What, specifically, do you think Dodd-Frank fails at and what do you think it needs to do differently? In what way does it support too-big-to-fail?
I believe in 1 man 1 vote. I believe in capping political ads, capping political donations, amongst many other ideas to improve democracy. I want our government to represent all of our country's people, and not just the demographic of our countries wealth, which I believe is what's happening right now, and is always what happens when the ultra-rich are allowed to freely contribute to political causes and candidates at a disproportionate level to the median income American. Our election system just isn't nearly democratic enough for my liking. It resembles a plutocracy to me.
It's because we have entirely different narratives in our head of why he couldn't form a "political coalition" with his peers. I believe his genuine desire for systemic change with Wall Street reform and health care was not something that the vast majority of people in Congress care for while many are even afraid of such reform because the status quo significantly benefits them personally. You believe it's because he isn't charismatic and is "mean". It's probably a combination of both. I don't believe Bernie is charismatic either. His support is purely fueled by his consistent rhetoric throughout his life. Criticising a president doesn't mean you are "throwing him under a bus". This isn't a sports competition. I believe he's the best president we have had since JFK. That's where I placed him. It doesn't mean he was a game changing reformer who solved deep rooted systemic problems. And yes a lot of that had to do with a obstruction motivated GOP but some of it had to do with him being friendly and "understanding" of Wall Street insiders especially when you consider the first two years of his presidency where he could have accomplished major wall-street reform rather than half measures when the entire Congress and the presidency were controlled under Democrats.
When it comes to the idea of "too big to fail" we are actually worse off than before the 2008 crash. In the wake of the crash we staved off disaster by having the relatively healthy giant banks to buy out the ones that crashed. So now we have a system where even more wealth in concentrated in fewer banks. To offset this there have been new regulations outside dodd-frank that require more capital reserves and the dodd frank regulations which limit the banks' ability to gamble with their money. So all in all the banks are financially stronger and more resilient but if they were to crash despite all that it would be even worse than the 2008 crash.
That's fair - and I think the last sentence is accurate. But I would argue in that scenario, we're all doomed anyway. The big banks now have the higher capital requirements and risk controls, meaning that if things do melt down, it's likely going to be the smaller banks that fail first. While I don't like that assets are accumulating in the "Big 4", it does mean that more assets are in lower-risk entities, which makes us all much safer and the damage is easier to curtail. If we get past that point to where both big and small banks fail, then we're in the doomsday scenario - no "too big to fail" banking reforms would have saved us in that environment, because we're saying even lower risk banks would fail. You could lower risk thresholds for ALL the banks at all times (thus lowering lending/etc), but I think that's a different argument that not even Bernie/Warren are really making.
I think this is accurate. But I would ask - if Bernie was President in 2008, given that the majority of Congress was opposed to these things, do you think he could have accomplished more than Obama? I would argue that his unwillingness to compromise (see his whole against the new NAFTA trade deal, for example) prevents him from even accepting incremental reforms. So I suspect the end result of a 2008 Sanders Presidency is nothing gets accomplished, and then today both health care and the financial system are in a substantially worse place. The market meltdowns of the last 2 weeks (and apparently tomorrow) might have caused implosions through the financial sector that we're not seeing right now.
Finance reform is not mainstream? Puh-lease Who John McCain? Before Obama reneged by not accepting matching funds that was one of his progressive pillars. No one knows money as speech Citizens United? If it wasn’t an issue “to the masses” then, getting the (same) word out now is going to change that on their totem pole of priorities? ...Just because Bernie did it with conviction and fervent authenticity (no tangible results all these decades), is ultra cool influencer, and can drive people (to stay home) with his charismatic snipes on the opposition? I guess liking on the InstaBook and getting mindshare cpms is doing something rather than nothing. Good job. Good effort. You’ve convinced me that it’s NOT lazy daydreaming at all,
So long as multibillion dollar companies exist, and so long as people are allowed to own companies, there will be billionaires. Either their companies shouldn't exist or they shouldn't be allowed to own them Sure if someone wants to say that amazon's net assets of 70b being valued at a trillion dollars based on estimated value add is ridiculous, but even if stripped to its bare assets, owning 1/70th of the company makes you a billionaire. Simple maths and private ownership means billionaires will exist, but i have to wonder if the issue isn't "billionaire" per se, but these hundreds of billions that are a product of the volume of money, greater than the potential asset value of the entire planet floating around the capital markets. Unfortunately when it's reduced to a simplistic point of billionaires existing, the anti argument comes across lacking so much nuance, it will feel like nothing but envy, the type of point so absurd, that it reads like something a banker would write as controlled opposition designed to look absurd.
Whatever narrative I have in my head is based on the record and the record is Sanders hasn't accomplished much as a long time legislator. As someone with his seniority he should be able to do more but hasn't. You can call that a narrative but that is the actual result. I agree charisma has something to do with it but meanness is a trait that many politicians particularly successful ones have had. LBJ was famously very mean. I agree his support is based a large part of his consistent rhetoric. It's frankly romantic to support someone who stakes extreme positions. That said politics is the art of compromise. There is a fine line here. Obama is certainly not beyond criticism but much of the rhetoric directed towards him sounds like campaigning against him. For example what you say above. You are saying he didn't get more accomplished n his first year because he was friendly to Wall Street. That is the type of rhetoric that ignores how much was on his plate, how entrenched the opposition was toward him, and how much he did accomplish. The US was in the worst financial crisis in decades and he got a stimulus bill passed, a bailout bill passed and major health care reform. Those were no small feats yet you're downplaying him for not doing more.
Yes I'm downplaying him for not doing more. You're rhetoric ignores 42 million dollars given to Obama from Wall Street. He had two years of a clean sweep Democrat controlled government. Two years and he never could hold those responsible for the 2008 crash responsible and just implemented half measures. During his first presidential campaign he used Bernie type rhetoric calling Wall Street execs "fat cats" and then after his presidency is more than willing to take 400 grand from them for just 1 hour speeches. His half measures have done little to shift the economic trends of the last 50 years that make people open up to an idea of Trump or Bernie presidency. It seems like the moderate/establishment wing of the Democrat party only hypes up some form of economic populism for presidential campaigns and Wall Street execs understand who is genuine about it and who only plays lip service to it by who they throw money at.
I think the whole entire premise of this thread is sort of a strawman. I believe Bernie in pretty much every situation he says "billionares shouldn't exist" has a follow up conditional sentence that usually sounds like : "when 60 percent of the country lives pay check to pay check and 40 percent of the country either has no health insurance or is underinsured". His entire point is if these deep rooted systemic issues exist, it's immoral to allow billionares. And it isn't about the individual billionares but the system that allows this massive form of inequality. If people can become billionares after all our citizens have access to health care and high quality education, then good for them. That is at least my take on Bernie's rhetoric.
It's a problem but not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that automation is replacing labor at an alarming rate. Also because of level of investment, it's really difficult to enter markets. For example, if you had a great idea for a new smart phone or if wanted to compete with Amazon, it would almost be impossible without an infinite checkbook.
It's also easier for someone wealthy to gain significantly more wealth without any form of labor other than throwing some money at investments and stocks. Wealth makes wealth. It's no longer "ideas" and hard work make wealth. Also if automation is the main culprit than Bernie's economic populism makes significantly even more sense as eventually we are going to have to provide a basic standard of living for the average American from the profits of industry because there just won't be enough jobs.
