaver mentioned that in summer 2018, and how much reality exceeded expectations (over 220 millions).
My take on it: they did not expect to come even close ! - So obviously, that was an attempt to drag HRC to the left.
Sanders does not need a presidential campaign to get name recognition to win races in Vermont, he has settled that long ago.
Nor do I think he used it to funnel budgets to media companies / Industrial Election complex. Or as a book selling promotion.
Sanders had made some decent hints in 2012 that it would be good if Obama had a primary challenger .... Probably also had the impression that Obama had fallen short. Sanders did not enter the race and no one else dared either. But I think he thinks a primary can influence a politicians (I do not think so).
I am sure party establishement did not like his suggestion for 2011, 2012 - although he kept that very low key.
The usual bunch of egomaniacs / psychopaths have no problem as seeing themselves as president.
A scheming and competent CIA boss like Bush1. Or: Cheney - he tested the waters, but had no support form donors, he does not have the charisma, so it was GWB as puppet and Cheney as president.
A B-movie actor, dog whistling, that tried 3 times - and then he had early onset of Alzheimers. But the people around him and his wife (and he) still felt the need to run.
Think an eloquent, well educated mayor of a town in Idiana, not a stellar track record in his city, ran 2 other races in Indiana but did not win. Maybe crunching the numbers on an unethical project for a definitely questionable company (McKinnsey) after he graduated from Harvard, he also did the military tour that is considered to be a good preparation for a future politcal career.
Likely that was a CIA gig.
For whatever reason Corporate media fawns over that guy, and he also had published a book already.
You need to have a healthy ego to run for president (even if it is only to get his name out). How about winning any major race in Indiana ? mayor pete is just the neoliberal, slick type the D elites and their buddies in the media would like to elevate as a new star. I guess some think tanks and party insiders must see him as good presidential material.
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another weapon of KSA (much more potent than their army): oil price. And Petro Dollar (owning US debt), these concepts are likely to complex for Trump AND he would not like to tell the voters the truth if he did understand them.
The Saudis buy loads of US government bonds and hold a lot of U.S. debt. They trade all their oil in USD. A currency should be the expression of the goods that an economy supplies (for domestic use and for export).
The strenght of the U.S. economy expressed by the USD is underwhelming to put it mildly.
Huge trade imbalance, much more imports that exports. Well of course - with massive outsourcing since the 1990s. With deindustrialization and "financialization".
A side effect / twin of such policies is high government debt (outsourcing and thus reduceing income of citizens and tax revenue from them is part of the picute. Such NEOLIBERAL policies often are implemented in lockstep with allowing tax evasion and tax cuts. In the U.S. endless wars contributed to the high debt. also the GFC fits the picture - allowing Big Finance to run amock and then bailing them out).
Any other currency would have depreciated (turning the pendulum, it makes imports more expensive, drives up inflation and forces a government - if democracy works - to reindustrialize and return to some protectionist measures.
The kind of mixture of free market with some protectionsim as it used to be until the 1990s - certainly in the 1960s and 70s (in all developed nations, it was the Economic Miracle, the Golden Era, the Building of the American Middle Class).
Outsourcing started for real in the 1990s when Clinton signed NAFTA (he could sideline the unions, Bush 1 could not get it passed, negotiations started under Reagan). The ruling class in other nations took the cue and followed.
The return to a more sheltered economy must not be done in form of erratic trade wars, but with a LONG-TERM strategy.
No steel manufacturer will invest in a new plant because of a trade war that boost domestic steel procuction, they will put the still existing capacities to full use. Take advantage of less competition (from import) to increase prices - but the country does not get that more jobs to compensate for the higher inflation (and if there are exports the highe prices for raw materials might d some damage).
Only limited influence on employment if a plant runs under "full steam":
economy of scale, human labor is not the main cost factor when producing steel or aluminium.society does get more inflation, but not the investment in new plants which would produce the next decades.
A trade war can last 1 week, 3 months, 2 years - they do not tend to last decades (in such scenarios they can "dissolve" into war !) So investments with a time horizon of decades will not be made. And society gets hit with the disadvantages but will not get the longer term benefits of the trade war.
They are disruptive and ALWAYS to harm on all sides. One of the reasons: they do not allow for long term planning.
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She is doing propaganda. The question is why the Aspen Institute allows her on and let's her spew such nonsense. They are a glorified propaganda outlet for the rich and big biz as well. - But then all the major networks in the U.S. and also Corporate Democrats gaslight the voters as badly (or almost as badly). See Feinstein and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in 2017 town halls when asked about M4A.
They are for "fixing" ACA the big donor friendly monster of legislation that has proven to be unsuited to control costs. No wonder, Republicans and Democrats eagerly defanged it.
But as you can see from Switzerland the only other wealthy country that also has only private healthcare insurance. It is HARD to regulate, the built in incentives and inevitable ADDITIONAL costs are a cost driver. Even IF politicians and regulators would have good intentions.
The Swiss have a VERY strong system of direct democracy complementing their representative democracy. The Swiss get every few months the current ballot measures with the mail (see it is possible to have mail ballots - hear that Republicans).
It is easy to start a measure, if something bugs the voters they can certainly do something about it. They do not have to vote for politicians and then hope they will keep their word - they can make them.
So there are strong regulations in an important field like health insurance. The Swiss know that they have an excellent system (for all) that is expensive (I do not know about the hospitals if there are many non-profits or if they have for profit hospitals too. In most nations the non-profit hospitals dominate or are the only ones that are viable).
They also pay all medical staff well and have higher costs of living to begin with.
The Swiss spend 78 % of what the U.S. already ! spends per person (data 2017 Kaiser Foundation).
The term is per capita healthcare expenditures of nations
That is all that is spent in the country no matter who pays (government, companies, citizens - in the U.S. even charities and churches)
divided by all people
All people ("heads" = capita) also include those that were healthy that year and caused no spending - and in the U.S. those that get too little help too late because of lack of coverage.
It is an AVERAGE.
The normal range for a wealthy nation is between 49 - 56 % of U.S. spending per person. The overwhelming majority of rich nations are in that range (Germany is a little more expensive for instance with 56 %)
So Switzerland shows the limits of what even good, well intentioned regulation can achieve regarding cost control.
Insurance is only a part of admin around medicine. It is not the real deal (the treatments, lab, the doctors and hospitals are the real deal).
In a well set up system no one "loves" the administrators (insurers). people often feel gratitude if they have major issues and they or family got help. The attachment is to the doctors, nurses, the hospital in general - not the paper shufflers in the background.
People loving their plan is expression of the dysfunction in the U.S. system. In a country where having good and comprehensive coverage for all is NOT a given. You are lucky if you have it - and you are only one letter, job loss or diagnosis away from losing it.
For regular people having comprehensive coverage (the admin !) makes or breaks access to good and timely services. In single payer systems of course all have the same comprehensive coverage and for little money (so to make the mandate not a burden for companies and employees).
The same for all and it is easy to process for the adminstrators (if you have the insurance card you are good, from then on the doctor decides what treatments are warranted. The non-profit agency creates a framework. A treatment or drug is on the menu and the doctors pick and chose in the individual case).
illionaires could pay out of pocket (they of all people always have good insurance ! though), but regular folks need to hedge their risks with good insurance coverage.
In Switzerland the insurers MUST have a basic coverage policy (government determines what is "basic" that is sufficient) and it must be offered at the same price to everyone in a certain age group. I guess that means NO healthcare questions and no red tape with doctors checking your application - unless a person wants a better than standard policy.
And no discrimination regarding pre existing conditions possible. The insurers cannot fire you and they cannot drive up your costs in an arbitrary manner - not for a person and not for a company.
U.S. companies have that struggle now. If they are smaller or medium sized and one staff member OR family member (if the policy covers them) need costly ongoing treatments. The company will get a policy next year with much higher rates for all. The company can either then have higher deductibles or exclude ALL familymembes from coverage. OR they fire the staff member that "creates" the problem and are careful to not hire people over 50 if they can avoid it.
I have got that information from Wendell Potter whistleblower on the industry (in an interview with Paul Jay from TheRealNewsNetwork, it was a series).
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Example: high risk pools in the past: 34 states had them, premiums were very high, so high that only 200,000 people could afford them. The insurance companies received 2,5 bn USD as subsidies - that is 12,500 USD for every insured person on top of their prohibitively high premiums - not sure if that was meant per year or for the whole time those pools existed.
So that turned out to be a "solution "for the wealthier segment of the people with a higher risk.
The insurers had a cherry picked pool of people where a lot of risks/costs were excluded. In a non-profit system the whole population of the country is one risk pool, the surplus that comes from the group w/o pre-existing conditins, or the young is used to cover the people who are likely to cause higher costs.
In the U.S. the surplus of the PURGED pool were the profits of the insurance companies. And although the premiums of the cherry picked pools were not as high as now - even then the US citizens w/o pre-existing conditions paid too much compared with other nations. So that former cost-advantage (that was reached at the back of the people who needed insurance the most ) was not really positive. Given that so many costs were exluded it should have been lower than in other nations.
The healthcare expenditures in the US in 2014 were at least ! 60 % - 70 higher than in most wealthy European nations.
The US well over 9,000 USD, most rich European countries and Canada 5 - 5,500 USD, UK only 3,900 (but the public NHS is clearly underfunded). Source World Bank
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When you increase the miniumum wage the profit of big biz will be less, prices might slightly increase. Every job that CAN be outsourced to China, Mexico, ... IS ALREADY outsourced. Your burger will cost maybe 10 ct more. Will that significantly reduce sales ? The people with the higher minimum wage will go and spend in in the economy. Did you know that Jamie Dimon acts as if he would support a higher minimum wage now. Looks like J.P Morgan pays only 10 bucks/hour to many clerks. He very boldly advocates for a raise to USD 12,-- over 2 or 3 years. Well with the call for 15,-- he might lose his qualified employees to the Fast Food industry. (Yes THAT Jamie Dimon, the guy who has an insanely high salary and who was responsible for a speculative loss of 6 billion USD - which he initially tried to hide from the investors - without being prosecuted of course.
Having 100 or 200 bucks more a month does not mean much if you already have a nice income. It can make a lot of difference for poor people. There are countries like Switzerland, Sweden or Denmark who have either a high minimum wage or are traditionally strong in collective bargaining. So the regular folks are doing well, they may not have as many rich people per capita. All these countries have good public services, the costs of living are high (which you will notice as a tourist). This is not relevant to the citizens because they get good wages.
BTW McDonalds in Denmark pays higher wages than in the US, they also have to pay more for health insurance, maternity leave, holidays etc. - still the Burgers cost a little less than in the States. Dining out in restaurants may be more expensive though. So here you have your case study. Or look at Australia.
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It is not my experience that big biz wants the minimum wage any more than smaller businesses. Where I live (Austria, Germany) we may have less chains (fast food) and more smaller restaurants. They are doing OK with the minimum wage here (we did not have one for long time but 80 - 85 % of the wages are covered by collective bargaining so that kept wages liveable). I know the situation is the same in Denmark and Sweden. Switzerland pays very good wages even for unskilled labour (even when considering the higher living costs there . They are very selective with immigration however so they do not expose their workforce (the unskilled workforce, but also nurses etc. to too much competition).
We have here the system of apprenticeship. (Full employment, young person - 15 years, or occasionally older 16 - or 17 when they do not finish high school, nurses are on principly only accepted at the age of 16 - they are doing night shifts alone in the 3rd year of training so they should be adults then). It is like an internship. There are a lot of regulations to make sure the youngsters are acutally trained (you cannot use them to walk your dog, wash your car or for cleaning services - if you want that get an employee with minimum wage).
Businesses are allowed to pay them less (pay is regulated), the contracts are for 3 years or longer, the apprentice cannot be fired after the trial phase (except for severe misbehaviour). They go to school one day a week (the school supports the training, accouning etc.), sometimes they get help with learning (voluntarily from the company), and they have 6 weeks instead of 5 weeks paid vacation. (They are young after all ;)
The saying is "They cost you in the first year, you are getting even with their productivity the next year, and in the 3rd year they bring more than they cost". Let me add that with healthcare and taxes these (hormonal and not always concentrated) youngsters even in the first year cost more than USD 5,-- (or Euro 5,-- per hour).
They are one of the reasons for the excellent reputation when it comes to machine building and traditional technology here (we have apprenticeship also for office work, accounting, nurses, sales clerks, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, constructions workers, gardeners, ....). Every blue and many white collar profession.
Since we have this system with paid apprenticeship since WW2 (before the apprentices did NOT get paid) I would argue that your argument does not hold. If you can make it work with hormonal 15 year olds you can certainly pay an adult for an unskilled work more. Unskilled means that they can fullfill the task easy and without much preparation and that the taskitself does not differ that much from enterprise to enterprise.
Between 1945 and 1971 productivity and wages rose pretty much the same (around 95 %, wages were behind but only about 5 %. From then on wages had almost NO increase while productivity till 2013 or 2014 rose around 90 % (this are the numbers for USA).
From my experience when training people on the job: You do not hire someone with a wide gap between the necessities of the job and what the person is able to deliver within short time. Not an under- or an over- performer. If they cannot cope they will drive the trainer (and the collegues and the customers ) crazy and the worker is not going to be happy either. After all you hired them to get work done and not for a social experiment. (With exception of apprenticeship, but that model is NOT a fit for every company. One cannot use them for essential tasks or for tasks with high responsibility. Apprenticeship means that you built your own skilled workforce - they are an addition to the team, you cannot build your business on apprenticeship (not possible and would not be allowed).
It takes a village to raise a kid and a team of lets say MINIMUM 5 - 10 people to train one apprentice.
Economic solutions - like the minimum wage, trade agreements, tariffs, the currency, tax policy - are always meant to work for hundred thousands or millions of people. The state has an interest to keep folks out of poverty (to keep the economy afloat and to keep society safe and crime low). Your suggestion with 5 USD might work in a very few individual cases but not in the grand scheme of things.
If we talk about UNSKILLED labour. If the person has normal intelligence and normal motivation they should be able to do the job well and you can test them in the trial phase. They should be pretty productive after the trial phase. If NOT it is not either not UNSKILLED labour (so pre-training is needed and minimum wage is not even a topic). Or the person is not capable at all to fullfill the position and likely will not be in the future. (There are provisions for special needs people, handicapped or blind, but these are a minority - they work in special institutions or the company gets a subsidy to compensate for loss of productivity - if they can argue ther is a loss).
If the price level / price calculation in the country/region includes 15 USD or 12 USD or whatever per hour than THAT is the wage for the "normal" performance for an unskilled person. So you make your calculation, if your product / service requires a lot of human labour prices will go up a little (it is not that dramatic - as examples have shown). On the other hand people will use more of your services because there is more money to spend. So a waitress gets a higher wage, but business might be better (so there are less "slow" times. In the end she might be more productive because her time is better used.
Money (e.g. in form of wages that "must" be paid) is always treated like a "product" or a "possession" something "solid", one person HAS it and would rather keep it. Employers hold on to it - paying more feels like a "loss" to them (even if they do not want to exploit their employees).
No - Money is a social agreement and a facilitator. the more it travels around (like it did after WW2) the more good it can make happen.
It is NOT the corporations who create the jobs - in the end the consumers create and secure jobs. That's the catch with outsourced cheap labour, we miss out on the Chinese or Mexicans as customers - the volume of products did not shrink but disposable income is less - part of the wages was shifted to the profit portion of the corporations.
The numbers and graphs show it clearly (in all First world countries).
Wages have not risen (adjusted to inflation) profits for big corporations (which dominate about 60 % of the economy) have dramatically risen since the 1970s.
Since the high wages even for unskilled workers worked fine in the 30 years after WW2 (and the minimum wage that was introduced in the middle of the recession in the US - New Deal ) we know that this "system" works (it does of course NOT work when the government helps the businesses to evade taxes and to outsource production).
If we had had an FDR and a New Deal we would not have had an Adolf Hitler.
From what I heard the Black Friday of 2015 and Christmas sales 2015 were not satisfying - of course not because of stagnant wages people have not enough disposable income.
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+ Dude - no, he got 977,000 vs. 512,000 votes for Nixon - but 1 % of the vote was 14,900 votes approx. * - and if it comes to a narrow majority turnout for her - which would have been a sensation - it certainly would have helped to deny approx. 15,000 people more (out of the 200,000 purged) to vote for her.
And a purge of 200,000 people when done strategically can achieve that. If he wins by a wide margin fine, if she wins in a landslide it gets harder to manipulate. But in many, many cases 1 - 3 % will win or lose the race. The total number of votes are not that large in primaries (the last primary was much weaker the two stronges candidates had 512,000 togehter) - so it is easier to rig that.
* 1,49 million votes for the 2 togehter - I dismissed other candidates and invalid votes - just to give you an idea
It was a safety measure. Polls had deceived incumbents recently (see Ocasio-Cortez or Gillum in Florida).
In the end the purge in 2016 was not necessary for Clinton to beat Sanders in the primaries in N.Y. City - but they did it - just in case.
Cuomo threw 25 millions into the race - primaries only.
A letter saying recently that she is anti-semitic and supports BDS. A little here, a little there. Many races are decided with a margin of 1 - 3 %.
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+tesladrive1 There is an unfortunate trend in times of economic troubles that rightwing populists, or even fascists dictators prevail. - The U.S. was CHEATED out of a decent, caring, intelligent LEFT POPULIST by the DNC - so they got the right wing "populist".
Don't get me even started on Hillary Clinton, she for sure is more intelligent and has better manners than Trump. In the big picture (including the horrors the U.S. can unleash by war and regime change) I am not even sure NOW that Trump is worse than her.
Lawrence Wilkerson (highly recommended btw for Foreign Policy) asked President Obama why he allowed the Saudis to start a war against Yemen (a very poor backwards country).
( Do you KNOW WHAT happens to the poor civilians and children THERE ? Obama, HRC, Trump - neither of them would/will stop the carnage )
Obama's answer to Wilkerson: The Saudi leaders were already upset about the Iran deal (!) they would potentially have turned their back on the West (or the U.S.)
Wilkerson (during the speech where he narrated that): I would let the bastards go.
If the Saudis do not want to sell their oil on the short time - Venezuela has plenty, so does Mexico and Brazil. - or Iran.
They could well do with slightly higher oil revenue (that would help to develop those countries so that less migrants are coming). Would give a nudge towards renewables (tesla).
Iran at least has a chance to become a democracy or at least a more secular country AGAIN (see U.S. backed coup of their democracy in 1953 - "shining light") - give them 15 years w/o war and see what happens.
While I am at it at: in the 1950s until the 1980s the U.S. WRECKED HAVOC - and openly not covertly like now - in Latin America. The countries south to the U.S. could be almost like Canada had it not been for 100 years of U.S. intervention. The U.S. would not have more migration problems with them than with Canada.
Back to Iran: young, very open curious, very hospitable population, well educated people. Stable society, developed infrastructure and not THAT ideological about religion.
They are not Arabs, they are an old culture, they are Shia Muslim and not that into the caliphate, the jihad and whatnot.
They do HAVE ELECTIONS, but the extreme leadership they have right now decides who gets on the ballot (pretty much like in the U.S.). From that choice the citizens usually go for the most MODERATE candidate.
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+bigstink9 - Obama did not have a willing Congress AFTER fall 2010 because he and the DEMS sold out in 2009 and 2010. - Scenario: the president (who had just run an exceptional race, had turned out the vote, and scored a historic win) would not have had the support of HIS OWN party - THEN controlling BOTH houses (and with a filibuster proof majority for 59 days, then they could have passed anything w/o the Republicans, this was when they passed ..... ACA).
Now in the case or lack of support for popular measures he would have needed to use the bully pulput, pull a FDR (and threaten that he would campaign to make the dissenters lose their seats), - get the support of the base, of the grassroots (and Obama would have had the enthusiastic support of the masses), get the people on the streets if necessary.
It is not like all Democrats (usuallly wealthy people) were positive in 1933 when FDR made his unheard of programs happen in the middle of the crisis. Starting to SPEND on behalf of the little people.
(introducing Social Security and unemployment benefits, starting emergency work programs to employ people - for instance in the Northern woods, then followed by infrastructure investments, MINIMUM wage, - financed by SUBSTANTIALLY raising income taxes and corporate taxes on those who still did well (doing well while the country was going down the drain).
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@JeffPenaify it was indeed wise - the first duty of Corporate Dems is to WIN PRIMARIES and to keep the Progressives away from influence. That is what the Big Donors pay them for. - Good shills especially when well connected to the party leadership, will be taken care of when they lose seats (Crowley got a job even though he made the serious mistake to lose against AOC, he had earned it working for the special interests for so long).
Now, the politicians would of course like to win the GE as well. But keeping the Big Donors happy and the money in the election circus flowing is more important. That money also means that media provides jobs (columnists and anchors, experts) - mainstream media gets a lot of the money in form of ads and they are supportive to keep the system going. These are also cushy jobs for ex-politicians.
Or jobs for consultants, strategists ... when grassroots campaigns are pressured with whom to work or that they have to reserve 75 % of the raised money for ads ... you get the idea ....
Some voters would be out of reach for the Republicans so the Corporate Dems are useful for the Big Donors as well. In the end the oligarchs want a ballot that offers the voters the "choice" between a fierce Republican and a spineless sellout Corporate Democrat. The pendulum swings between those and it provides the illusion of democracy.
(Democratic politicians can fight fierce and dirty btw - but only against FDR style Dems or Progressives. hardly against Republicans. Rolling over before being pushed is the Big Donor-approved strategy. A little bit grandstanding here and there - to motivate the base).
That strategy (defeat progressives in primaries or hang them out to dry) was described by Ben Jealous: DCCC under Rahm Emanuel saw a Blue Wave coming in 2006 (that was before the financial crisis, but voters were fed up with the Cheney/Bush admin). So they stacked the primaries with Wallstreet Democrats (I think Big Finance had an inkling they were going to need their guys and gals in Congress and Senate soon).
These corporate Democrats were showered with money (indirect benefits for the industrial-election-complex), if a blue-collar type Democrat won the uphill battle they were abandoned in the GE.
The Democratic party literally would rather have a Republican win than a Democrat that is too "left" or even not completely donor-friendly (they would not admit that).
They assumed of course that they would win seats anyway and could afford to not fight for some. And frankly having landslides is not even desireable. They would run out of excuses why they cannot pass bills that help The People.
I think that applies now as well. The Democratic establishment would prefer to have another term of Trump - or Pence (which is more dangerous). Most of the rich oligarchs do not like Trump, but after all they got the tax cuts, the environmental deregulation, the deregulation of the insufficient regulations of banks after the GFC, and the insane military budget was pumped up even more.
So for the Big Donors Trump is not bad - he is uncough, but of course they prefer him over Sanders as well.
With another Trump term the Democratic establishment can continue to virtue signal and to grandstand, "Trump is bad" and they can cover up their lack of substance.
Sanders in office ? - he could rock the boat (not sure he will be able to, or that he will be fierce enough - but it is possible that he does a FDR. And another danger: he might wake up the Sleeping Giant. Approx 250 million people had the vote in 2016 - only 55 % = 139 millions used it).
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The healthcare industry has realized that they cannot completely prevent change. But they can delay, water down and fool the voters (or more pecisely: let media and politicians do that). So only very decisive opposition from Sanders and Progressives can destroy the new fairy tales. Sanders has one advantage: even people that do not like him or do not think his plans are realistic doubt he has HONEST intentions.
so I guess many people who do not have time and energy to dig deeper in it will just believe him and ignore the more or less sophistacted misinformation that will pop up. If it does not get the Sanders seal of approval ....
Sanders on the other hand will need to argue why the less the private insurance companies are involved the better the new system can work. That is heresy of course, the U.S. spends 3,2 - 3,4 trillion per year hardly any politician will dare to say that - and certainly no media outlet that gets advertising. Big Pharma are the next that are about to panick.
The level of healthcare "discussion" is abyssmal, the nonsense one gets to hear .....Or the more sophisticated attempts to muddy the water - including the THOUGHT STOPPING CLICHÉS:
People are used to it that there are private insurers, even if they are not well liked. And the concept "Why not offer choice" seems plausible on the surface. Private for-profit is not always better - and with healthcare it raises costs and introduces red tape or even dysfunction, nver mind toxic incentives.
Choice and have a private offer as well (or only a private for profit offer) would be sensible for any product and service where there is a "free market" possible and there will competition. That does not apply to healthcare. At. All.
But you will hear the "free market" lingo applied to the area of healthcare all the time. If people started thinking they could realize easily why healthcare is not at all like other products (sell more, market to entice people to consume, it is expensive, complex, often about life and death or future ability to life well and earn an income, impossible to assess for lay persons - even doctors consult other specialists.
Anyway: expect some serious propaganda:
it is a trillion dollar industry, the U.S. spends approx. 3,2 - 3,4 trillion per year - and if the U.S. had set up the system in a reasonable manner it would be in the range of 1,6 - maximum 2 trillion per year. (that would be 10 % of the GDP, more to the high end but acceptable. The other wealth nations spend between 7 and 11 % of GDP.
A part of the plus 1,2 trillion USD per year is lost of course in a dysfunctinal bureacraZy, better incomes for a part of the doctors - but a lot also is revenue and profit for large corporations. They are not simply rolling over. They will use every dirty trick and deception, and then some.
