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I never thought I'd be saying this (Flying Hellfish knows this is true) but currently, Bernie Sanders who is an independent, is the frontrunner to be the Dem nominee in 2020. Not something I imagined would happen with someone who self identifies as a Democratic Socialist, but it's where we're at today.

I still think that the DNC is going to fight tooth and nail to steal this one from Bernie. I have a few theories on how this is going to be done. Obviously all of this is given that Bernie doesn't have a majority of the delegates (1996 delegates, something around that) at the time of the convention:

1. The Moderates Band Together - Not sure who would be the to lead this coalition. But this is pretty much the line of thinking that Pete, Klobuchar, Bloomberg, and Biden all work together in someway to win the nomination. If they all pooled their polling numbers together, they'd be a true formidable foe to Bernie. They could even keep running at the moment and try to pick up as many delegates as they can, using their delegates on one another.

2. The Re-Rise of Biden - Biden had a strong second place finish in Nevada, exactly what his campaign needed. If he has a real strong finish in South Carolina, like his campaign has been relying HEAVILY on, then he could be back in the race. He'd still need some of the other moderates to drop out to REALLY have a shot, but even without this he could show himself to be the only one who could go against Bernie. Horrible candidate in my eyes, but possible.

3. Mr. Money Bags - Bloomberg is able to pull off the unthinkable. Even after his horrible debate performance, the voters disregard this and they just look at all of the ads that he's dumped into their states and they pick him. This is what the Bloomberg camp is hoping and praying for. They need a BIG WIN on super Tuesday to use as their mandate to lead. Even a strong second place finish in every single Super T state will mean that he can push the other moderate voters toward himself.

Anyone agree, disagree, etc? I'd love to heard it.

There are parallels here with the UK. I would concur that the DNC will do everything they can to stop Sanders, as the Labour party in the UK did everything they could to stop Corbyn becoming leader. I would say the rise of a Sanders-like politician to electoral victory fairly soon is inevitable - but whether or not this will be in the US is a different question.

The rise of globalisation and the legacy of inequality from the Reagan/Thatcher years is at the root of all this. There is a huge and growing underclass of disenfranchised, alienated voters, who over the last few decades have watched the wealth of their nations grow, whilst they themselves have not shared in the benefits.

This has led to a pervasive disenchantment with mainstream politics. "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." Politics is cyclic, and for the moment centrism is dead. Centrists are those who in the eyes of the disenchanted 'got us where we are today'. The moment is ripe for outsider politicians who rail against the state to sweep into power. You might expect at this point that a socialist-orientated politician would surge to victory on a platform of reducing inequality and reining in the excesses of tax-evading billionaires. This has not happened, for a number of reasons, including the long shadow cast by the fall of communism. The main reason however is that our societies are plutocratic, with a thin veneer of democracy laid over the top: the rich control the media, and it is straightforward for them to demonise socialist-leaning politicians as communists, anti-semites, terrorist-sympathisers, etc etc ad nauseam.

So this brings us to the victories of right-wing populists, Trump of course, but replicated in a lot of places, Johnson now in the UK, Modi, Duterte, Bolsonaro...

The centre has been flatly rejected; the alternatives - in these countries at least - are hard-left or hard-right. The right is in power. But they can't go on forever. Trump can't go on forever, Modi with his outright Hindu nationalism can't go on forever. We will reach a tipping point when the electorate realise that these new populists don't represent their interests. At that time, whether it happens first in the US or elsewhere, we will see a socialist win an election... and I believe the effect will then spread.

In answer to the original question then - I believe that Bernie or someone like him will win soon, and the effect will spread across nations. In the US a lot obviously hinges on the opposition of the DNC. If he can get past them, then he is probably the only one who can defeat Trump. A lot of people in a lot of countries are watching on, hoping that the US can take the lead here.

I love this talking point!  If only elections and voters worked like this.  You would think that after all the years and after 2016 the MSM would finally understand that the "lanes" theory doesn't work.  Everyone kept saying the moderate gop candidates should drop out to coalesce around 1 candidate to beat trump.  What happened was when those morons dropped out Trump scooped up a big enough part of them to crush even more! Voters are not ideologically locked into one lane, look at Bidens polls, consistently the second choice of Biden supporters is Bernie.  Lanes aren't real except for in the talking head class!


Joe biden has run for the nomination for presidential candidate 3 times now. In those 3 attempts he has NEVER won a single state...  I love how the moderates and msm are claiming that Biden losing by almost 30 points is a strong finish LOL (please Joe keep finishing that strong!).  Imagine for a second Bernie after winning IA and NH losing by 30 points to anyone the msm would declare his campaign over!  Now imagine Bernie finished 4th and 5th in IA and NH and then finishing 2nd by 30 points, they would be laughing on TV at him, but of course it was a strong finish for Joe!

I also love how they keep moving the goal posts.  "Don't worry when IA votes Bernie will be done", "Pete did so well in IA that Bernie is in trouble in NH", "wait till NV when a multi-racial state votes", "wait till SC when black voters weigh in", wait till super tuesday when Bloomberg will swoop in with billions to save us moderates", "wait till the convention so we can super delegate Bernies ass.

Please please moderates keep waiting while Bernie racks up state after state and continues to raise millions upon millions of dollars more than the non billionaire candidates!  Thank you establishment for making this so much easier!


Bloomberg has zero percent chance of hitting the convention with a plurality let alone a majority.  His only chance (and its pretty much gone now) is a brokered convention.  Imagine spending billions of dollars when your best shot is a brokered convention that if stolen will guarantee you can't win the general!  Bloomberg has a limit on what his money will buy (a ceiling, you know like the one the msm claimed Bernie has a 20% ceiling LOLOLOL), ask Tom Steyer who spent 10's of millions in NV only to finish with nothing, absolutely nothing.  Honestly Bloombergs attack ads on Trump help Bernie, they remind voters how much they hate trump and they remind voters that he is trying to buy the election and that his money is a problem in politics just like the front runner Bernie has been saying for 40 years!  Bloomberg is GIVING Bernie's message half a billion dollars of confirmation!!!

Thank you moderates and establishment morons, your predictable, consistent hypocrisy is fueling the exact thing you are terrified of!  Bernies train is fueled on establishment tears so I for one hope they don't stop crying anytime soon!

Now lets hear all the party unity and vote blue no matter who the establishment has been screaming about since 2016 (don't hold your breath though it would be hazardous to your health)!

TLDR;  It's too late, barring some crazy shit happening Bernie will be the democratic nominee for President in 2020!  

While I probably should've said that all of what I said has a low chance of happening, I think you've now pointed that out!

But in any case, I do truly think that the DNC isn't going to allow this to happen. They're going to try something, anything, to ensure that Bernie isn't the nominee. I'm not sure how they're going to do it, or whats going to happen, but at the end of the day they DONT want Bernie as their nominee. I'm getting very Trump like feels in regards to Bernie, which may mean that everything I'm saying is wrong and that he will perform a hostile takeover of the party (as Trump did)

We'll see :))))))

The problem is anything they try will only further Bernies support...  They are trying, have you seen the real time meltdown of the talking heads on the msm. It is truly magically inspiring to watch their heads explode in real time on national television!!!  Politics 101, NEVER attack the voters you will need to vote for you...  By calling Bernie supports, fools or communists won't sit well with the folks you as a politician would need to steal from Bernie if you want to beat Bernie.  The stupidity of the establishment is beyond epic!


Neither do they, that is why they are in full on panic mode!  ;D


Some on the far left might argue the establishments hate for Bernie is so strong they would rather Trump than Bernie. 

It doesn't matter after Bernie fucking destroyed NV.  His coalition is set in stone now, he is going to have a majority by Milwaukee so the DNC can bend the knee or go away.  This is the start of the end of the Neolibs who have destroyed the working class for 40+ years!

This is not the position of "the establishment", this is the position of the majority of Americans. There aren't many things more establishment than the communist policies Bernie is pushing. You like to cry that this designation is unfair, but the man honeymooned in the USSR, and literally just praised the communist revolution in Cuba AGAIN. I assure you that just lost him AT LEAST Florida, which has a massive Cuban refugee population. Characterizing him as a communist is quite fair.

Bernie had his chance in 2016, and being the jellyfish he is, he bent over and submitted to Killery and took the absolute corrupt ass fucking he got down on his knees without so much as a peep of an objection. People are going to remember that come November. Also most Americans realize the policies he is advocating for are insane, unattainable, and will bankrupt the nation. Short of Trump starting a nuclear war, nothing is going to stop him from getting another 4 years. You keep dreaming.

Yeah, I've seen all of those articles. Talking about how the establishment dems / dnc are in a tough predicament becuase they know they cant go after Bernie in the media -- that will just embolden his supporters -- and they don't know what exactly to do right now. As you said, they're in full panic mode.

