|
Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On October 15 2016 05:01 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 04:59 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 15 2016 04:50 LegalLord wrote:On October 15 2016 04:43 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 15 2016 04:37 LegalLord wrote:
I don't see it as a problem that the fraction of the country that is more involved in the government process has a stronger voice. One of the ways that is done is by voting, including in primaries. If the most involved 60% votes and the other 40% votes for apathy, that's not a bad thing. I used 60% as a base line of party committed population. Reality is probably more like 20% actually vote in primaries? But someone could probably provide that number. Vote or don't, but a vote for no one is a vote for apathy. Besides the separate issue of voter suppression, you can only blame the people who didn't express their preference for their preference not being considered. Except many (slight majority?) of primaries are limited by party registration, so quite a few people can't actually vote even if they wanted to, without committing to a party or excluding themselves from the other candidates. That is a valid argument in favor of easy party registration, but beyond that it's clear that the bigger issue is simply that people don't vote in primaries.
When I used to help GOTV for local primaries, a high turnout was 20% and regular was closer to 10%-15%. Some districts literally being decided by individual community groups. In a city I was in for a bit, most of the local politics was so defined by the one trailer park that mayors and counsel men only did their speeches to those retirees. If you got their vote, and they voted all for the same person each time, you won the primary.
The Christian Right took advantage of that as well, as a lot of local elections can be quickly decided by just having 2-3 churches tell its congregation to 'vote for ____" and they'll easily win that primary.
|
On October 15 2016 05:11 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 04:47 LegalLord wrote:On October 15 2016 04:36 CannonsNCarriers wrote:On October 15 2016 04:20 LegalLord wrote:On October 15 2016 04:14 Gorsameth wrote:On October 15 2016 04:08 LegalLord wrote:
The biggest favoritism was probably simply the massive superdelegate advantage Hillary started with. That basically crowded out all other viable establishment opposition, leaving Bernie Sanders as the only possible viable opposition. He also suffered strongly from poor exposure early on in the campaign, probably also because of Hillary's superdelegate advantage. And people really do have a tendency to just fall in line with the party line option, which in this case was Hillary without a doubt. If he had more exposure earlier in the campaign, he may well have managed to edge Hillary out. Judging by the fact that there have been quite a few people who said they chose Hillary but now wonder if Sanders might have been better, while most Sanders people still think they were right to make that choice, timing might have made a substantial difference. Yeah that sounds right. I wouldn't call that favoritism tho. Hillary is a Democrat who has worked with Democrat super delegates for years. Bernie was an outsider coming in. The super delegates favoring Hillary early on makes perfect sense. Well they also favored Hillary over all other possible establishment candidates which didn't give them any chance of victory. I saw not that much of O'Malley, but he seemed like a pretty good, principled candidate with some oratorical prowess. But no one cared about him because he didn't have a chance because Hillary took the establishment vote by having all the superdelegates support her from the start. The most likely result was decided before any votes were even cast. How much of that is (1) HRC's strength and lifelong network building in Democratic party circles and (2) Democrats colluding for HRC. I think it is a lot more (1). Yeah, HRC did clear the field of any real challengers ahead of time by using her network power and loyalty. But that is because she really is that strong in Democratic circles. I also would have liked to see O'Malley get farther. But he just didn't have the donors or decades of connections. EDIT: Obama level talent did beat the Clinton machine in 2008, but I didn't see anyone with Obama's skills this year. Bernie organizational skills were simply inferior to community-organizer-Obama. Hillary built a truly impressive coalition in her favor this election, nowhere near what anyone else had before. In fact Nate Silver called her the "most establishment favored candidate in history" based on endorsements. She really did crowd out all the establishment opposition. All that connection building is, of course, a big ugly game of political favor trading, especially over the past eight years. There are worse things that could be done, but the notion that establishment favoritism got Hillary a primary win is perfectly valid. I think favoritism is a rather reductive/ narrow way of putting it. It's just how the world works. Let's say a company has a C-suite position open. They put an application on the job boards, but also notify their employees. Clinton has been with the company for 20 years, she's a hardworking SVP who has a great record at the company, and she was passed over for promotion a couple times. She applies, and a bunch of the people involved with the hiring process are like "yeah we know Hillary she's a great candidate". On the other hand, Bernie is an external consultant who has a history with the company, but people don't know him all that much. He's got a solid record of delivering what he's been asked to do, but the relationship is somewhat transactional. Moreover, Clinton has a better record - all the times she delivered projects ahead of schedule under budget and ahead of time already make her more qualified. The great office holiday party she planned or the fact she brought cookies when her team worked late are just gravy.
