Price Tag of Bernie Sanders’s Proposals: $18 Trillion

personally, i think it would be funny to see if donald trump could basically strong arm ford into rebuilding their cars here. if he said he was gonna get rid of nafta that would make him quite a few fans

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck
a reply to: Metallicus
And what was it that the Iran and Afghan wars cost? And what did the average American gain from those outlays?
Like, there's always enough money to go around if it's for killing brown people.

Not as much as social security,medicare,medicaid, and student debt has.

But hey who cares right?

What does the American citizen have to gain with Sanders other than being put in to indenture servitude to the state to pay for Sanders delusions of champagne wishes, and caviar schemes.

All on a 'made in china' wallet.

trump's first presidential :

okay this # is f'ed up.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Metallicus

Not that I entirely like the idea of doubling the debt, but many people who complain about our debt being too high don't get the full picture. The debt number by itself is really useless. It's more important to look at a country's debt to GDP ratio.

You mean like this complainer ?



I really do love that EPIC double standard.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I've lived off the land in a jungle on the beautiful island of Maui. Money is a convenience, not a necessity. Your "rebuttal" doesn't work with everyone, partner.

Edit to add: and that convenience could be stripped from the masses overnight, just for fair measure.

originally posted by: b3l13v3
a reply to: burdman30ott6

I've lived off the land in a jungle on the beautiful island of Maui. Money is a convenience, not a necessity. Your "rebuttal" doesn't work with everyone, partner.

Edit to add: and that convenience could be stripped from the masses overnight, just for fair measure.

Probably a great thing unless you have to pay for college for children and so on. Last time I checked not too many colleges take bushels of wild fruit in place of monetary payment.

a reply to: b3l13v3

Obviously that's not the case now unless you're the Professor and Gilligan helped you setup a WiFi hotspot in the jungle with some kelp and a couple coconuts.

Look, I'm about as pro-wildman anti-society as it gets... BUT while society serves a purpose to me (read: until taxes on me pass a certain threshold and/or I have become totally disinterested in continuing this dumb monkey game) I will embrace money because it is the chosen medium by which the hours of my day are traded to someone else for. My issue is that I have jackasses in DC who are by God going to take an ever increasing amount of what I exchange MY labor for and hand it generously to those who do exactly jack and squat for me. Those people are not my responsibility and I rebuke them from my wallet! There was a time, years ago when my taxes were low that I was altruistic and generously donated my money and time to those in need... Now? Screw 'em if their I'll gotten gains from my family's well being falls short.

I'm sure someone has already brought this up (sorry I'm going to be one of the tools who respond without reading the thread today. Mea Culpa) but we can easily fund every single one of Bernie's ideas by diverting the funds from the military industrial complex. And they would still have funds left over for actual DEFENSE. America starts healing and a lot less dead brown people worldwide. Win won BOOM.

a reply to: Malynn

but we can easily fund every single one of Bernie's ideas by diverting the funds from the military industrial complex.

Nope.

The MIC is what pays for the WIC.

Welfare Industrial Complex.

As the MIC employs millions of middle class workers who pay income tax that partly funds social programs.

I'm reminded of the "would you give a stranger your wallet" thread from the Mudpit. In it, I made the case that no -- I would not just hand over my wallet to a stranger.

That said, I understand that the stranger asking for my wallet made it possible for me to even HAVE the wallet in the first place. If there wasn't this thing called "money" and an "economy" that the stranger had setup for me to participate in, I wouldn't have a wallet in the first place.

So while I may earn a dollar amount from MY labor, I wouldn't have a job or be given money for it without the stranger. I understand that, and will give the stranger some of the contents of my wallet in hopes that I can elect people I trust to spend the money given in ways that benefit me the most.

Now, that's how it is supposed to work. Right now it isn't working like that. The people spending my money don't have my interests at heart. The people spending my money are bought and paid for and pander to a very small, select subsection of the population. Those people have massive amounts of money and they buy influence to maintain their wealth. The people like myself who hand over part of my wallet don't have a snowballs chance in hell over getting what benefits us when we try and compete with those other people.

Now I've said it before, but the bottom 80% of America owns only 7% of the USA's wealth. So, 20% of America owns 93% of the total wealth in this country. Lets take a look at it from a different perspective:

There are 100 people in a room. In this room is a supply of water for survival. 20 of these people have taken 93% of the water and are sitting around it, guarding it. 80 people now have 7% of the remaining water. Would anyone be surprised if those 80 people are a bit agitated about the water situation?

You'd have be insane to think that the above situation is somehow sustainable.

a reply to: neo96

Well Golly Neo. That's just a completely insurmountable problem and a system that can never be changed! People can't switch jobs! They can never use their existing skills for a different purpose or acquire new skills!

Times change. Ages come and go, and empires crumble. One of Bernie's ideas is putting people to work repairing our crumbling infrastructure. Many of those MIC workers could be funneled there and into other industries such as healthcare, elder care, recycling. The posibilities are endless.

All we need is for people to shelve their inner spineless cowards, and start giving a crap about the future of the nation and the planet. Doing the right thing is easy.

a reply to: Malynn

One of Bernie's ideas is putting people to work repairing our crumbling infrastructure

Which are local, and state issues.

Throwing billions of dollars by robbing from one state, and giving to another state when one gets no direct benefit is tantamount to fraud.

