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On February 03 2016 13:33 ticklishmusic wrote: But she's not a lying bitch. The entire cold, awkward, calculating thing is like Jeb's low energy tag-- completely made up. I've heard story after story about how Hillary has been a pretty solid retail politician and has connected well with small (50-100) groups of voters. She doesn't look great in the huge rally/speech situations which are the ones that get really covered.
And my impression is that a lot of Bernie supporters haven't taken a good look at her record or her platform. Krugman actually had a great piece about some of them buying into the entire rightwing smear campaign against her, hilariously a couple of the top links in r/politics and r/bernieforpresident are from The Blaze right now.
Hillary has three problems with voters on the progressive side in my estimation.
One is that she is a centrist who has a record of supporting things progressives despise, particularly with matters regarding the power of the state such as the Iraq War resolution and a tacit acceptance of the Patriot act and domestic spying.
Two is that, though she has proposed reasonable measures intended rein in Wall Street and bank excesses, her close ties to it both personally and financially through donations from that industry call into question her willingness to vigorously pursue real change there. In fact her proposals, almost none of which have passed or even gotten co-sponsors, seem almost as though they are smokescreens that provide the appearance of attempts to reform, but with no real chance and no true effort/political capital expended. To the skeptical person you can imagine her telling the Goldman-Sachs directors that she defuse political crisis Y by proposing banking regulation X in congress, but never to worry as it will never pass.
Third, about a quarter to a third of the population has been convinced by the right-wing media that she is guilty of all kinds of shit that has never actually been proven and for which she has been investigated and exonerated multiple times by her political opponents. My best friend from middle-school and his entire family literally believe she murdered or had murdered around 12 or so people. I suspect my Mother-in-law believes this too. Oh, and BENGHAZI!!! Hillary famously talked of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" and it was true. Media forces on the right have been consistent for 25 some years now in skewing their coverage of the Clintons so as to tarnish them in any way possible, to always cast aspersions and call into doubt, to use innuendo or outright misrepresentation. It has been effective. Which then leads to the practical consideration of whether you want to support a candidate who in the general election is going to be running against a machine well-oiled and prepared to hammer away at her with innuendo and insinuations that have been developed and honed over 25 years and for which there is a huge base of suggestible voters who have been prepared to receive this message.
ALL THAT SAID, every time I hear her speak on a subject, whether it is through campaigning or ffs in congressional testimony, I find myself thinking that she is a remarkably smart and knowledgeable person who in spite of her downsides would be a superb and highly-capable choice for president. By far the best qualified and most competent out of all the candidates, Dem and Repub.
I agree that she is remarkably smart and capable. Your analysis is pretty accurate too. Frankly if she just admitted all the crap she's done to get where she is (not by line item for political crucifiction) and genuinely wanted to move past the type of politics from which she was forged into (in any other election other than her two runs at president) the single best political machine since her husband I'd vote for her, and I bet Sanders would to.
He's only running because he has the inclination she isn't going to do that and that the American people are ready for it. Her most recent lines of attacks are indicative that he is right about that. I happen to agree with him.
I think if we all took a step back from our ideologies we could admit the whole damn circus (specifically the rhetoric and political games) on all sides of the aisle and the media has us all distracted from the very basic shit we can, should, and need to change.
So have you been possibly moved from the "if Hillary wins I'm voting for Trump" camp?
Can you specify exactly what it is that Hillary has done to get where she is that bothers you?
Also re: point about Iraq war: yes, she voted for it. So did ~3/4 of the senate and a majority of Democrats there. I don't think it's necessarily a huge black mark against her, she was misled by the Bush administration on the situation like a lot of others. Hillary definitely has a more hawkish foreign policy which would play into her decision to empower the administration to invade (or intervene to use the political word) in Iraq, but I don't think she was super gung ho about invading a nation for no reason.
We can just start with the obvious, (totally unrelated to Republicans) and very recent, manipulation of the debate process.
I really don't see the problem. Clinton is a frontrunner, she doesn't want to give her opponents chances to differentiate or stand out. You can blame the DNC, but for Clinton to not vigorously protest the exclusivity rule is more common sense than any real sleaziness. Now they're negotiating for additional debates ,which means there's back and forth-- she wants one here, Sanders wants one there as well, they'll either compromise and we get additional debates or they don't and it's whatever. That's real life.
There's a yuuuuuge difference between "she'll do anything to get elected" and making the rational choice for what's best for her campaign.
And that's why I'm not voting for Clinton. She wouldn't even own the very favorable version your suggesting.
Not to mention I find it hard to believe you sincerely think that Hillary had no influence on the original schedule and that it was all the DNC.
right, so you'd rather vote for trump or something
obviously as the leading candidate clinton was consulted over what the schedule was going to be, her campaign put forth a response for something favorable to her. i'm not denying that.