If the entire company votes for the C-suite position and no other candidates but Hillary from within the company are given a fair shot at being considered, the analogy might be more apt.
|
"Rebels" in Aleppo is not a single group, it is multiple different groups each with their own biases and issues. That you think there is a united rebel force shows you know about as much about what's happening as Bernie and Johnson does. Its a complicated mess.
I can bet that i know much more than you will ever know about this matter, the rebels in Aleppo have their hands tied because they need the support of Alqaeda and other extremist groups, the latest offensive to break the siege paved way to the unification of many of the rebels forces there and also prompted the re branding of Alnusra into Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham. I could name the majority of rebels forces present on all the major offensives, can you do the same? Now back to my question, why would the americans arm the rebels in Aleppo thus helping Alqaeda achieve their goals in Syria?
Take into consideration that i have been against the regime and the russian intervention from the beginning, as you can attest by checking my posts back in 2011 when the civil war started. Right now your presidential candidate openly says that she wants to arm Alqaeda and you americans are still whiling to vote for her, that i cannot understand.
|
On October 15 2016 05:15 PhoenixVoid wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 05:11 Plansix wrote:
A growing distrust of news sources and informed commentary is not a net gain for the US. It is a net loss. Distrusting “the media” is akin to saying you distrust “the scientific community”. With how consolidated and financially linked American media is I think a healthy level of skepticism is always good. Of course I would never suggest waving away a news source simply because it's mainstream, but it's important to consider the source, who's telling it, and what motivations they could have for it. Unlike science, it's a lot easier to let biases seep into media.
Distrusting Fox News or MSNBC is fine as long as someone can articulate the specific reason why they should not be trusted. Distrusting all media equally because they all MIGHT be lying is not a good way to intake information.
We are supposed to be smart, critical thinkers, so pick places to get information from that are trustworthy and can be held accountable.
|
Well since voting is one of the last remaining bastions of "privacy/ free choice" I am afraid some of the things Trump says and does, which then people & polls interpret are wrecking him are, in fact, gaining him new silent voters. 50%+ of the electorate is not part of internet discussion or vocal in any way, and those are the people that decide the elections, and many of them are angry for various reasons he is the only one loudly discussing. To that you can add the trolls that will do it for "the lulz" or for anti-establishment reasons. His populist appeal is real and this is a closer election than it appears imo.
|
On October 15 2016 05:20 ImFromPortugal wrote:Show nested quote +"Rebels" in Aleppo is not a single group, it is multiple different groups each with their own biases and issues. That you think there is a united rebel force shows you know about as much about what's happening as Bernie and Johnson does. Its a complicated mess. I can bet that i know much more than you will ever know about this matter, the rebels in Aleppo have their hands tied because they need the support of Alqaeda and other extremist groups, the latest offensive to break the siege paved way to the unification of many of the rebels forces there and also prompted the re branding of Alnusra into Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham. I could name the majority of rebels forces present on all the major offensives, can you do the same? Now back to my question, why would the americans arm the rebels in Aleppo thus helping Alqaeda achieve their goals in Syria?
Because the longer the conflict goes the more of America's enemies are killing and the more resources are consumed.
America's interests benefit from the war in Syria lasting as long as possible and being as bloody as possible.
|
On October 15 2016 05:23 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 05:20 ImFromPortugal wrote:"Rebels" in Aleppo is not a single group, it is multiple different groups each with their own biases and issues. That you think there is a united rebel force shows you know about as much about what's happening as Bernie and Johnson does. Its a complicated mess. I can bet that i know much more than you will ever know about this matter, the rebels in Aleppo have their hands tied because they need the support of Alqaeda and other extremist groups, the latest offensive to break the siege paved way to the unification of many of the rebels forces there and also prompted the re branding of Alnusra into Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham. I could name the majority of rebels forces present on all the major offensives, can you do the same? Now back to my question, why would the americans arm the rebels in Aleppo thus helping Alqaeda achieve their goals in Syria? Because the longer the conflict goes the more of America's enemies are killing and the more resources are consumed. America's interests benefit from the war in Syria lasting as long as possible and being as bloody as possible.