Sanders postioning himself more meekly will not change that, if he gives an inch - they will push further.
On the other hand if he says "damn right" that keeps the discussiona alive - and will be good enough for many voters.
NOW the Medicare for ALL Lite Bills are popping up, the lobyists are doing overtime. The Harris / Booker version is like a public option I think. Well wouldn't that be a gift to the industry ? (they want some public choice for people with private insureance they say - so is this the admission that ACA is a failure ?)
So maybe people till 25 and from 55 on would be under MfA.
Old age is a major factor for healthcare costs, so the private insureres do not even have the most expensive age group - not now (from 65 on they are with Medicare already, and with the Sanders version of MfA in the first round the people from 55 on will be included).
With a public option private insurers would have the chance to purge their pool even more.
Their packages would look good, the public agencies have all the costly patients. So it is easy to badmouth the costs of the public agencies. Some sneaky defunding should help as well - then the public agencies will be able to pay only insufficient rates for treatments - so doctors would not accept the patients, or give only shoddy services.
So it is "proven" that you NEED private insurance after all (they can offer seemingly reasonable prices to the extra purged pool - still overpriced, but there will be no benchmarking because they cover only a manipulated age group of 25 - 55. It is not even so much the size of the pool - take 100,000 people and it is fairly representative - but not when the composition of the group is changed in favor of the insurers.
10 % of the partients cause 90 % of the costs. So the advantage to be able to purge is huge and the population does not know how much leverage it gives the insurers. They very likely could parade their offers around as "good" - when they are still being overpriced considering the preselection.
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Peer reviewed science - not a children's book from 1958. - the climate has always changed. Not always GLOBALLY. It has NEVER WARMED AS FAST - global average temperature. Remember two thirds of the globe is covered by oceans, water stores heat very well.
There was a catastrophic event 65 million years ago, even more abrupt and impactfull then climate change triggered by global warming. The then dominant species (highly successful had been around for a long time) went extinct.
No big deal (except for the dinosaurs) - life survived and bounced back. (In the grand scheme of things: mammals existed or predecessors - but then they got their chance).
If there is abrupt change the grazers in the steppes might be decimated, their predators follow. The species go through a bottle neck. Likely at least a few species will make it.
No big deal, happened often.
Now transfer that idea to 8 billion HUMANS. With powerful technology and nuclear and biological and chemical weapons. AI soldiers maybe in the future.
Those "always happening" changes sometimes did not only trigger a few specied going extint - but caused mass extinction events.
there are charts how the temperature was during the medieval warm. On the North American Continent, especially the U.S. heartland and the South. Ooops .... it wasn't beneficial everywhere.
The dominant predator (homo sapiens) on earth is going to be affected, there are 8 billions of them and counting. And they have nukes.
Life WILL survive. Humans likely will survive. But civilzation and industrial mass production might not. And with it any claim to security (food, violence) and any modern comforts incl. medicine.
Under economic stress modern democracies either turn decisively left or go the fascist route (See 1930, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Portugal, Italy, Spain, ...Brazil had a rightwing dictatorship as far as I know, but that might have been an ongoing thing).
FDR and the new Deal may have been an aberation, it think it is morel likely that it goes to the dictatorial far right side - that is: as long as our economic system is able to stumble along and there is no WW3.
After that it could get really brutal and ugly.
Giving up meat and flying less does not sound too bad, you can still have the good life.
I did. And I have.
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Yes, he is neoliberal. And obviously clueless about economics. "Doing it like Germany" (he said that during the campaign). Does he mean - when EVERY country EXPORTS WAY MORE than it imports - then the economy would be fine ? Germany is in a descend from a high level.
They undercut wages ("welfare" and labour "market" "reform") and the Euro is weaker than the Mark - making export products relatively cheaper. The German citizens are not getting their reward for being the citizens of such an economic powerhouse, the currency they have now = Euro buys less in imports and vacations abroad than the strong German Mark.
Both undercutting wages and the switch to a currency that is too weak for Germany came into effect around 1999 and both were an enormous boost. But only for the German export industry - (almost) all large companies are exporters and they have the ear of the government
You can look at the insane export/import imbalance of Germany which started to develop beginning with 2000. They were always a strong export nation and did well even with the strong Mark (making their products relatively expensive, so quality had to be good). But they used to also import a lot, and spent some of their 5 weeks paid vacation abroad.
Interestingly one nation got it right with the currency, the EURO, and the wage rises in lockstep with productivity which influence the inflation. Too long for such a post to explain in all detail , but look up Heiner Flassbeck a German economist living in France (15 minute clip - Why the Europ will collapse in 2017 - he made that prediction 2 years before, expecting that Le Pen would win and abolish the Euro if the Germans and the EU would not adopt some sense - well they didn't and Le Pen lost).
If anyone got it right in Europe regarding the EURO, and the inflation, and the wages it is the French - but since the German government undermines the EU AGREEMENT about aiming at a modest and HEALTHY 2 % inflation rate - and not less inflation over many years caused by the stagnant wages - that does not help the French economy. If anything, the Germans skim off some of the French demand, that is still supported by their better wages and disposable income (which are justified compared to their productivity).
While the German government supported their companies (mainly the export sector) in not paying out the increases in productivity.
That means STAGNANT domestic consumption, not good for the citizens, not good for the companies serving the domestic market (many of them are smaller businesses). Only export is doing fine, they have become relatively cheaper.
Germany is not Germany anymore - they live off the old glory (and the former infrastructrue investments - those investments have been neglected too and it starts showing).
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WHY would a verification of the signature be necessary ??? The person is registered under an address, had to sign, show the ID and / or other paperwork SS number, etc. and cannot register twice (not that a signature control would help against double voting IF that would be possible).
Then the state sends ONE ballot per voter (or per request) to the address. Now: a family member or in extreme cases a sneaky neighbour could steal the ballot and then fill it out and send it back with a forged signature. If they do not have the voter rolls in order and automatically send out ballots even to people that moved or died some people MIGHT abuse it. But a) most voters don't do that b) they might be caught - one of the extremely rare cases of a person being caught. I think the spouse took advantage of the ballot for the late partner coming in and licked the envelope to close it. So they could nail the criminal. (Else he or she could have claimed that someone else must have stolen the ballot, and that that had it opened and had in in their hands (more DNA) but touching a ballot that came by mail is not a crime. Nope they sealed the filled our ballot and then sent it in. THAT is a crime.
Note: that attempted fraud was found. so in the time between the sending out and the processing of the ballots the death was entered and the extremely rare case of "dead person vote cast" become apparent.
There is a reason why is is super rare to find these cases. Most people are not stupid enough - and if they are stupid / brazen they have no incentive. There is no individual reward for doing that, but it is risky and in the large scheme of things it does not even change things.
So: the cases that became apparent (so they had a name and and case good enough to be prosecuted) tend to be right wingers. They eat up the propaganda (also about how the Dems cheat all the time) and foolishly assume, well if the other side can do it that easily, thenI can do it too. Nope, it is not that easy, that is just the lie they tell you, and then the idiots get caught because they do not fact check and do not think things through.
An impostor that stole a ballot from one person or household better handle them with rubber gloves. If they touch it with hands or lick the envelope to close it, their DNA will be on the ballot and envelope.
The legitimate voter will often urge the state to send the ballot.
State: we did send you one.
Voter: well, I didn't get one.
State / poll worker (assuming some mistake by default): Well, we are sorry but if your ballot does not arrive soon, you could only fix that by coming in person on election day. Please mention that you are listed as (mail ballot sent). The same could be necessary if the ballot or envelope is damaged or not functional. Stacy Abrams said her envelope had glue that did not work and she could not properly seal the envelope. That would make the ballot invalid, so she had to come in person (and it that case WITH the faulty ballot).
OR: the voter is aware that the ballot has arrived by mail, but now it has vanished maybem isplaced ? (nope it was stolen). Voter could go vote in person on election day, and it would nullify the mail vote. All the mail ballots are collected for counting after in person vote on election day has ended. Last polling station closed.
The voter rolls (well it is a data base, and they uses scanners and QR codes to make the taks easier and faster) will show that that voter already voted. Maybe in such cases a declaration by the voter signed would be required (to eliminate people who sent in their ballot then change their mind and create extra hassle).
When the poll workers open the envelopes of the mail ballots, they have to cross them off the voter rolls ("has voted by mail and we have that vote here". The in person voters have been crossed off earlier that day).
That is a database not a paper list. WHEN the mail ballot of the legit voter is handled the name of that person will pop up with an alert of "we sent the mail ballot - that does not equate it arrived - but the citizen voted in person" - There are many innocent explanations for that case (that apply in almost all cases). Could be there was a mistake they did not really send that ballot but made that entry in the database as if. Or they sent it but post made a mistake and it never arrived. Or the voter lost the ballot. or - very unlikely scenario - someone bothered to STEAL the ballot to impersonate the voter and among other things that person forged a signature. Which is a crime by itself.
Now in that case there are two options: the person just signs in their own style of writing but with the name of the voter.
OR the person fabricates a fairly good imitations of the signature. That has an important implication. It is not easy to have access to the post box of a person (security cameras if you steal the post, and you do not know WHEN the ballot will arrive so several acts of theft, always with the risk of being caught.
(btw matching up signatures is often prone with problems for legit voters. In florida they sign on a tablet. That signature is not pen on paper and it often looks different enough (although perfectly legal) to trigger an alert. And people's signature does change, even more so if they get older, have injuries or a stroke, or a disease that affects their micro movements, and vision.
Andrew Gillum (who is young and able bodied) has such problems with the system detecting that his signature was "suspicious". In his case he noticed that he writes differently on the pad (the electronic process makes it fast to compare, but the process is flawed).
These are crimes, can get you 5 years in prison. The reward: ONE vote more to the liking of the impostor (if the legitimate voter would vote as the imposotor likes it, what is the point !)
and IF the voters suspects foul play and have to show up in person (being annoyed, frustrated or irritated or suspicious that someone meddled with their ballot) they can easily have an extra alert for that too.
Either way the in person ballot was cast later and it is valid and the mail ballot (sent by the impostor will be sorted out). They do have that ballot and with the potential DNA traces. With a well or badly forged signature on the outer envelope.
If the mail ballot was lost before arrival - well the in person vote is cast it counts and they will never find a returned ballot to tie it to.
One aspect IF the ballot filled out by the impostor has a "good" signature replication only a limited number of persons are suspects. Had access to the mail box OR the household and has access to the original signature of the voter .....
If the impostor signed in their own handwriting - well that widens the circle of suspects a little bit, but that is evidence, too. If they have a good idea "who dunnit" they can match up the handwriting of that person with the amateurishly forged signature.
If that happens more often (let's ay in 100 cases - and 1000 that fly under the radar)
a) that would be already be aired 24/7 on Fox and heralded by republicans
b) it would still not make a dent
c) statistcially speaking some of them would vote for D and others for R candidates - again no impact on top of no impact on the outcome.
We do not even have those 100 found cases per elections. I am not sure we have that many in total EVER.
Around 149 millions votes were cast in Nov. 2020 either for Trump or Biden. How are a few cases of undetected fraud / crime going to change the outcome ? not even possible in states with close margins (think 10,000). And why would the states pay a lot for sophisticated comparsions of signatures or make it more of a hassle for the OVERWHELMING mass of voters that are honest.
If there are a lot of false positive alerts of signaturre does not match like in Florida it does not at all make the elections safer or better. Just more expensive and more of a hassle. Someone has to handle that red tape. the voters on their free time, the poll workers need to be paid.
Some states no require that mail ballots must be signed by witnesses, and they cannot be related to the voter, etc. etc. That does not make the election more secure - in only creates a hassle for people that are old, infirm, and do not have people (other than family) around to help with get to the polls or getting their ballot to the mail.
At the same time no one bats an eye that in some areas voters have to wait for HOURS. THAT does impact the results, because it is a very EFFECTIVE DETERRENT.
As opposed to very very low numbers of voter impersonation, forging of signatures, etc. etc.
In the very rare cases of crime (related to elections) both parties get votes that are not legitimate. So that makes it even less impactful.
On the other hand the long waiting times TARGET certain groups (young, low income, minorities) and the base of ONE party only - Democrats. The effect is a) much, much larger than any hypothetical voter impersonation, double voting and what not and b) it is not balanced out by producing illegitimate votes on both sides. No voter suppression is very one sides.
it is a deterrent for potential voters that are eligible to vote but do not vote. They are on the fence of voting (at best) but if tehy would do it they would have to wait for HOURS. On a workday no less, and before that they must get to the polling station (w/o car maybe).
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@AllMustJump In Tx they had to make do with only Tx providers. That were so unwilling to prepare for a cold snap that they lost 40 % of capacity (when it was the worst). And WHEN they finally returned to the grid and did their job, or those that never went offline - they demanded much much more - because they could (and that was independent of the fact if they had THAT much higher costs).
In Tx those that were able to supply (only the normal output for a winter day) still demanded way beyond additional wear, more fuel and maybe a modest surplus.
To make things worse the natural gas pipelines are allowed to be above the frost free zone so the
gas for heating (and the power plants) was also missing.
So consumers also had to compensate for loss of that energy (trying to keep the homes at least frost free with electric heating).
Of course they have not storage for natural gas (costs some money). They produce and use oil and natural gas as they go. - However the production also broke down - you guessed it, they were also not winterized.
Eectricity is not "free market" but the SW grid leans much more in that direction than the closed TX scene.
If the AZ nuclear power plant ramps up production to help out El Paso region (which is NOT on the Stand Alone Grid) they DO have higher costs. I guess they got a good price, but the nuclear power plant in AZ was not the only option for El Paso in the LARGE SW grid, which means the most obvious option to help them out, also made them a reasonable offer.
W/o crisis it works because there are so many providers in Tx and they must sell (they cannot export because Tx by choice is not part of a larger grid). They are stuck with the 20 milion consumers, and the companies there.
They have also a lot of consumers that are encouraged to squander energy and industries that need a lot of energy.
Which is an incntive to never update the building code demanding better insulation (would bring down A/C costs in summer and would have also helped now). But in the closed Tx "market" to whom would the energy providers then sell ? some make the most money from the price spikes in summer. And they cannot export.
One reason to not mandate winterization.
It would slightly increase prices (but would have avoided the worst in 2011 and 2021).
If they would winterize and invest into preparedness there would be no reason to avoid the national grid - so Texans would have that crisis backup, too.
The large energy intense companies could pay more per kWh (added cost for preparedness - but they prefer the higher profits.
The providers are squeezed (at least some make little profits) and the race to the bottom for energy prices means that no one wants (or can) invest into preparedness, doing it voluntarily would reduce profits or be a competitive disadvantage.
Republicans were unwilling to mandate (or the be on the grid and under federal regulation) - they would rather please their big donors (the fossil fuel industry, the energy companies, also the companies that use a lot of energy like data centers or chemical industry).
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@rage2904 Single payer is ALWAYS MUCH more cost efficient - money is spent on the MASSIVE inefficiencies and the profits, that could either go towards wages or the company has less costs. - which makes it easier to argue for a payrise.
The companies CAN pay it.
Not every company is large and highly profitable. It helps when the insurers do not extort them.
Yes unions get dues, they provide a service for that and must have budgets, if they get a small share from higher wages, that is well deserved.
GM did leverage healthcare, 2 days strike and they stopped coverage (that also means family members did not have coverage).
other companies might not leverage it, but people stay in jobs they would rather leave - and the only reason is because they of the healthcare insurance.
In that way it TIES them to the job, especially if they or a family member need treatments or have risks.
What if they want to start something new, get an education, start a biz, move and search for a job there. ...
I saw a mother with a child needing expensive medication (and attention), she would like to be a stay at home mum, and they could forgo her income - but she needs the insurance (looks like it is better than that of her husband).
Or a woman that would like to retire, but a family member needs the insurance.
It is also a recruiting disadvantage for start ups - in single payer nations a small company may not be able to pay the same wages, but their staff has the some (comprehensive) coverage as staff from large companies.
AND: companies and staff know EXACTELY what it will cost them.
Payroll tax. Done.
For the patients: Services free at the point of delivery. Except for smaller co-pays (noting remarkable) no unplanned costs.
a non-profit public healthinsurance agency always beats the for profits. (it is a terrible fit for the free market and surprisingly well suited to be delivered by public non-profits). the insurers are MIDDLE MEN. Public non-proits are well behaved middle men with little admin overhead (streamlined) that have a lot of negotiating power (more than any insurance of even multinationals, they are set up by government to have that dominant role.
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@rage2904 The U.S. insurers have a toxic culture * , but even in Switzerland with elements of a strong direct refendum democracy they pay a surcharge. They are the only other rich nation (I know of) that rely on private insurance for healthcare.
* US insurers can spend 2 more dollars (or 3, or 5) to make ONE dollar more profit. That wouldn't fly with a normal consumer product.
But with healthcare - What are you gona do ? The plans all are overpriced (GM and Apple or Microsoft also pay too much) and you do have not the superpower of consumers with healthcare:
The power to NOT BUY at all.
As for "only other country" with only (mainly) private insurance coverage -
To be fair I did not check out the rich oil theocracies.
Switzerland:
USD 8,000 per person, regulation works insofar that the Swiss get good services and no one plays games with the Swiss insured / patients, but private insurance makes it more expensive.
for comparsion (globally):
Same budget per person, same pool, so not cherrpicked,
you get always, always more bang for your buck even IF the private insurers are well regulated. you will not find any example to the contrary on the globe.
typical rich single payer country: spending USD 5,400 per person, take or leave 500 USD.
(data 2017 Kaiser, also see World Bank).
Now that is some range (some of it can be explained from age, lifestyle - Japan - or a little influence from costs of living.
BUT: most wealthy nations are more in the range of USD 5,000 - 5,500 USD.
So they all did their own thing after WW2 but adhered to some basic singley payer principles - and they end up in a narrow range.
the surcharge for the U.S. system ? approx. USD 5,000 - per person MORE
IN 2017: USD 10,260 spending per person.
That includes in the U.S. un- or underinsured, bankrupt because of medical bills, getting too little services too late.
It is the average, all spending divided by all people).
Now the U.S. employers (if they pay for healthcare) do not pay quite as much - 10k.
That average includes the spending for the old. In the U.S. you have the crazy situation, that the private insurers have a cherrypicked pool already, because the most costly group of plus 65 years is covered by Medicare.
With the help of a lot of government subsidies. Other countries ALSO subsidize healthcare generously, so that the mandatory payroll tax that grants FULL coverage can be MODEST.
That means everyone is in, and that adds to cost-efficiency (no hassle for doctors and hospitals: they hardly encounter uninsured patients. What coverage ? The same as everybody else.
One of the reasons even well behaved insurance companies add red tape: it get's more complicated with the many different plans, for them AND the providers. .
Payroll tax of approx 4 % with a yearly cap would not be uncommon. Where I currently live in Austria it is 3,8 %, with a yearly cap of approx. 2,400 USD per YEAR.
Other governments spend not quite as much per person as in the U.S., and the companies and citizens pay much, much less.
Well, if it costs only half of what it costs in the U.S.- all actors can pay less.
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Rand is one of those that won the LOTTERY OF BIRTH. He is the son of a doctor that happened to get a federal salary as politicians and good healthcare (for the family) on top of it (as representative). To be sure Ron Paul could have made the same money as doctor, he had his own practice. For his PRIVILEGED son it does not matter, he lived a sheltered life, his parents were affluent (if not rich) and financially stable.
Rand Paul grew up in a safe, nice environment and no doubt with good schools. In case he needed help with homework or if he or siblings had a learning disorder or just were not very organized in their learning - there was time, money, attention to help them.
If he tested weed as older teeanger / young adult, it was not likley the police would make the young males in HIS neighbourhood targets.
And then he went to medical school (I wonder if he ended up with huge student loans, it is ridiculously expensive in the U.S.). Or if the parents paid at least a part of it.
I do not know if he ever worked as doctor of medicine (with his own practice).
Later he went on to inherit the Congress seat of his father. He would not have made it in politics without riding the coattails of his father. Sure he is blessed with intelligence (not the same as being insightful), health - that is nothing he earned either. Beyond the financial stability and having caring parents (more blessings and UNEARNED GIFTS) he had to do the work of course, but he was GIFTED an excellent base to build upon and steady support while doing so.
When his parents will die (father is in his 80s, was in good shape so far, but had a minor stroke recently) Rand and siblings are going to inherit some wealth.
That's the crowd that is REALLY nervous if the masses for once getting something for free.
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@gordthor5351 healthcare is not "only" to save your life - first how do you know for sure how critical it is going to be. And professional transportation is part of the procedures. - normally if a person can sit in a car and is not too badly off, family will bring them or they can drive themselves.. If they need to be transported while lying, if they need special care - maybe even a doctor - that is part of healthcare.
A person lying at the side of the streets - like another commenter mentioned - could lie there for all sorts of reasons - including a diabetes coma, an injury, a seizure, a heart attack, stroke, drug overdose ... - or they are simply drunk and sleeping it off - which still can get dangerous when they vomit, or if they freeze to death.
One could give such a person a ride (if they are only drunk of sleep deprived). people may fear however that they might vomit into the car, or that they are not coherent and get mad during transport. Or die during transport. That situation can be handled better in an ambulance - more expertise, space and 2 adults.
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@jjw6961 Krystal did not see the Storming of the Capitopl coming ? She got that wrong ? So what ? As a commenter she is supposed to comment on what happened and change her assessments (of past and future) as events unfold. She never downplayed it after the fact. - I must say I was also suprised by it - Trump, the Republicans and his followers plus right wing media always over deliver. Just when you thouhgt now you have seen it all ....
Trump did not pull off a coup per se. He would have liked one for sure. He could not set up a coup to save his life !
To be sure Michaal Flynn tried to push the idea of using martial law in a meeting in December, that was a group that met with Trump. But Flynn was shot down furcefully by one participant that seems not have some reason left. And no one else came out openly for the idea. So there was no support.
Trump surrounded himself by a certain kind of grifters, like him they take no personal risks and a coup pushed though with determination means taking risks. Someone would have to lead. No leadership to be found anywhere.
But then IF Trump had an ability to lead he would have been a little smarter in 2020 and won the election.
It came down to 43,200 votes in 3 states (WI, GA, AZ 20,700 / 12,000 / 10,500). 4 states were too close to call for days, if we assume that Biden would have pulled off PA (he lead with 81,000 votes = 1.2 % margin and in THIS state Jo Jorgensen did not have a multiple of his lead over Trump) - ha absolutely needed ONE of the 3 other states to win the EC. PA was not obligatory. But of the 4 nailbiter states Biden needed to win 2 in any combination. Even the smallest 2 (AZ and WI) would have pulled him at 270, so just the bare minimum.
Trump could have easily won that, and Biden could have framed his poster: I won the popular voted with 7 million more ballots cast for me (60 % in NY and 65 % in CA help with that).
No coup, no drama needed. What kept Trump from wiining this easily and legally - most definitely kept him from organizing a functioning ! coup. .
Trump is not a leader he is a boss.
Luckily. Beau of the Fifth column did an insightful segment on it. His ego was soothed that someone was putting up a fight for him, the idiot likely was very pleased as he saw the riots unfold. He was incapable of grasping that it would lead to nowhere and would harm is personal and financial interests. Dems determined to sue him. Now they were really motivated.
He also had put his cronies in place (new Secretary of Defense) to make it harder for police to control the situation IF it got out of hand. he could only hope the protesters would get out of hand, he certainly did his best without outright telling him to storm it. But it is not like he could control WHAT they (or police) would do.
On the other hand smarter police leadership could have easily undone his effots. They get highyl unusual order in advance (needing the permission of Secretary of Army for everything ?
Contact Pelosi, Schumer and McConnoll. Leak it to media.
Call them out one or two days earlier, make the highly unusal orders that hamstrung police to even react when they realized they were in trouble.
Or disregard the orders of the SoD. The incoming Biden admin was not going to prosecute them. Sund (former Capitol Police Chief) is now pissed that he lost his job, respectively that Pelosi made him step down the next day. - Still not acting like a leader - he had ONE job. He likely did not want it to happen. He was just a feckless leader.
Trump could not fire the Metropolitan police chief and also not the Sergeant at arms or the Chief of the Capitol police or the Capitol architect. They could have derailed the efforts to make the helpless. Trump and his cronies were like: Just in case the crowd goes out of control on our behalf let's see how far they get .... is not a smart coup strategy.
Again: Luckily.
Trump is not able to pull off a coup - Krystal got that right. He riled up people, because of feckless police leadership they got much farther than they should have, they got carried away (many).
If - IF - the police leadership of the Capitol had been smarter and doing their job the masses would have been stopped at the perimeter. Most - not all of them, but most - would have been stopped by the police shooting a few of them, but they were emboldened.
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Medicare and Medicaid are already being defunded to come up for the missing revenue because of the tax cuts for the rich (the donors of the Democratic party love those as well, never mind Trump). Then there will be the costs of jobs programs, energy transition, ... so the broad coalition of MfA insured would be open to return to tax policies of the post WW2 era (until the 1980s). The donors of both parties are not going to like that - on the other hand what are they going to do if 250 million people would use their vote ? (In 2016 139 of 250 million used it = 55 %)
Small biz and startups are going to like single payer: it is a recruiting advantage, their staff has no disadvantage compared to established companies and it does not cost them much (4 % from employee and 4 % from the company). If they are not (yet) highly profitable there are no or not much contributions via the general tax revenue.
