Do any of his economic policies actually make sense? I've listened to him for a while and he's got some good ideas and seems like a really genuine person.
Anyone here voting for him?
Do any of his economic policies actually make sense...
Aiden Perry
Easton Edwards
sorry never heard of him he's never mentioned on CNN or network news
Wyatt Reyes
That's a difficult question. The problem people have, not only in the real world but on Veeky Forums as well, is that they think there are "right" economic policies, and there are "wrong" economic policies. In reality, economic policy is ALWAYS a "on one hand... but on the other hand..." sort of thing. No policy is all good. No policy is all bad. There are winners and losers to all policies. Generally, the US government uses a cost-benefit analysis where they look at the net economic gains of any policy, and even if many people lose out, as long as the winners win by more than the losers lose, it's a policy we don't rule out.
The problem with that is that it's impossible to truly tell the impact of any policy, and that it's entirely short-sighted without consideration of long-term problems or benefits.
So that's the framework this question is posed in. Generally speaking, here's how most economists see his policies.
The good
>single-payer healthcare
>reducing too-big-to-fail banks
The bad
>$15 minimum wage
>Free college
>protectionism (probably the biggest problem they have with him)
Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. And there's an argument for and against each one, and it's always silly to say "economists say...." since they never really agree. Protectionism is the only part that nearly every economist disagrees with. The only reason it wins out is because working-class folks and labor unions are the losers in free-trade and they wield a lot of political power.
So, tl;dr:
Yes. Some make sense. Most however are probably bad for the economy, but it's arguable, and one is universally reviled.
Luis Lopez
Noone should vote for Bernie. His policies appeals largely to the majority that are too fucking stupid to even do their own taxes. They will be just as blind to the new tax system as they were to the old. I literally see teenagers and millennials biting down on his "lmao legalize weed" card and this shit pisses me off to no end. It parallels Trump's promise for a fucking wall.
Jason Johnson
Just making sure but are you a regular user of /pol/?
Isaac Ward
If you're going to vote in the Democratic primaries, you're best off voting for Sanders rather than the thoroughly corrupt Hillary Clinton.
As for a presidency, assuming Sanders can win the Democratic nomination, I would argue he is still the best candidate available with Trump second.
You can ignore all the talk about Sanders being very far left wing and all that garbage. He is most certainly left wing but do you really believe his most left-wing ideas will ever be approved by Congress? There's no way.
But what the U.S. will have is one branch of the government being left-leaning which may nudge the rather right-leaning Congress a bit closer to center. Don't let the Democrat-Republican side show fool you: Neither of those two political parties is left of center although, historically, the Democrats have been left of center.
As for Sanders' economic policies, they would work for the most part. The only thing I really hate is his leniency toward illegal aliens. That's just giving away free money to non-Americans who are most likely to be failures. If this country is going to allow immigrants, it either needs to eliminate the welfare state and have open immigration; or it keeps its welfare state and only allows for immigrants who are going to be above average.
The $15/hour minimum wage will work despite what all the idiots say. It'll just raise the general price levels for a lot of things.
You didn't hear too many people complaining about high housing prices, did you? And yet, that makes it more expensive to do business in the U.S. and makes the U.S. economy less competitive.
At least in Sanders' case, the extra money will go to labor instead of the rentiers.
You really have to be careful of statements from economists as most are incredibly stupid despite their degrees from elite institutions. They're either utter idiots, smart people who've diligently learned the wrong things, or they're shills. They generally support a rentier economy.
Charles Martin
Why not legalize all drugs?
I've never taken drugs nor dealt in them but over the past few decades, the war on drugs has not stopped them from being used and traded in the U.S. In fact, drugs seem more readily available than ever before. Meanwhile, we've made South American drugs lords filthy rich while incarcerating a lot of people in the U.S. for possession of drugs.
Many of these incarcerated people are black. Like them or dislike them, it is one more excuse for black people to say that the system isn't fair. So let's stop penalizing them for possession of drugs.
The U.S. should legalize all drugs but regulate them and tax them. Rather than spending billions of dollars trying to stop a trade and then failing, the government will now cease to spend that money on enforcement and will start turning a profit on the tax revenue.
If people destroy themselves on drugs, well, that's what they wanted. The government cannot be the 24x7 babysitter for every lily-livered weakling in this country.
Everybody else will get on just fine.
And maybe we'll put those drug lords out of business, have less violence in those south of the border countries, and won't have so many useless illegal aliens flooding into the country and consuming all the government benefits that have been paid for by Americans and should only be used for Americans.
Colton Diaz
yes thank you agreed. this is NOT a far-left SJW, #occutard, socialist sanders idea btw
Carson Jenkins
Nope. I do, however, run a politics Yt channel.
>I've never taken drugs or dealt with them
There's your problem. You have never experienced what drugs do to people, what those people in turn have to do to recover from their drug use. I've volunteered at soup kitchens, I've been to AA meetings, I've lived 10 minutes away from Compton and the Skid Rows. Drugs are not a mean to weed out weaklings, because under Bernie's reformed tax system, you will be paying for everyone's rehab/medical expense. It's literally suicide and all these wide-eyed, ideal-loving idiots jizzes themselves at the sight of anything not capitalist.
Logan Clark
It would be better to just decriminalize all substances. Retarded people will always chase them, they will always be available.