I know that but the american hypocrisy is astonishing, and yet people are against Trump because he wants to coordinate efforts with russia to destroy isis. Once more your politicians prove that they are liars and criminals and that's why i would much prefer for Donald Trump to be your next president, at least he doesn't want to arm the extremists.
|
The thing is distinguish News and News network. In general, news reporting in US is good, or at least not an issue. However the spin and punditry is godawful and shouldn't be part of news cycle.
On October 15 2016 05:25 ImFromPortugal wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 05:23 Gorsameth wrote:On October 15 2016 05:20 ImFromPortugal wrote:"Rebels" in Aleppo is not a single group, it is multiple different groups each with their own biases and issues. That you think there is a united rebel force shows you know about as much about what's happening as Bernie and Johnson does. Its a complicated mess. I can bet that i know much more than you will ever know about this matter, the rebels in Aleppo have their hands tied because they need the support of Alqaeda and other extremist groups, the latest offensive to break the siege paved way to the unification of many of the rebels forces there and also prompted the re branding of Alnusra into Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham. I could name the majority of rebels forces present on all the major offensives, can you do the same? Now back to my question, why would the americans arm the rebels in Aleppo thus helping Alqaeda achieve their goals in Syria? Because the longer the conflict goes the more of America's enemies are killing and the more resources are consumed. America's interests benefit from the war in Syria lasting as long as possible and being as bloody as possible. I know that but the american hypocrisy is astonishing, and yet people are against Trump because he wants to coordinate efforts with russia to destroy isis. Once more your politicians prove that they are liars and criminals and that's why i would much prefer for Donald Trump to be your next president, at least he doesn't want to arm the extremists.
It sounds good until you remember he is the one who wondered "why nuclear strike is not an option on the table".
|
On October 15 2016 04:01 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 03:57 Nebuchad wrote:
It's obvious that it has impact. The question that you ask is whether this impact should be criticized or not. Please provide evidence that the impact on votes from DNC favoritism is obvious.
Here's a leaked email where a superdelegate was threatened into voting for Clinton instead of Sanders, or else have her congressional campaign defunded.
|
On October 15 2016 05:20 ImFromPortugal wrote:Show nested quote +"Rebels" in Aleppo is not a single group, it is multiple different groups each with their own biases and issues. That you think there is a united rebel force shows you know about as much about what's happening as Bernie and Johnson does. Its a complicated mess. I can bet that i know much more than you will ever know about this matter, the rebels in Aleppo have their hands tied because they need the support of Alqaeda and other extremist groups, the latest offensive to break the siege paved way to the unification of many of the rebels forces there and also prompted the re branding of Alnusra into Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham. I could name the majority of rebels forces present on all the major offensives, can you do the same? Now back to my question, why would the americans arm the rebels in Aleppo thus helping Alqaeda achieve their goals in Syria? Take into consideration that i have been against the regime and the russian intervention from the beginning, as you can attest by checking my posts back in 2011 when the civil war started. Right now your presidential candidate openly says that she wants to arm Alqaeda and you americans are still whiling to vote for her, that i cannot understand.
If you are unwilling to think of Syrian rebels as anything but Alqaeda terrorists, then we should just end this discussion right now.
|
On October 15 2016 05:26 Buckyman wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 04:01 Gorsameth wrote:On October 15 2016 03:57 Nebuchad wrote:
It's obvious that it has impact. The question that you ask is whether this impact should be criticized or not. Please provide evidence that the impact on votes from DNC favoritism is obvious. Here's a leaked email where a superdelegate was threatened into voting for Clinton instead of Sanders, or else have her congressional campaign defunded.
So someone who quits the DNC is not seen in a good light by the DNC? That's your evidence?
|
How did Assad put it? "Moderate rebels are like unicorns", I believe he said.
