What do the Democrats want in a Presidential candidate in 2020?

Discussion in 'Elections & Campaigns' started by Richard Franks, Jul 6, 2019.

  1. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    So you don't understand why the most successful people will always out earn the least successful people?
     
  2. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    The most successful people control the economy, the businesses, the workers & the politicians who make the laws that favor the wealthy. I understand how anyone who has such powerful control over every aspect of life around them, can be successful. What I don't understand, & what I have little sympathy for, is how the successful can be complacent with the extreme disparity between their own success & the absolute struggle for survival experienced by the vast majority of Americans around them, when it would take so little from them to alleviate that problem. I don't understand or agree with the supporters of this extremely selfish form of capitalism when they disregard the humanity & value of American workers & their families by calling them listless, lazy, stupid or demeaning their value because of their current economic status. American capitalism has failed America & Americans since the years of Ronald Reagan. It has done so largely as a result of policies put into place by Reagan & his cohorts, that were followed by both parties since. It has led us into the largest disparity of wealth ever experienced by this nation. It is a tragedy & a travesty of gigantic proportions. It cannot be sustained.
     
  3. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    They control and run businesses and bring new products and services to market. If they controlled every aspect there would be no risk and of course that is folly most new businesses fail. American capitalism is what made us the most successful economy ever with the most freedom and liberty and a strong middle class. If you want more wealth go out and earn it. Make yourself capable of earning it and stop being jealous of others who did and are more successful than you. If you think government is gong to make you wealthy by making successful people poorer I got a bridge to sell you.
     
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  4. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    1. To some degree, I agree. But it's not the whole story. Wealthy entrepreneurs do start new companies & create jobs, but much of the work necessary to make that investment a success is done by the workers hired. Yet, in many corporations, the CEO incomes are 300-400 times the annual salaries of the managers who actually do the work, & that's not ethically right. While many owners & CEOs have been enjoying annual raises of 3-10% per year for decades, their workers--the ones making success possible--have been getting absolutely no real living wage increases during that same period. That's not ethical either. Meanwhile, prices on necessities for living, like food, shelter, medical costs, cars, insurance, etc., have been climbing steadily. The disparity between rising costs & static wages for workers has risen to an alarming level, & it's forcing increasing numbers of households to return to work after retirement, or work more than one job just to survive. This exemplifies the failure of American capitalism, & screams for a new system.
    2. Your statement was true in the 1950s, but began its long decline in the 1960s, & entered its final decadent stage under Reagan in the 1980s. Today we live under the remnants of that massive failure, & our so-called "middle class" has shrunk to a pale echo of its former self. Capitalism has failed America & Americans. We need a change.
    3. I make a descent living, though rising prices have had an impact on my life over the past 5 years. I have no jealousy & have no desire to interfere with the success of others, but I DO want to see that success impact the lives of more Americans in favorable ways, & that won't happen under our current form of unregulated capitalism, because the laws funnel all the wealth to those already wealthy at the expense of all the rest of us. Those laws need to be revised to funnel more of the profits to the workers. This will perhaps lower the income of the ultra wealthy a bit, but will regenerate & renew a vibrant, healthy middle class again, which is something America desperately needs.
    4. Democratic Socialist countries in W Europe have done it successfully. So can we. :):)
     
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  5. Richard Franks

    Richard Franks Well-Known Member

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    That's loyalty among the Republicans and Trump
     
  6. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    That kind of thinking will lose the election. It's going to be very difficult to beat Trump even if the economy is still prosperous and I think it will be truly very, very bad if he wins

    I agree that UBI is an idea whose time has come, like Medicare for All and other things but it has NO chance in the next election. We might be able to push for those things sometime in the 2020-2024 term or later but if Trump wins I don't think any Democratic ideas are going to come to the fore for a very, very long time, like forever.

    I think the best candidate is Biden. He is the very definition of a moderate and a return to normalcy, which is what most non-Trumpers want
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2020
  7. Well Bonded

    Well Bonded Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Which is good, Democratic ideas only serve to rob from some and give to others, those being mostly lazy slobs too defective to get a job and need to mooch just to get by.
     
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  8. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Dems need to get somebody who excites people or they give everything to Trump. Either Biden or somebody grows a set and makes some freakin' noise or Trump and Co. will keep drowning them out.
     