All it is now is Bernie against the majority threshold. That's what hes fighting against.

He praised a literacy program.  Are you anti-literacy?  Florida might just be.  

Unfortunately, the DNC convention does work this way.  This is why they won't drop out.  If they dropped out now, Bernie would win by even more but if they all stay in, they can keep him under 50% and pool delegates against him at the convention.  No single candidate has a chance to beat him but together they all can beat him and would preserve a chance for any of them to be the nominee on the 2nd ballot.  

Biden soaks up delegates in the south, Amy wins Minnesota,  Warren soaks up delegates on the coasts, Pete soaks up delegates in the midwest and Bloomberg buys up delegates everywhere else.  Bernie isn't going to finish less than 2nd anywhere so everyone who is competing in a single state will stay in through the convention. O

You misquoted me here, think you meant to quote Flying Hellfish. But I'll respond anyway.

That's the goal right now, try to keep Bernie under 50 percent -- and that's not going to be easy in the least. If Bernie continues to win states, the momentum is going to go his way and the voters are going to begin to see him as more and more electable as this process goes on.

As I've said time and time again, it is now Bernie vs 50 percent -- but if he continues to win every single state he'll probably beat that. If the rest of them keep the delegate count close, this'll get interesting come time for the convention in Milwaukee.

Sorry about the misquote.  Don't underestimate the power of the ever-increasing desperation from the media and all other angles of establishment to smear Bernie. First he was a sexist, then he was antiunion, then he was russian, now he's a communist.  I expect something to come out smearing him as a racist against black people by the end of the week ahead of South Carolina.  They will try and try until something sticks. 

Not an issue, just wanted to make sure you noticed it. Really didn't do anything to me!

But I've been keeping the news rolling and I've seen that Bloomberg is running tons of attack ads on Bernie right now, saying that he is a supporter of the NRA and that he beleives in too relaxed of gun control laws -- which is true, pretty sure for a good amount of time he had a pretty high rating from the NRA. Makes sense that he did though, as he comes from a state with high gun ownership -- Vermont -- and that was an issue that his voters supported him in doing.

Bloomberg is currently saying that Bernie is a buddy of the NRA, while he's their enemy. Bloomberg is a large supporter of gun control groups by the way.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/02/24/mike-bloomberg-attacks-sanders-gun-control/4858400002/

That is the talking point you are going with? Hitler pulled Germany out of a massive depression, I guess he wasn't all bad.

He said a lot more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhpVAkBDg5o

Its still pretty early but I definitely like the way things are shaping up!

Sanders	Buttigieg	Biden	Warren	Klobuchar
45	25	15	8	7

Finally the polls are reflecting the reality of the situation, safe to say they are a lagging indicator now.

Poll	Date	Sanders	Biden	Bloomberg	Warren	Buttigieg	Klobuchar	Steyer	Gabbard	Spread
RCP Average (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html)	2/13-2/22	29.3	17.2	15.3	13.2	9.8	6.3	2.2	1.4	Sanders +12.1

If he lasts that long, Bloomberg will pick up massive delegates in NY, maybe a few more places on the eastern seaboard, but that's it. I'm thinking its Bernie all the way at this point.

A while ago in one of the threads out here I had posted that it’ll be a race between Bernie vs Bloomberg, but now it looks like Biden is also yet in the race which makes these elections very interesting to watch. @squatz all your theories are legit and yea even I’m waiting for all of them to side either with Biden or Bloomberg, otherwise Sanders will easily win it and at this moment he’s looking unstoppable to me. Lastly whichever candidate wins this party will yet be divided and therefore is doomed to fail in the upcoming elections, and do mark my words that Trump will win with a very big margin because of their infighting and inability to stick together.

At no point in that video did he praise violence other than the overthrow of an actual dictator.  He praised food programs, land programs, youth programs, mass transit and consistently showed disdain for authoritarian and totalitarian rule. 

Its about nuance.  Every country has bad things.  The US has tortured and killed  millions.   

Of course a totalitarian, authoritative strong-arm regime can show positives such as "making the trains run on time," "literacy programs," blah blah blah.

Duhhh.....

Really doesn't matter what he said in the world of politics, its what the people think he said and understand that he said. A large deal of people think that Bernie was praising the regime as a whole, which he wasn't.

I still don't think it makes sense to praise the Cubans in anyway, because while they may have been educating the people -- it didn't change the fact that the regime was a horrid one and praising them at all is going to enrage a large deal of Americans -- especially Cuban democrats (especially in Florida)

Plus it's about time the dozen channels of foreign money into the Bernie campaign are brought out into the open. There is a solid 50-80 years of documented evidence of Russia and to a lesser extent, China, trying to influence elections here.

Lying, knuckle dragging lowbrow morons of the left, reciting 19th century buzz words and phrases of the Ol'dialetic, never learn. Now voting praising salivating over total BS...

Exactly what happened in the UK. Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership of the Labour party back in 2015 on a radical leftist platform (or what passes for radical these days - would have been mainstream a few decades back). He secured 60% of the vote of party members and affiliated supporters... but prior to this he only just got on the ballot in the first place, barely scraping past the minimum threshold of votes from Labour MPs, who were mostly centrist Blairites. Once elected leader, he faced a constant barrage of attacks from his own MPs, a series of carefully orchestrated resignations (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/29/labour-mps-vs-corbyn-war-party-members-tories-brexit) and even a leadership challenge (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/24/labour-leadership-jeremy-corbyn-wins-landslide-victory-party) that was absurd to the point of pantomime, with the challenger desperately trying to win votes by claiming to support all of Corbyn's own policies (in which case why challenge?). Finally, after losing the 2019 election - which was all about Brexit rather than domestic policy, Corbyn resigned.

Really don't want this to happen with Bernie, but the parallels are striking. There is this huge disconnect between the elected representatives and the voters who they supposedly represent. If Bernie gets past the party, and wins, and then goes up against Trump, will his own party support him, or will they prefer Trump to win because it would mean that next time around Bernie is out and they can pick one of their own instead of this impertinent upstart outsider? Genuine question, because that's what happened here in the UK.

The mainstream liberal people here in the US will prefer Trump to win.

The fact that international influences and a decades long infiltration of the universities props up Bernie right now does not mean he's acceptable.

He's not.

Do you mean DNC or the voters? DNC would "support" him in the general election, I mean they have no choice if he's the nominee. But the electorate are terrible lemmings, particularly in these multi-billion-dollar elections in the US. If Republicans or Russians or whoever can run a few successful anti-Bernie ads it could be enough for 5-10% of laziest Democrat voters to see it as an excuse to stay home and hand the win to Trump.

I doubt there is some major Democrat establishment conspiracy, I don't think there was one in 2016, there's just lots and lots of stupidity and incompetence and hurt pride and laziness.

I meant the DNC, and specifically the distinction between support and "support". Yes the electorate are lemmings, but I think that's a separate issue.

I'm going to shut up about the UK in a minute, because I don't want to derail a fascinating thread, but over on this side of the Atlantic we have seen over the last few decades that politicians have become more centrist. Of course centrism is relative, and the movement has largely been the left moving rightwards, because socialism was invalidated in the eyes of the electorate with the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the two main parties have become more alike, and on occasion indistinguishable. Now at the same time, inequality has been rising and a lot of voters feel disenfranchised and unrepresented. Many voters have abandoned the centre to support radical outsider candidates from both the far-left and the far-right. The result of this is that the representatives of both parties are more similar to one another than they are to their respective voters. It is against this backdrop that we saw a huge body of Labour MPs preferring to sabotage their own electoral prospects in order to bring down their outsider leader. They saw having a Conservative government for a few years as a small price to pay in exchange for rooting out the socialism in their own party.

This is what I worry about in the US. I know the systems are somewhat different, but beneath it all people are people and the same everywhere. Support and "support" can produce profoundly different outcomes.

I don't worry too much about one party or the other eating itself from inside. Granted the entrenched two-party system limits the ability for a third party to rise quickly so that may cause some chaos. I recently visited a country that I've lived in for a while but haven't been there for 10+ years... many party names were completely unfamiliar but the institutions (parliament, executive branch, judiciary) still work just fine and nobody seems to mind that they need to vote for "democratic libertarian peasants union" or some shit like that in order to have their voice heard, so the multiparty system is more resilient in that respect IMO. But even in a two-party system something will fill the vacuum, maybe some faction from one of the parties, or some independents could grow a spine or something.

I do worry about voter disenfranchisement and disillusionment. I know I call them lazy lemmings every chance I get but the whole system kinda depends on them getting off their asses and voting. Maybe some chaos is actually good for motivation, not sure.

