Money in Politics - Does it cause undue influence?

[patches70]

OK, now this is a bit ridiculous, give him a chance for rebuttal now and then

*throws a rotten tomato*

Ok, I'll stop, Bernie Sanders is a Congressman, there is no end to the amount of jokes that can be thrown at him.

[subtleknifewield]

OK, now this is a bit ridiculous, give him a chance for rebuttal now and then

*throws a rotten tomato*

Ok, I'll stop, Bernie Sanders is a Congressman, there is no end to the amount of jokes that can be thrown at him.

Lol, I know, almost seems unfair

[Bernie Sanders]

OK, now this is a bit ridiculous, give him a chance for rebuttal now and then

*throws a rotten tomato*

Ok, I'll stop, Bernie Sanders is a Congressman, there is no end to the amount of jokes that can be thrown at him.

Lol, I know, almost seems unfair

Can not debate against nonsense, patches declared winner. Congrats!

[Bernie Sanders]

My apologies, keep on checking the different subjects here in the forum, no need to NOT have fun.

For my fellow Republicans some entertainment.

[degaston]

Can not debate against nonsense ...

Isn't that going to be a requirement for whoever wins Democratic nomination?

[jimboston]

Yes.

[Phatscotty]

It is not supposed to be about super PACS collecting huge amounts of money from the wealthiest people in the country having more power over the candidate’s campaign that the candidate himself or herself.

No one is forcing people to vote for that candidate. If people elect someone who they are well aware is a shill for oligarchical interests then we must presume they are okay with having a shill in charge.

Money does not win elections. Votes win elections. That's democracy, Bernie. Suck it up.

Seriously, you actually believe that??? You don't think money has any influence on elections?

money influences politicians, and that is never EVER going to change.

[subtleknifewield]

It is not supposed to be about super PACS collecting huge amounts of money from the wealthiest people in the country having more power over the candidate’s campaign that the candidate himself or herself.

No one is forcing people to vote for that candidate. If people elect someone who they are well aware is a shill for oligarchical interests then we must presume they are okay with having a shill in charge.

Money does not win elections. Votes win elections. That's democracy, Bernie. Suck it up.

Seriously, you actually believe that??? You don't think money has any influence on elections?

money influences politicians, and that is never EVER going to change.

Money influences a lot more than politicians...but yes, this is a true fact that you have stated XD

[Phatscotty]

It's pretty simple really. True Lefties believe they can create heaven on earth in America. They don't know it, but their heaven is populated with horrors. The evidence is all right there in the 20th century, but they haven't seen it with their own eyes. So their utopia is always just within reach and just a matter of making new laws with a Socialist generation indoctrinated through the public education system to follow them. This is all based on 'how the way things should be', and they deal with the reality that many people have a different version of 'the way things should be', and the Socialists just need to root out those 'backwards/living in the past' ideas by breaking down Americanism, replacing values, and destroying principles, and then replacing them with 'what they think is best' for everyone else.

And because many/most of them do not even acknowledge their own soul, or that it is filled with poisonous hatred, they have reached fundamentalist zealot status and elevated Leftism to the level of official religion, rife with the very same dogma and denial they think they have risen above.

[jimboston]

It's pretty simple really. True Lefties believe they can create heaven on earth in America. They don't know it, but their heaven is populated with horrors. The evidence is all right there in the 20th century, but they haven't seen it with their own eyes. So their utopia is always just within reach and just a matter of making new laws with a Socialist generation indoctrinated through the public education system to follow them. This is all based on 'how the way things should be', and they deal with the reality that many people have a different version of 'the way things should be', and the Socialists just need to root out those 'backwards/living in the past' ideas by breaking down Americanism, replacing values, and destroying principles, and then replacing them with 'what they think is best' for everyone else.

And because many/most of them do not even acknowledge their own soul, or that it is filled with poisonous hatred, they have reached fundamentalist zealot status and elevated Leftism to the level of official religion, rife with the very same dogma and denial they think they have risen above.

Wot he said!

[tzor]

It's pretty simple really. True Lefties believe they can create heaven on earth in America.

I've been thinking about this recently. Clearly the ideas of progressive Utopian thinkers is doomed from the start. But is it possible (at least in the short term)? Clearly top down fails completely, but what about bottom up? What about a spontaneous desire to do good for others? It's sort of like getting people to whitewash your fence for you ...



At first glance it sounds like a con job, but it really is a question of motivation. You present a vision to the people and the people respond. We had two presidents like this, Reagan is a clear and obvious inspirational president but Kennedy was also a similar motivator.

