02-14-2016, 03:45 AM
(02-13-2016, 07:09 PM)HairOfTheDog Wrote: Hey, some of Bernie's ideas are radical to most Americans and I honestly don't know how many of them he would be able to implement if he was elected, which is a big IF.
I like a lot of the crackpot's anti-corruption stuff. There should be no money in politics. I'm all for strict policies on campaign financing. Decisions and votes should not be bought by lobbyists. There's other corrupt practices he should target too. Insurance industry, education loan industry, etc.
But he's a crackpot when it comes to "make everyone equal and nobody has to pay!" That just doesn't work. If you tax the high volume trading market, you kill it, and it goes to Asian markets. That may be a good thing... but you're left with very little money from normal trading and ANOTHER incentive for American companies to become Irish companies, Chinese companies, or Canadian companies. We already tax corporations at one of the highest rates in the world, and we tax dividends given out to individual investors. Adding a tax for purchasing an investment just discourages investing. That will hurt the economy. Oh yeah, and those programs you were proposing with the money you'd raise... they never even got off the ground.
Everything always boils down to simple principles. If you give low class people stuff, the middle class has to pay for it. Because the "upper class" either don't exist, or keep their money. The only way to make everyone equal is to take all of someone's money when they die. That's the bottom line. Either society has inheritance and inequality, or everyone's born a beggar and equal. While my idealistic side says everyone should be equal, my realist retorts that "what's the point of working hard and making money if your kids can't benefit from it?" It's a philosophical debate, and one that still rages in my mind.
But anybody in America can go to college. You just have to sign your life away for hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to do it. Universities are the new American indentured servitude. "I teach you to be a ______, you go be a ______ for 30 years before you can possibly afford to pay me back." Fill in the blank with whatever occupational prestige level you want. "And for this low-low price of all your future money, you can be in the top 1% so that Bernie Sanders can steal all your money you're not making!"
Ultimately, as I said, it's simple ideals. How bout a system where all education is free, but it's actually competitive to get in? You know, like maybe only 20% of children would actually pass the SATs. Better yet, 1 in 3 gets into Kindergarten. Everyone else can be a plumber. How about a system where healthcare isn't free, and getting sick is fucking expensive, but insurance isn't a thing. Nobody wants to pay 200 grand for cancer treatment... but hey, more people will quit smoking and at least we have something for the college loan people to do again. Survival loans.
All I know is that America's tax revenue is 26% of its GDP. I don't trust a crackpot who says they're gonna fix inequality with more taxation. Hence, Bernie is a crackpot. Hillary is a cold hearted bitch who doesn't care if her husband cheats on her as long as she lives at 1600 Pennsylvania. And Trump is an idiot. I can't decide whether the candidates get worse every year, or it's just me getting more mature, intelligent, and discerning of their flaws.
But hey, show me the candidate that wants to kill the insurance industry, end political monetization, eliminate individual debt, and treat the rest of the world like they're capable of shouldering some of the burden, and I'll vote for him or her twice.