"The Myth Of Incompetence: DNC Scandals Are A Feature, Not A Bug"

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-myth-of-incompetence-dnc-scandals-are-a-feature-not-a-bug-4f264352d4f7


There most certainly is a lot of stupidity, incompetence, hurt pride, and laziness in the DNC, but this is the perfect environment for the Democrat establishment to illicitly manipulate outcomes in the directions they desire, even if it is contrary to the wishes of their general voter base.

The 2016 election process showed pretty clearly there was a conspiracy to disenfranchise Bernie. Unfortunately he just bent over and spread his ass even wider rather than protesting it, and as a result, a lot of people who were voting Bernie are now voting Trump as a giant "FUCK YOU!" to the DNC.

That same problem of lazy lemmings as you call them happen to be a something that many countries have an issue with during very important or dare I say critical (general/local) elections. For example the UK had its Brexit referendum with a sizeable turnout of just over 72% from 46.5 million eligible voters. That vote returned the following result:

Remain: 16,141,241
Leave:  17,410,742

Considering the referendum was to decide whether the UK left the European Union or stayed as a member state - the turnout really should have been higher because of the importance attached but 1,269,501‬ more people voted to leave and that was what mattered and after years of political deadlock in Parliament, the breakthrough to end the uncertainty came when the present government won the general elections in December 2019 as they now have a huge majority so they will be able to pass through almost any bill and legislation and they did that with the UK exiting on 31st January 2020. The present government won the popular vote and most seats too (363 from 648). Their nearest rivals won just 203 seats.

The status quo for almost all rules of European project are still there but a deal has to be completed by 31st December 2020 otherwise there will be a break off between both with the UK going on to WTO terms with the EU and vice-versa. As for everything else from tax, trade, commerce, travel, security, finance etc everything will probably have to be negotiated individually. Having said that the UK government announced yesterday they would happily walk away from talks in June 2020 if they felt the EU was playing games and was not serious - therefore much remains to discuss beteeen both parties but the UK has left the European Union as a member state because the people voted for it. Who knows what would have happened if 82% or 92% of the population had turned out for the referendum instead of the 72% but it was still a good turnout.

Looking at the 2016 US Presidential elections when Trump won and Hillary lost, those statistics are very proof for many of a system that needs reforming. Hillary won the popular vote by having around 2.86 million votes more but it was Trump who won the electoral college. What impact could the lazy lemmings have made when it came to the states that Trump won which tipped the balance in his favour? Even though I am no fan of Hillary I would like to think it would have made a lot of difference.

That voter disenfranchisement and disillusionment is a real thing and a lot of people worry about it. Is Sanders really the man to get people jumping in their seats getting all excited at the prospect of seeing him in the Whitehouse or seeing Trump out of it? Not sure on that one.

Sanders is no Trump. And he is almost only one who can defeat Trump. I like that he is seeking some changes. The system needs to be reformed. That's why Sanders is widely supported.

His changes are way too radical. It's going to be a tough pill to swallow for me to vote for this guy. In order to be a loyal Democrat, I'm just going to have to tell myself that only watered down versions of his proposals have a chance to be passed by Congress, even if the Democrats somehow manage to control both the Senate and the House. However, I don't see how this guy is going to go on to win. Perhaps loyal moderate Democrats such as myself are willing to swallow the pill, but I think many just won't vote. I also can't see many moderate independents or Republican "Never Trumpers" voting for him.
My biggest problem with Bernie is if his proposals actually get passed into law, in the end, the Middle class is going to pay. I really can't see the top 1 % paying more taxes and that not translating into them cutting expenses by laying people off or passing off the loss in higher prices. Also, since the fat cats will be investing less in the stock market, my 401K plan isn't going to do so well, either.

If Bernie even gets the healthcare plan he is advocating for, a 100% tax rate won't cover it. Feel the Bern. Bern it all down.

Total gross annual income for Americans is ~18 trillion
Are you saying his healthcare plan would cost more than that?

We are going to end paygo.  You don't have to think about how everything will be paid for.  New spending doesn't need to be offset with new taxes when its covering existing consumption.

Depends on how you define "middle class" . Of course, more than the 1% are going to pay a lot more.  the typical "median" earner (the vast majority) is going to benefit.  I think it might end up costing more for people who earn over 250k.  They will be ok.  Your 401k will certainly suffer but you won't need it as much.  Greater good.

After increasing taxation to the highest level possible, simple changes in the delivery of services, such as eliminating some and restricting others, ensures that healthcare costs will stay within any arbitrary budget target.

Ravenously take money in, then be very, very stingy in metering it out.

Are you saying all taxes will go to healthcare? I said a tax rate of 100%, not the entire tax budget going to healthcare. Nice deceptive illogical retort.

Yes, and I am certain that the government will delegate administering this plan to private for profit companies who will make a boat load of money. Just like how the current Medicare system is run. I suppose they could have the government do the administration themselves, like the US "manages" the VA. That is a complete, inefficient nightmare. (Although they have improved, slightly, in recent years.) Given Bernie's aversion to big corporations and billionaires, I fear we would get the later solution. I guess that would mean job security for me, since we would still need a team of people to extract payment from the government. However, I work for a company that bills ambulance for municipalities. Many municipalities might just give up and just increase the sales and property taxes to cover those services.

I'm genuinely curious how much you think his plan would cost.

Ask Bernie Sanders. He doesn't seem to know himself when pressed on the issue of the cost for all of his plans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h7-mIhcZJY

I've seen estimates from 1.75-3.5 trillion.

Only number you got is '100% tax rates!!!', huh?

It appears Medicare and Medicaid already cost about 1.1 trillion. (I'm including the amount states pay for their various Medicaid programs, in addition to federal fund.) The 1.75 figure seems a bit on the low side, especially since Bernie seems to want to eliminate copays and deductiblse. Plus it would cover everybody, not just the disabled, elderly and poor. 3.5 trillion seems more like it. That is assuming that the program doesn't become infiltrated with corrupt politicians and officials dipping into the big till. However, I doubt that Bernie would get the bill to fit all of his wishes. I'm thinking he'll probably get some version of Medicare for all who want it, if the Republicans don't control the House and/or the Senate. That's a big if.

Agree with pretty much all of this except I don't think the risk of corruption driving up the costs is that significant.  Americans already spend more than pretty much any other country in the world per capita in a very broken healthcare industry.  It's expected to be well over 3.6 trillion in 2020 (well over $10k per person) .  The only way I see medicare for all becoming a reality is if they pass a very light version of it and can prove it's more cost effective.

Whether we are paying more taxes or private insurance companies doesn't really matter imo, as long as it's less than we're paying now.

Everyone else has already figured out a way to do it:

https://i.gyazo.com/2c7950187671b185ae5477508148c98a.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita#/media/File:OECD_health_expenditure_per_capita_by_country.svg

Bernie said "$30 trillion just for medicare for all" in that video you didn't bother watching. Which is it? I suppose you know more about his platform than he does?

$30-$40 trillion over 10 years, not just for 1 year.

From the 60 Minutes interview (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-democratic-presidential-front-runner-anderson-cooper-60-minutes/):


The reason why Obama's ACA didn't really work is because he let the Public Option go out of a "compromise." However, the Public Option was the one part that really would have kept a degree of competitiveness in the healthcare industry, forcing health insurers to stop charging ridiculous rates knowing they would lose customers to those enrolling in the Public Option.

Having said that, $30 to $40 trillion over 10 years still seems unreasonably high. Healthcare shouldn't cost $10k a year. The whole system is still a disgusting racket.

I've done a bunch of research on different proposals and third party audits of them. 
He was referring to the cost over 10 years.
$30 trillion over 10 years = $3 trillion a year.

That's LESS than current healthcare spending (https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NationalHealthAccountsHistorical). So your argument is he is going to expand coverage while cutting costs? Cool story bro. Bernouts can't even do simple math.

you just need to spend more to save lives than to kill. cut the military budget. tax the rich. it will work perfectly.

every civilized country does it. it is very weird to have people against it. well, not sure if we should call them "people". I don't know what they are.


this anti-human extremism should be considered a kind of illness. really weird.

3.6 trillion x 10 years = 36 trillion

36 trillion > 30 trillion

(and that's not from 2018, I believe we're expecting 2019 numbers to go up a couple points)

Yeah... that's what I said. His plan is supposedly less cost, but he is also going to expand coverage. How does that work exactly?

I'm far from an expert on this stuff.  But all of these countries have some form of Government run Universal Healthcare and they're able to do it for way less.  I'm definitely not 100% confident that we won't find a way to fuck it up if we try, but looking at the numbers I feel kind of optimistic it might work.  The fact that our insurance companies primary motivation is to make as much profit as possible has to be a major factor as to why healthcare in America costs way more than anywhere else in the world.

https://i.gyazo.com/1194ed34c5810d2fc01668d6af7e0830.png

Really? Ok. Well if you're going to throw out "far less", you have to compare apples to apples which no one ever does.

