Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "John Fetterman Launches Senate Run With Fantastic Ad" video.

@A_Derpy_NINJA I disagree. BOTH parties (all Republicans and most Democrats) screw the voters with trade deals Corporate media helps them to distract, gloss over and deceive the voters **. - NAFTA negotiations started under Bush / Reagan, in the 1980s. Bush1 signed it during his (official) presidency with the head of states of Mexico and Canada, but could not get it passed. Heated public debates. Ross Perot (who was very much against NAFTA) got over 18 % of the popular vote in 1992, the election Bush lost and Bill Clinton won. Leave it to a Democrat (fully embracing the big donors) to dupe and sideline the unions. Under Bill Clinton NAFTA got passed (bipartisan support in the Congress and Senate of the "amended" version). Al Gore debated Ross Perot on Larry King. The argument was that they had "improved" NAFTA. That is why the Clintons did some dog whistling and Law and Order rhetoric, and pushed for the Crime and Welfare Bill (then Senator Joe Biden was instrumental for shoring up bipartisan support) - Bill Clinton fished for the vote of Reagan Democrats for his reelction. It is not like they delivered for the black voters and unions that had helped to get Bill elected. I guess the outsourcing become obvious. fast. They had to cater to other voters. Under Bill Clinton China got better tariffs on a yearly base. The tariffs (to import goods into the U.S.) are important. The shareholders only wanted to turn their back on the domestic workers they still needed the American consumers. Mexcio is a major and China is a huge country - now 1.3 billion people. If Western companies produced there, WHY did they not sell the stuff there ? Because the whole idea was to pay the workers peanuts, so of course they could not afford the stuff they helped to produce. So the companies needed to be able to send the output of sweatshop production to America, Europe etc. preferably with low and certainly with PLANABLE tariffs. that is the reason trade wars do not lead to new investment as long as they last. The companies that are still producing in the U.S. will produce at maximum capacity and they can get better prices (they just have to position them just under the price of foreign made goods PLUS the now higher tariffs). But they will not set up new factories, the trade war could be over in 3 weeks, 4 months or 2 years. It is not likely it will last 5 - 10 years and that might be the time needed to earn back their investment and then plenty. Any influental Western government (voted in by angry workers losing their jobs) that would maybe, just maybe side * with workers, could have ended the favorable tariffs that made it possible to undercut Made in the USA (or Made In Canada, Made In France, ....) products. Trade deals enshrine those lower tariffs. Then the companies can plan the major investments in foreign countries. Especially if the lower tariffs were only granted on a yearly base it was not SAFE for the wannabe outsourcers. They could not be sure that they would have the necessary (or at least more profit generating) low tariffs for the next 5 - 10 years.That is not a good situation to plan investments for many millions of dollars in a foreign country. With another language, different culture, etc. so a hassle anyway. Electronic communication was not a thing then, it got better in the early 2000s but no video conferences. With a trade deal the U.S government would also use its diplomatic weight to protect the interests of U.S. / Western companies IN China (with a completely different justice system). The investors do not want their plants being seized, do they ? Congress granted the Chinese tariffs on a yearly base, elections are every 2 years and a few always did some grandstanding and made the tariffs a political football (while the big donors, incl. finance, that bribe both parties, really wanted them). Bill Clinton ended that hassle and signed an Executive Order that took that authority away from The House and gave it to the State Department. Which also shows that the oppositon of most lawmakers was more about scoring points and not based on principle - once Bill Clinton had taken their ball away, they shut up about the issue. I guess Congress could have moved against the EO. But no one could get a relative advantage over a competitor anymore, so they all dropped the issue and moved on. The State Department worked for big biz, so that was better and more reliabable BUT the oligarchs had not forgotten the heated and lengthy NAFTA debate in the early 1990s, and especially before the 1992 election. They wanted a permanent arrangement and this time w/o any public discussion. The Clinton admin prepared the China agreement. Cheney / Bush inherited that project and finished it. Bush2 signed it in Jan or Feb. 2002, only a few months after 9/11. NO big debate this time. Obama was