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General discussion

Sanders platform costs

Feb 25, 2020 10:24AM PST

According to David Asman (FoxNews), Brookings Institute, and other money sources, if you add up the entire country's wealth (all assets minus all liabilities) it comes to $98 Trillion.....all of Bernie Sanders' plans over ten years cost $97 Trillion. Coincidence? If you confiscate everything every single person in the USA has, it is exactly what he needs.

THAT's SOCIALISM, people, plain and simple.

Discussion is locked

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Something I never see mentioned
Feb 25, 2020 10:55AM PST

I don't know about the accuracy of your published figures so I'll add another questionable one. I read that there is about 1.5 trillion in actual currency out there. What this means is that there is no way to confiscate 90+ trillion dollars and spend it. The great majority of wealth is tied up in assets that would have to be sold in order to redistribute the money. The next dilemma for someone who has confiscated the enormous (on paper) wealth of another person is finding someone to buy those assets when much of their own wealth has also been confiscated. The rich have always been easy targets when politicians want votes.

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It's a fine way to not get into the deep end of economics.
Feb 25, 2020 12:16PM PST

For example the GDP of the USA over 10 years is how many clams?

Also, that 97 Trillion. Does it go into an incinerator? No. It's going back into the economy.

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Yes, except ...
Feb 25, 2020 1:36PM PST

That's what I've been trying to get across to Toni.
Economists simplify by assigning some money to guns and some to butter.

Butter (farm subsidies e.g.). It's food, so the users stay alive with it. They can buy a house, hold a job, raise a family. All considered beneficial to the community.
Or guns (defense spending e.g.). Guns kill people. Dead people contribute nothing.
This Economics subheading is "Allocation of Scarce Resources".

Just today, two relevant stories from India. Trump and Modi have many things to discuss, like Ag and consumer spending. The one agreement so far is that India will buy some billions worth of American armaments. Guns; all smiles. But ...
In another part of the forest, more rioting over Modi's anti-Muslim "citizenship law".
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-citizenship-protests/more-than-a-dozen-killed-hundreds-injured-as-new-delhi-riots-overshadow-trump-visit-idUSKBN20J296 Another Reuters post said a senior police official was killed. That's very unusual there. More guns.
Trump, whose weak grasp of history has been noted many times, made a speech about India's 'unity being an example to the world'. It is not, nor has it ever been. The Raj failed to stop the fighting, as did Partition.
The majority of analysts see the law as a move toward a national religion. History says that is not a good thing.

In the meantime, Modi has his guns, Trump has his money. Farmers here have nothing yet. Perhaps the heads of Lockheed and Raytheon will go grocert

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Rob, the India stories are relevant to the OP -
Feb 25, 2020 6:39PM PST

in my mind, anyway. Happy
I try to see the world as a unit, not a red part and a blue part. But the shorter reply is better, and what I intended BEFORE MY STUPIDPHONE INTERVENED!!!
You can delete the long one if you like; irrelevant.

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The Rabbit Hole Goes Muc Deeper
Feb 25, 2020 11:44PM PST

This friendship between these two HoS's benefits only those two, and nobody else. I agree with what you're saying, especially when all DJT did in India, was sell US made Helicopters, and then went away.

NO DEAL WAS MADE ON TRADE

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No other President has
Feb 26, 2020 5:54AM PST

even ATTEMPTED to make new trade deals....and yet, you act as if Trump has to do it in a two day visit there. Reality sucks when you can't even acknowledge that it exists but expect immediate results. That's the problem with snowflakes.....they insist on instant gratification and boohoo when it doesn't happen. Grow up.

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Re: trade deals
Feb 27, 2020 1:13AM PST

NAFTA (a trade deal between Canada, USA and Mexico) is from 1994, when Bill Clinton was president. So apparently he not only attempted it, but actually did it also.

But, somehow, I think the Trump definition of trade deal is different. For him it's "The USA sells more to you, and you sell less to the USA. America first!".