Although somehow I'm not sure that quoting Assad is going to convince anyone of the truth of that statement.
|
On October 15 2016 04:53 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 04:07 zlefin wrote:On October 15 2016 03:38 IgnE wrote:On October 15 2016 03:19 Nyxisto wrote:On October 15 2016 03:12 IgnE wrote:On October 15 2016 03:09 Nyxisto wrote:On October 15 2016 03:05 IgnE wrote:On October 15 2016 02:53 Nyxisto wrote:On October 15 2016 02:52 IgnE wrote:On October 15 2016 02:49 Nyxisto wrote:
Biggest problem with UBI is that handing cash out isn't very effective, better to put the money into some compulsory fund that people can spend, like foodstamps but for more stuff. and this is based on what? studies of cash transfers in war torn african countries? The idea is that if we transfer cash from one guy to another we ought to have at least some say in how it's spend, like with most other shared social resources. I don't mind paying for someone's healthcare or food, I do mind paying for homeopathy and booze. If we socialise something we have a collective interest that it's being used responsibly. and you are the one that gets to decide what a "responsible" use is? why do you immediately jump to the conclusion that people will be using their meagre guaranteed income on homeopathy? but really i object to the idea that "you are paying" for someone else, like it's charity rather than social obligation. you are only fine with UBI when it's used to further the ends of a productivist technocracy that will increase your material well being. you are only for UBI when it is the only means around the barrier to capital reproduction that increasing inequality and consequent lack of aggregate demand presents. edit: even the pro-market liberal above me agrees that your german ordoliberalism is ridiculous I think you have it the wrong way around, if you're going to look where the support for universal income is largest it's going to be a college campus, not the Midwest. The people that bring the responsibility argument forward are almost always people who aren't that well off. "Our taxes aren't spent well" is an argument that you're not going to hear often in liberal technocratic circles. The people that will block your generous UBI without conditions are going to be the people that need it the most if you're framing it in a way that looks like a gift. Those people like responsibility, they don't want sharing without conditions, has this really not gotten into people's heads after this whole election? so are you saying that you personally are fine with UBI without restrictions you just don't think that the republicans would go for it? i was speaking to you, not debating trumpkins I don't like the idea of 'helicopter money' in principle (I honestly haven't read many studies whether it makes a big practical difference if we're just talking about a bare minimum UBI) but I'm not sure the distinction makes sense or is that interesting. I'm more interested in how we can get more social welfare to people and an important part of that is taking into account that especially in the US, but also in a lot of other places, unconditional redistribution will be perceived as a form of charity handouts and that is not going to be supported even by the poor. I think it's very ironic that you accuse me of being the aloof technocrat and then go on to brush off the Trumpkins, which are after all the people for which UBI is most relevant. It's what tanked Bernie's primaries, his whole talk about 'making the system work for the poor' was very far removed from the mindset that the people had he wanted to win over. That's why Clinton, the aloof technocrat, wins 90% of the black vote. so you personally are opposed to UBI because you are opposed to charity handouts but value keynesian stimulation as long as you get to decide how its spent. so in other words my criticism was dead on. im not the one trying to tell the trumpkins how to spend their share of society's bounty. i am just pointing out that a discussion with you about your pseudofascist ordoliberal welfare schemes opposed to UBI is going to be different than one with a conservative mid westerner who opposed welfare all together. @zlefin it would be helpful if you provided the guaranteed UBI number you are using instead of just saying 3-7x as wealthy. most UBI schemes propose numbers at or below the poverty threshold. it's also interesting that you round down (people might work less) instead of rounding up (increase in demand and the unleashing of the worker bees in a cognitive capital regime would increase material wealth). I'm not using any specific number, but am considering an approximate vague range. It hadn't seemed necessary to go into details before. let me look up some numbers: US poverty threshold guideline for a single individual: 11770; though it notes that additional individuals in the same household add far less, so there appears to be a considerable base cost; each extra individual in the household increases the threshold by 4160. alot would depend on which of those you focus on for setting UBI. based on http://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-goit looks like around 1.25 trillion spend on non-medical welfare programs. with US pop around 320 million, that amounts to ~3900/person. state and local welfare programs surely add some, but are in general much smaller in size compared to the federal ones, so it should still be no more than ~4500/person. Of course current spending levels are in part due to deficit spending, they'd be around 15% lower without that. And if one were to shift all welfare programs to UBI, the money would be less focused on the elderly/disabled, so they'd be getting less than they currently do. (and it might not be enough, they tend to have higher needs than younger, healthier people who can do more of their own work) The food support systems generally assume around $6.00/day/person to feed a person decently (it can be done for less, if you have good stores nearby and do your own cooking, not sure how the amortization of basic kitchen supplies works). Housing costs are considerable, some places in the country have quite high housing costs. Rents from 500-1000/month depending on location, for basic housing. add a bit more for utilities (depending on whether utilities were covered under the rent) I round down because I prefer to be conservative in fiscal projections, so that there is a safety margin in case the programs consequences are worse than estimates indicated; there's always some uncertainty in such things. It's easy to handle a surplus gracefully, it's much harder to handle a deficit well. So, there are some numbers of things, provided as requested. so what happens when you raise taxes on persons that can pay more and reduce military spending? seems like you get pretty close to say $9k a year in UBI.
you're talking about an awfully big tax increase.
