Political Chatter

[Pdxfashionpioneer]

I think the term for the kind of politics that Bernie Sanders espouses is Social Democrat. Basically, that he takes a more expansive view of basic rights such that they include goods and services we expect to pay money for but people in most developed countries get through or from their government. Things like education and healthcare ... oh wait, the US pioneered public education because Thomas Jefferson convinced us that if we didn't educate the people we gave the vote to we'd be in deep sh!t.

Economists credit our public education system with being a cornerstone to our creating the world's #1 economy. It also gave us a strategic advantage during WWII. The combined effect of our public universities, community colleges and the GI Bill of Rights gave the 1960's US affordable education through a Bachelor's degree and arguably graduate degrees. The other developed countries liked that effects of that system so much, education through a bachelor's degree is paid for by the government. Sure the people pay higher taxes but everyone gets the education they need to fulfill their dreams.
As far as healthcare goes, the percentage of our GDP that goes to healthcare is double that of any other developed nation and the outcomes are worse. The only thing we exceed at is medical innovation. Everyone else gets universal coverage. While we're at it, 40+% of our healthcare tab is paid for by government. ... Check my math but 40+% x double gets pretty close to what every other developed country is paying. In other words, if we could get over the stigma of it being "socialist" (no "social democratic"), a single payer system, where the government would be that single payer, wouldn't cost hardly anything more than what we're already paying collectively.

But what about paying for higher ed? Sorry to have to say it, but higher taxes, especially for the rich, but the economic boom it would fuel would more than pay for the educational system.

How do we get manufacturing back? 1) make carbon fuels pay their environmental costs. That's right, a carbon tax and for good measure cap and trade (which was originally a conservative idea to fight acid rain and it worked far better than anyone ever imagined). When oil got up to $100 a barrel manufacturing jobs came back to the US because it drove up the obvious costs of off-shoring. The hidden costs are much higher, but no one believes it's happening to them. 2) reinstitute the tax rates of the 1950's. During the Eisenhower Administration the top several percent paid a marginal income tax rate of 90% or so. That created a disincentive for owners to take earnings out of their businesses and for CEO's to garner absurd salaries. Why bother? it'd just go to taxes. Instead, it went back into the business for advanced equipment and higher wages for the workers, which also created an incentive for reinvestment.

Which brings us to the 3rd point of my economic reform plan: something approaching the $15 per hour minimum wage with automatic cost of living adjustments (but based on an realistic CPI and growth factor). Ever increasing wages forces businesses to constantly improve productivity, which creates more real wealth, generally fairly well distributed and keeps domestic production ahead of foreign, especially with constantly increasing transportation costs, at least carbon-based transportation.

Call it socialism if you will, I call it getting back to the basics of government doing only what government can or will do, "promote the general welfare," which is what the Preamble of our Constitution calls for.

But let's not kid ourselves, things didn't change so drastically in the 80's because we suddenly got a less civic-minded group of capitalists; things went to H*%l because we unleashed our capitalists with deregulation, tax cuts for the rich and throttling the unions.

For further explanation of some of these mechanisms read "Super Capitalism" by Robert Reich.

PS: Carl, awhile back Businessweek showed that it is only the 1% of the 1% that is getting ahead while the remaining top 0.99% is treading water. No wonder they whine so loudly!

[moonshadow]

The last several post strike me with the notion that something needs to be done to curtail the 1%'s endless profiting off of the remaining 99%.

But aside from pointing out the problem, and even offering possible solutions like Dave mentioned, the real question is, how do we get there?

To change gears just a little (but along the same line), personally, more than one time in my life I had considered that I might actually be, the financially poorest person in the nation. When we think of "the 99%" we think of single mother's desperate trying to put scraps of food on a worn out table in a run down ghetto apartment. We think of people making $7.25 per hour, working three part time jobs totally 60 hours a week across them, and practically living in a car, etc, etc

And while such a lifestyle may very well be the case for a few. The world I see out my back window (literally) is anything but.

