Serious 2020 Democratic Primary Thread

[Calucha]

ohhh nah i get it lol u misinterpreted it lol nah this what i said
"so i'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say those stats are 100% true."
The stats im refering to are the ones you gave about who owns the debt, the 1/10 and 25% thing. I drew a different conclusion from those stat, lol i dont think they make poor people worse off. Glad we got that cleared up lol

as for the stats and articles, it doesnt matter as much anymore dude. The article you gave im sure is well written, but then so what, i can find 2-3 arictles written just as well saying that the tuition forgiveness helps, and for every one of those articles we can find one saying the opposite. I used just regular reasoning because i feel its more productive in this setting. We can all interpret data differently dude.

Like you said i could google for other sources but itll literally become one of those dumb post cycles where I post an article saying ur wrong, then you post another debunking my first, then i can put 2 or 3 more saying im right lol, its not productive to say the least. The URL absolutely matters if you know whats behind it. KKKfor America. com is something im not trusting whatsoever lol so lets not bash each other for URL cause sometimes it does matter dude

hope this helps

 

[MikeDawg]

ohhh nah i get it lol u misinterpreted it lol nah this what i said
"so i'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say those stats are 100% true."
The stats im refering to are the ones you gave about who owns the debt, the 1/10 and 25% thing. I drew a different conclusion from those stat, lol i dont think they make poor people worse off. Glad we got that cleared up lol

I'm aware. That's why my entire previous comment was about those stats....

as for the stats and articles, it doesnt matter as much anymore dude. The article you gave im sure is well written, but then so what, i can find 2-3 arictles written just as well saying that the tuition forgiveness helps, and for every one of those articles we can find one saying the opposite. We can all interpret data differently dude.

This would be far more compelling if you gave even 1 counter source, but you haven't. It's just as transparent of a cop out as "I don't trust tht one url so I'm going to refrain from informing myself".

And data isn't that subjective lol. In most cases, you can draw some pretty clear cut conclusions. For example: very very few poor people have student loans. Giving an uninformed "interpretation" isn't a response to the critiques or the data, it's handwaving them away.

Like you said i could google for other sources but itll literally become one of those dumb post cycles where I post an article saying ur wrong, then you post another debunking my first, then i can put 2 or 3 more saying im right lol, its not productive to say the least.

The thing is, if you were to make an actual attempt at researching then you'd have a different, or at least more nuanced, opinion that you do now, because you'd be more informed...

I told you to Google it because you straight up said you've done no research yourself. I'm not asking you to find a counterpoint, I'm asking you to educate yourself. The LEAST effort version of that is to click the article you're trying to argue against.

"Why bother learning anything when ppl disagree sometimes lol?"

The URL absolutely matters if you know whats behind it. KKKfor America. com is something im not trusting whatsoever

Lemme know when Third Way starts lynching people. Thanks.

 

[Calucha]

The reason im so against third way isnt because they have different opinions that fine lol, its because iv done my research that i dont trust them lol. Its because iv done my research and informed myself on the issues that I have my positions, because its totally possible to have different opinions than you dude. also yeah no, nowhere did i say i havent done any research myself.

But yeah i said what i wanted say to about the tuition plan and its pretty clear this discussion isnt gonna get anywhere lol So ill just end this one here

The debates are soon and its still a long way to the election so there will be plenty of more discussions to have about this, I look forward to discussing these more. Were all the same team so lets try to along more ya know

 

[GatoDelFuego]

U know, the article's entire point is that "free college" benefits rich ppl more, because rich people go to college more

"Fewer than 15% of low-income students get a four-year degree, while more than 6 in 10 wealthy students do.2 Policymakers should absolutely be engaged in a serious debate about how to counter these persistent trends. Unfortunately, free college isn’t the answer."

....maybe that's because poor people can't afford college?

The entire thesis is "This benefits rich people more which will increase inequality", but offers no explanation as to why. (Aside from the laughable conclusion that "research shows that people attending free two year colleges shockingly don't attend 4 year colleges"). Yeah MAYBE forgiving student loans today benefits the rich more, but that doesn't make inequality worse automatically.

