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Bernie doing his best to spread ignorance by making people think GMO is some kinda additional ingredient chemical bullshit
There are many reasons to be against GMO. Personally, I want to know if the food I buy is genetically ingeneered, just to have the possibility to chose. I don't believe it's a horrible poison or anything, I just believe it's a really bad idea for farmers and the future of agriculture, and don't want to be part of it.
Sanders is right. There is simply no reason why consumers shouldn't be informed of what they are eating.
But that's exactly the problem- the idea that you should worry about or even care to consider the misconception that the process of GMO is controversial. You shouldn't. It's the process by which the food is grown, and it's about as docile as possible. It also leads to healthier and cheaper food than organic farming does, not to mention that organic food is generally created through mutagenesis, which sounds scary, and actually is a fraction scarier than GMOs are, considering "In nature mutagenesis can lead to cancer and various heritable diseases" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutagenesis). Now, of course, farming =/= "in nature", but the misleading link between natural mutagenesis and cancer should be scaring far more people about eating organic food than should anything regarding GMOs.
Hilarious, but did he misquote that last line? It sounded like he said "Better Dead Than Ted", but his hat and his monologue indicated "Better Ted Than Dead" lol
outside of economic ignorance about growth mechanism and tax incidences, the basic choice for sandernistas is, do we care about screwing the rich or do we care about impacting the poor and left behind people. having one's primary motivation be the former has a host of unpleasant consequences. in the context of the campaign it forces people to 'take sides' and portray the sides as absolute.
this is the core of the hillary hate and indifference to mainstream choices. i dont see any such haters having actual points supported by analysis of hillary's tame plans. it is all group politics resembling the commie purges dynamic
For those who don't really follow anime, Trump is drawn after Gilgamesh who is an arrogant king and antagonist from Fate/Stay Night. His ultimate weapon is classified as "Anti-World" weapon, which kinda fit Trump somewhat
For others people, the joke kinda flew past my head, though.
On March 26 2016 23:20 oneofthem wrote: outside of economic ignorance about growth mechanism and tax incidences, the basic choice for sandernistas is, do we care about screwing the rich or do we care about impacting the poor and left behind people. having one's primary motivation be the former has a host of unpleasant consequences. in the context of the campaign it forces people to 'take sides' and portray the sides as absolute.
this is the core of the hillary hate and indifference to mainstream choices. i dont see any such haters having actual points supported by analysis of hillary's tame plans. it is all group politics resembling the commie purges dynamic
which policies do you actually support for helping poor/left behind people? and is reducing inequality a worthwhile societal goal for you?
On March 26 2016 17:17 LegalLord wrote: Not everyone is meant to get a university education. Those that aren't capable make up the majority of the ranks of college dropouts or "marginal graduates" who barely manage to graduate with a degree that isn't useful. Excluding those people from university would save a tremendous amount of money on teaching and infrastructure. Those people should be educated in technical or trade schools that are more in line with their capability.
Manufacturing jobs that used to be here aren't coming back, because modernization of those factories involves a lot more automation than before. We should instead focus on educating people into jobs that both need doing and are within people's capability to do.
To me, modernizing the US seems like the obvious solution and the federal government being the only entity large enough to take on such a massive endeavor seems like the sensible solution. Government backstops a massive infrastructure update but we use a type of contract Donald and other successful builders use which penalizes the contractor for overruns and missing due dates as opposed to the standard contracts full of fraud and abuse that reward contractors for doubling costs after they've been awarded the contract.
You can't outsource the jobs, and the work can be done right here. We can't bring back some manufacturing but we can create new manufacturing by competing where we can on proprietary and new gen tech, and we can stop feeling like a 21st century Cuba when we experience the infrastructure in other downtown areas around the world.
Doesn't address the long term problem of running out of jobs eventually but it can buy us some quality of life until then.
Modernizing US infrastructure is an important task, and it will give people jobs, but it's not really a simple issue. One issue is the political difficulties of actually getting the money to perform a large scale upgrade that will cost trillions of dollars. Every massive government-sponsored infrastructure project in the past (e.g. railroads) has been an exercise in handing out massive amounts of money to people. Also, it's hard to actually measure what projects will be useful, since there is no direct economic benefit of building better infrastructure (usually it's measured by cost, which can overestimate the value if it's the Bridge to Nowhere or underestimate if it's an important public works project).