There have been times that I have estimated there may be somewhere around a million dollars worth of assets in my back yard (the RV's). Frankly I'm surprised as to how young many of the vacationers seem to be. A ride around Washington County VA with all it's enormous million dollar estates makes a man wonder... "what the hell do people do for a living to afford all of this?". As I ride through the country side, even in other areas and I observe LARGE tracts of land, spreading as far as the eye can see, millions of dollars worth of private property... who owns it? When I consider that I'll be lucky if I'm ever well off enough to pay off a quarter acre lot with a small bungalow situated on it. Even so, that house will cost an upwards of at least $100,000, and that's in a low demand community, as I'm sure some of you would laugh at that as I know you live in areas where such a house could be a million dollar home.

Frankly, even $15 per hour isn't enough to pay for that. I know... that's roughly what I make now, and I'm dirt ass poor every week. Sure I come home with a few skirts now and then, but virtually all of them currently come from thrift stores anymore. As much as I love Misty Mountain, even I had to nix spending $30-$40 on a skirt.

So I question... is it REALLY that bad all around? If so, it seems to me more people would be starving to death than vacationing in my back yard. And I'd just like to know, how they do it?

My personal vehicle is an old worn our Dodge pickup built in 93 that is falling apart at the seams, it's almost completely rusted out, and a slipping transmission, but it's the best I can do. It took everything we had to get that '12 Elantra that's in the driveway just so we'd have a reliable car, and it's no where near paid off. We do manage to actually save roughly around $200+/- per month in cold hard cash (in a savings account), it's slowly inching it's way up, for what purchase? We honestly don't know. At first we were saving for a down payment on a house, but we don't know if we want to go down that road. With the way things have gone at work lately we've been thinking it might be some emergency unemployment money. Truthfully, I'm sure a hospital will get their hands on it eventually as sooner or later, one of us will suffer a major medical expense.

On the other side of the aisle (or house, literally) out my front window, I see the white trash welfare crowd. And as trashy as their yard is, and as obnoxious as they tend to be from time to time, I make a few observations:

1) Nobody there has a job, so how do they make their living?
2) They have two nice vehicles, one of which is a truck, several worn out ones, two motorcycles. With nobody working, how is this possible?

How do they pay their basic expenses? Even if there house is paid for (how did THAT happen by the way?) there are still matters like the electric bill, water, sewer, internet, phone, etc that have to be settled every month. How is it done with apparently zero income?

I have to be honest with you all, sometimes I feel like a damn fool and chump sitting here drudging my ass to work every day, only to bring it home and send it down the line, after all of the expenses are paid, like I said, I might have about $200 left to save, and maybe $20-$30 (for the month) to spend on things like thrift store skirts, or what ever I've been wanting that month. All the while, I look around, and nobody appears to be doing anything productive with their life and they're in the land of milk and honey? How?

No offense to some here, but I've observed some mention they are unemployed, this is a phenomenon I've noticed in the news, whereas it's been said that "the unemployment rate is actually higher than reported as many people have just stopped looking for work."

WHAT?? For me, employment isn't an option, it's MANDATORY if I want to eat! I honestly don't know how some people are getting by, but if I lost my job tomorrow and wasn't able to replace it right away, I'd literally be living out of my car within 2 months, and eating at charity kitchens! That's one reason when I thought I was going to get the ax for off the clock skirt wearing a while back, I decided that if that happened we'd just head out west somewhere and start over? Why not... homeless is homeless right? If I have to live on the streets, I'd just assume live on streets that never see snow.

So while I agree that the 1% are filthy stinking rich beyond comparison, and have much more power than any human should rightfully have... I don't buy this crap that America is some poor third world country, that's going bankrupt quick fast and in a hurry. Frankly, I just see too much money in OTHER PEOPLE'S pocket every day. Don't know where they're getting it from. But I'm convinced that I might actually be the lowest paid man in the nation. Or maybe I've just got the highest expenses. Maybe a combination of the two, I don't know.

My only saving grace is that save for the car, we are in zero amount of debt. We owe nothing to anyone. What we do pay for, we generally pay for with cash, or money in the bank. Sure I've got a credit card that I use for things like auto drafts (internet bill) pandora, etc. I also use it at gas pumps because many pumps like to pre-authorize $75 when you use a card (sometimes I don't have $75 in my bank account), but when it is used, it's paid off the following week in full. So I don't know... but I simply refuse to go into debt, and thus, many items are out of our reach because they require more money than we're willing to spend, or save up for. So as a result, we're not really "consumers", we don't just buy things for the sake of buying them (save for GoodWill skirts). Our biggest non-fixed expense is groceries, and in case you hadn't guessed it already... no we don't get food stamps either.

