No. That would constitute a protest vote or blind faith in ideological purity, which is the only vote they've sought since Ralph Nader (meaning ever). If I voted Green I would join the party and either work to clean out their ranks so this is at the least brought back down to earth along with a more rigorous platform... or get kicked out of the party for spreading ideological impurity.
My money's on the latter. There's nothing a political fringe group hates more than the slightly different.
EDIT: At least on the left. The alt-right all seems like one big happy family. Never really noticed that distinction before.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
No. That would constitute a protest vote or blind faith in ideological purity, which is the only vote they've sought since Ralph Nader (meaning ever). If I voted Green I would join the party and either work to clean out their ranks so this is at the least brought back down to earth along with a more rigorous platform... or get kicked out of the party for spreading ideological impurity.
My money's on the latter. There's nothing a political fringe group hates more than the slightly different.
My bet is that I could get away with it on the local and possibly state level because of how little of the Green Party there is in terms of numbers, although yes, the latter still has the best odds. The reason I'd try anyway is intolerance towards slight differences is not all that different from the mainstream either. Republicans have that line (and will hopefully redraw it after the debacle Trump passes), and while Democrats are the most flexible of the bunch, I can say from being on the front lines of the Bernie campaign is that has its limits too.
And that's honestly the entire point of Parties and their platforms in the first place: sketch out what will and will not be tolerated, see who joins, and fight those who don't agree (sometimes the Party wins, sometimes the challenger wins). That last part may sound harsh, but to put that in perspective just take an extreme example: I'd want Democrats to fight tooth and nail to keep the KKK from influencing their platform.
The intensity of the fight is where other factors such as who's suggesting what and how important it is to either side starts coming into consideration.
EDIT: At least on the left. The alt-right all seems like one big happy family. Never really noticed that distinction before.
I doubt they will be that way for long. If Donald Trump's "waffle" on immigration and the reaction of self proclaimed alt-right commentators like Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin are any indication, the fringe right being one big happy family has terms and conditions as well.
Edit: No need to double post this, but in my continued following of Jill Stein's candidacy, she met with the Washington Post's editorial board this week before going to Baltimore to endorse and provide publicity to Mayor candidate Joshua Harris (who is honestly more important than Jill Stein because he could spark a stronger Green local ground game). Her interview both recorded and transcribed can be found here.
No. That would constitute a protest vote or blind faith in ideological purity, which is the only vote they've sought since Ralph Nader (meaning ever). If I voted Green I would join the party and either work to clean out their ranks so this is at the least brought back down to earth along with a more rigorous platform... or get kicked out of the party for spreading ideological impurity.
My money's on the latter. There's nothing a political fringe group hates more than the slightly different.
EDIT: At least on the left. The alt-right all seems like one big happy family. Never really noticed that distinction before.
At the end of the day, fringers gonna fringe. Crank magnetism is still very much a thing, which is why you can find antivaxers and other alties all over the place.
Enough with the extreme left and the extreme right. It's the extreme center (Think Third Way and No Labels.) that gives me the willies.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
At the end of the day, fringers gonna fringe. Crank magnetism is still very much a thing, which is why you can find antivaxers and other alties all over the place.
Yeah, woo tends to accumulate more woo. But the various subspecies of anarchist and communist and syndicalist all bicker constantly with each other. A paradox? Is hard-leftism some sort of polar opposite of woo, mutually repulsive rather than attractive?
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
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She went out to the Dakota pipeline over Labor Day weekend where the Sioux are protesting and now faces vandalism charges for spray painting bulldozers.
On the one hand, she should know better because as a third party candidate who syphons more votes from the "lesser of two evils" as she would put it, a lot of people are looking for an excuse to KO her from the race. At the least, this will put a dent into her campaign budget.
On the other hand, I've been reading what the company did to the protestors over the weekend, and I'm wondering where the criminal investigation is for them. If Dr. Stein is not going to get off the hook for what I would call criminal mischief, the people that pepper sprayed and let attack dogs loose on Native American protestors better not get a free pass, which is assault and battery at the very least.
She went out to the Dakota pipeline over Labor Day weekend where the Sioux are protesting and now faces vandalism charges for spray painting bulldozers.
On the one hand, she should know better because as a third party candidate who syphons more votes from the "lesser of two evils" as she would put it, a lot of people are looking for an excuse to KO her from the race. At the least, this will put a dent into her campaign budget.
On the other hand, I've been reading what the company did to the protestors over the weekend, and I'm wondering where the criminal investigation is for them. If Dr. Stein is not going to get off the hook for what I would call criminal mischief, the people that pepper sprayed and let attack dogs loose on Native American protestors better not get a free pass, which is assault and battery at the very least.
I'm kinda pissed off at her for "And I approve this message." This isn't the time to remind us you're voting for president (but have a snowball's chance in hell because the Green Party isn't on the ballot in enough states to win 270 even if all of them go Green).