In fact, that's what calucha asked:

i'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say those stats are 100% true. Even then that still decreases inequality no matter which way you look at it.... the working class where that debt is literally like a shackle preventing or holding them back from doing stuff like buying houses, investing, having kids and so forth. If your in the well off group,...the price of your college tuition is nothing to you. You don't gain all that much from having it forgiven. For a working class person however, this changes your entire life.

And you replied with:

Um you said "I believe those stats saying it wouldnt help poor people are 100% true" then blatantly ignored them and said it would help poor people more anyway...The poorest 25% of people have only 12% of the loans. You're telling me that erasing everyone's loans wouldn't increase the gap between them and everyone else? You're giving everyone else 10 times as much money as you're giving the poorest.

I'm aware. That's why my entire previous comment was about those stats....

you were so focused on owning em with your statistic that wealthy ppl have more student debt that you forgot to respond to the real argument, I.e. Forgoing debt from poor people helps them orders of magnitudes more

And data isn't that subjective lol. In most cases, you can draw some pretty clear cut conclusions. For example: very very few poor people have student loans. Giving an uninformed "interpretation" isn't a response to the critiques or the data, it's handwaving them away.

This isn't a "clear cut conclusion", lol, it's a statistic. What's the point?

This would be far more compelling if you gave even 1 counter source, but you haven't. It's just as transparent of a cop out as "I don't trust tht one url so I'm going to refrain from informing myself".

How about these?
https://talkpoverty.org/2016/05/02/why-student-loan-debt-harms-low-income-students-the-most/
https://equitablegrowth.org/an-introduction-to-the-geography-of-student-debt/
https://www.chamberofcommerce.org/student-loan-statistics/


Stop making these posts. Seriously. You've got to be trolling at this point

 

[MikeDawg]

U know, the article's entire point is that "free college" benefits rich ppl more, because rich people go to college more

"Fewer than 15% of low-income students get a four-year degree, while more than 6 in 10 wealthy students do.2 Policymakers should absolutely be engaged in a serious debate about how to counter these persistent trends. Unfortunately, free college isn’t the answer."

....maybe that's because poor people can't afford college?

First of all, we were almost exclusively talking about loan forgiveness for the last few comments, but go off.

Secondly, have you considered that maybe tuition cost isn't the only thing stopping poor people from attending college?

The most obvious point is that there are far more expenses when attending college aside from tuition.

And please, gatodelfuego, enlighten me: how is a child from a shitty high school in a shitty neighborhood funded by low property taxes who has shitty reading comprehension skills (the economic gap for illiteracy is growing, by the way) and shitty math skills and shitty SAT scores going to get into college? How are they going to be successful in college, especially since they probably have to work to cover their other expenses? How are they going to finish their degree in 4 years when they have to spend so much time catching up? How are they going to avoid being one of the 35% of people who drop out of college?

What about the kids (especially of single parents) who can't afford to leave for 4 years and need to stay home after high school to work and support their families?

What about the fact that financial aid (particularly the Pell Grant) already covers most or all of tuition for many low-income students?

Everything else aside, assuming that free tuition is the clear solution to solving low-income college attendance rates is ignorant as fuck.

The entire thesis is "This benefits rich people more which will increase inequality", but offers no explanation as to why. (Aside from the laughable conclusion that "research shows that people attending free two year colleges shockingly don't attend 4 year colleges"). Yeah MAYBE forgiving student loans today benefits the rich more, but that doesn't make inequality worse automatically.

Universally forgiving student loan debt would give the wealthiest 50% more than 6 times the amount of money that it would give the poorest 25%. How is that not directly increasing the inequality gap between the bottom 25% and everyone else? It's stupidly simple math.

you were so focused on owning em with your statistic that wealthy ppl have more student debt that you forgot to respond to the real argument, I.e. Forgoing debt from poor people helps them orders of magnitudes more

The fact that the poorest 25% of people only hold 12% of student loan debt means that universally erasing debt would hardly make a dent in alleviating their financial issues while disproportionately benefitting the richest. You've already acknowledged that far fewer poor people have attended college (for whatever reason, tuition costs or otherwise). Spending 2 trillion dollars on loan forgiveness means we have 2 trillion fewer dollars to spend on programs to actually help the poor. He is pandering to the same middle/upper-middle class college kids that make up his most dedicated base in an attempt to slow the leak to Warren/Pete. Simple as that.