One final thought.... regarding $15 minimum wage.... at first I was opposed, because I knew I wouldn't get a raise to offset the certain cost of living increases, even if there were no cost of living increases at all... ever, it still doesn't change the fact that I would make the same thing as a 15 year old bag boy. But then last week it dawned on me.... if all entry level jobs are now paying $15 per our by law... then I don't have to worry about putting up with this one... hell they all pay the same now anyway right? What's the difference? And a positive feeling came over me.

Hum..... being on call, working on dangerous equipment, long hours... $15 per hour
-OR-
Stock some shelves, punch out, go home, RELAX, $15 per hour...

Bring it! It's gonna happen whether I think it's a good idea or not.... so might as well embrace it's advantages right?

[Sinned]

The growth of multi-national concerns now means that they can pick and choose not only their Head Offices but the accounting entities to take best advantage of tax rates. Thus amazon says that all UK sales are invoiced in Ireland where the Corporation Tax is a lot lower than in England or another may say that the accounting office is in Lichtenstein, you Americans look it up, where tax is virtually non-existent. Companies such as Costa Packet can arrange it so that they supply ingredients such as coffee, tea and other consumables at such prices that the concern in Britain makes no paper profits. The result is turnover in billions and either no tax paid at all or at best just a few million. And it's not just these two that is at it, name any of the big ones, apple, google just to name two more. Our Chancellor struggles because the Companies are not based in this country, their servers are probably in South Africa or India and, I gather, the same may be happening in the US also as Corporations are doing the same there.

And as for Socialism, no that doesn't work. All it does is encourage the Welfare State which encourages the idle, which is pretty much in human nature to a greater or lesser extent, to sit back at home, on their fat _rs_s, watch tele all day, have loads of kids so that they can pick up their child allowance, get a larger house supplied by the council and otherwise do f__k all. This is a very recognised problem over here and is perceived as one reason why economic migrants, not genuine refuges from war-torn countries, try to get to Britain rather than other European countries because our welfare rates appear better and are available from day 1, including access to housing. We are already over-populated and the pressure on the poor Health Service, Dentists and Schools means that the indigenous population are struggling to get access to services because of the influx of immigrants. And yet the politicians refuse to do anything about it. And Moon you ask how people with no apparent income manage to have good cars, large screen teles and so on, well in this country it's called welfare and the black economy, working piecemeal for cash and paying for things in cash. We have a people over here called gypsies, we have a camp within walking distance or our house, and everything they do is for cash and they have lots of it.

Pdx, as for making carbon fuels pay more then it is being tried in this country which is why our steel industry has largely moved to places like China and India where they don't give a toss about burning carbon fuels and any industry that has a high energy bill will go the same way. And do you seriously think that fat cats will seriously leave their money invested in the business and pass the money to the workers in higher wages. You are more naive than I thought. There are other ways of taking money out of a company than in wages. We have just had an increase in the minimum wage by calling it a living wage and what is the reaction of business - cut people's hours of work, take away other benefits that they previously had, employ under-25's that are cheaper to emply and any other scheme that they can think of to claw back the money that they have lost through paying the new pay rates.

[Caultron]

The last several post strike me with the notion that something needs to be done to curtail the 1%'s endless profiting off of the remaining 99%.

But aside from pointing out the problem, and even offering possible solutions like Dave mentioned, the real question is, how do we get there?...

It's a long road. First you have to take control of Congress away from the Republicans, and then you need to crate a more liberal Supreme Court, and then you have to shift the Democratic party quite a bit to the left. You need to assemble not a third party, necessarily, but at least a voting block that in a 49%-49%-2% Congress can be the 2% with the swing vote.