fiercly opposed by Republicans, but they found high bipartisanship on TPP, and also got the votes to fasttrack it. To quote Dr. Richard Wolff: "If they can find high bipartisan agreement, hold on to your wallet and run for the hills". Only a few - like Senator Sanders, then member of Congress - stuck to their position. See the C-Span footage of him delivering speeches on the floor (also the "trade deal" with Panama !), almost no one sitting at the benches. Mainstream media did not cover those issues, even IF a few citizens saw the footage live on C-Span (I think no archive either unless the networks chose to show it), the citizens had no way of sharing that. Around 2000 one could have informed an email list, but there was no way of letting people SEE the footage. Youtube wasn't a thing yet, or regular citizens hosting and embedding video recordings on a private website. No one could have imagined that it would be possible to upload the footage and to share the C-span clips decades later. That these recordings would be in an archive that was easily accessible. The real positions of politicians were hidden in plain sight (also Joe Biden grandstanding with law and order rhetoric, advocating for cutting Social Security, the use of the death penality being expanded, etc.). Corporate media did not embarrass him with that footage, and the Republicans did not use that in attack ads either (showing him as the better Republican). He felt quite safe to show who he was as a politician on the floor while pandering to Republican lawmakers to come on board (that is why he has a reputation for working across the aisle). * A wise U.S. government would have urged China to start paying their workers more. Not so good for the Chinese elites that also made a killing. That was the recipe that built the American middle class (if the companies earned the money and were highly productive - because of automation and technology advancement for the most part - they could not avoid paying good and rising wages. That income is of course spent and backs up a growing service sector industry, so more jobs. China had even better conditions. They could emulate the U.S. or Europe of the 1950s or 1960s but with much more advanced technology (that had been already devoloped, and the patents expired), so the good wages for Chinese workers could be financed much more easily. Well, the U.S. oligarchs and the Chinese ruling class had other ideas. Especially during the Great Finanical Crisis the Chinese goverment switched to developing the huge domestic market by finally pushing for better Chinese wages (Workers in Vietnam, India, Thailand, Bangladesh etc are still screwed). The Western oligarchs had to arrange themselves with the unions pushing for good and increasing wages (going up in lockstep with productivity) in the Golden Era, the economic Miracle after WW2 - but in China the dictatorship did not allow unions. They still do not allow them. The Chinese leadership is smart enough to know when they have to give their population more than crumbs, I'll grant them that. They have the larger picture in mind, are looking ahead for 10 - 20 years. Not the 2 - 4 next years, at most.
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@joeburly True, Dems passed ACA in spring 2010 with NO Republican votes, they could as well have passed single payer (Medicare For All) and have a few other good bills ready on the shelf. (They had a window of a filibuster proof majority for 60 days). The Republlicans would not have known what had hit them. Hello, midterms Nov. 2010 The Repubs repeated that later with immigration reform. Made Obama agree and act on their demands (border security investments, harsh deportation). He held his part of the deal (the part of the D base that paid attention criticized him especially for the mass deportations). he did not get any R votes anyway ! Despite the former agreement. Some Republicans voted against a bill they had voted for earlier (under Bush). So Dems did not get the necessary votes either, he protected the Dreamers with an Executive Order. Democrats had squandered the trust and mandate of the voters in 2009 and 2010. So they were at the mercy of Republicans. A good healthcare reform would be simple (in the sense that admin around healthcare - and insurance coverage IS admin - should be kept as simple as possible. Which is possible because humans have the same and universal needs regarding medicine. Healthcare is not at all a fit for "free market" (for that all actors would need to have about the same power in the interactions and information. Plus the superpower of consumers: Not to buy at all - which restores a lot of their power towards the big players). Medicine itself is highly standardized, that translates to streamlined, cost-efficient admin - if politicians WANT to serve the voters. Dems allowed the Republicans to "participate" (after they had decided to make Obama an one term president