How about these?
https://talkpoverty.org/2016/05/02/why-student-loan-debt-harms-low-income-students-the-most/
https://equitablegrowth.org/an-introduction-to-the-geography-of-student-debt/
https://www.chamberofcommerce.org/student-loan-statistics/

What about them? Of course loan debt has a higher impact on low-income students. That's a complete strawman.

Erasing debt for everyone would benefit very few low-income people, because there are very few low-income people with student loan debt. Erasing debt exclusively for low-income people would benefit low-income people. Erasing debt for everyone will increase inequality by disproportionately benefiting everyone besides low-income people. Warren has recognized and partially addressed this issue by adopting a need-based forgiveness scale. Bernie hasn't.

That's not to mention the fucking asinine plan that he has to "pay" for it.

If you give a shit about how either of these things affect low-income people, you should be supporting the debt-free plan that Kamala is pushing for and the far more robust loan forgiveness plan that Warren is pushing for.

 

[TheValkyries]

Rich people don’t need loans to pay for college you grundles.

Also it’s not just cancel the current debt and call it good and never do anything else. It’s cancel the doubt and make college free. So yeah those who couldn’t afford to even take on the life crushing loans can now have access to college too.

 

[henry]

do u guys even play Pokemon? gee whiz

 

[dice]

castro at the debate was incredibly impressive. warren stood her ground too.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

First of all, we were almost exclusively talking about loan forgiveness for the last few comments, but go off.

Forgive me from making a point that wasn't a direct reply to yours.

Secondly, have you considered that maybe tuition cost isn't the only thing stopping poor people from attending college?

The most obvious point is that there are far more expenses when attending college aside from tuition.

Yeah...who has disagreeing with that? Obviously there are other expenses. And that's why currently, more rich people go to college. And making college free, thus making it easier for poor people to afford college would...be more unequal, because...why?

And please, gatodelfuego, enlighten me: how is a child from a shitty high school in a shitty neighborhood funded by low property taxes who has shitty reading comprehension skills (the economic gap for illiteracy is growing, by the way) and shitty math skills and shitty SAT scores going to get into college? How are they going to be successful in college, especially since they probably have to work to cover their other expenses? How are they going to finish their degree in 4 years when they have to spend so much time catching up? How are they going to avoid being one of the 35% of people who drop out of college?

What about the kids (especially of single parents) who can't afford to leave for 4 years and need to stay home after high school to work and support their families?

I'm sure not every poor person in america will magically be able to afford college after tuition is made free. But that doesn't mean it won't help some people. Why will making tuition free help rich people more than poor people? And even if it helps rich people more, how is that bad for poor people?

Universally forgiving student loan debt would give the wealthiest 50% more than 6 times the amount of money that it would give the poorest 25%. How is that not directly increasing the inequality gap between the bottom 25% and everyone else? It's stupidly simple math.

Just talking about loan forgiveness, not my previous question on free college as a whole, could it possibly be because rich people are the most likely to pay off their student debt (because they can afford to pay it) while the poor are the most likely to default, because of the financial instability it causes? And this financial instability hurts access to other basic kinds of loans? All detailed in the link I posted that you wrote off as a strawman: https://equitablegrowth.org/an-introduction-to-the-geography-of-student-debt/

The fact that the poorest 25% of people only hold 12% of student loan debt means that universally erasing debt would hardly make a dent in alleviating their financial issues while disproportionately benefitting the richest.

I bet if you asked somebody poor with student loan debt if getting rid of it would help them, they just might say it would make a dent in their financial issues.

because there are very few low-income people with student loan debt

You got a source for that one? And not just that poor people hold smaller amounts of overall debt. Really, tell me about how few poor people there are with student loan debt.