...To change gears just a little (but along the same line), personally, more than one time in my life I had considered that I might actually be, the financially poorest person in the nation. When we think of "the 99%" we think of single mother's desperate trying to put scraps of food on a worn out table in a run down ghetto apartment. We think of people making $7.25 per hour, working three part time jobs totally 60 hours a week across them, and practically living in a car, etc, etc

And while such a lifestyle may very well be the case for a few. The world I see out my back window (literally) is anything but...

Right, the poor, by definition, are the bottom 10%, and we don't have the 99% earning $7.25/hr and living in beat-up cars. But the lifestyle of the bottom 90% keeps gradually declining and the top 10-2% are barely keeping even.

...There have been times that I have estimated there may be somewhere around a million dollars worth of assets in my back yard (the RV's). Frankly I'm surprised as to how young many of the vacationers seem to be. A ride around Washington County VA with all it's enormous million dollar estates makes a man wonder... "what the hell do people do for a living to afford all of this?". As I ride through the country side, even in other areas and I observe LARGE tracts of land, spreading as far as the eye can see, millions of dollars worth of private property... who owns it? When I consider that I'll be lucky if I'm ever well off enough to pay off a quarter acre lot with a small bungalow situated on it. Even so, that house will cost an upwards of at least $100,000, and that's in a low demand community, as I'm sure some of you would laugh at that as I know you live in areas where such a house could be a million dollar home...

Frankly, even $15 per hour isn't enough to pay for that. I know... that's roughly what I make now, and I'm dirt ass poor every week. Sure I come home with a few skirts now and then, but virtually all of them currently come from thrift stores anymore. As much as I love Misty Mountain, even I had to nix spending $30-$40 on a skirt.

So I question... is it REALLY that bad all around? If so, it seems to me more people would be starving to death than vacationing in my back yard. And I'd just like to know, how they do it?

The RVs and houses may be rented, or you may be looking at the top 5-10% who are doctors, lawyers, executives, or other high-paying professions. And some may have inherited their money.

...On the other side of the aisle (or house, literally) out my front window, I see the white trash welfare crowd. And as trashy as their yard is, and as obnoxious as they tend to be from time to time, I make a few observations:

1) Nobody there has a job, so how do they make their living
2) They have two nice vehicles, one of which is a truck, several worn out ones, two motorcycles. With nobody working, how is this possible?..
How do they pay their basic expenses? Even if there house is paid for (how did THAT happen by the way?) there are still matters like the electric bill, water, sewer, internet, phone, etc that have to be settled every month. How is it done with apparently zero income?

Unemployment, welfare, food stamps, savings, help from relatives...

...I have to be honest with you all, sometimes I feel like a damn fool and chump sitting here drudging my ass to work every day, only to bring it home and send it down the line, after all of the expenses are paid, like I said, I might have about $200 left to save, and maybe $20-$30 (for the month) to spend on things like thrift store skirts, or what ever I've been wanting that month. All the while, I look around, and nobody appears to be doing anything productive with their life and they're in the land of milk and honey? How?

No offense to some here, but I've observed some mention they are unemployed, this is a phenomenon I've noticed in the news, whereas it's been said that "the unemployment rate is actually higher than reported as many people have just stopped looking for work."

WHAT?? For me, employment isn't an option, it's MANDATORY if I want to eat! I honestly don't know how some people are getting by, but if I lost my job tomorrow and wasn't able to replace it right away, I'd literally be living out of my car within 2 months, and eating at charity kitchens! That's one reason when I thought I was going to get the ax for off the clock skirt wearing a while back, I decided that if that happened we'd just head out west somewhere and start over? Why not... homeless is homeless right? If I have to live on the streets, I'd just assume live on streets that never see snow.
..

It's a fundamental problem that we have tens of millions of workers for whom no job is available. Oh sure, take any one of them and if they hustle enough they can find something, But it's a game as musical chairs. If you have 100 million workers and only 90 million jobs, 10 million people are going to be unemployed. Over time people may move in and out of that category but the number is always going to be there.

And to correct that, you have to get private business to create those millions of living-wage jobs.

...So while I agree that the 1% are filthy stinking rich beyond comparison, and have much more power than any human should rightfully have... I don't buy this crap that America is some poor third world country, that's going bankrupt quick fast and in a hurry...

Oh, we're declining all right, but not in a hurry.

