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There may be differences in regard to social justice issues, but much like Obama, Trump and Clinton both stand for business as usual when it comes to the economy. The bloated billionaires will continue to get their way....they'll never get enough of getting more.
Bill Clinton compared progressive citizens who support Bernie to Tea baggers who support the Fascists. That told me a lot about the true colors of the Clintons. Informed citizens who thirst for economic and social justice are the antithesis of uninformed citizens being manipulated by the likes of the Kochs.
I heard Thom mention that a bunch of billionaires got together with key Republicans from the Senate and House and made the decision to obstruct the will of the vast majority because a half black, half white Democrat was in the White House. If that isn't a textbook definition of Fascism, please educate me on the matter.
Bernie is the only one we can trust!
Bernie's policies would go a long way to solving the problems on Main St. But Main St. also needs affordable housing so household formation can be accelerated, and the 2% Appreciation/Inflation Taxation Policy to stabilize interest rates, and the economy.
The primary single home market, under current policies, is not providing affordable housing for the middle class, and the working poor, Many families are still being crushed by underwater mortgages, and increasing rents.
The Fed has the ability to do a better job of performing it's mandates of employment and price stability. It could use the excess interest income it returns to the US Treasury each year to slowly buy down all underwater mortgages, as homeowners continue to make their monthly payments over a ten year period or less.
It might take Congressional action to allow the Fed to pay down the underwater mortgages, but it would be very beneficial for the economy. This action by the Fed would stimulate the economy by increasing consumer confidence, and disposable income. Congress should agree that underwater principal reduction would help the Fed with it's mandates. The money being used is not tax revenue. It is interest income collected by the Fed.
The improving economy would replace the money the Fed would not be returning to the US Treasury.
Inflating the housing bubble was the wrong way to heal the economy after the financial crisis of 2008. Housing has become so unaffordable, in some markets, that if interest were normalized, it will bust the housing market. http://www.wp.me/p42WQA-7c
Fanni and Fredi could also help stimulate the housing market, and the economy by agreeing to purchase the Asending Interest Rate Mortgage. The AIR mortgage will slowly normalize mortgage rates, and maintain the value of debt (money). http://www.wp.me/p42WQA-1Y
If wide spread principal reduction of underwater mortgages had been used, coupled with the low interest rates that the Fed created, the Great Recession would not have been so bad on Main St. People would have been able to remain in their homes, and the unemployment rate would not have gone as high.
If the 2% Apprection/Inflation Taxation Policy had been in the income tax code, the housing bubble and the other bubbles in the period from 2000 to 2008 may not have occurred.
www.taxpolicyusa.wordpress.com
Modernize the Pledge of Allegiance Sign the petition, I just started, to empower our children to know, and seek an economy, and society they will want and deserve!!
http://www.wp.me/p42WQA-7L
If Bernie does not get the nomination, then there are many of his
supporters who will say,
"lets try Trump, it must be better than 4 more years of gridlock".
How many will jump to will be the question.
ct
Voting "blue no matter who" is what got us into this mess. Bill Clinton gave us NAFTA and Hillary helped write the TPP. Maybe Thom can fall for her latest in a long line of lies; but, most of us don't. There are also 13 Dems in Congress who voted FOR the TPP. We have to do our best to make sure none of these Corporate lackeys is reseated next year; and, anyone who'd support a Clinton is a fool.
I agree. It is essential that we turn Congress, no matter who wins the Democratic nomination.
I would also like to bring something up that numerous people seem to overlook. Unless every voter that votes for the Democratic Presidential candidate, votes a straight Democratic ticket very little will be accomplished for the GOP Congress will block it. You want change then change the makeup of Congress and vote out ALL GOP members in every race for any position at the same time. Yes that includes State, Counties, cities, School Boards and everything else clean them out of all the positions you can.
Revolt Against Plutocracy is trying to provide leverage for Bernie:
https://citizensagainstplutocracy.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/without-lever...
...which will also serve as convention insurance against superdelegates.
https://citizensagainstplutocracy.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/convention-in...
They're waiting for him to get the nomination and then they will unleash all they have and they have much more than this!
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0223/Spike-Lee-endorses-Sande...
Spike Lee endorses Sanders: Will that persuade black voters?
Willie W; I'm with you WW, considering our ever expanding Service Economy and related jobs that a high school graduate is abundantly qualified to perform, an Ivy league education is a classic case of over kill and a college degree has become more a determiner of class status than preparation for a specific career. Apparently a lot of people in this country have totally ignored the events that have reshaped our economy over the past thirty years, the remaining industries in this country are looking for the cheapest talent available and these services are increasingly available over the Internet from foreign companies that can provide a host of business services like accounting, engineering, planning, etc. without the cost associated with maintaining a full time employee. If most Americans don't feel totally betrayed by now, American universities have established foreign campuses in various Asian countries that teach their students how to market their services to American enterprises, either over the Internet or through low pay H1B Visa imported talent that competes directly with our college grads ! In closing, no one has the guts to ask the all important question concerning the so-called college debt problem, "Was someone holding a gun to your head when you signed the loan agreement ?". But we can't be too surprised by these actions after watching for the last three decades as Americans mortgaged their futures with massive credit card debt to maintain a lifestyle that was no longer affordable due to falling wages that have plagued this economy since the 1970s !
