Trump has shifted the status quo toward xenophobia, racism, and celebrating inequality, and that will only get worse in a second term. — Relativist

Also, not to nit-pick, but Trump didn't do shit. He's been enabled by a political system and an electorate that's been shafted for so many years that they are mostly motivated by anger and fear. He's the wrong man at the wrong time but he's not the one driving a fundamental change; US politics was already there.

And Bernie isn't going to change anything about it. But his political base might if they realise that winning or losing isn't the end of the fight. He seems to be the only candidate that has such a politically motivated base at this time.

You make a terrible risk manager. You run that risk regardless of who runs against Trump.

If anybody else than Bernie runs, it's 100% certain the status quo will remain what it is. If Bernie runs, even if it were more likely that he would lose to Trump, there's still a good chance Bernie will win. Let's call that chance x%.

That means there's a (100-x)% chance the status quo will change in the opposite direction.

A risk-based approach means Bernie is the only viable candidate.

The Chairman of the Fed and the Secrerary of the Treasury were attempting to avoid a massive economic collapse following the failure of financial services companies. — frank

True and by all accounts they succeeded but at what cost in the long run? And I'm not talking about the immediate financial burden carried by tax payers for this specific bailout but because we know this will happen again and again. The moral hazard, e.g. the risks banks are willing to take because they will be bailed out, remains the same or has even increased. A typical "first as tragedy then as farce" and the farcical nature of these bailouts will only increase over time.

We've already seen (just in the US):

1. Franklin National Bank failing in 1964;
2. First Pennsulvania Bank failing in 1980;
3. Contintental Illinois Bank failing in 1984 (too big to fail mentioned for the first time);
4. Bank of New England failing in 1991;
5. the national banking crsis of the 80s (1600 banks failed and 1300 savings and loan banks);

The thing is Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers followed the same patterns where assets grew at incredible rates funded by short-term borrowing (with ridiculous maturity mismatch as a result).

Same pattern but different market circumstances exacerbated the failures in 2008. Money market funds provided better returns from the 80s onwards than those available on savings accounts, because those were set by the Fed at the time, so the set rate was rescinded. The growth of those funds fueled demand for short-term corporate commercial paper, which lowered the long term revolving lines of credits existing between banks and corporates.

Junk bonds started to finance M&A and longterm borrowing needs for corporates, further lowering income for the traditional banking model.

Add to that the various asset-backed securitisation and the role of banks changed from ultimate lender to an intermediary making money from loan origination fees, underwriting fees (for securitasation) and lona-servicing fees. Banks thought they had no risk on poor quality loans except, of ourse, that the riskier loans generated higher fees and were more profitable.

The increased competition of capital markets to provide funding as opposed to banks resulted in the slow but steady repeal or easing of various aspects of the Glass-Steagall act. During the 80s, banks were allowed to enter the following more riskier businesses:

- to own retail brokerage subsidiaries;
- to own and trade in a holding company proprietary account any form of equity, debt, or derivative security;
- to underwrite municipal securities; and to underwrite corporate securities.

The result: only a small percentage of income originates from loans to US corporates and instead investment banking, prop trading, morgtage and loan origination and processsing fees drive profits for banks. The banking model changed.

Then there's the derivatives business they entered into and in particular the Credit Default Swap (CDS), that were sold as "insurance". But it isn't insurance. If you buy insurance, you can only insure the event once and the insurance will only pay out actual loss and give insurance only to a person who has an insurable interest. The insurance has an obligation to only insure amounts for which it has sufficient reserves to cover estimated probabilities of loss. Anybody can buy a CDS (no insurable interest needed), the person writing the CDS has no limit on how much it can write (no reserves to cover estimated losses) and it can be more than the underlying value of expected loss. So at it's peak the CDS market was 60 trillion USD; 10 times the size of the value of default.

Add to the above the extraordinary consolidation of the past three decades and the incredibly increase in banking assets. In 1995 the combined assets of the six largest banks equaled 20% of US GDP, in 2009 that was more than 60%.

It is a fantastical notion to expect that having once pulled poorly run, systemically threatened firms out of the fire, government won’t do it again, no matter how many times and how loudly it says it won’t. — Richard Fisher, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

And the reason for these consolidations was not because bigger banks make better banks but because of the greater profitability for too-big-to-fail banks due to the implicit government guarantee. This reduces borrowing rates by 78 bps on average, which saved the 18 largest banks about 34 billion USD a year. (See: The Value of the “Too Big to Fail” Big Bank Subsidy)

It doesn't benefit consumers. It doesn't benefit tax payers. It does benefit stockholders and bank executives. So yeah, "socialism for the rich" seems a pretty good shorthand for the above. But no matter, that is probably just semantics. I think we can agree, leaving aside the term socialism, that some did the deciding (politicians, lobby groups & executives) but others did the risking (tax payers).