There's a yuuuuuge difference between "she'll do anything to get elected" and making the rational choice for what's best for her campaign.
i really think you don't understand the distinction here.
The problem with the oil example is that beacuse hes selling the oil (instead of not selling the oil) hes lowing the cost of other people buying oil by increasing the supply on the market for it. Whats the point of him selling his assets for anything less then they are worth? If he sells it for $1 a barrel when the market says that its worth $25 then all he is doing is giveing someone a barrel of oil and $24. The point of capitalism is opportunity cost. Is it better for him to sell the oil now or is it better for him to sell the oil later.
On February 04 2016 03:34 ticklishmusic wrote: right, so you'd rather vote for trump or something
obviously as the leading candidate clinton was consulted over what the schedule was going to be, her campaign put forth a response for something favorable to her. i'm not denying that.
There's a yuuuuuge difference between "she'll do anything to get elected" and making the rational choice for what's best for her campaign.
i really think you don't understand the distinction here.
I was being facetious when I said that pretty sure I mentioned it.
Guess who wasn't consulted? The other candidates. Hiding from debates because it's politically expedient (or at least she thought it was until recently) is not what I'm looking for in my president. Nor is not having the guts/decency to own it.
Her attacks on healthcare, are also symbolic of everything we're sick of in politics. She shouldn't need a superPAC to compete with Sanders either.
I understand the distinction fine.
The reason I would consider voting for her is that I think her political handlers and such think she has to do this stuff (and in most elections they'd be right, just not this one) and she takes their advice.
But even if that's the case she's going to have to earn our vote or she will lose. Millennials already barely show up, if she wins the nomination by continuing the stuff she's been doing (or gets worse like it looks like she will) the 15% of the few millennials that show up will be all she gets. And she will lose.
On February 04 2016 03:49 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Rand Paul has dropped out after Iowa primary. So he either has no money cause he finished stronger than Bush...
When they asked Rubio about it he immediately said that they need to get him re-elected to the Senate so pretty sure it's about that race and what kind of party support he gets. With the chance of a Trump or Cruz ticket the concerns about losing the Senate are real.
On February 04 2016 03:49 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Rand Paul has dropped out after Iowa primary. So he either has no money cause he finished stronger than Bush...
or he realized its a 3 horse race and doesn't want to waste time/effort/capital when he can try again another year.
Rand is smart. He has a fight in KY boiling and probably prefers rolling the cash into that campaign. Plus he doesn't want to appear like he is just grandstanding in the next debate. Plus he understands that the 10+ man primary has gone on too long, and knows the candidates with a real chance need oxygen to convince voters to not go with Trump, who is basically the Anti-Rand.
On February 04 2016 03:35 Sermokala wrote: The problem with the oil example is that beacuse hes selling the oil (instead of not selling the oil) hes lowing the cost of other people buying oil by increasing the supply on the market for it. Whats the point of him selling his assets for anything less then they are worth? If he sells it for $1 a barrel when the market says that its worth $25 then all he is doing is giveing someone a barrel of oil and $24. The point of capitalism is opportunity cost. Is it better for him to sell the oil now or is it better for him to sell the oil later.
You completely failed to understand my argument. You're talking about how he would maximize the money he got from the oil but he doesn't create any additional value by maximizing his money. It's a zero sum game. I know that to be a good capitalist he should try and get as much money as possible for it but that is irrelevant. The value of oil is fixed, it will heat X homes, it will get you Y miles. What he charges per barrel doesn't change that, if he doubles the price one day it won't get you twice as many miles. All he can change by changing the price is how many of other people's dollars end up in his pocket, he's not going to not sell the oil, the cost of production to him is zero, the oil is going to be sold, the value of the oil is fixed, the only variable is how much profit he wishes to make.
He's selling the oil for far more than it is worth to him at $25. To him the oil is just this shit that's ruining his vegetable garden. However someone else needs to get to work and will pay a lot for that oil. The question is whether he says "sure, you can have the oil, buy me a beer sometime" or whether he says "you need it to get to work, you say, that sounds pretty important.... how much is your job worth to you?".
A good capitalist would say that he did the work of discovering the oil for us and deserves to be compensated for adding to the known oil reserves of the world. The figure on his compensation is just the free market at work telling us how much his discovery was worth.
@ everyone else in reference to the GK Chesterton quote
If you just make "rich" some end of the always-present wealth scale the quote loses all its meaning. Presumably Chesterton wasn't referring to himself when he said "the rich" and yet on a global scale that is exactly what he was. He was referring to a particular class of "rich" and that is what I was getting at. You can't just divorce the definition from the quote in question.