Metamucil™
{… a limerick …}
Take more than just grains of salt
when ingesting a Rightwing assault.
A dose o’ Metamucil™
you’ll find quite useful
to smoothen your tummy’s somersault.
==============================
Now a days Social Media has become a great platform to convey your things. Technology public relations has also plays a great role when it come to expressing something with the help of Social Media.
Who do we write to appeal the Bankruptsty Reform Act of 2005? Thank you!
Queen, you might be right to think that compromises between socialism and capitalism often yield the worst of both worlds. Weztern European economies, however, are considered, by economists and political scientists "mixed economies, i.e., both capitalist and socialist and seem to work nicely.
Many socialists, however, don't accept Bernie as a socialist
They consider him a New Dealer but the spectrum has shifted so far to the right that that seems radical now.
Bernie's socialism is one of values rather than policy and he will support whatever policy best serves those values.
Hephaestus is right. The glaring omission in Thom's article is that he doesn't reveal the fact that private banks create those student loans out of thin air, simply by typing numbers into a computer database. Instant money creation - the absurdity of our privately owned, privately controlled debt money system.
So these banks are holding some $1.4 Trillion in student loan debt, the principal of which they created, instant income for which they aren't even taxed. And they get incredible government mandated interest rates and fees of some 6-8% return on money they created out of nothing. While they give us less than 1% on our deposits. A criminal racket. Another one of many gifts our corrupt politicians give to criminal banks.
Very simple for the government to create a public bank and use it to issue (create) student loans at a 1-2% interest rate:
http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/
Who needs private, criminal banksters with their insatiable greed. They trashed the world economy to the tune of $200T, got $16T in bailouts from the FED, are the biggest bunch of useless parasites on the planet who insist that they are above the law and cannot be held accountable for their crimes, include drug money laundering.
And Obama & Hillary ensure they are not prosecuted, putting revolving door Bank employees like Eric "the stooge" Holder in charge of the Justice dept. And Obama & Hillary are supposed to be "friends of African Americans". Yeah, right - only African American Banksters & their cronies.
Interesting ultra-conservative Finland, after trying the Banksters neoliberal economic policies have said Fuck-this, after 8 yrs of failure and they are the first country to start QE or Quantitative Easing for the people. You got to hand it to the pragmatic Fins.
A must-see video that explains all of this:
"...In this special Winter Why Not? episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert talk to Professor Steve Keen about solutions to our unpayable debts, including: basic income, a People’s Quantitative Easing and a global debt jubilee. Professor Keen explains why a modern debt jubilee could please both debtors and creditors, savers and spenders..."
https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/326948-episode-max-keiser-853/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8cpNg0s7bg
An excellent documentary on the subject is 97% owned - Economic Truth Documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcGh1Dex4Yo
Watch the Money As Debt Youtube videos by monetary theorist PAUL GRIGNON:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pBIEvKctSs
All of these ills are the result of banks
Private banks need to be broken up
They, and their "fractional reserve" system needs to be declared as what it truely is
Lending your money to others without consent
"Free Stuff" only if you're Foxmerized!
My son went to medical school. We paid his rent, his car, his insurance, dental bills, clothes, and gave him spending money. He in turn borrowed the tuition money while we also helped pay for books.
When he finished he was $120,000 in debt and his first resident's job was at St. Lukes Roosevelt Hospital in NYC which is attached to Columbia University. He got paid $34,000 per year and had to pay rent in the hospital housing across the street. His work week was more than 80 hours and he was exhausted many days.
He made note of the fact that residents from other countries had no student debts because the country they lived in did not charge to educate anyone and especially needed doctors.
One of the reasons so many doctors now specialize and family physicians are scarce is because they get out of medical school with the same debt but family practice does not pay enough to get rid of the debt and have a life.
Government paying for college is reserved for only the wealthy nations. We're a nation in which a relative few have the lion's share of the wealth, which makes us for all practical purposes, a poor nation, one with an ever expanding lower income class.
Concentrated wealth for guys like Trump isn't enough, he's on a power trip....see where that head problem gets our ever shrinking middle class .....LOL
How have we become so damn blind to the history of labor in this country?????
The full blown return of Fascism has Woody Guthrie rolling over in his grave.
Reply to #26: Right on, 10K! Couldn't agree more.
I resent the existence of superdelegates, whose purpose it seems is to undermine the will of the majority. We need to cut off blood supply to that tumor before it kills our democracy.
It's uplifting to see so many great posts. And Loren, welcome back! I've missed you here. - AIW
#3 Not quite politically correct notions
How dare you?
Why is the GI bill never discussed as a successful model for dealing with student education?
Read that it created a large surge in the middle class.
Instead of going in the military, make it a two year work program in fixing up slums, tutoring kids, and other projects to improve quality of life.
ct
The ONLY point that I can see, for a process other than 1 person, 1 vote , is so the powers-that-be can rig the system and throw the candidate that serves their interests the most.
Keep in mind, the Democratic party is a money-machine; it's something similar to a union that turns in on itself and begins to be counter-productive to its initial 'wants/needs'.
That's the ONLY reason.
On top of loans this gen x'r would not jump in on. A completely rigged housing and rental market is playing out that is bleeding this nation dry. Oops be quiet...The equity generation might get upset!