and were not shy to have that known). The Dems allowed Repubs to water it down (and they started out with a big donor friendly plan anyway, not with single payer) Some Democrats in the Senate even killed the Public Option (campaign promise). Republicans were given plenty of time to poison public discourse. Not that ACA was good (Repubs had done their best to make sure to undermine all provisions that might have helped with price control). But it was not that bad. Death panels anyone ? it was drawn out, hard to communicate. D politicians ran from ACA and from being associated with Obama. Blue wave in 2006 and then the 2008 result. The base was not too stupid to turn out, they realized that it was not Hope and Change, at least not for them. After Nov. 2010 it did not matter if Dems wanted to give the Repubs plenty of opportunity to stonewall - now they could because feckless (big donor serving) Democrats lost big time in the midterms 2010. I almost assume they wanted to get rid of having Senate and Congress majorities, or only to have slim majorities. The likes of Manchin or then Lieberman will side with Republicans whenever necessary to undermine a D "initiative" to protect big donor interests. Dems just lost more than they expected in 2010. (Good shills that lose their seats and have held office for some time can rely on getting a Golden parachute, so losing elections is not that bad for the influental people in the party. All the more reason for the rookies to be obedient and suck up to the party "leadership" to get that status and protection, too. The important people in the party often get safely blue districts. Or run for Senate in blue states with a lot of big donors. First Lady Hillary Clinton had a "reservation" for a Senate seat that became vacant in NY. She just had to wait until the impeachment trial of Bill was over. She already moved out of the White House and to NYC while Bill ended his second term in DC. Then the place holder dropped out of the race and she took over. No challenger in the primary (or course not) and she won against the Republican in the general as was to be expected. That position as Senator was intended to set her up for running for president later (they then assumed after 2 terms of Al Gore). Obama is not stupid and Biden has been around since the 1980s and knows the sausage making, they were not too naive / gullible in 2009 / 2010. They needed the Republicans to blame someone for a lame reform when the voters had given them so much power (all 3 branches of government). Obama and Biden were maybe surprised that Repubs got carried away and took it farther than one could expect, they were behaving more rabidly that they are supposed to in the Good Cop / Bad Cop routine.
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@bobblinging6051 that is a talking point of the oligarchs. The manufacturing that CAN be outsourced already left. And manufacturing is typically above minimum wage anyway. Service sector cannot leave and ALL have the same conditions. In Seattle they made restaurant chains raise the wage earlier than smaller biz. And as always the hike did not come right away, they did 2 (or 3) hikes. As for Amazon and online competition for retail - they should be made to pay more taxes not propping them up compared to retail.
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@bobblinging6051 With the minimum wage it is like the movie Groundhog Day. It is a hot debate Every. Single. Time. Over. Many. Decades. Since it is an important issue for the economy - there have been many studies. No, the minimum wage does NOT increase unemployment. The effect on employement is either zero (no change before and after) or slightly positive (unemployment going down) or slightly negative. So for the most part zero to good - and if negative it is negligible. So WHY would it crush "small town economies" when the lower income people keep their jobs and have MORE MONEY TO SPEND or to save up for their own apartment or home ?
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@bobblinging6051 Even if everyone that abuses alcohol would abuse weed alternatively - society would STILL be better off. - A German proverb goes like this: "Those who have worries, also have liquor". Addiction and substance abuse are called diseases of despair. That is one way to get the number of problematic cases down, economic populism to make the communities thrive again.
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@bobblinging6051 The American middle class traditionally has their (intergenerational) wealth in their homes. If the economy recovers the homes in the lower income, struggling areas hold their value, it is viable to invest into improvements, and people can dare to invest (taking out a loan for instance, could be for insulation too - thus lowering their cost of living later. That could pay for the loan, especially if they get longterm ! low or zero interest loans).
