On Bernie Sanders

Who would you like to see become president?


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Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
imo sweden should be like hong kong and just pile all their citizens onto a small island and teach them Cantonese
I think Japan is a bit over the top in that.
But surely, how Sweden taxes on fatty foods means the government can earn more? And that can be put into the health care.
 
This might be a little tangent but I must say that I find it a little funny that there are numerous comments here on economic matters here when few of us have training in economics. When it comes to these things I think you guys just post what you feel is intuitive to yourself, personally, or what you read in some blog somewhere. For example, people forget that the minimum wage is not just a political, but a scientific issue; one that is formally studied. This survey of labor economists from the American Economic Association gives some insight: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...m-wage-hikes-cause-unemployment-52765387.html

Main point, copied from article:
Over 73 percent of AEA labor economists believe that a significant increase [in the minimum wage] will lead to employment losses and 68 percent think these employment losses fall disproportionately on the least skilled. Only 6 percent feel that minimum wage hikes are an efficient way to alleviate poverty.

These aren't crazy libertarians. They're labor economists, one of which could probably have more knowledge of the mechanics of a minimum wage hike than the entirety of Smogon combined. The point I'm trying to make with this is that when pro-Bernie people discuss economic policy in this thread, they treat this like something they're experts in when they have no right to make pretensions. They hold up our own navel-gazing as equal to the opinions of those who professionally study issues that Bernie talks about. And quite frankly, they're not navel-gazing very well.

I am aware that there are surveys that make it look like economists support a gradual national raise of the minimum wage, and that there are surveys that do this, or that, or even make a minimum wage hike look good. Those wouldn't necessarily be points against the point in this post, since what I'm really saying is that people here could stand to have a little humility, not just when talking about the minimum wage, but about healthcare or taxes or inequality or what have you. Perhaps in the form of backing up their opinions with supporting sources instead of trying to go in alone. If somebody wanted to counter my survey with a different survey or some study, so be it, but it's weak form and strong assumptions to say something like "minimum wage will actually benefit people because [completely made up trains of logic with little supporting evidence]" and expect me to believe it.

On topic I'd say I do not like Bernie Sanders, for a variety of reasons, his support for a national minimum wage hike being one.
 
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vonFiedler

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since what I'm really saying is that people here could stand to have a little humility
You've displayed more arrogance in your post than the rest of this thread combined.

The idea that normal people shouldn't be talking about economics is fucking disgusting. Like trademark law, economics is often made more complicated than it needs to be because that gives power to people who don't historically have the little people's best interests at heart. Incidentally, that's the third tenant of the organization that was surveyed: "The encouragement of perfect freedom of economic discussion."

It's just too bad that the selection of AEA members surveyed were paid to be there by the Employment Policies Institute, a conservative lobby. Or maybe they've totally lied about the results... they've been caught red-handed doing exactly the same thing before (edit, sorry, AFTER the article you linked was published).

Mind you, I don't think minimum wage is the best solution to the poverty problem. But if you're gonna accuse the whole forum of being navel-gazers, don't be a navel-gazer and a twit.
 
You've displayed more arrogance in your post than the rest of this thread combined.

The idea that normal people shouldn't be talking about economics is fucking disgusting. Like trademark law, economics is often made more complicated than it needs to be because that gives power to people who don't historically have the little people's best interests at heart. Incidentally, that's the third tenant of the organization that was surveyed: "The encouragement of perfect freedom of economic discussion."

It's just too bad that the selection of AEA members surveyed were paid to be there by the Employment Policies Institute, a conservative lobby. Or maybe they've totally lied about the results... they've been caught red-handed doing exactly the same thing before (edit, sorry, AFTER the article you linked was published).

