2016 US Election thread: the begininning

[Kalbear]

Thinker,

Altherion is right.  How will making a Bachelor's degree a requirement improve people's lives.  Is there suddenly going to be a greater demand for job's that pay well and demand Bachelor's degrees?

The plan is making state schools tuition free. It is not making state schools accept every single student.

[maarsen]

Lots of jurisdictions have tuition free higher education. None have collapsed into anarchy and despair as a result. Germany, Scotland, Sweden and Norway are some of these.

[Shryke]

13 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Lots of jurisdictions have tuition free higher education. None have collapsed into anarchy and despair as a result. Germany, Scotland, Sweden and Norway are some of these.

Yeah, Scotland looked like that before free tuition!

[DireWolfSpirit]

1 hour ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

It's not all about macro-employment effects, I agree that there won't suddenly be a greater demand for jobs that pay well and demand Bachelor's degrees. What there will be is equality of opportunity, regardless of economic class, to pursue careers that require higher education. On top of that, education ought to be seen as a good in itself, not merely an employment credential. It's good for people to be able to pursue academic interests, it gives immediate pleasure and serves them well in many walks of life, not just the job market.

Thank you, very well put. I find it frustrating that someone always has to point this out whenever a discussion on higher education comes up. 

[Altherion]

58 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

It's not all about macro-employment effects, I agree that there won't suddenly be a greater demand for jobs that pay well and demand Bachelor's degrees. What there will be is equality of opportunity, regardless of economic class, to pursue careers that require higher education.

Not for long. Some manner of post-graduate degree is already necessary for many of the more lucrative careers. If you make college degrees more commonplace, post-graduate education will become more important and you'll be back where you started from except that people now have to spend even more time in school.

Quote

On top of that, education ought to be seen as a good in itself, not merely an employment credential. It's good for people to be able to pursue academic interests, it gives immediate pleasure and serves them well in many walks of life, not just the job market.

Here I partially agree with you... but only partially. Education certainly has value beyond the credential. However, as long as one has access to the internet (or simply a library), such value can be gained much more efficiently without college. Furthermore, many of the state schools are more famous for things other than their educational value.

Finally, if you are only interested in education, college is a stupendously inefficient way to go about it:

Quote

In its most recent survey of college pricing, the College Board reports that a "moderate" college budget for an in-state public college for the 2015–2016 academic year averaged $24,061. A moderate budget at a private college averaged $47,831.

For that kind of money, you could easily hire multiple private tutors per class of, say, 5 students and they would do better simply because of the individual attention (most colleges average at least 20-30 students per class and many classes are quite a bit larger).

Please don't get me wrong. I'm about as "degreed" as most people get (the only exceptions being MD-PhDs or other dual-degree programs) and I've worked in academia for quite some time. College can certainly be valuable... but as it currently stands, it is essentially an organism being devoured by parasites (think about why costs have increased so sharply -- it's not because anyone is hiring tenured professors). Sanders' plan sounds reasonable, but even if it comes with restrictions on costs, the parasites will still take advantage of it and the situation will only get worse.

[Bonesy]

So basically you are like a rich guy trying to explain why poor people are ultimately worse off with more money. Got it.

[TerraPrime]

[mod hat]

Please focus on the politics of election, not the value of higher education.

Thanks.

[/mod hat]

[Altherion]

Sorry, got carried away there. In other news, Sanders has apparently raised $75M, mainly from small donations. It's still significantly less than what Clinton got, but by less than a factor of 2.

[ThinkerX]

Sorry, got carried away there. In other news,

Sanders has apparently raised $75M

, mainly from small donations. It's still significantly less than what Clinton got, but by less than a factor of 2. [/quote]

 

This could be argued to mean that Sanders has more support among the base than Clinton.  It also means that should Clinton somehow survive her scandals and win, it will be almost entirely because large financial interests working on her behalf.  Which in turn means she will be a corporate sock puppet.

[A Prince of Dorne]

10 hours ago, SeanF said:

He could be your President, in a few months.

As could Hillary. I'm not sure which is worse, frankly.

Still highly doubting that Trump actually wins any states that matter

[TrackerNeil]

22 hours ago, Bonesy said:

He has a way to pay for his proposals, but it's a double edged sword in that, as I understand it, the concern is that the establishment power will fight tooth and nail to prevent his means of paying for the proposals rather than the proposals themselves.

This talk of "the establishment" sums up what I find hard to understand about Sanders' explanations of how he'll achieve the lofty goals he's set for himself. He seems to have this idea that most Americans believe that the wealthy/corporations/whoever have too much power, and that these Americans are ready to rise up to take that power away. Judging from recent elections, about half of Americans either don't feel that way, or else they prioritize other things over stripping away the power of "the establishment." George W. Bush got right around 50% of the popular vote both times he ran for office. John McCain, who is presumably allied with "the establishment" got 45% of the vote in a year terrible for Republicans, and Mitt Romney, who embodies wealth and privilege, got 47%. If Americans seethe to take a whack at The Man, they certainly don't vote that way.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not disagreeing with Sanders' positions--I'd love a single-payer health care system!--but I simply don't believe that there is some silent majority out there just ready to agree with me, and with him. 

[Bonesy]

See, that's the thing about getting fed up. It doesn't start that way, but eventually manifests abruptly.

It simply doesn't matter who voted for whom years ago. This is now.