In single payer nations the public insurance is mandatory - wage related (percentage of wage with a cap usually) contributions of workers and employers, which must of course be very affordable.
In Austria they are for instance 3,8 % for company and for the employee (with a cap of appox. 200 USD for each per month - the public insurance agency at the maximum gets USD 4,800 per year for an employee, with a good wage.
So that is of course not nearly enough to fund the system, when currently on average !! USD 5,4000 are spent on every adult or child in the country. Participation is not only madated - it is also a right in all countries that are wealthy single payer nations - and they have typically approx. HALF the expenditures per person compared to the U.S.. The U.S. has 10,240 USD in 2017 - so Austria and Germany have a little more than half, Germany 5,600 - nations like France or Belgium or Japan do it for USD 4,700 - 4,900 per person per year)
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Fox News and the right howl about Warren. In other news: Trump cheated on every of his wifes, need I say Stormy Daniels, Trump university, using the office to enrich himself, bankrupting upwards while NOT paying subcontractors, workers ..... - she should answer each of his tweets with "in other news .."
What one can learn from Trump, to not give a damn, the people who howl would never vote for her.
She should have unapologetically told her point of view, I trust my mother, she may have been wrong on the facts, but my father's family did have a prejudice, which made the story so plausible that I checked the boxes. BTW: I never profited - I am not a trust fund baby - but I did get help my my dear aunt, who took over my household so I could take care of my career when I was completely overwhelmed with taking care of my children and my job.
(The Cherokee do have a point with so little in the gene pool - less than the average U.S. citizen she should have talked to them - and kept quiet. What I find much worse, she did not show up at North Dakota Access Pipeline, she does not slam ND now for trying to suppress the vote to make sure Heidi Heitkamp does not win the Senate seat)
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@markromine5103 The bourgoisee will always help the facists if they see their financial privileges only a little bit threatened (think higher taxes). See the Biden win and the behavior of Corporate media and normie Democrats in the last 14 years and now after Biden "won". Biden puts a friendlier face on ugly affairs (like Obama). - they hate Trump because he is uncough and because he openly shows he does not mind getting people killed IN the country. Obama and presidents before him did not mind either, but they had more sophistication or at least better manners (GWB).
Obama et al did not mind that the current big-donor friendly healthcare system that he helped prop up for the profiteers gets 30 - 60,000 people killed per year.
They STILL do not mind and gaslight the voters over "improving" ACA. But they are NOT following the most successful, cost efficient ! path that every developed nation has taken, and most of them 70 years ago.
30,000 preventable deaths was the number of a study (I think by Harvard) when ACA had been rolled out for a few years and Obama still in office, so that is with ACA fully implemented and funded to the liking of the corporate Democrats (the U.S. still pays double per person on healthcare compared to other rich nations. So of course it is easy to defund the bureaucraZy, because there are legitimate criticism of how overpriced it is.
Healthcare - even when arranged for in a streamlined cost-efficient system - costs a lot of money
Think 5,500 USD for every person in the country per year - take or leave 500 USD in the rich nations with single payer style systems. It seems that is what you need to have good healthcare for all. It is very unhelpful if the health "care" system is set up in a way that it needs double that spending.
a) because the big donors take a big cut that way (and D + R shills help them) and
b the complicated rules to "ensure" fairness and ethical behavior (from providers but also insurers which are only paper shufflers) and the inevitable bureaucraZy to evade those laws require a LOT of useless administrative work. providers have to chase the payment of medical bills (also costs that do nothing to make the service better for patients or the people / staff that provide the services).
The profiteers can arrange themselves with the waste of adminstrative and other resources - they can easily spend 1 dollar to make 10 cents more profit. With a service like healthcare they just can pass on the excessive costs because with healthcare and admin around it = insurance there is not "free market" possible.
Because the consumers do not have the most important of all choices: To NOT BUY.
people need healthcare and if they are not multi millionaires (who could take a gamble and pay even a few hundredthousand out of pocket), having "insurance" will make or break their real "access" to good and timely and comprehensive care that does not bankrupt them.
- almost all first world countries are in the range of 49 - 54 % of the U.S. spending per person (that was pre corona, data 2017). so the U.s.for profit healthcare system (now under ACA) needs a LOT of subsidies to even stay afloat while still being bad for a lot of people.
I think that is a Havard study (effects of too late or too little care because of being underinsured or not insured). people have deductibles of 5,000 - 10,000 USD per year. Try that with an ongoing condition.
That is a lot of things but NOT "insurance". But technically they do have "insurance" and the numbers of the insured have gone up. So Yay.
Corporate media and Democratic establishment have recently rehabilitated George Bush. Not to downplay how bad a president Trump was. But Obama (by selling out in 2008 already) paved the way for a fascist, and they are lucky that THIS time it was an idiot like Trump.
Biden would have lost if Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush would have run. And he would have lost if there had been no pandemic or if Trump had been only slightly better in his pandemic response.
Do not let the 6 million more votes fool you. The EC "looks" good. Well - no. There were 4 nailbiter states, and I would say 2 of them are not in play if a more skillful wannabe fascist or a standard Republican runs. (Georgia and Arizona).
Biden won the 4 states with a TOTAL of 125,000 votes more (Jo Jorgenson the libertarian got double that number in votes) and he NEEDED at least 2 of the 4 states to win. And realistically in other years it would be only those 2 states (PA and WI). HRC and now Biden lost Ohio (which Obama won twice, so voters gave him the benefit of the doubt in 2012, but then it was over with the vote for Dems). And both lost Florida.
The more important red states were all won with a solid margin by Trump (Texas, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee that used to be blue). And Biden only eeked out a narrow margin in some he needed to win
THAT after 4 years of Trump idiocy in action.
Only 1 state out of the 4 would NOT have been enough, also not PA with 20 electors. that would have been 269 electors - so the more numerous Republican states would determine the president). On the other hand even the two states with the lowest number of electors (AZ and WI with 11 and 10) would have been enough to just put Biden over the finish line to 270.
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Sanders has a sophisticated operation going on to recruit volunteers, and how they are used for the campaign. ** The polls likely do not capture what is going on with Sanders *. Warren had LOTS of nice media coverage - except from Fox. They obviously noted her signalling to rich donors and superdelegates and the flip flopping.
People vote for (and name in polls) what they are familar with and the IMAGE of the politician matters. Corporate media can shape that image, especially if the consumers of "news" do not use the internet to gather information.
People who do not pay a lot of attention and get the "news" from TV are likely to think of Biden as friendly uncle Joe, friend of the working class and elder statesman. And EW got lots of free airtime.
Fox is blissfully unaware of all of that - they dislike Sanders even more but at the moment they do not know that Sanders can catch up with Warren and that Biden will eliminate himself.
Bloomberg is going to cost Biden, Buttigieg, Harris, Booker votes - and also Warren (her support comes from white, affluent Democrats, the academic / managerial class). Good !
* The Sanders campaign works to turn out unlikely voters (they built on the 2015 / 2016 experience and refined it). That is hard to poll - pollster go after "likely" voters (those groups and age brackets who turned out the last times).
That is why they did got some primary results of Sanders wrong in 2016 and that's why they did not realize what a danger AOC was to Joe Crowley. In the last poll one week before the primary she was 16 points behind, she won with a comfortable margin.
AOC: "We do not rely on polls - we change WHO turns out." The Corbyn surge also was not manifest in the 2017 snap election (he made good more than 15 points in 8 weeks). I think AOC was lucky that the polls concealed her strength - else Crowley would have activated the machine and likely some dirty tricks.
** See how the Sanders campaign does it during the rallies (all get your phone out and download the Bern app, I will wait. Anyone already voluntering, show of hands please. Anyone considering volunteering - great ! Keep your hands up, volunteers with clipboards will come right to you.
Or the recent video titled Workshop My Bernie Story: peer to peer video messages submitted to the campaign via the app. The campaign will review them. Likely to make sure nothing unseemly is said. Instructions are also: "Language should be family friendly, keep it short and do not bash other candidates", and also to avoid undermining from Republicans, special interests and what not. the media would concentrate on ONE video with racist content for instance, and not talk about the thousands of others or the orginality of the action.
there will be an action day on Nov. 25th when they will publish these peer to peer videos on social media - likely to get media attention and to have a trending hashtag.
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@Alan-wj5zc It is called statistics, they ask enough primary voters and then get a reliable picture - and no way that varies by 6 % - Also: Sanders did NOT destroy Hillary's chances - how was that the inevitable candidate would have needed HIM to win (never mind he held approx. 35 rallies for her after the convention - and unlike HRC in 2008 he did not mop for a day, did not get promised the post as Secretary of State, and the DNC leadership did not have to implore her to graciously endorse Obama at the convention.
She was such a clueless candidate and so detached from the electorate that she managed to lose against the orange clown. - I recommend the interviews of the authors that were allowed to accompagny the campaign, provided they would keep confidentiality until after the election. the book is titled Shattered. (HRC: I do not understand the country anymore. - No kidding, she did not process how 2 populists stole her thunder. Trump as fake populists to the right, and Sanders in the tradition of FDR as left populist.
Truth is: she hadn't understood the country for a very long time, but until then it did not matter. But with the internet, independent media, after the lies that lead to the Iraq war, 9/11, the Great Financial Crisis. NAFTA and then the China deal both had triggered massive waves of outsourcing. all of that undermined the trust into the institutions. And then SHE and Obama - and the rest of the Corporate Democrats were all for the NEXT "free" "trade" deal to have even more jobs outsourced).
btw: are YOU going to vote for Sanders once he has become the nominee ??
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Or version 2: Black leaders threatened to have a black march on Washington. - FDR complacently denied black folks an Executive Order to end discrimination in defense jobs (in 1940 and 1941 the economy boomed, with the war preparation. But those jobs were almost exclusively for whites regardess of qualification.
From that link:
As momentum and publicity for the march built, Randolph increased his estimate of the crowd it would draw, from 10,000 to 100,000, and asked FDR to address the gathering.
FDR and his wife, Eleanor, who served as his liaison to the African-American community, were aghast. “The Roosevelts feared the march would result in a race war in the nation’s capital that would prove an embarrassment to a country that held itself up as a model of democracy,” Pfeffer wrote.
FDR met with Randolph and the civil rights leaders again in June 1941. [For context: Dec. 1941 the Amercian bases in the colonies Hawaii and Philippines are bombed. so this was not long before the U.S. officially entered WW2. The U.S. declared war on Japan, and Germany then declared war on the U.S. - and yes the U.S. expected to enter the war.]
FDR attempted to charm them and urged them to cancel the march. In exchange, the president offered to call defense industry chieftains to get them to voluntarily hire blacks. Randolph and the other civil rights leaders refused to budge. Roosevelt finally relented, issuing Executive Order 8802 barring discrimination in the defense industries. Randolph and his colleagues then canceled the march.
Far from encouraging the civil rights leaders to make him end discrimination, Roosevelt did everything he could to resist their pressure, according to Randolph’s biographers. Only when he was convinced that they wouldn’t buckle to presidential persuasion did FDR have the executive order issued.
The story offers a tougher lesson for reformers than the “Make me do it” legend does. They may not have a co-conspirator in the White House, despite his rhetoric of change, hope and community organizing.
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As highly social animal humans cannot just say "I do not care if poor desperate people die, even chidren". Double think must balance out the need/desire for selfishness plus the reward for "othering" and "scapegoating" - and on the other side there are the LAWS of our deeply social empathic nature. Those two motivators (selfishness, defining a group which naturally means there is "not-our-group") are opposed to natural empathy.
if you want to unify a group in modern anonymous society, nothing works as well and quickly as a "common enemy" or a propped up "common threat". These three instincts !! are all very strong.
Double Think makes it possible to put the the square peg through the round hole, if you will. People can indulge their selfishness and still maintain the view of themselves as "good people" and sleep well. (If that view cannot be maintained our social nature will haunt us, our conscience will make us very, very uneasy. But humans are very biased creatures and can make perception fit.
They use their frontal lobes to make the migrants a threat, dirty, as "not human" and "not like us" as possible. And they use their frontal lobes to not let anything disturb that illusion. Like facts about the caravan or common sense reasoning. (WHO would really make that dangerous journey - walking no less.)
1) People who are out there to get you ?
2) or people who are so desperate that they have not much left to lose ?
It would be legitimate to be annoyed, non-empathetic or even hostile in case of scenario 1).
Scenario 2) however ! - it would be against our deeply social human nature to be hostile towards them. Our social nature was honed by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution - but those instincts developed to help with the survival of small groups of hunters / gatherers who knew each other and knew the neighbouring tribes.
Even if it is not possible to help everyone within the bounds of regular self-interest/selfishness, that would not require villifying them. Well, of couse that would leave behind a feeling of uneasyness. (That is why rich people give to donations after they have used their money and power to make sure those "charities" are needed in the first place. So that they can feel better about themselves and do keep some social standing).
Usually those former humans held peace with the tribes and groups around them. The neighbour tribes (especially from the same sub-species) could be essential for survival, and the costs of conflict would have been just too high (they had to walk ! to war). On the other hand meeting for hunting large animals and to intermarry had advantages (or ask their healer for advice or their shaman for help. Of for trade like getting salt into the inland or just plain to have visitors who knew the latest news and gossip).
Humans are territorial, so the "other" as "not-a-human-like-us" and therefore not deserving of the good treatment every tribe member deserves, is not a new concept. (That meant other tribes respected and mainly kept to their territories. They cooperated from a position of mutual advantage and there were certainly a lot of customs, traditions, rules, manners ! that supported those exchanges and structured them).
74,000 years ago a super volcanoe exploded. After that almost no homo erectus were left on earth, homo sapiens after that dominated i Africa and India (which were espececially hard hit by the explostion, 6 m = 2 floors high ash in some areas, it became drier in certain regions, so lack of water and prey).
So during that time even the neighbouring "others" may have become enemies (especially when they belonged to another sub-species of homo).
And humans then (erectus, sapiens certainly, not sure about neandertaliensis) were forced to leave their territories. So then there were conflicts over now scarce resources. Before I think they had a hard time expanding their numbers - like the Bush people, Inuit and Aborigines kept their population numbers stable. Life was so hard that the populations did not grow much, there was no need to compete for resources.
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1) do not invest for foreseeable intense cold * 2) lose 40 % of the electric output AND also the natural gas for heating homes so much more demand
3) those that come back on the grid to do their job, can now demand extortion prices, and not because they even have that much higher production cost
Costs that they have in most of the countries in the temperate climate, or the states not far to the North of Texas. Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas do much better than TX and I do not thin they have that high prices. But the are on the national grid (well Southwest) and they accept common sense regulation - incl. the investments to winterize
Switzerland, Austria, Germany, North of Italy, France, Netherlands do not routinely get those temps in all of the country - but they could handle them, some better than others, but no nation would fare as badly as the U.S. - the energy prices are higher in general, but that does not damage the economy. And part of those costs are high taxes
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Dr. Wolff does not warn of "runaway inflation" (not in the sense that this would be inevitable). He warns that if access to funding projects becomes easier there are some pitfalls that must be avoided. An example: before the GFC not only finance in the US had gone crazy. The neoliberal deregulation showed its negative influence in many countries. In Spain it was a real estate bubble (the Spanish banks giving out regular loans = creating Fiat Money). They also built houses for investors and holiday homes (as opposed to homes for real people living in them and homes where the jobs and the families are).
And the corrupt government and regulators tolerated useless construction projects (even illegal ones like a hotel in a national park, a NGO stopped that, the corrupt government could not be bothered to do its job).
Think a corrupt governor colluding with his friend who owns a construction company and builds a street and bridge that no one needs (no doubt with a hefty surcharge).
Someone had to allow the building of that project, I do no know if the government ordered the building of that needless infrastructure or if the govenor helped so that a private bank willingly gave the money to a private "investor" of the "bridge to nowhere".
Anyway a waste of money - and obviously meant to make someone money without creating value for the community.
Commercial banking OR financing the government with debt (by issuing bonds - governments in most cases do not borrow from banks) includes MORE LEVELS of DECISION making and control.
There is a sort of restraint on spending. "We do not have the money" creates that idea/fiction of scarcity. Wolff calls it the financial straitjacket. There is no scarcity - but the resources of the economy are not endless of course and the funding should be used prudently. Stephanie Kelton gave an interview to Democracy @ Work - you can listen to it, she explains it well.
There is a role for commercial banking (with broken up banks, and boring strictly regulated banking). The services like ATM and savings accounts are not that lucrative - the banks need to have one niche where they can make good money. That is by using the privilege of money creation (Fiat money) by giving out loans and earning the interest and other fees.
Even normal banking - which used to be safe, boring and prudent until the 80s - can be underminded by an unregulated financial industry who is no more a humble intermediator and servant of the economy but has gone crazy with profit expectations, mergers, complicated financial transactions (bets - but they are not called that of course).
And worse many small banks have merged or been bought up. The remaining few large banks could then afford to pay very high salaries to managment - and they offer cushy positions for ex politicians and bribe mainstream media with genours advertising campaigns.
Plus their celebrated managers, people who are traded as financial geniuses - until they get their company into major, major trouble. Deutsche Bank Joseph Ackermann, and of course Wells Fargo which opened fake accounts for existing customers and charged them extra for those unauthorized accounts. The media does not dwell too much on those failures/crimes though.
In both cases those financial wizards left with a golden - or better with a platin handshake - after having cashed in extremely high salaries year for year. And these few Too Big To Fail banks have the means (or they commit to the investment) to bribe politicians and regulators. That keeps the regulators away in the build-up of any bubble and keeps the banksters out of prison after the bubble pops. Plus they are getting bailed out and propped up with QE later.
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So if the state creates money directly: the projects must be in the public interest (infrastructure, education, healthcare, social housing, research comes to mind - and if there are then profits from pharma or renewables for instance they must remain under control of the public. There can be cooperation with private businesses maybe - but never for full 100 %.
The Military Industrial Complex is an economic niche (see Noam Chomsky: the role of the military is misunderstood).
As for getting promising developments for free after basic research was financed and the risk shouldered by the tax-payers:
Development of computpers, electronics and also the infamous Epi-pen or anti-Malaria medication was paid for by the US military. As soon as it looked good, the private companies got their hands on the patents - and you bet for cheap.
Ideally MMT financed projects are spread out and are not too large. And the local citizens must decide on them resp be represented IN them (in the boards and ideally in changing constellations. A long existing citizen board can be bribed as well).
If the projects do not involve too much money, if people know each other, that reduces corruption and nonsense investments.
So citizens could decide: Do we want a new sewage plant, or library, or fixing the streets, or renewables, or installing their own internet - which they own as co-op and if they make a profit in the future the surplus goes into future community projects.
Last but not least social housing.
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Another story from Austria (I heard it from the family a few days after it happend): neighbour 85 years but going strong and very fit, got major stomach pain. Of course on Boxing Day (which is a holiday in Austria). He delayed it a little bit then called a doctor. From what I heard the local doctor came and did a check on his heart.
That much I understood - the results were inconclusive, he aleady has a stent - it turned out to be a ruptured stomach, but they could not be sure what was going on at that time. Whether he was in danger of heaving a heart attack of if heart problems could be additionally triggered by whatever the problem with the stomach was (considering that he already had a stent). That I understood were the worries.
So they prefered to not send him with a normal ambulance on the 25 - 30 minutes drive but one of the cars that has an emergency doctor on board (the cars are larger, better equiped, they can reanimate during driving, the doctor is not your normal GP, they are trained to cope with bad accidents, the severe cases.)
Only problem: they did not have such an emergency ambulance free at the time. So they ordered a helicopter (which also have always a doctor on board - if an airlift is warranted it goes w/o saying a doctor will be needed to accompagny the patient).
The family was told to not freak out (no it wasn't that bad that a helicopter had to come, they would rather err on the side of caution).
That man has the same mandatory standard public insurance like everybody else. Needless to say each case of ambulance use - when it appears to make sense, let alone when ordered by a doctor (or in your example when the hospital is not equipped to provide the necessary care) - will be paid for. They fixed his stomach in hospital, he revovered well from the surgery (and not from the medical bills - there are trivial payments to make - cable TV maybe, and a daily fee that is small and does not even apply to low income patients. Think 20 USD per day if they are extravagant. I do not know the fee and it is certainly not a major amount nor do they burden lower income people with that, possibly there is a cap as well, because even 20 USD can add up if the time is longer).
Usually a doctor decides where you will go. If you have preferences (usually in more trivial cases) and there is not much difference in the distance if you go in one or the other hospital they will consider that.
I never had to call for an emergency ambulance (instead of the normal one) so I do not know who decides when that more scarce resource is used. I think the suspected severity of the situation, and usually a GP is pretty fast on site.
My brother who volunteered with the Red Cross (as ambulance driver) said that years ago the ambulance staff could order the helicopter, that did not work so well, they overdid it, so that authority now usually rests with a doctor.
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"Is this about politics - or is this about keeping schools safe ?" - well if it happens again, and again, and again and all over the country - then it is by definition a SYSTEMIC = POLITICAL ISSUE - meaning it needs fixing at a higher level. As opposed to freak events or things that CAN be fixed by an individual.
If a random person insults me in public I can chose to walk away (and sue them later for libel maybe). So a part of that problem I can really solve by being reasonable, and maybe I will use the INSTITUTIONS later . (Although it would be a good thing not to burden the system with trifling law suits).
On the other hand when someone runs into a room where I am and starts shooting around - there is nothing that I can do to solve that situation. Or to prevent the next time. Even if I have a concealed gun with me there is a very good chance that I will not have it ready immediately.
And moreover even trained members of the police make a lot of misjudgments when it comes to deadly force (they either shoot unarmed people, teenagers even 11 year olds, or they shoot around randomly endangering folks in a park. Or they MISS. Or ARMED SECURITY chose to value their life higher and do not go into the school - like it happened in Parkland.).
I am supposed to take out a crazy individual with my gun (which in theory I can use for "protection") - while my brain is flooded with Adrenaline which shuts down the rational mind and activates the much more primitive and erratic "survival of the species" reactions. Run OR attack OR freeze. And until I am in that life and death situation it is impossible to know which is my MODE OF INSTINCTIVE REACTION. (Now that is the part that maybe a high level of CONSTANT training can influence. I suppose a member of the Marines has either a reduced Adrenaline rush - or they are trained to cope with it and keep their rational brain functioning).
The Adrenaline rush is likely why even police gets this wrong so often - that or widespread use of cocaine in the police (to cope with shifts etc.)
It needs high level of constant training to remain cool in life and death situations. Maybe not everyone can be trained to be so cool. And police and the military (if they are in the combat zone) are supposed to BE ON THE ALERT. While usual citizens go about their day, ENGAGE in regular activities.
The person that plans such massacres has time to plan and prepare mentally - and catches everybody else OFF GUARD.
there is no way in hell the regular citzens are a match for that.
The only solution is to make availability to firearms much harder.
I live in a country where that is the case. Firearems are not part of the personal IDENTITY. They are not glorified. If you want to feel like a badass you have to do something else.
Some people have guns. But guns are a tool. Usually for hunting, if you want something other than a hunting rifle you have to provide a very good reason. Well there is sports, and some people are collectors - in which case the weapons are often historic weapons. There is less interest in the latest "development" - which are not available for the regular citizens anyway. So "gun-shows" would not attract an audience here.
Military and police have firearms and semi-automatic weapons (which are forbidden for reglar citizens). You may get a concealed carry permit - with very careful background checks - if you work as bodyguard or can give another reason why you would need that (so that is the exception not the rule).
Occasionally (very occasionally) someone kills another person with a hunting riffle here. More often it is used for suicide unfortunately. (If a person has these dark moments you want it to be as hard as possible for them to take their life. Sure some will find other methods that are not so "easy" - but some will be lucky. Things will change, and they will stay alive and want to stay alive.
In most cases the gun violence is targeted against a family member. If people "lose" it, it is a good thing if they have no firearem within reach. They might do something they regret later bitterly.
You can survive a knife attack or a beating - and other people have a chance to intervene withoug being killed themselves.
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Greg Palast sugggests that the tabulation could have been off in other states. There are no exit polls (that is partially true for primaries) and / or they do not publish the raw data.
THAT is also true for the GE, the raw data may need to be adjusted - but if the data is open for the public, statisticians and not only in the U.S. - could scrutinize how the adaptation is made.
Is if legitimate, is it plausbile, why and what is adjusted ? Or is it adjusted to bridge the gap beween poll and announced results and to raise no suspicions.
I saw a video of a very experienced statistician, weird things going on (in other primary states) usually as more votes come in, outliers are smoothed out, and the gap between vote count and exit polls gets smaller.
In those tabulations the gaps grew and in a very linear manner. That is statistically impossible he said. (only if for instance one vote is assigned a 0,9 value and the other one a 1,1 value for the count you would see such a pattern. The way the machines are programmed allows that kind of manipulation. (If a number for a vote can only be zero or 1 such manipulation would not be possible, it is about what number type is allowed. When you apply a 0,9/1,1 trick the gap (compared to exit polls) would unexpectedly widen, the more counts come in (1 in 10 votes does not count or are added).