Spending 2 trillion dollars on loan forgiveness means we have 2 trillion fewer dollars to spend on programs to actually help the poor.

Hold up. It's not 2 trillion dollars on loan forgiveness, it's 2 trillion dollars on loan forgiveness and free college tuition. Which will not help the poor...for reasons yet unknown.

That's not to mention the fucking asinine plan that he has to "pay" for it.

Here we go. The truth comes out. A tax on stock trading? YUCK!!!! Man, you know who that's gonna really hurt? The poor, with their extra money they save by not attending college in the first place and who put it all in mutual funds. No wait, hang on. Maybe it means that this free college is going to be paid for by people who speculate on pharmaceutical companies and tech stocks. That's curious......

 

[MikeDawg]

The truth comes out. A tax on stock trading? YUCK!!!! Man, you know who that's gonna really hurt? The poor, with their extra money they save by not attending college in the first place and who put it all in mutual funds. No wait, hang on. Maybe it means that this free college is going to be paid for by people who speculate on pharmaceutical companies and tech stocks. That's curious......

Dude, Sweden already tried it. It failed miserably.

You take everything as an attack on "progressive" values. Ever consider that sometimes a progressive politician's ideas can be shitty, unrelated to political ideology? Hence why I clearly expressed support for Warren's plan while criticizing Bernie's. If the numbers don't add up, then the numbers don't add up. Whatever "truth" you're talking about is completely irrelevant, as is the comment that you linked for reasons that I'm not even going to try and decipher.

I have to say though, I get a big kick out of your hate boner for me, not to mention your completely unearned ego. YUCK!!!!

 

[orch]

Why should we increase taxes which will subsidize the pointless gatekeeping for higher tier wageslavery? Ban degrees. Nationalize all accredited schools and auction off the properties to pay off the debt.

You can demonstrate your skill and expertise with actual actions instead of using a piece of paper which overwhelmingly favor cheaters and so on.

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

I have no clue what's been happening here as of late, seems like MikeDawg vs everyone else.

I haven't seen stats (tend to be pretty terrible at grabbing sources but I like to look if people can drop some below) but loan forgiveness would be something that would theoretically work. While the point of it also effecting the rich and possibly creating income inequality is mildly valid, its one that's better to be ignored as the cost of college for either side is so proportionally different.

The top percentage, even going to the most expensive schools, likely will never have to worry about their debt because it's a drop in the bucket when you are a multi-millionare. It also quite likely that such college is being funded by family business, so it's unlikely (albiet still possible) that this college education would birth a completely new scummy multi-billion dollar super corporation to further income inequality.

While its a drop in the bucket for the top, even on the lower end for community it will at least rack several thousand dollars, which can be literal life or death for bottom 25%. Also consider that the bottom 25 is a lot of people, and getting these people working in higher position would likely help the GDP. This doesn't fox the issue of people not having the time to actually attend college due to working themselves to death to have a roof over their heads, but loan forgiveness at least makes it a possibility.

Dude, Sweden already tried it. It failed miserably

Can I get a "why" on this or a possible source for more information? It's possible that there are significant difference to how it worked there to how it would work here which could significantly affect the outcome.

 

[fanyfan]

On the debates last night, here’s who I think the winners and losers are.
Winners:
Warren- They gave her a lot of time to talk and she made good use of that time. She’s been backing away from Medicare for All, so seeing her back it unequivocally was very refreshing. She gave a couple wishy-washy answers (on guns for instance) but overall I thought she did a great job.

De Blasio- I wasn’t a big fan of his going in, but I thought he was one of the best last night. On healthcare and going into wars without congressional approval, he was spot on. His call outs were great as well. The main thing I didn’t like was his answer to who’s the biggest geopolitical threat. His Russia answer was pretty bad, even if it got applause. I think his poll numbers are definitely going up after this.