The way the government makes decisions by consensus, it ends up being extremely cheap and beholden to interests. They aren't very good judges of who a better contractor is, and often a shitty contractor who will do a terrible job and have massive cost overruns will be taken because they offer the lowest price at the outset. You could try to change the incentives, but the contractors will just change their strategy for fleecing money to compensate. And Senator X from Y won't exactly mind if the federal government pays for cost overruns that benefit Y, and there will be a lot of those cases.
Obviously the infrastructure needs improving, and everyone agrees, but no one wants to pay for it and no one knows how to organize it efficiently. And furthermore, what about after that? More infrastructure = more maintenance costs, and something will have to pay for that as well. You're going to need some serious economic development that actually justifies those infrastructure projects, or a recession bad enough to justify another Works Progress Administration, to make it happen.
We'll just call it an invasion liberation and money will come out of the wood works. These contracts I'm describing aren't myths. There are contracts that effectively deal with the practices commonly used by contractors to exploit his type of work. We can leave many states control over their own projects but there will need to be additional checks on politicians.
It's not as simple as paint by numbers but it's not the quagmire you seem to be making it sound like. We've talked ourselves into spending plenty on much dumber things. Give us a couple modern world wonders and people will consider it money well spent.
I mean, if it were so easy, given that everyone agrees it needs to be done, it already would be.
On March 26 2016 23:20 oneofthem wrote: outside of economic ignorance about growth mechanism and tax incidences, the basic choice for sandernistas is, do we care about screwing the rich or do we care about impacting the poor and left behind people. having one's primary motivation be the former has a host of unpleasant consequences. in the context of the campaign it forces people to 'take sides' and portray the sides as absolute.
this is the core of the hillary hate and indifference to mainstream choices. i dont see any such haters having actual points supported by analysis of hillary's tame plans. it is all group politics resembling the commie purges dynamic
The issue for a lot of people isn't really about policies. Sure, Sanders does have a lot of ideas that are the bad ideas that socialists have come up with - punishing people for being wealthy, for example. But Hillary's issue is more about trust - people just don't trust that she's going to act in their best interest, and not just act in the interest of her donors and "establishment" supporters. That's where Sanders' most effective Hillary bashing is.
Her foreign policy also sucks but no one cares except foreigners.
On March 26 2016 23:20 oneofthem wrote: outside of economic ignorance about growth mechanism and tax incidences, the basic choice for sandernistas is, do we care about screwing the rich or do we care about impacting the poor and left behind people. having one's primary motivation be the former has a host of unpleasant consequences. in the context of the campaign it forces people to 'take sides' and portray the sides as absolute.
this is the core of the hillary hate and indifference to mainstream choices. i dont see any such haters having actual points supported by analysis of hillary's tame plans. it is all group politics resembling the commie purges dynamic
which policies do you actually support for helping poor/left behind people? and is reducing inequality a worthwhile societal goal for you?
of course reducing inequality is important.
in some random order,
job subsidy instead of welfare payments. lower portion of tax structure poses a big disincentive to invest in higher personal productivity due to loss of aid as income rises.
retool community college, vocational training schools. look into whether government can help along the development of firms in search and matching and give those with less access to the social network aspect of labor market a transparent clearinghouse of information for potential employers.
reduce payroll tax and corporate tax, offset this revenue by increase in high bracket rate and some form of cap gains like carried interest.
fix healthcare cost by tackling extreme market power on the supply side. hospital antitrust, transparent accountability of cost effectiveness.
invest in public transportation for growing cities, helps with rent.
retool property tax structure to place more burden on land value. look into repealing the real estate favored tax treaties with places with high inequality and corruption. rather, encourage investment in the real economy in these treaty structures.
unit of economic planning should be a combination of federal govt and the cities. give cities more power to push through infrastructure and development. the process is way too costly and slow atm. state government can diaf
cooperative tax regime with the yuros, tell the brits to stop sucking finance cock.
reform h1b etc program to grant benefits to individuals rather than companies (free laborer vs indentured servant)
there are two specific sets of people badly needing help, inner city blacks and de-industrialized places, requiring specific local solutions. general idea here is to create economic opportunity but recognize that subsidies tied to their location or low income status are counterproductive.