Sanders would have lost the South (early primary states) anyway (not that it matters in the GE how a D candidate does there, Republicans win in the GE) but maybe with LESS margin. Which would have mattered in the total count of how much votes did HRC or Sanders get in total.
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The healthcare industry has realized that they cannot completely prevent change. But they can delay, water down and fool the voters (or more pecisely: let media and politicians do that).
the more sophisticated attempts to muddy the water - include THOUGHT STOPPING CLICHÉS:
People are used to it that there are private insurers, the concept "Why not offer choice" seems plausible on the surface. Private for-profit is not always better - and with healthcare it raises costs and introduces red tape or even dysfunction, nver mind toxic incentives.
All two tier systems are more expensive than the systems than have little to no role for private insurers.
(That is why the Austrian system costs 6k per person per year, versus 4,700 - 5,600 in most other wealthy single payer nations, versus 10,240 in the U.s.
Choice and having a private offer as well (or only a private for profit offer) would be sensible for any product and service where there is a "free market" possible and there will competition. That does not apply to healthcare. At. All.
But you will hear the "free market" lingo applied to the area of healthcare all the time. If people started thinking about it beyond the soundbite they could realize easily why healthcare is not at all like other products (sell more, market to entice people to consume, it is expensive, complex, often about life and death or future ability to life well and earn an income, impossible to assess for lay persons - even doctors consult other specialists.
Anyway: expect some serious propaganda:
it is a trillion dollar industry, the U.S. spends approx. 3,2 - 3,4 trillion per year - and if the U.S. had set up the system in a reasonable manner it would be in the range of 1,6 - maximum 2 trillion per year. (that would be 10 % of the GDP, more to the high end but acceptable. The other wealth nations spend between 7 and 11 % of GDP.
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NOW the Medicare for ALL Lite Bills are popping up, the lobyists are doing overtime to work their politicians. The Harris / Booker version is like a public option I think. Well wouldn't that be a gift to the industry ?
A hybrid system is invariably more expensive. For the 4 year transition stage it makes even less sense. Apart from top positions I do not think that many employees have really good insurance via the company. The spending per person in the U.S. is roughly double - so an employer has to invest a lot if they grant benefits (no deductibles, no co-pays) that would be considered default under the public coverage in Germany, France, Netherlands, ....
people can of course have private insurance full coverage or for extra packages - as long as they also fully participated in the mandatory public service that gives full and good coverage. If the public version is good (menaing reasonably set up and sufficiently funded) few people will see the necessity to even have private insurance.
See: Germany (10 % of the population have full coverage under private insurance) in Australia it is public only for the basics (and the big stuff in the hospitals). In both cases it CREATES the NEED for private insurance. If there are enough clients that will bring higher revenue doctors will try to only accept them as patients. Expect also non-harming but useless procedures like unnecessary testing for patients ith a good contract.
Under public coverage every test that prevents damage in the future will pay for itself. But unnecessary testing is avoided. If one person can have it, all can have it and it would cost too much ....
Especially if there are not enough doctors they will try to take only patients with the "better" insurance (the one paying the higher rates). Inferior quality under public coverage (for instance longer waiting times) then forces people to buy an upgrade or stay fully with "private" - which is of course left to the private insurers. It is a way to do favors to the insurance industry, but with higher costs for everyone. And this is in countries where the industry never honed a toxic culture and the art to ripp of patients, to bribe politicians and to game the system.
Give them 4 more years with the chance to cherrypick the pools and see what happens.
One of the major cost advantages of single payer is the streamlined admin - a hybid system wastes a lot of that potential (more complexity, more chances to sneak in costs). They had a video on it on TheRealNews Single payer could save 1,5 trillion (I think that was the title, beg. of March approx. a numbers cruncher, an professor of economics from Amhurst and a Harad trained doctora and speaker of a group of doctors for single payer.
The U.S. will not profit from the full savings immediately anyway (backlog, training of then obsolete staff for billing and in the insurance companies, transition costs, new software, ...)
Medicare and Medicaid are already being defunded, the many that stand to lose a lot of money will mess with the sytem to make public look bad and private look better. The indoctrinated citizens will find out that they would like to switch to MfA but it is just not up to expectations (of course not with insufficient budgets, even good operations can be ruined - that is the strategy with which the Tories have been defunding the already very cost-efficient NHS for 10 years. To run it into the ground in order to "justify" a privatization. Think charter schools in the U.S. the same handbook).
If the private insurers have the whole pool of 25 - 55 year old - they can and should give better rates right away. And if not it is on them.
Drug prices could be negotiated by public agencies and private insurers together, so every insurers has the same costs (would need a legal amendment, Medicare is currently not even ALLOWED to negotiate, this is not a technical but a political/corruption problem). And the private insurers would already have a cherrypicked pool (no one older than 54 years). So when they do not reduce prices - it is on them. (Which should help to put more political pressure on them or discredit the system. When the first round goes well the 4 yours could be reduced.
I think there might be need for more nurses and doctors.
In the first round of the proposal Sanders supports people till 25 and from 55 on would be under MfA.
Old age is a major factor for healthcare costs, so the private insureres do not even have the most expensive age group - not now (from 65 on they are with Medicare already, and with the Sanders version of MfA in the first round the people from 55 on will be included).
With a public option private insurers would have the chance to purge their pool even more.
Their packages would look good, the public agencies have all the costly patients. So it is easy to badmouth the costs of the public agencies. Some sneaky defunding should help as well - then the public agencies will be able to pay only insufficient rates for treatments - so doctors would not accept the patients, or give only shoddy services.
So it is "proven" that you NEED private insurance after all (they can offer seemingly reasonable prices to the extra purged pool - still overpriced, but international benchmarking will not be possible because they cover only a manipulated age group of 25 - 55. It is not even so much the size of the pool - take 100,000 people and it is fairly representative - but not when the composition of the group is changed in favor of the insurers.
10 % of the partients cause 90 % of the costs. So the advantage of a cherrypicked pool is huge and the population does not know how much leverage it gives the insurers. They very likely could parade their offers around as "good" - when they are still overpriced considering the preselection.
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Macron the "economist" is so fucking clueless that he mentioned Germany as economic role model (see my comment above). Neoliberalism WORKS for rich people, multinationals, and finance. So maybe he knows what he is doing, he just can't admit it. - Or he is so in love with every economic theory that serves finance well, that the is unable to assess reality . Like Alan Greenspan, who for a long time was heralded - in the media owned by rich people - as highly qualified. In hindsight - no, he wasn't. He was an ideologue, and he did not notice when reality did not match up with his neoliberal ideas.
The interesting thing is to what degree educated and likely intelligent people can disregard reality (and the role of human nature, greed, the potential for corruption) so they can keep their pet theory (which happens to justify an economic order that massively favours them).
Or the economists and analysts of the many huge banks that were instrumental for the Great Financial Crisis ?
- The London School of Economics were in a sort of embarrassed disconcertment when the Queen asked them if the crisis was really impossible to anticipate. They came up with some lame non-answer some days later (she posed that question during a diner to a representative of the LSE).
Well, there were SOME economists who had seen it coming (some years before) and had warned as far as their platform would reach. And of course the appraiser had sent a public letter (published in the New York Times) how the banks pressured them to give them too high appraisals - or they would not get more orders from them. A bank wanting to do honest business in the mortgage business and expecting the loans to be paid back, does not do that. That is a red flag, it was a red flag in the 80s - which Greenspan should have well known. He certified in a letter of reccommendation the excellence of a major player in the S & L scam, which shortly afterwards was prosecuted for fraud.
But the economists using commong sense (instead of preaching whatever finance, and big biz likes) are not the ones who will be hired to advise politicians, if they work in central banks they know how to shut up.
And those economists who are presented in mainstream media or even in mainstream academia do not bother anyone with inconvenient insights (inconvenient for the 1 %).
Hollande did not challenge the neoliberal status quo ( fake left resp. Champaign Socialism)
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+ Mikhail Salzberg Germany has the strongest (most profitable) export industry in Europe. The INSANE export import imbalance has been EXPLODING since 2000 - on the back of the majority of citizens and the business sector that serves the domestic economy. If you are economically literate you will KNOW that such imbalances are not good for a country; in general they serve mainly those on the top (same with China, German does the same gig, just from a higher level, suppress wages, have a too weak currency, the population does not reap their fair share from the good performance, the country exports way, way more than they import, because they are underpaid and can't afford to consume as much as would be due to them).
Germany is on decline from a high level and they are living off their former glory (and the former infrastructure investments, you can neglect them for a decade or two but it will eventually show, which is now respectively the recent years. First attempts to privatize some motorways had already the time to have devastating results).
Wait till the "retirement poverty" sets in Germany. The export industry profited from neoliberalism, from the EURO which is too weak for such a strong economy as Germany, from the "reforms" of the welfare system and the labor "reform" (read suppress good industrial wages - again helping mainly the export industry).
Austria has meanwhile surpassed Germany in GDP per capita. That is unheard of. And it is not a reason to be cheerful for Germany's little sibling either. When Germany is in decline, over time Austria (supplying a LOT to Germany) is going to suffer as well.
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@MorePlatesMoreRapes It is possible that Labour would have won the heartland with a soft Brexit but lost London. Or narrowly win in the Remain areas but not be rewarded for having a CLEAR soft Brexit position w/o the 2nd referendum. (the positioning was decided on the party conference and the Blair / Remain wing of the party shaped it. I heard that Corbyn would have been for another course. If that is true - that would have been the time to dig in his heels and do his thing.
Needless to say the Remainers that lost their seat now complain * but do not mention that little fact of the strategy being democratically determined. (if you think about it, the regions that are more behind Corbyn, and were pro Remain (most likely they dominated at the conference) did not have a clue what was going on outside their region - to them the decision making was handed over. Oops !
exhibit a) Ruth Smeeth, Jewish, Friend of Israel, "Protected source for the U.S." (according to Wikileaks !) ushered into a seemingly safe seat in 2015, backstabber extraordinaire.She was long active / employed in the party apparatus but a rookie as MP, nontheless as soon as Corbyn became party leader she was part of the opposition. Helped to get rid of Marc Wadsworth, with some drama. .... narrowly held her seat in 2017. Her district voted 72 % Leave. so her campaign before the referendum was not very convincing it seems . Nontheless after the referendum she too supported the Chicken Coup against Corbyn.
It should have been clear to her that her position was difficult - so she should have worked her district all the more - maybe with help of Momentum. - Nah, she was at odds with them - as ardent opponent of the left wing of the party.
Boris' last proposal is a soft Brexit w/o worker protection (softer according to Farage than the last proposal of May. In other words: the U.K. - not the EU - blinked first). - Now the Hard Brexit and "Brexit is Brexit" and "we won" cult might forgive BoJo for having a soft Brexit - and the Daily Fail and the telegraph and the Sun would graciously condone that.
Corbyn likely would have been ripped apart for the exact same proposal by the rightwing tabloid media so the positive response of the heartland was not so certain. They would have been told to vote for BoJo to get a "proper" Brexit.
- I saw a clip of old people in Wales, hardcore Labour country, it looked like they selected for voted-for-the-Tories-for-the-first-time-in-my life. The reasons - if any given at all - were astoundingly shallow. - not to be judgemental but that sounded like Turkeys voting for Chrismas to me.
They did not even mention Brexit. Nor sure how many "foreigners" they even have in that area and if it played a role. it would have been of course interesting if the interviewer had dug more, they did not rush the interviewees, they clearly wanted to drive home the point how extraordinary it was tha these people had switched to the Tories. But no explanation offered by the voters (me father would roll in his grave) nor extracted by the "journalist".
Why does a lifelong Labour voter go for Tory even though she does not even like BoJo.
Orin another case: what does "I do not like Corbyn" mean ? The region does not do well, wouldn't you think they would cite some economic reasons (even if they fear the proposala would be unrealistic, or wrong or whatever ...) or objections against immigrants.
They seem to feel safe that their retirement will be paid, that they will get healthcare - so they indulge in "feels" ?
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JB JG In the U.S. it is not that candidates / parties have to court the voters. It is upon the voters (especially the D base) to "prevent the worst" - because the Democratic Party for sure cannot be bothered to do everything they could do, to get back both houses with convincing majorities and the presidency.
That would go against the interests of the Big Donors, and they always hope to pull off a narrow win, without giving the base anything of substance.
The voters have to dutifully deliver a vote for the Democratic party, and they always are urged to look at the narrow framing of "this election only" and to prevent the worst from happening.
You think we are useless ? Or we sell you out ? Have you seen the Republicans ??
Nice little country you have here, wouldn't it be a shame if something bad happened to it ...?
Well it is is framed as the duty of the D base to prevent Trump - because the Democratic party sure as hell does not give them anything to vote FOR.
That btw was very clear in the midterms 2018 : still not much of substance (the Big donors do not like policies that help the masses, it costs them profits).
A bold stance for MfA in summer / fall 2018 (not the Lite versions that now pop up since they try to stem the tide in a sneaky manner) would have delivered a landslide win.
The message could have been: Turn out, give us majorities and exactely this and this we are going to do for you.
The 2017 spring townhalls held by Democratic establishment were very telling (we must prevent ACA from being repealed - sure that means that lots and lots of subsidies are fed into the completely overpriced private for-profit system).
Feinstein, Pelosi, Wasserman-Schultz used right wing talking points and LIES to misrepresent single payer systems when the increasingly better educated base presses them. It is the job of the elected "representatives" to KNOW about those systems - they deliver healthcare for half the spending per person for billions of people and since approx. 70 years.
The U.S. system is a complicated machine, the system is not going to be as efficient as that of Germany, France or Japan right awyay. But major improvements that help voters are immediately possible (drug prices). That would have been a very tangible, pressing matter that would have done extremely well even in the more conservative blue states.
But it was not THAT important to get high majorities in both houses - not when if would go against the interests of the Big Donors in the healthcare industry.
So "Russia" and "Trump bad" and values and vague talking about "healthcare is a right" must suffice.
The boogeyman game or Good Cop Bad Cop routine works on both sides btw. Republican voters were partially scared with Hillary Clinton, while the Democratic base was supposed to turn out to prevent Trump.
And then the parties play around with gun regulation, abortion, LGBT rights - two sides of the coin. Voters are supposed to get all riled up.
These issues (whatever is the outcome: abortion access hindered or possible for instance) do not cost the Big Donors anything. But with a little luck the parties can motivate some voters to go to the polls because of those issues.
And then there is "identity politics" - racism being a special case of that.
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When Obama and the Democratic party started out with the healthcare "reform", single payer was not even discussed, public option (not ideal but an improvement) was killed right in the beginning - by Blue Dogs ! ACA is good for the industry and throws some bones to the citizens
- at excessive costs for the insured and for the government. Protecting the industry profits instead of the well being of citizens.
The Dems will not step on the toes of Big Donors - just to help the constituents.
The Republicans had bad townhalls in spring 2017 - but one could also "enjoy" some rightwing talking points (we know them from the Republicans) from the likes of Pelosi, Wasserman-Schulz or in summer 2018 from Tom Perez, the party chairman. ACA - Yes, Single payer No.
Perez was busy protesting at the Texan border against the separation of children. That does not impact the profits of the Big Donors. The prison / detention center donations (where they hold the pople and also the children) go more to the Republicans.
Abortion, gun rights, LGBT, identity issues are used by BOTH parties to get the voters motivated w/o giving them anything that would reduce profits of the Big Donors. Tom Perez was cornered by Amy Goodman regarding "Universal Healthcare". His reaction: pathetic - he is not even good in sugarcoating and deflecting
The Dems held a Senate hearing in 2009 where the industry was invited. Single payer advocats / experts or the nurses organisation were NOT invited - single payer was not even discussed.
All European countries introduced or expanded their single payer / universal healthcare systems AFTER the end of WW2, even before they had started to recover fully from the war. That's more than 70 years and hundreds of millions of people (you can add Canada, Australia, Japan, ...) - nothing the Democrats thought they should consider in their Senate hearing in 2009. THESE nations realized the obvious: healthcare is a terrible fit for the "free" market,
So all other nations after WW2 decided to not play the for-profit game - they all went for sytems that lean heavily towards the non-profit public side.
Obamastill undermines progressives and FDR style democrats whenever "necessary" - he wants to stay in the good books of the Big Donors to cash in on the presidency. He and the Corporate Democrats are sell-outs.
That is why it is so important to vote in candidates that do not take the Big Donations whenever there is chance, candidates that are against money in politics and for single payer. In most cases they run under the Democratic ticket, as progressives.
The Corporate Democrats and their mouthpieces in mainstream media carefully avoid naming Sanders as possible 2020 candidate (they will discuss Joe Biden who has the same age). They know he means business with good affordable healthcare for everyone. Joe Biden does the folksy talk with blue collars but he is no danger to the establishment or money in politics.
Had the Democratic Party rallied behind Medicare For All in summer 2018 as signature Democratic policy for the midterms they could win Congress AND also Senate. Polling in September: 51 % of Republicans view MfA positively. - Even representatives in a very conservative state would have a winning SIGNATURE issue.
Allegedly Trump and the Republicans are terrible. Not so terrible that the Dems would resort to supporting a very popular policy in order to make sure they take BOTH Congress and Senate. If possible with a decisive majority. Looks like it is not that important.
The Big donors do not care much, they always win, not matter if the D or the R wing of the Big Donor party wins the race. They will reward obedient shills who lost a seat - that is important for the system to function for them and they honor such obligations.
If an unispiring spineless Corporate Democrat "beats" a progressive with the help of a lot of money in the primaries and then loses against the Republican in the GE - he or she still worked well for the big donors. Especially if the politicians or candidates played really nice with the party leadership they will be taken care of. Maybe as strategist / consultant in the big-money-election-circus or as lobbbyist.
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I heard that several times - "Something happened to Ford - but it wasn't "our" guy." TRANSLATION: we cannot help to notice that her testimony was strong, and Kavanaugh was a mess. Or at least we do not dare to call her outright "nutty and slutty" like Anita Hill. Times have changed - it might alienate even conservative women. We are going to need every vote we can get in the upcoming midterms, and Trump lost support among white females.
Double think in action:
that is our way to reconcile the inconsistency (because IF she is such a strong witness - than a cloud of doubt hangs over our guy. But we get the best of both worlds: Yes her testimony is somewhat true and our guy for sure didn't do it.
Then maybe we should have asked "our" guy to step down and return to his other life time seat on the U.S. court of appeals for the D.C. circuit.
And we could nominate ANOTHER conservative judge.
Although she called Kavanaugh and Mark Judge by name and also other people that were at the gathering. The calendar entry of July 1st 1982 is a good fit - that could have been the day of the assault.
The prosecutor asked a few question - but she could not dig deep: Lindsey Graham jumped into action and performed his tantrum, then they had a break and then the Republicans dismissed the prosecutor. she never had time to dig deeper regarding July 1st, 1982. which happens also to be the date when Maryland raised the drinking age from 18 - 21.
That is another lie that Kavanaugh told - the gathering (under the week - another lie - not only on weekends) - may have been a party in defiance of the new law.
Truth is Kavanaugh comes with a bonus (extra conservative, anti abortion, anti unions, anti consumers, pro businesses AND he would protect Trump).
Likely there were some talks. Which may have "qualified" him for the nomination (apart from his 2009 opinion that the president should not be bothered with law suits). did not apply to Bill Clinton.
Kamala Harris some weeks ago: Did you discuss the Rober Mueller investigation with a lawyer of lawfirm xx (she said the name, they are linked to Trump). A professional judge would have said: No of course NOT. I would have to recuse myself if something related to that would ever come before my court.
K. endlessly dodged the questions, played dumb, fished for details (which lawyer - so did he talk to more than one lawyer about the Mueller investigation - and on top did he not know for whom they work ? - That was another dumb remark, that was a large law firm he could not know any of their lawyers. Well, he had not business discussing the Mueller investigation with anyone.
He knew he had a shot at a SCOTUS nomination !
Did he discuss such a sensitive matter - he is judge at the 2nd most important court - if the matter would come before him he would need to recuse himself. Well, he would not recuse himself voluntarily of course - but if that was known ....
He ALSO lied under oath in the confirmation hearings for that position. In 2006. Unlike the claims of Dr. Ford there is written proof - they kept almost all records of the Bush era under cover - but the little which they released already shows that he committed perjury in 2006.
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+ Matt w Yes and Sanders said the same - more often - and managed NOT to offend people who were more than reluctant to vote for her (he would have killed it as Democratic candidate, and he WOULD HAVE GOTTEN some of the moderate Republicans. And the young, and the African Americans.)
Imagine a person that already nodded their head to Trump (gladly ignoring the racial remarks, the manners, etc. etc.) because of the economics issue.
And then gets told that 50 % of them are deplorables.
Will an undecided voter leaning somewhat towards Trump flatter themselves to be sorted by her majesty into the box of non-deplorables ?
And if they are not deplorable what are they then - stupid ?
(Well many are, but you do not tell voters that).
Trump said once that Iowa is stupid (in the primaries and before he won there). Well, HE could afford such brash remarks. BECAUSE enough people thought he was hearing them.
HRC was clearly not listening OR understanding.
Apart from the political stupidtiy - and that was a prepared speech! - Did she think it would be reported with all the NUANCE ?
What was the GOAL in making that (prepared) remark in her speech ? And does she have no advisors ?
She was preaching there to the choir - her audience would vote for her anyway (but could feel elevated that they were better than these "deplorables"). The "deplorables" didn't give a damn and certainly did not change their opinion because she scolded them.
So WHY make the remark at all ?
All it did was offend - and it may have cost her votes of undecided voters. The people that are sensitive at all to certain things, do not need to be told all the time that Trump is impossible.
She could have stuck to policies and let them come to their own conclusion that the clown is unelectable.
(Of course she did not have that much policies, they were copied partially from the Sanders campaign and she had no intention to fight for those populist positions.)
So the Clinton campaign revolved around "Trump bad" and did not concentrate too much on policies. (Her ads were especially without policy substance).
She did something like that recently in India as well - in March 2018 !! - "I won the areas with the highest contribution to GDP, where there is progress, innovation, forward thinking. The areas where Trump won on the other hand ... " Paraphrased - it came accross that the Trump win was only possible in the areas of the backwards minded people, who do not have much of an economy (and WHO signed the trade deals that thinned out the heartland ?)
Many people considered Trump because they SENSE that the elites don't know what they are doing, they are lying - and they don't care for the little people. And the elites - unlike the little people - came out just fine out of the financial crisis.
Michael Moore got that vibe - and predicted the Trump win.
Some of those folks plus the votes of the usual Democratic base would mean the win that allows to promote GOOD policies. And when the economy works for everyone that placates eveyone but the wildest racists.
Hillary told the voters that things are going O.K., that the country IS already great (So make America great again was not necessary) and that she stands for more of the same.
Many Latinos and women voted for Trump - which is proof for the the anger about the economy - they just waited for someone they could follow. This is why Sanders and Trump shocked the establishment.
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She is either deceptive or an apologist for neoliberalism (even though she knows a lot, she has massive blind spots). Trump IMPROVED with every gender and ethnicity in 2020 (even black women) he only lost support from white males in 2020 (especially those w/o a college degree = white ble collars), that cost him the second term. Yes a part of the population is racist / reactionary. What else is new ? - but the black president could have leveraged the enthusiastic base and been the next FDR. Obama could have won the respect of people that voted ONCE or TWICE for him by fighting FOR them and WITH them. No one could deny the obvious benefits once single payer would be implemented, not even the racists.
Obama made the choice to sell out to big finance (in 2008 already, he got a lot of donations from them) and the banksters were saved, no one was prosecuted. Generous help for big biz, and finance and limited help for homeowners, and that was petty, complicated, ambigious rules. Pretty much like they did now the pandemic response. Petty and complicated rules and not enough funding for the citizens and for small biz. Slush funds for big biz. Trillions. Literally.
5,5 million homes were foreclosed under Obama. it was a CHOICE not to help them.
The Dems had the president, Congress and Senate in 2009 and 2010. They passed ACA despite the tantrums of the Republicans, when they had for 60 days a filibuster proof window in spring 2010. THEN they could have as well passed a GOOD reform.
But serving the big donors was more important. A country can have a cost efficient healthcare system for ALL - OR the big donors can make money hand over fist. Democratic elites incl. Obama chose 2 - and he still gaslights the population about ACA. Obama is intelligent, he knows what he is doing.
There are many people that were pissed about a black president. But these people would not have voted for ANY D president and candidate (even a white, male one), so Obama did not miss out on their vote. They may have been more riled up about Obama than a white male - but in the end it does not matter what they say or think. Won is won, and Obama did have power. Cheney and Bush could pull off their thing just fine no matter what the Democratic base though about the "win" in 2000, the wars, etc.
Obama won Florida once and OHIO TWICE. Trump won both states now with solid margins ! And there was also a witch hunt on Bill Clinton going on.
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+winter snow You are right ACA is only slightly better than nothing at all. Obama and the Democratic Party are sell-outs. That is why it is so important to vote in candidates that do not take the Big Donations, are against money in politics and for single payer. In most cases they run under the Democratic ticket, as progressives.
