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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez


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Ocasio-Cortez Severely Burned After Accidentally Touching Book On Basic Economics

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“As socialism has become increasingly popular, we’ve been seeing more and more of this,” said Doctor Pauline Hudson, who treated Ocasio-Cortez for third-degree burns. “Often it’s a severe-allergic reaction to math. Socialist policies are all well and good, but if you adopt them, you want to stay far away from even basic economic idea like supply and demand. It’s not pretty what happens when the two collide.”

 

ocasio-cortez-severely-burned-after-accidentally-touching-book-on-basic-economics

 

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4 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

Mugging the haves to give it to the have nots is a bad strategy. You can’t just give hand outs and expect the middle class to recover. You have to structure the welfare system in such a way that encourages people to work and earn. And you have to have jobs for them.

I’m intrigued by what Maine has done and wonder if it could scale.

Income disparity is a bit of a red herring imo. The goal should be to make sure everyone is able to earn enough, not to bring down the high earners because you don’t like how much they have.

so, you are not the only person to characterize taxing where the money is as mugging, envy, or larceny. i find that part of the dialogue tiring. it's really up to the executives to pay their workers more. it's not up to the government. of course, they won't, because it's not about a healthy economy, it's about quarterly share price, shareholder success, and meeting expectations and guidance. and in the end, there is the idea that people are paid what they are worth. 

personally, i'm fairly happy with where i'm at, though i could use a bit of a payraise (who couldn't), but if i'm viewed on a balance sheet, my product margin is obscenely good. this is not about me envying my CEO's pay or success. i do think that the c-levels are looting the company to a degree, leaving less for members of my team who i think deserve more. i've seen some coworkers go without raises in the past couple of years, while i see executive compensation in quarterly results increasing. i do not think that is equitable, nor is it sustainable. 

i feel like i'm being accused of being in favor of some sort of government redistribution of income, when that is not the case at all. i'm just the guy telling you it's going to happen if there are not changes made in how business is generally done in the states, based on the trends i posted above. people will only take so long to see the scam.

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18 hours ago, this said:

Income disparity is a problem to you because its a vehicle for politicians to flame the masses. Today's middle class enjoys more amenities, larger homes, more cars, electronics than the one in 50s despite having a wider income disparity according to you. We have a better lifestyle overall by far and yet you point to income disparity.

We should care about poverty, not income disparity. Caring about income disparity is like you pointing to some guy's nice car and wanting it just because he has it.

Do we have poverty? Sure. Are there resources to take care of poverty? Yes. Have we improved on poverty since the gilded age of the 50s that you DSAs love to talk about when it was at 20%? Here you go:

US Poverty Rate – How the Great Society Programs Reversed its Decline

 

poverty-rate-historical

It is notable that in post World War 2 America, the poverty rate was declining constantly every year, until in 1973 it hit a level of just below 8.8% from where it has since then bounced back to now around 11% and rising.

How can this be explained?

Well, one way to approach this is the following: What do you expect would happen if the government started to enact new major welfare programs that would affect families across the board? Of course: the programs would keep the recipients in poverty, rather than motivating them to lift themselves out, and, as a tendency, produce a lasting underclass of dependents.

Is there evidence that an unusually high number of such programs was introduced in the US shortly before 1973? I believe that there clearly is, the Great Society programs:

Civil Rights

(…)The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade job discrimination and the segregation of public accommodations. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 assured minority registration and voting. It suspended use of literacy or other voter-qualification tests that had sometimes served to keep African-Americans off voting lists and provided for federal court lawsuits to stop discriminatory poll taxes. It also reinforced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by authorizing the appointment of federal voting examiners in areas that did not meet voter-participation requirements. The Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 abolished the national-origin quotas in immigration law. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 banned housing discrimination and extended constitutional protections to Native Americans on reservations.

 

DSA's constant thread on income disparity is nothing but jealousy. 

so, first, i'm not a democratic socialist, as explained in the previous post on this thread. i'm just trying to frame a discussion as to why candidates like the one named in the OP are having success. 

second, you are seriously touting a democratic policy designed to reduce poverty because of social disparity to argue against my saying democratic policies are gaining in popularity because of social disparity?

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15 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

so, first, i'm not a democratic socialist, as explained in the previous post on this thread. i'm just trying to frame a discussion as to why candidates like the one named in the OP are having success. 

second, you are seriously touting a democratic policy designed to reduce poverty because of social disparity to argue against my saying democratic policies are gaining in popularity because of social disparity?

Well, he also seems to be seriously suggesting that the Civil Rights Act increased poverty. So that's fun. 

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1 hour ago, Chrispy said:

Well um, like, I feel that um, he’s like a mean white person, and um like, there’s enough pain in the world already, so like, yeah. 

When has a candidate for office ever debated a random person who isnt running for office? Perhaps if Shapiro weren't an unlikable piece of shit with massive amounts of skeletons in his closet, he could run for office wherever he lives and debate someone. Perhaps he should volunteer to coach Anthony Pappas who will actually be debating her at some point. 

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26 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

When has a candidate for office ever debated a random person who isnt running for office? Perhaps if Shapiro weren't an unlikable piece of shit with massive amounts of skeletons in his closet, he could run for office wherever he lives and debate someone. Perhaps he should volunteer to coach Anthony Pappas who will actually be debating her at some point. 

