BernieforPres2016
BernieforPres2016's JournalAn eye opening stat relevant to Bernie's Medicare for all healthcare proposal
Again, from This Week with John Oliver (last night's episode):
52% of debt on credit reports (i.e. past due debts) is for medical bills.
We have 29 million people with no healthcare insurance, millions more with premiums and annual deductibles they are unable to afford, and every day people are driven into bankruptcy over medical bills they could never afford to pay.
A few statistics relevant to one of Bernie's major campaign issues, free tuition
to public colleges and universities:
- 7 of 10 students leave college with student debt
- Student debt is the most collectible debt there is; it is not dischargeable in bankruptcy
- Student debt is over $1 trillion, the 2nd largest category of debt in the U.S. behind mortgages, larger than auto and credit card loans
- Student debt has more than TRIPLED in the last 10 years
- 31% of student debt is from "for profit" universities, which account for only 13% of college students
- For profit universities cost 5-6 times as much as the average community college and twice as much as the average state university
- The average for profit university spends 20-25% of its revenue on marketing versus 10-20% on faculty
(Recall that Bill Clinton collected over $16 million for serving as the public face of Laureate University, a for profit university mainly outside of the U.S., for 5 years.)
This seems like something that is worthy of discussion to me. There is the morality of what this debt is doing to young people who are coming out of college with student debt that is out of line with what they are able to repay based on their income, particularly for those who attend for profit universities, most of whom don't graduate and get jobs in the field they studied. I believe it is virtually inevitable we are going to see a lot of this debt blow up in the next 10 years just like unsustainable mortgage debt blew up in 2008. Have we seen any talking heads on TV or print journalists talking about this issue in a substantive way during either the Democratic or Republican primaries?
The statistics above come from a 2014 "This Week with John Oliver." We are in a Presidential election year with all kinds of problems, news channels everywhere, and probably the best person in the media in terms of really digging into substantive issues and presenting them in an understandable way is a British comedian. Here's a link to Oliver's piece on student debt, which includes a nauseating example of just how despicable the marketing practices of for profit colleges can be.
Tweety just told de Blasio he needed to get a new joke writer
Tweety told him the CP joke didn't go too well. Of course Tweety just threw that out and moved on. Had it been Bernie and a surrogate doing that joke Tweety would be asking the surrogate why he did it, what they were thinking, should it cause Bernie to drop out of the race.
Even the New York Times is finally weighing on it about 24 hours later:
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/04/11/hillary-clinton-bill-de-blasio/
<New York magazine captured the exchange and asked “Does your wife, Chirlane, know about this joke?” referring to Mr. de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, who is African-American. Salon called the comedy skit “cringe worthy.” A headline in Gawker read “Hillary Clinton Tries to Prove She’s Not Racist with Awkward Joke About ‘Colored People Time.’”
The joke came just days after Bill Clinton clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters who accused him of advancing policies during his administration that hurt African-American communities. A day later, the former president said he “almost” wanted to apologize to the activists.>
On ending the hedge fund "carried interest" loophole
Hedge fund managers, many of whom make millions and even tens of millions annually, worked a loophole into the tax code called "carried interest" on which they pay a 15% maximum tax rate. This so called "carried interest" is the portion of their compensation that is for performance above a certain benchmark. In any other industry it would be called ordinary income.
Hillary mentioned during her NY Daily News interview that she said in 2007 that she was in favor of ending the carried interest loophole. I found out that she did advocate that, and so did candidate Obama. So why have we not heard President Obama push for that in the 7 plus years he's been in office, and is there any reason to think Hillary Clinton would make a serious effort to end it as President?
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/clinton-calls-for-end-to-carried-interest-tax-break/?_r=0
<Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday became the latest presidential candidate to announce her support for ending a tax treatment that has enabled some wealthy financiers to shave enormous amounts of money from their income tax bills.
In doing so, she is sure to get Wall Street’s attention. Chiefs of some of the biggest private equity firms, including Blackstone Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, have traveled to Washington in recent months in an effort to persuade lawmakers not to support legislation that would raise taxes for them and their firms.
Senator Clinton, speaking at a rally in New Hampshire, called for ending a “glaring inequity” that allows investment managers in certain partnerships to take large amounts of their compensation in the form of performance fees or “carried interest,” which is taxed at the 15 percent capital gains rate rather than at income tax rates as high as 35 percent.>
<Some of Ms. Clinton’s campaign donors are prominent figures from the private equity world, including Glenn Hutchins of Silver Lake Partners and Steven Rattner of Quadrangle.