Castro- I keep seeing people talking about how well he did, and for good reason. I think he was strongest on the immigration portion. Calling out the people like Beto was very satisfying. I also think in other areas he came off as professional and smart in other areas. I also think he’s going to get a bump in the polls from this.

Gabbard: To be fair, she didn’t do great on everything. However, on foreign policy, her wheelhouse, she did quite well. Her answer on Iran was good, but she really shined on pulling out of Afghanistan. She did a really good job on calling out Tim Ryan. Plus, the main reason I’m including her here, this. People seem to be interested in her more because of the debate, which is definitely a win for her.

Losers:
Delaney- He was annoying and bad. Most people are just meming him at this point.

Ryan- said the Taliban did 9/11

O’Rourke- De Blasio and Castro kept dunking on him for good reason. He spoke one of the most, but didn’t say much. I definitely think his poll numbers are falling after this.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Dude, Sweden already tried it. It failed miserably.

because traders were able to relocate from sweeden pretty easily. Not so out of the, the definitive world financial department

You take everything as an attack on "progressive" values. Ever consider that sometimes a progressive politician's ideas can be shitty, unrelated to political ideology?

I really don't tho?

Whatever "truth" you're talking about is completely irrelevant, as is the comment that you linked for reasons that I'm not even going to try and decipher.

Mimedawg: here's an article by a wall-street funded organization that says a free college funded by wall street tax is bad
Mikedawg: a tax on wall street is bad
Mikedawg: I trade hundreds of dollars of stock, which in no way influences my opinions

I get a big kick out of your hate boner for me, not to mention your completely unearned ego.

"unearned ego"? Maybe if you stopped with the awful posts ppl would stop hating on ya. Also good job ignoring all the other points and focusing only on the personal attack that you perceive.

People consistently complain to me that your awful posts shit up the entire forum. You're either trolling or shilling so hard it's ridiculous. Final warning. Stop posting.

 

[Dece1t]

I'm gonna be completely blunt, despite the fact that I've found this thread to be a fever dream as our old friend @v has said (for once we agree on something lmfao), the first Democratic debate was a garbage fire. There was literally nothing but pander and fluff in 3 quarters of the answers given, and none of the moderators asked tough questions. I don't know what was worse, Beto speaking Spanish to dodge the tax bracket question, Cory Booker saying every 3 seconds that he came from a disadvantaged neighborhood, or Elizabeth Warren calling for countless free shit when we're at $22 trillion in debt (and not to mention pandering for the most time out of everyone). Everyone was pushing so far left that it made Delany look like a freaking moderate. I'm gonna say this now, none of these candidates, as it's going currently, is gonna win the presidency. Personally, despite the fact that I disagree with her on at least half of the issues, I found Tulsi Gabbard to be the strongest candidate coming out of that debate, yet she had arguably the least amount of screen time. I said it before, the person with the strongest chance of winning is Biden, yet he's being attacked by stupid and pointless shit even 12 seconds (personally I'm flabbergasted that I'm defending him with the ludicrous amount of things I disagree with him on).

If this is really the stuff that's being pushed, that's not gonna win over the American people, which on a whole is a lot more moderate. If they wanna flip states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or even Florida, they are going completely in the wrong direction, I'm sorry. They do not like the radical positions on many of the issues being presented, and that's a big reason why Joe Biden is so strong right now despite the media being greatly against him.

That debate was nothing short of a trainwreck.

 

[Ivy]

Poor Tulsi. Despite getting interesting search statistics and being the, er, focus of our attention on discord last night, she's getting completely bullied on Twitter and will likely remain un-electable.

