Current 2016 Election Thoughts.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

What are your thoughts on the current election and its status?

[magicattack]

We are all in big trouble.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

We agree there. Lol.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Bernie Sanders seems to be getting mentioned a lot. Don't know why people think socialism will fix more socialism. Our candidates are bad but when a person admits he's bad news you'd figure people would learn.

Many of the things he says are pretty close to communist and he has had many communist ties.

www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2266

The 12 point plans are Marxist talking points that have been used time and time again, largely by Obama.

www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/an-economic-agenda-for-am_b_6249022.html

1. We need a major investment to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure: roads, bridges, water systems, waste water plants, airports, railroads and schools. It has been estimated that the cost of the Bush-Cheney Iraq War, a war we should never have waged, will total $3 trillion by the time the last veteran receives needed care. A $1 trillion investment in infrastructure could create 13 million decent paying jobs and make this country more efficient and productive. We need to invest in infrastructure, not more war.

2. The United States must lead the world in reversing climate change and make certain that this planet is habitable for our children and grandchildren. We must transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energies. Millions of homes and buildings need to be weatherized, our transportation system needs to be energy efficient and we need to greatly accelerate the progress we are already seeing in wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and other forms of sustainable energy. Transforming our energy system will not only protect the environment, it will create good paying jobs.

3. We need to develop new economic models to increase job creation and productivity. Instead of giving huge tax breaks to corporations which ship our jobs to China and other low-wage countries, we need to provide assistance to workers who want to purchase their own businesses by establishing worker-owned cooperatives. Study after study shows that when workers have an ownership stake in the businesses they work for, productivity goes up, absenteeism goes down and employees are much more satisfied with their jobs.

4. Union workers who are able to collectively bargain for higher wages and benefits earn substantially more than non-union workers. Today, corporate opposition to union organizing makes it extremely difficult for workers to join a union. We need legislation which makes it clear that when a majority of workers sign cards in support of a union, they can form a union.

5. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. No one in this country who works 40 hours a week should live in poverty.

6. Women workers today earn 78 percent of what their male counterparts make. We need pay equity in our country -- equal pay for equal work.

7. Since 2001 we have lost more than 60,000 factories in this country, and more than 4.9 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs. We must end our disastrous trade policies (NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China, etc.) which enable corporate America to shut down plants in this country and move to China and other low-wage countries. We need to end the race to the bottom and develop trade policies which demand that American corporations create jobs here, and not abroad.

8. In today's highly competitive global economy, millions of Americans are unable to afford the higher education they need in order to get good-paying jobs. Further, with both parents now often at work, most working-class families can't locate the high-quality and affordable child care they need for their kids. Quality education in America, from child care to higher education, must be affordable for all. Without a high-quality and affordable educational system, we will be unable to compete globally and our standard of living will continue to decline.

9. The function of banking is to facilitate the flow of capital into productive and job-creating activities. Financial institutions cannot be an island unto themselves, standing as huge profit centers outside of the real economy. Today, six huge Wall Street financial institutions have assets equivalent to 61 percent of our gross domestic product - over $9.8 trillion. These institutions underwrite more than half the mortgages in this country and more than two-thirds of the credit cards. The greed, recklessness and illegal behavior of major Wall Street firms plunged this country into the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. They are too powerful to be reformed. They must be broken up.

10. The United States must join the rest of the industrialized world and recognize that health care is a right of all, and not a privilege. Despite the fact that more than 40 million Americans have no health insurance, we spend almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation. We need to establish a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system.

11. Millions of seniors live in poverty and we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country. We must strengthen the social safety net, not weaken it. Instead of cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and nutrition programs, we should be expanding these programs.

12. At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, we need a progressive tax system in this country which is based on ability to pay. It is not acceptable that major profitable corporations have paid nothing in federal income taxes, and that corporate CEOs in this country often enjoy an effective tax rate which is lower than their secretaries. It is absurd that we lose over $100 billion a year in revenue because corporations and the wealthy stash their cash in offshore tax havens around the world. The time is long overdue for real tax reform.


The government cannot "invest" in society and fix things with central planning, republican or democrat. It doesn't work.

[JACK-2]

Opinion on trump?

[magicattack]

1. A lot of that does need to be rebuilt, but will Sanders be like Obama and do nothing positive about any of that for his entire 8 years in office?

2. I think everyone wants the world to be a better, more cleaner place, no? It would be nice to get rid of pollution. Is anyone actually lobying for more pollution? This one is just filler.

3. A bit of misinformation here. I don't feel like going down the lengthy discussion. If anyone truly feels that corporations are given an actual tax break for moving a company so that Americans lose jobs please post a link so that I can see the law.

