Saw today on the news that Sanders said if he can't win he wants his supporters to back Trump. WTH!!! He is not a democratic socialist... just a socialist. He should not have been allowed to run as a democrat IMO.
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Saw today on the news that Sanders said if he can't win he wants his supporters to back Trump. WTH!!! He is not a democratic socialist... just a socialist. He should not have been allowed to run as a democrat IMO.
What channel was that? I can't find anything in my usual news sources. It doesn't sound like something Bernie would suggest. Maybe Trump's campaign PR flak put that out; I wouldn't put it past Trump.Quote:
Originally Posted by frugal-one
It makes all the sense in the world to me. Both Sanders and Trump are carrying anti establishment supporters. One group is responding to socialist utopia and the other has a leaning towards nationalism, but both want to rid themselves of the influence of monied interests. True they approach it in vastly different terms but they are both seekin the same result. Winner take all. Clinton represents what got us in this mess in the first place. She is a step backwards. At least Trump is still evolving his politics.Quote:
Originally Posted by frugal-one
It doesn't make much sense to me. Better Jill Stein or another anti-establishment candidate than the odious Trump.
I watched his interview with George Stephanopolous this morning and he didn't say anything of the sort, nor did George ask, which he undoubtedly would have if George had heard it elsewhere, so this sounds like a truth-free soundbite put out by a righwting hack or Debbie Wasserman Shultz.Quote:
Originally Posted by frugal-one
I have a hard time believing this one. And I haven't found anything. Source?Quote:
Originally Posted by frugal-one
I give credit to Sanders for identifying the problem and calling out Wall Street and Congress but He proposes the wrong solution. The transfer of wealth through force has been going on ever since the federal reserve and Congress joined forces to inflate the supply of money, devalue it and by this means tax people without representation. If Bernie wanted to eliminate the federal reserve and get back to free market principles , aid be all for him but he believes the democratization of the federal reserve would be an improvement. Nothing the federal government has done in a big way has led to an improvement. Education? Welfare? Military? It's all a disaster and Bernie would have more of it.
Social Security. Medicare. The interstate highway system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
I was wrong! Saw the clip again.... was talking about DNC. Sorry... caught it wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by frugal-one
Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
Thinking about this some more I think the problem isn't that the government isn't capable of doing big things. It's that the big businesspeople have figured out how to make big bucks off the government through the use of lobbyists and such. Today if we tried to provide retirement income for seniors the life insurance industry would probably be pushing for a "privatized" system where everyone got a government provided life insurance policy. Medicare would have become vouchers to buy private health insurance. And the interstate highway system would've been private toll roads.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
Center for Disease Control. Federal park service. Federal Aviation Administration. National Science Institute. National Weather Service. NASA. U.S. Patent office.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
AMTRAK, U S Postal Service, Securities and Echange Commission, FDIC, Environmental Protection Agency, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Federal Communications Commission. Transportation Safety Administration (Otherwise known as Bureau of Long Lines, Smoke and Mirrors.) Your turn.
Whew, I thought I had heard more negative towards Trump from him but he seems to be more ignoring Trump and focusing on ClintonQuote:
Originally Posted by frugal-one
Are we defining "socialism" here as any government activity? The "If you drive on roads, you're a socialist" argument gets made a lot, to the point of achieving cliche status. Or the popular "If you complain about government overreach while collecting Social Security, you're a hypocrite". The implication is that even the slightest brush with government invalidates any argument against government intervention. Personally, I think that's a rather silly reduction ad absurdum argument only suitable for use against Randian anarcho-capitalist strawmen.
You'd be just as foolish arguing that having $5 in your pocket that you can spend freely marks you as a laissez faire capitalist with no right to criticize Goldman Sachs.
There is a spectrum of the level of government intervention you can consider tolerable. Wanting potholes filled is not the same thing as wishing you lived in Caracas. Putting a few bucks in a Roth doesn't make you a robber baron.
If you drive on roads then you are socialist about roads!Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
Clinton wants to pretend Bernie is history. Trouble is every time she looks in the rear view mirror, there he is. So now that she can't get rid of him, she is going to be satisfied appearing as though she is the presumptive nominee and decline a debate with Bernie before the California Primary. This will give her time to shake hands with Californians and move on to the job at hand.....a Democratic convention that highlights just how dirty Clinton politics really are.
Do you think Bernie could make 21 million in speeches after the election campaign?
She ain't getting my vote.Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
I get that you are for the least government intervention as possible and let business do what they will. Just curious, what type of regulation do you support when it comes to business? Any at all??Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
Let's talk about a more complex issue: let's take one of our favorite topics: healthcare. TIME Magazine had an article that I was interested in reading because it's about my livelihood: marketing drugs. I hate to bite the hand that feeds me, but the article talked about the price gouging of pharmaceuticals. The main problem is that, according to one of the experts quoted:
There are a lot of reasons for that which I won't go into but how can you justify pharmaceutical companies getting away with increasing the prices of their medications by double digits EVERY YEAR? Just because they can? It's a horrendous abuse of the system. I know that they need to conduct R&D and they have to recoup their investment before patent expiry--I know that well, but should or should not there be limits to profits?Quote:
...the rules of supply and demand do not apply. 'People say, Let pharmaceutical manufacturers charge whatever the market will bear'... but it doesn't work that way.. It's a flawed market.
It makes me feel dirty being in this business.
