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Does that come with fries?
You should always upscale with cheese.
Cheeseburger for $11.50 would always be a better value option than Hamburger for $10. :)
But bringing the thread back to Bernie Sanders.
It's super tuesday.
Sanders is expected to do well in: Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, Massachuetts, and Oklahoma.
Total pledged delegates in those states: 288.
Clinton is expected to win in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia.
Total pledged delegates for these states: 571.
Most of these states are various forms of proportional delegates, so both candidates will win delegates in most of these states. But clearly the math favours Hillary Clinton.
The media likes to sensationalize it as "Clinton will crush Sanders, it's all over".
But, the contest will continue, and the math will not be so lopsided on Mar 15.
Still an uphill battle, but........
Last edited by Bob Gillanders; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016, 10:39 AM.
1) Speculation isn't theft. Anyone who buys anything is engaged in speculation. Is this hamburger worth $10? Is this house worth $200K?
How about this kind of speculation: "Can Joe Dishwasher and his stay-at-home wife with 2 children afford a $200K home? Yes, yes, yes, and we'll lend him the money with only 5% down!" says Countrywide Morgtage. Why? Because after they lend him the money, they are going to sell his mortgage to some bank in the Netherlands along with thousands of other such mortgages. And that bank is going to divvy up those mortgages and sell some of them to some Russian bank and some to a Swedish bank. By the time the Dishwasher family is foreclosed on, no one knows who owns their mortgage. Apparently you didn't have this happen in Canada, but it did in the states. The result was a chain reaction that came back to hit the balance sheets of U.S. banks in a big way, and it virtually froze all inter-bank lending worldwide. Global liquidity was dried up like never before. The day when Obama took office, Bush had a private meeting in which Obama found out the entire economy was on the verge of collapse. Reports were that Obama came out of those meetings "ashen-faced". And very shortly afterwards came the auto industry bailouts to keep hundreds of thousands of auto industry workers with a job. If that hadn't happened, even you in Canada Tom would have lost everything you had -- poof! No matter what form your savings were in, it would be gone. It would have been a worldwide depression of unimaginable proportions.
The government bailouts that you decry were a reaction to unregulated speculation. If the bailouts were theft, so was the speculation.
2) I am personally opposed to regulations with regard to what adults do to their own bodies. I think all drugs should be legal, not just medical marijuana, for example.
Ok, so you are a Libertarian (fiscally conservative, socially liberal). Unfortunately, Libertarians don't exactly get elected. The vast, vast majority of the right is fiscally and socially conservative, leading to the paradox I mentioned.
The paradox you mentioned comes about because of unbridled regulation as explained above. But the other thing that should be mentioned is that most spending by liberal governments, what you call redistribution of wealth, is usually concentrated in doing things that the free market has no interest in doing -- such as providing health care to those who can't afford it. If everything were unregulated, Marco Rubio style, there'd be no environmental protections. I'm sure you've heard of the lead water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Republican governor trying to save money is what caused it. The result was a different kind of theft: the theft of health for thousands of innocent children. The lesson of Flint and of many other such episodes is that redistribution of wealth is sometimes necessary to get things done that selfish, greedy people won't do on their own.
You may abhor it, but this kind of regulation is not going away anytime soon. You should be thankful you don't live in Flint Michigan.
3) Why does ISIS exist? How is the Middle East a better place since 2001? Millions dead and displaced, trillions of dollars wasted.
Every great society in history has had its share of enemies and attackers. Rome fell to barbarians, not all in one instant, but over decades. It could be argued that the rise of ISIS and other radical Islamic terrorist groups was inevitable. The Middle East has been a hotbed of unrest ever since the formation of Israel in 1948, and perhaps before that.
Now, imagine Rand Paul (or Ron Paul) as President in September 2001. Maybe the Iraq war wouldn't have happened, but SOME sort of revenge act against some group in the Middle East would have. The American people would not stand for anything less.
But Rand Paul today thinks we can just withdraw and let the Middle East sort out its own problems.
It's super tuesday.
Sanders is expected to do well in: Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, Massachuetts, and Oklahoma.
Total pledged delegates in those states: 288.
Clinton is expected to win in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia.
Total pledged delegates for these states: 571.
Okay, so the votes are counted.
Sanders wins: Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, and Oklahoma.
Massachusetts: Clinton 45, Sanders 44 pledged delegates.
Pledged delegates won in 11 states yesterday.
Clinton 500, Sanders 326. More or less! My website source, delegate counts for Vermont and Tennessee didn't add up!!!
The battle continues.
Last edited by Bob Gillanders; Wednesday, 2nd March, 2016, 10:46 AM.
That's an excellent question, and I am happy to answer it.
Let's say you are going to get a degree, and the degree is worth $50K to you. In other words, if you had the money or the ability to get a loan, you would be willing to pay up to $50K. You aren't willing to spend more, and like someone shopping for a car, or a house, or chicken burgers, you are price conscious. You expect value for your money and will shop around for the best value at the best price.
Now, let's say you can get a "free" education. You don't care what it costs. You are not price sensitive. You are okay if the actual cost is $100K. Since you won't argue price, those supplying the service are not likely to do what they can to cut costs. They aren't going to bill you anyway, so really what do you care? The end result is a $50K degree and $50K of waste.
There is no price discovery in government-provided services. How can there be?
P.S. A lot of people without degrees do well. If you were to exclude jobs where a degree is a strict requirement (e.g. doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.) how beneficial on average is a degree when the cost of getting the degree is factored in? What percentage get a job in their field? If they don't end up in a job in their field why do they need the degree in the first place?