That puts pressure on the system. They were more shocked to see Alexandria Ocasio-cortez than they care to admit. Crowley was in line to become speaker of the house. He was cozy with the real estate developers (screw the constituents) a good fundraiser (main qualification for speaker) - and then shot down by a grassroots newcomer.
The Corporate Democrats and their mouthpieces in the media carefully avoid naming Sanders as possible 2020 candidate (they will discuss Joe Biden who has the same age). They know he means business with good affordable healthcare for everyone.
When Obama and the Democratic party started out with the healthcare "reform", single payer was not even discussed, public option (not ideal but an improvement) was killed right in the beginning - by Blue Dogs !
ACA is good for the industry and throws some bones to the citizens (some of them, you fall through the cracks) - at excessive costs for the insured and for the government.
Protecting the industry profits instead of the well being of citizens.
The Dems will not step on the toes of Big Donors - just to help the constituents.
The Republicans had bad townhalls in spring 2017 - but one could also "enjoy" some rightwing talking points (we know them from the Republicans) from the likes of Pelosi, Wasserman-Schulz or in summer 2018 from Tom Perez, the party chairman.
ACA - Yes, Single payer No.
Perez was busy protesting at the Texan border against the separation of children. That does not impact the profits of the Big Donors. The prison / detention center donations (where they hold the pople and also the children) go more to the Republicans.
Abortion, gun rights, LGBT, identity issues are used by BOTH parties to get the voters motivated w/o giving them anything that would reduce profits of the Big Donors.
Tom Perez was cornered by Amy Goodman regarding "Universal Healthcare". His reaction: pathetic - he is not even good in sugarcoating and deflecting
Had the Democratic Party rallied behind Medicare For All in summer 2018 as signature Democratic policy for the midterms they could win Congress AND Senate. Polling in September: 51 % of Republicans view MfA positively. - Even representatives in a very conservative state would have a winning SIGNATURE issue.
Allegedly Trump and the Republicans are terrible. Not so terrible that the Dems would resort to supporting a very popular policy in order to make sure they take BOTH Congress and Senate. If possible with a decisive majority.
Looks like it is not that important .....
Medicare for All ain't gonna happen. Not if the party machines (both parties !) can prevent it. Only when Dems are scared to lose MANY primaries to other progressive democratic candidates will they change their stance. The progressives do not need to take all the seats. The Tea party fraction could move the Republicans to the far right. True: they ALSO work for the Big Donors, no conflict of interests there. The Progressives would have a harder time.
Isn't it insane that the majority of the population WANTS a solution, that other countries have shown the way for decades. And it does not happen. In a so called democracy. More DemocraZy.
I heard that the penalty does not apply in states where they refused federal money (some Southern states did that). And if that state does not have an offer with federal funding - the citizens are at least not punished for that.
Now that may still be unaffordable for you.
Just saying ....did you check it out all and in detail ?
you have my symphaty: It must be exhausting: in Europe signing up takes 5 minutes: Name, adress, birth date, SS number plus the same for dependents. When a new employee starts working, HR gets the info, they announce the new employee to the public non-profit insurance agency for the monthly mandatory contribution.
That contribution must be matched by the company. No health status questions - contribution is a % of wage, has nothing to do with risk. End of.
The relatively few "self-insured" citzens have to process an application directly with the agency. But that is easy (again no health questions) and costs are affordable. 75 USD per month for full coverage in the most expensive cases. (Student older than 26 w/o a job that pays at least 500 USD per month - that's the threshold for mandatory insurance and gives full coverage. Stay at home wife, never a mother, husband or partner has at least a medium income, that would be the USD 75 per month for her).
The Dems held a Senate hearing in 2009 where the industry was invited. Single payer advocats / experts or the nurses organisation were NOT invited - single payer was not even discussed.
All European countries introduced or expanded their single payer / universal healthcare systems AFTER the end of WW2, even before they had started to recover fully from the war. That's more than 70 years and hundreds of millions of people (you can add Canada, Australia, Japan, ...) - nothing the Democrats thought they should consider in their Senate hearing in 2009.
THESE nations realized the obvious: healthcare is a terrible fit for the "free" market, for that to work the consumers need to have about the same power as the suppliers. When the consumers have the power "not to buy at all" that restores a lot of power even if they deal with large companies.
Does not work like that for healthcare: the patients are by far the weakest participants in the system (information, need for the service, complexity) and WILL be exploited by profiteers.
And they cannot just "do without".
So all other nations after WW2 decided to not play the for-profit game - they all went for sytems that lean heavily towards the non-profit public side.
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* funding by small donations is a threat to the profits of Corporate media * and to the Industrial Election Complex (that includes strategists, consultants, PR persons). For now progressives have to raise a lot of money just to have a small chance in an uphill battle, when Big-donor friendly candidates buy name recognition with ads, especially TV ads.
For now progressives also have to buy TV ads - to a degree.
In most democracies TV and radio ad spending is restricted (and they might expand that to social media spending in the future). There are fairness rules for TV and rado, so debates are not decided by private entities (political parties) that can cancel candidates at a whim:
The DNC did not let Mike Gravel on the stage, even though he met the criteria for the first or second debate, they KNEW he would have wrecked their corporate candidates, and the viewers would have loved him.
In other countries it is either grassroots (not often, but it happens and can lead to new parties emerging) or the party ominate the candidates and get a candidate elected (so voters vote more for a party and often not for a person). Unions used to play a role, that is vanishing though. Usually that means the PARTY decides (with luck the BASE of the party has a say or can determine outcomes) who becomes a candidate on a ranked list (they do not vote for representative per district, except in the U.K.) - and the special interests have captured the leadership of most parties.
Plus of course the major national media outlets act as kingmakers by shaping public opinion: either friendly press or blacklisting or slamming candidates and parties (Sanders would not get friendly press in Germany or U.K. or France). See U.K., Germany, Austria, Sweden, ... - so it is not as rosy.
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As for pain - our brain produces * that sensation, if you pinch your arm, the input is delivered to the brain, then an unpleasant sensation is dutyfully * provided by the brain - so that you can stop doing whatever you are doing because that could be self destructive.
The brain and the processing playing a role is very evident when a person feels the pain IN a limb that has been amputated. so it is not there anymore, but the persons feels it.
There is the physical damage or input (arm squeezing, kick at the shin, falling) that triggers a pain response - and then there is what the brain makes with the input and what output (sensation of pain) you are provided with.
Since it is not only "hard facts" like an objective damage in tissue or your discs - but also a (non-conscious !) process - pain_can_ respond well to methods like EFT because it is known that the tappig calms down the amygdala and reduces stress.
Which also means tapping helps against anxiety.
Reduced stress in itself can lead to you experiencing = feeling less pain.
One method of pain managment is also that people distract themselves.
It is very important for survival that the brain delivers the sensation of pain - the output of the process. (People in shock often do not feel the pain either, that sets in only later)
* There is a rare genetic condition where a child is born w/o the ability to feel pain, and their parents have to watch them all the time, also monitor them in their sleep. They could bite their tongue and suffocate in their sleep. They do not feel a sunburn. You cannot let them touch the hot stove. They would see the blisters, but have no warning sensation.
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And sadly the Dems are completely CYNICAL. Would they NOW (midterms 2018, Supreme Court, defunding SS, Medicare, 2020) turn to some (mildly moderate) left populism ? Hell, NO ! - They hope "Trump is bad and we are nice to gay people" will be enough.
They are secretely very happy - they exploit that PR desaster now. And that - like gay rights, or safe abortions - does not cut into the profits of their finaniers (which are the same financiers as a group that finance the Republicans).
It is the Big Donor party with a Corporate Dem and a Repub wing.
The Big Donors ALWAYS WIN.
The Dems get paid to keep the PROGRESSIVES DOWN, they must win PRIMARIES not necessarily the GE.
The donors will provide the cushy jobs for ex-politicians. If they were obedient and are well connected with the party leadership. The last sentence applies to both parties.
Dems have no intention to offer solutions that would help the majority of people and would steal the thunder from Trump.
Truth is: there are always nasty people in the population. When the economy is doing fine they do not make waves pubicly.
Of course the DEms would win in a LANDSLIDE. Good European style healthcare, cut the interess for student loans, infrastructure spending, break up the banks, minimum wage, job guarantee ....would be good for the citizens
BUT NOT for the profits of the BIG DONORS. How are you supposed to exploit people when they can make the same bucks at a place where they are treated with some decency.
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Fox and Republican politicians (for poltical gains) and voters that would not vote for a Democrat EVER will foam from the mouth. No. Matter. What. - They also foamed from the mouth under Bill Clinton or under Obama, never mind the attempts to appease them. The more TIME the Democrats give them the more they can drag out the propaganda battle and poison public opinion.
If the Dems would slap them with one bill after the next (CoVid, vaccination, immigration reform, healthcare, infrastructure bill, ...) they would have a hard time to be sufficiently enraged about all of it.
The base has only so much time to watch the news. If Dems would be smart they give them plenty to complain about (they are going to whine and lie anyway) to BURY them with a lot in short time.
Trump used a variety of that strategy btw, whenever he needed cover he offered some bait in form of a wild tweet. Then
When the dust has settled voters would see that Democrats do something, and that their life is better for it. It would also improve chances that the economy recovers. Then they could kill in in the midterms 2022.
FDR killed it with economic populism. Actually that New Deal phase lasted from 1933 - 1968 (even till 1980) and the Democrats dominated during that time. Sure, Eisenhower had 8 years as president, but he was on board with the New Deal, maybe the only R president ever to defend Social Security. He told his own party that it was unpatriotic to be against SS.
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There are many actors in the U.S. that have been making hay with division - for decades. Much more so than in other rich nations. Media (TV, not to forget radio, that is important). Especially the ring wing outlets (also the large liberal networks, although they do it in a different and more sophisticated manner than Fox "News" or rabid radio hosts).
Politicians try to win elections by riling up voters. Actually that is a quite effective strategy as long as feckless neoliberal Democrats feel the pain of voters but do nothing for them (they are financed by the same donors as Republicans).
Money in policitcs allows for a lot of TV advertising.Denigrating ads, fierce attack ads are allowed.
Other first world countries (even those were the Murdoch empire does some harm).
Campaign donations are limited, TV and radio spending is very limited and there are ethic rules for the few political ads on TV and radio that they do have, and only during campaign season.
Fairness rules for media during campaigsn, if they cover politics in a format, all parties must be mentioned or allowed in debates, even small ones.
They often have coalition governments, so the politician cannot be too vicious, they never know if they need the other party to get a majority. Some combinations are not likely - but the large parties could move to the right or the left with a smaller coalition partner so they will be more moderate and not go to extremes to slam politicians.
In the U.S. there were ads that fear mongered about death panels. ACA is not a good reform, but that was ridiculous, these were deceptive lies.
In other countries no network would send such ads, the citizens would not like it, and FOX would not get a broadcasting licence if they acted like they do in the U.S.
Sky News (also from the Murdoch empire) in Australia is pretty rabid, too - but it is the worst in the U.S.
That has created division and riled up a part of the U.S. population for decades.Riled up people come back, they bring money (ratings) or they donate (churches, political campaigns), or they vote only based on abortions, guns and a general and inspecific disgust for "liberals". That is convenient because that does not cost the donors of Republicans any profits, the politicians that get elected that way do not have to deliver for the voters (which invariably goes against the interests of the big donors).
Trump fundraised 600 millions on "stolen election" narrative after election day. Likely the fundraising from small donors was better AFTER the lost election.
Very important: Churches. check out the channel of The Victory Channel and the video of Jan 7th where they comment on the storm of the Capitol. How Trump will win anyway. Unreal. More than 1 hour political propaganda. I wonder if the pastors belong to churches (run them more like) that have tax excemptions, they should lose that.
In other nations they have very few large denominations. Think Catholics and Protestant Church (one church, not split up in many sub groups). They have central financing / budgets. It is not like in the U.S. where many smaller groups outcrazy each other to keep the (already underinformed, gullible biased, conservative) congregation engaged.
If they start to engage the faithful by riling them up about abortion, gay marriage and other issues - that is easier than to model a good Christian life and to inspire them with the gospel. Negativity also can keep people engaged but they have to increase the dose of poison over time.
Now it is "Biden is a Socialist" is evil incarnate, and he serves the agenda of the devil. I am not exaggerating. Not that I like Biden, he is a 1980s style Republican. The economics, the war lust. Not better or worse than Bush or their Saint Reagan.
They have gone so far that they have to be more and more extreme. If they don't do it - another group / church / pastor will stoop lower and capture their supporters (and the money they donate).
Division as Republican electoral strategy has been going on since at least the 1990s (well, Nixon invented the Southern strategy, there was the KKK, etc - division is part of American society.
The U.S. is also more gentrified than other nations. and the contrast between rural overly conservative areas and the cities is much larger. Rural areas are also more conservative in other nations, that is normal, but they don't have that many Evangelicals. It is not nearly as extreme.
Other nations do not have that level of division, that is why abortion, guns etc. are not hyped up as wedge issues by cynical politicians or grifting pastors or radio hosts that rile up the audience.
Until the clinic they chose to target is assaulted and a doctor is killed. Ooops ! then the radio host will tell that he does not feel responsible for triggering the shooting. Well maybe he really did not want anyone killed. Finding an issue to rant about and to keep the audience engaged is just part of the business strategy. The killed doctor counts as collateral damage in the cynical game.
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UK - how to do elections: In the snap election in 2017, the campaign lasted 2 months. parties can take declared big donations, but they are limited in what they are allowed to SPEND (incl. TV ads !!). Fairness rules on TV and radio.
2 million voters (population 65 millions !) registered (first voters, change of address) within 2 weeks. 600,000 on the last possible day. Registration was EASY, most did it online, the government had a catchy TV ad to promote it.
(Age group 18 - 25 turnout in the last GE 2015 was 43 % - in 2017 it was 72 %)
Eveything else is good oldfashioned "tech". Enough polling stations, election is on a workday but many stations are open until 10 p.m., paper ballots, the boxes brought to ONE hall in the constituency, someone in charge signs them off (so of course they keep track of them).
They are hand-counted before the eyes of the public. At 10 p.m. after the last polling stations haveclosed, they announce the first exit polls on TV, in 2017 with 30,000 participants. As is usual it was fairly accurate.
The poll workers sit on long tables in pairs with a stash of ballots. Supervisors everywhere. Young people sprinting around with boxes, and papers. They have a friendly and traditional competition (usually between 2 cities, forgot the names) - about which one will be first in the country to report a final result. They have a "winner takes the whole district" system for 650 seats in parliament. So it it not hard to keep track.
But the handcounted numbers a announced to the locals (and a few important constituencies are usually shown in TV - so if it was a proportional representation ("popular vote") system - the citizens could do the math if they liked to do it. Manually, with a calculator, in their head if they are savants, or tipping the numbers into an excel list. (the country has 65 million people - so that could be scaled up to a country with 325 million like the U.S. )
When the count (and maybe recount) is finished for a constituency the result for each candidate running in it is read to the public and press. Mandatory recount in case the results are not far apart (in last election some districts went by less than 20 - 100 single votes, these were sure recounts).
That is how to organize an election. It is not that the parties would not try to corrupt it - they can't.
Not even in the first steps. It is better than have voting machines with a paper trail (that evidence can be destroyed - see Tim Canova. Or complicated rules can make the recount legally impossible or expensive). In the U.K. they would need to corrupt the poll workers and manipulate during election night - all of them plus the supervisors - and then they have flipped only ONE district. It is impossible to pull that off.
If they tried closing down polling stations - it would be a row. The governing Tories took a cue form the U.S. Republicans, they "tested" mandatory ID (with a few polling stations only and that was advertised so that people would know).
The result: it prevented young people and poor people from voting - as was to be expected. Like in the U.S. there are no signs of abuse by the voters. The tory majority is threatened with with good voter turnout of young people - so they would be tempted to introduced that. Well, expect another row. I do not think they will dare.
The First Past The Post system and the way the districts are drawn favours them anyway 42 % (40 % for Labour) of the popular vote - but that gives them much more seats (districts). The good results in the large cities do not help Labour 50,05 % is as good as 80 % in a district.
UK citizens navigate through life with the social security card (also to open a bank account), so if citizens do not travel and have no car, there is no need to have an ID or passport. As long as they are still in the EU - there are no border controls WITHIN the Schengen zone.
Technically you are still required to have a passport with you - but when young people drive through the tunnel to France, Belgium, Netherlands for a quick visit - there is a good chance, they will get away with it (a drivers licence will be better, or at least the SS card). The police of the foreign country may send them back and likely give them a fine when found w/o proper identification in a foreign EU country.
A jogger (a visitor from France staying with family in Canada) erred on a non marked dirt trail and unintentionally crossed the Canadian/U.S. border. She was detained for 2 or 3 weeks, even though her mother brought her passport within short time. That is not going to happen within the EU in the Schengen zone.
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@Junebug89 43,200 votes in total in 3 states made the difference. Trump's loss (not Biden's win) was way too close for comfort. A few thousand votes being cast differently, or any legal challenges (mail arrival etc) and Trump would have a second term - Biden was a huge gamble, and w/o pandemic he would have lost for sure. His lead over Trump: AZ / GA / WI 10,500 / 12,000 / 20,700 votes - In PA Biden at least won with 1.2 % = 81,000 votes more. The 20,700 votes more in WI equal a margin of only 0.63 %.
Why were PA and WI even that close ? In a pandemic year, economic down, Trump being a certified idiot on stereoides.
Trump increased his result in Florida from 1.2 % in 2016 to over 3 %. In Ohio he won twice, and each time with over 8 %. - Obama won those 2 states twice (and no, that does not reflect well on him, he paved the way to poison the states for Democrats. After 2012 he rewarded Ohio with pushing for TPP. That was it, they have had it with neoliberal Democrats.)
I think Sanders would have had more chances to win Ohio, and even Florida would have been in play. and not limping over the finish line in PA and WI either.
We waited for the count of these 4 states, (MI and NV were at least over 2 % which means the lead manifested earlier and the statisticians could project the states earlier to go for Biden).
Biden absolutely needed to win 2 of the 4 nail biter states (PA, WI, AZ and GA) in any combination - or Trump would have won. Biden got the "best" result in PA, and it is the state with the most electors = 20 - but that state alone would have put him only at 269 electoral votes = a tie with Trump.
Biden had to win at least ! another one of the 3 states where it came down to 20,700, 12,000 or 10,500 votes. More than half of them voting the other way and they are lost.
PA was not obligatory, even the 2 smallest would have gotten Biden to at least 270 electoral votes (AZ + WI 10 + 11).
The bare minimum - and maybe some fun with faithless electors.
In the case of a 269 tie the House picks the president BUT not every Representative has a vote. The Reps. per state determine ONE delegate. That rule would have favored Republicans, they would have picked the president.
The VP is picked by the Senate where the Republicans had the majority, anyway.
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The "War On Christmas" is so Obama era - so now they have to make up the "War On Thanksgiving". asserting indirectly that left leaning people do not like family gatherings. Now apart from the Imperialistic past of the U.S. - giving thanks / festivities at the end of the harvest season is usual for ALL agricultural societies if they have pronounced growing / harvest seasons.
it is a human attempt to "bribe" or placate the gods, ancestor, spirits, deities. not celebrating or giving thanks would be tempting fate.
Christmas is a pagan festivity. In the countries with a cold and longer winter they celebrated the shortest days (or around that time). That is more pronounced in the North and the Alpine areas, where the growing season is shorter (so if something goes wrong with your first crop you cannot recover by starting over with a crop that needs shorter time and help you survive.
In some parts of Europe there is also folclore with demon masks, and noisy bells and other noise making. They do processions to "drive out the winter", to scare it away once winter is past its prime (after the shortest day and the Chistmas holidays, usually in early January).
In Austria (and I think the South of Germany = Bavaria) they are called Perchten (the beautiful and the ugly perchten - the latter have demon / devil like wooden carved masks and other head gear like horns, they wear cloaks / garments, made from sheepskin, with the long fur etc.)
In that outfit young males are allowed to do some pranks and they do processions. Or in some areas the groups go from house to house and it is the custom to give them something to eat or to drink (alcohol, too). The same tradition shows up on All Hallows Eve (Halloween) on Oct. 31st in the tradition of trick and treating, and it has morphed into an event for the children and they way they dress up is much more flexible.
Oct. 31st being a special and eerie (otherworldly) day is also important in the folclore and mythology in Europe, (you were not supposed to have laundry on line or an unfinished spinning project for the females.)
In Europe Halloween is not celebrated (now a little influence from the U.S. and promoted by marketing, because businesses try to sell on that, but it has not gotten hold). In Europe Nov. 1st is often (still) a "holy day" and that often also means that retail is closed and most people stay home from work or school / university.
It is an official Catholic Holy Day so that is why it is widespread, a day to remember the dead and to go to the graves of loved ones, often also with family gatherings but they are less festive and pronounced compared to New Year, Easter or Christmas, and there are no specific decorations. but if people drive to where they were raised and have a day off anyway, they naturally will arrange for meetings.
Or in the case of "Krampus" in the advent season (the four weeks before Christmas). Krampus (outfit more less like a perchten) has become the side kick to Nikolaus in the last 100 to 150 years. His day is Dec. 5th and on Dec. 6th he accompagnies Nikolaus who gives out sweets and little gifts to children. Nikolaus is a Santa Claus like appearance (more like the American Santa was modelled after the European example, and Coca Cola advertising enshrined the optics, the red cloak, white beard, the reindeer sledge).
As for being glad if one harvest season went well:
In some countries you can start over, but in many if you do not have rain or the right conditions in "spring" you are screwed, because the growing season is too short, or you only have enough rain in spring. Or if the draught or the storms or floods come later to destroy your harvest. No wonder people celebrated and gve thanks to the spiritual world it one year went well.
One bad harvest could mean devastation and famine, no wonder people celebrated if one such cycle went well or O.K. Survival guaranteed for the next 12 months, and the money or stores had to be enough until they secured the next (hopefully good) harvest.
And they finished the work to processs, dry, secure the harvest in fall, and could be also done with the first round of slaughtering animals (a lot of work, and in fall the temperature were low enough that the meat would keep, and it gave them more time to process it within a few days. In summer they could only slaughter smaller animals).
that is why the crelebrations are later in autum when people (working in agriculture) have more time. For the same reason elections in the U.S. were set up to be at the beginning of Nov. - The work of harvesting and slaughtering is done and not yet snow or snowstorms (in most regions). In the beginning only white males with some property had the vote, and they accomodated farmers with that time and also with the day (Tuesday).
Not the weekend (that was reserved for worship). and even if they had a longer travel (and used that occasion also to buy stores or to meet friends) they had time to return home before the weekend.
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@faceplants2 No, no tribalism. At. All. - I currently live in a country where voters have more than two parties (financed by the same big donors) as choice. That allows for some nuance, choice and voters are not married to one of the parties - and the politicians know it. The parties have to move on positions if political competition breathes down their neck. - The lesser evilism blackmail of Democrats does not work.
In other democracies they typically have 1 center right and 1 center left mainstrean party (they used to be solidly Social Democratic, now they are often weaklings / neoliberal shills - the Tony Blair, Justin Trudeau, Keir Starmer, Emanuel Macron types).
And then there are other smaller parties - if they get 5 - 7 % of the popular vote they get into parliament. The party with the highest result almost always gets the job to try and form a government (with a simple majority in parliament or it gets hard to get anything done - although they do it differently in Netherlands and Denmark I think they pull off coalitions or working arrangements with several parties).
And the strongest party (or partner in a coaliton government) also provides the chancellor (Germany, Austria) or the nation votes directly for the head of the government if the "president" is that (France) and not only a figurehead and constitutional check on power (Germany for instance)
But even a 5 % party can become the little hinge that swings big doors if they help a larger party to get the necessary majority with a coalition government.
Never mind they are there, can grow and offer voters an alternative. No such thing as "wasted vote" or helped the larger evil win by voting third party. (try 6 - 8 ! parties)
All of that makes for nuance, the parties influencing each other and a minimum of decorum being observed. They never know if they need them come next election. Some combinations are highly unlikely: like center left or green party with far right for instance, but overal it is better to keep it classy.
No one can make hay of denigrating campaign ads and outright lies (FOX level style or ACA means death panels) - they would not be aired. Ethics guidelines and the population would not appreciate it, as they are not used to it. So they have to try with running on issues.
Even a few % of the popular ! vote (if they make it over the threshold that is typically around 5 - 7 %) means public funding, fairness rules during debates, the small or new players are NOT excluded, the voters deserve to hear from them. Also fairness rules for media during elections season and they do not allow big biz to contribute directly or indirectly to campaign spending.
Plus the spending on mass media is very restricted.
all of that gives a small outsider party with an engaged base and smaller budgets a better chance to COMPETE.
If the voters have had it with the established parties they are not stuck with "lesser evilism" - the cynical game that makes sure BOTH relevant U.S. parties that are openly financed by the same big donors can do their God cop / bad cop routine.
or the Dems testing how little they can promise to the voters and they can still win the election.