The one country I did look into since it always comes up is Canada. It does not cover dental. It does not cover eyecare. And up until recently they had to pay a monthly fee but that's 100% put onto the companies now (i.e. not just their employees that they would pay for previously but also every citizen). There could be other fees that I never came across as well. Bernie wants to do all the things they don't do. As much as Canadians love their healthcare and would never give it up, they also recognize the flaws and issues with it. Long wait times for some things are one of them. But for other things, it's better. It can also depend on the region and so on and so forth. Things are never as "perfect" as the pro universal healthcare people claim and the other side cherry picks things as well.

As for other countries, you have to look into each one. Not all of them cover everything like Bernie wants to do and those that might, have other issues or ways they handle it. So the blanket "well other countries do it soooooo", is just disingenuous at best as it's not giving the public all the information they should have in order to make an intelligent decision.

Bottom line though, it will improve things for the lower end of people and it won't be as "top notch" for the upper end that pay for that premium. Assuming of course Bernie doesn't fold on allowing people to still get their own insurance which I think would go a long way to "selling" it.

I personally think that upending a whole list of things for the "revolution" is just ludicrous when the same things could be achieved from well thought out incremental changes so that the impacts could be measured to ensure the end goals are achieved. But that would be too rational and logical I guess and we live in a time of "feelings".

Edit: By the way. It's well known that a shit load of people are going to be put out of work by Bernie's plan. Can someone tell me what he's going to do with basically forcing companies to close down? Seems like no one cares that the government would end up doing that. An entire industry decimated it looks like to me.

Based on what? I would just love to hear a good justification for that.

Based on the fact that its a required element for survival. I mean, I personally haven't been to a doctor in 10 years, but that doesn't mean its a good idea, or that everyone else should be so lucky. Similar to how education is a right, if a society wants its population to prosper, it should be willing to shoulder the responsibility of insuring their basic healthcare needs.

Of course you can't prevent people from living unhealthy lifestyles, but you can tax them for it, which then goes to paying for health insurance. Smokers for instance are already taxed quite a bit in addition to having to pay higher health insurance costs (much of the time).


If you are referencing the health insurance industry plan administrators, brokers, sales agents, reps, etc., then my response is good, fuck 'em. They should have never had those jobs in the first place. Middle-manning health insurance is a dirty business.

Biden just won South Carolina. That was a surprise to me because it looked like his campaign was over. Sanders came second.

This just opened up the race again. Most notably but not really surprising Bloomberg had another bad day.

None of that is a right. You know. Back in the day, I mostly paid my way through my higher education by taking terms off to work etc. Jobs did the same thing. Woz did the same thing. That's what people did instead of expecting others to hold their hand and give them things. You want something, go make it happen instead of thinking you're entitled to things you're not. Most that go onto higher education don't even know what they want to do. But they're conditioned to think it's what they should do so they can start generating taxes and racking up debt, become wage slaves, as quickly as possible. There is really no rush to run off and get a higher education.


That's the only argument that holds sway. If the society/country decides it's in their best interest to pay for those things then fine. But it's not a right.



Awesome. Just let the government decide what companies should and should not exist based on... what... "feelings"... Yeah, ok then. Let's not take a more practical approach to phasing them out or working with them to shift to other things or writing actually good laws/regulations that would keep them from exploiting people. That would be far too rational. Fuck the "bad" companies. Which ones would be next I wonder? Well.. we can't shut them all down. Oh I know. The government will just take them on instead and will justify it cause.. they're "bad".. Yeah.. And people like you wonder why some get all up in arms about socialism.

US healthcare system is thoroughly fucked. You don't need Bernie or some fancy charts to tell you that. And the reasons for it being so fucked all point to the privatization of things that are not privatized in other countries that do it at a lower cost and make it available to everyone.

Typically in this healthcare debate people inside the US can't imagine the system without private insurers taking 30% off the top of all medical expenses, and without private hospitals gouging their patients with all those $2000 MRIs, whereas people outside the US can't imagine a $2000 MRI and that $30 million people have no healthcare other than emergency room and subsequent personal bankruptcy.

It's not "socialist" to have a healthy population. Growing a new human is very costly. It's much more "capitalist" to take care of the existing ones. And it would be a major boost to the economy - particularly for small businesses who can't afford to provide health insurance benefits - to have the cost shared, just like other infrastructure such as roads.


Neither do private health insurance plans in the US, these things are usually separate.

I wasn't even thinking about higher education, I was thinking about grades K-12, which is not only a fundamental right but mandatory...


Why not make it one?


I don't really understand how this addresses what I was saying in the slightest. I never suggested the government close any business, but you ran away with this notion for some reason. The existence of a medicare for all-type program (or "Public Option" as it was called in the Obama era) would place increased competition on for-profit insurers. Some of the more unsustainable ones would indeed go out of business, as they probably should. There are private insurers in every country that has socialized medicine, as it remains an economically-driven necessity. Nobody, however socialist they may be, is forcing any of them to close, and nobody thinks that would be a good idea.

Still don't agree that even that is a "right". There are lots of reasons to justify it or even make it mandatory but can't see how it's a right in any way. Once you make it mandatory then you can say it's your right (not be prevented from it) to go through it but you still can't say it's a fundamental right of a person. i.e. you are not born with any rights. Well. Unless you're religious then the whole "god given rights" thing comes into play and it has to be figured out what that actually entails which would then be set out in something like the constitution. Which does not say what your rights are other than what rights the government can't take away or infringe upon etc.


Different discussion. My point was simply that it's not a right but I see so many claiming it is and they can never make a good argument for it other than say "I think it is".



Bernie will do away with virtually ALL private insurance (effectively killing off a lot of companies). That's the plan and what I thought we were talking about in general. He's acknowledged that all those people will be out of work and he needs to allocate billions I think it was to deal with that until they can be transitioned to other employment.

No one has a right to the time and resources of others.

Though not explicitly mentioned by the U.S. constitution, the right to education has been recognized by several major international conventions, many of which the U.S. is regular participant. The U.S. also signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which right to education is an article. You can say that this is not legally-binding, but to think that the U.S. government is interested in denying any citizen of education would be mistaken, as this protection is routinely upheld by supreme courts around the country.


Again, legally speaking, you are correct. Its not a "right." However, I believe that it should be (along with education) as its just common sense if you care at all about the prosperity of your nation. You can disagree with my previously stated rationale as to why I think it should be a right, and we can agree to disagree.


This is just nonsense. First of all, the president doesn't have that kind of power. Second of all, when did Bernie say he wants to "do away" with ALL private insurance, virtually or otherwise? Third of all, to think that Bernie's vision of universal healthcare will come to full fruition is naive. Of course it would ultimately be just some watered-down compromise where the jobs of those possessing the most well-funded health insurance and hospital corporation lobbyists will remain protected, and likely Bernie won't even affect any real change in the industry, similar to what happened with Obama.

However, its still a step in the right direction - that we're at least willing to look at solutions to a massive problem - as the current healthcare system is heavily flawed and entirely unsustainable.

“If you support Medicare for All, you have to be willing to end the greed of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries,” he said. “That means boldly transforming our dysfunctional system by ending the use of private health insurance, except to cover non-essential care like cosmetic surgeries.”

His plan is to mobilize his followers to pressure the government to implement these things. He said as much in a Joe Rogen interview and his followers have said as much as well. We can certainly discuss whether or not it could actually happen, but that's what his plan is. Perhaps you don't get that they view this as a "revolution".

"Ending the use of private health insurance" is certainly an overstatement, as it can't be done and won't be done. Regardless, its still not the same thing as a government-mandated closure of private health insurance companies. That can't happen, and he knows it can't happen. It was never on the table.

I figure I'll put this out there as well. Bernie says he's a Democratic Socialist. Now. Either he's confused or he is what he says he is. Regardless, the end goal of democratic socialism and social democracy, is socialism.

But for "Democratic Socialism"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism

Sure. Putting policies in place that will effectively close many companies isn't mandating their closure. So we'll just find that acceptable for the government to do.

It doesn't matter how he does it, it's that he wants to do it that's the bigger issue. I am all for medicare for all. But not his way.

Indeed we need socialist/communist politicians in this country - look how well it has worked in California and countries like Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Venezuela, and others.

Street homelessness in tents, cardboard boxes and gulags for you.

The Nazis healthcare system isn't what made them evil.  It was because they committed genocide and tried to take over the world.

The Soviet Union wasn't a horrible place to live because of their healthcare system.  It was because they were run by an Authoritarian who didn't allow any sort of capitalism.

Venezuela isn't in a crisis because of their healthcare system.  They're in a crisis because they have a an authoritarian president who abused his power for political gains at the cost of the people.