Let's see what after-Brexit trade deal between the USA and the UK will be. The fear in the UK is that it will be "We sell you chlorinated chicken, and fracked LNG and will buy your NHS." But maybe I'm prejudiced; my source isThe Guardian , a well-respected but definitely Labour-oriented newspaper.

Post was last edited on February 27, 2020 1:19 AM PST

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I said NEW trade deals
Feb 27, 2020 4:12AM PST

Bush, BO, and Trump ALL said that NAFTA was bad for the USA and needed to be revised, but nobody did it until Trump. Clinton also was the one who invited China into the WTO and that didn't work out well for us either.

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RE:.No other President even ATTEMPTED to make NEW trade deal
Feb 28, 2020 11:45AM PST

No other President even ATTEMPTED to make NEW trade deals..

AND when (back in the day) NAFTA was enacted...IT WAS a NEW trade deal.

NAFTA was MADE but no one ATTEMPTED to make it?

It's a miracle?

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RE:never even ATTEMPTED?
Feb 28, 2020 8:01PM PST

According to this...Obama ATTEMPTED..And DJT thought/agreed with the points that Obama was trying to change.

Who woulda' thunk it....DJT following Obama's lead....

Trump's 'New' Canada-Mexico Trade Deal Has All Kinds Of Improvements? Thanks, Obama.

WASHINGTON ― With critical elections approaching, President Donald Trump on Monday declared a rebranded trade deal with Mexico and Canada a major victory for himself ― even though it relies on key elements negotiated by his predecessor, President Barack Obama, for an agreement Trump had called a disaster.

“Throughout the campaign I promised to renegotiate NAFTA, and today we have kept that promise,” Trump said of his update to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he described as the “incredible new U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement called USMCA.”

But the majority of the “new” items in the deal announced late Sunday were negotiated over a period of years by the Obama administration as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

In fact, at least half of the men and women standing behind Trump during his Rose Garden ceremony praising the new deal were the same career service staff who negotiated nearly identical provisions in TPP, which Trump had railed against.

To some degree, we have wasted our time by redoing what was in the Pacific trade deal,” said James Pethokoukis, a trade expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “There’s a lot of overlap.”

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(NT) s/b grocery shopping.
Feb 26, 2020 10:25PM PST
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Yes, except ...
Feb 25, 2020 1:42PM PST

What I've been trying to teach Toni is that money spent on butter (Ag e.g.) is food, which goes into people, who can then build houses, work at jobs and raise families- and dairy cows.
Money into guns (defense) makes a one-way trip. Dead people do nothing.

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RE:Dead people do nothing.
Feb 25, 2020 1:47PM PST

Create jobs for grave diggers and funeral homes, florists

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It might as well, Bob
Feb 26, 2020 5:50AM PST

since that $97T goes to paying for FREE stuff that eliminates jobs...which means not enough people AGAIN paying into the very system that wants to give you free stuff. Thatcher had it right years ago..."with Socialism, sooner or later you run out of other people's money"

Look what happened with the unemployment benefits under BO...he extended them all to 99 weeks, but when those weeks ran out, people then lined up and applied for AND GOT Social Security Disability benefits instead (for the rest of their lives, letting them off the hook to look for work) because BO LOWERED THE STANDARDS TO QUALIFY for that.....based on 'mental health' issues due to stress from not working. What a freaking joke that they continue to receive cash and Medicare for that garbage.

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Puke on a platter
Feb 26, 2020 6:29PM PST

N/T

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Awww. You spoiled the fun.
Feb 25, 2020 12:17PM PST
Grin
Scarier her way.
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RE:If you confiscate everything every single person
Feb 25, 2020 12:52PM PST

If you confiscate everything every single person in the USA has,

A FOX NEWS scenario/argument?

DUH!!!!