9k/year per person, runs around 3 trillion total. So you'd need to raise revenue by some 1.75 trillion, or about 9% of gdp iirc.
halving military spending would get you .3 trillion (and is obviously politically infeasible). so you'd still need 1.45 trillion;
so a tax increase of say 7% on EVERYONE, with no exceptions or deductions reducing it.
Or you'd run a tax increase of 10% on some people; which pushes the net brackets quite high, they're already high enough that diminishing returns effects hamper them.
|
Not gone far enough? How much more are people willing to give up to reduce an already infinitesimal chance?
|
On October 15 2016 05:11 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 04:47 LegalLord wrote:On October 15 2016 04:36 CannonsNCarriers wrote:On October 15 2016 04:20 LegalLord wrote:On October 15 2016 04:14 Gorsameth wrote:On October 15 2016 04:08 LegalLord wrote:
The biggest favoritism was probably simply the massive superdelegate advantage Hillary started with. That basically crowded out all other viable establishment opposition, leaving Bernie Sanders as the only possible viable opposition. He also suffered strongly from poor exposure early on in the campaign, probably also because of Hillary's superdelegate advantage. And people really do have a tendency to just fall in line with the party line option, which in this case was Hillary without a doubt. If he had more exposure earlier in the campaign, he may well have managed to edge Hillary out. Judging by the fact that there have been quite a few people who said they chose Hillary but now wonder if Sanders might have been better, while most Sanders people still think they were right to make that choice, timing might have made a substantial difference. Yeah that sounds right. I wouldn't call that favoritism tho. Hillary is a Democrat who has worked with Democrat super delegates for years. Bernie was an outsider coming in. The super delegates favoring Hillary early on makes perfect sense. Well they also favored Hillary over all other possible establishment candidates which didn't give them any chance of victory. I saw not that much of O'Malley, but he seemed like a pretty good, principled candidate with some oratorical prowess. But no one cared about him because he didn't have a chance because Hillary took the establishment vote by having all the superdelegates support her from the start. The most likely result was decided before any votes were even cast. How much of that is (1) HRC's strength and lifelong network building in Democratic party circles and (2) Democrats colluding for HRC. I think it is a lot more (1). Yeah, HRC did clear the field of any real challengers ahead of time by using her network power and loyalty. But that is because she really is that strong in Democratic circles. I also would have liked to see O'Malley get farther. But he just didn't have the donors or decades of connections. EDIT: Obama level talent did beat the Clinton machine in 2008, but I didn't see anyone with Obama's skills this year. Bernie organizational skills were simply inferior to community-organizer-Obama. Hillary built a truly impressive coalition in her favor this election, nowhere near what anyone else had before. In fact Nate Silver called her the "most establishment favored candidate in history" based on endorsements. She really did crowd out all the establishment opposition. All that connection building is, of course, a big ugly game of political favor trading, especially over the past eight years. There are worse things that could be done, but the notion that establishment favoritism got Hillary a primary win is perfectly valid. I think favoritism is a rather reductive/ narrow way of putting it. It's just how the world works. Let's say a company has a C-suite position open. They put an application on the job boards, but also notify their employees. Clinton has been with the company for 20 years, she's a hardworking SVP who has a great record at the company, and she was passed over for promotion a couple times. She applies, and a bunch of the people involved with the hiring process are like "yeah we know Hillary she's a great candidate". On the other hand, Bernie is an external consultant who has a history with the company, but people don't know him all that much. He's got a solid record of delivering what he's been asked to do, but the relationship is somewhat transactional. Moreover, Clinton has a better record - all the times she delivered projects ahead of schedule under budget and ahead of time already make her more qualified. The great office holiday party she planned or the fact she brought cookies when her team worked late are just gravy.