  9. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    Agreed, but with a caveat. We must be very concerned with heat vs light. Ms. Clinton is out but some good old fashioned wonkism wouldn't hurt a bit really. If we need entertainment there's Colbert and Shen Yun. The American public has had quite enough excitement in politics for a little while, thank you very much
     
  10. Blaster3

    Blaster3 Well-Known Member

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    yep, those whining, screaming leftists have made such a mockery of our system, throwing temper tantrums and making false accusations to disparage a duly elected president...

    quite childish & self centered & poor sportsmanship...
     
  11. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    Conservative definition of false = anything that makes Trump look bad
    Liberal definition of false = most anything that Trump says
     
  12. DavidMK

    DavidMK Well-Known Member

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    Someone who can read would be nice.
     
  13. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    What do the Democrats want in a Presidential candidate in 2020?

    One that is serious about reducing the size of federal government. That won't happen in 2020. My fingers are crossed for 2120.
     
  14. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Sorry I missed this back in August, someone just liked my response and it popped back up.

    1. Wealthy and not so wealthy entrepreneurs HIRE people to work and pay them an agreed upon wage/salary. And during that startup that person is paying them out of their pocket, financing those wages and salaries and everything about the business from their own capital or capital they secured from other investors and financing. The workers aren't putting up their capital, their property and if the venture fails they don't don't lose a penny. And CEO's are responsible for 300-400 times the assets of the company than the managers and workers and their decisions have 300-400 times the impact on those assets. Those workers don't make those crucial decisions, come up with those crucial plans and directions of the company and are not entrusted by the owners with the protection of those assets. THAT is what CEO's are paid for not inserting a piece of metal into a press and making a bend in it and passing it along to the next stage of production. And wages are rising faster than the cost of living because the markets are working and if you want to make more then make yourself more valuable. Better yet get on the revenue side instead of the expense side.

    2. It's true now and our middle class is as strong as ever and our standard of living as high as ever if not the highest. I grew up middle class in the 1950's and 1960's and my family of five lived in a 1100 sq/ft home that did not have air conditioning when my parents built it. We had one car, one TV. I wore hand me down cloths. Read books did not have all the electronics. One rotary dial phone and on and on and on. I have a MUCH higher standard of living BECAUSE of capitalism, wouldn't have it under any other system. Capitalism BOOMED under Reagan, then again during the Tech boom of the 1990's. Again through the mid 2000's. We are now finally recovering from the misguided policies of the 2010's where we ventured away and towards more socialistic/government as provider and the middle class if finally making up ground.

    3. Rising prices the last 5 years?? Where were you in the late 1970's when we had 20% inflation. Success is what you make for yourself it is not going to be handed to you by the government. You say more profits need to be funneled to the workers. Labor is an expense. Workers aren't paid out of profits, they are on the expense side of the ledger. Profits come AFTER wages and salaries are paid. Workers are not entitled to a dime of profit they are only entitled to the agreed upon wage or salary for the labor they provide. If you want profits then INVEST in the business. Put your money AT RISK. Start your own business.

    4. You mean those capitalistic countries in W Europe. The ones that have moved from socialist policies to more capitalistic policies.
     
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  15. Well Bonded

    Well Bonded Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Government is incapable of creating wealth, all government can do is take from someone and give to someone else while taking a cut out of the middle.

    Most people don't want to do that as they prefer to be paid on a set basis, risk is for the other guy and when he wins they want a cut of the winnings, but if he looses they still want their paychecks.

    Another problem is starting a business is it's hard work for low pay, a person who starts one can work for months or even years making less than the employee's all the while putting in many more hours than they do.

    Or are going bankrupt.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2020
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  16. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    A lot of businesses do the same. Most, in fact.

    Americans need to get over this toxic anti-government sentiment. It is rooted in ignorance and partisan ideology and is terribly counter-productive.
     
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  17. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    Government & business are two entirely different things, & it's disingenuous to evaluate one on the basis of the other. Business exists to make a profit. Government exists to provide crucial services to & for the public in general. These are very different goals. Government is NOT inherently a bad thing. It can be bad if bad people are allowed empowered within it, but any business can suffer the same fate. Businesses & government are both human institutions, & like ALL human institutions, they reflect the best or worst characteristics of those who run them. The secret is to empower managers who are endowed with positive human values so those will dominate their actions & serve their goals in a constructive & beneficial way.
     