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@bobblinging6051 Someone has to do the construction work. Insulation needs qualified workers (if you insulate well, you must know what you are doing and be willing to work carefully, paying attention to the details, using quality materials. You pick a fight with a fundamental law of physics here and that means you cannot wing it. Insulation done wrong can damage a home (condensed water). So that would mean (union ?) offered qualifications. The work can be done by local smaller companies. Even a group of a few people can come together and found a company, it does not need the huge investements. But they would need a certification, liability insurance, someone doing random inspections, a general marketing campaign informing the homeowners not only to look at the number of the offer. Everyone can appear to be cheap, but quality work does not allow cutting corners and with insulation (and plumbing) buying cheap can be very expensive. Some people are good with doing the work, but they are not so good with the accounting and marketing job or with sales and closing a deal (price negotiations). Some mentoring programs could make all the difference. The unions would be on board and Senator Fetterman would be on board. Pricks like Manchin or right-to-work-for-less Tim Kaine or before Joe Lieberman would concern troll about the costs of such programs. It would be money wisely spent - an INVESTMENT. Qualifiying people with a new skill (that is needed all over the country, what protects from the cold also helps agains the heat and A/C costs), that cannot be outsourced, that helps with energy saving and energy independence, and the fading out with fossil fuels ? Yes please. Moreover the practical skills used there (and the skills of running a company) translate to other products and services as well. The federal government could create conditions where it is easy for homeoweners to invest and easy for practically oriented folks to start their biz. .
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@bobblinging6051 Many outsourced manufacturing jobs were in more rural or less densely populated areas. That makes sense, people can stay where housing is not that expensive, or where they inherit a home from parents. Government invested into infrastructure in the past, so that is there, too. If the economy is mainly service sector and a few booming high tech industries in certain areas - the citizens have to flock into the large cities. They lose intergenerational wealth if the homes where they come from drop in price. If space is limited the rent goes up where the jobs are, and it eats up a lot of the budgets of families. That cannot be solved at the state level. The federal government pushed for the "trade deals" that made outsourcing safe and lucrative for big biz. But Senators (or members of The House) do not only represent their state, they also vote for or against a lot of bills that impact ALL of America. (most votes actually impact all of the nations). Tax cuts of Trump - they of course apply also to "investing abroad" Guess what that also means ! Government propping up outsourcing.
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@bobblinging6051 It would be good to have one more VOCAL no-nonsense New Deal style Senator that does not undermine the presdent when he wants to pass an infrastructure bill (in 2013 Sen Manchin from WV and 2 other "Democrats" sided with Republicans to help them hinder Democrats getting an infrastructure investment bill passed. Another factor to contribute to the midterms 2014. Those 3 pricks cost some of their collegues in Nov. 2014 and they shaped the end of the Obama admin. He was at the mercy of the Republicans. Manchin and Sinema (AZ) pulled the same stunt now, also to make sure that Democrats did not even have a little bit of leverage (with threatening or actually ending the filibuster rule) over obstructionist Republicans in the Senate and over Mitch the Mortician of Bills: Congress sent over a lot of bills to the Senate, underTrump, and McConnoll did not allow a VOTE on any of them. I think Mitch also had resigned himselfto having a D president in 2021. He knew the economy was a mess and with no bold economic FDR style stimulus the R base would have started blaming Republicans and Trump. Better have Biden, stonewall him from day one, and simultanuously attack Democrats on the sluggish recovery. Worked just fine for them under Obama.