...Frankly, I just see too much money in OTHER PEOPLE'S pocket every day. Don't know where they're getting it from. But I'm convinced that I might actually be the lowest paid man in the nation. Or maybe I've just got the highest expenses. Maybe a combination of the two, I don't know...

Public assistance is less than 1% of the federal budget. The Republicans have been pushing this concept that the poor are getting all the money, which is ludicrous when you think about it, and yet they seem to have people convinced.

And again, to get people working, private industry needs to create living-wage jobs by the millions, which current economic rules don't incent them to do.

...My only saving grace is that save for the car, we are in zero amount of debt. We owe nothing to anyone. What we do pay for, we generally pay for with cash, or money in the bank. Sure I've got a credit card that I use for things like auto drafts (internet bill) pandora, etc. I also use it at gas pumps because many pumps like to pre-authorize $75 when you use a card (sometimes I don't have $75 in my bank account), but when it is used, it's paid off the following week in full. So I don't know... but I simply refuse to go into debt, and thus, many items are out of our reach because they require more money than we're willing to spend, or save up for. So as a result, we're not really "consumers", we don't just buy things for the sake of buying them (save for GoodWill skirts). Our biggest non-fixed expense is groceries, and in case you hadn't guessed it already... no we don't get food stamps either.

One final thought.... regarding $15 minimum wage.... at first I was opposed, because I knew I wouldn't get a raise to offset the certain cost of living increases, even if there were no cost of living increases at all... ever, it still doesn't change the fact that I would make the same thing as a 15 year old bag boy. But then last week it dawned on me.... if all entry level jobs are now paying $15 per our by law... then I don't have to worry about putting up with this one... hell they all pay the same now anyway right? What's the difference? And a positive feeling came over me.

Hum..... being on call, working on dangerous equipment, long hours... $15 per hour
-OR-
Stock some shelves, punch out, go home, RELAX, $15 per hour...

Bring it! It's gonna happen whether I think it's a good idea or not.... so might as well embrace it's advantages right?

As more and more adults work as burger-flippers and Walmart-greeters, they still need enough money to meet family expenses. And a high minimum wage certainly produces downward distribution of wealth.

Yes, it may cause some jobs to be eliminated because outsourcing or automation will become cheaper by comparison. But you have to believe there's some standard of living that no US citizen should fall below. And if private industry won't create the jobs, they should pay tax to support all the people who are consequently out of work.

[Caultron]

The growth of multi-national concerns now means that they can pick and choose not only their Head Offices but the accounting entities to take best advantage of tax rates. Thus amazon says that all UK sales are invoiced in Ireland where the Corporation Tax is a lot lower than in England or another may say that the accounting office is in Lichtenstein, you Americans look it up, where tax is virtually non-existent. Companies such as Costa Packet can arrange it so that they supply ingredients such as coffee, tea and other consumables at such prices that the concern in Britain makes no paper profits. The result is turnover in billions and either no tax paid at all or at best just a few million. And it's not just these two that is at it, name any of the big ones, apple, google just to name two more. Our Chancellor struggles because the Companies are not based in this country, their servers are probably in South Africa or India and, I gather, the same may be happening in the US also as Corporations are doing the same there...

Neither the US nor the UK nor any other advanced country will ever have the cheapest labor, the lowest tax, or the fewest regulations in the world. And economically, global output and wealth will be maximized if each country contributes what it does cheapest and best.

So why should any business large enough to go overseas and stay home and eschew those savings?

The problem is that no one cares a rat's ass about global wealth; they only care about their own wealth. They're not willing to give up their high-paying job and their lifestyle so people half-way around the world can move up from unemployed to $1/day.

The golden carrot for businesses, of course, is access to developed-country markets. And so if they're going to send all their jobs and/or money overseas, you have to charge for that. Call it tarrifs, call it value-added tax, call it currency regulations, call it whatever you want. And yes, it will lead to higher consumer prices and less global output. But if it means living-wage jobs for all of a country's workers, I say it's worth it.