[TrackerNeil]

11 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

See, that's the thing about getting fed up. It doesn't start that way, but eventually manifests abruptly.

It simply doesn't matter who voted for whom years ago. This is now.

Well, people can change, but it seems to me unlikely that a significant slice of the electorate has changed that radically in only four years. If a Republican is elected in 2016, will that disprove your thesis?

[ThinkerX]

41 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Well, people can change, but it seems to me unlikely that a significant slice of the electorate has changed that radically in only four years. If a Republican is elected in 2016, will that disprove your thesis?

Problem is, with that statement, you are ignoring most of seven years of hatred based gridlock towards Obama.  Plus an economic disaster which resulted in a ludicrously wealthy corporate caste at the expense of a drastically squeezed middle class.

 

Been ages since I looked into this stuff.  But I do seem to remember a sort of graph (?) that showed under the right conditions revolutions could come about very swiftly. 

[TrackerNeil]

11 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Problem is, with that statement, you are ignoring most of seven years of hatred based gridlock towards Obama.  Plus an economic disaster which resulted in a ludicrously wealthy corporate caste at the expense of a drastically squeezed middle class.

No, what I am doing is assuming (reasonably) that most Americans have not radically changed in eight years. They certainly didn't change much in this regard by 2012, when 47% percent of those who voted wanted Romney in charge. Perhaps this radical change has taken place in the three-plus years since then, but I'll wait for the data.

[Bonesy]

If a Republican is elected...

Good heavens man, it's like you didn't notice that Donald fucking Trump is the front-runner.

As long as Trump and Sanders (and to a lesser extent Cruz) are doing well, my thesis is proved.

What's happening right now will have to dramatically change to DIS-prove it.

[ThinkerX]

17 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

No, what I am doing is assuming (reasonably) that most Americans have not radically changed in eight years. They certainly didn't change much in this regard by 2012, when 47% percent of those who voted wanted Romney in charge. Perhaps this radical change has taken place in the three-plus years since then, but I'll wait for the data.

The circumstances of the middle class took a giant hit eight years ago when the economy crashed.  Obama's landslide 'hope and change' election was the result.  Last election, Obama won, but it was almost a 'lesser of two evils' thing, because Obama didn't deliver (even though he was sabotaged.)  At that point, serious disillusionment with conventional politics set in across the board - rich got richer, middle class got screwed. Trump, Sanders, and Cruz are the result.  Add their total support together as measured against the total US voting populace.  That is a majority that is really ticked off with business as usual, even though they vehemently disagree on a solution.  Or do you dispute this?

By failing to deliver, both parties contributed to this mess. 

[TrackerNeil]

15 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

The circumstances of the middle class took a giant hit eight years ago when the economy crashed.  Obama's landslide 'hope and change' election was the result.  Last election, Obama won, but it was almost a 'lesser of two evils' thing, because Obama didn't deliver (even though he was sabotaged.)  At that point, serious disillusionment with conventional politics set in across the board - rich got richer, middle class got screwed. Trump, Sanders, and Cruz are the result.  Add their total support together as measured against the total US voting populace.  That is a majority that is really ticked off with business as usual, even though they vehemently disagree on a solution.  Or do you dispute this?

I'm not disputing your claims; I'm asking you to support them with facts. That means I want to see some data indicating that some silent majority of Americans is ready to tax the hell out of the rich and essentially put the private health insurance industry out of business. Until I see some evidence, I remain skeptical.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

5 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I'm not disputing your claims; I'm asking you to support them with facts. That means I want to see some data indicating that some silent majority of Americans is ready to tax the hell out of the rich and essentially put the private health insurance industry out of business. Until I see some evidence, I remain skeptical.

Rarely has a goalpost moved so far, so fast. 

[Shryke]

3 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

This talk of "the establishment" sums up what I find hard to understand about Sanders' explanations of how he'll achieve the lofty goals he's set for himself. He seems to have this idea that most Americans believe that the wealthy/corporations/whoever have too much power, and that these Americans are ready to rise up to take that power away. Judging from recent elections, about half of Americans either don't feel that way, or else they prioritize other things over stripping away the power of "the establishment." George W. Bush got right around 50% of the popular vote both times he ran for office. John McCain, who is presumably allied with "the establishment" got 45% of the vote in a year terrible for Republicans, and Mitt Romney, who embodies wealth and privilege, got 47%. If Americans seethe to take a whack at The Man, they certainly don't vote that way.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not disagreeing with Sanders' positions--I'd love a single-payer health care system!--but I simply don't believe that there is some silent majority out there just ready to agree with me, and with him. 

There's been several critiques to this effect over the past, oh, 6 months.

I read one recently by this guy: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/01/bernie_sanders_revolution_isn_t_good_enough.html

which wasn't bad. Don't agree with all of it but it's just a recent thing I saw on this general point.

 

I generally agree with the critique you are bringing up in that I don't think his idea of a political revolution is at all possible because I think his assumptions about the nature of the electorate are wrong. I think he's completely mistaken in believing that he can reach past cultural differences with a message of class-based unity based on an economic platform. I think largely because the idea that alot of that cultural difference is just layered over a common class identity is wrong. There's sort of this idea that, say, racism exists to pit the lower classes against one another to keep them from allying against the people at the top exploiting them. And I think while there is a certain amount of truth to the idea of using racism to keep an underclass down, I think there's alot more to these cultural/racial/etc disagreements then that. Certainly at this point.