Unless you believe Bernie is secretly planning on moving away from Democracy and toward authoritarianism, it doesn't make sense to compare him to all those evil regimes.

I'm not a Bernie bro, btw.  I don't know for sure what the best path forward is (and I think anyone who thinks they do isn't looking at things objectively), other than it would involve a balance of Capitalism and Socialist policies.

Why are you talking about healthcare as if he was saying that was "evil"? Pretty sure he was talking about socialism after my post about Bernie and what he says he is.

Germany had their own "form" of socialism with anti capitalism being a big part of it. And while they didn't want to do social programs, they ended up having to and made up some "racial" justification for it. Not like any of that really matters.

USSR communism derived itself from socialism.

Venezula is in "crisis" because of their socialist government, their mismanagement or the oil resources and the big drop in oil prices which they never prepared for. Could throw in sanctions as well as a contributing factor. I will say though, as someone who has friends there that I talk to regularly, they all are not happy with how the west portrays what's going on in their country. "Misleading" is the nicer phrase they tend to use.

You can certainly say it's the people in charge that are "evil" etc.. But then you have to ask yourself why that form of government tends to lead to that.


I posted what a Democratic Socialist is and that's what Bernie says he is. Not good. And as I said, maybe he's confused. But I went and checked and he knows very well that what he appears to promote is social democracy (he's used that term and he points to social democracies as examples) and yet he persists with using the other term for some reason and it almost looks like he's trying to redefine it for his own purposes. That makes zero sense and opens the door to all sorts of negative speculations as to his motivations for doing that. It also makes it very easy for the right to defeat him as the republicans are experts at fear mongering. Just need to run ads saying that he says he's a democratic socialist followed by the definition. They don't even have to get dirty although you know they will.

Even though you are not a Sanders fan (nor am I), how do you rate his chances of being nominated? Sure Biden surprised everybody with the in South Carolina but which way do you see it heading?

That depends on how you define "healthcare". Lets not forget that the USSR used "mental illness" as an excuse for sending very large amounts of people to gulags for "treatment" based on the premise that opposing the communist system was a sign of mental illness.

All the funding issues aside, it is not the government's job to provide for us. The government doesn't create anything, it only consumes what the population creates. Creating systems of dependency on the government is a dangerous precedent because it changes the balance of power between the government and the people. Instead of the government being the servant of the people, the people become the servant of the government. Furthermore these handouts are used to essentially buy votes, using the voter's own money in a simple slight of hand where they take $20 out of your wallet and hand you back a "free" $5 bill. In exchange they get to institutionalize their control over the population via this system of parasitic dependency.

I agree it's stupid of him to label himself as anything that includes the word 'socialist', but only because most people just equate socialism with authoritarian regimes that have caused millions of people to suffer. 

I know Capitalists consider themselves 'anti-socialist' and all flavors of Socialists consider themselves 'ant-capitalist', but in reality Socialism and Capitalism aren't binaries.  They are opposite ends of a spectrum, and every first world country in the world has a combination of Socialist and Capitalist policies.

My main point is that arguments like 'Bernie is Socialist and Nazis were Socialist, therefore....' are not valid arguments.  Instead of focusing on the labels, you should take an objective look at his proposals.

That's just your opinion/wish/fantasy and not a fact. The government is of, by and for the people and it they want it to do so then they will.

Nope. It is a fact. Read The United States Constitution. Nowhere does it say anything about a mandate to provide for the population. Funny you describe it as a wish/fantasy when that is quite literally what this push for universal healthcare is. That all aside, I clearly outlined why this is a dangerous precedent that is not desirable even if some people are fooled into thinking it is.


On another note:

"Miami to hold ‘anti-Communist’ concert after Sanders defends Castro regime"
https://nypost.com/2020/02/26/miami-to-hold-anti-communist-concert-after-sanders-defends-castro-regime/

Like I said, Bernie just lost himself Florida, a key swing state.

You're right that Americans do not have the right to healthcare.  It's not a radical idea to change that though.

More than half the UN countries have some form of guaranteed healthcare as a basic right included in their constitution.

November is a long way away. 
https://i.gyazo.com/8ac7a4f047be1075025062fe5646da98.png

It wasn't much of a surprise, he won it within the margin of error of most polls.

Super Tuesday is forecast to give Sanders ~50% of the available delegates (I mean delegates available in those states, not the total) but there is a lot variance possible due to the 15% threshold and so many candidates still in the race. Assuming he does get 50% or more, it would make his path to the nomination easier.

Biden can win a couple of southern states on Tuesday, which may not help him much, but if he wins or comes close in Texas (second largest to California by delegate count) then he can put a dent in Sanders' 50%.

Sorry, but the stories my grandparents would tell me about what was going on in Germany prior to when they fled means that when I see more than just the typical policy debates going on, I know it's time to take a closer look at things and not bury ones head in the sand. He's clearly using that socialist label for a reason that makes zero sense which means it needs to be looked into and seriously considered. The movement on Bernie's side feels far different than what happened with Trump. I'm far more concerned about Bernie and his supporters at this point than I am about Trump and that's saying something.


No. Just no. There is no capitalism in socialism. Period. Forms of socialism have developed to include capitalism. In the US and many other countries, it's more accurate to say that capitalism has developed to include some socialism. "Everyone" wants some level of social programs. What's happening though is that there is a movement to fundamentally shift the current balance and flip it to more predominantly socialism. You can either just ignore it and let it happen or you can make a conscious decision to support it or not taking into account the possible long term ramifications.

Oh good lord. It doesn't have to say anything about a mandate because that's not what it's purpose is. It's the core laws that the government has to adhere to. The "people" are the government and they can provide anything they want to each other including any social programs they want as long as it doesn't violate the "law" of the constitution.



Good chance for sure. Democrats are just so stupid sometimes when it comes to messaging.

when people repeat these infamous jokes and compare nazi to socialists we know there are 2 possibilities: profound ignorance or mental illness.
this doesn't even deserve an answer.


correction:

basically two things that destroyed venezuelan economy:

- international price of oil, controlled by Saudi Arabia and Iran, the economy is totally dependent of oil price.
- sanctions imposed by the US.

it makes little sense to impose sanctions and then send "humanitarian aid" as a form of propaganda. And the international press participates in this farce.
The best the US can do is to stop interfering in other countries. All they do is spread death, starvation and misfortunes, and call that "democracy".

Not at all accurate. There's no reason to look at his proposals seriously at all, just take him at his word as to his Marxist orientation, and disregard everything after that.

He'll just promise anything, so why in the world would anyone believe what he says? Except of course when he says he has no idea how to pay for any of it.

healthcare in the US is overpriced due to this pay or die policy. Prices can go down if someone has the courage to face this exploiting industry. it's really funny how easy is to create soldiers to fight for corporatism. they stick to any shitty argument presented to them.

for those with "feelings" issues we will have psychological assistance as well.

Thank you for clearing that up. I take it all the flow still seems to be with Sanders. In the beginning of the race it was all about Elizabeth Warren and sometime later about Biden or Yang or Buttigieg but the popularity of candidates keeps shifting. How Sanders bounced back to sit in the driving seat after the early set backs is very interesting.

I wonder if Sanders will be the one to take on Trump when all this over. If I am not mistaken think next week 13 states cast their votes so let see who will drop out and who will try to hang on in there.

it is impossible to arrive at correct conclusions from false premises. fascism and nazism were the reaction to the growth of socialism in Europe, its base is essentially capitalist, corporatist. The Nazis added "social" to the name of the party to FOOL people. It's still working, many people still fooled by Hitler....

one must be totally ignorant in history to say such nonsense.

There's so much wrong with what you said that I don't even know where to start. The only thing you got right was about being totally ignorant in history cause you clearly are.

Bernie only seems to be a front runner to some people... because he is at the rear, running backwards.

8)

try it :D go go start dropping your infowars links, that will be fun

Sorry, no infowars for me. Just real historical facts which you clearly have never seen.

I used to read encyclopedias when I was 6 years old, before the internet, that was fun, but come on, bring your sources.  :D ;D

Yeah.. I really believe you cause when someone does those sorts of claims it really makes me think you're an adult. Seriously. What is that even supposed to say.... Oh look at me.. my brain is so big you must bow to my superior intellect... Please. that's pathetic at best.

just replied to your accusation but please focus on the subject, not me.

are you capable?

You mean how I replied to yours at the start? Gee. Maybe you should be backing up your claims to support your initial disparaging remarks.

you did it first! you! lol kiddo.... I'll ignore you if you don't have any real argument.

who calls for historical revisionism need to back up their claims.

you could start describing how and why the socialist porsche and the socialist bayer supported Hitler.

