# Bernie Sanders is like Jesus: He's pretty rad, his fan club sucks **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 31, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bernie-sanders-is-like-jesus-hes-pretty-rad-his-fan-club-sucks/750782 "2016-03-31T21:27:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 169
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bernie-sanders-is-like-jesus-hes-pretty-rad-his-fan-club-sucks/750782/169 "2016-04-12T01:10:22Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > **SlackerInc** , possibly you can provide cites for your claims? [Sure.](http://www.wsj.com/articles/ny-fed-report-finds-rising-incomes-falling-unemployment-for-young-college-graduates-1454079989) Emphasis mine: > [@](#): > > “After the great recession, there was a lot of concern about people graduating, not being able to get a job,” said Richard Dietz, a senior economist at the New York Fed. People became uncertain “whether a college degree was worth it anymore.” > > Mr. Dietz and his colleague Jaison Abel developed this new data, which the New York Fed will begin to publish on a regular basis, to answer whether the benefits of college were beginning to deteriorate. > > The newest data put that question to rest, at least for now. Bachelor’s degree holders earned a median $43,000 last year, an increase of more than $3,000 from the year before. **That was the highest since 2003, showing that the job market for freshly minted graduates has nearly recovered to the best years on record.** Incomes are rising even faster for college students in the best majors. The top 25% of young college graduates earn at least $60,000 a year. This article was not where I originally got my info (it was from some BLS graphs I’m having trouble re-finding at the moment), but I’d say it very nicely corresponds with my claim that: > [@](#): > > The only new grads to ever do better in American history are from a narrow slice of the population on the border of GenX and Millennials, who are currently in their mid-to-late thirties. People who were “freshly minted graduates” in 2003 (one of the “best years on record”) would be mostly be around 35-37 now. It’s implied that 2003 was the end of those “best years on record”, so that fits even better (except that it might include some people who are now 40 or 41, but close enough I’d say). > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > For fuck’s sake, why are you a Democrat? You might as well be Ayn Rand at this point. You have a rep as some kind of rhetorical genius, who just needs to tame your muse a bit. But lazy hyperbole like this does not burnish your image, to say the least. It does however illustrate precisely the problem I’ve been pointing to. Anyone a titch or two closer to the center than Bernie is suddenly Dick Cheney (or Ayn Rand). I don’t know if you watch Bill Maher’s “Real Time” or listen to the free podcast of the audio, but I wonder what you did or would make of the things [Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said on the most recent episode.](https://youtu.be/alnOJxnBkj4?t=139) Not only did he tout the current strength of the economy and its trajectory, he repeatedly mocked the “Eeyore caucus” (he used this term at least three times) who keep talking about the economy as though it’s in bad shape. This caucus, he said, “could win the lottery on Friday and they’d complain the bank isn’t open until Monday”. And in case Perez isn’t familiar to you (he wasn’t to me for his first two-and-a-half years on the job), [Mother Jones called him the most progressive member of President Obama’s Cabinet,](http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/07/obamas-new-labor-secretary-will-be-most-progressive-member-his-cabinet) and here on the SDMB, he [elicited intense antipathy](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19142231&postcount=124) from a fairly moderate Republican: > [@Vice President predictions](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vice-president-predictions/744919/124): > > It won’t be Perez over Castro. Republicans don’t hate Castro. We hate Perez with the blinding light of a thousand suns, at least those of us who know his record. But as ridiculous as your “why are you even a Democrat?” question is, I don’t want to appear to be ducking a direct answer. I’m a Democrat because: –I consider every Democratic president to serve in the past eighty years to have ranged from good to great, while the Republican presidents over that same period of time have ranged from mediocre to awful; –I loved or at least liked just about everything Pelosi and Reid passed, and President Obama signed, in the first two years of his presidency; –I loathed or at least disliked just about everything Trent Lott, Tom DeLay, Denny Hastert, and Bill Frist passed, and President Bush signed, during the two stretches of his presidency when the GOP controlled both houses of Congress; –Nearly every time a major Supreme Court decision comes out, I seem to find myself agreeing with the way the Democratic appointees vote, and disagreeing with the way the Republican appointees vote (with the odd exception in the cases of Roberts and Kennedy). Those would seem to combine to paint a portrait of someone perfectly at home in the Democratic Party. As for Ayn Rand, I share her atheism but precious little else. So all in all, your jibe seems spectacularly ill-aimed. :dubious: --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bernie-sanders-is-like-jesus-hes-pretty-rad-his-fan-club-sucks/750782)._