And They're Off! The Democratic Candidates for 2020

[71 dB]

Interesting: Google searches for "Joe Biden social security" has been skyrocketing in the forthcoming primary states.

Maybe just maybe when people educate themselves and learn about Biden's history of wanting to cut social security they do better informed voting decisions. 

I have no idea of what you mean by this, in my turn.
Public option means making Medicare available to people who can't get insurance for one reason or another. It will allow employers to drop health benefits with the excuse that their employees will be able to get the public option insurance.  They already do this with Obamacare.

The public health insurance option, also known as the public insurance option or the public option, is a proposal to create a government-run health insurance agency that would compete with other private health insurance companies within the United States.

Public option is not Medicare.

Medicare for all means employers don't need to provide health benefits, because everyone has healthcare coverage anyway.

[JBS]

Interesting: Google searches for "Joe Biden social security" has been skyrocketing in the forthcoming primary states.

Maybe just maybe when people educate themselves and learn about Biden's history of wanting to cut social security they do better informed voting decisions. 

The public health insurance option, also known as the public insurance option or the public option, is a proposal to create a government-run health insurance agency that would compete with other private health insurance companies within the United States.

Public option is not Medicare.

Medicare for all means employers don't need to provide health benefits, because everyone has healthcare coverage anyway.

Social Security will be cut. Just a matter of how, when, or where. The US Government doesn't have enough revenue to fund it or Medicare. Even if it confiscated all the wealth of all the billionaires in the country, it couldn't do it.  Bernie"s agenda would just speed up the process.
Public option is not what you think it is. It won't compete. It will cover the 30 million people who can't get insurance.

ETA

And the actual facts show Biden on Social Security isn't what Bernie wants people to think.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/01/biden-vs-sanders-on-social-security-and-medicare/

[SimonNZ]

Wonkette:

Elizabeth Warren Still Happy She Murderized Mike Bloomberg Right Before Our Eyes

[...]
"Perhaps the biggest moment in the interview is when Warren addressed the "organized nastiness" directed at her online from some Bernie Sanders supporters. Warren's been called a "snake" and a "traitor" and some other even less kind descriptions. Warren didn't focus on those personal attacks. She took issue with the targeted harassment of others, specifically union leaders in Nevada who were doxxed after criticizing Sanders.

WARREN: They actually published the phone numbers and home addresses of the two women, immigrant women, and really put them in fear for their families. ... These are tough women who run labor organizing campaigns ... and yet said for the first time because of this onslaught of online threats that they felt really under attack, and that wasn't the first time it happened.

Sanders has rightly disavowed and denounced any of his supporters who behave like fetid assholes, but Warren contends that every candidate is "responsible for the people who claim to be our supporters and do really threatening, ugly, dangerous things." Warren said she'd spoken to Sanders about this and the conversation was "short." I agree with her that it's a serious problem, regardless of whether Sanders is the nominee. Maddow described it as "factionalist" and "injurious" to the party. I don't disagree."

[Karl Henning]

After Super Tuesday, Joe Biden Is A Clear Favorite To Win The Nomination

Sanders has a window, but it's small.

[drogulus]

Social Security will be cut. Just a matter of how, when, or where. The US Government doesn't have enough revenue to fund it or Medicare. Even if it confiscated all the wealth of all the billionaires in the country, it couldn't do it.  Bernie"s agenda would just speed up the process.
Public option is not what you think it is. It won't compete. It will cover the 30 million people who can't get insurance.

ETA

And the actual facts show Biden on Social Security isn't what Bernie wants people to think.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/01/biden-vs-sanders-on-social-security-and-medicare/

     If social security is cut on the basis that a dollar run out must be engineered because of how much money the rich have or don't have it will be just as stupid as it sounds.

     How much money the government spends into peoples pockets doesn't depend on how much they have now. As Kelton says, money does not grow on rich people, it goes to them from everyone else in the economy when they spend to buy what the rich sell them. That's why demand side tax cuts work and supply side cuts don't. Demand side cuts are spent on, supply side cuts are largely parked in a "paradox of thrift" dollar hospice.

    The government doesn't have or not have dollars. Having is not a function, spending them into the economy and taxing a portion of them back are what the government knows how to do, or swapping one kind for a different kind so they are "owed". The "rich piggy bank" is a myth.

[Ratliff]

     If social security is cut on the basis that a dollar run out must be engineered because of how much money the rich have or don't have it will be just as stupid as it sounds.

     How much money the government spends into peoples pockets doesn't depend on how much they have now. As Kelton says, money does not grow on rich people, it goes to them from everyone else in the economy when they spend to buy what the rich sell them. That's why demand side tax cuts work and supply side cuts don't. Demand side cuts are spent on, supply side cuts are largely parked in a "paradox of thrift" dollar hospice.

    The government doesn't have or not have dollars. Having is not a function, spending them into the economy and taxing a portion of them back are what the government knows how to do, or swapping one kind for a different kind so they are "owed". The "rich piggy bank" is a myth.

That's an example of something I understood, and agree with.

[drogulus]

That's an example of something I understood, and agree with.

     The idea that a government needs dollars to spend from the rich, or from anyone for that matter, is a joke. It's taxing back dollars it spent, which is where dollars come from. It's spend and tax, not tax and spend. How could we have dollars if they weren't spent into existence first? I don't have my own currency, I use the government supplied one, which has spent $23T more of them than it has taxed so we can all have them. I mean wtf man? Why would a government that can do that need my dollars? Taxes are necessary to soak up the excess, to prevent unwanted inflation and keep the dollar price in the target range. My taxes stabilize the economy for the common good, they don't feed poor hungry children.

