The 2020 Presidential Election - Convention & General Election

[ActualCornHusker]

6 minutes ago, Nebfanatic said:

@ActualCornHusker green new deal?

 

I'd like to do a more well-thought-out response to the green new deal, but the first major criticism I would have of it would be that it would not allow Nuclear power plants... In one breath, they want to get rid of energy production that emits CO2, and in the next breath, they won't allow nuclear... That makes no sense.

 

We should definitely facilitate a transition away from coal power toward green energy, but a better, more efficient, and less damaging way of doing so would be through incentivizing private companies (rather than coercing through government force) to develop new green energy advancements such as better energy storage technology (batteries) which is the primary limiting factor of solar and wind.

3 minutes ago, QMany said:

 

It seems hard to square those two statements.

 

Sure. What do you mean by that?

[BigRedBuster]

16 minutes ago, Frott Scost said:

Bernie is talking about the system in general.  Not that he will tax Jeff Bezos until he only has $999,999,999.

I'm just going off of what he has said.  He doesn't think they should exist.  I have to assume then that he will work to distribute all their wealth down to that level.  Will he accomplish it?  no.  But, I don't support that blanket attitude towards wealthy people.

[knapplc]

19 minutes ago, ActualCornHusker said:

$15 minimum wage - Most importantly, a $15 minimum wage hurts the very people it intends to help. It prices low-skill and young workers out of the job market. These people inevitably end up jobless and on government assistance, creating and advancing a welfare state that perpetuates itself by not allowing those young and low-skill workers to go to work and develop employable skills. It also disproportionately hurts small family businesses, while large corporations are able to handle the added expenses (or automate processes sooner than they would have otherwise). The other large issue is that of the mutual contract agreement. If a person is willing to agree to do a job for $5/hr and the business is willing to hire that person for $5/hr, why would you consider it moral for a 3rd party (the government) to not allow that agreement?

 

Line by line, this is just flat wrong.

 

"$15 minimum wage hurts the very people it intends to help. It prices low-skill and young workers out of the job market." No, it doesn't, and we have direct examples of how this is blatantly untrue (see: Seattle).

 

"These people inevitably end up jobless and on government assistance, creating and advancing a welfare state " Blatantly untrue, as evidenced by Seattle.  Show us one place where a $15/hour minimum wage has forced workers out of their jobs forcing them to...

 

"not allowing those young and low-skill workers to go to work and develop employable skills."  Where's the proof?

 

"It also disproportionately hurts small family businesses" No it doesn't. Again - proof.

 

"The other large issue is that of the mutual contract agreement. If a person is willing to agree to do a job for $5/hr and the business is willing to hire that person for $5/hr, why would you consider it moral for a 3rd party (the government) to not allow that agreement?"  Not a student of history? What you're describing here is the very economic climate that led to worker exploitation and the formation of vast labor unions. Businesses get drunk of the pursuit of profit, cut labor costs, and workers suffer. They lose benefits, they lose wages, they're thrust into poverty, and businesses then exploit them further. You want everyone to become sharecroppers or wage slaves.

 

This is exactly the kind of radical right-wing nonsense we need to root out of America.  It's gross.

 

19 minutes ago, ActualCornHusker said:

Wealth Tax - The hilarity of this proposal is the idea of "rich paying their fair share." The top 1% of income earners already pay a greater amount of taxes than the bottom 90% combined. At what point will the left say that the rich pay their fair share? Answer: they won't. Taxing the rich is built upon the logical fallacy that the market is a zero-sum game. There should definitely be incentive for wealthy people to spend, invest, and re-invest their money, but as soon as the government siphons that money out of the economy, it stops that from happening.  

 

@Frott Scost answered this somewhat, but to the bold, there are ZERO incentives for this. Wealthy people hoard wealth, and in uncertain economic times when we need them to spend, they hoard even more. They're doing it RIGHT NOW.  You can claim the rich pay more taxes, but that's a red herring and easily debunked. It's not about volume, it's about a fair share. 