in general i agree with the idea and some of your proposals for making local communities more liveable, as that improves a whole host of other issues
but job subsidies are a terrible idea, as they redistribute from the poor and the general public to the capital
if for instance a current job for poor / high replaceability workers pays 1000$ a month, the moment job subsidies get passed, the firm will just pay 500$ for the same job and let the feds make up the rest in subsidies.. the general public loses, the individual worker loses, the firm wins
job subsidy at the extreme low end of productivity such as ghetto youth and ex convicts of drug charges. at the lower middle end you want more infrastructure/housing related aid. job subsidy is basically a reverse payroll tax, the beneficial effect would be on the employment side. you want to encourage job numbers
there is some empirical evidence that this approach works
On March 26 2016 13:31 Nyxisto wrote: Would still be easily worth it though if he's going to implement free education and healthcare
The 3k to 6k that middle class families seem to lose would be regained even if he only halfs tuition for two kids
Just like in healthcare, the problem with expensive education is refusing to crush certain special interests under the government thumb, while simultaneously providing them with massive subsidies.
The Sanders plan is just a free check for Universities to lock in super high tuition.
Yeah doctors are always bragging about how much money they rake in off of serving medicare patients. Education is next, someone save the children from being able to go to college without getting 10-20 years worth of a debt penalty for having parents who couldn't pay for it.
If you're getting into 10 to 20 years debt from college, you're doing college wrong.
The average Bachelors degree holder takes about 21 years sooo....
Really? For just a Bachelors? I will have about that much and I will have my PhD.
I guess its probably due to not being able to get a decent job off a Bachelors then.
Doesn't help that there's a ton of non-elite private liberal arts schools flooding the markets because of the current loan issues.
Somehow people think making college free won't exacerbate this.
I went to a free european art college, received an elite education I wouldn't have been able to afford and now have an amazing job in one of the world top symphony orchestras. What's the problem with art education and how is it better that people end up with decades of debts after their studies??
You have the problem backwards. The problem is Joe, the kid with a C-Average who wasted all of high school playing football (which he is bad at) can go to college, on the government dime. The problem is not having top 10% requirements in high school+ a standardized test to qualify for loans. And the lack of high standards drives the phenomena of people who cannot pay student loans. Yes there are Harvard grads who cannot pay, but that is rate. Its driven by mid to low tier schools that frankly don't exist in France.
Also its partially papering over that high schools are focused on graduation rates, which are a negative public good, because a good education system must be too hard for most people to complete.
The idea that the American high school graduation rate is 'too high' is nonsense. Finland, which really is top dog of pre-university education, has a rate of about 95%, while the US is sitting at 82%-ish. That people graduate from high school without having learned anything is an entirely different issue. You might think that the best solution is to start failing way more people, I think the solution is to make sure that people actually learn something. And the idea that 20%+ (I assume a significantly larger number than 20% seeing as how you think 18% non-graduation rate is so low that it's problematic) of people 'just can't learn anything useful' is to me difficult to combine with other conservative ideals like self-determination or whatnot - if anything that would be an argument for citizen salary or increased welfare benefits..
Note that graduating from a vocational high school counts as graduating from high school - if you think more people should attend vocational school rather than high school preparing them for university/college then that's fine and I'm not necessarily disagreeing. But the US already has low high school completion numbers compared to many western countries, including several with much better student performance.
On March 26 2016 13:31 Nyxisto wrote: Would still be easily worth it though if he's going to implement free education and healthcare
The 3k to 6k that middle class families seem to lose would be regained even if he only halfs tuition for two kids
Just like in healthcare, the problem with expensive education is refusing to crush certain special interests under the government thumb, while simultaneously providing them with massive subsidies.
The Sanders plan is just a free check for Universities to lock in super high tuition.
Yeah doctors are always bragging about how much money they rake in off of serving medicare patients. Education is next, someone save the children from being able to go to college without getting 10-20 years worth of a debt penalty for having parents who couldn't pay for it.
If you're getting into 10 to 20 years debt from college, you're doing college wrong.
The average Bachelors degree holder takes about 21 years sooo....
Really? For just a Bachelors? I will have about that much and I will have my PhD.
I guess its probably due to not being able to get a decent job off a Bachelors then.
Doesn't help that there's a ton of non-elite private liberal arts schools flooding the markets because of the current loan issues.
Somehow people think making college free won't exacerbate this.
I went to a free european art college, received an elite education I wouldn't have been able to afford and now have an amazing job in one of the world top symphony orchestras. What's the problem with art education and how is it better that people end up with decades of debts after their studies??
You have the problem backwards. The problem is Joe, the kid with a C-Average who wasted all of high school playing football (which he is bad at) can go to college, on the government dime. The problem is not having top 10% requirements in high school+ a standardized test to qualify for loans. And the lack of high standards drives the phenomena of people who cannot pay student loans. Yes there are Harvard grads who cannot pay, but that is rate. Its driven by mid to low tier schools that frankly don't exist in France.
