I believe Bernie should take time now to explain his economic model. His is not socialism at all. It is more of a socially responsible capitalism. There is no free market capitalism in America. Our society paid for it with the bailout of the rich and the impact of the recession. We cannot allow for an economic system that will destroy the planet or rig it for the wealthy. We need to upgrade our economy with a new deal to work better in the 21st century. No one called FDR or Eisenhower socialists even though their programs are very proggressive. I thank Bernie for his legislation to make our national voting day a paid holiday. A day to celebrate our democracy without having to stand in line in the rain after work. Bernie is a brilliant solution to the pressing needs of our time.

Hephaestus wrote "ulTRAX : Sorry! The problem is much more deep seated"

Color me lost. Which problem? More deep seated than what?

Sorry! Americans seem to have the idea that they are winners or successful in some way

These notions are merely cultural myth

They kind of believe in the Hollywood stuff

Long before Bernie Sanders became well known, survey research was done in which Americans in the United States were asked about each tenet of socialism individually.
They were asked about national, single payer health care, free college tuition, worker's power, et cetera and they overwhelmingly supported each program taken seperately and indivually. However, as soon as any of the researchers used the word "socialism" to describe them it was all over. Suddenly everyone was against them. The People of the United States are socialists without knowing it - and don't tell them!
The lame, straw argument that "Socialism is nice but the United States can't implement socialism like Europe because it is SO DIFFERENT from Europe" is really a thinly veiled, right wing, crypto racist argument. What they really mean - and occasionally state explicitly - is that European countries are culturally and, more importantly - and this is often emphasized - racially homogenous with the implication being that the "lower" races are not capable of such a nice, orderly society and that different national and racial groups are "naturally" unequal, incompatible and necessarily antagonistic toward one another and incapable of equally sharing a society.

Kend made this amusing remark: "The banks are growing chuck because everyone wants everything right now. In the 50s to 70s people saved up to buy stuff. You didn't finance the shit out of yourself. That is how the wealthy get richer. Don't borrow their money. Don't buy their useless crap. Do you really need the next iPhone. Really.. Quit blaming the rich, it's us that make them rich. If you really believe Bernie by taxing the rich everything will get better your crazy. They don't have enough."

So you're saying people using credit is what is dragging down working and middle class Americans? OK, sure we don't save enough... though back in the 50-60-70's I don't remember the FED driving interest rates to near zero for 8 years. It paid to save back then.

http://www.forecast-chart.com/interest-fed-funds.html

I think what you're missing is who gets what share of the national income... and how that's shifted. I posted elsewhere some Census numbers of aggregate income by quintile. Since 1974 the bottom quintile has lost 28% while the top 5% has gained 32%.

https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/2014/h0...

You can pretend easy credit is the reason for the rich getting richer... but the national income numbers prove you're wrong. Easy credit and irresponsible tax cuts have concealed the income problem and made it tolerable. It's not the cause of the problem.

Kend : Kindly bear in mind that it is said 1% of the worlds population owns nearly half of Global wealth

Kend : No disrespect!

Banks grow richer becuase we allow them to create money by the means of 'fractional reserve' banking.

This allows them to take your money and loan it to someone else without your consent

Chuckle8 wrote: " Remember small deficits always leads to the crashing of the DOW."

Not following. The deficit not only shrunk during the Clinton years... but for 2 years we ran a true on-budget surplus... not a phony unified surplus where we were still borrowing money from Social Security. The Dow was doing great at the end of the 90's. You may recall Goldspan called it irrational exuberance.

kend wrote "Do we really want to become Europe. Living in a 600 sq/ft apartment with 8 weeks holidays and no money to go anywhere, or buy anything. What makes America great is the fact you have more disposable income then any other country in the world."

Europe is hardly one nation. Just which nations have no money to go anywhere? Bulgaria? Certainly not the Scandinavian nations which seem to have a higher GDP per capita than the US. But even this measure is meaningless if the national income/wealth distribution is so skewed to the top. I posted elsewhere Census numbers that the in terms of aggregate income the bottom quintile in the US has lost 28% since 1974 and the top 1% has gained 32%.

Hang on that can't be right. That would be $100,000 per family of four in his term. Math boy is that right? I hope not.

Kend why do you call those new 10 million jobs nothing?

Do you not know about the Caucus Room Restaurant meeting on Jan 19, 2009?

We would have a far better economy, if Obama had more than those 74 days to ignore the Republicans who were set on destroying our economy, so they could seize power of the government for their billionaire donors.

Do you know about ROAE (return on assets employed)? When you say $9 trillion that is assets employed. How about the return? The GDP at $16 trillion a year means the return is $112 trillion.

RL Townsley, two things, first, the Democratic Party is not Bernie's party but for now, he is an Independant otherwise and second, DLC leaders run as progressives and then, when elected, govern as - moderate, perhaps - Republicans.