Bernie Sanders at his best

[iruinedyourday]

Hehe thx poke

[sOurDieSel]

Gosh Orruar, don't you know that liberals are hypocrites that don't have to follow their own rules they make up out of thin air?

Don't you disagree with iruinedurday! or he will cry to sirken and 'shut this thread down' if you don't stroke bernie the way he wants.

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by sOurDieSel [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Gosh Orruar, don't you know that liberals are hypocrites that don't have to follow their own rules they make up out of thin air?

Don't you disagree with iruinedurday! or he will cry to sirken and 'shut this thread down' if you don't stroke bernie the way he wants.

Don't you DARE ruin his safe space like this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQkXXBqj_U

[iruinedyourday]

hey hey, lets try to turn this thread around.

look first of all, all the examples you gave of me being a dick, are examples from me reacting to you after YOU started attacking me out of nowhere.

Second off I was PO'd because not only were you attacking me, but you made the mistake in the conversation, and you still attacked me.

That said Im over it and dont want to turn this into an endless thread where we just attack each other personally over and over page after page.

Ill just have to assume that everyone here thinks the other person they're spending all this time writing posts to communicate with, are complete and total fucking retards. SO WERE GOING TO MAKE SOME REAL PROGRESS HERE EH!?

Anyway, yea... enjoy you're guys's "debates", where you all hate each other and have zero respect for anyone each others e opinion... You'r opinion, orraur I have respected and even tried to understand when it was the polar opposite of mine.

Anyway as usual the liberal here is going to try to be the bigger man and I will apologize if you think I attacked you in the past and or if you think I am an asshole. I have a low tolerance for ignorance which is why rand/sour get so much flack from me.

[Raev]

It's just incredible to watch you blame the failures of government on the free market. I'm going to take 20 minutes out of my day to explain 'carry trading' to you. A carry trade works like this:

• Borrow 100 million in JPY from a Japanese bank using 5 million in collateral
• Use money to buy US dollars and then US stocks (or bonds, or EM securities, or whatever)
• Watch asset go up because everyone else is doing the same thing
• Sell stocks/bonds for 125 million. Buy back devalued yen for 75 million. (USDJPY has gone from 75 to 120+ over the past three years)
• Make 50 million profit on a 5 million investment, or 1000% nearly risk free over a few years

Or, let's say you don't like carry trading. You're the CEO of Alcoa. You decide you like money. So:

• You borrow 1 billion from a bank at 0.25%
• You buy back 10% of your stock.
• Suddenly your earnings divided by net capitalization are 10% higher
• Share prices rise, and you cash in your stock options for 20 million

The 0.1% have been making money hand over fist because of government controlled central bank free money. Even if all you do is buy SPY/QQQ, you just made 150% on your investment over the past 5 years, taxed at 20% capital gains. The poorest 20% don't benefit from this, because they are too poor to invest in stocks and bonds. If the central banks stopped printing, none of this would be happening.

How exactly do you consider this to be 'unrestricted capitalism' ?

[Lune]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's just incredible to watch you blame the failures of government on the free market. I'm going to take 20 minutes out of my day to explain 'carry trading' to you. A carry trade works like this:

• Borrow 100 million in JPY from a Japanese bank using 5 million in collateral
• Use money to buy US dollars and then US stocks (or bonds, or EM securities, or whatever)
• Watch asset go up because everyone else is doing the same thing
• Sell stocks/bonds for 125 million. Buy back devalued yen for 75 million. (USDJPY has gone from 75 to 120+ over the past three years)
• Make 50 million profit on a 5 million investment, or 1000% nearly risk free over a few years

Or, let's say you don't like carry trading. You're the CEO of Alcoa. You decide you like money. So:

• You borrow 1 billion from a bank at 0.25%
• You buy back 10% of your stock.
• Suddenly your earnings divided by net capitalization are 10% higher
• Share prices rise, and you cash in your stock options for 20 million

The 0.1% have been making money hand over fist because of government controlled central bank free money. Even if all you do is buy SPY/QQQ, you just made 150% on your investment over the past 5 years, taxed at 20% capital gains. The poorest 20% don't benefit from this, because they are too poor to invest in stocks and bonds. If the central banks stopped printing, none of this would be happening.

How exactly do you consider this to be 'unrestricted capitalism' ?

Yep, you've found one way in which financial institutions use non free-market mechanisms to make money. Many more exist, and it's beside the point. Government and the elite have colluded in many ways to precipitate this situation. That's what you get when political representation can be bought with money.