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
She went out to the Dakota pipeline over Labor Day weekend where the Sioux are protesting and now faces vandalism charges for spray painting bulldozers.
On the one hand, she should know better because as a third party candidate who syphons more votes from the "lesser of two evils" as she would put it, a lot of people are looking for an excuse to KO her from the race. At the least, this will put a dent into her campaign budget.
On the other hand, I've been reading what the company did to the protestors over the weekend, and I'm wondering where the criminal investigation is for them. If Dr. Stein is not going to get off the hook for what I would call criminal mischief, the people that pepper sprayed and let attack dogs loose on Native American protestors better not get a free pass, which is assault and battery at the very least.
I'm kinda pissed off at her for "And I approve this message." This isn't the time to remind us you're voting for president (but have a snowball's chance in hell because the Green Party isn't on the ballot in enough states to win 270 even if all of them go Green).
Interesting, would you say more in regards to her message she's being charged with?
Also as an aside, Stein does have access to enough electoral college votes to win if she got enough votes.
According to her website (I'm on my phone so I can't link it at the moment), she's on the ballot in 44 states and DC, able to be written in on three states, and is awaiting approval from Rhode Island. She is ineligible in 3 states.
In terms of electoral college, she has on states approved that's 476 points, on write in states that's 41 points, Rhode Island is another 4, and unable to compete for 16 points, for total potential score of 518-522, RI pending.
She's not going to win, but it's not going to be because of ballot access at this moment.
Edit: If anyone is curious where I got the numbers, I took Jill Stein's Ballot Access map and then tinkered with this map to find out the specific numbers.
Jill Stein pissed me off this week. In an interview with POLITICO's Off Message Podcast (Audio/Transcript), there was one little thing she said that is unraveling even my backhanded support and sympathy towards her and the Green Party (and it's a bit of a shame since I'm *this* close to taking over the County chapter and could be within striking distance of the State by the end of 2017.)
STEIN: Well, put it this way. Under Donald Trump, you know, we've seen the foundation of the Republican Party move into the Democratic Party, so Donald Trump, I think, will have a lot of trouble moving things through Congress. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, won't. And, you know, you could say that Hillary--
THRUSH: You're absolutely right, by the way. STEIN: Yeah. Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage, get us into more wars, faster to pass her fracking disastrous climate program, much more easily than Donald Trump could do his.
So I think it's arguable about which one will wind up being more harmful to us. But what I am very convinced of is that we're not going to move forward unless we stand up. It is a race to the bottom between--
THRUSH: But wait--on the--
STEIN: --the greater and lesser evil.
THRUSH: Hold on one second. On the Trump thing, I just want you to play it out, just for--just to give me a little bit of color, and then we can move on. In terms of the corporatist stuff, do you think Trump sort of claims to be an iconoclastic, one-man band with his own money? Do you think--
STEIN: Oh, my God.
THRUSH: --do you think Trump is a corporatist--
STEIN: Well--
THRUSH: --do you think--
STEIN: Absolutely.
((Emphasis is mine))
Let me break this down real quick. Jill Stein in passing, casually dropped that she believes that Hillary Clinton would wreck Jill Stein's own progressive viewpoint much more than Donald Trump would. Where do I even start!
I know! First, Jill Stein is factually wrong regarding the Republican Party. The majority of the Republican base is not moving to Hillary Clinton. The moderate Republicans may be, but the systematic failure of #NeverTrump and continuing failure of the movement has shown by in large that there was not enough disdain for Trump to knock him out of the primary, remove him from his candidacy, or drawn enough support for either Gary Johnson or Evan McMullan (you probably won't and really shouldn't even care to check that I deliberately spelled his name wrong even though he has his own thread on the first page of this debate forum) to mount a liability for the Republican Party. Heck, Gary Johnson is Hillary Clinton's biggest 3rd Party liability, not Trump's. On top of that, Donald Trump may be a buffoon (her word), but I seriously, Seriously! doubt he will have trouble moving things through Congress because a victory for Trump more than likely means a victory for a down ballot that would range from complicit to actively trumpeting Donald Trump's agenda. And there is a long history of Republicans hating Hillary Clinton so, so much that I doubt they would even want to let a Clinton Presidency accomplish or continue even half of what Democrats have tried to accomplish under Obama.
Second, to put Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on equal footing and then declare that Hillary Clinton is more dangerous than Donald Trump based on a lie about the relation between Republicans and Democrats is to say that Donald Trump gets a pass on the racism/misogamy/xenophobia he has cultivated this election cycle. I personally think that Hillary Clinton is morally bankrupt and baggaged herself with unnecessary secrecy. It's why I flirt with the Green Party. There is nuanced takedowns of Hillary Clinton that I understand and believe to be true. But those are not for this post because what I do not pretend is that Hillary Clinton is more dangerous than Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton scolded white people for complacency in the death of Terrence Crutcher. Donald Trump was silent. Donald Trump in the past year has wanted to knock BlackLivesMatters protestors teeth in. Then there's the subject of women... I feel like everyone should know the differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton's attitudes towards women since they've gotten so much publicity. And even the environment! Jill Stein's pet issue! Hillary Clinton's approach to using fracking as a half measure to ween us towards a greener tomorrow is controversial and worth a long and serious discussion much like the one Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had in the primaries during the Flint debate. What Clinton's position is NOT! is the greater evil when compared to a man that wants to dissolve the EPA and let the oil industry be regulated by their own insiders all while expanding coal.
