Wisconsin Primary

[catherine]

I would have thought that if money was really that invincible that the positions of the Bush and Sanders campaigns would be quite different.

This Time Magazine article outlines the issue about how the show Billions is not far from real life.--and this is what I mean when I say that Bernie is not about denying people their right to wealth or their choice to buy a yacht or a million hats--but he is about keeping the money in circulation.

Unfortunately, the real-life drama of Main Street’s subordination to Wall Street is getting worse. Experts including Adair Turner, the former head of financial regulation in the U.K., estimate that only about 15% of all capital flows within America’s financial system end up making their way into the real economy. The rest of that money just rotates around the high-finance microcosm, enriching the 1% as they buy and sell existing assets to one another, bidding up their value, while failing to invest in research, products, jobs or innovation.

That's the key point.

Of course, having the money and power in the hands of very few people is problematic in other ways as well--ways that have nothing to do with class envy, but let's start with addressing the way in which Wall Street plays chess with people's lives.

[iris lilies]

This Time Magazine article outlines the issue about how the show Billions is not far from real life.--and this is what I mean when I say that Bernie is not about denying people their right to wealth or their choice to buy a yacht or a million hats--but he is about keeping the money in circulation.




That's the key point.

Of course, having the money and power in the hands of very few people is problematic in other ways as well--ways that have nothing to do with class envy, but let's start with addressing the way in which Wall Street plays chess with people's lives.

Gee, and I just finished a post on another forum defendng The Donald about him using inherited millions to build things, employ people, make and move products in his many business ventures. His denegrators snidely remark that he would have made more money in index funds.

I am confused and cannot keep up. Which is it, good to hold financial instruments, or bad?

[LDAHL]

Walker endorses Cruz. The front page of today's paper says Cruz wants "right to work" all over the country. Look at the fiasco that caused in WI! He probably will make Walker the VP if elected. *shudder*

I guess "fiasco" is in the eye of the beholder.

Becoming the 25th State to pass a right to work law didn't create that much impact that I could see here. Private sector union influence was already fairly negligible.

The big kerfuffle was Act 10, which eliminated mandatory union membership for most public employees. The public service unions and the politicians they funded went berserk. Madison became a circus for a month or so. The voters, not so much. The recall election launched against Walker failed, although part of the reason for that was a distaste for using a recall for political purposes.

I'd like to hope that a President Cruz would have the good sense to select a guy like Walker for a running mate.

[Teacher Terry]

I read that Donald inherited so much $ that he would be richer if he had put it in a savings account versus losing a bunch, making more etc. don't know if that is true.

[bae]

--and this is what I mean when I say that Bernie is not about denying people their right to wealth or their choice to buy a yacht or a million hats--but he is about keeping the money in circulation.

Yachts are a funny thing. Held up as a class signifier of "The Rich", and an easy target to point at as needless conspicuous consumption.

Remember when the Feds imposed a "yacht tax" in 1991? This luxury tax on boats and airplanes was supposed to raise $31 million in revenue a year, and I suppose punish the rich.

Instead, it drove 1/3 of the US yacht builders out of business, and by the time the dust settled eliminated about 100,000 jobs in the boating and nautical supply industries, and thousands in the aviation industry. Some of those jobs never came back.

You see, yachts don't build themselves. It takes labor and raw materials, and that employs people, generates wages and taxes, and then those folks spend money. A yacht doesn't "take money out of circulation".

What takes money out of circulation is adopting policies that encourage capital owners to relocate their capital elsewhere. For instance, if I lived in Rhodesia some years ago, and saw the way things were developing, you'd bet I'd sneak across the border with a suitcase full of Krugerrands and diamonds, and never look back.

[LDAHL]

I read that Donald inherited so much $ that he would be richer if he had put it in a savings account versus losing a bunch, making more etc. don't know if that is true.

I've heard a similar statement made about the story of Manhattan being purchased for $24 worth of glass beads: that at a reasonable rate of interest that original bit of principal would have compounded to a greater value than the sum total worth of Manhattan real estate. I heard it variously used as an illustration of the power of compound interest and the importance of a consistent investment strategy.

In Trump's case, I'd like to believe the story was true.

[catherine]

A yacht doesn't "take money out of circulation".

I agree with you--but Wall Street incestuous shenanigans apparently do.

I don't have anything against yachts or people who buy them, as long my husband is not the purchaser. He's looked at poor man's yachts like 32' Boston Whalers and the cost of the boat would be bad enough but then there's fuel and docking fees. Yikes. Even if we had the money, a boat wouldn't be my splurge but it would definitely be DH's.

[frugal-one]

I guess "fiasco" is in the eye of the beholder.

Becoming the 25th State to pass a right to work law didn't create that much impact that I could see here. Private sector union influence was already fairly negligible.

The big kerfuffle was Act 10, which eliminated mandatory union membership for most public employees. The public service unions and the politicians they funded went berserk. Madison became a circus for a month or so. The voters, not so much. The recall election launched against Walker failed, although part of the reason for that was a distaste for using a recall for political purposes.

I'd like to hope that a President Cruz would have the good sense to select a guy like Walker for a running mate.

I agree that in the recall election Walker won again was because there was a distaste for the recall. He did win originally and he did not do anything illegal so there should not have been a recall. Walker has done nothing good for WI. He took money from the Transportation sector to cover his shortfall in the budget and boasted how he was "balancing the budget". His campaign promise was to bring jobs into the state but we are near the bottom in the country. http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/...0000-new-jobs/

It will be interesting to see how WI votes. Truthfully, this is the first election ever that I am tempted to stay home. All the candidates stink!

[jp1]

I guess "fiasco" is in the eye of the beholder.

Becoming the 25th State to pass a right to work law didn't create that much impact that I could see here. Private sector union influence was already fairly negligible.

The big kerfuffle was Act 10, which eliminated mandatory union membership for most public employees. The public service unions and the politicians they funded went berserk. Madison became a circus for a month or so. The voters, not so much. The recall election launched against Walker failed, although part of the reason for that was a distaste for using a recall for political purposes.

I'd like to hope that a President Cruz would have the good sense to select a guy like Walker for a running mate.

I don't know that I'd like to see Walker's economic policies spread nationwide. To be sure his anti-Union efforts aren't the only reason WI has had the biggest drop in middle class income of any state, but they surely didn't help the situation.

http://www.wpr.org/wisconsin-has-see...te-study-finds

[LDAHL]

I agree that in the recall election Walker won again was because there was a distaste for the recall. He did win originally and he did not do anything illegal so there should not have been a recall. Walker has done nothing good for WI. He took money from the Transportation sector to cover his shortfall in the budget and boasted how he was "balancing the budget". His campaign promise was to bring jobs into the state but we are near the bottom in the country. http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/...0000-new-jobs/

It will be interesting to see how WI votes. Truthfully, this is the first election ever that I am tempted to stay home. All the candidates stink!

I think you're right that he will be remembered more as the governor who ended government as a closed shop and required public employees to pay for half their pension contribution than the creator of an economic renaissance, but that itself is a fairly major achievement.

I heard this morning that Cruz is gaining a bit in the polls. The Wisconsin GOP rules allocate 18 of it's 42 delegates on a statewide basis, and the rest by congressional district, so Trump may still pick up a few here. I'm hoping that the State where the Republican Party was born may also see the beginning of the end of Trump's ambitions.