Nice avoiding. But I thought this was about historical accuracy as opposed to "arguments". Besides. I already said I wasn't going to bother pointing out everything wrong. I had started to write a response and then I realized that it was going to take a bunch of time and given you're nothing more than a drive by troll who spits out a couple lines to stroke your ego. calls people stupid and moves on, you weren't worth the effort. But hey. I'm sure all us stupid people would greatly appreciate someone with your massive intellect sharing with us all your in depth knowledge. Or you could carry on and go jerk yourself of with your brilliant little posts that add no value at all. Either way, you turned into a few minutes of entertainment.

subject is nazism and socialism. please. I'm not avoiding. just asked you about porsche and bayer.

If you want to go against the whole Academy, all books and historians you will need a good support.

I am ready to answer your questions, if you have any.

well I have one more question.

what happened to the Frankfurt School philosophers and Bauhaus during the ascension of Nazism? and why?

Yes, you do. Maybe start with Mussolini.


That would be a waste of my time as they have no bearing on your initial statement. Unless maybe what you said and what you think you said are two different things.

waste of time? what are you avoiding?

Please clarify me about the corporatism in nazi germany. how is this compatible to socialist theories?

and tell me about Mussolini. what's new from him?

Immaterial to your initial claim.

no, it's not. they were persecuted, why? are you sure you know anything about this period?

Immaterial as to whether or not it's compatible. Seriously. Are you just going to stroke yourself off through out a bunch of things that have no bearing on your initial claim? Cause this really is wasting my time now.

you're just showing you don't have any historical knowledge. fails to establish the simplest relations on the historical facts of that time.

Actually, yes it does. It specifically enumerates what powers the government has, an outlaws anything outside of those specified mandates and authorities. Again, none of this makes making the people dependent on the government a good idea, regardless of how you see the law.




That's the part you don't seem to grasp. Socialism is ALWAYS the candy coated protein shell on the virus the elite want to introduce to the people. It is ALWAYS a lie to fool the people into accepting a totalitarian system. It was DESIGNED to operate that way. It is the same reason so many dogs die from drinking anti-freeze leaking out from cars, because it tastes sweet, that is until it causes organ failure.




It is in fact radical, because this nation was founded on independence and the protection of individual rights via a constitutional republic. None of the other UN countries have the constitution the USA has, it is most certainly an outlier. In the USA, the people are sovereign, in the rest of the world the people are subjects to the government. Creating a system of dependence on the government undermines the base concept of independence this nation was founded on.

Actually yes, it is immaterial. Nor does why they were "persecuted" have anything to do with you're initial claim. Do you need to go back and re read what you said so maybe you stop dicking around with shit that has no bearing on it.

Hitler stated that the National Socialist State recognizes no classes. How this is reconciled with the socialist concept of class struggle?

I am pointing out a lot of contradictions of your hypothetical "left-wing Nazism". and I see you don't have a clue on what I'm talking about....

That has zero bearing on your initial claim but is instead nothing more than a differentiation in one aspect between Nazism and socialism.

Where the hell did you get the "left wing Nazism" from? You seriously need to go back and look at what I responded to of yours cause at this point you just seem to be off on some tangent.

Supreme court doesn't agree with you but instead they have found that the government has wide latitude to tax and spend in service of the "general welfare". Like I said. Unless it violates the "law", they can do what they want and to date the Supreme court has determined they're not violating the law.

actually you did not say much:

"There's so much wrong with what you said that I don't even know where to start. The only thing you got right was about being totally ignorant in history cause you clearly are."

you are always avoiding, you just say I'm wrong but is unable to explain why  :D

when you say nazism is socialism you're implying it is leftist. dude it is really tiring to talk to people who lacks the basics.

everything I say is wrong, "immaterial", unrelated  :D

I could spend a day bringing facts and more facts and all you have is "OMG YOU'RE SO WRONG"

I did not say nazism is socialism.. I did not say it was socialist. For someone with such a big brain that we should all bow to you seem to have some reading comprehension issues at the very least.

Right. I didn't say much. And I told you why. Beyond that, it's not my fault you went off on some tangent that had nothing to do with what I responded to of yours and thus you got all the responses you did. Maybe you need to go take a nap. You implied you're old. You probably need to rest now.

cause you lack the basics. keep whining. it's all you can do. added to ignore list

Actually, it was the NAZIS that said they themselves were socialist. Their very name.

There may be some fine lines between corrupt fascist country and a corrupt socialist country, I am not sure it is worth arguing without very precise defining of the terms first.

Biden got the win that he needed in South Carolina, and because of that the chances of a contested convention has went up substantially. Sanders is going to have the most delegates by the time the convention will come around, but as of right now he's not going to have the 50 percent needed to clinch the nomination.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/

This is going to get very interesting very fast. There's a couple roads that we can go down here.

1. Bidens finish means nothing, Bernie is still going to crush it in Super Tuesday. This is Bernies best shot to getting over the 50 percent number, still going to be tough though.

2. Bidens finish makes the moderates rally around him. He's their last chance to winning and they rally around him to ensure that he's the nominee instead of Bernie. Bernie still gets the most delegates but not by much.

538 is a pretty good one to read though, very interesting.

it was a reaction to the growth of socialism and they stole the name to confuse the working class. the differences in its politics, in the economy, are huge. socialists were persecuted and killed. as I wrote before, don't be fooled by Hitler. it's 2020 and he's still fooling people.

lol.... oh please. I apparently know more than enough to know when you were asking questions that had zero bearing on what I had responded to. Seems like you're the only one whining. But yeah, you probably do need a nap since you strained that big brain of yours. Funny how a troll ends up adding me to his ignore list.

This is an article that claims the Nazis were not socialists.

https://www.britannica.com/story/were-the-nazis-socialists

This is an article that claims the Nazis were socialists.

https://mises.org/library/why-nazism-was-socialism-and-why-socialism-totalitarian

I tend toward the latter.

yea I know. it's always the same source, the propaganda from the think tanks.
The author doesn't even provide bibliographic references. why to worry?

"But what specifically established de facto socialism in Nazi Germany was the introduction of price and wage controls in 1936."

this is anti liberal, but not socialist. the author states that this kind of control makes the state "owner" of the means of production. this is a lie. corporations did not hand over their profits to the government. it's easy to fall into traps if you don't know the concepts.

I stick to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the historians, the Academy, my decades of studies.
It's not exactly a choice like fruit juice or soda: "I choose to consume this one!"

Deutsche Welle has recently published series of articles to belie this wave of fake news from think tanks. Highly recommended.



btw do you know what is really amazing about these think tanks? this part:

"Mises Institute is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent the law allows. Tax ID# 52-1263436"

Billionaries "donate" to this cause (their own cause) and get tax breaks. They deliver you propaganda for their cause and indirectly YOU PAY for it. When money is lacking for universal medicare, for example. It's being spent at the golf club of those who delivered you this article.

I certainly hope it's option number two. Unfortunately, I already put my ballot in the mail a couple of weeks ago, so I can't participate in rallying around Biden. Oh well, it appears Sanders is going to take my state, anyway. I'm not sure what all these people with SUVs and monster trucks in my state are going to do if Bernie ends up becoming president and gets his way. At least most of them are spacious enough to live in, if need be.

If you want to argue against the logical argument, by all means do so. Nothing in your reply indicates you are capable of doing that, even if willing to. By the way, when you present a logical argument, it is capable of standing alone, and not requiring references. However, as I earlier mentioned, without precise definitions, none of this chatter is meaningful.

What it amounts to may be no more than "Socialists" not liking to be damaged by comparison with negatives being included in their definition of a word. But, then, there really are many very negative examples of socialism, aren't there? What's one more?

And this is no different than attempts to blur meanings and babble about "democratic socialism."

Anyway, I'm not particular interested in your misunderstandings about "think tanks," or the Mises Institute, or any other that seem to not buttress your opinions.

While it can be said that nazism had a lot of traits similar to socialism, it wasn't their ideology and so they would pick and choose and change things as needed in order to achieve their end goal by any means sort of thing. That article only seems to talk about the nuts and bolts but ignores the overall ideology that drove them. Without the ideology, they really don't have much ground to stand on in calling it socialism. Which is why I had said it was their own "form" of socialism.

I went straight to the point and showed the error in the text. price control is not synonymous of socialism, it does not give the government control of the means of production. it is just anti-liberal, the Nazis ascended in the midst of a terrible economic crisis and tried to control the inflation. we are talking about history and this is not solved with pure logic. sorry. you need facts and references.


sometimes denial is the only way out ;D

No, you needed to continue reading that section. That matter was fully explained. You may not agree with it, of course.

"rulers of a socialist state must live in terror of the people."  ;D

The whole thing is trashy, nonsense collection. but may work well for the illiterate, I see. He's talking about the totalitarian state and pointing THIS IS SOCIALISM. Nope, this is totalitarianism. He plays with the conceptual confusion about these terms. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, he does not mention a single company that supported the German system.