In conclusion, if Jill Stein sincerely thinks that a Trump presidency is the second most desirable outcome of this election (I assume and will allow her to think that her pulling out a miracle win is her best outcome of the election), then I am just going to call her callous disregard for the good in the mixed bag of the Democrats for what it is: bigoted. I will not vote for a bigot, and I will not take part in a political party that chooses bigotry when ideological purity is not met. Upon following up on the campaign, I found that there is more nuance to Jill Stein's statement. It's stupid thing Dr. Stein said, but it's not at least intentional on her part to ignore minorities. I am sorry Dr. Jill Stein.
If there's hope that someday I/some other Green faction of the Green Party could clean out this nonsense within the Green Party now embodied by Jill Stein, who knows the possibilities? Otherwise, to left-leaning independents seeking a political party that is not the Democrats, there is a relatively new political party growing called the Working Families Party (Likely code for: the future North American Labour Party). There's only about a half dozen states with political organizations right now, but at the least, it is a left leaning political organization who's working from the ground up through coalition politics rather than running a scorched earth presidential campaign every four years.
The weird fringes of the politic system are coming out of the woodwork this election, due to the right wing kind of self-destructing and the left being coated with a vague layer of sleaze. Honestly, neither the Greens nor the Libertarians seem any more qualified than Hillary or even Trump, given the cheesiness of their economics (seriously, quantitative easing on student loans? We are supposed to start paying off the easing we did in the Recession around now. Happy socialist noises do not pay off the national debt.)
If the debt was transfered from the people who had student loans to the government, there's probably a good chance the government would make out better in the long run.
Really? I think if we didn't create a massive, massive increase in government spending we'd be better off in the long run.
The debt exists either way; the government is hurt by a sluggish economy more than it's hurt by a bit more debt that it borrows from itself.
A bit more debt?
A bit more debt...
We are over $19,528,514,830,000 in debt. We were more than that number at the time of this writing, and as the debt increases at about $10,000 per second, we will be much more than that when you read this.
That's insane. We have risked defaulting on this debt before. Our credit rating has dropped because of this debt before. And that debt is only rising. Now you want to add the cost of paying for college for everyone in the country to that?
Why not just add the government giving everyone a golden toilet while you're at it? I mean, hell, at least that would create manufacturing jobs.
The way I see it, it'd be a one time payment as part of moving towards a debt free educational system; and that ultimately means also buying out the people who were screwed by the old system, not just helping the new guys. And yes. It's only a "bit" more. Governments aren't individuals and debt matters in different ways. If our debt is only costing us $10,000 a second, that's probably pretty good considering the size of the largest economy in the world.
No. Let's take the US debt of 19.5 trillion. And let's take the derivative of 10000/second = 315 billion per year. And let's assume that the second derivative is 0. (Hint: It's not.) Let's take the student loan debt of 1.4 trillion. The derivative on that is more than 2500/second, or 79 billion per year. Some comparisons:
Past student debt adds up to 6% of the government's current debt.
Government debt is rising at a rate of 1.6% per year, assuming a 0 second derivative.
Student debt is rising at a rate of 5.4% per year, assuming a 0 second derivative. If we add this rate on to the government debt, government debt derivative would increase to 2% per year, assuming a 0 second derivative.
Whether or not you add the future student debt in, numbers that are about 4 times our yearly debt increase are bad.
That said, that's thinking like a mathematician. Switching perspectives... It's not the worst idea. But the ramifications from ripple effects could be very bad. And what's to stop it from happening again in the future?
From what I've read about the limited information regarding Jill Stein's view on quantitative easing is that her idea of using quantitative easing on student debt shows that Jill Stein does not know how quantitative easing works *Note: Neither do I*, but Jill Stein is not that popular. If Jill Stein had managed to catch on in the #BernieOrBust and #DemExit actually happened at the end of July/beginning of August, then it would be great for more economists to explain and evaluate Jill Stein's proposal. This is so far the only thing I have found, and anyone else that I've seen to explain Dr. Stein's take on QE has referred back to that article and what's wrong with it. Although I did find this second read while doing a Google search for more intel on point 2.
There's a few reasons I've gleaned from reading this why QE won't do what Dr. Stein says it would:
1. Jill Stein's use of QE would actually not help as many people as she thinks it would. I can't find a specific Google link at this point, but I've read that her take on QE would only cancel the debt of students that completed college, which would not reach the students that were crushed out of school by their debt. I can't find a source right off the bat, so if someone can provide and/or evaluate this assertion, that would be great.