 

19 minutes ago, ActualCornHusker said:

"Free" College - Mainly, it doesn't solve the main problems with the system. It just shifts those burdens onto the taxpayers at-large. Like most issues, the biggest problems with college (the high cost and massive student debt as a result) are a direct result of an over-reach of government. If student loans are so abhorrent, why not have the government stop making these student loans?... The gov guaranteeing student loans is the single biggest factor in the skyrocketing cost of college tuition. With the current state of college education (many degrees have zero value in the job market), less people should be going to college - not more.

 

So... you're espousing radically altering the education fortunes of vast numbers of poorer Americans.  That's not "The American Dream" at all. That's the wealthy keeping the poor under their heel. What you're describing is class warfare. Pulling the ladder up behind the rich because they got their first.  That's about as unAmerican as you can get.

 

 

 

 

Just so we're clear - no moderates espouse these ideas. These are all extreme right-wing talking points, and are not based in social or economic reality. 

 

 

And again - all of these proposals you're espousing are based on the coveting of money. 

 

 

[Ratt Mhule]

5 minutes ago, ActualCornHusker said:

 

I'd like to do a more well-thought-out response to the green new deal, but the first major criticism I would have of it would be that it would not allow Nuclear power plants... In one breath, they want to get rid of energy production that emits CO2, and in the next breath, they won't allow nuclear... That makes no sense.

 

We should definitely facilitate a transition away from coal power toward green energy, but a better, more efficient, and less damaging way of doing so would be through incentivizing private companies (rather than coercing through government force) to develop new green energy advancements such as better energy storage technology (batteries) which is the primary limiting factor of solar and wind.

 

Sure. What do you mean by that?

 

Its mostly due to the fact we don't know what to do with the nuclear waste.  At least that is Bernie's thoughts on why nuclear wouldn't be ideal.  I don't think its banner, however.

[Nebfanatic]

5 minutes ago, ActualCornHusker said:

 

I'd like to do a more well-thought-out response to the green new deal, but the first major criticism I would have of it would be that it would not allow Nuclear power plants... In one breath, they want to get rid of energy production that emits CO2, and in the next breath, they won't allow nuclear... That makes no sense.

 

We should definitely facilitate a transition away from coal power toward green energy, but a better, more efficient, and less damaging way of doing so would be through incentivizing private companies (rather than coercing through government force) to develop new green energy advancements such as better energy storage technology (batteries) which is the primary limiting factor of solar and wind.

 

 

To be fair its a working plan not a bill so theoretically things like this could be talked about and included. I'm sure if people were willing to come to the table and make this work Democrats would be willing to compromise on those things you mentioned.

[Ratt Mhule]

14 minutes ago, ActualCornHusker said:

 

I'm only 30, so I know a LOT of people who have gone to college, graduated with 30, 40 50 grand in debt (which you can't even get rid of through filing for bankruptcy!!), and they go work jobs that not only don't have anything to do with their degree, but those jobs don't require a degree or higher education AT ALL! 

 

You don't have to go to college to learn employable skills...

 

There is probably more to the story than just they aren't using their degree.  Did they attempt to look for jobs in their field?  How many jobs are available?  Yes, there are some students that get dumb degrees.  That is a minority.

 

Most, not all, high paying jobs require a 4 year or graduate degree.  There are some trades like electrician that pay well without a degree, but those are the minority.

[ActualCornHusker]

4 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

And again - all of these proposals you're espousing are based on the coveting of money. 

 

 

 

If goods and services materialized out of thin air, then I'd be all for implementing all these ideas. You can choose to call it what you'd like, but the point stands - We've already got $150 TRILLION (conservative estimate btw) in UNFUNDED liabilities. It's not coveting money to recognize that the amount of money that the government has already spent is going to crush this country, and adding an even larger burden through deficit spending will make it even worse...

 

7 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

This is exactly the kind of radical right-wing nonsense we need to root out of America.  It's gross.

 

 

 

Sovereignty of the individual is THE core fundamental of what America was founded on. The fact that you feel that individual liberties is radical tells me everything I need to know.