All things made possible by the system. Getting rid of Trump may get rid of a particular excess but this is happening continually in the US at various levels of government. The abuse of power and corruption I mean.

The US needs not only a political shift but a cultural one as well and that's not going to happen with another status quo candidate. You'll still be in Trumpland if the measure of your political worth is "not-Trump". If that happens, the baseline for acceptable behaviour in office throughout the country will be "slightly better than Trump". If you're aiming that low nothing will change.

Formally it was the Fed. That's because they have a responsibility for the stable operation of capital markets and payment systems (I'm assuming the Dutch central Bank and Fed share the same responsibilities). Nevertheless, we also know the big banks were continually in talks with the Fed. That's how they forced the acquisition of Merrill Lynch on Bank of America. And we can be certain the lobby machine was whispering in senators' ears to get the Troubled Asset Relief Program passed. Not that those 700 billion were the real bail out.

Even so, you're both right and wrong. The Fed and banks didn't do anything else than what they informally agreed on. Who asked for the bail out was a formality.

He's an actual billionaire instead of pretending to be one?

There's no flaw in the reasoning, you're working with the wrong premisse. Trump isn't the problem, he's a symptom.

I think what I enjoy the most about Sanders is that it is about his ideas, which was also the case for Warren, and not "can this guy beat Trump". I'm sick and tired of the lowest bar having to be met as being a viable option for a President. If politics devolves into running for President because you're more popular than the other guy instead of at least some policy issues, you might as well get it over with and implement an autocracy and enjoy your bread and games. Or in that case the NFL, MBA or NBA and nachos or something.

Once again, only half the story. Plenty of European countries that have less strong unions do use minimum wage laws and they are also considered socially democratic.

Denmark and Sweden have very strong unions with high membership and the collective employment agreements contain minimum wages that are binding on all employees regardless of union membership. Companies cannot go around these unions. So even these countries have effective minimum wages they simply come about in a different way.

Denmark does have minimum wage laws for foreign employees.

US centrism is always so much fun.

It's an INTERNATIONAL conspiracy man! ALL the European and Asian universities are in on it too! Damn conspirational experts with their Internet and stuff coordinating all this and STILL nobody can find proof of the stuff I see, which if why I know climate change is a HOAX. The MSM are in on it too! Everywhere! There's not a newspaper in sight that doesn't peddle climate change fantasies. You need to read up on some real news on BREITBART.

They took our jobs!

They're going to take our guns!

Civil war! Semper fi!

:rofl:

Try a dictionary if my meaning and my earlier point escaped you.

Even worse than the decrepit logic and unnecessary rhetorical flourishes is pretending you don't do it on purpose.

False dichotomy.

Sorry, I was being cheeky and tried to illustrate what the logical conclusion would be of polarisation.

awesome. You've got my vote.

It's again a mischaracterisation. Bismarck was being pragmatic. He implemented single payer health care to appease the working class and lower the influence of the social democratic party of Germany. But it was the socialists that came up with the idea.

Context matters.

"a little"... Yes, a total mischaracterisation. Proof to me that the work a senator does is very little work and in particular in Sanders' case as apparently you have intimate knowledge of it.

You don't need a good grasp to understand that this

A little activism, a little voting in the senate. He certainly has enough experience making a living off the tax-payer dollar, but not much else. — NOS4A2

is a mischaracterisation. Why don't you prove this is the case with your apparent in depth understanding of what senators do, which level of knowledge you expect from others?

I PM'ed to avoid cluttering the thread.

You can always just shoot the other side and be done with. Might be a good solution for a lot of things really. Every 50 years we divide in two camps based on ideology and one of them gets to shoot the other based on a flip of the coin. We can have a debt jubilee afterwards. Good times will be had by (half of) all!

but there was never the option never to play the game in the first place — schopenhauer1

That goes without saying. Only actual existing people have options.

Some ideas:

Promoting carbon farming
Isolating older buildings, particularly in poor neighbourhood
Carbon tax to internalise costs that are now externalised

First off, Xtrix didn't say that, he said this particular administration exacerbates the problem of global warming due to its policies. Second, I reacted to Nobeernolife claim that doing everything in his power wouldn't make a difference. So in short: whut?

For starters, the US doing 100% of what it originally promised, it would make about 15% difference. The problem with these kind of issues is normally that nobody wants to be a first mover afraid of making more costs than others. The USA, however, is in the interesting position that if it moves others will follow.

Second, locally it makes sense as well as it will lower pollution significantly if you move to alternative fuel sources and improve air quality (particularly due to reduced particulates). Investing in energy saving measures is even better as it will result in long term benefits freeing up resources (both money and fossil fuels) for other uses.

Missing the point as usual. Your criterion was ridiculous.