Mind you, I don't think minimum wage is the best solution to the poverty problem. But if you're gonna accuse the whole forum of being navel-gazers, don't be a navel-gazer and a twit.
Eh. This is a pretty weak set of arguments. Economics is not more "complicated than it needs to be". There are many things in economics, comparative advantage for example, where the results are unintuitive and initial guesses about its nature by layman are likely to be wrong or ridiculous. It's not that normal people shouldn't be talking about economics, its about how they shouldn't be talking about economics with the veneer of authority without some economic authority. Is it in any way not ridiculous for somebody to say "metamorphic rocks are such a scam, rocks just don't turn into other rocks", and expect people to hold their opinions to the same level as geologists? But that's what people, yourself included, are doing here with the field of economics.

And as for the survey, I am aware that it was sponsored by the EPI. But, to quote the article.

The survey was conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center and sponsored by the Employment Policies Institute.

The University of New Hampshire is not a conservative think tank, and since they were the organization conducting the survey, it's legitimate. Your linked article only talks about the EPI's lobbying activities and the only mention of possible dishonesty is in the quote here:

But some questions have been raised about the institute-funded work. Saul D. Hoffman, a professor of economics at University of Delaware, examined the employment data Mr. Sabia used for a 2012 paper funded in part by the institute. Mr. Hoffman concluded that the narrow cut of data Mr. Sabia picked was perhaps unintentionally skewed, and once corrected, it would have showed that the 2004 increase in New York State’s minimum wage had no negative impact on employment — the opposite of the conclusionthe institute had proclaimed in its news releases.

But such a cut of data was most likely an accident - the economist raising the questions admits this himself. Your assertion that they're liars is so scantily backed up that now I'm even more convinced of their honesty.
 
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vonFiedler

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But that's what people, yourself included, are doing here with the field of economics.
Except that you yourself are not presenting a single counter-argument to anyone except for one dubious survey.

But such a cut of data was most likely an accident - the economist raising the questions admits this himself. Your assertion that they're liars is so scantily backed up that now I'm even more convinced of their honesty.
And I don't really give a fuck that you're "more convinced of it's honesty" just because I think otherwise. "You disagree with me, so I'm going to bunker down and think I'm more right". Your profile doesn't list an age, so I'm guessing 17, 16 maybe? Anyway, cherry picking data to come up with the opposite conclusion might only be seen as an "accident" if you're a journalist who doesn't want to be sued. You're not. You should know better. You're accepting evidence that supports your claim and ignoring evidence that hurts it.

I don't really see the veneer of authority in here that's offending you so much. Maybe you're looking in a mirror?
 
Except that you yourself are not presenting a single counter-argument to anyone except for one dubious survey.



And I don't really give a fuck that you're "more convinced of it's honesty" just because I think otherwise. "You disagree with me, so I'm going to bunker down and think I'm more right". Your profile doesn't list an age, so I'm guessing 17, 16 maybe? Anyway, cherry picking data to come up with the opposite conclusion might only be seen as an "accident" if you're a journalist who doesn't want to be sued. You're not. You should know better. You're accepting evidence that supports your claim and ignoring evidence that hurts it.

I don't really see the veneer of authority in here that's offending you so much. Maybe you're looking in a mirror?
To quote the article you linked again: "Saul D. Hoffman, a professor of economics at University of Delaware, examined the employment data Mr. Sabia used for a 2012 paper funded in part by the institute. Mr. Hoffman concluded that the narrow cut of data Mr. Sabia picked was perhaps unintentionally skewed".

Hoffmann concluded that data was "perhaps unintentionally skewed". At no point does he explicitly suggest fraud or intentional bias in sampling. It's weak evidence against the EPI, but you've concluded beyond the shadow of a doubt that the EPI must be disingenuous becaue of this. In fact, you're more critical than the person who raised the criticisms in the first place, and you haven't even examined the study he was looking at at all. It also should be noted that the study I brought up initially has had no criticisms of methodology beyond simply attacking the sponsor. Nobody, and I've done quite some searching, has identified structural flaws in it or unscientific practices.

I think your weirdest tangent is about how Mr. Hoffmann is simply not accusing the EPI of being disingenuous because he doesn't want to get sued. That makes no sense. The EPI has no history of suing its critics. In fact, I couldn't really find any examples of the EPI suing anybody, period. Furthermore, its parent, Berman and Company, is the same. There's no evidence that they're going to sue people who suggest they're disingenuous.