And when the builders of that 'new' infrastructure will be built by unions since all infrastructure is built by them is just another bailout. We can ill afford.

Doing the right thing is easy, but one will never find 'doing the right thing' in American politics.

The only thing one finds in AP are self serving kleptocrats that when it comes down right to it care MORE about their jobs, and their security than anyone else's.

And that's a fact people can take to any fiat currency bank.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

BUT... You're missing a vital nuance, we're not discussing a finite resource the scarcity of which is costing people their lives from dehydration. We're talking about an exchange medium and, last I checked, those in the 80% had an open invitation to join us around the watering hole BUT they are expected to work for just as most of us have.

The rest of your argument stems from some bizarre Kumbaya mumbo jumbo which I refuse to lay any credence to. This "we are all one humanity, you didn't build that" song and dance is possibly the most retarded concept ever to be birthed from the mouth of a POTUS. Of course, if we want to adopt that philosophy, there is always a counterpoint... To those who look for their redistributed payouts, I say: You didn't earn that.

ETA: Actually its not insanity... The scenario isn't "sustainable," but it is a self correcting problem if social Darwinism becomes the rule of the land. Well, OK... I guess by some definitions sociopathology is a form of insanity, but we all have our quirks and our breaking points, eh?

a reply to: Metallicus

Your OP raises a good point; but then it led me through a series of thoughts....Will we ever pay off our debt? Does it even matter if we do since our banking system happens to be the one that controls the entire world? Do you ever expect to see that banking system's hegemony pass? Isn't debt the name of the game when it comes to developing faster/better/stronger nations? Isn't debt the name of the FED/WorldBank/IMFs game too?

The idea of a balanced budget is a myth as it does not fit anywhere into the power structure...a power structure that isn't going anywhere no matter how many times we pretend a golden boy(or girl) presidential candidate will save us. Then there are the questions:

Where will a war-hungry or insensitive president get us? Are northern European countries(the ones that Bernie is trying to emulate) hell-holes? Are they falling apart, being 'purged like Stalin', 'starved like Mao'? For ALL that we give our government, freedom included, could we at least get some gd healthcare in exchange? The far-right is far more perverted and debauched than the far-left. And this is coming from someone who campaigned for Ron Paul in 2 elections.

This partisanship is really what's tearing us up as a country, we can't pick a direction and just go, we're constantly battling for the steering wheel which is less productive than letting either side of the isle take it in my opinion. Also anyone who thinks Mr. Trump is actually going to be president is watching way too many reality tv shows.

a reply to: neo96

Isn't most of the stuff "made" by the MIC with the exception of some of the black projects produced in Taiwan and China? I know they all use Dell computers. Why wouldn't the companies of the MIC be unlike any other global corporation and outsource? Most semiconductors used in the defense industry are made overseas. Last I heard, only about only 15% are domestically produced. Not everyone can work in the Skunkworks as an areospace engineer or software engineer, there simply aren't enough positions.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Isn't most of the stuff "made" by the MIC with the exception of some of the black projects produced in Taiwan and China?

Yes Mystik the MIC outsources.

They have to when people like Sanders constantly go after, and cut their budgets.

I find it ludicrous though, but what are they to do?

It's also the reason for the rise of PMC's.

I would rather have that stuff made here, and employ Americans, and get rid of PMCS, and go back to the way it was.

a reply to: neo96

So they outsource because their budgets have been cut? Do you mean that their contracts aren't renewed or the US government's defense spending is reduced?

The MIC corporations are in control of their own budgets, someone like Sanders can't command "Thou Budgets Shall Shrink!" like Gandlf. A company's budget is up to the people running the company. The US can't tell Walmart to cut their budget.

It sounds to me that if the government buys less products for them, they outsource to maintain a profit. It really all comes down to corporations maintaining a certain profit margin, at any cost. I guess that's what it's all about. Keep the profit margin high, benefitting a small minority of people within the company.

And hey, I do agree with you on having the stuff made here. We ought to be willing to pay more for Americans to make the parts, I would fully support a smaller, leaner military that put more Americans to work instead of armies of foreign laborers in far away countries.

a reply to: neo96

I don't remember FDR giving a hoot about infrastructure being a state issue. State's rights are something the federal government routinely ignores. I'd be ok with it being for a good cause for a change.

And the evil in AP may be the ONE thing we will ever agree on Neo. But I refuse to accept that nothing can be done about it. I refuse to lay down or bend over. All we need is the first domino to fall. I'm hoping Bernie is that first domino.

And one of the really depressing things about the whole situation is that we need someone like him to win first before others will spontaneously grow a pair and walk away from the dark side.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

The government cuts the defense budget.

Meaning services have a fixed amount they get to spend.

DOD tells them evil corporations they want the same things only cheaper, or in less quantities.

And Sanders would be very much in control of that.

The funny part there is we would still be spending the same. actually substantially MORE on what Sanders deems necessary per the WELFARE industrial complex.

a reply to: Malynn

I don't remember FDR giving a hoot about infrastructure being a state issue. State's rights are something the federal government routinely ignores. I'd be ok with it being for a good cause for a change.

FDR didn't give a crap about anything.

Oh yeah digging ditches only to turn around and fill them right back up.

It's thanks to him we have that ponzi scheme called social security.

And then who can forget FDR's greed when he confiscated the publics gold, and silver. That wasn't enough took money from Fort Knox.

FDR isn't a great example by any means.