And now that we are in the 21st century, this is insanely easy. My neighbor was passing our orange ribbons (apparently orange is the color for children with cancer) for a boy who recently relapsed in a very serious cancer. She gave us the "go fund me" page to help the child's family. They are half way towards their $50,000 goal. Yes that's right, word of mouth raised $25,000. I work my ass off to get my council's golf outing for a quarter of what they have already raised.

Yes it can be done.

[Phatscotty]

sign me up! I hope to at least learn karate in the process

[Bernie Sanders]

It's pretty simple really. True Lefties believe they can create heaven on earth in America. They don't know it, but their heaven is populated with horrors. The evidence is all right there in the 20th century, but they haven't seen it with their own eyes. So their utopia is always just within reach and just a matter of making new laws with a Socialist generation indoctrinated through the public education system to follow them. This is all based on 'how the way things should be', and they deal with the reality that many people have a different version of 'the way things should be', and the Socialists just need to root out those 'backwards/living in the past' ideas by breaking down Americanism, replacing values, and destroying principles, and then replacing them with 'what they think is best' for everyone else.

And because many/most of them do not even acknowledge their own soul, or that it is filled with poisonous hatred, they have reached fundamentalist zealot status and elevated Leftism to the level of official religion, rife with the very same dogma and denial they think they have risen above.

Typical conservative shrill noises we are use to hearing from those who actual think trickle down economics work. President George W. Bush left a deep financial crisis and economic collapse on President Barack Obama’s doorstep, he presided over two terms of laissez-faire supply-side policies that yielded the weakest expansion in recent U.S. economic history, marked by tepid job growth, weak private investment, stagnant family incomes, and a host of other ills that mounting housing and financial bubbles helped partially obscure.

[Phatscotty]

It's pretty simple really. True Lefties believe they can create heaven on earth in America. They don't know it, but their heaven is populated with horrors. The evidence is all right there in the 20th century, but they haven't seen it with their own eyes. So their utopia is always just within reach and just a matter of making new laws with a Socialist generation indoctrinated through the public education system to follow them. This is all based on 'how the way things should be', and they deal with the reality that many people have a different version of 'the way things should be', and the Socialists just need to root out those 'backwards/living in the past' ideas by breaking down Americanism, replacing values, and destroying principles, and then replacing them with 'what they think is best' for everyone else.

And because many/most of them do not even acknowledge their own soul, or that it is filled with poisonous hatred, they have reached fundamentalist zealot status and elevated Leftism to the level of official religion, rife with the very same dogma and denial they think they have risen above.

Typical conservative shrill noises we are use to hearing from those who actual think trickle down economics work. President George W. Bush left a deep financial crisis and economic collapse on President Barack Obama’s doorstep, he presided over two terms of laissez-faire supply-side policies that yielded the weakest expansion in recent U.S. economic history, marked by tepid job growth, weak private investment, stagnant family incomes, and a host of other ills that mounting housing and financial bubbles helped partially obscure.

actually, the 'noise' here is
- trickle down economics
- President Bush
- Financial crisis
- Economic collapse
- laissez-faire
- supply side
'...in economic history'

These noises in your reply have absolutely nothing to do with anything related to the post you responded to
That's what makes them noises here, but many might be thinking they are noises because we heard the same sounds from you yesterday, the day before, the day before... and so on.

[tzor]

Typical conservative shrill noises we are use to hearing from those who actual think trickle down economics work. President George W. Bush left a deep financial crisis and economic collapse on President Barack Obama’s doorstep, he presided over two terms of laissez-faire supply-side policies that yielded the weakest expansion in recent U.S. economic history, marked by tepid job growth, weak private investment, stagnant family incomes, and a host of other ills that mounting housing and financial bubbles helped partially obscure.

First of all, Bernie, "Trickle Down" was a term used to described Reagan's policies, which was also laved "Voodoo Economics" by the father of G. W. Bush, G. H.W. Bush so since the apple doesn't fall far from the tree means you can hardly described Dubya's economic policies as "Trickle Down." Bush's policies were those of the Republican Establishment, bland pastel colors that generally does shit.

But wait a second ... this wasn't Bush's fault. Sure, he didn't make it any better, but it's not his fault. Whose fault was it? Well let's ask U.S.News

Repeal of Glass-Steagall Caused the Financial Crisis

The oldest propaganda technique is to repeat a lie emphatically and often until it is taken for the truth. Something like this is going on now with regard to banks and the financial crisis. The big bank boosters and analysts who should know better are repeating the falsehood that repeal of Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with the Panic of 2008.