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@bobblinging6051 Mitch is evil, but he is smart and quite strategic - McConnoll (and the big donors) wanted Trump gone, and therefore he also obstructed regarding an earlier relief bill in fall 2020. That very likely would have won Trump the election. - It was way too close for Biden (running mainly on "Trump bad" and not on an FDR / New Deal inspired platform) - closer than is obvious at first sight - Biden needed to win the Electoral College: Biden won 4 states (the cliffhangers) with a total of 125,000 votes. He pulled off all 4 and got 7 million more votes in the popular vote, so that makes for decent numbers. He needed at least two of the 4 crucuial states in any combination: PA, WI, AZ and GA. (since he failed to win Florida, Ohio is not even an option anymore !! and the dream of Texas remained that. To be sure TX seems to be now be a more of an option than OH. Trump won Tx with approx. 5.5 % margin, and Ohio with over 8 %. PA is the largest of the 4 cliffhanger states and Biden had the "best" result (of the 4) in PA. Measly 1.2 or 1.3 %. That is what a lame "Trump bad" campaign gets you in an historic election during a pandemic in a state that used to be solidly blue. Obama had very good results in 2008 there (in all the Rustbelt states, and he also won Indiana ! Idaho ! Iowa !! and Illinois ) with Hope and Change (even if he did not even try to deliver on that). Plus Obama won Ohio, Florida and North Carolina. (not AZ or GA - but NC is impressive, too). Won also VA, which has been blue for a while in presidential elections. Trump had a comparable situation to Biden in 2020, it just swung a little in the R direction in 2016. (in 2020 it swung a little in the D direction). Trump won MI, WI and PA with a total of only 70,000 votes (his margin was even narrower then than that of Biden in 2020). Trump needed only one of the 3 states (no matter which one) to win the EC, Hillary Clinton would have needed all three (that would have been 273 electors for her. Not a great result, but she would have won). Not even talking about MI and NV in 2020, there Biden won at least with over 2 % and that means they could be called for him earlier. Never mind 7 million votes more of the popular vote * * I assume Biden did VERY well with the vote of military abroad and expats. And had higher than usual turnout. And he got 60 % of the vote in NY, and 65 in CA. That provides a few million votes. that is not surprising, imagine being at a base in Japan, South Korea, Germany, even Italy (they were good in summer 2020, they handled the huge crisis) and see how those nations handle things in general OR during the pandemic. The soldiers in the Middle East did not like it that he threw the Kurds under the bus (they pay attention to that). To please Erdogan. Sanders won the expats with a very solid margin in the 2016 D primaries. Unusually good result. Expats that are civilians also see that the policies that are called radical in the U.S. are the norm since the 1960s and 1970s in the countries they live in. Biden could have lost the 2020 election in the Electoral College despite 7 million votes more in the popular vote. Let's say 110,000 votes swinging the other way in PA , WI, and AZ or GA - and Trump would have a second term. Or way fewer votes not going for Biden in a scenario of Trump narrowly winning AZ, GA, WI. Biden only winning PA would not have been enough, that would have put Biden at 268 or 269 electors. A nightmare scenario, where the states PICK the president. In an election in which over 160 million votes were cast. It was too close for comfort. If Biden had chosen to run on economic populism he would have pulled off solid wins in all the states he needed to win. Even better in NV and MI - and fairly good in PA and WI (so in the 3 - 5 % range, or at least with 2 % margin if that is not too much to ask in states that used to be the "blue wall" ! !)
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@bobblinging6051 I made factual, coherent, COMPREHENSIVE and RELEVANT - if lenghty - posts. And taillored them, you can read the first pargraph and get a taste of the argument. You throw out nonsense arguments, but it is easier to make up stuff and spout talking points - than to debunk them in a systematic and comprehensive manner. it is a variation of: The lie has travelled the world, while the truth is still tying the shoe strings.
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@bobblinging6051 Now, would you mind telling us WHAT you specifically disagree with in my posts ? Any studies on the minimum wage you would like to cite maybe ? Disagreements about my views how politics works in the U.S. ? or my view on the outcome of the 2020 election ? - and WHY that is relevant regarding a different (New Deal style) politician like Fetterman ?
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@bobblinging6051 no the minimum wage also pushes up the wages slightly above it, it trickles up. If you have any study or evidence to the contrary please share it with us.
