The Trump Card...

JohnWC

Veteran Expediter
It's easy to say what you would do, knowing the chances of being proven wrong are approximately the same as winning the lottery & being struck by lightning - on the same day.
The odds of being proven wrong on the second statement are definitely not in your favor, as proven by the statement I made above. Unless you think that trying to prevent anyone from having to face a mass killer constitutes "thinking only of ourselves". I think it proves exactly the opposite.
Nope
I've jumped in icy water to save a kid
Along with looking at a knife I know what I'd do
Like I've said you liberals think someone else should have the responsibility and the outher group thinks it's not my job
My choice is do I vote for a rattlesnake or a water moccasins
 

jjtdrv4u

Expert Expediter
next time there is a shooting somewhere, we need to call ole doc ben carson. He said he would lead the charge and take a bullet for us...typical politician baloney...once anybody gets into politics...they are a politician, same as trump...lol
 
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Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
next time there is a shooting somewhere, we need to call ole doc ben carson. He said he would lead the charge and take a bullet for us...typical politician baloney...once anybody gets into politics...they are a politician, same as trump...lol
Of course, when Ben Carson was actually confronted with a gun, he basically did this:

IntheCrosshairsLarson.jpg
 

Windsor

Veteran Expediter
next time there is a shooting somewhere, we need to call ole doc ben carson. He said he would lead the charge and take a bullet for us...typical politician baloney...once anybody gets into politics...they are a politician, same as trump...lol
No no, you're wrong. This new group of a-holes actually cares about each and every one of us....no seriously!
 

Pilgrim

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
If 'social' is a concept that you find distasteful, maybe you should consider why so many of our earliest 'states' are actually 'commonwealths'....
Socialism - democratic or Marxist - has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of a commonwealth.
Commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically it has sometimes been synonymous with "republicanism".

Commonwealth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What I find distasteful is the concept of democratic socialism.
Democratic socialism is defined as having a socialist economy in which the means of production are socially and collectively owned or controlled alongside a politically democratic system of government....
The Democratic Socialists of America defines democratic socialism as a movement to eliminate capitalism by evolving a "social order based on popular control of resources and production..."

Democratic socialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is consistent with Sanders' proposals for the government to provide to provide TRILLIONS of dollars worth of goods and services to both productive and non-productive members of our society with no plausible means of financing them. It all sounds great and works well until you run out of other people's money.
 
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Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Democratic Socialism is not only a joke, that can never be fully implemented within a world economy, but it's a straight-up oxymoron, as democracy is not a way to distribute resources, because the non-producing majority will always, always, always vote for access to other people’s wealth (which is why we see socialist countries around the world voting to get the US wealth already). Nor is it a way to produce wealth. Socialism in all of its flavors discourages and stifles innovation and progress (and isn't that ironic), and the worker-owned and -operated co-ops Democratic Socialism would require to supplant the corporate structure are comically inefficient. Democracy may be the least bad system for distributing political power, but it is absolutely, bust-a-gut, laugh-out-loud breathtakingly inadequate for running an industrialized civilization.

Bernie Sanders and others like him are positive in their minds that the freedom to do business, own capital, own personal property, and make money is the root of poverty in our country. But the reality of our economy is that we do not have a free-market system as it is, and if you dig deep enough you will see that our money is very tightly tied to the whims of the politicians who elect themselves into power and the bureaucracies that support them. The one immutable truth of human nature is those who have power want nothing more than to keep it, and to expand it if possible. It is not as if our political class of socialist liberals is a team of do-gooders who want to make their citizens wealthy and safe; nor is it as if without shareholders and employers owning stuff there would be no money in politics and every US American would be well off. The fact is that politicians can create nothing, they can only redistribute what has been created by the private enterprise they demonize. Democratic Socialism not only ensures that will happen, but actually requires it. Under Democratic Socialism, politicians will run out of other peoples’ money, and their societies will become poorer. We're seeing that happen right now in the Scandinavian Socialist Utopian Paradise.
 