She pretty much learnt her lesson in 2008, and laid the groundwork starting in 2008, by getting all her cronies into plum positions within the Democratic party. DWS went from being her campaign chief to Head of the DNC, along with half her campaign staffers who were planted into the DNC. They were basically performing the job of her surrogates while being in positions that called for a certain modicum of neutrality, and were using their influence both on the primary process as well as the media (as evidenced by the recent wikileaks emails) to tip the scales in Clinton's favor.
|
On October 15 2016 05:26 Buckyman wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 04:01 Gorsameth wrote:On October 15 2016 03:57 Nebuchad wrote:
It's obvious that it has impact. The question that you ask is whether this impact should be criticized or not. Please provide evidence that the impact on votes from DNC favoritism is obvious. Here's a leaked email where a superdelegate was threatened into voting for Clinton instead of Sanders, or else have her congressional campaign defunded.
You know I wish people just bothered to google the guy who sent this email before doing dumb shit like this.
|
Candidate A has a foreign policy that will involve a lot of poorly considered ventures that will cost the nation a lot of money and damage its reputation abroad and with the voter base, while having enough hubris not to realize the folly of all this.
Candidate B wonders why we can't use nuclear weapons in battle, has little to no understanding of actual foreign policy issues and often parrots conspiracy theories about FP events, and has a temperament so volatile that said candidate bends over backwards to support a foreign leader who offers up a compliment, and starts grudge wars over minor slights of his character.
Which candidate do you want in charge if those are your two options?
|
On October 15 2016 05:34 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 05:26 Buckyman wrote:On October 15 2016 04:01 Gorsameth wrote:On October 15 2016 03:57 Nebuchad wrote:
It's obvious that it has impact. The question that you ask is whether this impact should be criticized or not. Please provide evidence that the impact on votes from DNC favoritism is obvious. Here's a leaked email where a superdelegate was threatened into voting for Clinton instead of Sanders, or else have her congressional campaign defunded. So someone who quits the DNC is not seen in a good light by the DNC? That's your evidence?
You missed the part where they report back to Hillary Clinton like faithful lapdogs - "Hammer Dropped". If that is not currying for favor and positions, with an eventual Clinton administration, then I don't know what qualifies in your book.
|
On October 15 2016 05:37 Piledriver wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 05:34 Thieving Magpie wrote:On October 15 2016 05:26 Buckyman wrote:On October 15 2016 04:01 Gorsameth wrote:On October 15 2016 03:57 Nebuchad wrote:
It's obvious that it has impact. The question that you ask is whether this impact should be criticized or not. Please provide evidence that the impact on votes from DNC favoritism is obvious. Here's a leaked email where a superdelegate was threatened into voting for Clinton instead of Sanders, or else have her congressional campaign defunded. So someone who quits the DNC is not seen in a good light by the DNC? That's your evidence? You missed the part where they report back to Hillary Clinton like faithful lapdogs - "Hammer Dropped". What a bunch of ass munchers.
You missed the part where neither one of those men are a part of the DNC. They literally worked with/for Clinton, I mean its a condescending email but pray tell me what Darnell Strom and Michael Kives have to do with the DNC ?
It took me 2 minutes to find out who both men are and what they do.
|
On October 15 2016 05:34 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 04:53 IgnE wrote:On October 15 2016 04:07 zlefin wrote:On October 15 2016 03:38 IgnE wrote:On October 15 2016 03:19 Nyxisto wrote:On October 15 2016 03:12 IgnE wrote:On October 15 2016 03:09 Nyxisto wrote:On October 15 2016 03:05 IgnE wrote:On October 15 2016 02:53 Nyxisto wrote:On October 15 2016 02:52 IgnE wrote:
[quote]
and this is based on what? studies of cash transfers in war torn african countries? The idea is that if we transfer cash from one guy to another we ought to have at least some say in how it's spend, like with most other shared social resources. I don't mind paying for someone's healthcare or food, I do mind paying for homeopathy and booze. If we socialise something we have a collective interest that it's being used responsibly. and you are the one that gets to decide what a "responsible" use is? why do you immediately jump to the conclusion that people will be using their meagre guaranteed income on homeopathy? but really i object to the idea that "you are paying" for someone else, like it's charity rather than social obligation. you are only fine with UBI when it's used to further the ends of a productivist technocracy that will increase your material well being. you are only for UBI when it is the only means around the barrier to capital reproduction that increasing inequality and consequent lack of aggregate demand presents. edit: even the pro-market liberal above me agrees that your german ordoliberalism is ridiculous I think you have it the wrong way around, if you're going to look where the support for universal income is largest it's going to be a college campus, not the Midwest. The people that bring the responsibility argument forward are almost