THERE was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so surely established, which (in continuance of time) hath not been corrupted... - from the Preface to the 1549 edition of the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer
The fact that whatever humans touch seems to eventually be characterized by things like ineptitude, ineffectiveness, corruption, etc., is a notion that has been around for a long time. But it is not, imo, a good reason for refusing to do things which could help to create a better/fairer society for all. It may well be the case that there is no reliable/accurate price discovery method in many or all gov't-provided services. But should that deter us from providing a much-needed hand up for an underclass of people within society? Or, is it a case of, "screw 'em if they can't pull themselves up."
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
What about all the bodies floating around after the ship sinks? Are they atheists?
They're aqueous. :)
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
1) Redistribution of wealth by speculators is theft. Legal theft, but immoral all the same. We aren't talking about accumulating for something basic like shelter or food. No one "needs" a gated 40,000 square foot mansion.
2) The Right decries government regulation. Their solution? Regulate against a woman's right to choose, against a poor person's access to affordable health care, against medical marijuana. Insanity.
3) Rand Paul.... yeah, you and everyone in ISIS would love him for President.
Not sure Tom if you are Christian like so many of the extreme right in the U.S., but when it comes to the religious right, there's two things I do remember from the New Testament of the Bible that I'm sure that group would rather forget. First, Jesus said "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's". And second, although he never took any action against the government of the day, he did throw the MONEY MAKERS out of the temple.
1) Speculation isn't theft. Anyone who buys anything is engaged in speculation. Is this hamburger worth $10? Is this house worth $200K?
2) I am personally opposed to regulations with regard to what adults do to their own bodies. I think all drugs should be legal, not just medical marijuana, for example.
3) Why does ISIS exist? How is the Middle East a better place since 2001? Millions dead and displaced, trillions of dollars wasted.
4) I am an atheist.
Re Paul's point 1), I agree with him and I think you're interpreting his comment far too broadly. Consider this: you, me, and several million other ordinary joe's deposit our hard-earned pay cheques in a bank. Over the years we accumulate some savings, some or all of which we leave with our bank. The investment banking arm of our bank has access to all, or substantially all, of the bank's deposit base for funding its investment activities. Our bank decides speculatively to invest several billion dollars in raw sewage (e.g. sub-prime derivatives). Our bank is forced to write down its raw sewage investment by a large percentage, thus placing in jeopardy its overall financial health and endangering our deposits. Did our bank pay us a risk premium for the use of our monies in a high-risk investment? No! Did our bank give us a choice with respect to the degree of risk they could take with our monies? No! I believe this is an example of the type of speculation to which Paul was referring; i.e. your hamburger example is a caveat emptor value proposition and has little to do with speculation imo.
p.s. And Bob Gillanders was correct. Always super-size for best value!! :)
Last edited by Peter McKillop; Wednesday, 2nd March, 2016, 06:29 PM.
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
(To Tom O'Donnell): I wonder if you were an atheist in your previous life? And by the way, there are no atheists on a sinking ship.
Tom, fwiw, I apologize for my thoughtless comments on your belief system. My own belief system could be (and has been) made fun of.... really, what do any of us know? Anyway, I hope you'll accept my apologies. We had a good discussion going and I had to inject some crude remarks. Really, I'm sorry.
Atheism does puzzle me. I suppose atheists must believe in evolution as an explanation for the diversity of life on Earth. I do believe evolution happens, but I think creation could also have happened. They aren't (to me) mutually exclusive.
When I think of evolution as an explanation for all of life, I sense a lot of unanswered questions. There's one species that I just can't believe came about by a gradual process that began with an accidental genetic mutation. No, it's not humans.
And on the topic we were discussing, I personally don't think one should be always on the political left or on the right. I've always tried to have an open mind on everything. The one thing I will say in favor of Donald Trump is that he has shown and is still showing flexibility on things, and I think the world can use more of that.
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
The one thing I will say in favor of Donald Trump is that he has shown and is still showing flexibility on things, and I think the world can use more of that.
Trump is first and foremost a con man.
I agree that flexibility can be a good thing.
But as for Trump, it isn't flexibility, it's just say whatever to whip up his base.
Don't drink the Koolaid!
Last edited by Bob Gillanders; Friday, 4th March, 2016, 11:55 AM.
The media continues to tell us that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are so far out in the lead that they both have it locked up, game over.
Well that was their spin on friday,
But a few states voted yesterday,
Republicans: Trump 2, Cruz 2.
Democrats: Sanders 2, Clinton 1
Clinton’s state was a big one, so she picks up more delegates. But Sanders keeps it close.
The media likes to keep reporting super delegates in Clinton camp to show her with a big lead. It’s a lot closer if you count only pledged delegates. But will super delegates continue to support Clinton if Sanders takes a lead in pledged delegates? Interesting question, eh!
Anyway, these races are far from over. Feel the Bern!
"My political preferences don’t line up with any of the candidates. My fascination with Trump is his persuasion skills. I have never seen better. "
- Scott Adams
Bernie Sanders continues to surprise the experts and wins Michigan.
Yes, it was close, and Hillary wins Mississippi, so she wins more pledged delegates than Bernie yesterday.
But.....more evidence of momentum shifting to Sanders!
This race is not over, despite media claims.
The Washington Post has, recently, 16 articles in the same day attacking Bernie Sanders. And he still won Michigan. The establishment is really pulling out all the stops to attack Sanders. From this point of view, HRC is seen as a Republican "firewall" against Sanders.
Michael Moore posted a photo of his ballot on Facebook and wrote the following:
Originally posted by Michael Moore
My ballot. Our day. History made. Socialism beats Capitalism, 50-48.
Is that the sound of conservative heads exploding? awww....
Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.
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