This piece was posted in the Bernie Sanders for President thread but am referencing it here for this debate. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...894d6e-599f-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html "Take billionaires. Sanders has been clear on the topic: “Billionaires should not exist.” But Sweden and Norway both have more billionaires per capita than the United States — Sweden almost twice as many. Not only that, these billionaires are able to pass on their wealth to their children tax-free. Inheritance taxes in Sweden and Norway are zero, and in Denmark 15 percent. The United States, by contrast, has the fourth-highest estate taxes in the industrialized world at 40 percent."
Billionaires should certainly exist. Billionaires that got the money because of lucky sperm or egg shouldn't exist.
the Kennedy essay cited above touches upon the subject of small companies' research efforts, and emphasizes this is a particularly difficult aspect of the topic to get a handle on: The NSF’s survey data for corporate spending does not include companies with fewer than five employees, suggesting that much of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) movement would not be reflected in the data. As Eric von Hippel argues in his book Democratizing Innovation (2005), experimentation by leading users is often a major source of new innovations, especially in the development stage, and such user-driven activity may become even more important as the Internet, cloud computing, increased affordability and precision of equipment, and better software improve the ability of individuals to access, extend, and distribute new technologies. The NSF has plans to address this omission with a forthcoming Microbusiness Innovation and Science and Technology Survey.
One benefit of billionaires - they can tackle problems with private sector speed and precision that governments are slow to react to or can't handle. Or don't want to because of morons in charge that think it's all a big conspiracy theory against him. And they can address gaps in the system like helping poor countries that can become breeding grounds for disease. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/bill-gates-says-coronavirus-may-be-once-in-a-century-pathogen.html Gates and his wife, Melinda, founded The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 to help improve world health and combat extreme poverty. The foundation announced Feb. 5 that it would donate $100 million to help find treatments and expand testing for the virus, particularly for poorer populations. ... Gates is sounding the alarm to world leaders to try to help slow the spread of the virus, calling on developed countries to help less wealthy nations prepare. Many low- and middle-income countries’ “health systems are already stretched thin, and a pathogen like the coronavirus can quickly overwhelm them,” Gates wrote. “And poorer countries have little political or economic leverage, given wealthier countries’ natural desire to put their own people first.” WHO officials have echoed Gates’ concern about the virus infiltrating low- and middle-income countries with health systems that are too weak to support a potential outbreak.
The median net worth for Americans is just under Mayor Pete’s net worth, so you can use that for scale. Bloomy is only the 9th richest man in America, and Bezos at #1 has more then twice Bloomys net worth.
I'm posting this here rather than starting a new thread as this is related. Bill Maher did a New Rules about how it's a purity test and foolish for Democrats like Sanders and Warren to turn down money from billionaires. He has said this is unilateral disarmament when Trump will take money from anyone He pointed out how Obama took a lot of money from Wall Street and still passed Warren's consumer protection plan. "He did more to reign in Wall Street than all the peacocking Socialist combined." Maher also responds to Sanders promise to not take Bloomberg's money if he wins the nomination that Bloomberg's money wasn't dirty when it was for gun control, addressing climate change and getting women elected. What do y'all think.
Obama was "successful" because he was full of half measures when it came to wall street reform. You can always "accomplish" putting forth bills if it doesn't reform the underlying system and just pushes the status quo. He did nothing to hold those accountable for the 2008 crash and Dodd Frank is nothing more than a band-aid on a bursting wound. The Dodd bill fails to address the glaring weaknesses at the Securities and Exchange Commission that played a central role in creating the financial panic of 2007-2009. Nor does the bill address the SEC’s failure to properly oversee the Financial Accounting Standards Board, whose rulings allowed trillions of dollars of securitized loans to be removed from bank balance sheets and capital requirements and whose mark-to-market accounting rules senselessly wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars of bank capital and panicked the financial markets. The Dodd Frank legislation is touted as a bill that will end too big to fail when it will clearly do no such thing. As long as a majority of our banking system is controlled by five mega banks regulated by a plethora of agencies subject to immense political pressures, the next crisis will be just around the corner and too big to fail will remain a fact of life. The thing that many people who detest people who defend Sanders don't understand is that people who support Sanders KNOW he couldn't accomplish his agenda as a senator. And the reason he couldn't build a "coalition" isn't because "he's mean", it's because REAL reform is too much for the vast majority of Congress and the vast majority of people who hold the office of the presidency. The reason Bernie didn't "make friends" is that he genuinely wanted to buck the statute quo rather than just paying lip service to it for a year during a presidential campaign. That is why people want Bernie as President. Because then his agenda would have a far larger bully pulpit and shift the overton window to a framing that band-aid reform is not going to shift the economic trends of the past 50 years. And yes, any rational person would assume Obama's half measures were influenced by Wall Street money. A good way to at the very least not have the perception of a conflict of interest is... This is going to sound absurd I know... Not take the money.