So I'd suggest "Anyway, cherry picking data to come up with the opposite conclusion might only be seen as an "accident" if you're a journalist who doesn't want to be sued", as you said, would be an example of the veneer of authority. Perhaps I'm looking in a mirror, but at least my reflection didn't make these baseless claims.
 

vonFiedler

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It's weak evidence against the EPI, but you've concluded beyond the shadow of a doubt that the EPI must be disingenuous becaue of this. In fact, you're more critical than the person who raised the criticisms in the first place, and you haven't even examined the study he was looking at at all.
The point is that if you're going to try shaming a large group of people, you should probably be bringing more to the table than a single survey that has even the potential of being manufactured. And at this point you're just derailing the thread, hell, you were barely meaning to talk about the topic in the first place.

You're not the first person in cong whose posts were laden with "everyone here thinks so much of themselves just because they happen to think things that I don't", and frankly, I don't tolerate it. And that's not just a veneer of authority. Attack the opinions, not the people.
 
I don't think anyone here is fooling themselves out of the fear of layoffs after a minimum wage hike, or any social welfare program for that matter. These things cut into profits, they're bad for businesses and the economy. How is that not arbitrary retaliation though?

And that is also why no president is going to be "revolutionary," a goddamn paradox. You have to raise hell and fight against layoffs and healthcare cuts and make sacrifices beyond going out and participating in the electoral system.
 
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Perhaps you're correct. I'll get back to the roots of this thread.

I don't like Bernie Sanders. I'm quite sure he's a nice person to be around, but I don't agree with about 100% of all his economic policies. As far as the other candidates go, I'm partial to pretty much everyone save Clinton, Bush, or the other centrists.
 
Perhaps you're correct. I'll get back to the roots of this thread.

I don't like Bernie Sanders. I'm quite sure he's a nice person to be around, but I don't agree with about 100% of all his economic policies. As far as the other candidates go, I'm partial to pretty much everyone save Clinton, Bush, or the other centrists.
Why don't you like Sanders? (An anecdote: As a part of therapy, I recently began identifying certain feelings/emotions/thoughts concretely rather than some simple abstract idea. Instead of saying "I feel bad about X" I would be asked to elaborate on what "bad" meant since "bad" isn't an emotion. So, for example, I would determine the negative emotion/feeling [guilt/shame/sadness/anxiety/etc] to better understand myself and others. And the same applies to "I do/don't like X"--what causes me to not like X? Simple "not liking" isn't valid, especially with non-opinions. It's a good exercise that applies elsewhere, and definitely helps me [and anyone, for that matter] reason out and understand things much better...)

And what do you mean other centrists? Clinton is perhaps centrist, although I'd consider her center-right just like Obama... Do you consider Rubio a centrist? Or Cruz? I really don't see many centrists running, if any. And Cruz and Rubio (and Bush and Clinton, for that matter) would be all be terrible for the larger future of this country.

The Republican candidates of any viability would curtail existing individual rights while promoting and signing off on disastrous political/social/economic policies, like deep cuts to necessary social services including education, health care, food/nutrition/housing, and infrastructure, and their terrifying views on religious freedom is nothing to gloss over (especially with Supreme Court roles up for grabs soon enough). At least Clinton could reasonably be seen to keep the "status quo" and not necessarily make existing systems that much worse (thought I suppose it doesn't really matter)... And who knows the foreign affair dilemmas they'll launch us into.

(I'd like to note you can view many social services like a business investing in its future. Companies spending incredible amounts on R&D and analysis and much else aren't immediately profitable or useful, but the returns are often incredible and therefore worthwhile. A country with excellent public education, worker protections, health care, safety nets, and infrastructure provide a much better point for innovation and progress than one's that have worse or non-existent counterparts.)
 