In fact, the financial crisis might not have happened at all but for the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall law that separated commercial and investment banking for seven decades. If there is any hope of avoiding another meltdown, it's critical to understand why Glass-Steagall repeal helped to cause the crisis. Without a return to something like Glass-Steagall, another greater catastrophe is just a matter of time.

CLINTON WAS THE PROBLEM - CLINTON IS THE PROBLEM - STAY FOCUSED BERNIE.

And don't forget ... The great John F. Kennedy advocated the very same idea of tax cuts to stimulate the economy as Reagan. Both were the targets of assassins (the later survived the former did not). But don't worry Bernie, Everyone knows you would never support a TAX CUT.

[patches70]

Tzor, you are not remembering why Glass-Steagall was repealed.

During Clinton's term there was the push to "get every American owning their own home". A nice social justice cause. The problem is that not everyone should own a home. To get a home to own, one has to get a mortgage (lets ignore for the moment that anyone who has a mortgage doesn't really "own" their home yet, the bank does).

The politicians had to figure out a way to get banks to give loans to people that couldn't or wouldn't actually qualify for homes, remember, politicians were promising that they would fix it so that virtually anyone could get a home. The banks of course raised bloody hell, before G-S was repealed if banks didn't give enough low income families/people loans, they got reported and sanctioned. Banks had to give a certain percentage of loans that were at best risky.

The compromise is the repeal of G-S. Banks could give non qualifying risky loans to low income people and then the banks could just bundle up those loans and sell them as securities. When that's done, whomever purchases those securities then assumes the risk for those securities. After that, banks don't mind giving loans to people then have a good idea can't pay back because the banks could just unload those loans to unsuspecting purchasers of those bundled securities which they now could because G-S was repealed.

This isn't just Clinton's fault, it's not the bank's fault either. The real fault is trying to achieve an unattainable and frankly foolish goal to allow everyone to own a home. The only way it could even be attempted was to repeal G-S. The consequences were obvious and we all know how it ended. The real crime was the ratings agencies who labeled those bundled securities as triple A and such, that was actually pure fraud.

The government wanted to force banks to give risky loans for the purpose of some supposedly noble goal. The banks said hell no so the government repealed G-S and said "will that help?" and the banks, being rational actors that they are, said "Oh yeah, that'll help" and what followed was a natural progression, unintended consequences some would say but in hindsight those consequences were obvious.

It all starts when some white knight social justice politician who has no real idea who things work starts saying "I believe that every American should own a home and if elected I'm going to make sure that happens!"
As much as I despise banks, this was the fault of a government policy that was stupid trying to make something happen that was naive at best, delusional most likely and criminal when the ratings agencies falsified their ratings.


As to Bernie's "trickle down tirade", he is looking at the wrong trickle down. Trickle down economics is giving the rich more money that will end up "trickling down" to everyone else and Bush Jr's tax cuts, the brainwashed version of trickle down economics (and Reagan's etc etc), Bush Jr's tax cuts were about $80 billion over one year. This Bernie objects to, but the Progressive version of trickle down economics is the exact same thing but to a massive degree that makes Bush Jr's tax cuts mere peanuts.

To fix the economy we have the Fed engaging in QE. The Fed bought $85 billion in securities every single month for years! Holy shit now that's some trickle down economics. That's literally free money given to Wall Street, the progressive plan to fix the economy, sound familiar? And that's just one aspect of one program.

Lets do some more trickling.

The Fed buys debt from the government (the same government that has $1 trillion a year in deficit spending every year remember, deficit spending is yet another version of trickle down economics mind you) but the Fed can't buy that debt directly. They have to go through Wall Street firms. Wall Street has middle manned at least $1.4 trillion in government securities. That is literally more free money for Wall Street. How's that for some trickling down?

Let's do some more trickling.

When Bernie was out fist pumping because the progressives enacted a %3 tax increase on the rich, the Fed bought $1.2 trillion in mortgage backed securities (TARP). That is $1.2 trillion made out to Wall Street.

Then you have the artificially low interest rates which makes it cheaper for banks to lend to each other, cheaper for banks to lend commercially, makes it cheaper for corporations to borrow money and makes everyone put their money into the stock market because that's the only place people can get a return on their money.

Bernie Sanders and progressive's plan to fix the economy is a multi trillion dollar stock and bond stimulus plan and who does that benefit? The top ten percent richest in the nation owns 90% of the stocks and bonds. This is the real trickle down, taxes are nothing compared to this version trickle down economics.

So, anyone can see that Bernie Sanders, Obama, the democrats engage in trickle down economics that is gigantically bigger than the trickle down plans of Reagan and the Bushes that they love to complain about.

Talk about hypocrisy.

And you know what? All it does is inflate the stock market. The market is at highs again and the politicians smile and say the economy is fixed while Joe Shmoe public keeps spending more and more of his dwindling pay check to buy food and energy. Bernie Sander's plan is to double down some more trickling.

[Bernie Sanders]

Yes, my conservative friends blame Clinton, not the Wall Street Banks.

Reality check:

Wall Street Banks devised a new way of makng money and it was called the derivative market. Get as many loans as possible, whether they are income verified or not. Bundle all these loans as AAA rated securities and sell them all over the globe. Next bet against these securities and make more money off them, knowing they will blow up.

Yes blame Clinton, blame Democrats, and the ordinary American worker. Blame liberals, blacks and other lazy people for American decline. Let's not think of blaming the rich and powerful for the greatest recession since the Great Depression.

Ha-the Wall Street Bankers got a free pass out of jail for destroying the lives of millions. Fucking Clinton, he should of been hanged for his policies.

God bless W. Bush and Reagan! They always have looked out for the ordinary American!

[Bernie Sanders]

Let us wage a moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders, on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America.

[patches70]

Oh Bernie, always missing the point. The whole thing was a comedy of error that began when someone said "things oughta be like this!" without even considering reality.

Keep living in your dream world, Bernie. Your dream world would turn into a nightmare for everyone else. Not that you'd care.

[Bernie Sanders]

Oh Bernie, always missing the point. The whole thing was a comedy of error that began when someone said "things oughta be like this!" without even considering reality.

Keep living in your dream world, Bernie. Your dream world would turn into a nightmare for everyone else. Not that you'd care.

Is this a response to my posts? Not sure of your point, pretty sure you don't either.

How about this, formulate a thought and type it out and proof read to see if it has any merit. Really patches, you just sound like you have an axe to grind.

[Metsfanmax]

Oh Bernie, always missing the point. The whole thing was a comedy of error that began when someone said "things oughta be like this!" without even considering reality.

Keep living in your dream world, Bernie. Your dream world would turn into a nightmare for everyone else. Not that you'd care.

Is this a response to my posts? Not sure of your point, pretty sure you don't either.

How about this, formulate a thought and type it out and proof read to see if it has any merit. Really patches, you just sound like you have an axe to grind.

...he does have an axe to grind. He makes basically the same point every time he posts.

[mrswdk]

Let us wage a moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders, on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America.

You mean, the policies that tens of millions of Americans voted for and continue to vote for.

[tzor]

Wall Street Banks devised a new way of makng money and it was called the derivative market. Get as many loans as possible, whether they are income verified or not. Bundle all these loans as AAA rated securities and sell them all over the globe. Next bet against these securities and make more money off them, knowing they will blow up.

First of all, I would never trust a major bank (or any major institution) as far as I could throw them (from a legal standpoint, you understand) but in this case it was the Government that created the hot potatoes and the banks merely devised a clever scheme to hide those hot potatoes so they weren't obvious.

Now I'm going to tell you a story. Once upon a time (I believe it was 1990 to be precise) I was working as a contractor for Century 21 (owned by Met Life) in Manhattan, working on some C code that determined Loan Prequalification. So I know a little bit about loans back in 1990. (It's like Cthulhu; don't stare or you will go mad.) Banks were exceptionally cheep in determining who they would loan money to; if you couldn't qualify you might have been able to look for a Fannie or Freddie loan, which was far easier to get than a standard bank loan.

It was government that forced banks to make crap loans. Banks responded by devising ways to hide those crap loans which involved taking the derivative market (it was always there, by the way) into the "unexplored territory." They were confident that when the shit hit the fan that the government would bail them out and they were absolutely correct.

This is one of the problems of government. HEY BERNIE ... want to know of a current example?

Up until recently, the Federal Government was going around telling people and local governments where they could not build ... all that environmental crap (I love the environment but when government starts confusing puddles with actual aquatic environments I have a major problem) prevented development.

Well, welcome the "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing" rule. Want to place a bet that HUD is going to force local governments to build on locations that the EPA had previously prevented construction on?

Want to place a bet that local environmental conditions could be seriously impacted as a result?

That's how government works (or rather doesn't work). If I could make one argument for voting Republican, it is this. The "left leaning" mainstream media only does it's job of revealing the problems with government when there is a Republican in charge, so assuming that both parties equally suck, government is better regulated when those vile Republicans are in power. The only real difference between Bush and Obama is that the mainstream media constantly kept the former in check and constantly had tingles up their legs when the later did the exact same thing as the former.

And all of this by politicians who have a "D" as their political affiliation?