From a non-American perspective, Bernie Sanders is the only candidate I've seen in a long while that doesn't make the impression of being utterly corrupt. Perhaps that's why, despite his popularity, he's met with so much resistance. — Tzeentch

This and since we're not constrained by the ridiculous inward-focused MSM in the USA we're actually aware of different possibilities for social and political organisation. Sanders is broadening the political landscape allowing for more diverse views to be at least debated and discussed. That at the very least is progress.

Yeah, let's put a construction worker into power!

Your reply has no bearing on the point I was making except as to serve as an example why the US legal system cannot be trusted to judge based on law.

Since the blocking by Congress of Obama's appointment I've had a closer look at the US system. Since then I've been advising clients not to apply US law and jurisdictions any more. It was then compounded with the Kavanaugh appointment. Now this.

The law doesn't change based on the judge sitting the case and the principles of interpretation and construction have been so often discussed that this is relatively well documented (in fact, the UK Supreme Court is fed up with them and is not likely to accept a case about construction and interpretation any time soon). The fact people nowadays find it so important means there's an issue with US courts that goes beyond the correct application of law, e.g. judges beholden to political interests because they have to "thank" their position to politicians.

Old. Ancient really.

It's not a scenario but an analogy. Did the risk increase or not?

Not a single person took Stone’s post as an incitement to violence but those who thought he put a crosshairs above her head, including the judge. They are idiots, and they prove they have “worse judgement” than anyone else. — NOS4A2

Sigh. Are you having problems with logic here? Why the hell should we wait until someone actually would use violence? That would be too late wouldn't it?

If a lot of people interpret his post as having crosshairs and they express that publicly then it is an observable fact that the post may incite violence as people have expressed that they think it could communicate a violent message. The "idiots" in your view were the people saying they were crosshairs. This is not an interpretation by the judge but by people in the public. The judge observes the reaction of the public to the post and can tell a significant number of them think it was a violent message.

Let's move all the players into a bar and pretend you're the judge. Stone calls you corrupt, an Obama stooge and Hillary shill. In the bar there's people who really like Stone and agree with that assessment. They don't like you. There are also people that are impartial and some that really don't like Stone. The people who like Stone have been looking angrily at you all night. He posts that picture with your face on it. Someone remarks "hey, that really looks like a crosshair!" Some of the threatening looking people say "Yeah, it kind of does!"

Did the risk of someone punching you in the face increase or decrease compared to before the post?

Exactly. And between het full gag order and the post it was proved the US is full of idiots, which Stone (considering his profession) knew or should've known, hence it was entirely rational.

Seriously? Stone posts a picture. Then a lot of people interpret it as a threat. The judge concludes after that media fallout that someone with worse judgment could take action because of it and she thinks Stone should've known better. This is entirely reasonable.

Or are you know pretending only people on the left could've interpreted it this way because that would be patently ridiculous.

But that's not her stating Stone threatened her but that it could lead to threats to the judiciary and that there was nothing accidental about his choice in imagery.

EDIT: Even if it was accidental, he should've known better that it could be interpreted as or give rise to threats as people's reactions to the post proved. "Who will rid me of this meddle some priest?"

Stone deleted that picture and reposted it without the crosshairs and then deleted that too. I can't find where the judge stated she saw it as a threat. She did think it gave her reason to review the limited gag order that was in place. And that isn't so weird if you have such a dust storm of reactions to a post by him as you want to avoid jurors are influenced.

Yup. Moderate Democrats should take the long game view in this. If Bernie wins in the short term and he's "too left" for their taste, they have a chance to forward a more moderate candidate after 4 or 8 years, without damaging their own credibility. It's not as if the USA is going to turn Communist or even socially liberal (in the European sense) during Bernie's presidency. The "danger", as they see it, that Sanders poses to the American way of life is totally neglible. Meanwhile, he actually may do some good.

One of the issues that has bipartisan support from voters.

Definitely. Easiest if you'd qualify as a highly skilled migrant and get a job in the Netherlands. After five years you could apply for naturalisation. You're highly skilled if:

• you earn more than 29,149 EUR if you're 30 years or younger and have a masters degree or equivalent
• you earn more than EUR 38,347 if you're above 30 years (no degree required
• you do scientific research in the Netherlands

That also gives you a nice 30% reduction in taxes for five years.

Enjoy: naturalisation

@SittinWSocratesTiff that's also for you! :kiss:

EDIT: aren't you British Punshhh? I think you can still move here before the end of the year. If you're employed I doubt the Dutchies will kick you out on the 1st of January 2021.

Piffle. If you ain't Dutch you ain't much. The Netherlands is already the greatest country in the world despite our politicians being corruptish.

thanks for the summary. All I remember from high school was doing tests in chemistry that reduced local entropy at the cost of a shit load of energy.