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Why don't you like Sanders? (An anecdote: As a part of therapy, I recently began identifying certain feelings/emotions/thoughts concretely rather than some simple abstract idea. Instead of saying "I feel bad about X" I would be asked to elaborate on what "bad" meant since "bad" isn't an emotion. So, for example, I would determine the negative emotion/feeling [guilt/shame/sadness/anxiety/etc] to better understand myself and others. And the same applies to "I do/don't like X"--what causes me to not like X? Simple "not liking" isn't valid, especially with non-opinions. It's a good exercise that applies elsewhere, and definitely helps me [and anyone, for that matter] reason out and understand things much better...)

And what do you mean other centrists? Clinton is perhaps centrist, although I'd consider her center-right just like Obama... Do you consider Rubio a centrist? Or Cruz? I really don't see many centrists running, if any. And Cruz and Rubio (and Bush and Clinton, for that matter) would be all be terrible for the larger future of this country.

The Republican candidates of any viability would curtail existing individual rights while promoting and signing off on disastrous political/social/economic policies, like deep cuts to necessary social services including education, health care, food/nutrition/housing, and infrastructure, and their terrifying views on religious freedom is nothing to gloss over (especially with Supreme Court roles up for grabs soon enough). At least Clinton could reasonably be seen to keep the "status quo" and not necessarily make existing systems that much worse (thought I suppose it doesn't really matter)... And who knows the foreign affair dilemmas they'll launch us into.
I don't like Bernie Sanders because he is an inexperienced, lying, maniac preying upon naive voters who can't see through all of bullshit. He has done practically nothing after decades in congress, and when asked anything he responds with free stuff and I voted against the Iraq war. He has not done a single thing of substance in his political career, which doesn't bode well for his presidency. He wants to make America more like socialist Scandinavia, a region that holds inherently un-American values, and a region whose blind liberalism has already begun their downfall through Islamic refugees.
 
I don't like Bernie Sanders because he is an inexperienced, lying, maniac preying upon naive voters who can't see through all of bullshit. He has done practically nothing after decades in congress, and when asked anything he responds with free stuff and I voted against the Iraq war. He has not done a single thing of substance in his political career, which doesn't bode well for his presidency. He wants to make America more like socialist Scandinavia, a region that holds inherently un-American values, and a region whose blind liberalism has already begun their downfall through Islamic refugees.
Ok, so you have no idea what you're talking about.

Sanders is not inexperienced. He has more to his name than his work in Congress that you dishonestly diminish. He partook in the civil rights movement, including actively organizing and leading (see here and here), long before he had any political position. He did incredibly well as mayor of Burlington (see here). And yes, his voting record is incredibly sensible and he explains his positions on votes when necessary. Your Iraqi War vote trope is incredibly pointless; you can see his votes on noteworthy bills yourself, but it includes upholding a consistent, progressive ideals on things like civil rights and worker protections, foreign policy, and other such issues.

And calling Sanders a liar is rather new (and a new low, I suppose, for criticism against him!). He's honest and consistent (see here) and to spin something otherwise is insane (you're sounding like Clinton and her baseless attacks, to be blunt). Sanders is upfront about the need of active organization in non-federal elections (i.e., a political revolution).

Your admonishing of crucial services like healthcare and education as "free stuff" is asinine and also incorrect. Sanders is up front about possible tax increases (e.g., the family leave tax). And yet, his taxes would save most Americans money because it would cover things we already pay out of pocket for over our lifetimes. E.g., Medicare for all would cause a tax increase, but individuals families would no longer have to pay outrageous healthcare premiums and out-of-pocket expesnes when the insurance isn't enough; therefore, it's an increase in income at the end of the day (see here).

(Not to mention this stuff is crucial to a functioning country. There is a cost associated with inaction, and it's often much more expensive than a pre-emptive expense examples. And since everything is linked to money, bad health is a loss of revenue just as much as illiteracy and imprisonment. As it stands, healthcare is costing Americans more as a private industry than it would under a single-payer, and arguing otherwise is pointless--you're simply wrong to say one-payer is worse. It's not true.)