  18. Well Bonded

    Well Bonded Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    False, business's create wealth or go out of business.

    Again false, government needs to be viewed for what is it, a toxic bureaucracy that destroys nearly everything it touches, it is wasteful, corrupt and getting way too large and totally out of control.
     
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  19. Well Bonded

    Well Bonded Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Which is something governments often fail to do by encouraging management to operate at the lowest common dominator and punishing those who try to excel while promoting those who create the greatest failures.

    And one of the worst things about most governments is no concern of the cost of doing business as it is not their money, they take it from whom they can and give it to those who pander to them.
     
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  20. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    1. I disagree. A really good business can survive & thrive for decades simply making a comfortable, living income for its owners. Profit is NOT the only thing businesses can be good for.
    2. I disagree again. Government serves society in many beneficial ways. Focusing on every conceivable bad thing you can identify in government while ignoring all the good, is too biased & destructive & dishonest. If you want something really out of control, try living in a country of over 330 million people, WITHOUT GOVERNMENT. That would be a true nightmare.
     
  21. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    I feel your views on government are extreme, biased, unduly negative, & highly inaccurate.
     
  22. Well Bonded

    Well Bonded Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How many years have you worked with and for governments?

    I have almost 3 decades doing so and can assure they squander money in ways that would bankrupt a business and land the owners of the business in prison for a long time.

    They are also know for abusing their power over people and private business' s to commit crimes like extortion, influence peddling and flat out accepting bribes.
     
  23. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Fundamentally, corporations and governments accomplish similar things. They employ people to accomplish needed tasks and produce some kind of useful outcome. Ironically enough, governments are actually more fundamentally useful than a lot of corporations based on what it is they employ people to do, because governments provide necessary services and fund necessary services, from courts and jails to road construction, and from park management to NASA and the military. Our government does a hell of a lot that we take for granted and from which we benefit every day. Private corporations, on the other hand, likewise employ people to add or create value in a similar way, especially throughout the service sector. An easy and obvious comparison might be police and military versus private security firms. Fundamentally similar services in many respects, but done either with public funding and management or with private funding (often from contracting with governments anyway, so governments are still funding their operations) and private management, which also takes a large portion of the profits for itself.

    Then there are the corporations that keep busy producing a bunch of crap that gets bought and then thrown away by consumers, and to add further insult to it, they underpay their American workers and have as much as possible produced overseas to save on costs, the profits from which they then generally pass along not to workers so much as to top executives and shareholders. The kind of stuff they produce is generally luxury and is largely wasteful. People don't need little plastic throw-away bottles of water, for instance, but there is a demand for that crap anyway and there are corporations willing to satisfy that demand. Others produce much more useful things, such as the computers we're using to communicate here.

    It is important to think about what it really means to produce value, however. There is value in services and there is value in the production of physical goods, but either way value of a sort is being produced, and that is generally accounted for monetarily (you produce value, you are paid a corresponding amount in currency; you need a service or product, you pay a certain amount of currency to get it). It is all a matter of making society function and getting people the things they need and want. Government plays a massive role in doing all of this and should not be regarded as somehow wasteful or evil for doing so.
     
  24. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    I have spent about half of my work life so far, working for government, & half working for businesses. Me experience indicates that both serve different agendas, & both have managers who do bad things. Many conservatives praise the value of business over government, but neither is more corrupt than the other. Both are human institutions, & both are equally susceptible to the influences & actions of disreputable management. I don't see the clear distinction for mismanagement that you do, against government. In my personal experience, I'd probably feel my happier years were spent working within government.
     
  25. Well Bonded

    Well Bonded Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And that's a problem, your happiness has nothing to do with serving the customer.

    A lot of people who work at the DMV are very happy, while their customers stand in long lines served by people who couldn't give a crap about the people they are supposed to serve, as they are immune to being to disciplined for screwing off and failing to serve those they are paid by the peoples tax's to serve.

    Do that in a business and one would get canned.

    That's a major difference between government and business.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2020

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