2. I noticed this one on my own, but it's also mentioned in the second article I posted above. QE'ing the current student debt would do nothing towards stemming the causes of college cost explosions. It just shifts the burden.
3. A President Jill Stein doesn't actually have the authority to authorize QE. She can ask the Federal Reserve to do it and stir public opinion, but that's a far cry from the authoritative stance she has presented on the campaign trail. Sure, presenting the public with the option to press the government for taking the debt away is not something to dismiss, but coupled with the above factors, there's a good chance that a serious scrutiny would thwart Jill Stein's plan altogether and deflate her call to arms. One thing to note is in the CNN Town Hall posted on this thread that shows Dr. Stein has an awareness of this, she quickly hand-waved away the fact QE wouldn't work in favor of a more generic, "If there's a will, there's a way" approach.
Edit: Jill Stein indirectly addressed my rant at the 32 minute mark of the Fusion Green Town Hall (not because she was at least directly asked by the moderators, the Town Hall was posted on Youtube the same day as the interview). It's... okay... at least better than what she said on POLITICO because she went into more detail about how Trump is a terrible human being that shouldn't be anywhere near the White House, but Jill goes on to point that Hillary Clinton is good at talking the talk, but walking the walk is not as clear cut to Clinton. It does not go towards what Clinton and the Democrat Party has done for other minorities, but it's a good enough answer that I take back and apologize to Dr. Jill Stein (should she ever find this thread) for calling her a bigot.
Edit 2: There is an error in where ever the uploader got the Fox Business Town Hall around the 30 minute mark. When I watched it, it took me a minute to realize that the buffing issue was not the video player but rather recorded onto the video (and as a result skipped part of the town hall.) I have yet to find a suitable replacement link without the buffing error in the recording.
Stein can barely get on the ballot. That's not easy, but it's a lot easier than sweeping reform. She's also under no scrutiny, while literally every stutter of Clinton's is blasted across the media as evidence she's dying. She also knows she can promise whatever she wants, because she'll never have to live up to it.
Stein's not a great or effective candidate. She just has nothing to lose.
Stein can barely get on the ballot. That's not easy, but it's a lot easier than sweeping reform. She's also under no scrutiny, while literally every stutter of Clinton's is blasted across the media as evidence she's dying. She also knows she can promise whatever she wants, because she'll never have to live up to it.
Stein's not a great or effective candidate. She just has nothing to lose.
Absolutely. The best thing for her right now is to simply garner attention.
It could write itself a $1,000,000,000,000 check tomorrow if it wanted to and it wouldn't matter because the money is already in circulation; that's what debt does, it increases the amount of money available to people in the system beyond what actually exists.
The government could, but it would matter. Making currency causes inflation.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
It could write itself a $1,000,000,000,000 check tomorrow if it wanted to and it wouldn't matter because the money is already in circulation; that's what debt does, it increases the amount of money available to people in the system beyond what actually exists.
I'm sorry, are you suggesting we devaluate our currency to pay off our debts?
1. The amount of money to pay off the debt is not in circulation. We don't have the kind of money to pay the debt just running around. We don't have anywhere close to that. As of 2013, the amount of money in circulation was about 1.2 trillion dollars (incidentally, that's about the amount of student debt the government is owed.) That's why we have a debt. We're spending more than our government takes in.
Moreover, money in circulation means people, companies, etc. have the money. It doesn't mean the government has it. It means people have it and are using it to make transactions.
2. The government does not owe itself all of that money. It owes other people, companies, and countries the money. The money comes from selling bonds. The government has to pay back those bonds with interest. That's how debt works.
3. The government cannot simply write a check for that much money, because we do not have that much money. If you write a check for more money than you have, the check bounces.
4. We could get that much money... By issuing treasury bonds. Which is how the government borrows money. Thereby increasing the debt.
5. Alternatively, we could devalue our currency, which is a terrible idea.
You seem to be under the impression that it's not, because devaluing our currency to such a massive degree is something you seem to think really won't have that much impact. Think about what your plan involves. Your plan involves flooding the market with dollars to make the dollar worth much, much less, and thereby making a 19.534 trillion dollar debt manageable.
Do you notice the problem? It's the part where you've decided to make the dollar worth much, much less.
So while you may have paid the budget in the short-term, you have utterly shafted yourself for the future. First of all, if you ever had to borrow again, which you will because our budget is too high and that's what happens when your budget is too high, you will have to borrow numerically more. And that's IF people loan you the money. And if they do, they're sure as hell not going to charge you the same interest rates. You think the US is going to have the same rating of reliability after pulling a fast one like that?
Moreover, you've effectively wrecked your currency's purchasing power, which means purchasing goods from abroad is going to be much more difficult because, yeah, the dollar is worth less than a 1/16 of what it was. So you've royally dicked over foreign trade.
Speaking of markets and foreign trade...
6. Do you really think our currency is going to continue to be be the global standard after such a stunt? Don't you think that might maybe have an effect?
7. Countries actually keep large reserves of dollars. We are the world's reserve country. If we were to stop being the global standard, you know, due to massively ******* the world's economy over recklessly and causing the dollar value to plummet like the stunt you're describing would do, we would stop being the world's reserve currency. Which means the countries that have dollars in reserve would immediately try to get rid of them to fill their reserves with a new currency, thereby flooding the market with even more dollars.
8. What you're talking about is currency manipulation, and you cannot, under international trade agreements, do that. See: China.
9.
That's actually exactly what economists suggest we do by having an inflation target of 2-3% a year. That's how the economy actually is supposed to work.
Well, sort of. The economy is supposed to inflate by 2-3% and there is supposed to be, likewise, a 2-3% increase in wages. But that's not what's been happening.
10. Inflation of 2-3% a year is not even remotely the same as writing a 19.534 trillion dollar check. You're talking about instantly flooding the world with over 16 times the amount of dollars than there are circulating. You're talking about the dollar being worth less than a sixteenth of what it was. No, this is not comparable to a slow, gradual increase. It's the exact opposite of that.
1. The amount of money to pay off the debt is not in circulation. We don't have the kind of money to pay the debt just running around. We don't have anywhere close to that. As of 2013, the amount of money in circulation was about 1.2 trillion dollars (incidentally, that's about the amount of student debt the government is owed.) That's why we have a debt. We're spending more than our government takes in.
I don't understand why the amount of money in circulation is relevant here. We spend, for example, $1.3 trillion on government pensions every year. If the amount of money in circulation were a limiting factor, how do we manage to pay those pensions?
I can't believe that I only just found out Jill Stein's sole governmental experience is as a member of the Lexington Town Meeting. She won her seat with about 500 votes, which was 1/5th of all votes cast in that entire election.
When Sarah Palin has a better resume'... That's astonishing to me. Naturally this is still more experience than Trump, but I doubt many people are waffling between Trump and Stein.
The 1 Trillion Dollar Coin is how you do this. The government can create money without taking out further debt; pay itself off, but keep that money within its system. If it doesn't change the rate at which it spends money outside of it's organization, the only change is that now people aren't sending in student loan payments.
QE, which resulted in an addition of $4.5 trillion into the shadow economy did not adjust inflation (.4% of Q). Since, the federal government now owns the loans, if it pays itself off using the 1 trillion dollar coin, but leaves that money in the shadow economy instead of introducing it, the only introduction of wealth into circulation will be the lack of student loan payments that need to be made each month. The average (per citizen) increase in to the circulation from this is only about $300 a month. Which, is more stimulative than the average tax credit, but not by orders of magnitude. We haven't introeduced $1 trillion into the economy, we've said that over the course of the loan terms we won't be taking $1 trillion out of the economy. So, the net effect on the economy is actually pretty low, over time the cumulative affect may be felt, but it won't drastically and suddenly devalue the dollar.
There's a stronger argument, for doing this though; and that's national solvency. Administering & managing the student loan debt costs $100 billion - $250 billion a year beyond what what the government makes off of the interest rates. That's new debt that it has to take on each year, and it's not going to go away. Over the course of ten years it's as damaging to our national debt as the bush tax cuts; and that's just the cost of having loans around minus the repayments. The government, if debt is your concern, is actually highly incentivized to figure out how to forgive or pay for the debt because it's ultimately going to cost the government more than the loans are worth if it doesn't figure out how to do this.
I think trading the bush tax cuts, for the wiping of a public and private debt that's easily similar in size is a good deal; and we can do it without any devaluation.
Alternatively, *gasp*, we could just raise taxes on the upper class and upper middle class.
EDIT: At least on the left. The alt-right all seems like one big happy family. Never really noticed that distinction before.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
My bet is that I could get away with it on the local and possibly state level because of how little of the Green Party there is in terms of numbers, although yes, the latter still has the best odds. The reason I'd try anyway is intolerance towards slight differences is not all that different from the mainstream either. Republicans have that line (and will hopefully redraw it after the debacle Trump passes), and while Democrats are the most flexible of the bunch, I can say from being on the front lines of the Bernie campaign is that has its limits too.
And that's honestly the entire point of Parties and their platforms in the first place: sketch out what will and will not be tolerated, see who joins, and fight those who don't agree (sometimes the Party wins, sometimes the challenger wins). That last part may sound harsh, but to put that in perspective just take an extreme example: I'd want Democrats to fight tooth and nail to keep the KKK from influencing their platform.
The intensity of the fight is where other factors such as who's suggesting what and how important it is to either side starts coming into consideration.
I doubt they will be that way for long. If Donald Trump's "waffle" on immigration and the reaction of self proclaimed alt-right commentators like Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin are any indication, the fringe right being one big happy family has terms and conditions as well.
Edit: No need to double post this, but in my continued following of Jill Stein's candidacy, she met with the Washington Post's editorial board this week before going to Baltimore to endorse and provide publicity to Mayor candidate Joshua Harris (who is honestly more important than Jill Stein because he could spark a stronger Green local ground game). Her interview both recorded and transcribed can be found here.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
At the end of the day, fringers gonna fringe. Crank magnetism is still very much a thing, which is why you can find antivaxers and other alties all over the place.
Enough with the extreme left and the extreme right. It's the extreme center (Think Third Way and No Labels.) that gives me the willies.
On phasing:
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The Story
She went out to the Dakota pipeline over Labor Day weekend where the Sioux are protesting and now faces vandalism charges for spray painting bulldozers.
On the one hand, she should know better because as a third party candidate who syphons more votes from the "lesser of two evils" as she would put it, a lot of people are looking for an excuse to KO her from the race. At the least, this will put a dent into her campaign budget.
On the other hand, I've been reading what the company did to the protestors over the weekend, and I'm wondering where the criminal investigation is for them. If Dr. Stein is not going to get off the hook for what I would call criminal mischief, the people that pepper sprayed and let attack dogs loose on Native American protestors better not get a free pass, which is assault and battery at the very least.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
I'm kinda pissed off at her for "And I approve this message." This isn't the time to remind us you're voting for president (but have a snowball's chance in hell because the Green Party isn't on the ballot in enough states to win 270 even if all of them go Green).
On phasing:
Interesting, would you say more in regards to her message she's being charged with?
Also as an aside, Stein does have access to enough electoral college votes to win if she got enough votes.
According to her website (I'm on my phone so I can't link it at the moment), she's on the ballot in 44 states and DC, able to be written in on three states, and is awaiting approval from Rhode Island. She is ineligible in 3 states.
In terms of electoral college, she has on states approved that's 476 points, on write in states that's 41 points, Rhode Island is another 4, and unable to compete for 16 points, for total potential score of 518-522, RI pending.
She's not going to win, but it's not going to be because of ballot access at this moment.
Edit: If anyone is curious where I got the numbers, I took Jill Stein's Ballot Access map and then tinkered with this map to find out the specific numbers.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Jill Stein pissed me off this week. In an interview with POLITICO's Off Message Podcast (Audio/Transcript), there was one little thing she said that is unraveling even my backhanded support and sympathy towards her and the Green Party (and it's a bit of a shame since I'm *this* close to taking over the County chapter and could be within striking distance of the State by the end of 2017.)
THRUSH: You're absolutely right, by the way.
STEIN: Yeah. Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage, get us into more wars, faster to pass her fracking disastrous climate program, much more easily than Donald Trump could do his.
So I think it's arguable about which one will wind up being more harmful to us. But what I am very convinced of is that we're not going to move forward unless we stand up. It is a race to the bottom between--
THRUSH: But wait--on the--
STEIN: --the greater and lesser evil.
THRUSH: Hold on one second. On the Trump thing, I just want you to play it out, just for--just to give me a little bit of color, and then we can move on. In terms of the corporatist stuff, do you think Trump sort of claims to be an iconoclastic, one-man band with his own money? Do you think--
STEIN: Oh, my God.
THRUSH: --do you think Trump is a corporatist--
STEIN: Well--
THRUSH: --do you think--
STEIN: Absolutely.
((Emphasis is mine))
Let me break this down real quick. Jill Stein in passing, casually dropped that she believes that Hillary Clinton would wreck Jill Stein's own progressive viewpoint much more than Donald Trump would. Where do I even start!
I know! First, Jill Stein is factually wrong regarding the Republican Party. The majority of the Republican base is not moving to Hillary Clinton. The moderate Republicans may be, but the systematic failure of #NeverTrump and continuing failure of the movement has shown by in large that there was not enough disdain for Trump to knock him out of the primary, remove him from his candidacy, or drawn enough support for either Gary Johnson or Evan McMullan (you probably won't and really shouldn't even care to check that I deliberately spelled his name wrong even though he has his own thread on the first page of this debate forum) to mount a liability for the Republican Party. Heck, Gary Johnson is Hillary Clinton's biggest 3rd Party liability, not Trump's. On top of that, Donald Trump may be a buffoon (her word), but I seriously, Seriously! doubt he will have trouble moving things through Congress because a victory for Trump more than likely means a victory for a down ballot that would range from complicit to actively trumpeting Donald Trump's agenda. And there is a long history of Republicans hating Hillary Clinton so, so much that I doubt they would even want to let a Clinton Presidency accomplish or continue even half of what Democrats have tried to accomplish under Obama.
Second, to put Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on equal footing and then declare that Hillary Clinton is more dangerous than Donald Trump based on a lie about the relation between Republicans and Democrats is to say that Donald Trump gets a pass on the racism/misogamy/xenophobia he has cultivated this election cycle. I personally think that Hillary Clinton is morally bankrupt and baggaged herself with unnecessary secrecy. It's why I flirt with the Green Party. There is nuanced takedowns of Hillary Clinton that I understand and believe to be true. But those are not for this post because what I do not pretend is that Hillary Clinton is more dangerous than Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton scolded white people for complacency in the death of Terrence Crutcher. Donald Trump was silent. Donald Trump in the past year has wanted to knock BlackLivesMatters protestors teeth in. Then there's the subject of women... I feel like everyone should know the differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton's attitudes towards women since they've gotten so much publicity. And even the environment! Jill Stein's pet issue! Hillary Clinton's approach to using fracking as a half measure to ween us towards a greener tomorrow is controversial and worth a long and serious discussion much like the one Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had in the primaries during the Flint debate. What Clinton's position is NOT! is the greater evil when compared to a man that wants to dissolve the EPA and let the oil industry be regulated by their own insiders all while expanding coal.
In conclusion, if Jill Stein sincerely thinks that a Trump presidency is the second most desirable outcome of this election (I assume and will allow her to think that her pulling out a miracle win is her best outcome of the election), then I am just going to call her callous disregard for the good in the mixed bag of the Democrats for what it is: bigoted. I will not vote for a bigot, and I will not take part in a political party that chooses bigotry when ideological purity is not met.Upon following up on the campaign, I found that there is more nuance to Jill Stein's statement. It's stupid thing Dr. Stein said, but it's not at least intentional on her part to ignore minorities. I am sorry Dr. Jill Stein.If there's hope that someday I/some other Green faction of the Green Party could clean out this nonsense within the Green Party now embodied by Jill Stein, who knows the possibilities? Otherwise, to left-leaning independents seeking a political party that is not the Democrats, there is a relatively new political party growing called the Working Families Party (Likely code for: the future North American Labour Party). There's only about a half dozen states with political organizations right now, but at the least, it is a left leaning political organization who's working from the ground up through coalition politics rather than running a scorched earth presidential campaign every four years.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
A bit more debt...
We are over $19,528,514,830,000 in debt. We were more than that number at the time of this writing, and as the debt increases at about $10,000 per second, we will be much more than that when you read this.
That's insane. We have risked defaulting on this debt before. Our credit rating has dropped because of this debt before. And that debt is only rising. Now you want to add the cost of paying for college for everyone in the country to that?
Why not just add the government giving everyone a golden toilet while you're at it? I mean, hell, at least that would create manufacturing jobs.
No. Let's take the US debt of 19.5 trillion. And let's take the derivative of 10000/second = 315 billion per year. And let's assume that the second derivative is 0. (Hint: It's not.) Let's take the student loan debt of 1.4 trillion. The derivative on that is more than 2500/second, or 79 billion per year. Some comparisons:
Past student debt adds up to 6% of the government's current debt.
Government debt is rising at a rate of 1.6% per year, assuming a 0 second derivative.
Student debt is rising at a rate of 5.4% per year, assuming a 0 second derivative. If we add this rate on to the government debt, government debt derivative would increase to 2% per year, assuming a 0 second derivative.
Whether or not you add the future student debt in, numbers that are about 4 times our yearly debt increase are bad.
That said, that's thinking like a mathematician. Switching perspectives... It's not the worst idea. But the ramifications from ripple effects could be very bad. And what's to stop it from happening again in the future?
There's a few reasons I've gleaned from reading this why QE won't do what Dr. Stein says it would:
1. Jill Stein's use of QE would actually not help as many people as she thinks it would. I can't find a specific Google link at this point, but I've read that her take on QE would only cancel the debt of students that completed college, which would not reach the students that were crushed out of school by their debt. I can't find a source right off the bat, so if someone can provide and/or evaluate this assertion, that would be great.
2. I noticed this one on my own, but it's also mentioned in the second article I posted above. QE'ing the current student debt would do nothing towards stemming the causes of college cost explosions. It just shifts the burden.
3. A President Jill Stein doesn't actually have the authority to authorize QE. She can ask the Federal Reserve to do it and stir public opinion, but that's a far cry from the authoritative stance she has presented on the campaign trail. Sure, presenting the public with the option to press the government for taking the debt away is not something to dismiss, but coupled with the above factors, there's a good chance that a serious scrutiny would thwart Jill Stein's plan altogether and deflate her call to arms. One thing to note is in the CNN Town Hall posted on this thread that shows Dr. Stein has an awareness of this, she quickly hand-waved away the fact QE wouldn't work in favor of a more generic, "If there's a will, there's a way" approach.