4. If a company doesn't want to have a union workforce but the employees feel the need to unionize, I don't see why one entity should get special treatment over the other. 

5. If someone feels that they aren't making enough then they are free to seek better employment elsewhere. It truly makes no sense to force employers to pay wages that are unrealistic for the employees current skill level.

6. Total fabrication. It's already against the law.

7. This one is a double edged sword. We can't just start throwing taxes and tariffs on all imported goods just to save one factory. The system has gotten to this point and everyone is to blame.

8. It should be affordable for those that want it. The government got involved and then colleges saw dollar signs, and now education is horribly expensive.

9. If wall street is that far gone, then its the governments fault. This wasn't the first financial crisis caused by wall street. It wasn't the second. It wasn't the third. Do I need to go on? There are greedy people in power on both sides, and we don't know how much money exchanges hands illegally. But sometimes I agree with China's methods. Some of the ceos of the chinese banks that had some fuzzy bookkeeping just plain disappeared.

10. Everyonr is supposed to have health coverage now. The prices didn't go down.

11. There is zero reason that social security or a veterans pension should not receive a COLA, but the members of Congress do. That is just plain disrespectful. 

12. If everyone paid their fare share then it would be easier on all of us.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Trump is likely what we're going to have. Overall he seems like a big republican type. I agree wit some of the stuff he says and I like his honesty and his approach as I believe in being blunt as you know. Don't like him scapegoating illegals for what is a government problem.


This is an overall problem with big government. They make problems and then hold themselves out for the solution when things were already fine.

The college thing is like the housing thing. You subsidize it and guarantee these loans and the demand goes to basically infinite. The prices will spiral out of control and that's what happened with tuitons. They've gone up way higher than inflation just like healthcare costs have.

If I subsidized and made them guaranteed Toyota Camrys then everybody would buy it and I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up spiking to $100k per car. The government's idea of "affording" something is not market based. They want to spike the price and then give loans which drive people into debt servitude. Especially bad since you can't dismiss them in bankruptcy.

Tack on the brainwashing that "we all need to go to college" and people have basically pushed their kids into it; thinking it was guaranteed success. Keeping your costs low and being productive would be far better.

I have a friend who racked up over $100k and didn't even finish. His parents are footing the bill, good luck saving for retirement. They're paying over $1.5k a month. That's more than their mortgage.


Congress just needs to get off the trough and their free ride. This is a big problem. This should be a service not some free ride.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Donald Trump says he wants to kill the families of terrorists?

www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10828770/trump-terrorist-family-appeal

Do you think this will alienate some people?

[JACK-2]

So, what do you think about the wall he wants Mexico to build and his view on illegal immigration in general?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jan 26, 2016 5:50:38 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

So, what do you think about the wall he wants Mexico to build and his view on illegal immigration in general?

What do you think about it overall? I want to hear your point of view on it as I can't remember you mentioning much on it before.

[JACK-2]

Well, it seems to me that democrats want porous borders because they want a third world voting block that will vote for stuff like Welfare and higher taxes. Most of these people come from hellhole countries and often favor policies that made their countries crap in the first place.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jan 26, 2016 6:14:46 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

Well, it seems to me that democrats want porous borders because they want a third world voting block that will vote for stuff like Welfare and higher taxes. Most of these people come from hellhole countries and often favor policies that made their countries crap in the first place.

Democrats have a very monolithic voting block of minorities, women, and other "victim" groups.

This wouldn't be a problem if we didn't just let any incompetent person just vote. That said I don't like barriers being put in because they'll eventually use them to keep us out. They're already making it harder to leave.

Many Republicans like illegals because they work cheaper. Which Americans do want cheap products and many would rather collect government money than work. So the illegals get the job.

I have no problem with people being productive but I have a problem with people being a drain on society and collecting or voting to steal from productive members of society.

The problem is we still have welfare with republicans and warfare with democrats. There's a correlation as many of our worst laws were passed during war time when they could shove it through when they normally wouldn't be able to.

[JACK-2]

Alot of republicans tend to be okay with trampling on civil liberties to: "Fight the terrorist". So, things like Government spying and listening to phone calls is okay. Some people go further and argue that government manufactures terrorism to push draconian laws.

Either way, I don't want a wall and invasive security [Like at the airports]. But, I don't like illegal immigration.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jan 26, 2016 6:26:09 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

Alot of republicans tend to be okay with trampling on civil liberties to: "Fight the terrorist". So, things like Government spying and listening to phone calls is okay. Some people go further and argue that government manufactures terrorism to push draconian laws.