The only reason pharmaceutical companies are getting away with the price increases is BECAUSE of the effects of government intervention in medical care over the past fifty years. Government has create the trough at which they feed. Don't you think things would be getting just a little bit better by now if government control actually worked? A return to true freedom to seek medical care on the open market is what we need. The only way to provide medical care as a "right" is by force...by oppressive beuraucracies, rationing and deprivation. We have been going in the wrong direction. We need a compass to get out of the woods, not more wandering around.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
Yes, there is so much gray area in what you think is the best government spending. I work for a school district and have some funding from federal grants. I 100% support the after school funding I get, all over I see that it is being used well and has an impact (it better for the amount of checks and balances and data we do), however I do not vote for every bond and mill levy for the school district. It is being managed badly, and I am getting involved in that activism because I don't blame anyone for questioning how the money is being used. We need to fix some things honestly,
I'm not sure I'd include the post office as a failure. If anyone honestly thinks that there's a private company out there who will deliver a letter to any address anywhere in the US for $.49, and to be able to do that while paying middle class wages and having the most overfunded pension in history I'd like some of whatever drugs they are taking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
But anyway, my point was simply that the government can, and has, done some pretty amazing large projects. Sure there have been failures. But to say that there haven't been major successes is simply not true.
There is a lot of that, the government is involved, and in ways that support an unsustainable economy. I am not an expert but I am learning more and more.Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
Anyone ever read The Postman?
It made me want to be a mail carrier! And, it actually made me feel something I have never otherwise felt in life:
Patriotism.
The Postal Service is one of the best things America has done.
To the extent that government is in the pocket of lobbyists I would agree with you. To the extent that we should just burn the barn down and start over, I would agree with you. But right now, I have no problem with government limiting the "how high can we go" profit-above-patients approach of some pharmaceutical companies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
I think there is a place for regulation, especially with regard to safety. I do suspect you and I would disagree on how much is enough, but that's what democracy is for.
As to something as specific as drug pricing, I agree that determining what is "fair" is complicated. I also suspect I'd be more inclined to choose free markets over a determination made by Time's "expert". Price controls have not had a very successful history since the Emperor Diocletian, so I'd probably be more inclined toward market pricing than you. On the other hand, health care in this country has been so regulated on different levels for so many years that you might be able to argue that we left free markets in the dust a long time ago. Perhaps the best we can hope for is trying to regulate more intelligently.
Gotcha! :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
Yeah. You got me. I'm not John Galt. I'm Lenin in a pinstriped suit because I think selling tainted drugs should be illegal.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
Let the market sort it out! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
You filthy capitalists are all alike. You don't care how the proletariat suffers as long as your retirement account keeps growing.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
I can't wait for Bernie to take away your ill-gotten pelf.
You're cracking me up! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
Did you hang around lefties a lot in college? You sure know how to ape us! Very authentic-sounding!
Well, I have been in some predicaments where the proper tool just was not available and had to use what I had on hand. So if we can just back our way out of the room an inch at a time. And in that way reverse the process......I would use government to do that.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
I delivered an inhaler to a rehabilitation facility. The client had been discharged or signed themselves out. The nurse sent it back to the pharmacy and said.."Well, that $500 we just saved."
I recently found a letter addressed to my dad two days after my birth, from the local hospital.
Room and Board.....$19
Laboratory.............$12
Drugs...................$.040
Total. $31.40
My dad likely made median income that year which according to the Department of Commerce was $5400. The hospital bill represented .6% of his annual income.
Last years median income was oddly enough $54,000. .6% would be $324. According to a CNN article, the average cost to have a baby last year was anywhere from $1,200 to $12,000 with a median or around $4,500. Not including specialists who bill separately.
Yeah, we got a big problem. Suppose we check out what we were doing in 1959 and head that direction.
Some of my best friends are Bolsheviks.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
I would say that when I went to college the student body was probably two-thirds left of center and the faculty maybe 80%. From what I understand those percentages have increased considerably over the intervening years. But even in those days, wearing an ROTC uniform on drill days marked the true non-conformists.
Very interesting!Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
I read a study in college that showed that when liberals go off to college they are likely to stay liberal. The same study tracked conservatives.
Apparently when conservatives go to college over a third will end up liberals by graduation.
You have to admire the two-thirds who resist the ministrations of the Thought Police.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
I believe the profit motive has made our health care system rotten to the core--but you knew that about me. Pharma sets the prices and the insurance companies call the shots in how drugs are used. Doctors are just gatekeepers who mostly go along with the process.
I remember reading in a newsmagazine probably thirty years ago that the establishment was optimistic that more women graduating from medical school would mean more tractable doctors who would go along unquestioning. Now with the (empty) threat of lawsuits and the innovation-stifling "best practice" orthodoxy, most doctors walk the line or bail out.
Meanwhile, this is the most (over)medicated country in history--and if patients dare to refuse (often useless and dangerous) drugs, they are called "con-compliant" and/or "fired" by their health care provider. Where non-pharmaceutical interventions might work, drugs are routinely pushed on the unwitting or helpless--often children and old people.
I'd like to see a grass-roots movement to challenge this, but given the huge amounts of money involved, I can't imagine a scenario in which it could happen.
I like to think these naive young conservatives come to college, are exposed to good ideas, and they merely recognize and adopt them because they make sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
I wonder how much of the programming they retain, say ten years after college.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
I'd like to know as well. If they retain much of it, then we know that college is a fairly good assembly line for constructing (reconstructing?) liberals.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
Fortunatley few of them are in Law Enforcement. Unfortunately a few of them are prosecutors, particularly in Baltimore.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
What do you mean?Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith