Election 2020

[gcstomp]

For what it is worth, I support Mayor Pete. Anyone who listens to him can tell he is bright and is really trying to answer questions posed to him sincerely and without canned responses.

Bernie, who I also support, he comes off as very programmed, I can almost do his speech, and his responses, as he uses the same rhetoric. But he believes in helping the 99% earnestly, not just as a soundbite ploy.

You want sharp, listen to Harris, who I also support, she is a no nonsense sharp fact based speaker who will eviscerate Trump one on one.

Unlike Warren, who I support, picture as having some difficulty one on one on the big stage, but I appreciate she has the most developed policies developed on her website for everything you can think of. Of course if it is not clear, I support every one of the D candidates, as measured vs Trump, they are comparing a wanna be fascist who has circled the wagons of justice dept to so blatantly stonewall and personally protect him. We have a bunch of great candidates and focus should be on getting Trump out, literally anyone else on the public stage is a step up.

[GwynnInTheHall]

"Since about 52% of U.S. households have a retirement account, according to the Federal Reserve, more than double the 22% of households with student debt, Mr. Sanders' plan could end up taxing half the country to forgive debt held by less than a quarter of Americans."
https://www.investmentnews.com/artic...ay-off-student

Thank you sir.

[Teenwolf]

Jumping to white supremacy seems quite the leap. I know no one likes the practical answer but if the tapes were made illegally and the city released them they would open themselves up to law suits from those now former cops. This article says as much

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/officers-again-will-try-to-block-south-bend-police-tapes/article_7d05f43f-339b-59eb-b083-4a2d6d7479e6.amp.html

“The administration has refused to turn over the tapes unless a judge rules they weren’t made illegally”

He’s probably trying not to bankrupt the city even if that choice would be more popular with a lot of people.

As a point of clarification, I'm not making any leap to white supremacy. I view white supremacy as the status quo. His support of the status quo has been damaging to his community. But I'm not making any special claim of racist intent on his part, merely the effects of his inaction.

[In the Corn]

I wish I could write this well: https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...on-2020-227215

Trump’s numbers are unmovable, but yours are not. He doesn’t need to win this thing; he needs for you to lose it. There are millions of swing voters who regard Trump as an abomination but might vote for him again if they think you are scarier, more extreme, dangerous, or just annoyingly out of touch.

And, you have some experience at this, don’t you?

Despite the favorable poll numbers and the triumphalism in your blue bubble, you’ve already made a solid start at guaranteeing another four years of Trumpism. Last week’s pile-on of Joe Biden was a good example of how you might eat your own over the next 16 months.

This is very much where I am at, and I agree is a great warning for Democrats.

[revo]

Question. Bernie's plan taxes each individual transaction. For retirement plans, the hit would be extremely minimal. The real losers would be wall street high-volume traders, right?

No. Retirement plans, of which I assume you're talking about 401ks, must use mutual funds and/or Exchange Traded funds. Variable annuities, individually sold through insurance companies for retirement, also use mutual funds as their securities to invest. A mutual fund or ETF is a collectively pooled account consisting of a large basket of stocks or bonds. Each fund/ETF charges an "expense ratio" to cover trading expenses, salaries, and the general cost of doing business and keeping the lights on. This expense ratio is a percentage of the assets invested in the fund. Actively managed funds charge higher expenses than passively managed funds, and in addition to just buying and selling shares to get returns to beat a benchmark index, these funds also have to buy and sell securities every day just to sell more shares or make redemptions. A typical actively managed mutual fund may have an expense ratio of 1.00%-1.25% which gets charged to the consumer. If there's suddenly a 0.05% tax on EVERY trade they make -- buy or sell -- and if a typical fund makes literally tens of thousands of trades a year, you would see fund expense ratios double, maybe even triple. Actively managed mutual funds would see their expense ratio jump to 2.0%-3.0%, at least. Annuities, 4%-5%. Even passively managed funds, like the Vanguard S&P 500 Index, which has to make hundreds of trades a day just to sell or redeem shares, would also see their expenses jump (passive funds usually have an expense ratio of 0.03%-0.50%).

Additionally, in a bond market with falling interest rates, you might see expense ratios start to erode the already low potential return. What good is an Ultra Short Bond Fund, designed to return 1%-2%, if expenses will now eat up half of that return, or more?

Obviously, it's the consumer -- the retirement plan participant -- who are paying this tax, and not Wall Street. Bernie's plan would literally drive mutual funds out of business. It would also catastrophically destroy the annuities market, because current holders of annuities already were "guaranteed" a monthly return which is a percentage of their assets, but if there's now a tax that affects the underlying mutual funds, that guaranteed return would need to be lowered. So someone who holds an annuity and is receiving 5.6% of their account per year as a payout for life, would see that payout forcibly lowered since the insurance company's expenses just got dramatically higher.

In addition, it would cause traders to buy and hold rather than be active, so liquidity in the markets would dry up.

Lastly, if Bernie did get elected with this proposal behind him, Trump would be right -- the stock market would collapse!

[revo]

I wish I could write this well: https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...on-2020-227215



This is very much where I am at, and I agree is a great warning for Democrats.

Good article, which is basically saying "make sure to vote for a Centrist (i.e. Biden)."

[GwynnInTheHall]

Good article, which is basically saying "make sure to vote for a Centrist (i.e. Biden)."

And not surprisingly I disagree.

Trump won last election why?

Because the far left abandoned the centrist vote.

The far left democrats might not vote centrist even if it means 4 more years of Trump.

However....

Centrist Democrats WILL vote farther to the left to defeat Trump.

My perspective is, beating Trump is easy--Vote in unity and the only way to do that is follow the progressives, not the centrists.

Again, I'm not advocating one platform over the other because right now, there aren't enough planks out there to make a qualified decision yet.

I'm saying the only way to guarantee the Party votes as one is to move to the left.

Should a united Democratic party vote for the Dem Nominee, it doesn't matter if everyone who voted Trump votes for him again. He'll lose.

[revo]

And not surprisingly I disagree.

Trump won last election why?

Because the far left abandoned the centrist vote.

The far left democrats might not vote centrist even if it means 4 more years of Trump.

However....

Centrist Democrats WILL vote farther to the left to defeat Trump.

My perspective is, beating Trump is easy--Vote in unity and the only way to do that is follow the progressives, not the centrists.

Again, I'm not advocating one platform over the other because right now, there aren't enough planks out there to make a qualified decision yet.

I'm saying the only way to guarantee the Party votes as one is to move to the left.

Should a united Democratic party vote for the Dem Nominee, it doesn't matter if everyone who voted Trump votes for him again. He'll lose.

I'm just saying the article is saying that focusing too much on any far left issue (reparations, ending private health insurance, etc.) will lead to another Trump win.

You're saying "vote in unity" but also saying far left democrats won't do that, even at a substantial cost. And you're probably not wrong, which is sad.

[GwynnInTheHall]

I'm just saying the article is saying that focusing too much on any far left issue (reparations, ending private health insurance, etc.) will lead to another Trump win.

You're saying "vote in unity" but also saying far left democrats won't do that, even at a substantial cost. And you're probably not wrong, which is sad.

I agree it is sad, but for many reasons not just the obvious 'we should row in the same direction' argument.

Thing is, the far left sees the status quo and the broken system as much of a threat (or very close) as another Trump term. Centrists only see Trump as the issue so it's far easier for the center to move than the left.

[frae]

As a point of clarification, I'm not making any leap to white supremacy. I view white supremacy as the status quo. His support of the status quo has been damaging to his community. But I'm not making any special claim of racist intent on his part, merely the effects of his inaction.

No the mayor of a small town none of us would know if Norte Dame football wasn’t played there has not fixed institutionalized racism in America, but to me he remains thoughtful, intelligent, and someone I am interested in. Everything anyone has called for he hasn’t really been legally able to do. He doesn’t have the authority to fire officers. If the tape was made illegally he can’t reasonably make it public record unless a court does. He got between two bad choices with Dawkins. Fire a black police chief or see the FBI indict him. To me none of this makes him unworthy of my consideration and the fact that he took the responsibility for this makes me respect him as a leader.

I’m mostly going to avoid tearing Democrats down in the primaries and I’ll watch with an open mind. Yes I’ve said to me Sanders and Biden are too old but I can find common ground with both.

[Steve 2.0]

No the mayor of a small town none of us would know if Norte Dame football wasn’t played there has not fixed institutionalized racism in America, but to me he remains thoughtful, intelligent, and someone I am interested in. Everything anyone has called for he hasn’t really been legally able to do. He doesn’t have the authority to fire officers. If the tape was made illegally he can’t reasonably make it public record unless a court does. He got between two bad choices with Dawkins. Fire a black police chief or see the FBI indict him. To me none of this makes him unworthy of my consideration and the fact that he took the responsibility for this makes me respect him as a leader.

I’m mostly going to avoid tearing Democrats down in the primaries and I’ll watch with an open mind. Yes I’ve said to me Sanders and Biden are too old but I can find common ground with both.

I'm voting for frae.

[frae]

I'm voting for frae.

Start up a super pac and I won’t tell you what to do with the money

[Steve 2.0]

Start up a super pac and I won’t tell you what to do with the money

There's already $1.73 in the super pac!!! Should I print flyers? Oh....wait....you can't tell me what to do with the $. Guess I'll dig in the couch and see if I can find enough to go with the $1.37 to buy a burger.

[TranaGreg]

There's already $1.73 in the super pac!!! Should I print flyers? Oh....wait....you can't tell me what to do with the $. Guess I'll dig in the couch and see if I can find enough to go with the $1.37 to buy a burger.

frae, your super pac value just went from $1.73 to $1.37, losing over 20% in a nanosecond ... I think there's corruption in your administration ...

[frae]

frae, your super pac value just went from $1.73 to $1.37, losing over 20% in a nanosecond ... I think there's corruption in your administration ...

I can’t tell my super pac how to invest their funds, this poor money management cannot be tied to me or my campaign.