You are not logged in. Please register or login.
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
It's funny, you guys argue as if politicians still run the country--or the world. They don't. Corporations and billionaires do.
Why hasn't there been a "cure" for cancer or AIDS yet? Because there's more money in never-ending treatment, surgeries, screenings and checkups than curing it with one shot. Same with AIDs.
Why isn't there a real commitment to alternative fuel? The oil industry would not accept that, lobbies against it.
Why do we have never-ending war? So defense contractors and the military industrial complex can continue to make billions. Now they are militarizing the police to make even more.
Why will marijuana be legal within 5 years? Too much money to be had for tobacco companies, who will get into the marijuana cigarette business. Tobacco companies also have prevented smoking from being banned, along with big pharmaceutical.
Why do billionaires and corporations have so many tax breaks and tax loopholes? Because they have lawmakers in their pocket.
It's a losing fight for common folks like us. All politicians know this. Only Bernie dares mention it, which is why he'll never win. He couldn't do anything about it if he even did become president.
A lot of truth in this post.
People are living fine with AIDS with the AIDS cocktail. But cancer baffles me. You walk into the show place cancer centers that are beautiful and the patients are still dying at a VERY high rate. I watch a special on VICE where cancer is being cured, but don't see any of that shit in the regular hospitals... Frustrates the fuck out of me.
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
bigbri wrote:It's funny, you guys argue as if politicians still run the country--or the world. They don't. Corporations and billionaires do.
Why hasn't there been a "cure" for cancer or AIDS yet? Because there's more money in never-ending treatment, surgeries, screenings and checkups than curing it with one shot. Same with AIDs.
Why isn't there a real commitment to alternative fuel? The oil industry would not accept that, lobbies against it.
Why do we have never-ending war? So defense contractors and the military industrial complex can continue to make billions. Now they are militarizing the police to make even more.
Why will marijuana be legal within 5 years? Too much money to be had for tobacco companies, who will get into the marijuana cigarette business. Tobacco companies also have prevented smoking from being banned, along with big pharmaceutical.
Why do billionaires and corporations have so many tax breaks and tax loopholes? Because they have lawmakers in their pocket.
It's a losing fight for common folks like us. All politicians know this. Only Bernie dares mention it, which is why he'll never win. He couldn't do anything about it if he even did become president.
A lot of truth in this post.
People are living fine with AIDS with the AIDS cocktail. But cancer baffles me. You walk into the show place cancer centers that are beautiful and the patients are still dying at a VERY high rate. I watch a special on VICE where cancer is being cured, but don't see any of that shit in the regular hospitals... Frustrates the fuck out of me.
The AIDS cocktail would go away with a cure. Again, too much money to lose.
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
Yep! But there is no cancer cocktail that works.
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
A little late to some posts from yesterday, but re; the economy/collapse a pretty good documentary on Netflix is Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve. It gets into the economics & decisionmaking the past few decades. It gets into the booms & busts cycles of the 80s, 90s, & 00s and how they reacted, for better or worse.
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
So what does Bernie believe in other than free stuff? Some people I really like seem to respect him, so someone that knows something about Bernie fill me in.
He wants trade reform, an end to unfair trade, regulating Wall Street, that's a big thing with him, and capping medical and pharmecutical costs. He wants free college which will never happen, free healthcare, another thing we'll never see. This means higher taxation on the wealthy and middle class. I understand what he's saying, it isn't about not wanting to have a wealthy class, it's that the top 1% pay little to no taxes at all compared to the working-middle class who are left holding the bag, but he's going about it wrong, but I also suspect he knows it's unrealistic.
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
buzzsaw wrote:So what does Bernie believe in other than free stuff? Some people I really like seem to respect him, so someone that knows something about Bernie fill me in.
He wants trade reform, an end to unfair trade, regulating Wall Street, that's a big thing with him, and capping medical and pharmecutical costs. He wants free college which will never happen, free healthcare, another thing we'll never see. This means higher taxation on the wealthy and middle class. I understand what he's saying, it isn't about not wanting to have a wealthy class, it's that the top 1% pay little to no taxes at all compared to the working-middle class who are left holding the bag, but he's going about it wrong, but I also suspect he knows it's unrealistic.