If you were asked to rebut the arguments presented therein, and this is your response, you fully deserve an F.

I'm not sure what else to say...

There's nothing nonsense, or even second rate intellectually or historically, about Austrian school of economics. I do not fully agree with their viewports, note. However, if you cannot or will not attempt to refute the assertions made, they stand as the winning arguments, don't they?

 https://mises.org/library/why-nazism-was-socialism-and-why-socialism-totalitarian

...practically no one thinks of Nazi Germany as a socialist state. It is far more common to believe that it represented a form of capitalism, which is what the Communists and all other Marxists have claimed.

The basis of the claim that Nazi Germany was capitalist was the fact that most industries in Nazi Germany appeared to be left in private hands.

What Mises identified was that private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.

De facto government ownership of the means of production, as Mises termed it, was logically implied by such fundamental collectivist principles embraced by the Nazis as that the common good comes before the private good and the individual exists as a means to the ends of the State. If the individual is a means to the ends of the State, so too, of course, is his property. Just as he is owned by the State, his property is also owned by the State.

But what specifically established de facto socialism in Nazi Germany was the introduction of price and wage controls in 1936. These were imposed in response to the inflation of the money supply carried out by the regime from the time of its coming to power in early 1933. The Nazi regime inflated the money supply as the means of financing the vast increase in government spending required by its programs of public works, subsidies, and rearmament. The price and wage controls were imposed in response to the rise in prices that began to result from the inflation.

The effect of the combination of inflation and price and wage controls is shortages, that is, a situation in which the quantities of goods people attempt to buy exceed the quantities available for sale.

Shortages, in turn, result in economic chaos. It's not only that consumers who show up in stores early in the day are in a position to buy up all the stocks of goods and leave customers who arrive later, with nothing — a situation to which governments typically respond by imposing rationing. Shortages result in chaos throughout the economic system. They introduce randomness in the distribution of supplies between geographical areas, in the allocation of a factor of production among its different products, in the allocation of labor and capital among the different branches of the economic system.

In the face of the combination of price controls and shortages, the effect of a decrease in the supply of an item is not, as it would be in a free market, to raise its price and increase its profitability, thereby operating to stop the decrease in supply, or reverse it if it has gone too far. Price control prohibits the rise in price and thus the increase in profitability. At the same time, the shortages caused by price controls prevent increases in supply from reducing price and profitability. When there is a shortage, the effect of an increase in supply is merely a reduction in the severity of the shortage. Only when the shortage is totally eliminated does an increase in supply necessitate a decrease in price and bring about a decrease in profitability.

As a result, the combination of price controls and shortages makes possible random movements of supply without any effect on price and profitability. In this situation, the production of the most trivial and unimportant goods, even pet rocks, can be expanded at the expense of the production of the most urgently needed and important goods, such as life-saving medicines, with no effect on the price or profitability of either good. Price controls would prevent the production of the medicines from becoming more profitable as their supply decreased, while a shortage even of pet rocks prevented their production from becoming less profitable as their supply increased.

As Mises showed, to cope with such unintended effects of its price controls, the government must either abolish the price controls or add further measures, namely, precisely the control over what is produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it is distributed, which I referred to earlier. The combination of price controls with this further set of controls constitutes the de facto socialization of the economic system. For it means that the government then exercises all of the substantive powers of ownership.

This was the socialism instituted by the Nazis.

copy and paste then  :D  I know that you can't articulate anything.

pro tip: follow the money. who profited? how were the profits "socialized"?

The Nazi party campaigned on socialist ideas (and lost), and labeled themselves socialists, but as soon as they assumed power Hitler immediately had the senior officials of every opposition political party murdered along with their families and other supporters.

Then he invaded a bunch of countries and forced every man to either fight for him or have their family murdered.

He murdered almost 10 million people just because they were Jewish, gay, disabled or suspected of criticizing the Nazi party.

Using the Nazi party as an example of why someone shouldn't vote for Bernie is pretty silly unless you believe Bernie has some secret agenda to become a dictator.

The name is despair. Lack of politicization and inability to deal with what they do not know. "The Truman Show" reality is collapsing...

But isn't that the very point that people continue to warn about, as a fundamental flaw in the theory of socialism?

"as soon as they assumed power "

... they can do anything they want...

So why, exactly, should you believe Bernie on anything?

Yes, I did copy and paste, just to verify that you cannot articulate a logical argument.

It's nothing to me, by the way. I don't care if you consider the German NAZI party socialists or not.

He's been pushing the same healthcare, healthcare, immigration and labor policies while also defending the idea of democracy and the freedoms that come with it for 40 years.  I'm convinced that he really does believe that his policies would do more good than anything anyone else has proposed.  (Note: Personally, I'm not convinced that his policies are the answer right now)

There are tons of valid reasons to be anti-Bernie, but, in my opinion, being worried that he will try to become a dictator, take over the world, execute all who oppose him, or commit genocide are not among them.

you pasted a text about supply and demand, yea I'm sure that price control goes against the principles of liberalism.
But call this socialism is a big leap without any basis. I asked you about the profits, where did they go? I'm articulating dude.
put your neurons to work. Chip and Dale, hello?

"Liberals" have countless real world examples of price control. There was an old today-obsolete concept of liberalism, which sure, maybe that could be argued there, but I doubt it.

Why should I care how or if profits were socialized? Actual practice of socialism typically shows the highest echelons of government keep the vast majority of profits, so clearly, the "socialization of profits" cannot be a determination of whether a society is socialistic.

It's common understanding among those who have studied the Third Reich, Mises description of the minute detailed control of industry by the state's officials is accurate.

you are using this to claim that Nazis were socialists. so that text was not so good to prove your point (?) are you lost? are you ok?
Do you understand that Mises was liberal and the text is defending liberal values?

I see you did not understand the text fully, I guess it just looks "smart" to you and presents the conclusion you want. So you pasted it... but you are unable to think and talk about it.


because I expect you to show more evidences that Nazism was socialist.


according to who? you? I insist, sorry. Who took the profits? Did the state use industry money to create public services?


what is common understanding? the existence of price control? why this makes it socialist? show me more authors agreeing with Mises. He is widely ignored in the Academy because his work is superficial and irrelevant. Do you know who likes to quote him? Ultra Liberal Think Tanks and its readers.

Pro tip: Try to quote Hayek next time. Maybe he can help you, a little bit. go Google it  ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee_uujKuJMI

If Bernie is the frontrunner, he better run faster, or he'll get runover.

8)

all I see here is people running out of arguments  8)

All I see here is Bernie running into arguments. Hope the arguments don't shut down with Bernie inside. We might lose him, and we wouldn't want that, now, would we?

8)

is this supposed to be funny?  8)

do not confuse politicians with your football team or your favorite wrestler. grow up.

Always...always sniff very carefully at the FREE CHEESE!

Football and wrestling aren't all that funny. But politics is.     8)

I'm glad you found a simple text that you can fully understand. with some efforts you'll be able to reach the green level in 4 or 5 years.

https://p2cdn4static.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_87286/Image/Vridder/Staff/BloomRevisedTaxonomy.jpg

No. He completely flipped on both immigration and the Second Amendment. He also used to be in favor of free speech and hasn't said a peep about cancel culture.

He's also stayed mum about intersectional theory which contradicts his labour / marxist viewpoints.

No. Bernie has not been consistent.

Wait, did the American People reject your Bolshevik Bernie? But you got your free brown shirt, right?

:)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg

Too bad you can't make it past orange.

I did a few posts above. nobody was able to answer and started posting memes, there's no way to take it seriously  ;) when the accusation is pertinent it is not a fallacy. if you continue the philosophy class beyond lesson one you will learn that too.

I like how things change so fast in the world of politics that I posted this and now it's not true, crazy what a week or so can do (crazy what Super Tuesday can do). Biden is now the frontrunner and has the momentum behind him, we'll see if he's able to use that momentum to continue to rack up wins in the delegate count.

This is a pretty wild prediction, but, I think this MAY be a wakeupcall to the Bernie Sanders voters that they're going to have to go out their and vote. This isn't a sure thing anymore. They have to make their coalition go out their and vote, and they have to fucking beg Warren to drop out. She's splitting the vote and truly killing Bernies chances of competing in the delegate #'s

The way things have been going I feel like the least likely scenario is Biden keeps his momentum and it's smooth sailing to the convention.

Let's wait until the next debate. If Warren stays with it, I'm sure she has a lot of nasty things to say about Biden. Perhaps Tulsi will get to participate too and join in the fun.

I'm pretty sure of this as well -- 538 is probably going to put Biden at the majority for plurality of delegates, though unsure of what they're going to go with for majority at the time of the convention. Maybe Bernie will try to make a play for the Superdelegates? (LOL I KNOW ALL OF THEM WILL VOTE FOR SLEEPY JOE!)