No, in all other nations one or several minority party can grow fast if the big parties are getting too comfortable. The 2 - 3 mainstream parties are never secure from competition.
Also: high voter turnout makes sure the interests of low income or young voters are not completely neglected.
(there is not the well established practice of voter suppression like in the U.S. based on long standing contempt for the poor and people of color).
Voting is easy, automatic voter registration, on a Sunday. And claims of voter fraud would be laughed out of the builing. How do you do it if each polling station with representatives of all parties does a hand count of the paper ballots and then reports for then numbers to be aggregated. After all have signed off on the count.
An election with controversial candidates like 2016 or 2020 would see 80 - 85 % turnout. With 6 - 8 parties getting into parliament.
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1:20 So .... Americans can handle 233,000 mail ballots in one state (PA in 2016), but if 2,5 million ballots are handled this way the processes are not "secure" anymore ? Ever heard of scaling up things ? Or are Amercians on principle incompetent and cannot carry out ROUTINES. It is not rocket science, does not need a genius mind or special skills. trained staff and budgets (but in the long run it is also more cost efficient to run elections with mail in ballots as opposed to have the polling stations open in remote areas, and INCREASES VOTER PARTICIPATION. (Repubs don't want high turnount in the general, and the Dems do not want it in the primary).
It seems that it is popular in AZ too, many people have filled out their paper ballot and then drop it off in person. Which is a good compromise, and one cannot arrange for long waiting times. Sure they can shut down polling statiions in the low income area so that people need to drive longer. But it is not possible to make them wait for HOURS that way, not with cutting budgets and also not with old machines that are bound to fail and thus create the long wait times for some areas.
To be sure if they have that much of an increase , the first mass rollout can be with flaws or taking longer, but one learns and then it is "rinse and repeat". In Oregon voting by mail is supported and popular, so they had no problems with the counting in 2020 they had the results fast, they are used to the drill of having to deal with paper ballots. Which are much safer than any electronic voting machines.
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you know that the Clintons helped bring about mass incarceration - to win votes with the white law and order crowd (who know how to take care of their kids in the rare case THEY are caught up in the "system"). - The Clintons may not have expected the prison population to explode like that - but they for sure did not object to it. Bill and Hillary Clinton never ever got upset about it or tried to use their political influence to say: "Wait, we have unintended consequences here. THAT we did not mean to happen, let's change that."
Of course not - they just want the votes of the black folks, it is not like they are getting much money from them.
And you do not think HRC would NOW have done anything to end the war on drugs or empty the prisons, do you ?
Remember: under Nixon weed became a schedule 1 drug (like Heroin, no medical value, extremely dangerous, almost impossible to do research in the U.S.). Whatever you think of recreational use - that is nonsense. Any president could have changed that (without Congress or Senate). Now did the users Bill Clinton or Obama bother to change at least THAT ?(when being classified as more harmless then the prison sentences would have to be adjusted). No, they didn't - the donors would not like it (Big Pharma, the "justice system", Big alcohol, the for-profit prison financiers).
And I think HRC also took money from private prison financiers.
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The ULTIMATE SIN - daring to vote third party - it breaks the power of the oligarchy and duopoly. It is the choice between politicians (R + D) who will put the Big Donors ALWAYS first and representatives who work for the people. - Ralph Nader is STILL being blamed for the "win" of GWB in 2000 - or the Iraq war (so the Dems were forced to ignore the rumours all over D.C. and vote WITH the war mongers ???)
Both claims are is factually wrong* . I get why the establishment tries to villify third party voters. It is an interesting question why that triggers someone like Sam Seder.
I get the point, that is is increasingly dangerous. But the "better" party actually is still way too bad. The Democrats are so cynical (and they will not suffer when the wrong man / party wins) the donors take care of them. To beat the cynicism Progressives must accept losing battles - so that the chance to win the war remains intact.
Jimmy does have a point - Obama did very bad things to the country (he could have been the next FDR, he is part of the reason why Trump is in power). Obama hid his betrayal (which literally destroyed lifes and families, and cost U.S. lifes, never mind the lifes or foreigners of regime changed countries) behind polished manners, with intelligence.
Trump is at least an uncough stupid buffoon and wakes people up.
* never mind the 100,000 Democratic voters in Florida who had switched to GWB. but that CAN be FORGIVEN they do not challenge the DUOPOLY. Or POTUS Clinton/VP Gore doing nothing when Jeb Bush purged black men from the voter rolls - it was headline news in EUROPE. Maybe the recount was set up in a stupid way (so the courts could dismiss it). maybe that was done intenionally (where is some tinfoil if you need it).
Anyway: Gore was told by the party leadership to not rock the boat - the donors do not like that, it alerts the unwashed massed to the fact that they might not have a democracy after all.
The Third party vote means breaking free from the blackmail of the Democratic party. Despite the talk about resistance they sold out on many occasions - like appointments - a few Republican dissenters made some Dems votes necessary - and they got them. Sanctions against Iran (to please Aipac), the resisted Trump by giving him more military budget than he asked for.
(Do they secret backroom deals on that ? - organized by the donors).
I wonder if they would have resisted if Sanders had not been so strong on the healthcare front. Maybe some fights for show before rolling over.
but Medicare for all ? the Democratic townhalls in spring 2017 were very revealing. They gave rightwing B.S. answers why that is not possible - well not with them.
They have no integrity, no courage, no convictions - and do not really care if people are dying. if it was easy and cost-free they might do it - but not when it is uncomfortable.
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11:30 Rich people USE the resources of national economies and they also use one very valuable asset of any economy: CONSUMERS that can spend money. And then when they used these resources to make fortunes they retreat to Switzerland The Ikea founder did that.
Btw the U.S. stuck it to switzerland and is now one of the major tax havens int he world. But not all of the U.S. Only DELAWARE (againt the typical characteristics. Not many residents, not much industry anyway - see Unites States as tax haven article on Widipedia).
Switzerland can easily grant the tax dodging traitors the low taxes - Switzerland (or Delaware) had to contribute NOTHING to make that wealth happen in the first place. You can forget the sales in Switzerland (they do not really make a dent). And manufacturing does not happen there - Ikea is cheap stuff, the labour costs would be too high.
Whatever the Swiss get from the Ikea founder - they would not have gotten anything if they had normal tax rates, so even the tax revenue they get from the small rates is an unearned gift for them.
They usually have to give the same tax rates to their own companies (although Ireland made special deals with google - they pay LESS than regular companies).
Switzerland also exports machines and high technology. Someone has to pay for infrastructure and they have high end tourism - these tax havens are stable and safe places with good infrastructure.
If all the companies in a larger country pay next to nothing - someone HAS to pay for it. That would be the citizens - well in a democracy they will not accept it.
In smaller nations the ratio between (stagnant) money coming in and what the government needs to spend to keep things going is better. In larger countries there will be many companies (all of them paying very little tax) - but there will be substantial expenditures needed.
And the rich people do not go to a banana Republic, they want Switzerland, Ireland, Bahamas, the Channel Islands in Britain ... even nice stable, bautiful, reliable places, with a neducated workforce, good medical care, functioning waste management, etc.
They do not process all the furniture, provide all the raw materials, or provide all the consumers that are necessary to buy the stuff.
Switzerland - and every other tax haven - is leeching off the infrastructure and contributions to the real economy (production to consumption) of other countries.
Not one of them could sustain the business model they profit from out of their own.
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A main feature (and attraction for very different audiences) of the show is having two hosts from the other side of the political spectrum (they agree on economic populism, which you will not hear about at any other network, that is a big deal). You cannot debunk the nonsense Saagar spouts in the time she has, but she does push back with a fact here and there and has her own segments where she gives HER point of view (and she also pushes - to a degree - back against the guests who are often from right wing / "conservative" think tanks.
Often one would wait for her to say something, or to say more (you will invariably find the arguments in the comment section).
She does not always do it. If they have representatives of neoliberal or conservative think tanks on the show - and that is what The Hill their employer requires - what do you expect ? Of course guests will spout nonsense.
Do you expect the truth, and consisent logic from them or the person that represents the "conservative" side on the show? Of course they will come up with the thought stopping clichés.
She has to discern when to let it pass, and when she drops some lines on them.
The viewers, the poor dears, will have to make up their own mind. And if SHE failed to push back, you can always read the comment section.
A person that watches the show because of Saagar, likely will not notice the contradictions - but at least they are sneakily exposed to one or the other contradicting fact or reasoning, they would never, ever have heard on Corporate media. Not on the liberal networks or Fox.
Krystall when employed by MSNBC was denied to talk about trade deals (TPP) because allegedly the audience was not interested. (after she pleaded with Hillary Clinton to NOT run in 2016, her producers ordered her to submit all her material).
No interest in trade deals. That was a lame self serving excuse. So that the editor did not have to admit that they have orders not to rock the boat. Ross Perot run on that and got 18 - 19 % of the vote as third party candidate. Trump struck a chord when he used the issue in his campaign. Sanders struck a chord. But the "experts" figured the audience would not be interested. Nope - the rich owners did not like that being mentioned, and the suspicions that regular people had being confirmed.
And Saagar might have a point sometimes where he is right and Krystall is not - I cannot remember that ever being the case, but who knows.
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@TheEvolver311 Sanders started with a planned campaign budget of 30 million USD. Ed Schultz got fired for wanting to cover the live announcement at the end of April 2015 (after a heated exchange on the phone with management he had to stand down minutes before the announcement - they had coordinated with the Sanders campaign to cover that and then a prerecorded interview with Sanders
Es was forced bring something else that was not very relevant, and 30 - 40 days later his contract was terminated.
Management was very cozy with the Clinton campaign, likely an observer for the Clinton campaign was in Burlington, saw the crew on site and alarmed the higher charges that Sanders was going to get too much attention.
THEN the DNC only thought Sanders would do well in SOME STATES and could cost CLINTON a few percent ! - that was enough reason for them to act swiftly.
Considering how zealous they were when Sanders was a complete outsider - shall we assume they may have been totally into RIGGING and STEALING the primaries ??
They did not like Sanders to run in THEIR primaries. But he might have run third party and that they would have liked even less.
Clinton had high name recogntion, Sanders was unkown so a NORMAL debate schedule EARLY ON and not only after many complaints and denials of the DNC (nothing to see here) would have benefitted Sanders more (especially since it turned out that people liked the message).
This is not about Sanders btw - the VOTERS were CHEATED out of their chance to learn more early on.
The Ed Schultz coverage (Sanders likely would have gotten an ongoing friendly treatment, which could have balanced out the treatment elsewhere a little bit) AND the debates are major factors to increase name recognition. Name recognition is not enough (it can be negative) but w/o it you can forget it. Free exposure early on is essential to have a chance for a grassroots campaign with a small budget (they did not dare to invest full scale early on into a ground game, only when the campaign picked up and more donations came in) - it is different of course NOW.
Sanders would have had a higher momentum in the first months. - if the tactics were not relevant - why would the DNC and mainstream media bother. It was a death by thousand cuts strategy.
That includes complicated rules in California, cross over ballots, provisional ballots, it took 1 month for the final results in CA to be announced, and I wonder how MANY provisional ballots were thrown out. Of course changing voter registration the same day (party affiliation) could have solved that - in CA I think the parties CAN handle that as they like. Well, it was not supposed to be easy for the enthusiastic Sanders crowd.
Voter roll purges by "mistake" in New York.
Greg Palast sugggests that the tabulation could have been off in other states. There are no exit polls (that is partially true for primaries) and / or they do not publish the raw data.
THAT is also true for the GE, the raw data may need to be adjusted - but if the data is open for the public, statisticians and not only in the U.S. - could scrutinize how the adaptation is made. Is if legitimate, is it plausbile, why and what is adjusted ? Or is it adjusted to bridge the gap beween poll and announced results and to raise no suspicions.
I saw a video of a very experienced statistician, weird things going on (in other primary states) usually as more votes come in, outliers are smoothed out, and the gap between vote count and exit polls gets smaller.
In those tabulations the gaps grew and in a very linear manner. That is statistically impossible he said. (only if for instance one vote is assigned a 0,9 value and the other one a 1,1 value for the count you would see such a pattern. The way the machines are programmed allows that kind of manipulation. (If a number for a vote can only be zero or 1 such manipulation would not be possible, it is about what number type is allowed. When you apply a 0,9/1,1 trick the gap (compared to exit polls) would unexpectedly widen, the more counts come in (1 in 10 votes does not count or are added).
Sanders would have lost the South (early primary states) anyway (not that it matters in the GE how a D candidate does there, Republicans win in the GE) but maybe with LESS margin. Which would have mattered in the total count of how much votes did HRC or Sanders get in total.
He could have come uncomfortably close, or even tied her in spring 2016.
And the establishment was panicking that may happen. Fact is he - not Clinton filled the stadions and had the appeal to groups that normally do not vote. And in the polls he was the safe bet against Trump not Clinton.
Some states Sanders lost narrowly, so the count of WON states would have looked much better when the media talked about his slim "success chances".
Again: why bother to mislead the viewers by adding the Superdelegate count. The narrative being, yes he is a bit of a surprise, but don't bother to engage, Clinton is leading nontheless and by a wide margin. If - IF - the media and the DNC (joined at the hip) did not at least hope it could get them an advantage why did ALL TV networks (maybe not FOX but certainly the "liberal" ones) consistently chose to present the count that way. 0,2 % here, 0,4 % there .... it adds up.
And then there is the "winning underdog appeal"
people like to go with a WINNER and a surprise candidate. And the way to present Sanders to people who were not digging into politics was that he was MORE of an outsider by including Superdelegates than he acutally was. If the primaries are supposed to be a democratic exercise than the Superdelegates would not matter in THAT STAGE. Now they could from time to time have presented BOTH numbers (of course alerting the viewers to the fact that some votes are substanitally more equal than others).
I think after massive and ongong complaints they started to change that practice - but only late into the primaries.
I think in an neutral and fair environment (the DNC made sure media helped them) Sanders could have come much closer or tied her, not sure if he could have won. But that in itself would have been catastrophic for the Clinton campaign. Think what advantages she had.
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Neoliberal (also Democratic) policies paved the way for the global financial crisis Deregualtion was started by Reagan and finished by Clinton. Around 1998 / 1999. Big Finance did a few rehearsals on a major financial crisis in the 1990s. Mexcico right after Nafta, U.S. banks had gone crazy and got financial help.
and that was only the beginning. BUT: the consequences hit the citizens of Asia, Russia, Latin America - so no one in the First World countries grasped the implications or cared.
PBS has a documentary of around 1999 The Crash - looking back - yes they did reherasals and U.S. big finance always had the help of the U.S. government. Diplomatic support and the help of the IMF to secure their wins before spitting out the economy of another underdeveloped country (they do not count and media and academia ignore them).
Large financial institutions all over the world took their cue from the U.S. around 2000. They have subsidies in the U.S., the trend that banks and insurers get larger and more dominant on the "market" and more international has also been started in the U.S. under Reagan.
They saw what money the U.S. banksters could make and demanded from their politicians to give them the same opportunities. If not officially then at least the national regulators were supposed to look to other way (which they did !)
In Europe real estate loans for consumers are much stricter regulated. So buying the bundled shoddy consumer home loans from U.S. banks was the second best option for German and French banks.
They could not hand out the loans like candy (and push for them with sophisticated sales tactics, all while the media praised the rising prices in real estate). As long !! as these schemes function (a few years) they are highly profitable. The banks can sell more loans (that is a profitable income stream) and weak costumers will not negotiate and they pay higher interest rates. so in the short time bank profits and boni for management will soar.
The nationally restricted (European) banks could absorb what the U.S. banks recklessly gave out in loans. The U.S. banks got the bad loans out of their balance sheet and could do a rinse and repeat.
The financial crisis in Ireland, Iceland, Germany / Austria with the Hypo Real Estate Bank scandal, giving recklessly loans to the Greek government, Cyprus, the Spanish real estate and loan bubble - had nothing to do with the U.S. bubble. But once banking in the U.S. got the very much needed closer look, those very unhealthy developments finally were scrutinized. And could not hold up.
In many rich countries the regulators and the politicians failed to reign in the banksters and unhealthy economic developments. (Sweden had a national scandal some years before, so the Swedish banks were still on a short leash and did not join the insanity after 2000. And Canadian banks did no engage as well.)
But in many wealthy nations the large financial institutions joined the insanity.
It is not that such bubbles are new - they popped up as soon as the 18th century - and a few much earlier (the Tulip mania in Netherlands is famous, or "investment" schemes for the American colonies in the French monarchy). Or the speculation on the battle of Waterloo (fortunes were made and lost).
Academia and media also complety failed. It was not rocket science to predict what would come out of it. But it was LUCRATIVE in the short run and Capitalism is built around the principle of the highest profit and that means almost always short term profit ! without consideration of external costs or later damage.
it got insane when all the world and their dog started to place bets on the default risk of U.S. loans. Until then the risks (that the loans would default) had been shifted like a hot potatoe (from U.S. banks to European banks for instance). But within the global financial system the damage because of defaulting U.S. loans remained the same.
That of course had allowed the bubble in the U.S. to grow more than if the loans had stayed within the U.S. financial sphere (and in the balance sheets of U.S. banks) But there was still a tie to the real economy and real values (even if property was overprices).
But with the bets (Credit Default Swaps) the risks MULTIPLIED. Loans for 100 million USD going bad could trigger financial claims of speculators for double, 10 times, 50 times of that amount. It just depended on the volume of bets that were out there (and there was NO regulation on that at all).
The Clinton admin, plus Alan Greenspan and Congress came down like a ton o bricks on the federal agency that only tried to evaluate the risks such unregulated bets could pose to the economy.
The implication of that attempt of the agency was of course that unregulated bets COULD pose a threat to the REAL economy. Brooksley Bourne got crushed. AND bought and paid for Congress did not take any chances: just to make sure that no nosy agency would hinder the money making schemes of their financiers they passed a law that made the large financial institutions excempt from the oversight of any agency when they engaged in speculation with Over The Counter Derivatives. "The big players KNOW what they are doing". Needless to say Alan Greenspan (the Ayn Rand fan) was fully supportive of that.
No they don't know what they are doing. They just run with the crowd as long as the music is playing in the game of musical chairs. And even worse: those who are intellectually honest enough to grasp what is going on - are either cowards - or they exploit the system against the citizens and against the real, productive economy.
Which from their point of view is rational if completely unethical. If they play nice they will be financially safe (and more than that).
And the cynical players who know what they are doing ? They brought the financial system to it's knees, got bailed out, no one was prosectuted and 1 - 2 years later they were back in the game. After the GFC almost all of the finanical gains went to the top - the GFC increased inequality.
Media carefully avoided criticizing the banksters (shifting the narrative to reckless often first time home buyers). -
Thee advantage of owning the political process and the regulators and being at the top of the food chain ? You do not need a sophisticated, WORKING plan. You just need to own politicians and the media. Then you will come out on top of it - even if you screw up royally.
Actors that had not stake in the underlying economic transactions = weak loans * started betting on them. Like they bet on the weather, the price of wheat, oil, interest rates of U.S. bonds, currencies, who becomes the next president of the U.S. ...
* having a stake would mean POSSESSING such loans - the bets would simply have offset the losses if the loans would default. That would have been "insurance".
Insurance contracts are highly regulated ! beneficial forms of bets allowed only for people who have a stake in a certain transaction and who have a LEGITIMATE interest in limiting a real economy risk. Insurance is not meant to make you money, it buys ! security.
There would be only relatively few actors WANTING the have the safety of such bets - and on the other side of the transaction there would be only few actors accepting the bet.
As long as the loans are O.K. one sides makes (some) money of winning the bets (loans are doing fine). When the loans default (the more rare event but with a much higher financial loss) the other side would win the bet and that win would offset the financial losses of the failing loans.
(Of course in prudent banking banks are required to diversify and not put all their eggs in one basket. So the question is: if they do a careful analys of the real estate scene - why would they need "insurance" for loans in the first place. They didn't need that in the golden era when the economy vastly expanded and many homes were built.
That the banks were able and allowed to give out so many loans DROVE UP real estate prices. It is not like that much value was created - apart from the the houses that would not have been built w/o the bubble.
Of course aspiring home owners were tempted, they heard it all the time on the media. It was the smart thing to seize the chance the "market" offered.
Of course both parties remained silent, they got (and continue to get) money from the "real estate developers" and the banks.
The Cheney / Bush admin liked it that the bubble supported a good mood in the population and there were jobs in construction. They were busy starting wars and throwing money into the war machine - they had no intention to invest in a jobs / infrastructure program.
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The Democratic establishment WANT to be 80s / 90s style Republicans ! maybe some of the absurde demonization by Repubs has to do with getting rid of the competition that is so SIMILAR to them. Obama pushed for the healthcare plan of a right wing think tank of the 1990s (Heritage foundation, the plan to counteract the Clinton proposal - that was also very friendly towards the industry and the profiteers. Romneycare was based on that Heritage plan). Obama said he did not understand the Republicans, that his policies were like that of a Reagan Republican. He has a point. (so why did he run on Hope and Change ? - because he would not have won if he had been honest).
Corporate Democrats LIKE being financed by the same donors as Republican and courting the affluent suburban swing voter and throwing the working class and low income and regular income people under the bus suits them just fine. They only NEED the VOTE of those people and act very pissed and entitled if they do not get it.
Democrats are inventing reasons why they have to abandon the working class and "must" pivot to the right and cater to the affluent suburbans. Who will in a heartbeat vote for a Republican with better manners and more intelligence next time. So forget about Arizona or Georgia. And Florida.
They ignore all evidence to the contrary, because only that scenario (must pivot to the right or we cannot win) is a good fit with serving the big donors (the interests of the top 20 % income bracket do not collide with the interests of the 0.1 %)
Corporate Dems take for granted that the former constitutents (low income, minorities, working class, or with regular income, females) MUST vote for them anyway. they rely on it that the Republicans will reliably come up with a bad candidate (at the minimum someone like Mitt Romney would be bad for abortion or so the base is told. Apart from that I am not sure he was much worse than Obama).
at least that is what these entitled careerists assume, but that strategy did not work in 2000, 2004, the many midterms, 2016, and 2020 except for the presidential race (and that was too close for comfort). - see Ohio, see Florida, see the Latino vote, Trump improved with every demographic except white males, especially if they did not have a college degree.
They WANT to be the Republicans with better manners that do not openly deny science (they just don't do anything about climate change). They want to be the Republicans that are for reasonable gun regulations and are for safe abortions. There were many Republicans that agreed with that in 1970s and 1980s when they were only pro business, but not that unhinged.
They may not have liked abortion - but they saw the outcomes of back alley abortions. And they did not idolize weapons, nor did their (hunting) base.
The real (unhinged) Repubs have demonized Democrats (no matter how little difference there is except for gay marriage, abortion and gun regulation) - so the Dems are not going to win that stupid game. I think it was Truman that pointed that out. If people have the choice between a real and a fake Republican and they want a Republican - they will always go for the original.
Truman was excpected to lose. But his R opponent confidently campaigned against the New Deal. On election night it looked like a narrow win for the Republican, but then the results from the Midwest trickled in, and they helped Truman to get a solid win. Eisenhower paid attention, he told his own party it was unpatriotic to be against SS. Likely he was the only Republican president ever that was not opposed to it since it was implemented in the 1930s.
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No shame in being a middle manager - or someone working at the gas station, as cook or teacher. Or cleaning lady. - that's the point: these people deserve to have a decent life, a living wage and affordable healthcare (with full coverage). Even teachers are not doing too well - and they are required to have an academic training (which costs money).
only the lottery of birth prevents Meghan McCain from being someone like that. - A Bill Gates, or a Whoppi Goldberg or a Kamala Harris have what it takes to work their way up*. - Well, goldilocks hasn't what it takes.
So with some insight, wisdom and humility she would praise her good luck and not throw a tantrum when politicians want to give a few crumbs to those that are not so lucky as her. (she did not this time, but Medicare for All triggered one - it was epic).
Not that I think "mediocre" does not deserve the good life.
The gift of intelligence and health is not earned either.
Most of us hover around "average" - at least when it comes to the traits that are truly valued in our society and that have to do with getting a high income and / or celebrity.
Being kind, baking wonderful cakes at home does not count, being funny - but w/o making it as entertainer does not count.
Never mind the lip service that is occasionally paid.
.... we would got nuts if we had only alphas, and exceptionally brilliant people, ambitious, driven people around us.
And they need someone whose workforce they can leverage to make their brilliant ideas happen. Plus usually the consumers to buy or the audience to watch/listen to the results.
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Healthcare is complex, individual, costly even if run cost-efficiently. It is impossible to regulate it IF the motive to maximize the profits on the back of the weakest participants in the system = the patients - plays a role. Big companies in healthcare have no counterparts and will always be ahead 3 steps of patients and even well meaning regulators, law makers.
And they will set up a huge adminstrative operation to screw the patients, so they have plausible deniability that uphold the law and are not greedy leeches - which they are of course.
The red tape for the bureaucraZy for them is cost of business - they shift it over to citizens and of course fleece the government budgets (with very willing political help of the lawmakers they bribe).
You can imagine that not much love was lost between Germany or France, U.K., Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden ... directly after WW2 and in the late 1940s.