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
If you think that "Bernie Sanders and others like him are positive in their minds that the freedom to do business, own capital, own personal property, and make money is the root of poverty in our country", then you know nothing about him. He does not [and never has] demonize private enterprise. If he demonizes anything, it's the greed that unrestricted [and insufficiently regulated] capitalism allows to take over the political process.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
If he demonizes anything, it's the greed that unrestricted [and insufficiently regulated] capitalism allows to take over the political process.
Which he views as private enterprise. When he got out of college he basically lived perpetually on unemployment while he campaigned hard for the removal of all time limits on unemployment compensation. He was on unemployment for virtually the entire decade of the 70s, while he spent all his time writing and working on far-left politics and engaged in political endeavors as an active member of the Liberty Union Party (hard-core radical Socialist) instead of working and functioning as a member of society. He read Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, who were of course communists, and socialism is the pathway to communism. He threw himself into winning elections. Political office doesn’t require the same skill level as private enterprise. He gave speeches right out of the hippie commie pinko handbook - everything that is wrong is the fault of the rich.

Sanders has his spiffy 11-point plan that basically creates a number of promised "benefits" in which others will be sent the bill, most notably the so-called One Percent. He's already endorsed the 90 percent marginal tax rates as the ideal place to start with redoing the tax structure. And despite American leading the world in per-pupil spending, the only "acceptable" plan to a socialist like Sanders is to spend even more, and if that does not work, spend more again. He believes that as long as you throw money at a problem, if you throw enough at it, the problem will be fixed. Never mind the fact that the more money we've thrown at poverty since the 1960s has done nothing more than create more poverty, and the more money we've thrown at schools has created less educated students. Clearly, we haven't been throwing enough money at the problem.

Sanders' "plan" also depends heavily upon the government forcing up real production costs for businesses. Sanders seems to believe that if government makes the creation of goods to be more expensive, that will raise real standards of living for people who already are not wealthy.

Sanders advocates the expansion of services that would be "free" to Americans with, of course, the "One Percent" paying for everything. He claims that all of these new expenses would "stimulate" the American economy because, after all, someone will be forced to "spend money." The problem, of course, is there simply isn't enough of other people's money to do what he wants.

Socialists (like Sanders, you) believe that owners of capital over time receive increasing returns to capital while individual laborers, over that same period of time, receive diminishing returns to their labor. Simply put, that private ownership of capital and means of production in general create a situation in which, scientifically speaking, the "rich get richer, and the poor become poorer." This was the idea behind Marx's views on capital, and modern generations of liberal economists and politicians have taken it to new levels. But Bernie wants to take it further. When viewing this situation through the eyes of a Marxist, or even through a Keynesian, eventually the economy will implode unless government intervenes through more spending, and we see pretty much the same recommendation from Marx, Kennesians, and the far left: redistribute income and spend, spend, spend. This "doctrine" is self-evident in the eyes of the Left. It is without question, taken on faith.

In Sandersland, capital is useful only in the spending that occurs in building and maintaining it, and the interests in capital are contrary to the interests of labor. As for the production of goods themselves, in Sanders' little socialist world, goods automatically appear on the assembly lines and in even greater abundance if those assembly lines either are owned or at least heavily regulated by government. Furthermore, the quality of those goods is identical to or even superior anything produced by private enterprise. This despite the government being inept, incompetent, and grossly wasteful in everything they do.

