Why Bernie Sanders should be president

I thought it was explained above.
Sanders, like 99% of CFC off topic contributors, prefers an arrangement where the public owns most of the means of production.
That's pretty extreme, given that the USA was not born of such ideas and has little experience in such things.
 
No, that is not what Sanders or I want. That is plain stupid. He advocates government controlling critical functions like healthcare, he support private industry and Business. He basically wants us to have the same kind of system that every other first world country has.
 
No, that is not what Sanders or I want. That is plain stupid. He advocates government controlling critical functions like healthcare, he support private industry and Business. He basically wants us to have the same kind of system that every other first world country has.

Why would that be a good thing? Most of the first world is a mess.

J
 
Why would that be a good thing? Most of the first world is a mess.

J

Yeah I'm going to need a source to back that up.

I really really dislike the idea of a Sanders nomination (please don't hurt me) but Europe / Japan / Australia being a failure is a line trumped by the conservatives all of the time and it really doesn't seem to add up.

Plus our current healthcare system somehow manages to cost significantly more then other first world systems while providing significantly worse outcomes.
 
Many of them are doing better than us(germany, sweden, norway, finland, etc) and we have the worst healthcare system out of all the first world nations.

Finland is artificially kept out of the great 'austerity/fix program'. Moreover it is a nation of 3 million people, and a clear vassal of other powers.

Norway isn't in the EU, and has oil, so it makes sense they are doing great.

Sweden has a long tradition of euro socialism.

Germany is good with bribing foreign politicians :mischief: (and starting euro wars)

*

That said, the US has a downright TERRIBLE 2-party system, which ruins it. Surely a country of 300 million could manage better than two clown parties.
 
Finland is artificially kept out of the great 'austerity/fix program'. Moreover it is a nation of 3 million people, and a clear vassal of other powers.


We all know that counting & understanding numbers isn't a great Greek virtue or highly respected skill by any means but since one doesn't have to actually count individuals oneself it would've been easy to check the current number from here for example which is updated daily or rely on Wiki as usual which gives a fairly accurate estimation of 5.5 million but who cares about the tiny ~83% error.

I can also see some justification for mistrusting government issued statistics but unlike in Greece here in the minor vassal states those are quite accurate and even when we apparently are just about to go bankrupt we're still wealthy enough to bail your eff up for a country out of the worst misery and wanting some countability for the money given might not be popular and to the average Greek who starts collecting his/her pension at 30 because the official retirement age is 55 even odd but that's how it works with grown ups.

I leave the rest for others to comment but with the distorted facts & figures one would think that there's an ongoing bid for Republican nomination.
 
We all know that counting & understanding numbers isn't a great Greek virtue or highly respected skill by any means but since one doesn't have to actually count individuals oneself it would've been easy to check the current number from here for example which is updated daily or rely on Wiki as usual which gives a fairly accurate estimation of 5.5 million but who cares about the tiny ~83% error.

I can also see some justification for mistrusting government issued statistics but unlike in Greece here in the minor vassal states those are quite accurate and even when we apparently are just about to go bankrupt we're still wealthy enough to bail your eff up for a country out of the worst misery and wanting some countability for the money given might not be popular and to the average Greek who starts collecting his/her pension at 30 because the official retirement age is 55 even odd but that's how it works with grown ups.

I leave the rest for others to comment but with the distorted facts & figures one would think that there's an ongoing bid for Republican nomination.

5,5 million, 3 million, small error in the context of the comparison to the US (unless you also will count trees and the christmas goat village dwellers) :o

As for Finland bailing us out, LOL, didn't you just speak against messing up numbers? :p No one in the EU would care if you just left the program, and you would be left to be as hysteric as you want when made to accept 0.1% of the illegal refugees we were made to accept for years :thumbsup: (likely that didn't have any effect on our economy though)

(hm, was going to mention your other ludicrous claim, -55 years retirement age space opera- but then saw your username. Will pass..)
 
I thought it was explained above.
Sanders, like 99% of CFC off topic contributors, prefers an arrangement where the public owns most of the means of production.
That's pretty extreme, given that the USA was not born of such ideas and has little experience in such things.

Except Sanders does not want that. And neither does pretty much anyone else.
 
Many of them are doing better than us(germany, sweden, norway, finland, etc) and we have the worst healthcare system out of all the first world nations.

Better in what sense? I would agree in healthcare, but not in several other metrics.

Finland, for example, is enduring a pretty bad recession.

If you look at the 3 "great blocks" of developed countries - the US, the Eurozone and Japan - guess who's doing better?