Mostly true, but the higher taxation thing is unfair. He has clearly stated that middle class families will end up saving thousands of dollars on a yearly basis with his plan for a single payer healthcare system. Instead of paying to insurance companies, you'll pay a fraction of that in additional income taxes (2.2%), your employer will pay an extra 6.8% in payroll tax. Both of these numbers will replace current group health insurance costs and will effectively be lower than what both employers and employees are paying today. So yes, it's a small tax increase on the middle class, but at the end of the month you'll still have more money in pocket.
Insurance is a perfect example of a segment that benefits from economies of scale, a non-profit single-payer healthcare system will always be cheaper to run (and thus cheaper for the general public to use) than a for-profit fragmented private insurance based system.
If you're worried about the government not being able to run healthcare efficiently, then fix the fucking government by voting for people who actually want to fix the fucking government, don't vote for so-called self proclaimed moderates that only want to maintain the status quo. Don't just throw your hands in the air claiming that 'this will never work in America'. If the Canadians can do it, why wouldn't the Americans be able to?
I agree with you that Bernie must realize that it is going to be challenging for him to push through his proposals, but you don't start by taking a moderate position before you negotiate. And I do think it's better to be more ambitious at the start, to not make concessions before the negotiations have even started. A watered down ambitious Bernie plan is still miles better than a pure deferential Hillary plan.
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
So what does Bernie believe in other than free stuff? Some people I really like seem to respect him, so someone that knows something about Bernie fill me in.
He wants to reduce the risk of global economic recessions (like we had in 2008) due to high risk trading by huge banks that don't separate consumer products from high risk investment portfolios; he wants to do this by re-introducing tighter regulations, as well as breaking up the big banks into consumer and investment banks.
He wants to reduce the cost of healthcare by introducing a single payer healthcare system, a system which across the globe proves that when implemented properly (i.e. not like Obama-care) leads to lower healthcare costs for everyone.
He wants to bring back more power the the electorate by taking money, lobbying and corruption out of politics
He wants to bring more and better paying manufacturing jobs back to the US by doing away with foreign trade agreements, ensuring that US manufactured goods can effectively compete with goods manufactured in low-wage countries.
He wants to increase US' competitiveness in higher educated professions by making public college tuition free.
He wants to increase the number of jobs in construction, building, etc... by fixing America's crumbling infrastructure.
He wants to redistribute some of the wealth in the US from the top 1% to the middle class and richest corporations by closing tax loopholes and reducing corporate subsidies on the one hand; by partially lifting the cap on taxable income and raising capital gains taxing to the level of income taxes for the rich (to counteract the "having money makes more free money" syndrome). Although to MisterID's point it's not like he is against rich people or the more affluent, he simply wants them to cary their proportionate share of the burden.
All of the above are policies that when implemented would have a positive impact for the broader American middle-class. Based on polling for each of these individual policies, the US population is overwhelmingly supportive of Bernie's economic platform (with most policies easily scoring favorability ratings of more than 65%). Whatever you do, don't believe the bullshit claims that he's going to tax the middle-class up to 90%. The highest income tax bracket in his tax plan is 54.2% on all yearly income above $10.000.000. Everything up to (roughly) $200.000 is subject to a relatively moderate 30.2%.
There is probably more room for debate on his social and ethical policies. His morales and ethics are (like all democrats) very liberal, being pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, etc... Although he does seem to favor gun ownership more than any other democrat. He is very much in favor of personal freedom and liberties, as well as freedom of speech and privacy. His moral compass seems to be derived from a deep feeling of empathy for his fellow people, instead of being a moral code derived from a specific religion or religious denomination.
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
He lost me at single payer. There's zero chance the gov't won't fuck up health care. Zero. I don't care who is in office. Insurance companies aren't the issue. They just get blamed because that's the easy way to do it. Until costs get controlled there's nothing anybody can do to fix health care.
We should also move to performance based pay for physicians instead of volume based pay. Why do we have to pay for them to keep trying to fix the same thing over and over instead of paying when they actually fix it? There are so many things wrong with health care beyond insurance companies.