Sanders claims his vision for the economy is "expansionary," but no economy model even devised can expand by having government force up real costs of factors of production and have the government nationalize anything of capital importance. That's Bernie Sanders. And it has been since his days with the Liberty Union Party.
 

skyraider

Veteran Expediter
US Navy
The joys of man made plans, how is that working out for us? We have had 8 years of plans made by man,,
 

JohnWC

Veteran Expediter
If you think that "Bernie Sanders and others like him are positive in their minds that the freedom to do business, own capital, own personal property, and make money is the root of poverty in our country", then you know nothing about him. He does not [and never has] demonize private enterprise. If he demonizes anything, it's the greed that unrestricted [and insufficiently regulated] capitalism allows to take over the political process.
Cheri
I hate to bust your bubble but the rich man is allways going to make his money or he's going to put it in the bank and live off the return even if it meens moveing to another country
What we need is a flat tax so everybody pays what ever % the goverment needs to run on
 

davekc

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Fleet Owner
I think Sanders is well intentioned, but "everything for free" isn't going to happen. You don't have enough "rich" people to pay for a fraction of what he wants. He sounds good until you look at our debt, tax revenue, and pulling out a calculator.
 
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Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
I'll never forget what a middle school social studies teacher said as we were about to study communism and socialism... "Communism looks good on paper, but it doesn't work with people." History, as well as the recent present, has proven that statement to be correct. How do you think China got to where it is today? Straight-up capitalism, that's how.
 

coalminer

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Democratic Socialism is not only a joke, that can never be fully implemented within a world economy, but it's a straight-up oxymoron, as democracy is not a way to distribute resources, because the non-producing majority will always, always, always vote for access to other people’s wealth (which is why we see socialist countries around the world voting to get the US wealth already). Nor is it a way to produce wealth. Socialism in all of its flavors discourages and stifles innovation and progress (and isn't that ironic), and the worker-owned and -operated co-ops Democratic Socialism would require to supplant the corporate structure are comically inefficient. Democracy may be the least bad system for distributing political power, but it is absolutely, bust-a-gut, laugh-out-loud breathtakingly inadequate for running an industrialized civilization.

Bernie Sanders and others like him are positive in their minds that the freedom to do business, own capital, own personal property, and make money is the root of poverty in our country. But the reality of our economy is that we do not have a free-market system as it is, and if you dig deep enough you will see that our money is very tightly tied to the whims of the politicians who elect themselves into power and the bureaucracies that support them. The one immutable truth of human nature is those who have power want nothing more than to keep it, and to expand it if possible. It is not as if our political class of socialist liberals is a team of do-gooders who want to make their citizens wealthy and safe; nor is it as if without shareholders and employers owning stuff there would be no money in politics and every US American would be well off. The fact is that politicians can create nothing, they can only redistribute what has been created by the private enterprise they demonize. Democratic Socialism not only ensures that will happen, but actually requires it. Under Democratic Socialism, politicians will run out of other peoples’ money, and their societies will become poorer. We're seeing that happen right now in the Scandinavian Socialist Utopian Paradise.



Ahhh yes, there is the typical "conservative" response, that socialists was everything to be free. There is no such thing as free health care, it is paid for by taxes, and the ones who don't pay taxes get health care for free either way.

Here is my version of a national health care system:

There would be a payroll tax to pay for this system, the current heath care act says that an affordable plan should cost no more than 10% of the individuals income, so that's where the cost would start. Now maybe in 5 years that would have to be adjusted up or down, but 10% would be where it starts. Also that would be 10% up to a certain amount, similar to how social security works, lets say income up to 125k.

Opting out. Yes, you would be able to opt out of this plan, but part of the legislation would be that hospitals would no longer be required to care for uninsured people, so unless you have a private plan (yes that would still be allowed for all of the anti-government people) you get sick and unless you have money to pay upfront, you are out of luck. Back to opting out, if you do, you can opt back in one time, if you opt out again, you are out for good.

Now the taxes to pay for the plan can be either paid for by the individuals, or their employer could pay that as a benefit to their employees. And contrary to popular beliefs, big businesses (other than health insurance companies) would be glad to have national health care, as they would not need as large of a HR staff.

As for free college, that is not needed except for one exception, and this ties into the health care legislation, if we don't do something, there will not be enough doctors and nurses to take care of our aging population, so if someone shows the desire and has the ability, they should get to get their medical training paid for. Right now anyone who does go to medical school graduates with so much debt that they will be lucky to pay it off before they retire.