 

[tcr]

My thoughts on free college are thus:

MikeDawg Free college greatly impacts the poor, far more so than the rich. According to The National Center for Education Statistics, the average weighted (over 3 years) percentage of low-income* high school graduates enrolled in college were 51.6%, 57.5%, 64.0%, and 67.1% (of the years 2013-2016). Expanding upon this with further research shows that the percentage of the U.S. population that meets this statistic (the tax bracket of 50,000-74,999) is 47.6% (that is, the net percentage of every bracket lower). Analyzing these statistics I have come to the conclusion that if around 50% of the population can be defined as low income and the amount of attendees in low income families has steadily been increasing year after year (to where low income high school students actually overtake the amount of middle income high school students attending college!!) then I cannot possibly wonder where you are getting your numbers for the claim that rich people disproportionally take on student loans more than low income students. You don't provide any sources for the claim that "Universally forgiving student loan debt would give the wealthiest 50% more than 6 times the amount of money that it would give the poorest 25%" or the claim that "the poorest 25% of people only hold 12% of student loan debt means that universally erasing debt would hardly make a dent in alleviating their financial issues while disproportionately benefitting the richest."

Let's address the claim that:

The fact that the poorest 25% of people only hold 12% of student loan debt means that universally erasing debt would hardly make a dent in alleviating their financial issues while disproportionately benefitting the richest.

Here you are being disingenuous or downright ignorant of what those statistics actually mean. I'm assuming you used this source seeing as it is the only article I can find with those numbers. If you actually read the article they are interpreting "the poorest 25%" to mean those from a family household income level of $26,000, which would put them at the poverty line. When sorting by low middle and high income families according to the NCES above, low income families actually hold around 36% of student loan debt, solidifying them at just over a third of student loan holders). I think that you could do well with actually citing your sources to give yourself credibility rather than sitting on your ivory throne, with actually checking the sources you link, their biases, etc, and with doing a bit more effort than parroting whatever article you get the statistic / analysis from is, and instead just give your own thoughts. 36% of student loan debt being erased is nothing to sneeze at, if the debt forgiveness was only applied to low income families, especially when it's marginally close to the represented population of that income bracket (looping back to the 47.6%). Moreover if you go even further and include middle income families (those with a maximum combined household income of ~$126,000 in 2014 - source) then you end up with above 65% of low to middle income families, possibly bordering on 75 or 80 percent.

I think pitting "poor" and "rich" in such dualist terms is incredibly ignorant. I think even making the argument that "rich people suck" is downright foolish unless you define what being "rich" is. Most progressives have no qualms with someone being in a higher tax bracket no matter what PragerU might have you believe. What people take issue with is the 1% that exorbitantly consume and acquire capital, a gate kept with a lock worth upwards of millions of dollars per year. Attempting to paint a dichotomy between the richest 25% and the poorest 25% is just classist infighting at best. To your claim that rich people will disproportionately benefit from college debt forgiveness I find shockingly false, and even then so what? Middle class families (your middle 50%) should not benefit from getting student loan debt wiped clean because more people happen to be in the middle 50% than the lower 25%?

Never mind your claim that it is "giving" people money and disproportionately "giving" the richest six times more is logically unsound. It's debt, you're not giving anyone anything you're taking away an impediment to their financial mobility. Defaulting on a student loan drastically hurts poorer people more than richer people due to their financial status; for example a poor person would struggle on acquiring the capital for the purchase of land to begin with, but will outright get rejected on a mortgage loan due to both their financial income bracket and the poor marks on their credit history. Whereas richer people can either get a cosigner to help them out (such as well off parents), tend to marry within their income bracket so have better credit there, and are more likely to even have the money to spend. College debt dissolution would not give people money but rather free up the taking of resources, allowing people to spend the capital they earn as they should rather than be saddled with unnecessary debt.

*low-income families are families that make 200% above poverty line, which quantitatively comes out to $51,500 for a family of four (NCES 2016)

 

[atomicllamas]

Other countries have this tax that aren’t Sweden and their markets haven’t collapsed Belgium and the UK come to mind. The tax also existed in the US between 1914 and 1966 which obviously covers both a very good and very bad time for the US’s economy. Also from the wiki ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax ): “The Swedish FTT is widely considered a failure by design since traders could easily avoid the tax by using foreign broker services.”

I mean I’d just increase the tax on capital gains but it seems pretty ridiculous to assume this will cause a market collapse and have 0 returns when there is more than one example of this happening with mixed results.