To further explain KwarKs argument, it is not about the person. Of course a rational capitalist tries to maximise his own profit, and the guy with the oil is gonna sell it for whatever he is going to get for it. No one is saying that he shouldn't (Because people don't work that way)
But we are talking systemic here. The goal is to maximise the value gained to society. There is no difference in the value gained to society if the oil is sold at half price, as long as that doesn't reduce the amount of oil sold.
Or to get back to the original point, there is no difference in the gain to society by whatever a superrich person does depending on how much money he makes it, as long as he does it. It does not matter if Bill Gates makes 70 billion or 10 billion off of Microsoft, as long as he produces windows etc...
And if there is no difference in total gain, the only relevant question is regarding distribution. And i think a lot of people would agree that Bill Gates having 60 more billions worth of stuff lying about does not make for a very good distribution of ressources.
President Obama is delivering remarks at a mosque in Baltimore on Wednesday afternoon, in the first visit to an American mosque he's made during his presidency.
His visit, which will also include a roundtable with Muslim community members, is intended to "reaffirm the importance of religious freedom" to life in America, the White House says.
In his speech at the Islamic Society of Baltimore, the president is expected to say that rejecting bigotry is a core American value.
The president has visited mosques in other countries, but had not previously visited any in the U.S., The Associated Press reports. The wire service notes that Wednesday's speech is one of several religiously themed visits he's making this winter.
"He is set to speak to the nation's Christian leaders at the annual National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, and last week warned against the rise of religious intolerance during a ceremony at the Israeli Embassy," the AP writes.
Visiting a mosque to reiterate America's commitment to religious tolerance has a noteworthy precedent. Days after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, then-President George W. Bush visited the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., to say that the intimidation of Muslims "should not and will not stand in America."
"The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam," Bush said. "That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace."
Obama's visit to the mosque in Baltimore comes amid heated rhetoric over Islam in America. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., which was denounced by some Republican leaders.
That's an incredibly small minded example. You're focusing on one guy's garden where the oil comes out of the ground for virtually free. Let's call that guy Saudi Arabia just for fun.
Saudi Arabia doesn't live in a vacuum. Saudi Arabia could sell the oil to his neighbor Yemen who could use it to get to work. Because it costs him nothing he only really charges enough to cover his living costs. Now Yemen has the oil and can get to work. Value has been added, but Yemen has a pretty shitty job, and happens to have a Uncle, Sam, who also needs oil to get to work and has a far better job that adds more value than Yemen's shitty job. Uncle Sam is willing to imburse Yemen for the price he paid to Saudi Arabia AND a healthy living allowance.
What did Yemen do in this scenario? Nothing. Now wealth was distributed better. The same barrel of oil is feeding two families instead of making Saudi Arabia filthy rich while leaving Yemen dirt poor. However, there is no incentive for Saudi Arabia to do it like this. Upon figuring out what is going on, he can stop selling to Yemen at all and just sell directly to Uncle Sam.
Now to stop Saudi Arabia from doing that you need government. The government can take away Saudi Arabia's money and give it to Yemen. But good luck figuring out how, and how much to take away and how to give it away again... it's not as simple as your silly story makes it seem. It's what 90% of this thread is about.
First the turtles, now asking people to clap. Is Jeb taking out some pent up aggression against his father in some wildly passive aggressive way? Feels shafted by his family since he was young and now is trying to put the nail in the coffin of the entire Bush family's name?
We need capitalism so that the things that we want rewarded are rewarded. However that does not mean that all that capitalism rewards is worthy of reward. Capitalism does not distinguish between the man who invents a tool for finding oil reserves and the man who stumbles upon oil. The transfer of wealth from the consumers of oil to the former is necessary for the invention, the transfer of wealth to the latter is not necessary for the discovery. And yet by the rules of capitalism it is now necessary to transfer wealth from our pockets to the pockets of both every time we wish to travel.
All that adds value is profitable but not all that is profitable adds value.
On February 04 2016 04:38 KwarK wrote: We need capitalism so that the things that we want rewarded are rewarded. However that does not mean that all that capitalism rewards is worthy of reward. Capitalism does not distinguish between the man who invents a tool for finding oil reserves and the man who stumbles upon oil. The transfer of wealth from the consumers of oil to the former is necessary for the invention, the transfer of wealth to the latter is not necessary for the discovery. And yet by the rules of capitalism it is now necessary to transfer wealth from our pockets to the pockets of both every time we wish to travel.
All that adds value is profitable but not all that is profitable adds value.
Thankfully we have Kwark, our god-king, to tell us when something is profitable because it adds value and when something is profitable because it is profitable.
Microsoft's added value to the world was exactly X, says Kwark, and therefore we shall take away money from Bill Gates until he is left with exactly X. It's only fair, because that is the value he created. But wait. Old buddy Bill had help! Luckily our god-king knows that Bill contributed exactly Y% to the total value of Microsoft. He should thus have earned Y% of X and not a penny more.
EPT