Betting odds have Biden as the clear frontrunner -- somewhere in the realm of bet $120 to win $100. Bernie is now bet $100 to win $500


Pretty sure they're going to change the debate rules (they being the DNC) so Tulsi will be unable to be on the debate stage. It's not being done in a deliberate fashion, it just literally doesn't make any season to keep the old 1 delegate rule when hundreds of delegates were given out on Super Tuesday.

Biden has the support of the whole party and pseudo candidates who are already pulling out. the press does not report but celebrates...

you're right this will be decided by the non-voters, they need to start caring.

At the tail end of all that, at the good extreme, you have a system perhaps like Australia, and pay 60-70% taxes each year. Plus a VAT. It's not so terribly wonderful and it's certainly not superior.

At the bad extreme, you have a system like South Africa. Free health care, but.... you never go to it, you go to private clinics and pay your own way.

Reality in the US, what comes down the pike for the "free health care tab" is what the lobbyists for the insurance companies dictate.

They aren't on your side.

I'm largely pessimistic on any reduction of the height of either of the two parts of that USA line.

I think that there will be huge attempts to stall Trump's executive order requiring open posting of pricing by hospitals and doctors.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20190625.974595/full/

Why wouldn't the medical industry try to stall on this executive order? They know that if they just allow this to happen willy nilly, it may be exposed that they're charging people so much fucking money for things that are outside of their control.

Like in theory, I SHOULD be able to call up 15 different doctors of varying prestige and skill levels and ask them for their prices of doing a knee replacement in the US right now. But that's not the case in the least and that's not fair. At least a ballpark figure within like 5-10 percent either way after a consultation and some brief testing.

People always talk about how competition in the medical world can't work -- they say that for somethings it's impossible to ensure that you're getting the best deal. I partially agree with this. If you pass out and someone has to call 911, I don't want to have to be arguing about the price when I'm knocked out and need immediate medical care. But if it's something like a knee replacement that's going to take months to do anything, why not have competition present? It's something that I'm going to take weeks on anyway, and it's a decision of mine.

There's my rant on healthcare.

What gives you the impression that this will change when "the government" (taxpayer) is footing the bill, and there is no one with a motive to resist these kind of wild expenditure abuses? At least in a private system, the individual and or insurance companies have incentive to raise objection when something is unduly inflated. When "the government" (taxpayer) is footing the bill, not only does the patient not concern themselves with it, the healthcare provider has even more incentive to tack on as much as possible, because good old uncle scam is there to foot the bill, and he doesn't care because he doesn't actually pay the bill. Just shifting the burden from the individual to the tax payer isn't a solution. There needs to be wider reform of the private system to push back against fraud and abuse.

The data suggests that private insurance companies cause the overall cost of healthcare to go up.
For example, the UK has a pretty successful government run universal healthcare system.  Everyone gets what's necessary to live a healthy life, funded through a payroll tax.  The population overall approves of it, and they pay less in taxes than we do right now for our medicare/medicaid programs.  (there might be some other programs the government funds that's included in the chart.  I'm not sure)

If we had their infrastructure, you'd be paying less in health care related taxes, and your only out of pocket expenses would be dental, eye doctor, and a $8 co pay for each prescription.

It would take a long time to get there though, and we might fuck it up.  But we're already paying way too much and the data is pretty clear which direction we should go in if we want to get costs down.

https://i.gyazo.com/256e63f9125679d38166f36e5f2007c6.png

You aren't actually responding to what I said, you are just repeating what you think the solution is. "The data suggests" is usually something people say just before they present an appeal to authority fallacy. The current system is broken, I am not even arguing that. I am arguing your solution is not a solution at all, but something that will exacerbate the problem.

Rather than just playing a game of musical chairs between public and private, perhaps the core issues should be addressed, such as the ones I directly responded to, that of fraud and general abuse. The premise that this abuse won't continue just because it will be government run is laughable, and another layer of bureaucracy is the wrong direction to go as just the mechanisms to operate that layer will eat even more into what should be going to treatment. A lot of doctors now are just dumping insurance (public or private) and going to cash only if they can. You know why that is? Because of bureaucratic bloat. Healthcare professionals spend over half of their day doing paperwork for the various calves feeding at the proverbial teet. You think government is going to fix that?

Shifting the dependence of citizens from corporations to the government is not a solution, it is a profit plan insurance companies are spending COPIOUS amounts of money to make happen, and that is because they have the people writing that legislation in their pockets. This is a game of three-card monte. This is a hustle. This is a carefully marketed project designed to make people like you think there is a pot of gold over the rainbow.

Real reform is tough, bloody, drawn out, and painful. There is no magical pot of free health care at the end of the rainbow. The real problems aren't being addressed, the partners in crime are just shifting responsibility from hand to hand because the heat is on, and they are under pressure to make changes, but the spice must still flow. Oh and will it ever flow. You think it is bad now? Wait until those insurance companies can take what they want at the point of the government's gun.

You are being sold a bill of goods. Private healthcare is not the problem. Capitalism is not the problem. Profit is not the problem. FRAUD is the problem. Solve the problem, don't increase the complexity of the problem with more of one hand washing the other. When termites infest your house, you don't burn down the house and move in across the street, you call the exterminator. The same people accountable for the current problems are the same ones who will be administrating what you propose. That is not a solution, that is arson, and the insurance companies will be waiting in the street to sell you a fire protection package after the fact.

You asked "What gives you the impression that this will change when "the government" (taxpayer) is footing the bill, and there is no one with a motive to resist these kind of wild expenditure abuses? "

We're the only country in the world with a Healthcare system based on private insurance.
There are lots of countries that spend half as much to insure everyone.

I'm not denying that it's possible we try it and fail miserably due to corruption or incompetence.  But we gotta do something, and I think it would be silly not to learn from what has worked or not worked in other countries.


Right now, on average for health care, each american is paying $5k in taxes and $5k for private insurance + out of pocket.

In the UK it's ~$4k in taxes and $1k out of pocket.

I can't find any country that is nearly as effective that doesn't have some government funded universal healthcare.

Did I say do nothing? This is a false choice.


What I am seeing as a repeating theme here is "Hey it could go horribly wrong, but what choice do we have but to make what is already a horrible disaster even worse?"

The USA is not like any of these other nations you are comparing to, furthermore the healthcare systems of the world are heavily reliant on the fact that the US taxpayer subsidizes their expenses, mostly in the form of R&D and pharmaceuticals. The thing you are pointing out as a success is partially a result of the fact that we are paying for it here. The evidence of international success is simultaneously the evidence of failure domestically, but both partially driven by the same cause.

Even assuming that there are some reforms are had, there will inevitably be a drop in the quality of care, increased dependence on the government, as well as the government deciding what kind of medical care you can have and when. Who in their right mind wants to give the government control over their bodies? I am sure that will all work out just fine.

Did I say you said do nothing?

You seem to be worried about fraud, which happens at a much lower rate among public health insurance claims as compared to private insurance, as there is much less plundering to be done and the penalties after getting caught are much more severe. In addition, private insurers simply aren't interested in pursuing fraud because it creates unnecessary headache from which they receive no benefit. They just pass on the costs inflicted to their customers, who have no choice but to pay the higher premiums.

https://www.propublica.org/article/we-asked-prosecutors-if-health-insurance-companies-care-about-fraud-they-laughed-at-us


Nobody is saying that. You don't know the change will be for the worse -- you simply insist that it will because that's what you believe to be true.

No, you just insinuated it. And people who don't own pools are at a significantly reduced risk of drowning. That clearly means that if the government installs pools in everyone's homes the rate of drownings will not increase. You talk about these supposedly magical laws that will stop fraud if done under the government. What is stopping similar laws being imposed on the private sector? Oh right, that magical pot of "free" health care at the end of the rainbow.

You should really just research how much we're paying for Healthcare right now, and where it's going,  Then go find some countries where the Healthcare quality is on par with ours and learn about how it's funded.

Literally any country with high quality healthcare.

Perhaps the same lobbyists that you fear will dictate the "free health care tab" are stopping it.

The False Claims Act is a federal law. It doesn't apply to private insurers, but it does deter fraud from taking place among public insurers. I already explained to you twice why there is less fraud in public insurance than private. It's not just laws, its also because private insurance is a much bigger honeypot and ripe for abuse.

Please, read the article I linked if you want to understand the difference in motivations for fraud between the two entities. It's a pretty detailed account of why problems are more severe among private insurers.

https://www.propublica.org/article/we-asked-prosecutors-if-health-insurance-companies-care-about-fraud-they-laughed-at-us

I think you had your chance at that with Obamacare. We need to move on.

Also, it makes zero sense for the same party to be arguing for open borders and expensive free healthcare for all.

Can't things even make sense?