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@bobblinging6051 Back to Fetterman: he has the track record and would be a Senator that would not hesistate to call a spade a spade. That is important because the Dems certainly need PA in the future to win the presidency. A Senator from that state that communicates well with the PA base (and especially calls out his own party), would have a national megaphone because of the importance of Pennsylvania). if Biden (or before him Obama) does not use the bully pulpit like FDR did (the big donors do not like it) - it would be good to have a few vocal Senators that look out for The People. Some of the progressive Senators or members of Congress play nice with the Democratic establishment, or they decide that getting and keeping the committee assignments is also important (they have a point). But it calls for specialization among progressives, if more progressives are in the Senate, some of them can drag Republicans AND their own party. Another kind of good cop / bad cop game. Biden in his Senate days sided with the Republicans when the voters had given the Democrats too much power and they ran out of excuses why they could not get anything good done. There were mildly positive signs in the first days of the Biden admin - but FDR would have dragged Manchin and Sinema. Sanders is too nice for my liking, but that's the way he is, I'll give the old man a pass. FDR also twisted arms behind closed doors. Of Democrats not Republicans. Like now and in 2009 /2010 Democrats had the presidency and a majority in Senate and The House in 1933 and later. Like now and in 2009 some "Democrats" sided with the rich, big biz, and the oligarchs even in a major crisis and had the mindset that the peasants would have to suck it up. FDR was not having it. Biden (and Obama) are nowhere close to FDR. So others are needed to drag them and to get the public involved. FDR did not only do it out of the goodness of his heart. There were demonstrations, strikes everywhere. The far right and fascists (incl. American fans of Nazi Germany, and the KKK) were strong. FDR kept them in check with economic populism. He saw the signs on the wall. And to his credit reacted to the pressure (of united unions and left parties) and stepped up. There is a short video on youtube with footage of the large Nazi assembly in Madison Square Gardens in NYC, in Feb. 1939. (WW2 started in Europe in September 1939). Watch ! Chilling.
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Nominee Sanders would have won PA decisively - and not with measly 1.2 % or WI with only 0.63 %, these chould be solidly blue states. Especially after 4 years of Trump and he did not deliver on his promises. (Not even before the pandemic). Sanders would have dragged Trump, Biden cannot go there, he stands for the elites that pushed for the trade deals. Sanders would have run on economic populism. Comparable to Hope and Change. TPP ? Not coming. Infrastructure bill. Healthcare. Clean water (Flint in Michigan is not the only city with problems). And people would have believed him.
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@bobblinging6051 The prohibtion of alcohol worked great, no ? Weed is not addictive. IF a person habitually abuses marijuana the effects on family life (aggression for instance) are not as bad as with alcohol (that often makes people more aggressive) and it does not attack the liver. Alcohol addiction and being stuck with weed are both bad, I am not sure if it is not easier to drop weed. Many people can use aclohol in a normal manner and enjoy it, and many also can use weed in the same manner. The prohibition only propped up organized crime. However weed is not part of our culture around holidays, and people meeting socially. There are still more (societal) restrictions on weed than on alcohol.
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@dukeblair7792 FDR couldn't have passed his groundbreaking reforms either - only that he twisted arms of DEMOCRATS behind closed doors, and told lawmakers he would campaign against them come next election if they did not vote for the bills. FDR was the last president to be sworn in in March (the lame duck amendment had been passed already and would kick in from 1937 on), and the first thing he did was sort out the banking system, they closed them down for 5 days or so, declaring a banking holiday. (a national bank run was looming). the U.S. had just shy of 90 million people then (not voters, total population). On Sunday evening an estimated 60 millions of them listened to the first fireside chat of FDR as president, a radio address where he explained the reform Congress / Senate had passed and he had signed it, how deposit insurance would keep their money safe in the bank. Banks reopened on Monday. In the following weeks