Either way, I don't want a wall and invasive security [Like at the airports]. But, I don't like illegal immigration.

Big government is big government.

America is full of people who immigrated. We're one big melting pot. The problem is being here legally was much more accessible for people as long as they were willing to work.

If a person is a legal citizen and they're in the income bracket of many illegals, they'd just get even more welfare.

If a person is working it isn't hurting the economy because they're being productive. I'd rather them be legal of course. Blaming everything on illegals is ridiculous because they aren't to blame for our problem.

[JACK-2]

What do you think about immigrants out breeding Americans and voting habits in general? Seems that's what they are worried about.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jan 26, 2016 6:41:41 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

What do you think about immigrants out breeding Americans and voting habits in general? Seems that's what they are worried about.

Lol the people complaining about the "white America" nonsense. Not saying you're doing this obviously, but I've heard this quite a bit.

This is not an illegal problem. We have problems with loser Americans who sit around and reproduce and vote for more. I don't want to give money to parasites and I don't care what color or nationality they are.

We have about 50 million Americans on food stamps.

The government spends more on disability than food stamps.

www.breitbart.com/big-government/2013/03/25/govt-spends-more-on-disability-than-food-stamps-and-welfare-combined/

The most common disability is "back pain" which we all have. How did all these people have these problems when Obama got in office? Did they all slip and fall?

Not to mention all of the inflation, all of the social security, etc.

We have plenty of people living off of the dole here. That's a far bigger problem than illegals working and being productive. If they were legal at their income level they'd take even more money.

We're the biggest debtor country ever.

Trump isn't going to fix any of this by scapegoating illegals.

[JACK-2]

So, you feel the real issue is welfare and lack of productivity? Trump is also a protectionist and not a free market guy. Alot of these guys are pro tariffs and want to force people into buying government colluded products.

[JACK-2]

More protectionism:



I normal agree with Elder, but not so much on this. The american work ethic is waaay waaay down. Too many people want to make a living with low wage jobs and too many people who don't like working. I never got this argument with republicans. What's the difference between protecting low wage jobs and minimum wage laws? They both require government to intervene and protect a group of people for economic realities of being an unskilled worker. If people don't want low skilled jobs being given to immigrants then boycott business's that do this as a policy. Don't call for government, but that would take will power [Most people won't boycott] and effort.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Jan 26, 2016 6:54:37 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

So, you feel the real issue is welfare and lack of productivity? Trump is also a protectionist and not a free market guy. Alot of these guys are pro tariffs and want to force people into buying government colluded products.

The welfare and lack of productivity are a symptom of too much government. They are big problems we must face and these guys want to just make more laws.

I have no problems with people being here legally at all. I just don't like them scapegoating. The reason those jobs are taken by the illegals is because Americans don't want them. They find it more lucrative to get welfare benefits than work at low pay.

This idea that getting rid of illegals will boom our economy when we're in tremendous debt with massive entitlements is just not real.

The only thing we'll get are higher prices which make it rougher on the poor. People already vote with their feet on this which is why the minimal wage is dumb. It puts people out of work. They can't get their first job so they're on welfare. This is why black unemployment is so high.

[magicattack]

Our choices are very bland, I'm not excited about any of them. I get a bit tired of all the constant bickering. It's like watching a children's program where brothers and sisters constantly fight with one another.

There is basically 5 real candidates left with a decent chance of getting their party's nomination. I'm not really sold on any of them.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

This appeals to the least common denominator so they do it. It's all smoke and mirrors.

I'm not fond of the choices either. So I guess we're just boned. Gotta pick the lesser evil again, at least we hope.

[JACK-2]

This is the worst election in American history. On one side you have a hardcore socialist: Bernie Sanders and the other you have Donald Trump. America's is finished, didn't take 20 years either. Damn, I need t get out before it gets really bad.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

All you have to do is promise "change" and people eat it up. Sounds like something a black guy promised about 8 years ago.

[magicattack]

I have said it before, and I will say it again. We aren't voting for the best candidate, we are voting for the least worst.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

That's our "democrazy" for ya. They've been getting increasingly worse over the years. Sad to say.

[misterlc]

Does anybody else find it a little too convenient that a billionaire that is not a career politician is running in this Clinton's campaign for the presidency? A similar situation helped Bill Clinton win his first presidential election. The republicans vote was divided and the democrats vote was concentrated. Is it possible that Trump is simply helping Hillary to secure the presidency?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Or it could be we have a bad system that was voted in by dopes. Ah well, we're stuck with it now.

[misterlc]

Agreed.