Now that you have all this "stuff", I can see you now...rubbing your hands together gleefully with a big grin on your face and then you realize...

WHERE am I going to put all my "stuff"?

How am I going to replace all the stuff I took?

Get China to produce more goods?

Have you ever watched the tv show Hoarders?

FOX NEWS strikes again?

RE:If you confiscate everything every single person in the USA has,

Trump WOULD do that?

Post was last edited on February 25, 2020 12:58 PM PST

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Lets not oversimplify this
Feb 25, 2020 11:46PM PST

Sanders is running a campaign rooted in tackling the status quo. His plan resonates with left-leaning folks, the way DJT's rhetoric resonated with the right-leaning ones.
~Engineer.ai

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Sanders' base
Feb 26, 2020 5:58AM PST

represents less than 2% of the entire USA and is based on wishful thinking and not reality. He's been in the Senate for over 40 years, and the ONLY two bills he's EVER managed to get passed is to rename two post offices. He's got NOTHING as a record and NOBODY on that stupid debate stage calls him on his crap and tells the people WHY he's a nutcase who should be in a mental hospital. NOR do they call him on why his campaign has been paying his corrupt WIFE.

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Do Young People Constute Only 2% Of the Population?
Feb 27, 2020 9:38PM PST

Think of it this way my dude, if an anti-establishment candidate doesnt show up now, it is bound to happen sometime in the future
~Engineer.ai

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First...I'm not a 'dude'
Feb 28, 2020 10:15AM PST

Second....Not everyone supporting Bernie is 'young'
Third...not 'all' young voters are voting for Bernie...There is a very large coalition of young Republican out there now.
Fourth...Trump IS an anti-establishment candidate and currently in the WH. It's what his entire campaign was about. Where were YOU four years ago and why weren't you paying attention to what was going on around you? Anti-establishment doesn't have to include being against the police, law and order, our military, for illegal immigrant migration, and demanding freebie handouts. Those things are not anti-establishment....they are purely radical and hurtful towards our own citizens and our country.

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RE: First....I.m not a 'dude'
Feb 28, 2020 10:58AM PST

The female equivalent was "dudette" or "dudess". but these have both fallen into disuse and "dude" is now also used as a unisex term. This more general meaning of "dude" started creeping into the mainstream in the mid-1970s.

Speaking of "immigrant migration"

U.S. appeals court blocks Trump policy forcing migrants to wait in Mexico

Reuters) - A U.S. federal appeals court in San Francisco on Friday blocked a Trump administration policy that has forced tens of thousands of migrants to wait in Mexico for months for hearings in U.S. immigration courts.

Three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the policy conflicted with the text and congressional purpose of U.S. immigration laws.The program, which began a year ago and is called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), is one of the most dramatic immigration policy changes enacted by the Trump administration.

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9th Circuit...San Francisco
Feb 28, 2020 11:05AM PST

Nobody expected anything different....it'll go to SCOTUS now and Trump will win again as usual.
Now, if I could only figure out which key I hit by mistake on the keyboard that makes everything go into double spaced lines.....

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That's strange
Feb 28, 2020 11:06AM PST

It only shows up as double spaced lines as I'm typing the post, but shows up normally when I hit 'submit'.

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RE:There is a very large coalition of young Republican
Feb 28, 2020 11:17AM PST
There is a very large coalition of young Republican out there now.

I hear ya' sister...

Young Republicans Break With Party on Climate Change

survey from the Pew Research Center released Monday shows that more than half of adult Republicans under the age of 38 say the federal government should be doing more.The finding suggests that the GOP could be forced to move further away from its traditional stance on climate change at a time when the globe has witnessed youth activists taking to the streets to lead protests over inaction on the topic.

bunch of young whippersnappers/upstarts stirring up trouble...

Doesn't Bernie believe in climate change? 

You don't think some of those young Republicans could be planted by Bernie do you?

Post was last edited on February 28, 2020 12:03 PM PST