citizens brought the money back to the banks, trust was restored. that reform kept the banking system safe for the next 50 years. if Democrats would have stood in the way then or later, he could have called them out - as long as he had public suport. (Which is one of the reasons black people got a much worse deal. FDR needed the Dixiecrats from the South - and public sentiment was not favorable of giving black people the same relief as white people got. For instance help for farmers. or that farm workers and domestic workers did not get SS - that hit mainly people of color. he made those compromises, either wilingly or because he saw no chance to push further w/o widespread public support. More of them worked in the South and did not have the vote there. So black families could not build pressure on the ballot box. Demonstrations ? They would have been lynched. There were union organized demonstrations and strikes all over the place in 1932 and 1933. So whether FDR would have encouraged voters or not - citizens would have started harrassing D politicians he singled out for not supporting a popular relief measure. Elections are every 2 years. O.K. some Senators may have just started a 6 year term, but public pressure campaigns would have worked on them, too. In the middle of the Great Depression they started giving the unemployed money, passed a minimum wage for the first time, started to give the elderly some money (no one had paid into SS at that time). Raised the taxes for the rich and still profitable biz substantially. Created employment programs. Sent jobless / income less artists into the province. They got paid to tour the small towns that usually had not seen such performances. Nothing of that was a no-brainer. A lot was counter intuitive to the people also politicians that thought that a nation's economy functions like a houshold. During the hard times you tighten the belt and reduce spending. FDR had an audience. His fireside chats were infrequent, for major announcements. He had them to sideline the press owned by rich people and also radio (partially rightwing). He controlled the narrative from day one. The president had a good start right out of the gate, pressured Democrats to get along with the first relief measure. (The outgoing admin had already prepared the bank reform, and FDR and his team had time from Nov. till beginning of March to think about it). I am not sure if all Democrat were aleady on board. He certainly had to "convince" some later. Bank reform helped, so the voters paid attention and he got even more leverage. Obama had a mandate like FDR and could have emulated the strategy. He CHOSE not to. FDR chose to surround himself with people that actually wanted to find the best solution, were not necessarily working for big biz or rich people and had a NOVEL approach. Like Keynes. After all conventional wisdom had not prevented the crisis and bubble and was not able to solve it between late 1929, and February 1933 (3 years and a few months). Time to think outside the box - and that thinking was genuinely geared towards helping people. That makes him unique, that he had the willingness and the guts. he was from a rich an influental family, that may get boring after some generations. Maybe FDR was this larger than life figure that like his new role as benefactor of the masses and was willing and able to play hardball. One reason why Omama was such a disappointment: He got a lot of money from Wallstreet / the banks on the campaign trail. he knew that Hope and Change sold - he never had the intention to be the next FDR. Media (owners and management) obviously also knew that, he was greenlighted for positive coverage (unlike Anderew Yang, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, ....) citibank sent a mail to the campaign in OCTOBER 2008. proposed names to chose appointments from. The cabinet and agency appointments were "vetted" by citibank (citbank also got a lot of help under Obama). It showed: AG Eric Holder carefully avoided prosecuting the banksters, not even when brave whistleblowers provided evidence (the name of Alayne Fleischman was leaked to the press, likely to discourage others that had evidence that would have forced Holder to prosecute the big donors. They were not supposed to embarras the DOJ like that). Holder "settled". The banks were showerd with money after the first bailouts (4.5 TRILLION in QE) - so they could easily afford the "record settlements" that Holder "achieved". Look up the email it is in the database of Wikileaks. Obama surrounded himself with neoliberals. For instance the godfather of neoliberalism: Larry Summers (he was around again in the transition team of Biden, the campaign floated his name). That ghoul has earned himself a reputation with the base (of the informed D voters), so a lot of protests.