...And as for Socialism, no that doesn't work. All it does is encourage the Welfare State which encourages the idle, which is pretty much in human nature to a greater or lesser extent, to sit back at home, on their fat _rs_s, watch tele all day, have loads of kids so that they can pick up their child allowance, get a larger house supplied by the council and otherwise do f__k all. This is a very recognised problem over here and is perceived as one reason why economic migrants, not genuine refuges from war-torn countries, try to get to Britain rather than other European countries because our welfare rates appear better and are available from day 1, including access to housing. We are already over-populated and the pressure on the poor Health Service, Dentists and Schools means that the indigenous population are struggling to get access to services because of the influx of immigrants. And yet the politicians refuse to do anything about it. And Moon you ask how people with no apparent income manage to have good cars, large screen teles and so on, well in this country it's called welfare and the black economy, working piecemeal for cash and paying for things in cash. We have a people over here called gypsies, we have a camp within walking distance or our house, and everything they do is for cash and they have lots of it...

The biggest mistake of Bernie Sander's life was declaring himself a Socialist. Mention that word and all people can think of is government takeovers, Nazis, and the next thing to Communism.

But democracy is the one force that can limit upward distribution of wealth. At some point, the 99% are supposed to contribute more votes than the 1% and make sure they get their fair share.

But under current US law, the wealthy can secretly contribute vast sums of money to political campaigns and essentially buy elections and politicians. They buy those votes by mudslinging his opponent and invoking catalyzing issues like gun control, abortion, and family values.

And so that needs to stop. Except that it's very hard to get politicians to destroy the system that got them elected.

I tend to think term limits would help but that's certainly not a total solution.

...Pdx, as for making carbon fuels pay more then it is being tried in this country which is why our steel industry has largely moved to places like China and India where they don't give a toss about burning carbon fuels and any industry that has a high energy bill will go the same way...

This is a very difficult topic. Two actions that might help are:
1) Enact trade barriers and sanctions against countries that permit dirty factories.
2) Enable watchdog groups to file suits against companies that import from dirty factories.

But these are hardly full solutions. All you need is one conduit country to resell dirty goods as clean.

...And do you seriously think that fat cats will seriously leave their money invested in the business and pass the money to the workers in higher wages. You are more naive than I thought. There are other ways of taking money out of a company than in wages. We have just had an increase in the minimum wage by calling it a living wage and what is the reaction of business - cut people's hours of work, take away other benefits that they previously had, employ under-25's that are cheaper to emply and any other scheme that they can think of to claw back the money that they have lost through paying the new pay rates.

I've worked for companies that were making money and for some that weren't, and life was definitely better when the company was making money.

But certainly, just because businesses make more money doesn't mean they're going to spend it on employees. In fact, they may spend it on further cost reductions.

[crfriend]

But democracy is the one force that can limit upward distribution of wealth. At some point, the 99% are supposed to contribute more votes than the 1% and make sure they get their fair share.

This is a nice thought, but the entire electoral process can be -- and has been -- short-circuited by diligent pre-selection of the candidates. Only allowing candidates that will categorically follow the desires of their paymasters to enter the race, and then running a sham "election" is the order of business today, and has been since the late 1990s. If all the candidates have been carefully screened and chosen by the "1%" (although the real number seems vastly smaller) there is effectively no choice for the 99% to make.

[Caultron]

This is a nice thought, but the entire electoral process can be -- and has been -- short-circuited by diligent pre-selection of the candidates. Only allowing candidates that will categorically follow the desires of their paymasters to enter the race, and then running a sham "election" is the order of business today, and has been since the late 1990s. If all the candidates have been carefully screened and chosen by the "1%" (although the real number seems vastly smaller) there is effectively no choice for the 99% to make.

Sadly true. The best we can usually hope for is two offsetting 0.5% groups.

[Pdxfashionpioneer]

Carl, no one picked Bernie Sanders and look where he's gotten. For that matter no one but The Donald picked him either so the political system I don't think anyone can rig the political system as well as you seem to think.

Sinned, Despite it being a Totalitarian, Communist nation, China signed a pact with the US to address global warming. By popular demand, they have been addressing air and water pollution since the Bejing Olympics. For the Olympics they had to shut down a whole raft of major industrial complexes so the air would clean up enough to run the events. After the Olympics the populace let the Communist Party know they were mad as hell about the unbreathable air and they weren't going to take it anymore. And the air got better. Not clean and healthy, but better.