But while cleaning up the rubble from war all nations decided they wanted to implement or expand universal healthcare. All but Switzerland decided that they could not leave the "insurance" to for-profit players. and most saw to it that at least a good numbers of hospitals in the country (if not most) were public non-profits. (Switzerland pays the price for that historic error today).
In other words: they realized that healthcare is a terrible fit for the "free market", that the profit motive creates toxic incentives for THAT service - and that it would be impossible to regulate the profit motive here. But it could be eliminated especially in the most complex decision process (when doctors consider what tests to use for diagnosis or what treatment to use)
So if they have for profit players - they are small and regulated. Doctor practices and pharmacies are like small companies with a contract with the public agency. The revenue covers the costs of the operation and the profit is the "wage" resp. income of the doctor or owner of the pharmacy. Which should be a good income, but no one rakes in the millions.
They are not allowed to organize / incorporate in chains (and there are no hospital chains like in the U.S. either). So they have their non-profit professional organisations that represent their interests at the negotiation table. But no for-profit corporation with undue influence and huge resources (money, staff, lobbying, lawyers) can leverage the profit motive against the public agency and the patients.
The only big for-profit player are large pharma corporations. They have very standardized, internationally comparable products. (Meaning even if the brand name in France and Sweden is different, or they come in other package sizes and number of pills per package, the substance name behind the product name has been tested in scientific studies, and the dosage of the effective substance must be precise and consistent).
With that comes (official or inofficial) price transparency about what discounts are given on list prices. So if Denmark with 3 million people or Iceland with 300,000 people want to know what Germany, France, U.K. Italy, .... are paying (nations with 85 / plus 60 million poeple) they can find out.
No need to start a GoFundMe for Big Pharma, they still do fine, but it gives the public agencies the very much needed edge to restrain those powerful players in negotiations.
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highest ever federal debt in the U.S. in 1947 (after WW2, war IS very expensive). almost 119 % of GDP - and that went down to low 30 % (debt as share of GDP) in the early 1970s. Despite the costs for several wars. How did they do it WHILE ENJOYING the GOLDEN EAR ?
92 % top marginal income tax rate (for every dollar over 2,7 million in todays ! value). That was passed in 1944 to finance the war, and it was hollowed out over time, but coporate and income taxes were still much higher than today. Nixon accused JFK of wanting to cut the taxes for the rich in a debate in 1960 (radio).
JFK begged to differ. he said the 90 % on the books were hollowed out by tax excemptions. people like me should pay more in taxes and I would rather have a 72 % EFFECTIVE top marginal income tax (no excemptions). That would bring more revenue and I plan to spend it on education. Now - JFK insinuates that the real paid top marginal income tax on high incomes was lower than his proposed 72 %, but it certainly was not as low as 40 or 50 % - and it is much lower than that today !
Income taxes after the Reagan tax cuts were higher than today !
Debt was 118 - 119 % of GDP in 1947. And bold government spending contiuned. Some still on the military, but lots on civilian INVESTMENTS. Education, public housing, interstate highyway, research. Eisenhower initially dismissed manned space travel, way too expensive. Then the Soviets gave them the Sputnik shock in 1953 - and costs did not matter.
High taxes for the incomes of rich people. Highly profitable businesses only could evade taxation if they invested. UNPRECEDENTED productivitiy growth (most comes from automation and new technoligy, new materials, also new ways to market, and of course use of electronics):
I mean "unprecedented", 1947 - 1970 plus 112 %. 1970 - 2013 only plus 69 %. Productivity means: what is created (output) in ONE workhour.
Note that the second era is much longer (43 years versus only 23 years) and this was the time when computers and other electronic technology really took off.
Growth of hourly average wages (so blue collar jobs and service sector) adjusted for inflation (reflecting purchasing power, it is called real wages).
Plus 97 % in 23 years and ONLY 9 % in the following 43 %. It is also safe to assume that the average 9 % real growth for hourly wages in the neoliberal era is not evenly distributed.
In other words: in the Golden Era (Building of the American Middle Class) the workers got the lion's share of productivity wins. Not all, but most of it. And the owners / shareholders got a small part, but from a large and growing pie. It is not as bad though - there are not that many individuals that got that slice of the pie, and the pie was growing - so they still were doing good.
Workers are also INDISPENSIBLE as consumers in our system of industrial MASS production.
Steadily rising purchasing power made sure they could KEEP UP with buying what was produced. There is a reason consumer debt on the credit card became a thing from the the mid 1970s on and increasingly so under the neoliberal economic order. For some time it bridged the gap between output and consumption.
Output MUST be SOLD / CONSUMED.
Output is steadily increasing due to higher productivity OR produced with much fewer people which means less wages that can be spent on buying things, so the manufacturers have a hard time selling the stuff.
Outsourcing put pressure on wages = disposable income.
Big biz only turned their back on the domestic workers, they still needed the domestic consumers.
Purchasing power for one hour of work almost doubled in the Golden Era of high taxes and good wages (growing almost in lockstep with producitivity), and robust and ongoing government spending that supported the high employment rate, that gave leverage to the unions to bargain for good wages.
Mind you the high employment rate before the Corona pandemic did not lead to good wages (if you factor in inflation) because now outsourcing of jobs has been made safe and lucrative. Politicians did that favor for big biz. So even in a record employment situation like 2018 / 2019 labor has not nearly as much negotiating power. And it was made possible to evade paying taxes.
The strong incentive to invest fell sideways. Owners / sharholders could pocket the profits. So that is also a reason why productivity (most coming from new and improved technology, materials and automation) did not grow anymore like in the Golden Era.
Plenty of automation (high productivity gains) happened in the Golden Era, Andrew Yang overlooks that. It is not new and it is not necessarily negative for the mass of people.
Outsourcing is the problem (when those workers are paid low wages, so tTHEY cannot build their consumer spending) and the idea that the 40 hour week (or in reality even longer, often now BOTH parents work more than 40 hours per week) is still a good fit. In the U.S. it was introduced in 1940 for all (before some companies and industries had it).
The 40 hour workweek was a good fit for the technology of 80 years ago !!
Sure people live longer, go to school longer, overall more wealth, modern medicine can do so much more but it costs more (even if delivered in a cost efficient single payer system).
On the other hand the U.S. government has accumulated investments (research, public housing, streets bridges) and there is intergenerational wealth built. Sure some of the investments like dams and bridges must now be written off they need to be replaced, but they can last for 50 or 100 years. A well built home will need some repairs after 30 years but it is not like the costs of building new. If a family does not get crazy with the remodelling bug they can live rent free in an inherited home and slowly update. Should be done within 10 years.
The U.S. military has paid for the development of malaria treatment drugs and electronics. We HAVE these things now and can build on it. There may be better drugs in the future. But the existing (with patents expired) are pretty good. Not all investments must be repeated all the time, there is accumulation.
If the neoliberals had not won the propaganda war in the 1980s we would now rely much more on renewable energy (and many people would have a job in that sector . Energy IS important) and we might work 30 days per week for what is now a fulltime salary.
That would account for the improved productivity that means that fewer people are needed to produce the same amount of stuff compared to 1980. Unemployment would constantly be lower. (almost all have a job with the lower hours). The job security also means that people can dare to take out loans (and get them) even if they pay down their home over 25 years. At some point they mortgage free and they do not pay down the mortgage of the landlord. And for young people or low income it would be public housing. ideally also for the lower middle class to avoid getting ghettos.
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Or the inflation (stagflation) that was caused globally with the oil price hikes, 1973 and a few years later. Made worse by the insane interest rate policies of Paul Volcker Fed chair of Jimmy Carter (he cost him the reelection, and that cost the U.S. and the world dearly).
Workers had not gone crazy (with income increase demands that exceeded productivity gains, so they could not be financed in a good manner. That was never a thing: in the best of times they got the lion's share of productivity wins).
The higher costs of living for households, costs of business, heating, cooling, transportation in 1973 came from the sudden price shock of an important resource doubling in price (commodity prices).
Oil / fossil fuel had been squandered so far - and now caused a new form of inflation. In combination with (then) unusually high rates of unemployment. Typically if you have higher inflation rates it means more money out there chasing too few goods and services.
That was not what happened during the oil price shocks with stagflation.
Policital leaders were ill equipped to UNDERSTAND what was going on, their ideas of the economy were mostly to compare it with a household (that economic illteracy did not matter as long as the principles of the New Deal were applied and they presided over boom times).
The shock of unemployment was used by the oligarchs to hit back against the New Deal and unions. Finally ! they got their chance, big time since the 1930s.
Unemployment rates that were unusually high for the time THEN, the first time for longer times after WW2, and it was unnerving for workers and undermined their sense of security. And then there was the much higher than usual inflation.
It had been somewhat higher in the Golden Era anyway, this is an inevitable side effect of a booming economy, that bounces back fast after insignificant downturns. And workers (and companies) had coped well with that kind of good inflation. between 1947 and 1970 the hourly average wages adjusted for inflation ("real" wages, that means purchasing power) almost doubled. Plus 97 % - versus 112 % productivity wins during that time.
A population that has still full employment and financial stability can manage to pay (grumbling) the higher prices due to an oil price shock for a few years until the problem is solved at the roots (no, not wars in the Middle East and colluding with tyrannical Saudis. Becoming more independent of use of fossil fuels. Low income persons could have gotten a cash benefit to soften the blow until they too got the benefits of better insulated (rental) homes, more efficient vehicles. The company they worked for most likely was investing big time.
so companies hiring and new kind of jobs emerging.
Politcians later made sure to keep some residue unemployment even during boom times, and the recovery after a downturn. When they made outsourcing lucrative and safe for big biz. so they could put pressure on domestic workforce even if employment situation was good again. See end of second Obama Term and the first Trump years).
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The cure for too much dependency on CHEAP OIL causing the 1970s unusual stagflation (and in general the indirect costs of wars for oil and cheap oil prices !) would have been INVESTMENT with LOW not HIGH interest rates: human labor, technology and innovation (all things that are independent of outside influnces and sudden price spikes) replacing the use of the resource OIL (and other fossil fuels that also rise when oil price goes up).
But for that you need LOW interest rates (at least for the sectors that directly heal the oil dependency), not insanely HIGH ones (like under Volcker - and they were not low between 1973 and 1976 either).
Paul Volcker was said to have been a brilliant man - well if those get something wrong or have ideological blind spots, they really get it wrong.
If you have a fungal infection of your toes or toe nails, it is a nuisance (does not hurt much) and you need to do something about it, and it will take a while and consistent effort to heal it.
But in the large scheme of things it is no big deal, if you have the right tools and keep up the regular treatment.
You could of course also amputate the foot or the leg. Technically speaking that too gets rid of the infection. (that was the Volcker strategy or at least it had that effect, it do not think he planned to trigger a depression, he just would not give up but double down on the bad ideas).
Jimmy Carter's sense of duty made him support the highly unpopular measures = drastically increased interest rates for longer time (which he considered to be necessary although harsh cure). Even as they became a threat for his reelection. Reagan kept Volcker as Fed chair, but leaned on him to change course for his reelection, and he also did not mind to have high deficits as side effect of his tax cuts (that benefitted his buddies, and of course himself).
If the share of fossil fuel in costs of living or costs of doing business goes down - even a 50 % price increase at the user side (commodity prices for petroleum doubled or more in 1973) does not drive up cost of living and cost of biz as much.
Let's say the direct and indirect share of energy in your cost of living / doing biz is 1000 USD per month (also the energy that is in food prices, products, production of appliances etc).
after the 50 % increase you are at 1,500 (so 500 USD more, but your total expenditures are of course higher than 1,000 or 1,500 later, so the additional 500 are unpleasant but not crushing.
The same scenario when energy has a higher share of the whole package.
You start with 2000 USD - and after the 50 % increase you are at 3,000 USD.
Scale that up across that nation: That is the difference between annoying but manageable OR recession / depression, with insecurity for the workers.
Spending on fossil fuels (especially oil that is imported) does not create domestic jobs (not many). And with domestic fossil fuel production (especially oil and gas) a lot is funneled to the top (the owners of the wells).
Construction work (incl. insulation) done by small and large companies. More of that spending goes into the pockets of workers, who will spend most of it. That means that money does extra shifts in facilitating the exchange of goods and services.
But the national economy does get a major bonus when it funnels a part of the "energy budgets" into more labor and innovation in order to avoid spending on fossil fuels in the long run.
The reward is: Jobs right away, security for the population, but also planning security for companies. Stable tax revenue. Banks can continue to grant loans (the S & L schemes were also the attempt to make good on the missed out revenue and profits aftere the 1970s).
couples can plan to buy a home.
Resilience, independence, good jobs that give spending power and financial stability for all (consumers would have needed to cut some consumer spending in exchange for investments into energy inefficiency and independency. It would have been a bump in the road with the right economic strategy.)
If a house is well built and insulated, if the vehicles driving around are increasingly energy efficient, the affluent and long distance drivers upgard first, after 4 years that becomes noticeable, if the companies have already developed the innovative processes, so now they HAVE it and even generic products are much more energy efficient by default compared to a few years before - you reap the longterm rewards for your investments after a few years (instead of continuing to SPEND on a resource that is burned and gone).
Cities and towns get money for insulating existing affordable housing and to deploy quality mass transportation.
Also more skills new skills for the workforce, higher demand for engineering (never a bad idea to be a nation with lots of engineers, they usually can translate their skills to other areas).
The country becomes more independent from outside influences. Workforce has new skills. (Or DIY efforts to insulate your home became standard).
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Outside influence can be war in the Middle East or OPEC negotiation tactics driving up oil prices. The LONG TERM investments and wins in technology are here to stay, the nation controls its own workforce and the costs for it (no sudden price hikes that cause BAD INFLATION).
Many of the workers being busy insulating homes, or developing or producing better car motors, or working in recyling ..... or with all things renewable energy.
In the mid 1970s thermic solar panels to produce hot water and to support heating were already well functioning. The oil price shock boosted that more simple technology. Photovoltaic did exist (since the 1950s for satellites), but was not nearly as developed and it is the more sophisticated technology.
Every time you double the globally installed capacities for solar electricity production (Photovoltaic) you get a price drop of 20 % for the costs of the kWh. (has been like that since the 1970s).
The phenomen is called economy of scale, it exist for ALL mass production although to varying degrees.
It is massive with electronics.
With wind turbines it is 14 % (also long term). With wind power more mature technology is involved so the economy of scale effects are not quite like with solar - and both have nothing on electronics.
Mature technology involved with wind power is steel, concrete and construction work and transportion of the huge parts. If you double steel output globally they are going to find some improvements still - but as it is already mass produced and in huge volumes it is not as easy to DOUBLE global output.
The most gains of a new technology are made in its infancy as it is mass deployed. More often than not that needs government subsidies (in the beginning to start the beneficial technology). Like for electricity (rural areas were not interesting for for-profits). Cars and trucks for long distant transportation of persons and goods - outside of cities and towns these vehicles were not as useful until the government built the Interstate highway.
Railway and telegraphe lines (the army needed to subdue and displace the Native Americans first. After discouraging the British, French, Spanish, Portugese from even trying. you cannot have a railway or telegraph line in areas that you do not fully control or where you have (potential) combat and sabotage.
Electronics, computers, internet, WiFi, touchscreens, PV - all developed with massive military budgets. That took decades.
Antibiotics. (that took quite a while, from the mid 1920s till end of WW2 when they were mass produced for the troops already. Civilians got it after WW2. Veternarians too !).
Malaria drugs (the U.S. military wanted them because of the wars in Asia. Took them a while, but they wanted them continued to do reasearch - until they found it).
Nucelar fission.
Nuclear fusion (maybe), but they are getting plenty of subsidies.
In the mid 1970s the technology of PV existed, but could not compete with thermic production of electricity (which is a relatively primitive technology, heat / steam engines have been around since the early 19th century - 1826 in the British Empire).
Some bold government spending could have boosted the niche (military) technology PV in the 1970s already, there was no reason why we had to wait till after 2000 to get the massive price drops. It was not the passing of time that made it possible, government spending triggered and sustained the positive feedback loop until it became an avalanche.
Some low key ongoing spending had gone on between 1970s and 2000 for PV. The modest higher deployment brought modest improvements.
Chinese oligarchs also have to live with the pollution caused by coal - and China went big taking it from where some actors in the U.S., Germany and and other innovators had gotten so far.
That brought a massive price drop (first dramatic ! effects of economy of scale, then based on low volumes !). The panels became viable in sunny countries (states) that had relatively high electricity prices and high demand for A/C (California, Australia). Peak demand met peak production so technology and costs for storage (the other part of the equation when it comes to renewables) was not as important - as in the temperate climate zone.
Or the users had an inreliable grid (luxury hotels in cities in India that wanted to make do without diesel generator if the grid let them down). Sunny islands with luxury resorts.
So a doubling of output. More installations since it had become more viable - another doubling of output. With some government subsidies (a lot in China, they go big if they do something). But not as much as would have been needed in the past. Situation became a positive feedback loop.
With battery / storage solutions we are only at the beginning of new technologies and massive price drops.
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The cure for bad inflation in the 1970s (they really botched that especially in the U.S. to a degree in all other nations): LOW not HIGH interest rates (at least for all investments that would reduce the cost of production for biz and cost of living for citizens LATER. So all things energy efficiency, research, insulation and construction. Recyling and mass transportation.
Insulating homes, better windows. What helps against the cold also helps agains heat.
More energy efficient cars, trucks.
Fertilizer production, steel, aluminium, glass, paper need a lot of energy to produce. Farming closer to organic farming and recycling help to conserve the energy (and minerals) that initially went into the smelting etc.
Technology and human labor replacing fossil fuel use.
Repairing things (more qualified jobs with skills that are transferable) also help conserve energy.
If you make the washing machine last 4 years more, the initial amount of energy to mine all the metals, produce the materials, components, to produce, transport, stock, sell the machine and get it into the shop and then to the consumer - is not lost.
You need energy to get the repair worker moving around, and to produce and stock the spare parts - but it is more energy efficient than producing cheap machines that fail after 6 years and the rather large investment to repair it seems to be a gamble (pump is a classic, and leaking seals) when you compare it with the costs of another cheap new machine.
See planned obsolescence.
Over 20 - 25 years good initial quality and repair can be the difference between 2 - 4 washing machines. Of course IF the machine is known to have a longer life cycle, repairs are less of a gamble for consumers. So they can give a fellow human work instead of using energy and natural resources (and some inevitable pollution. Even with high standards of environmental production like in Germany or Sweden, there is some damage done. So using less and repairing is better overall.
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Bad - and undercounted inflation: Extraction schemes from the bottom to the top with exploding real estate prices and rent (speculation on scarce resources is supported *). For profit insanely expensive healthcare. Exploding costs of higher education. High costs of childcare.
* Trade deals kill manufacturing jobs in more rural areas. People are driven into the cities, densely populated areas, where space is a rare resource.
At the same time the spending on affordable public housing went down and / or existing public housing was privatized (almost alway with some corruption).
And the international and domestic landlord class buys up the scarce resource. New yorkers take walks in the good areas with the high priced real estate. Not a light on at night.
That is a problem in all the attractive, safe, metropolitan or touristc regions on the globe. Unless politicians can be bothered to do something about it. Syndey, Melbourne, Auckland, Paris, London, Brussels, San Francisco, .... Berlin.
In New Zealand you have to be a citizen to buy real estate. But they did that only after the worst price hikes.
I think Berlin did something to protect citzens from being priced out.
In Austria and Switzerland (I think) there are touristic regions where everyone (citizen or foreigner) must have main residency or they cannot purchase real estate there.
A company buying commercially used property might get a waiver. A little cheating here and there is possible. But it is not like affluent Chinese, American, French or Saudi real estate investors could get their foot in.
In case a mayor has a mind of colluding with local real estate developers: think: Some touristic project in pristine location, and it is obvious the "hotel" will not be viable, so they would become high end vacation apartments later (with a little remodelling they can have floor plans that are good fit for a "switch" - the population typically straighten out their "leaders".
Even if it would not drive up costs of rent for them (even though the community has to finance water, sewage, streets for apartments that are rarely used). The main objection is often to buildings in areas that the people living there want to remain in their natural state. Especially if it only benefits a few people. They will be positive about investments into skiing, fun parks etc. - but that does not help only 20 or 50 families that are hardly ever in the region.
All the mayors do have the powers - and in the smaller close knit communities the population forces them to use it. So that the people living and working there are not PRICED OUT. Cheating will become apparent, so there is not much leeway for fake main residents. (and they will have to blend in with town / village folks, and will need to come often to maintain appearances).
Politicians have colluded with real estate developers and the landlord class all over the globe (which allows for the price explosion).
But in the rich nations the citizens are at least spared the high costs and steep price increases for healthcare, childcare, and higher education. They get a good deal to begin with, and the price increases are moderate and justified.
They are public non-profit services - and it would therefore come up in elections if the voters are not treated well.
But you cannot vote out a price gouging CEO.
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Inflation is not necessarily the enemy of people working for an income OR for productive companies. But the owners of fortunes in money (not investments in the real economy) HATE inflation. For them it is always bad (the value of their bonds, savings accounts, life insurances, ....) goes down.
That explains the propaganda pro Wallstreet, that regular people need to "invest" to have a secure income in their old age, and the fear mongering regarding inflation.
all of that helps the oligarchs and harms (or does not benefit) regular people.
It makes regular people hostages (at least regarindg their assumptions of how things work, and what regulations they demand their politicians to pass). They have to uncritically let everything pass that goes on on the stock exchange because they are lead to believe they need the stock exchange to save up for a pension (in form of a 401k or whatever). And if they can't do that (only a small part of the population has a 401k, or shares - max 30 - 35 %, and the large sharholdes are in the 0.1 % income bracket) - at least they should be neutral or positive about the idea and wishing that they could do what is generally talked about positively: investing.
So the highly lucrative schemes for the big fish go unchallenged by conventional wisdom and kitchen table economics insights. No regulations whatsoever. The go to move if speculatos ever need a bailout after reckless gambling: "middle class folks would lose their pensions, too".
The same mind games also apply for the "too big to fail banks"
It used to be that banks with deposit insurance were restricted to boring and safe banking. Investment banks had more leeway what they legally could do, but no deposit insurance, and for that reason alone they had no "normal" customers. Nor were these banks interested in normal customers.
if they gambled away the money of rich investors, or gave imprudent loans, no one could declare them "too big to fail". They never got big enough for that anyway. And rich people do not like it if managment gambles with their money WHILE they cannot hope for a bailout. Safer practices restrict how much profit they can make, so if they could have a bailout they would be all for gambling short term.
Glass Steagal (deposit insurance only for boring bank activities, and those activities had to be kept separated, if a bank had an "investment" department that was a separate legal entity, in case they went under it had no impact on the other part of their normal banking biz.)
That kept the U.S. banking system safe for almost 50 years. I am sure here and there a small, exclusive, private bank went under ... Oh well. (Those managers also could not hope for lenient treatment by the law, rich people are usually pissed if they lose a lot of money and use their good political contacts to get them prosecuted. So that kept management cautious as well.)
Voters did not even know the names IF an investment bank went under. They did not have a lot of volume compared to the whole banking sector.
Regular people or normal companies having savings or money on accounts, or loans could not be taken hostage, if the investments of rich people and crazy management had failed.
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The hostage situation also applies to glorifying the stock exchange, or fear mongering about inflation.
The voters must be kept from demanding a return to the New Deal policies (also in the areas of finance, living well with somewhat higher inflation, interest rates) that were better for most of the population - and not so good for the rich. (they did very well, but it is never enough).
Losing purchasing power for fortunes sitting on accounts or invested into bonds is an indirect "tax" for rich people - and a redistrubtion of wealth if those circumstances benefit the lower 80 % income brackets.
They not not lose because they have less money on the accounts to begin with. For a regular person having 1,500 USD in Social security is some money they can count on.
If they happen to reach the age of 90 or 95 - they still get it. From age 65 on you need a lot of savings to make sure you have money later when you cannot work.
Could be that you reach age 70 or age 95, no one knows.
1500 for 12 months and for 30 years equals 540,000 in numbers only. Haven not even included the adjustement necessary, because purchasing powre of 1,500 means the number must be higher 30 years later. Living in public housing (better than what is the norm in the U.S.) and with mass tranportation, and no extra medical costs (or very little), you get around. A couple can save up some. If they have some savings aside and real estate to sell or can live in a multignerational home, they are even in a better financial situation.
Inflation adjusted social security (paid for by by the current workforce that has low unemployment, plus taxes on the rich and highly profitable biz) gives regular working age and older people (and their heirs) a much better deal.
Especially if they live in their paid off home, can sell that, get healthcare free at the point of delivery.
and there are generous provisions up to solid middle class for the care of the elderly
In combination with generous care provisions, and well funded public non-profit care homes for the elderly, and benefits for people that are in need of more care to get it at home. That compensates relatives, or pays for mobile care. They do that in countries like Germany, Austria, ....
There goes the carte blance for Wallstreet and making low inflation so important that they tolerate and create ! high unemployment for a longer time (that is what Paul Volcker did). Good employment created the tax revenue and SS contributions that pay for SS, and care homes.
For a multi millionaire one paid off home and SS or care homes are not relevant, they want the interests on the bonds and savings (interest that are at least as high as low inflation). Plus gambling being promoted and glorified.