And it's funny you throw around the term socialist. Socialism is complex and I'd rather not discuss it, but in a nutshell it's workers owning the means of production. A simple and realistic example would be a farmer owning his land and tools, but it would also be a hospital owned by the doctors and nurses, receptionists and janitors, etc and the requirements thereof. Sanders may consider himself a socialist and may have socialist ideals, but his policies are not socialist. His policies are those of a social democrat--essentially, enabling capitalism, but the government provides services unfit for the profit-driven private sector. And yes, there are many things the private sector is incapable of. For example, rural communities wouldn't be able to receive mail in a purely profit-driven postal system, hence the need of USPS (which is actually a successful operation when excluding absurd policies by Congress and is actually profitable in many denser areas, but vast rural areas of America are incredibly expensive to service). Public education and healthcare are another, for the record.

Also: un-American values? Please detail what is un-American (or what's American, for that matter). Your term has no meaning as it stands. I suppose you could mean the unalienable rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and if so, many countries provide these rights better than the United States. You won't go bankrupt because of health issues (and therefore choose between financial ruin or death), you don't have to face incredibly bigoted, xenophobic, racist/classist/etc policies brought on by the right (and therefore have your liberty nicely protected), and these "un-American" countries aren't less happy than us Americans...

And I don't know how to address your point about "blind liberalism" because, from my perspective, all the Republican candidates are incredibly unfit for many, many reasons (including combinations of religous zealotry, outright regressive stances on social issues including women, minorities [be it race or class or health or whatever else], destructive foreign policies and stances, unreasonable economic policies [privatization, deregulation of industry, and increased tax cuts, namely], outright asinine views on science [from climate change to medicine to everything inbetween], and a [one of the most important issues that prevents the former issues from seeing meanigful changes] marriage to corporate money [and by extension, corporate influence--capitalism really doesn't work when the companies control the government!]) and supporting them, by any measure, is simply absurd. And although I disagree with Rand Paul on nearly everything, you can't cite him as an exception to the moneyed interests... because he's no longer running.

edit: fixed formatting and links. It's hard switching between forums that us bbcode and HTML sometimes...
 
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tehy

Banned deucer.
I don't like Bernie Sanders because he is an inexperienced, lying, maniac preying upon naive voters who can't see through all of bullshit. He has done practically nothing after decades in congress, and when asked anything he responds with free stuff and I voted against the Iraq war. He has not done a single thing of substance in his political career, which doesn't bode well for his presidency. He wants to make America more like socialist Scandinavia, a region that holds inherently un-American values, and a region whose blind liberalism has already begun their downfall through Islamic refugees.
this criticism interests me

ignore the above poster and give me the skinny
 
Why don't you like Sanders? (An anecdote: As a part of therapy, I recently began identifying certain feelings/emotions/thoughts concretely rather than some simple abstract idea. Instead of saying "I feel bad about X" I would be asked to elaborate on what "bad" meant since "bad" isn't an emotion. So, for example, I would determine the negative emotion/feeling [guilt/shame/sadness/anxiety/etc] to better understand myself and others. And the same applies to "I do/don't like X"--what causes me to not like X? Simple "not liking" isn't valid, especially with non-opinions. It's a good exercise that applies elsewhere, and definitely helps me [and anyone, for that matter] reason out and understand things much better...)
I can't really attach a link between an emotion of mine and Sanders. I guess you could say he arises annoyance in me. I wouldn't be beyond saying I'm unsettled by him, if "unsettled" could be an emotion. There are numerous reasons why, but the main one is that he reminds me greatly of Venezuela's Maduro in the same way Trump might remind some people who aren't me of Hitler. He feels like Maduro. His pushed policies are very much in "character" with those of Maduro. The way he blames business for pretty much everything is invariably Maduro to me. I can't hear him say something like "The billionaire class is hurting the small Americans and the government ought to...etc." without remembering something like "evil business leaders are conspiring to raise prices together, and that's why inflation is happening, it's not the government's fault at all" (not verbatim, of course, but this is actually a talking point used by Venezuelan state media). Given that I have some deep-seated (personal) reasons to really hate the Maduro government, I believe I can explain my irritation and foreboding feeling about Sanders.