Garbage. Complete garbage. Trump is the incumbent president with no rivals. Dem party has had a very deep field of candidates up until last week. I would like to see the individual donations for all dem candidates added together in comparison to Trump's total fundraising. Comparing one month of one dem candidate to trump is dishonest at best. https://www.npr.org/2019/04/16/711812314/tracking-the-money-race-behind-the-presidential-campaign https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/candidate?id=N00023864 On top of that, Bernie has outraised all Dems despite "disarming" himself. On top of that Hillary lost to Trump in 2016 despite Hillary significantly outraising and outspending Trump. We need campaign finance reform to have a functioning democracy, what Bernie has done is amazing and should be deeply appreciated by Americans who like democracy. It's the right path, it's the future, those against it will be on the wrong side of history.
I hope when I'm middle aged we can look back in time and laugh at people genuinely trying to support this current system of legal bribing. I hope. It's a dream. And Bill Maher has become irrelevant. He tries hard to be a "Maverick". On one hand he will make what I consider the easy criticisms of the establishment Democrats which is they care too much about "identity politics" and "cancel culture". But that criticism of mainstream Democrat legislators ceases the moment the criticism is about following the money. His criticisms are superficial. He never addresses actual systemic issues.
Campaign finance reform is not a presidential platform but a Congressional one at a state by state level. Citizens United was a game changer but they left provisions were Congress could change the underlying laws. The problem of course is the watchmen don't want to be watched and the resistance is bipartisan. Pretending that a president would have a mandate on this issue is lazy daydreaming, and would totally risk wasting time and social credit away from issues that secure midterm elections...ie tax cuts, infrastructure/job stimulus... Things that put money or economic faith into the ideological system
Every piece of major reform presidential candidates preach requires Congress. It's their job to bully pulpit, be involved with legislators in writing the bills and sign them when they are passed by Congress.
He's also bringing the movement into the mainstream. How are people supposed to pressure their congressional representatives on this issue without knowing about it? What Bernie (and Warren a bit) has done to push M4A, campaign finance reform, tuition-free college, universal child care, forgiving medical and education debt, paid leave, 15 min wage, significant climate change action all into the mainstream over the last 5 years has been major, and will have a significant impact on our political conversation moving forward. Bernie just walked out and showed the entire country that you can run a clean financed campaign and outraise everybody in the party. The number of congress members elected on clean campaign finance shot up after Bernie's 2016 campaign, and will rocket after this 2020 campaign. He's laying down the blueprints, he's giving the movement a giant push.
I noticed you forgot to mention that Biden also did exceptionally well on Super Tuesday even though he had much less money than Sanders. Sorry couldn't resist. As you rightly point out Trump did win even though he was out raised and outspent. As noted so has Biden and let's not forget that Bloomberg's half a billion only got him American Samoa. Those examples show that money doesn't necessarily decide elections so why then should campaign finance reform be a matter of being on the right side of history? For that matter then why does it matter if billionaire wants to use their money to help a cause or candidate that you believe in?
Except that Obama did pass what you call half-measures whereas people like Sanders and Warren weren't able to. It was Obama that got Warren's plan for the Consumer Protection Agency passed. I agree with you that major reform is very difficult and we saw that clearly with how much trouble Obama had even with a Democrat House and Senate. Would you have preferred those not be passed in the hope that eventually more sweeping reform get passed?
Sanders and Warren were never president last time I checked. What measures did Obama implement as a Senator? I would prefer a president who is fully devoted to Wall Street reform having the presidential bully pulpit. That's what I want.
Obama won his race. Warren has lost, Sanders lost once and is uncertain if he can win now. I will agree with you that it is tougher for Senators to accomplish a lot but there have been some who have accomplished a lot even if they haven't been President. You seem to uphold Sander's inability to get a lot of stuff passed and form coalitions as a strength. I also find it distressing how Democratic voters are so quick to throw under the bus the most recent two term President who got major health reform passed, something that Democrats hadn't been able to do since the 1960's, along with getting two USSC Justices. Also you didn't answer my question. You are very critical of what Obama got does that mean you would prefer those hadn't been passed since in your words they were only "half measures that pushes the status quo" ?