My point being, pretty soon there won't be any place to escape pollution controls and my other point being, that carbon taxes, especially if enacted on a global basis would cut down on a lot of this non-sensical business of shipping components and manufactured goods back and forth across the waves, because the shipping costs wouldn't support it. To cite one small example, nearly all of the salmon Americans eat comes from fish farms in Asia. The salmon Asians eat is caught by Americans off of the Alaska coast.

From an energy or environmental perspective, it makes no sense. Only cheap oil allows it to make economic sense. Increase the price oil by charging the oil companies for the environmental costs through taxation and that kind of nonsense stops.

Easy to do? Not at all for all of the reasons we have all stated about who is currently pulling the political levers, but Bernie and, in his perverse way, The Donald are showing the average voter has more power than s/he realizes.

[crfriend]

[... N]o one picked Bernie Sanders and look where he's gotten. For that matter no one but The Donald picked him either so the political system I don't think anyone can rig the political system as well as you seem to think.

Sanders hasn't got a snowball's chance of getting the nomination, so -- sadly -- his presence on the stage is merely theatre. Trump, on the other hand, is a bit of a conundrum but given the repulsive qualities of the types put forward by the Republican machine makes some sense in a very kinky sort of way. However, even if Trump manages to win the "election" he can be handily be dealt with after the fact, either by deft manoeuvring or (just as likely) assassination. I'm not a big fan of the latter, but it can be a useful tool -- and one that the US is very good at using, both domestically and abroad.

[...] Despite it being a Totalitarian, Communist nation, China signed a pact with the US to address global warming. By popular demand, they have been addressing air and water pollution since the Bejing Olympics.

True, but not really enough -- and the US has done practically nothing. I suspect we're now well beyond the tipping-point and climate-change will only accelerate from here. Of interest here is that I know full well that climate change is a reality -- one only needs to look at rising sea levels to get that -- I remain somewhat sceptical that humans are the sole cause. We may well be part of the equation, but I doubt that we dominate it. However, that said, we need to take a powerful interest in the matter because it could cause us as a species to either go extinct, or at least put us through a genetic bottleneck. Not doing anything is not an option; we need to try to arrest the change.

To cite one small example, nearly all of the salmon Americans eat comes from fish farms in Asia. The salmon Asians eat is caught by Americans off of the Alaska coast.

Or the importation of granite headstones from China to the state of New Hampshire ("The Granite State"). I'm not positive of the veracity of that report, but given how insane things have gotten I'm inclined to believe it. Global trade is all well and good, but sometimes it doesn't make a whole lot of sense -- economically, environmentally, or logically.

[...] Bernie and, in his perverse way, The Donald are showing the average voter has more power than s/he realizes.

We shall see what transpires. The model I'm using still indicates that it'll be Clinton -- likely by a tiny "majority", or even a minority but picked by the Electoral College or even appointment by the Supreme Court (again), but that does not excuse the way the thing was run.

[PatJ]

WARNING --- RANT ---- Warning --- Rant

I don't know how the rest of people feel, but,
I am "sick and tired" of voting for the person
who I think is the best of the poor choices on
the ballot.

I haven't voted for a person so much
as I have voted against an other person.

Just once I would like to see a box that says
"None of the above". And if "None of the
above" wins - the office is empty or filled by
and appointee until a new group of candidates
can be found.

Mud slinging and insults should immediately
1. disqualify the candidate and 2. cause revocation
of the broadcast license of the TV or Radio Station
that allowed it to be aired.

Politics needs to be cleaned up and my rant of
lame ideas has about the same chance of happening
as a snow ball in you know where.

I - for one - am disappointed in where our government(s)
are taking us.

--- RANT OVER ---

[Judah14]

Over here TV stations were warned by the MTRCB (the government's TV rating agency) that if President-Elect Rodrigo Duterte swears on TV, and it isn't censored, the station hosting the interview would be penalized accordingly. However, Duterte said he will avoid swearing on TV when he takes office.

[Fred in Skirts]

Politically Correct

Telegrams sent by President Harry Truman and Gen Douglas MacArthur on the day before the actual signing of the WWII Surrender Agreement in September 1945..