------
Also to segue into Town Halls, even though I'm still mad at Jill Stein for her comments regarding Clinton vs. Trump, I still feel obligated to keep this thread up to date on her major campaign events. She has done two more Town Halls. I will post my thoughts at a later time:
Fusion Green Party Town Hall hosted by Jorge Ramos and Alicia Menendez
Fox Business Green Party Town Hall hosted by John Stossel
Edit: Jill Stein indirectly addressed my rant at the 32 minute mark of the Fusion Green Town Hall (not because she was at least directly asked by the moderators, the Town Hall was posted on Youtube the same day as the interview). It's... okay... at least better than what she said on POLITICO because she went into more detail about how Trump is a terrible human being that shouldn't be anywhere near the White House, but Jill goes on to point that Hillary Clinton is good at talking the talk, but walking the walk is not as clear cut to Clinton. It does not go towards what Clinton and the Democrat Party has done for other minorities, but it's a good enough answer that I take back and apologize to Dr. Jill Stein (should she ever find this thread) for calling her a bigot.
Edit 2: There is an error in where ever the uploader got the Fox Business Town Hall around the 30 minute mark. When I watched it, it took me a minute to realize that the buffing issue was not the video player but rather recorded onto the video (and as a result skipped part of the town hall.) I have yet to find a suitable replacement link without the buffing error in the recording.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Stein's not a great or effective candidate. She just has nothing to lose.
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Absolutely. The best thing for her right now is to simply garner attention.
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The government could, but it would matter. Making currency causes inflation.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
1. The amount of money to pay off the debt is not in circulation. We don't have the kind of money to pay the debt just running around. We don't have anywhere close to that. As of 2013, the amount of money in circulation was about 1.2 trillion dollars (incidentally, that's about the amount of student debt the government is owed.) That's why we have a debt. We're spending more than our government takes in.
Moreover, money in circulation means people, companies, etc. have the money. It doesn't mean the government has it. It means people have it and are using it to make transactions.
2. The government does not owe itself all of that money. It owes other people, companies, and countries the money. The money comes from selling bonds. The government has to pay back those bonds with interest. That's how debt works.
3. The government cannot simply write a check for that much money, because we do not have that much money. If you write a check for more money than you have, the check bounces.
4. We could get that much money... By issuing treasury bonds. Which is how the government borrows money. Thereby increasing the debt.
5. Alternatively, we could devalue our currency, which is a terrible idea.
You seem to be under the impression that it's not, because devaluing our currency to such a massive degree is something you seem to think really won't have that much impact. Think about what your plan involves. Your plan involves flooding the market with dollars to make the dollar worth much, much less, and thereby making a 19.534 trillion dollar debt manageable.
Do you notice the problem? It's the part where you've decided to make the dollar worth much, much less.
So while you may have paid the budget in the short-term, you have utterly shafted yourself for the future. First of all, if you ever had to borrow again, which you will because our budget is too high and that's what happens when your budget is too high, you will have to borrow numerically more. And that's IF people loan you the money. And if they do, they're sure as hell not going to charge you the same interest rates. You think the US is going to have the same rating of reliability after pulling a fast one like that?
Moreover, you've effectively wrecked your currency's purchasing power, which means purchasing goods from abroad is going to be much more difficult because, yeah, the dollar is worth less than a 1/16 of what it was. So you've royally dicked over foreign trade.
Speaking of markets and foreign trade...
6. Do you really think our currency is going to continue to be be the global standard after such a stunt? Don't you think that might maybe have an effect?
7. Countries actually keep large reserves of dollars. We are the world's reserve country. If we were to stop being the global standard, you know, due to massively ******* the world's economy over recklessly and causing the dollar value to plummet like the stunt you're describing would do, we would stop being the world's reserve currency. Which means the countries that have dollars in reserve would immediately try to get rid of them to fill their reserves with a new currency, thereby flooding the market with even more dollars.
8. What you're talking about is currency manipulation, and you cannot, under international trade agreements, do that. See: China.
9.
Well, sort of. The economy is supposed to inflate by 2-3% and there is supposed to be, likewise, a 2-3% increase in wages. But that's not what's been happening.
10. Inflation of 2-3% a year is not even remotely the same as writing a 19.534 trillion dollar check. You're talking about instantly flooding the world with over 16 times the amount of dollars than there are circulating. You're talking about the dollar being worth less than a sixteenth of what it was. No, this is not comparable to a slow, gradual increase. It's the exact opposite of that.
11. You're saying that the money lost by forgiving student debt won't mess up interest rates because the money will go to banks, not into "normal circulation." How much of student debt is actually owed to banks versus the federal government? The Federal Reserve of NY seems to think it's between 86 and 96 percent Federal debt.
I don't understand why the amount of money in circulation is relevant here. We spend, for example, $1.3 trillion on government pensions every year. If the amount of money in circulation were a limiting factor, how do we manage to pay those pensions?
When Sarah Palin has a better resume'... That's astonishing to me. Naturally this is still more experience than Trump, but I doubt many people are waffling between Trump and Stein.
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Alternatively, *gasp*, we could just raise taxes on the upper class and upper middle class.