Is this a hard analysis? Hardly. Is this a compelling argument against Sanders? Definitely not. But you asked for emotional reasons for why I dislike him, and I believe this is the best I can give you.
 
I can't really attach a link between an emotion of mine and Sanders. I guess you could say he arises annoyance in me. I wouldn't be beyond saying I'm unsettled by him, if "unsettled" could be an emotion. There are numerous reasons why, but the main one is that he reminds me greatly of Venezuela's Maduro in the same way Trump might remind some people who aren't me of Hitler. He feels like Maduro. His pushed policies are very much in "character" with those of Maduro. The way he blames business for pretty much everything is invariably Maduro to me. I can't hear him say something like "The billionaire class is hurting the small Americans and the government ought to...etc." without remembering something like "evil business leaders are conspiring to raise prices together, and that's why inflation is happening, it's not the government's fault at all" (not verbatim, of course, but this is actually a talking point used by Venezuelan state media). Given that I have some deep-seated (personal) reasons to really hate the Maduro government, I believe I can explain my irritation and foreboding feeling about Sanders.

Is this a hard analysis? Hardly. Is this a compelling argument against Sanders? Definitely not. But you asked for emotional reasons for why I dislike him, and I believe this is the best I can give you.
Sorry, I worded it poorly. The emotional tidbit was an example of a larger point. I was comparing statements like "I feel bad about X" to "I don't like X." Simply using "like" or "not like" when discussing a candidate, rather than his stances and policies and actions and such, is pointless and actually unhelpful. The emotional counterpart would be "I feel [bad/good] about X," because "good" and "bad" aren't emotions/feelings/states of mind and therefore don't help address the issue, while on the other hand identifying the emotion/etc such as happy/excited/motivated and sad/angry/anxious do help you understand the problem.
 

Hogg

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The "Bernie Sanders hasn't accomplished anything" meme has been pretty popular lately but it's crazy misleading. I think Sanders has actually been one of the more effective legislators in the past few decades. It's true that he only has a handful of bills that he himself wrote and submitted (though he has sponsored literally hundreds of successful bills), but he also has pushed through some incredibly important reforms not by sponsoring new bills but by amending existing ones.

For example, he pushed through an amendment on the 2001 appropriations bill that banned the import of goods made by child labor, added a provision to the Victims Justice Act that required those convicted of corporate crimes and fraud to pay restitution to their victims, expanded health care funding on multiple spending bills, assisted both in stabilizing current college loan rates and expanding access to college grants, and more.

Oh yeah, he's also been a longtime member of a number of committees, which gave him really direct input and influence into just about every major spending and Veterans-related bill of the past twenty years. While the amount of change he can effect in such situations is limited, it's still significant, and he's credited with some pretty major coups... such as forcing through the first EVER audit of the funds paid out by the Federal Reserve.

There's this fallacy that the success of a senator or congressman relates to the bills her or she writes and proposes... but this is actually a pretty poor metric. Something ridiculous like 95% of bills proposed never even get a vote. Sanders has worked within the system by primarily amending existing bills, despite the fact that it doesn't give him the prestige of proposing some doomed piece of legislation, because that was a way he saw to actually get things done - and as far as I can tell, he was right. And while this might be primarily because of his status as an Independent, he has had more success working across the aisle by involving both Democrats and Republicans in the process than almost any other current lawmaker.

You may disagree with his policies or his points - that's an entirely different argument - but claiming that Sanders never accomplished anything is just straight up false.

EDIT: Next time you start asking yourself what Sanders actually did during his time in Congress, try looking at actual facts; here is the list of legislation he has sponsored, including amendments and resolutions: https://www.congress.gov/member/bernard-sanders/S000033?q={
 
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all y'all except perhaps Kalawishis need /r/badeconomics.

re: minimum wage: To my knowledge, negative income tax and Earned Income Tax Credit expansion are viewed as more effective (and more accurately targeted) means of providing basic income than minimum wage, though moderate increases are less likely to lead to problems. (Hillary's $12 minimum wage proposal is less likely to lead to unemployment problems than a $15 nationwide minimum wage--which is literally more than doubling it in some places).