The contents of those four telegrams below are exactly as received at the end of the war - not a word has been added or deleted!

(1) Tokyo,Japan
0800-September 1,1945
To: President Harry S Truman
From: General D A MacArthur
Tomorrow we meet with those yellow-bellied bastards and sign the Surrender Documents, any last minute instructions?

(2) Washington, D C
1300-September 1, 1945
To: D A MacArthur
From: H S Truman
Congratulations, job well done, but you must tone down your obvious dislike of the Japanese when discussing the terms of the surrender with the press, because some of your remarks are fundamentally not politically correct!

(3) Tokyo, Japan
1630-September 1, 1945
To: H S Truman
From: D A MacArthur and C H Nimitz
Wilco Sir, but both Chester and I are somewhat confused, exactly what does the term politically correct mean?

(4) Washington, D C
2120-September 1, 1945
To: D A MacArthur/C H Nimitz
From: H S Truman
Political Correctness is a doctrine, recently fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and promoted by a sick mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of sh*t by the clean end!

Now, with special thanks to the Truman Museum and Harry himself, you and I finally have a full understanding of what ‘POLITICAL CORRECTNESS’ really means...


Fred

[Sinned]

And yet from truthorfiction.com:

"A chain email says that President Harry Truman said political correctness was a doctrine fostered by a “delusional, illogical minority” and promoted by a “sick” mainstream media in a series of telegraphs to General Douglas A. MacArthur in 1945.

The Truth:

President Truman did not explain political correctness to General MacArthur in a series of telegraphs.

The chain email claims General MacArthur had never heard of the term “politically correct” and that President Truman had to explain it to him just before Japan’s World War II surrender in 1945.

But the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum told TruthorFiction.com that those correspondences “do not exist in the library’s holdings.”

The library spokesperson also added that the chain email got Chester Nimitz’s middle initial wrong. It’s Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, not C.H. Nimitz.

The chain email doesn’t make sense when it comes to other historical details as well.

The earliest use of the term “politically correct” came in 1936, according to Merriam-Webster:

“Full Definition of POLITICALLY CORRECT: conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated.”

It seems unlikely that General MacArthur wouldn’t have heard of the term before the Surrender Document with Japan in September of 1945.

And the chain email unfairly paints General MacArthur as a simple military commander who wasn’t familiar with the finer points of diplomacy, but that wasn’t the case. He spent five years rebuilding Japan after the war ended, according to his biography:

“While showing appropriate respect for the Emperor, MacArthur purged the Japanese militarists, throwing some in jail and prosecuting others for war crimes. Working through the Japanese government, he disarmed the country’s military forces, confiscated chemical warfare supplies, and ordered the destruction of tanks, planes, bombs, and other military equipment. He also developed and implemented emergency food and medical assistance programs that Morris estimates saved up to three million lives.

“His most significant and lasting accomplishment during the occupation, however, was political reform. Japan’s new constitution transformed the country into a modern Western-style democracy with “the world’s most liberal guarantees of civil rights.” Sixty-five years later, Japan remains a vibrant, free, democratic society—a living monument to the success of MacArthur’s occupation policies. As Morris writes, “America’s successful exercise in the occupation of a country … was … America’s greatest feat by America’s greatest general.”

For all those reasons, this eRumor is false."

[Fred in Skirts]

And yet it still means the same thing! Political Correctness is trying to pick up a piece of Sh*t by the clean end.

Fred

[crfriend]

And yet it still means the same thing! Political Correctness is trying to pick up a piece of Sh*t by the clean end.

Actually, no. What it is is a bald-faced attempt to stifle honest conversation regarding potentially troubling topics. Stupidly, the suppression of honest and open discussion of those topics drives them underground where they fester instead of being properly debated out in the open. It is one of the most corrosive forces going around today.

"An idea is not responsible for those who hold it", is often a mantra. It's possible to utterly discredit an idea whilst at the same time not discrediting the holder of such idea, and if that latter tenet is held to the odds of swaying minds is vastly stronger than if one launches into personal invective or character-bashing (which is a hallmark of PC). Crackpots will remain crackpots of course, and it's up to each of our BS filters to ferret those out.