We pay one of the highest costs per capita for health care in the world, there is plenty of money in this system to care for everyone, but so much of it gets sucked into the greed of highly paid executives who only subtract from the system, they have nothing of value to add to it.
 

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
Cheri
I hate to bust your bubble but the rich man is allways going to make his money or he's going to put it in the bank and live off the return even if it meens moveing to another country
What we need is a flat tax so everybody pays what ever % the goverment needs to run on

The rich are welcome to make as much money as they want - but they are not welcome to manipulate the free markets and political races with their wealth. Nor should they be free to 'hide' it by accounting legerdemain, nor shelter it by preferential tax structures they largely bought & paid for.
If the US weren't where they prefer to be, [superior legal environment, for one thing], they'd have moved out long ago. They recognize the benefits of living here, they just don't want to pay for them. [Rather like they recognize the benefits of actual workers, but do everything possible to limit how much money they are paid.]
A flat tax is punitive for people who aren't at the top of the financial food chain. The % that a higher income family wouldn't even notice is a % the lower income family can't afford.
 

JohnWC

Veteran Expediter
The rich are welcome to make as much money as they want - but they are not welcome to manipulate the free markets and political races with their wealth. Nor should they be free to 'hide' it by accounting legerdemain, nor shelter it by preferential tax structures they largely bought & paid for.
If the US weren't where they prefer to be, [superior legal environment, for one thing], they'd have moved out long ago. They recognize the benefits of living here, they just don't want to pay for them. [Rather like they recognize the benefits of actual workers, but do everything possible to limit how much money they are paid.]
A flat tax is punitive for people who aren't at the top of the financial food chain. The % that a higher income family wouldn't even notice is a % the lower income family can't afford.
Yep no disagreements there
But they will take their marbles elsewhere
So why not a flat tax fair for everyone
 

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
Turtle: your depiction of Sanders is rather one sided. How do you account for his success as Mayor of Burlington? He didn't consider capitalists as 'the enemy', he worked with them, for the betterment of the city, and all who live & work there. Including said capitalists, who learned to respect him, rather than fear what he would try to do. And he didn't do it by throwing more money at everything, either. He did it by talking and listening and learning, same as he is doing now.
I most definitely do NOT believe that "individual laborers, over time, receive diminishing returns for their labor" [or 'the poor get poorer']. Although that's what has played out in the US over the last 4 -5 decades, it is not the natural order of things. It's the result of the 'game' being rigged by those who stand to benefit [and can buy whatever assistance they require in accomplishing it]. It's manipulation of the many by the few, and it's unsustainable.
I don't giveadam if the rich get richer - but I do take exception to deception and lies, and that's how the very wealthy have achieved their success, in too many instances.
Sanders doesn't lie. He's not wealthy. His plan for reining in Wall Street and the 'too big to fail' banks is actually very credible - better than Clinton's, for sure. And far better than any of the Republican candidates, whose plan seems to be to allow the vultures to crash the economy [as they so nearly did already], just so they keep pouring money into campaign accounts.
Sanders is talking about what matters: jobs, education, our deplorable infrastructure, the massive and unchecked greed that made income inequality nearly erase the middle class.
The Republicans are talking about Planned Parenthood. And Muslims. And immigration. [Which is a problem, but one we can put on the back burner for now, because there are more important issues to work out.] One of which is jobs that support people, and families, so the taxpayers don't have to.
Did you see the reaction of the French aviation workers who learned they were about to be out of work? It could happen here, too - and if the unemployment and part time and low wages continue to be status quo, it will, because working people are getting tired of hearing why they need to 'make do' with less, year after year after year.
 

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
Yep no disagreements there
But they will take their marbles elsewhere
So why not a flat tax fair for everyone

They won't take their marbles elsewhere, John, trust me. If they knew of a 'better' place to live, they'd have moved out already. It's not like they have loyalty to their country, or to anything, other than more: money, status, etc.
Which part of "the flat tax is NOT fair for everybody" is hard to understand?
 
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