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@alexscott6095 No, the outsourcing to China started big time around 2000. I guess when the D primaries were over. Bill Clinton had prepared an agreement. Until then Congress and later the State Department (Clinton signed an executive order to take the power from Congress) gave China the better tariffs on a yearly base. But the oligarchs had not forgotten the heated NAFTA history and how Ross Perot had won 18 % of the popular vote in 1992. Yearly under a big donor friendly government was not good enough and did not give them enough planning security to make the big investments abroad. What if they invested big time in China and angry voters voted in more sympathic legislators and president. The terms in the U.S. are shorter than in other nations. So in 4 years a LOT can change if the sheeple would get their act together. The oligarchs then did not know HOW much the voters would swallow. (Considering what they got away with in 2009 and 2020 they would not have needed to worry). A trade agreement enshrines their advantages, and creates new realities. That is much harder to undo for a future government. In 2000 the companies realized it would either be Gore or Bush - and they were good. The Chinese agreement would be signed soon. And in the meantime they would have the yearly provisions as usual. Bush inherited the project and signed it one year into his first term, in Jan or Feb. 2002 a few months after 9/11. No big discussion then. The wave of outsourcing had already started in 2000 (because big biz got planning security) but of course that accelatered from early 2002 on. One MORE reason the Cheney / Bush admin so gladly looked the other way with the real estate bubble, the subprime mortgages sold off to banks in other countries (so U.S. banks could give out some more reckless loans, the banks had a clean slate if they sold them off. Plus the bets on top of that on the default riks of these loans (Credit default Swaps, this is how the already high risks MULTIPLIED). Cheney / Bush had not intention to pass an infrastructure bill, they wanted money for wars. (Fracking had just started big, so there were jobs and oil prices dropped). As long as the real estate party lasted at least construction supported the job situation. And people that were given higher loans than they needed for the (overpriced) home bought cars for the rest, went on vacations, bought furniture, ..... The new home owners were good (or so they thought) the real estate prices were rising, the sooner they bought the better. Prices would only go up. People FELT wealthy, assumed they would have their job to pay the mortgage and gave the government no grief. Low income home buyers got loans that had lower interest rates or payments in the first years. Even if the borrower was not duped. They could always sell the home later. In the meantime they saved on rent. had the comfort, the pride (firs time home owner often) and if they sold a few years latere some money would be left (steadily rising real estate prices). Then they could get something smaller or they did not sell but would refinance, or their income would be better in a few years. The banks had handbooks on how to deal with borrowers. The low income and the affluent (those were lured into taking out more money than they needed and used it for consumer spending).
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@Thunderchief-rt3gt NAFTA negotiations started under Bush /Reagan. Bush 1 signed it with the other heads of states in his official term - but couldnot get it passed. The companies needed the legal security of the agreement that increased the outsourcing massively. With technology there may be also an aspect of patent law / copyright.
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@Thunderchief-rt3gt There was no "trade" going on with China regarding consumer goods. They did not buy consumer goods and they also did not export them TO the U.S. (that came much later). Maybe that meant they got crops from the U.S. after Nixon normalized relationships. Or companies could deliver industrial plants (think energy providers, production of glass, etc.). As far as I know garments and shoes maybe were imported from Latin America in the 1970s already - certainly not from China. Western companies had joint ventures with China for setting up plants for technical components. And China did not plan to supply to the West, they tried to produce IN the country for their own demand. Think production of brake discs for instance. but that was in the 1980s not in the 1970s. Maybe they sold those parts in Asia - but not in the West. if anything that allowed companies to export whole plants TO China. Nixon stepped down in late summer 1974.
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Obama won Ohio and Florida twice - and then Trump won Ohio twice and each time with 8 % margin and improved in FL from 1.2 to 3 %. Trump also improved in 2020 with every demographic * except for white males (especially those w/o a degree). The base is THAT fed up with the party that claims to represent them. * for instance with black women. Now, that does not mean he did great in 2020 with them. But even the fact that he did not lose support tells you a lot about the "opposition". Biden ran on "Trump bad". Obama ran on Hope and Change. Had an impressive win in 2008. Biden at least won this time in MI and also NV. Those states were soothing the anxiety in 2020 during the cliff hanger. As the end result were around 2.78 and ? 2.3 % (the polls had shown higher margins, "shy" Trump supporters seem to be a thing in polling) - the count of the mail ballots showed earlier his lead, MI and NV were earlier projected to be carried by Biden because he won them at least with over 2 %. Biden should have won MI, NV and also PA and WI with solid 3 - 5 %, no nailbiter, the networks project him to be the winner on Nov. 4th the day afte the election (incl. Fox), no time for the Republicans to start spinning a narrative. If the lead is decisive enough they can do the statistics even though the pollworkers are still counting the mail ballots. GA and AZ were close and that it lasted longer there did not matter, they would have been the icing on the cake a few days after Biden was called president elect. Well that would have been the scenario under president Sanders. The Republicans would never have had time to show HOW CRAZY, or OPPORTUNISTIC and unprincipled they are.
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@belehtoma8386 you should check out the races Sanders run in the 1970 !
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