Two other Democratic presidential hopefuls, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, have also called for taxing carried interest at regular income tax rates.>
Has anybody seen a transcript of Hillary's interview with the NY Daily News Editorial Board?
If so, could you post a link? I can't find it. I have found 3 relatively short articles but they said they talked with her for 80 minutes. They had Bernie's full transcript out immediately. At least one of the Hillary articles was put online 18 hours ago. There is even a link to Bernie's transcript in one the Hillary articles, but no mention of hers.
If they put a transcript out for Bernie they will do the same for Hillary, won't they? I want to get out my fine toothed comb and go through it.
Hillary & supporters have done a 180 on racial lines since 2008
The current meme is Bernie doesn't count because he's winning the whitest states. So white votes shouldn't count equally in 2016, while African American votes shouldn't have counted equally in 2008.
Here is Hillary race baiting during the 2008 campaign about "hard working Americans, white Americans" (so minority Americans aren't hard working, Hillary?) who were supporting her.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/08/clinton-touts-support-from-white-americans/
<In what appear to be the New York senator's most blunt comments to date regarding a racial division in the Democratic presidential race, Hillary Clinton suggested Wednesday that "White Americans" are increasingly turning away from Barack Obama’s candidacy.
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," Clinton said in an interview with USA TODAY.
Clinton cited an Associated Press poll "that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.>
One pattern from 2008 remains. Less educated voters support Hillary and more educated voters support her opponent.
Proof that Paul Krugman is a hypocrite and partisan political hack
Contrast his columns this year on Bernie Sanders with everything he says in this interview with Bill Moyers, where he agrees with every point made in a book by Thomas Picketty ((Capital in the 21st Century) about the power of the 1% and wealth inequality that could not be more in line with Bernie's positions. Try to explain how Krugman can say everything he says in this interview and not just support Hillary over Bernie, but trash Bernie in the process.
If Hillary supporters have a problem with mostly white states
Why don't they pressure her to stop taking money from Wall Street, which is not only overwhelmingly white but also overwhelmingly male? And not just in the senior ranks, but even in the incoming analyst classes.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/wall-streets-young-bankers-are-still-mostly-white-and-male/?_r=0
<Wall Street’s gender diversity problem is not confined to the top executives. Even at the entry level, investment bank employees are overwhelmingly men, according to a report by Vettery, a start-up recruiting firm.
In this year’s class of first-year bankers – known on Wall Street as analysts – 77.5 percent are men, Vettery found. That level was flat from 2013.>
<Vettery, which seeks to use technology for recruiting in fields like private equity, said it collected its data from its network of about 100,000 financial workers who have signed up for the site. It also used regulatory filings and social sites like LinkedIn to extrapolate the information. The company did not verify its findings with the banks.
Vettery also collected information about the ethnic diversity of young bankers and the schools they came from. Over all, 65 percent of this year’s class of analysts are white, while 29 percent are Asian. Just 6 percent of the analysts are black or Hispanic, Vettery found.>
Bernie issues new challenge to Hillary in Washington Square speech
I am listening to Bernie's speech in Washington Square which is still in progress. During this speech he issued a direct challenge to Hillary Clinton. He talked about the Social Security bill he has before Congress. Based on the current numbers, the Social Security Trust Fund has a surplus and Social Security as currently configured has a 19 year life.
Bernie has legislation in Congress that would increase benefits for the lowest income people on Social Security (under $16,000/yr) by about $1300 per year. It would also adjust the COLA to a formula that is based on the actual cost of living for seniors, unlike the general CPI which understates the impact of inflation in prescription drugs and healthcare. Bernie's legislation is also proposing that the cap on wages subject to Social Security taxes be lifted. If I understand what he said, the current cap which stops at $80,000 of annual income would stay in place for incomes from $80,000 to $250,000. For incomes above $250,000, Social Security taxes would resume and be on all wage income above that amount with no limit. This plan would not only allow Social Security benefits to increase for the lowest income people, but it would extend the life of Social Security from 19 to 58 years.
Bernie says Hillary has been very vague on Social Security. He challenged her to say yes or no as to whether or not she supports lifting the cap on income subject to Social Security tax.
One other thing that Bernie added to his speech today which I have been hoping he would mention in New York. After talking about the minimum wage increases to $15 that have taken place, including in New York, he talked about the New York increase didn't happen because the governor (Cuomo) woke up one day and decided that it should happen. He said it happens when the working people make the politicians an offer they can't refuse. And he said he thought it was ironic that the governor invited Hillary Clinton to the $15 minimum wage ceremony the other day when she thinks the minimum wage should be only $12 an hour.
Profile Information
Member since: Tue Feb 23, 2016, 03:28 PMNumber of posts: 3,017