[knapplc]

Just now, ActualCornHusker said:

Sovereignty of the individual is THE core fundamental of what America was founded on. The fact that you feel that individual liberties is radical tells me everything I need to know.

 

You're not endorsing individual sovereignty. 

[knapplc]

2 minutes ago, ActualCornHusker said:

$150 TRILLION (conservative estimate btw) in UNFUNDED liabilities

 

Where's your source for this?

[ActualCornHusker]

7 minutes ago, Frott Scost said:

 

There is probably more to the story than just they aren't using their degree.  Did they attempt to look for jobs in their field?  How many jobs are available?  Yes, there are some students that get dumb degrees.  That is a minority.

 

Most, not all, high paying jobs require a 4 year or graduate degree.  There are some trades like electrician that pay well without a degree, but those are the minority.

 

More than 40 percent of college graduates take a job out of school that didn’t require a degree.

 

The article refers to individual choice of the graduates to accept the first job they can find, which means that responsibility falls at least in part on the shoulders of the graduate themself. But the data is abundant on this:

 

Only 27 percent of college grads have a job related to their major

[Ratt Mhule]

1 minute ago, ActualCornHusker said:

 

If goods and services materialized out of thin air, then I'd be all for implementing all these ideas. You can choose to call it what you'd like, but the point stands - We've already got $150 TRILLION (conservative estimate btw) in UNFUNDED liabilities. It's not coveting money to recognize that the amount of money that the government has already spent is going to crush this country, and adding an even larger burden through deficit spending will make it even worse...

 

 

Sovereignty of the individual is THE core fundamental of what America was founded on. The fact that you feel that individual liberties is radical tells me everything I need to know.

 

Correction: that the REPUBLICANS have spent.  Eisenhower was the last republican to have a balanced budget. Clinton had a budget surplus.  Obama cut it down to 600 billion.

[ActualCornHusker]

2 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

Where's your source for this?

 

 

 

 

There's $210 Trillion Of Liabilities Our Government Can't Fulfill

[knapplc]

9 minutes ago, ActualCornHusker said:

 

More than 40 percent of college graduates take a job out of school that didn’t require a degree.

 

The article refers to individual choice of the graduates to accept the first job they can find, which means that responsibility falls at least in part on the shoulders of the graduate themself. But the data is abundant on this:

 

Only 27 percent of college grads have a job related to their major

 

Here's the problem with the "don't go to college" theory:

 

Quote

 

By 2020, 65 percent of all jobs in the economy will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school.

 

By educational attainment:
• 35 percent of the job openings will require at least a bachelor’s degree;
• 30 percent of the job openings will require some college or an associate’s degree;      
• 36 percent of the job openings will not require education beyond high school.

 

 

SOURCE

 

As long as employers continue to require degrees the workforce is going to have to get those degrees.  It's not the students' fault that they go to college.

 

Offhand, I'd say those 40% take whatever job they can after school because they're swimming in student loan debt.

[ActualCornHusker]

12 minutes ago, Frott Scost said:

 

Correction: that the REPUBLICANS have spent.  Eisenhower was the last republican to have a balanced budget. Clinton had a budget surplus.  Obama cut it down to 600 billion.

 

You're right, both parties are culpable, but here are 2 of the biggest unfunded liabilities:

 

Medicare - LBJ - Democrat

Social Security - FDR - Democrat

[Ratt Mhule]

6 minutes ago, ActualCornHusker said:

 

You're right, both parties are culpable, but here are 2 of the biggest unfunded liabilities:

 

Medicare - LBJ - Democrat

Social Security - FDR - Democrat

 

And now you want to cut two very popular social programs?  Don't worry, by the time you reach 65 you probably won't be able to partake in these programs anyways because tax cuts for the rich are more important than funding healthcare and retirement for our seniors.

 

What are your thoughts on the INCREASE to the military budget in Trumps last budget proposal?  We already spend more than the next 10 countries combined and most of those countries are allies.  Just the increase in the military budget could have paid for college for every single American for 10 years.  Think about that for a second.