I am happy she is comporting herself well so far and am open to being won over by her as the season unfolds. Going into it I remain skeptical of her … but based on these early days she may turn out to be a stronger contender than I had expected and several strong candidates competing hard will be a good thing.
Let me go on record as agreeing that it’s nice that she’s doing it right so far. My only point is that as fine as it’s going, this level is the bare minimum she had to do at this point. She’s solo out there so she basically had to do a solid no fuck ups week. She did good but now she’s probably gonna have to do another few of those weeks before another serious contender announces. Or maybe some goofball will announce and distract the media for a bit. We’ll see.
Paywall.
I’m actually really impressed with Warren’s preparedness and details of her ideas in the early going. I did not expect her to come out of the gate that well.
Yes, I’m liking the focus on measures to promote economic growth. One of my reasons for hoping she continues to do well is that she’s good at keeping the “win-win” orientation. It’s such a contrast with the GOP (and especially Trumpian) “divide and conquer” view of life as a zero-sum game. Hard-left pols are prone to the zero-sum viewpoint, too, with their emphasis on ‘income redistribution.’
‘Rising incomes for all, through smart economic measures such as [specified set of policies]’ is a better message.
I don’t like her, but I know strength when I see it. I’m a Biden guy though. I hope he’s got a message and a plan though.
Warren is a pro, no doubt. We could do worse.
That overlooks the reality that too much of the wealth in the hands of a few doesn’t just reduce the share of the pie that everyone else gets, but over time it reduces the growth of the pie in multiple ways - reducing the degree of economic opportunity for people on the lower rungs, reducing competition between businesses, reducing consumer spending which creates jobs, etc.
One of Warren’s strong points from my POV is that it’s one of the issues she’s focused on.
Warren is fine on income inequality. Some other progressive Democrats are not though. Some are focused on just making the rich have less money, which does not grow the pie.
The question wasn’t directed at me but may I answer? It’s not a spoiler since I know little about the very confusing war(s) in Syria, and may well be wrong.
There were 2000 U.S. soldiers in Syria when Trump ftweeted his intention to give up. Contrast this with 2,000,000 U.S. soldiers altogether who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The U.S. role included high-value missions to train and support some of the few clearly “good guys” in the conflict, multi-ethnic groups of Kurds, secular Muslims, and even Christians. Other roles were to direct missions from U.S. aircraft carriers, to use Special Forces teams to take out high-value enemy targets, and to direct coalition forces in a successful, but uncompleted campaign against ISIS. The country of Syria is undergoing a catastrophe of gargantuan scale; the U.S. military [del]is[/del] was part of the solution.
Compared with some of the operations started during the GWB Administration, U.S. involvement in the Syrian revolution is very smart. According to Wikipedia, only 3 U.S. soldiers had died in combat in Syria prior to today’s suicide bombing. (Was the ISIS bomb to celebrate Trump’s giving up?)
TL;DR: If there is lingering doubt that Vladimir Putin is the organ grinder operating the Trump monkey, the tweeted exit from Syria should dispel that doubt.
Of note here, former Keith Ellison communications director and current advisor to AOC Dan Riffle has changed his twitter display name to ”Every Billionaire Is A Policy Failure”. I’m not convinced that’s productive (and I absolutely don’t see Warren getting behind such a message).
Yeah, there’s an idiotic meme going around that no one earns a billion dollars. Sure they do. In a worldwide market you can very simply earn a billion. It’s hard, but quite simple: make a $1 profit off a billion people buying your product. Now you’re a billionaire. Or a $10 profit off 100 million, that works too. Companies in the 21st century don’t need a million workers to operate anymore. All you have to do is share your profits with your tech team.
It depends on what you mean by “earn”. You can’t legitimately get to a billion just through hard work. You can legitimately get to it by luck, or by giftedness, or most likely some combination of all three. Or of course you can add illegitimate means to the mix.
I just mentioned a few reasons why that’s incorrect.
I’m pretty comfortable believing that all the tech moguls earned their billions. Of course it’s luck coming up with a product that ends up being used by most of the world, but I still think that qualifies as having earned it. I actually think almost all Western billionaires earned their money(third world billionaires are another story). The people that made their money off exploitation I think are actually in the millionaire range and in some cases even in the six figure range: CEOs of established companies who pay their workers like shit and add nothing to the company. Small business owners who take advantage of employees and customers. Financial company workers and mid level executives who tanked the economy with their recklessness in search of ever higher bonuses and commissions. The thing about billionaires is that they don’t need to take advantage of anyone. They just create their product, hire workers to make it a reality, and sell it. It’s the rich but not insanely rich who succumb to the temptation to step on people on their way up the ladder.
They were not applicable to just taking rich people’s money away as a policy, IMO. Taking rich people’s money to build infrastructure, that probably grows the pie. Taking rich people’s money just to take it does not.
Who is calling for that?
Warren’s been visiting Iowa in midwinter. She’s in it for real.
AOC is calling for that. A 70% tax on incomes of $10 million or more doesn’t raise much revenue, so it’s only purpose is to reduce incomes.
That’s a progressive rate, on income (not incomes) above $10m. It doesn’t kick in until dollar number 10,000,001. Anyone affected by it can learn to budget and save.
Glad to clear that up for ya. Now how about your claim for the motive?
There’d be an argument for that if taking rich people’s money just vanished it from the face of the Earth - but I’m not entirely convinced that even that argument would be correct.
But that’s not what happens, is it? It winds up somewhere else.