They need a climate where regular people THINK inflation is (always) bad, interest rates for savings that are below inflation rate are bad (not if consumers and small biz can actually get the corresponding cheap loans for investments), and Wallstreet is fabulous.
During a crisis the Fed routinely lowers interest rates. Only - smaller biz, biz in trouble, regular people do not get that cheap money. That cheap money does create inflation - in real estate and on the stock exchange.
Low interest loans (especially since the pandemic started, and during the GFC) but only for big biz and the already affluent (and they CAN make a killing in real estate, some of that money lands in an unregulated hyped up stock exchange with companies buying back their own stocks. So the low
interest rates on savings do not disturb them as much.
But inflation MUST be kept down.
If everyone is on their own with saving up or "investing" for their old age, that of course would need to have some ongoing inflation compensation in form of interest. Resp. the demand to have LOW inflation.
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7:00 WHAT was that about ?- yes Warren also flip-flopped, not only Harris. Warren's "Medicare for All" is also the public option now - only with more complicated packaging (true to form). She would need to have one epic battle to get the public option and 3 years later (when she might have lost Congress and / or Senate if the Dems manage to win the Senate in 2020) she would need to have another epic battle.
That is a possibility: the next cyclic downturn is overdue, Trump had already bullied the Fed into not raising interest rates (in this allegedly wonderful economy - if you need to have low interest rates the economy is NOT doing great). Trump (or better his advisors) wants to delay the outbreak of that until after the 2020 election.
Normally a president with a (seemingly) good economy and low unemployment wins the reelection, but because this is Trump the Democrats might have a shot. When Sanders or Warren come in and the investment plan is not fast tracked (expect massive shenanigans by the Corporate Dems, never mind the Republicans) it might hit that candidate.
The ideal scenario would be of course that the cyclic downturn would already manifest in early 2020 - when Trump is still in office, then he would lose the election for sure (he wouldn't take responsibility for that economy, and I wonder if his fans would come up with excuses) - but the admin will of course do everything to prevent that.
But it is also possible that the economy hangs on, Trump loses nontheless, and then the downturn manifests under a progressive president. Needless to say that will be blamed on "socialism" - so it is by no means clear the midterms 2022 will have a blue wave.
Nothing screams "I am no really serious about MfA" like such a plan for the rollout . (And I thought the same about her plan 2 weeks befor that to finance Mfa. It was either massive signalling to the Party "leadership", the donors and the superdelegates - or the interns dreamed both "plans" up !).
Warren does not have the guts - or insight - to educate the public why the public option has the potential to undermine the whole reform. (And Sanders is the one who has all the right ingredients in place and stands firmly, but he does a poor job explaining it so far WHY "giving choice" is not just a little tweak).
The lobbyists have been busy - public option is plan B now. The arguments that are spouted now (the Americans do not like to be told what to do - yeah right, that applies to war does it) is cirulated and the Sanders campaign BETTER ramp up before that idea is firmly planted into the minds of voters. Like I said: superficially it sounds plausible and the level of "discussion" is abyssmal and most Americans do not know a single payer system from experience - so it is easy to deceive them.
and all candidates but Sanders have backpaddeled and while they take a piggy ride on the name (which stands for 2 specific bills that are genuine single payer proposals) - they all have a public option. But that does not mean the profiteers and their politicians would give in easily to that either. It will be a fight and they will of course sneak in everything to make sure the competitor - the public agency - has a massive disadvantage.
Ways to arrange for that: If the private insurers can have deductibles co-pays and different prices for different risks they WILL keep only the lucrative = healthy and young. They might make some deceptive offers to the slightly less desireable clients (with high deductibles) - and will kick out all that have higher risks or costs already to the public pool.
90 % of the costs are caused by 10 % of the insured - so they just have to do the purges right, and the U.S. insurance companies excel in that. Sorting out relatively few (unfortunate souls) among the younger age groups can make a huge difference cost-wise.
Divide and conquer.
So that means especially among the young most can get offers that seem to be reasonably priced (not when you factor in the costs that were externalized). Those packages might worsen of course - but the insurers will be able to hang on and influence public opinion for a few years - and they only need a few years to sabotage the public offer.
Plus the public option undermines solidarity among the insured = less political leverage.
The chance to streamline the admin is wasted (it will be Medicare AND countless different packages so the billing stays complicated and the doctors will have to ask for pre-approval like they do now. Out of network remains at thing.
BUT: there are MORE privately insured which means in areas where there are large companies (think GM etc.)
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Tell them that Trump is dumb but good on the stage a bully and will run circles around Biden during the debate. That you wish Biden well and hope he will enjoy quietly his retirement. That he cannot cope with a lot of STRESS and also not when he is challenged by reporters or in townhalls - and his campaign KNOWS it: they have a very LIGHT schedule for him. Currently they arrange for "easy" debates, a sit down town hall format.
he did a campaign event the last day: 7 SEVEN minutes speech. Does that mean that he cannot stand longer, or does he has no message, or are they afraid that he is going to slip up AGAIN. he is busy doing the hello and the good bye and not much in between, no names, facts, or other dangerous stuff.
Now not everyone does 40 minute events (standing with not much looking at notes and w/o stumbling) like Sanders. but if you count in the time needed to GET there, security etc. what is the point of only speaking 7 minutes. That is the intro and warm up act not the main act.
O.K. the did campaign in South Carolina. It seems to have taken a toll though he already slipped up 3 times after S.C. and Tuesday. And these were not minor gaffes.
I think it is a general decline, in stamina and being quick witted. He may have to compensate for his stutter, that takes up some processing power. Then he can't do a vigorous ! campaign schedule and that tires him out. So more mistakes.
After Super Tuesday he should have been pumped, but it was LATE in the evening. and again he slipped up big time - and likely he had exerted himself when he had been busy in South Carolina..
Conflating Chris wallace with Chuck Todd. The stumble with the attempted quote of the Declaration of Independence (that was embarrassing). Mixing up sister and wife standing behind him on the stage and he needed a few seconds (with the head shakes) to process his failure.
, and somewhat in Iowa and New Hampshire (not as hard as most other candidates) but not in many of the Super Tuesday states. He won them (Alabama for instance) on name recognition and friendly media coverage, and the last minute scramble with many clearing the path for him (I can see that Klobuchar could have gotten some support in the South for instance). But
Now the DNC and CORPORATE media to arrange for a townhall meeting - not a DEBATE between Sanders and Biden IN WHICH both candidates stand the whole evenig. Biden would have half the time to talk.
Why is it that they set it up to be an EASIER environment for Biden ?
Why is his campaign giving him a list with talking points on tricky issues (social security or the Iraq war vote) so that he does not talk to reporters (that was in January ! If he is challenged and does not have the agility to respond - and that could be a filibuster or a skillful deflection - he gets RUDE.
They obviously wanted to avoid that.
That's O.K.
and HE LIKES CAMPAIGNING. That he will run circles around Biden. That there are lots of things that Biden canot hit Trump with - but Sanders can mop the floor. The biden relatives have gotten multi million contracts while Biden was VP (and before).
Now, it likely will not be possible to prove that Biden knew about it - they might not even be able to prosecute Biden's relatives on it (not only his son Hunter).
But it looks AS BAD as what Trump does for HIS family.
Sanders can attack Trump on it. Trump will attack Biden on NAFTA, China, and TPP support (he got the footage and receipts). Rustbelt states anyone.
Sanders will attack Trump on the window dressing of NAFTA 2.0 (he even included some parts of TPP in it).
The private insurers got their chance under Obama / Biden. The prerequisite for ACA was: they stay fully in business, not even a public option (a weak second best
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Sam: You forget the part where the investigations (of Comey) regarding Hillary Clinton SHOULD HAVE CONTINUED. (Which would have set up Bernie Sanders as Democratic candidate, the Dems could hardly have avoided it. Which would mean the country NOW would have a level headed, intelligent president capable and willing to process nuance, who actually cares about the people. ...... The private server was (on the surface) not the most evil thing Clinton did.
But then - WHAT did she INTEND to HIDE ? There was a lot of (clandestine, private) email traffic going on before Libya was attacked (on behest of HRC, and the governments of UK, France) and then - when the country after the regime change spiralled out of control - the EMAIL TRAFFIC regarding Libya DROPPED CONSIDERABLY.
Scenario 1 - and that's the positive assumption: Madame Secretary of State had lost interest in her pet project and did not have the guts to fight for the resources to make Libya a success story.
That would have been extremely difficult, anyway. They had NO IDEA what was really going on the country (tribalism for instance) nor did they care.
Anyway: She did not even try, she and her aides certainly did not engage their brain cells or explore possibilities or make plans, once Libya started to go awry.
At the minimum she joins the ranks of incompetent, war mongering, foolish, short shighted, corrupt, vile and opportunistic politicians. She is not exceptional in that respect - but that certainly does not qualify her to run the U.S. presidency
Scenario 2: Libya was a prize - maybe Clinton et al were negotiating the distribution of the spoils in advance. Plus of course they had to organize the collusion with Saudi Arabia who no doubt helped with recruitment of extremists to fight for Nato in Libya. There were a lot of things that could have leaked if it was processed through the official channels, and it begs the question if Obama knew all about relevant "agreements".
Also there was likely some collusion with the UK government (then with Prime Minister David Cameron). The UK started sending over known sympathizers of terrorism to wreck havoc in Libya once the regime change has started.
Some of the "Manchester Boys" celebrated during the regime change had to hand in their passports when they resided in the UK. The government allowed them to stay in the UK (they lived often long there after having fled for instance from Libya).
But the authorities considered them enough of a security risk to not let them travel freely. Well that changed in 2011 (and that was maybe the reason those folks were tolerated by the UKgovernment in the first place. - see John Pilger's article of 2017 - What did the Prime Minister know ? - Theresa May now PM was then Minister of interior (so responsible for MI5 who monitored the potential jihadists).
One of them was the suicide bomber of Manchester, Salman Abdi (the concert massacre last year). A jihadi / ISIS fan family (living in the UK for a long time) if there ever was one.
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Political internships (or in that case with school) are for the INSIDERS. The children of the well connected. If she was wealthy her parents likely were donors. - Now if your experience would be the worst thing Biden has ever done / has been neglectful about ....
Delaware is a tax haven, Biden always served Wallstreet, banks, Big Finance. That INCLUDES being pro miltary contractors being pro a huge budget, being pro war, pro big healthcare, and pro big biz in general (see "free" trade deals).
Biden shored up the Democratic votes for the Iraq war and likely was in place at the side of Obama * to make sure that the interest of the Big Donors were served well, just in case that Obama would try to make good on some promises from the campaign.
Likely Biden also made sure that single payer (the system that the other countries have - most of them and for decades and a half the spending per person) was not even considered (in the 2009 Senate hearing the industry was invited, but no groups of nurses/doctors pro single payer or other experts).
Wallstreet loves the stocks of Big Pharma and the insurance companies.
* citigroup mail October ! 2008 with lists of names - proposals for cabinet positions (grouped regarding "diversity" races ethnicities religions, gay, military service, even disabled, - the author went to extra mile and included a list of females although that was not asked for. I think the only group that was missing was "determined to serve the constituency".
And yes, the cabinet appointments could all be found in that list.
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ACA is very weak, it protects the prfits of the industry and gives a few crumbs to the citizens - at a high cost - premiums for consumers AND extracting a lot of funding out of government. The self-serving donation chasing Democrats are very complacent about it - NoW, they take a risky gamble whether they will take back BOTH houses, to reign in Trump. The Senate is needed to prevent more righttwing Supreme Court appointments!
Democrats could have gotten together in summer, press conference, maybe Sanders in the front row, Medicare for All, vote for us in the midterms, the bill is ready. We. Mean. Business.
The Senate would be a safe bet, they could have a landslide
MfA polls 51 % favorable with Republicans and plus 80 or 90 % with Democrats. Even the Blue Dogs would look good to the voters in conservative states.
That would make sure they can take back Congress AND Senate. Then they CAN prevent more SCOTUS appointments and make Trump a lame duck.
BUT: their Big Donors (the same that also finance the Republicans) would not like it. And keeping MONEY of big donors is more important than anything else.
It is more important than winning elections (the donors will provide for good shills that lose their seat).
Screw the citizens !
The Democrats are already throwing the citizens under the bus. They have no problem with 40,000 people dying due to lack of healthcare - that was under Obama and ACA (Havard study). The number will be higher now.
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When Obama the Democratic party started out with the "healthcare reform, single payer was not even discussed, public option (a weak improvement) was killed right in the beginning - by Blue Dogs !
ACA is good for the industry and throws some bones to the citizens - at excessive costs. Protecting the industry profits over the well being of citizens.*
They had a Senate hearing in 2009 where the industry was invited, single payer advocats / experts or the nurses organisation NOT - single payer was not even discussed. completely ignoring the success story of other countries !
Then they tried to placate the Republicans, who weakened the bill even more (price controls) but did not vote for it later anyway.
The Dems finally passed it despite a lot of GOP tantrums in spring 2010 when they had for 60 days a filibuster proof majority. THEN they could have passed every good law regarding healthcare provided they had it ready (also gun reform btw).
Obama talked a good game in 2008 - and sold out to the special interests already during the campaign. it showed in his cabinets picks, how he protected Big Finance, (but no help for the citizens) and in the way he and the Corporate Democrats started out with the healthcare "reform".
All European countries introduced or expanded their single payer / universal healthcare systems AFTER the end of WW2, even before the full recovery set in. That's more than 70 years and hundreds of millions of people (you can add Canada, Australia, Japan, ...) - nothing the Democrats thought they should consider in that Senate hearing - they had the majority THEN (with Sanders).
These nations in the late 1940s realized the obvious:
Healthcare is a terrible fit for the "free" market !
The patients are by far the weakest participants in the system and WILL be exploited by profiteers if they find a possibility (and there are plenty). There can never be competition that would protect the interests of the patients / insured.
The titans of an industry usually do not bother each other - instead they have a cozy policy of non-aggressions (every one has their turf), they extract their profits from the weakest part the customers, and in the case of healthcare the influental players that represent hospitals and Big Pharma also lobby politicians to give them as much government funding as possible.
An oligopoly is annoying for the consumers when it comes to the internet/phone providers and cable TV. But because the service is so costly AND so important it has tragic results when there is the inevitable oligopoly for for-profit healthcare.
Therefore all other (now) wealthy nations did not play the game at all.
The government or the regulators cannot control the insurerers / providers in a system that has a lot of LARGE for profit actors.
Not, when the service is so complex that it can only be assessed by experts (even doctors defer to other specialists if THEY get sick). Often it is a life and death issue, or at least about quality of future life and being able to work and take care of yourself. Also the service cannot be put off for some time. Plus it is costly even when delivered cost-efficiently - it can exceed the price of a house.
There are too many incentives for the profiteers and they have COUNTLESS possibilities to add costs to transactions.The profiteers would always be ahead 2 steps of even well intentioned regulators and 4 steps ahead of the patients.
It would be excessively burdensome for lawmakers / regulatory agencies to monitor every transaction between the system and patients to make sure they are not ripped off, never mind privacy.
Therefore: wise governments allowed very little "private for profit" in their systems (or as little as possible) when they set up Healthcare For Everyone. *
They did not engage in a game where they or the citizens can only lose.
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setting up good, cost-efficient Healthcare For Everyone: These countries often have doctors with their own practice which are like small ! businesses. Most of them (70 - 80 %) have a contract and work at the fees of the non-profit public insurance agency *.
Hospitals always have a contract with the public agency, that means negotiated fees, and no denial of services for financial / insurance reasons allowed.
Truly "private" hospitals"would not have enough patients and could not compete with the hospitals that are part of normal healthcare system. These hospitals are good AND the patients do not get a bill (= free at the point of delivery).
Maybe there are some in London or Switzerland (the tax haven also for drug lords and dictators) or in London for the Russian oligarchs, and the oil princes - but they are very rare.
It is very unusual that persons would not have insurance (mandatory for persons who have a job, very affordable wage deductions. That amount must be matched by company. The size of company, number of hours does not matter.
Risks, gender, age do not matter either, ONLY the income decides the costs. And no LATER costs (or almost no, certainly nothing significant). There is a cap for the wage deductions, so even people with a high wage pay less than they would in the U.S.
They and profitable businesses contribute indirectly more. The wage related insurance contributionas are not enough of course. So there is additional government funding.
Of course provisions to get insurance for jobless, retired, persons, people in a professional training or at university, stay at home parents etc. Either they have insurence for free, or it is the automatic low deduction from the pension, or can "self"-insure at very reasonable rates, maximal 75 USD per month. That would be the stay at home wife but never had a child. Students above the age of 26. If they would work in a job with at least 500 USD per month they would have claim to their own insurance (with full coverage) - but if they don't do it for whatever reason, they still can have coverage.
Within the EU and association nations the agencies of the countries deal with each other. A French tourist will be treated like a German with insurance when in a German hospital. Provided he or she has whatever is the normal "insurance" in France they will be fully covered.
That means it is really rare that the providers have to deal with an uninsured person.
And once certain treatments, medications got the green light by the public agency it is the decision of the doctors what "tools" they will use for the patients. Doctors have the authority to order a helicopter transport in an emergency for instance.
That is available on principle, it is upon them to use that tool to improve the chances for the patients - w/o abusing it. Which is not likely, they do not profit from those costly services. If anything they might order it too often because they err on the side of caution.
That is why ambulance staff were not allowed to order airlift anymore - they misjudged the serverity or could not weigh to options correctly. Get the patients into the nearest hospital by ambulance (they can be moved from there by car or airlift to the next hospital after having been stabilized if that is necessary) versus flying them to a specialized hospital right away.
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George Bernard Shaw said “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” - Charlie Kirk missed that one. And things were so wonderful - for all - in the 1960s, weren't they ?
Weird - why would some people not be content and point out the need for ongoing and determined struggle - and yes that means conflict because the people that profit from the unfair status quo will not give one inch voluntarily.
In the 1960s they had the well established traditions to lock out minorities from the good jobs, good education, they could not buy real estate or start buisinesses in certain areas (the good areas). ALSO in the Northern states. There were laws that one could not sell property to a non-white person. Such zoning was not only tolerated by the law, the laws spelled that out. In the NORTH.
They were denied education opportunities and the best jobs (then manufacturing) were meant for white persons.
The backlash against a strictly peaceful movement showed how much some people hated the idea to have fair conditions for all. (and they now went nuts over taking a knee. That by the way is a gesture of humility. I do not know where that comes from, maybe to show that the black people were treated like serfs that had to kneel before nobility).
Some did not mind to murder children in a church (a terrorist bomb attack) and others kidnapped and killed law abiding civil rights activists (with the help of local law enforcement, mind you). Prince Edward county in Virginia would rather close down ALL public schools than to follow (with years of delay anyway !) the ruling of the Supreme court to integrate public schools. Of course the lower income white families got subsidies (from the tax payer) to send their kids to the private schools. That continued to lock out children of color. It took 5 years to do away with the unconstitutional discrimination and sneaky favoring of white private schools.
So how come black people and those to the left embraced struggle / conflict (which can mean non-violent conflict) in the 1960s ?
The entitlement and willfull ignorance of some white right wingers !!
University of Chicago had real estate and discriminated against black couples (not officially mind you, they were just told there were no free apartments for rent. then came a white couple to test that and they were shown the free apartments).
The city of Chicago had FREE class rooms or capacities. But those were for WHITE children. so the minority children were put into overcrowded metal containers. Hot in summer, cold in winter, not enough resources, too large classes, no running water, who knows where the toilets were.
The children got the sublimal message that they counted less. There parents picked up that message too.
It is something else if every child has to make do with such conditions (after a natural disaster for instance), but at some point these kids realized (if only at a subconscious level) that the authorities made much better arrangements for other kids. Not all kids had classes and crowded, uncomfortable conditions like they had.
Sanders engaged against these practices in 1963.
So WHY would anyone have wanted profound change, and not been content - I ask myself.
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Single payer offers choices for the DOCTORS regarding the treatments they can use for the patients - and the patients never have to pay when they get that ("free at the point of delivery"). Only the affordable contribution in advance - in most European countries it as a percentage of the wage . Matched by the company. Risk does not matter at all. That is not enough funding so like in the U.S. a lot of the budgets for the public non-profit insuarnce ageny comes form the government. Their job is to serve the patients and make healthcare happen. Not to make a profit.
_ If a treatment is available at all (will be paid for on principle) - everyone can have it if the doctor thinks it is medically necessary. For instance if the doctor arrives at the scene after an accident and orders an airlift to get you quicker in a far away specialized hospital.
The doctors with their own practice (80 % of them) and all the hospitals have a contract with the public non-profit insurance agency, There is a pool of a certain drugs or treatments that will be paid for - if the providers of care decide to use that tool. That could be expensive chemotherapie, and organ transplant, or mammography or x-ray, ...
Everthing that is usual in modern medicine - and the database is constantly adjusted to include new treatments , devices or drugs - to some degree they might purge old ones. That is agreed upo between the representation of the hospitals, doctors and the non-profit insurance company.
The doctor will make the choice what is warranted. Resp. send you to the specialists.
Hospitals do have their own x-ray and MR machines and staff they could not do their work w/o having these services in house. (and dentists have x-ray suited for the jaw / mouth area as well).
Practical doctors send you elsewhere "for the pictures" to avoid conflicts of interest. They do not make money of it when they prescribe such an examination. A doctor who invests in the machines and the staff would have an incentive to find many such examinations necessary. (the service is expensive to run, the more he or she would use the machines the easier they can earn back the investment. and then a profit. A family docor would never have enough case load to begin with).
That conflict of interest is avoided when they send you to another doctor. Usually they have the practices they work with - but if you would prefer another one (it is nearby where you work and more convenient the referal will accomodate your wishes).
The specialized doctors who runs such practices get all their patients by referal.
So the reason to have those examinations will be but medical necessity (leaning on the side of caution of course). The incentive to overprescribe them is removed.
There are only a certain number of doctors (GP and specialists) and hospitals that will get a contract with the non-profit public agency in an area (per 1000 or 10,000 inhabitants). So those who have a contract will have enough patients, while allowing some choice for the patients and the family doctors when they make referals.
If you do not like your dentist you go to another one. If you break your arm, you show up in the hospital of your choice. If you cut off a limb when using a circular saw or motor saw - the choice will be made for you. Some hospitals specialize in sewing fingers, even limbs back on - and there is a good chance there will be an airlift. Their is a window of time when that can be done before the tissue deteriorates.
Practices that offer x-ray and MR etc. are run like clockworks. They have a large case load. Up to date machines, pay the staff well. A relative works in the profession as assistant - operating the machines and taking the "images". Which requires a 2 or 3 year education after highschool. Free education of course. They have to pass an exam to be accepted into the school and they should have good grades. Lots of stuff to learn in the school about anatomy, etc.).
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John Kerry testified in a hearing that Arab nations (read mostly KSA) had offered significant amounts of money "if the U.S. would intervene in Syria like they did on other occassions in the Middle East." Then he chuckled and said: "Actually they would pay for the full operation." (Obama did not take that offer)
Translation: the U.S. military functioning as mercenaries for the Saudis to achieve their aggressive foreign policy goals.
Because the Nouvaux insanely rich in Saudi Arabia do not have the guts, capability, willingness to sacrifice - that would be needed to go openly to war with Syria (as opposed to finance a proxy war, recruit radicalized, economically desperate young men from poor Arab countries, plus the limited number of religious fanatics from KSA, former Soviet Republics and even from Western democracies.
But the radicals that will die for the jihad out of conviction are not enough to make successvul regime changes. There are enough young men (or fired soldies and officers who served in the Saddam Hussein era - who are somewhat fundamentalistic and joined one of the groups of moderate terrorists, al Qaeda or ISIS. These men are for sure pissed off at the West and they are on the quest for some success story in their life and for their culture.
They were more motiavted by the money not by the jihad.
This hearing where Kerry was interviewed (it was televised on C-Span) may have been before the Russian airforce and army showed up. In which case they would have had to confront "only" the dedicated people's armies of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.
Hint: Hezbollah defeated israel in 2006, and the IDF is certainly much more capable than the Saudi army.
Hint: with the Russian military present, even the U.S. military warned Obama in 2013 to get involved.
But the Israelis would have needed to sell the deaths to the voters - for the mission to invade and annex Lebanaon (which they would like to do of course, water, fossil fuel). They could not pull it off in 1980 either - Lawrence Wilkerson: We had to haul out their asses at the cost of losing most marines on one day since WW2.
(After that Reagan said some belligerent things - and had the good sense to pull the U.S. military out)
On the other hand the Saudi absolute monarchs keep the country under the thumb by giving a good part of the poulation at least SOME money to live on. Plus they use extreme religion to make people fall in line *.
Dying and suffering because of war is not part of the deal, not for most Saudis.
* Some of those princes are into wild orgies abroad - makes you wonder if they really believe the religous b.s. - the rules do not apply to them, to they think Allah cares about their privileges when judging them ?
- others are fundamentalists (like Osama Bin Laden who came from a rich family. He was a combatant out of conviction - and a CIA asset as long as he was useful as fierce jihadist fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The U.S. thought they could control such people.
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