Let's look at this from premises to conclusions:

Premise 1: The more capital you have, the easier it is to get more.

Premise 2: The free market has no mechanism to prevent wealth from becoming concentrated in the hands of the most successful individuals or organizations.

Conclusion: The free market can't save the middle class from the current situation, because it can only remove barriers associated with premises #1 and #2.

Which of these is wrong? The concentration of wealth is a universal constant in human history, and it's one of the realities of capitalism. It is only New Deal type socialist institutions, and the labor movement toward unions, that have only slightly countered this during the last 100 years or so. Now those institutions are failing. The labor movement is almost nonexistent in the US. The government primarily serves the economic elite. I'm not focusing on how it became this way, but how we fix it. What aspect of free market economics do you believe has the capacity to effect redistribution?

Why is it that countries with strong labor movements and more socialist governments aren't having their middle and lower classes plundered like we are?

[Raev]

Originally Posted by Lune

The rules of 'fairness' and the 'free market' dictate that everything that is happening right now is okay . . . . Yep, you've found one way in which financial institutions use non free-market mechanisms to make money.

I think we can both agree that the elites on their government <-> big business carousel are the problem here. So how is this an indictment of the nonexistent free market and not our political system?

Originally Posted by Lune

Premise 2: The free market has no mechanism to prevent wealth from becoming concentrated in the hands of the most successful individuals or organizations.

This is just wrong, for two reasons. First, capital needs land and labor to be effective. Warren Buffet's 50 billion can't grow unless he hires other people to run the trains, design the new products, and so on. Second, capitalism involves wealth creation. This isn't the Feudal era where land was the only resource and to get rich you either had to steal it or inherit it. When you found a successful company, you make money, possibly a lot of money, and there is nothing the established elite can do to stop you. And new companies often involve a lot of creative destruction (think Kodak, Blackberry, etc).

I remember being taught in school about how the New Deal lifted us out of the depression. And yet, the Great Depression lasted for 7 years after the New Deal began. That is what I call failure. On the other hand, free market policies stopped the Great Depression of the 1920s in its tracks and lead to renewed prosperity.

Socialistic governments with 'strong labor' are in fact disasters all over the place: Southern Europe has youth unemployment of 40%. Venezuela is a disaster where you can't buy a pack of sardines and a taxi ride to the beach requires 100$ US at the current exchange rate. Denmark is in the midst of a massive housing bubble (Copenhagen housing prices have increased 50% over the past 3 years due to NIRP). Germany is about to take on 1 million Syrian immigrants. I'm sure that will work out well for them.

[iruinedyourday]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Socialistic governments with 'strong labor' are in fact disasters all over the place: Southern Europe has youth unemployment of 40%. Venezuela is a disaster where you can't buy a pack of sardines and a taxi ride to the beach requires 100$ US at the current exchange rate. Denmark is in the midst of a massive housing bubble (Copenhagen housing prices have increased 50% over the past 3 years due to NIRP). Germany is about to take on 1 million Syrian immigrants. I'm sure that will work out well for them.

Yea bout you are just comparing countries that have corrupt governments. If you look at nations that have good governments the socialist movements there flourish, the economy booms and the people are happy.

its like looking at a homeless person, who also happens to disagree with you, and then saying that he's homeless because he disagree's with you.

As far as Denmark, the results of that bubble will yet to be seen. If you think that Denmark is unique form all problems because its got the 3rd happiest people on earth (http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/...ntries-of-2015) you're making a slight exaggeration. Denmark isn't perfect, but its a perfect example of what socialism can do for the overall society.

As far as Germany, whether they were socialists capitalists or pretty much anything but fascists, the influx of immigrants from the crisis in Syria would still happen. So again, you cant use that as an example about why socialism is bad

In fact, you haven't shared one example of socialism being the central cause of any one problem (and Im not talking about communism). However you have shared many reasons why a free market driven political system has been the central cause of problems here in the USA.

So its pretty clear that one of these systems is a disaster, while the other one isn't.

Hell we've given 30+ years to republicans, Id say its time that we admit that conservative policies just don't make a country better off than progressive ones. There is just too much ideology in conservative policies.

[Pokesan]

what's a special interest group. i always hear about how bad they are but never more than that. who should we eat?

[ronasch]

Originally Posted by Pokesan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

what's a special interest group. i always hear about how bad they are but never more than that. who should we eat?

Let's start with the enviro nazi's the Sierra Club. Who have given Demoncrats millions of dollars in campaign contributions to promote Global Scamming, I mean warming