always people who aren't that well off. "Our taxes aren't spent well" is an argument that you're not going to hear often in liberal technocratic circles. The people that will block your generous UBI without conditions are going to be the people that need it the most if you're framing it in a way that looks like a gift. Those people like responsibility, they don't want sharing without conditions, has this really not gotten into people's heads after this whole election? so are you saying that you personally are fine with UBI without restrictions you just don't think that the republicans would go for it? i was speaking to you, not debating trumpkins I don't like the idea of 'helicopter money' in principle (I honestly haven't read many studies whether it makes a big practical difference if we're just talking about a bare minimum UBI) but I'm not sure the distinction makes sense or is that interesting. I'm more interested in how we can get more social welfare to people and an important part of that is taking into account that especially in the US, but also in a lot of other places, unconditional redistribution will be perceived as a form of charity handouts and that is not going to be supported even by the poor. I think it's very ironic that you accuse me of being the aloof technocrat and then go on to brush off the Trumpkins, which are after all the people for which UBI is most relevant. It's what tanked Bernie's primaries, his whole talk about 'making the system work for the poor' was very far removed from the mindset that the people had he wanted to win over. That's why Clinton, the aloof technocrat, wins 90% of the black vote. so you personally are opposed to UBI because you are opposed to charity handouts but value keynesian stimulation as long as you get to decide how its spent. so in other words my criticism was dead on. im not the one trying to tell the trumpkins how to spend their share of society's bounty. i am just pointing out that a discussion with you about your pseudofascist ordoliberal welfare schemes opposed to UBI is going to be different than one with a conservative mid westerner who opposed welfare all together. @zlefin it would be helpful if you provided the guaranteed UBI number you are using instead of just saying 3-7x as wealthy. most UBI schemes propose numbers at or below the poverty threshold. it's also interesting that you round down (people might work less) instead of rounding up (increase in demand and the unleashing of the worker bees in a cognitive capital regime would increase material wealth). I'm not using any specific number, but am considering an approximate vague range. It hadn't seemed necessary to go into details before. let me look up some numbers: US poverty threshold guideline for a single individual: 11770; though it notes that additional individuals in the same household add far less, so there appears to be a considerable base cost; each extra individual in the household increases the threshold by 4160. alot would depend on which of those you focus on for setting UBI. based on http://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-goit looks like around 1.25 trillion spend on non-medical welfare programs. with US pop around 320 million, that amounts to ~3900/person. state and local welfare programs surely add some, but are in general much smaller in size compared to the federal ones, so it should still be no more than ~4500/person. Of course current spending levels are in part due to deficit spending, they'd be around 15% lower without that. And if one were to shift all welfare programs to UBI, the money would be less focused on the elderly/disabled, so they'd be getting less than they currently do. (and it might not be enough, they tend to have higher needs than younger, healthier people who can do more of their own work) The food support systems generally assume around $6.00/day/person to feed a person decently (it can be done for less, if you have good stores nearby and do your own cooking, not sure how the amortization of basic kitchen supplies works). Housing costs are considerable, some places in the country have quite high housing costs. Rents from 500-1000/month depending on location, for basic housing. add a bit more for utilities (depending on whether utilities were covered under the rent) I round down because I prefer to be conservative in fiscal projections, so that there is a safety margin in case the programs consequences are worse than estimates indicated; there's always some uncertainty in such things. It's easy to handle a surplus gracefully, it's much harder to handle a deficit well. So, there are some numbers of things, provided as requested. so what happens when you raise taxes on persons that can pay more and reduce military spending? seems like you get pretty close to say $9k a year in UBI. you're talking about an awfully big tax increase. 9k/year per person, runs around 3 trillion total. So you'd need to raise revenue by some 1.75 trillion, or about 9% of gdp iirc. halving military spending would get you .3 trillion (and is obviously politically infeasible). so you'd still need 1.45 trillion; so a tax increase of say 7% on EVERYONE, with no exceptions or deductions reducing it. Or you'd run a tax increase of 10% on some people; which pushes the net brackets quite high, they're already high enough that diminishing returns effects hamper them.
7% tax on people making middle class income now is not that big a deal when they are getting $9k back in UBI.
your vague assertions about diminishing returns are unconvincing
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