[71 dB]

Social Security will be cut. Just a matter of how, when, or where. The US Government doesn't have enough revenue to fund it or Medicare. Even if it confiscated all the wealth of all the billionaires in the country, it couldn't do it.  Bernie"s agenda would just speed up the process.
Public option is not what you think it is. It won't compete. It will cover the 30 million people who can't get insurance.

ETA

And the actual facts show Biden on Social Security isn't what Bernie wants people to think.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/01/biden-vs-sanders-on-social-security-and-medicare/

The US is the richest country in the world controlling it's own currency. Poorer countries have better social security. Social security is not cut because the the can't afford it. It's cut because the rich don't want to pay their fair share of taxes. The billionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of the people so confiscating all the wealth of all the billionaires would allow INSANE social security. Even Bernie isn't proposing anything like that. He proposes wealth tax which allows billionaires to exist, but they would pay their fair share and still have more money than anyone needs. He also proposes transaction tax on Wall Street and medicare for all is paid by increasing taxes for everyone (most people still save money, because the raise in taxes is less than what they save not paying for premiums, copays, deductibles and so on). Bernie plans to EXTEND social security instead of cutting it and he has the details to how to pay for it (basically those taxes I mentioned above).

Public option is a lacklustre compromise to cover people and still protect the profits of insurance companies and even that was too left-wing for Obama. Pathetic.

[drogulus]

The US is the richest country in the world controlling it's own currency. Poorer countries have better social security. Social security is not cut because the the can't afford it.

     In the US dollar run outs are arranged so it looks like they just "ran out on their own". Politicians inform us that net currency issuance is not limited by resources to deploy, but by how many that already exist. It's a blatant lie as the national debt proves, but people buy it because they are so used to thinking about dollars as things that can run out, extrapolating from a position as a user of money to the dynamic behavior of the system itself. I can run out of money so the money system can, too. It's common sense, right? No, it's common something else.

     Social Security will always be affordable, and since there's no reason to doubt the abundance of resources for the program, running out of dollars for it by means of "trustfund-itis" should be transparently bogus. I wish that were the case.

[Karl Henning]

Bernie is AMAZING !!!

Separately:

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders supporters, and how online meanness backfires.

[Karl Henning]

Bernie is AMAZING !!!

Separately:

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders supporters, and how online meanness backfires.

Of course, in Poju's view, if Bernie cannot get on with "the elites," it cannot be at all Bernie's fault!  He's the victim!

[Karl Henning]

"The purported aim of all the pro-Sanders trolling, the snake emojis directed at Warren on Twitter, and the vitriolic attacks on the Nevada Culinary Union is to shame or bully the targets into getting behind Sanders. Judging by this interview, it seems to have had the opposite effect on Warren.

Online anger and abuse may not filter down to the ordinary voter directly, but it shapes the way Democratic Party elites see the Sanders campaign. If they see it as a font of negativity and anger or a source of direct attacks on them and people they admire, they're less likely to see it as something they're comfortable lining up behind. And these sorts of endorsements can matter in primaries; support from Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) seems to have really helped buoy Joe Biden in their respective states."

[71 dB]

Of course, in Poju's view, if Bernie cannot get on with "the elites," it cannot be at all Bernie's fault!  He's the victim!

What can I say? Frustrated people say mean things online. Bernie has got millions of supporters. Is he supposed to control the social media behavior of all of them?

[Florestan]

Frustrated people say mean things online.

Your frustration --- and acompanying anger and resentment --- stems from your manifest immaturity. By your age the vast majority of people has long since learned and accept that the world is what it is, that it's not going to change by fiat or wishful thinking and that the only thing in the world one can ever hope to change is oneself -- and still!

RE: all other posters than Poju --- it has just occured to me that, if Poju can't stop posting in this thread, and he obviously can't, then we can and should. Replying to his posts only fuels his frustration, resentment and anger and feeds a vicious circle. Gentlemen, if you mean good to Poju, please stop replying to his posts! I'll start myself from now on.

[71 dB]

The corporate media isn't talking much about Joe Biden's cognitive decline. Joe Rogan is perhaps the "biggest" media figure to do so.

Your frustration...

Thanks for your concern, but I wasn't talking about my frustrations. I was talking about the frustrated Bernie supporters who post snake emojis to Elizabeth Warren. That's what Karl's post was about, wasn't it?

As for myself, I'm not planning to stop posting here, but I try to do it respectfully from now on. I can do it if I just control my frustrations and if others here are willing to join me in displaying respect to others it will be even easier. Deal?

[Florestan]

As for myself, I'm not planning to stop posting here, but I try to do it respectfully from now on. I can do it if I just control my frustrations and if others here are willing to join me in displaying respect to others it will be even easier. Deal?

No. You'll break your promise in the next few hours by calling someone brainwashed. As for myself, I be damned if I ever reply to one of your posts again.

[drogulus]

No. You'll break your promise in the next few hours by calling someone brainwashed. As for myself, I be damned if I ever reply to one of your posts again.

     I'm glad I got a functional definition of damnation at last. The lack of one was making me batty.

    I like talking to a variety of people who are less than optimally even-tempered. It may be a flaw in my genetic makeup.

[Florestan]

     I like talking to a variety of people who less than optimally even-tempered.

By all means, go ahead talking to Poju! You deserve each other. 

[Karl Henning]

     I'm glad I got a functional definition of damnation at last. The lack of one was making me batty.

    I like talking to a variety of people who are less than optimally even-tempered. It may be a flaw in my genetic makeup.

I should have called that a "condition," and not a "definition" ....

[Karl Henning]

By all means, go ahead talking to Poju! You deserve each other. 

"I now pronounce you ..."