Growth rates in the US are much higher than even in much celebrated Germany, for instance. Comparisons with Japan or France are not even funny.

As for Canada or Australia, they outperformed the US while commodity prices were sky high. It's pretty much guaranteed that they'll lag the US now.
 
luiz:
Archbob:
Luiz, the US has the lowest tax rates of just about any first world nation. Unless rich people plan to up and move to like Cambodia or something, your not going to get lower rates than the US even with what Sanders is proposing. Rich people aren't going anywhere. Are they gonna move to Canada where the tax rate is even higher?
True, that's why as of now very very few people leave the US for tax reasons. In fact, the US attracts tge wealthy from other higher tax countries. My point was that if Sanders had it his way, the US would in fact have far higher taxes than Canada, the UK, or a plethora of other very nice countries. The dynamics would change, for sure.

So what's the cut off point? Assuming that there are only a handful of countries that could expect to receive a large number of US tax refugees, how large would the increase in tax on the super-wealthy have to be before the extra tax burden offsets the costs of emigrating?

Or to rephrase that, how high can Bernie raise the taxes without causing another refugee crisis?
 
So what's the cut off point? Assuming that there are only a handful of countries that could expect to receive a large number of US tax refugees, how large would the increase in tax on the super-wealthy have to be before the extra tax burden offsets the costs of emigrating?

Or to rephrase that, how high can Bernie raise the taxes without causing another refugee crisis?

Well, first note that nobody is talking of a refugee crisis. We're talking of people of great mobile wealth, as well as entrepreneurs, seeking greener pastures. In absolute numbers, it's very tiny. The US would still remain a huge net receiver of immigrants. But those people have a disproportional impact on tax revenue and, much worse, potential wealth creation.

But to answer your question, I don't know. But a 90% top marginal tax rate, like Sanders dreams of, would certainly do the trick. It would help if Sanders clarified his positions a bit more.

But don't lose any sleep about it, because he won't win.
 
There are a few reasons Sanders just cannot win. I think his position on Citizens United is exemplary and unique amongst the front-runners.
 
Many of them are doing better than us(germany, sweden, norway, finland, etc) and we have the worst healthcare system out of all the first world nations.

You Americans are doing something right which we aren't.

You have Donald Trump. We have Geert Wilders, Marine Le-Pen and Nigel Farage. Our loonies are much more extreme than your loonies and come in much bigger quantities.

Another thing: Silicon Valley has three times as many investors as all of Europe. Whenever we try to copy Silicon Valley, we end up building large complexes that house American companies. We aren't innovative in any way.

I wouldn't say Europe is doing much better than the US. Healthcare is more equitably distributed in Europe than in the US though that's a laughable thing compared to putting a man on the moon. I'm proud of Europe's cultural heritage, though the fact remains that the US has overtaken us in terms of technological progress.
 
I'm as much a space enthusiast as any other person, but universal healthcare is clearly the more significant civilizatory achievement compared to the moon landing.
 
I don't think Bernie Sanders should be president necessarily, but I do think the demand side could use a serious goosing, which his tax policies would provide. I'd take it a bit further than where he wants to go, spread the burden a bit further down the economic scale, and give a basic income. I also think the government does a terrible job administering Medicare and would much prefer universal health care be handled by expanding the ACA to automatically cover all Americans.
 
If Hillary is the favorite, inevitable, guarantee or whatever word candidate to win the nominee; then I guess so is Donald Trump. Bernie is no doubt an underdog, but he still has a chance; yet people are already crowning Hillary, I know Trump(McGuire) is not wanted by many to win the nominee, but the same goes for Hillary as well, many do not want her to win. Yet she is crowned, and Bernie is not discussed much as a contender, when he clearly is given his support. And on the republican side, Cruz and Rubio are constantly highlighted as contenders to take down the front-runner Trump.
 
Even if we acknowledge that Sanders has the best ideas (and I don't), it seems that basically every Sanders supporter either ignores, or wants everybody else to ignore, that "President Sanders" would have a legislative constituency of like, eight people. All of those ideas would instantly become moot.
 
Even if we acknowledge that Sanders has the best ideas (and I don't), it seems that basically every Sanders supporter either ignores, or wants everybody else to ignore, that "President Sanders" would have a legislative constituency of like, eight people. All of those ideas would instantly become moot.

If only a US president had a power like executive order.

Which, btw, would be something popular this time around, assuming Sanders was elected in the first place. His supporters aren't dumb. He is the only sincere and caring candidate.
 
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