Also its partially papering over that high schools are focused on graduation rates, which are a negative public good, because a good education system must be too hard for most people to complete.
Right now Joe, the spoiled brat, still goes to college, because he has rich parents. Nobody gives a damn about his shit grades, because daddy is paying the 30k+ per year so whatever. Meanwhile Bill, who is actually much smarter, even if he is not the next Einstein, is royally fucked by the system, because his single mom can barely keep herself afloat.
Somehow the "argument" brought goes always like: Free College -> suddenly all the dumbfucks go to college. But I have no clue what those 2 things have to do with each other. Except you define that poor = dumb.
We've very low college graduation rates here compared to the rest of the developed world although it's practically free. As long as you offer viable alternatives, for example in the form of a well organized apprenticeship system, people will be able to determine themselves whether college is appropriate for them or isn't. The problem in the US predominantly seems to be that you either go to college or you're a social outcast because you're going to flip burgers for the rest of your life.
On March 26 2016 13:31 Nyxisto wrote: Would still be easily worth it though if he's going to implement free education and healthcare
The 3k to 6k that middle class families seem to lose would be regained even if he only halfs tuition for two kids
Just like in healthcare, the problem with expensive education is refusing to crush certain special interests under the government thumb, while simultaneously providing them with massive subsidies.
The Sanders plan is just a free check for Universities to lock in super high tuition.
Yeah doctors are always bragging about how much money they rake in off of serving medicare patients. Education is next, someone save the children from being able to go to college without getting 10-20 years worth of a debt penalty for having parents who couldn't pay for it.
If you're getting into 10 to 20 years debt from college, you're doing college wrong.
The average Bachelors degree holder takes about 21 years sooo....
Really? For just a Bachelors? I will have about that much and I will have my PhD.
I guess its probably due to not being able to get a decent job off a Bachelors then.
Doesn't help that there's a ton of non-elite private liberal arts schools flooding the markets because of the current loan issues.
Somehow people think making college free won't exacerbate this.
I went to a free european art college, received an elite education I wouldn't have been able to afford and now have an amazing job in one of the world top symphony orchestras. What's the problem with art education and how is it better that people end up with decades of debts after their studies??
You have the problem backwards. The problem is Joe, the kid with a C-Average who wasted all of high school playing football (which he is bad at) can go to college, on the government dime. The problem is not having top 10% requirements in high school+ a standardized test to qualify for loans. And the lack of high standards drives the phenomena of people who cannot pay student loans. Yes there are Harvard grads who cannot pay, but that is rate. Its driven by mid to low tier schools that frankly don't exist in France.
Also its partially papering over that high schools are focused on graduation rates, which are a negative public good, because a good education system must be too hard for most people to complete.
Right now Joe, the spoiled brat, still goes to college, because he has rich parents. Nobody gives a damn about his shit grades, because daddy is paying the 30k+ per year so whatever. Meanwhile Bill, who is actually much smarter, even if he is not the next Einstein, is royally fucked by the system, because his single mom can barely keep herself afloat.
Somehow the "argument" brought goes always like: Free College -> suddenly all the dumbfucks go to college. But I have no clue what those 2 things have to do with each other. Except you define that poor = dumb.
To expand on this. Whoever is funding the school sets the rules for who can go there. If you have full government funding then they can set whatever lowest bar they think is needed for it to be worthwhile. In Sweden it is done by mostly opening up places for things that they think will be useful in 3-5 years time. So if they see a need for 20% more teachers they try to open up 20% more teacher spots and run advertisements. If they see an industry and research area getting removed they close it down in most universities.
The most interesting places for students have high grade requirements while the most uninteresting might accept more or less whoever. If nobody is applying the school gets no financing and the program is shut down. Same as the schools in the US which are for profit has right now.
On March 27 2016 02:43 Nyxisto wrote: We've very low college graduation rates here compared to the rest of the developed world although it's practically free. As long as you offer viable alternatives, for example in the form of a well organized apprenticeship system, people will be able to determine themselves whether college is appropriate for them or isn't. The problem in the US predominantly seems to be that you either go to college or you're a social outcast because you're going to flip burgers for the rest of your life.
Which is funny considering that a decently learned plumber in the US makes a shitton of money, too.
Not saying that the system works in the US, but it's as much a societal problem as it is with the schooling system itself.