Also lol @ the post that said the media hates Joe Biden, Reddit posters and smogon forum posters aren’t the media.

 

[MikeDawg]

Other countries have this tax that aren’t Sweden and their markets haven’t collapsed Belgium and the UK come to mind. The tax also existed in the US between 1914 and 1966 which obviously covers both a very good and very bad time for the US’s economy. Also from the wiki ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax ): “The Swedish FTT is widely considered a failure by design since traders could easily avoid the tax by using foreign broker services.”

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's some context missing here. I'm not particularly familiar with Belgium and the UK's systems (though iirc the UK doesn't tax derivatives?), so I'll take your word on those. What I will say, though, is that there are many countries that have tried and repealed the tax in recent decades. Apart from Sweden, this list includes Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and Portugal. For every example of it working out, there are many others of it failing to some extent.

In regards to the American tax:

• It didn't curb speculation enough to prevent the 1929 stock market crash, which is a potential testament to its ineffectiveness. Granted, the rate was only 0.02% at the time, so it's possible that a higher rate (e.g. 0.05) would have made a difference, but it's worth noting nonetheless,
• Even after the rate was increased to 0.04-0.06, a 1934 study by the US Treasury found that it was ineffective in raising revenue, and that "the tax probably has little to justify it." Additionally, they concluded that even at those higher rates, "it probably does not check the kind of speculative activity -- the reckless, foolish activity -- deplored by those who would like to use the tax for this end."
• It was eventually repealed.

My biggest concern isn't the (potential) overall economic impact, especially considering the effects would be relatively small and disproportionately felt by the upper class. In fact, there is a significant benefit in discouraging high-frequency and speculative trading. It's the $160mil vs $8mil part that troubles me, with the connection being that Bernie is similarly overestimating the probable revenue. This same pattern has been reflected in those aforementioned past attempts at a transfer tax, including the one by the US. Same deal with the history of failing to substantially discourage speculative trading.

 

[MikeDawg]

Currently: Pete buttigieg reiterating what I've been saying for the last 2 pages and getting applause.

 

[MikeDawg]

Kamala Harris won this debate. CMV.

Edit:

What was that about people not liking her, GatoDelFuego ?

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Kamala absolutely won today's debate. The first votes in the primary aren't for seven months. By then, the only thing in this debate anyone is going to remember is Kamala annihilating Joe Biden for refusing to apologize for his opposition to desegregation. Rankings for this debate are pretty clear IMO:

1. Kamala
2-9. ???
10. Biden

As far as the other candidates go, Bernie did fine but blew the racism question. Hickenlooper is just a reply guy on Bernie's Twitter feed. Buttigieg is a good debater even though I think he's an absolute human slimeball. Gillibrand was unmemorable. Yang knows his policy but treated this debate like high school debate club when it's really high school drama club. Marianne Williamson is really cool and talked about two things (reparations for slavery and the US' history in Latin America) that nobody else wants to touch with a ten foot pole.

 

[MikeDawg]

Marianne Williamson is my hero, and she is the only one talking about the biggest issue at hand: New Zealand needs to learn their place!

Honestly if it were between her and Biden or Bernie at this point, I'd probably vote for her.

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

I dont give a shit about debate takes. I just want to see the poll numbers.

 

[Myzozoa]

i paid $20 to see mike gravel take down biden and now when harris does it apparently it's this huge achievement. big spectacle imo, as an actual rich person with a 100k degrees and never met a loan, i didn't realize what i consider to be entertainment is some ppl's idea of qualification. In any case, harris looks good for taking down cheeto so thats something, and she may even actually be good for public education, but honestly getting excited about career neolib politicians bleeding their hearts out over a social program (busing) that maybe they'll consider not cutting if they're allowed to post cops to the bus or something doesn't give me a lot of hope as someone from a family of LA lawyers. she is also terrible on foreign policy and likely to just be another neolib that lulls the rich self-styled progressives to sleep in preparation for a competent imperialist regime to plunder the middle east some more to get the rest of oil needed to finish of our planet's ecology. politics is just a job to these ppl.