Honestly, Bernie is likely to have enough opposition that his economics aren't likely to pass without support--and his social policies mean I actually wouldn't mind him nominating SCOTUS justices. I'm voting Hillary if I can because her plans seem more coherent (and less paranoid of the Fed), but if Bernie wins I'll support him to Election Day. I care more about keeping Scalia resting in peace than I do about the differences between Bernie/Hillary.
 
all y'all except perhaps Kalawishis need /r/badeconomics.

re: minimum wage: To my knowledge, negative income tax and Earned Income Tax Credit expansion are viewed as more effective (and more accurately targeted) means of providing basic income than minimum wage, though moderate increases are less likely to lead to problems. (Hillary's $12 minimum wage proposal is less likely to lead to unemployment problems than a $15 nationwide minimum wage--which is literally more than doubling it in some places).

Honestly, Bernie is likely to have enough opposition that his economics aren't likely to pass without support--and his social policies mean I actually wouldn't mind him nominating SCOTUS justices. I'm voting Hillary if I can because her plans seem more coherent (and less paranoid of the Fed), but if Bernie wins I'll support him to Election Day. I care more about keeping Scalia resting in peace than I do about the differences between Bernie/Hillary.
It's pretty brazen to compare economics to any of the hard sciences, but what do you know, that subreddit does so on its sidebar...

And I'm not sure how any proposed EITC expansion would work. Unless the credit would be distributed over time, there's a major issue of the lacking or nonexistent personal finance abilities of lower income households (which leads to future poverty, how wonderful!). Are the spending tendencies of lower income households even taken into account?

Not to mention minimum wage wouldn't be a pressing issue if unions weren't swear words to many Americans leading to the wonderful political climate we're in now... Unless unions are bad economics? Who knows.

edit: lots of corrections. Ugh.
 

Chou Toshio

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It's pretty brazen to compare economics to any of the hard sciences, but what do you know, that subreddit does so on its sidebar...

And I'm not sure how any proposed EITC expansion would work. Unless the credit would be distributed over time, there's a major issue of the lacking or nonexistent personal finance abilities of lower income households (which leads to future poverty, how wonderful!). Are the spending tendencies of lower income households even taken into account?

Not to mention minimum wage wouldn't be a pressing issue if unions weren't swear words to many Americans leading to the wonderful political climate we're in now... Unless unions are bad economics? Who knows.

edit: lots of corrections. Ugh.
From a pure "guiding hand" principle, unions are s good thing for economics, as a strong economy needs freedom of action/decision making in order to make economically viable decisions.

The core of the power of a free economy is this: no one makes a transaction that does not benefit them-- and trades that continue to benefit parties build up and produce economic wealth. The problem here is that when workers (who trade their labor for a wage-- a key type of economic transaction) have little to no negotiation power, they are forced (by their immediate needs) to make transactions that don't truly benefit them and undercut the value of their labor. This leads to a decidedly severe underpricing of that labor's value; and also can produce a wasteful surplus of under-priced goods (like of McDonalds' burgers?).

Now, a perfect and truly powerful union acts something like a monopoly; but there are industries (like utilities and other state run enterprises) that run better in monopolies.

In the case of unions allowed to function in a free market, when the offered terms and salaries reach or exceed the economic balance price point, the union will agree to those terms OR begin to fall apart as workers will begin to ditch the unions to accept those terms. Generally, you'd end up at a price point that is SOMEWHAT higher than a perfect balance, but having a little bit of a premium wage and a little bit of an excess unemployment does not sound like a poor outcome to me.

Essentially, a union is hard to hold together past terms of a fair wage point; while getting negotiating power to workers is needed for a working economy. Laws that excessively weaken unions are artificially lowering the cost of goods, and leading to many economically poor transactions that actually weaken the economy's overall value.
 
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