 

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4 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

Mugging the haves to give it to the have nots is a bad strategy. You can’t just give hand outs and expect the middle class to recover. You have to structure the welfare system in such a way that encourages people to work and earn. And you have to have jobs for them.

I’m intrigued by what Maine has done and wonder if it could scale.

Income disparity is a bit of a red herring imo. The goal should be to make sure everyone is able to earn enough, not to bring down the high earners because you don’t like how much they have.

thought I was reading the immigration thread for a second.....carry on

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I'd agree on most of your post. The income disparity is an issue IMO, and not because I want his or her money, but because it's not good for the economic stability of a country when too much is held by too few.  (SEE: 1929)


So that’s wealth disparity, and that’s a different issue.
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1 hour ago, hayden_horn said:

so, you are not the only person to characterize taxing where the money is as mugging, envy, or larceny. i find that part of the dialogue tiring. it's really up to the executives to pay their workers more. it's not up to the government. of course, they won't, because it's not about a healthy economy, it's about quarterly share price, shareholder success, and meeting expectations and guidance. and in the end, there is the idea that people are paid what they are worth. 

personally, i'm fairly happy with where i'm at, though i could use a bit of a payraise (who couldn't), but if i'm viewed on a balance sheet, my product margin is obscenely good. this is not about me envying my CEO's pay or success. i do think that the c-levels are looting the company to a degree, leaving less for members of my team who i think deserve more. i've seen some coworkers go without raises in the past couple of years, while i see executive compensation in quarterly results increasing. i do not think that is equitable, nor is it sustainable. 

i feel like i'm being accused of being in favor of some sort of government redistribution of income, when that is not the case at all. i'm just the guy telling you it's going to happen if there are not changes made in how business is generally done in the states, based on the trends i posted above. people will only take so long to see the scam.

What's also tiring is every argument with DSAs or non DSAs(such as you) is framed from a place of (overpaid, not in touch with the poor) CEO(of a multi national company) and workers. And how the CEO wants to "hoard" cash and not pay their workers. It might be true in extremely rare cases but overall that is just not true. Half the employees in this country work for small businesses. They are barely surviving and with unemployment rate at 3.9% they better pay employees a competitive wage or lose them fairly quickly. Let me give you an example: America is a service based economy, as such 10% of our workforce works for the restaurant industry. 

You must know that restaurant industry is notorious for its failures(85% of the restaurants go bankrupt within 18 months), also almost all restaurants work at and around 10% margin. Labor in those restaurants form around 30% of their cost if not more so a slight increase there in wages will not erode profits but wipe them out completely. 

Coming back to your myopically framed vague examples of CEO compensation and paying the workers, and how CEOs overpay themselves by cutting worker salaries which is laughable at best. There are only so many multi national companies that pay millions to their CEOs. If they are paid millions they probably also have thousands of workers, you can take everything they are paid and distribute it amongst the workers and it wouldn't be enough of a pay raise. Its just a red herring that Bernie and his ilk like to voice to flame the masses who run with it without really doing the math. Let's take a company such as Exxon Mobil thats universally hated, they paid their CEO $17,500,000 last year. Let's take every penny he made and distribute it amongst their 69,600 workers, each one gets a pay raise of $20/month! Or $250/year. 

Paying workers more would be nice but if you think that it needs to come from CEO compensation or shareholder returns(who have an average returns of 7% on their investment in the US), you're looking in the wrong place because its just not feasible.  

 

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so, you are not the only person to characterize taxing where the money is as mugging, envy, or larceny. i find that part of the dialogue tiring. it's really up to the executives to pay their workers more. it's not up to the government. of course, they won't, because it's not about a healthy economy, it's about quarterly share price, shareholder success, and meeting expectations and guidance. and in the end, there is the idea that people are paid what they are worth. 
personally, i'm fairly happy with where i'm at, though i could use a bit of a payraise (who couldn't), but if i'm viewed on a balance sheet, my product margin is obscenely good. this is not about me envying my CEO's pay or success. i do think that the c-levels are looting the company to a degree, leaving less for members of my team who i think deserve more. i've seen some coworkers go without raises in the past couple of years, while i see executive compensation in quarterly results increasing. i do not think that is equitable, nor is it sustainable. 
i feel like i'm being accused of being in favor of some sort of government redistribution of income, when that is not the case at all. i'm just the guy telling you it's going to happen if there are not changes made in how business is generally done in the states, based on the trends i posted above. people will only take so long to see the scam.


I wasn’t addressing you in particular and I respect your position.

I would call my use of the word mugging “medium hyperbole”. Which is low for this board. It’s a allusion to the fact that taxes are taken at the threat of law enforcement.

Which is really only an issue for me when the money is used poorly, like to fund a welfare system that keeps people in poverty, or used to fund campaigns based around free stuff for everyone.

I agree that income/wealth disparities make it very easy for liberal candidates to campaign against conservative candidates. I’d like to see some programs (from anyone) that emphasize a path towards earning one’s way out of poverty and closing that gap, vs we’ll-take-it-from-the-Evil-Rich-and-give-you-free-stuff.
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41 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

When has a candidate for office ever debated a random person who isnt running for office? Perhaps if Shapiro weren't an unlikable piece of shit with massive amounts of skeletons in his closet, he could run for office wherever he lives and debate someone. Perhaps he should volunteer to coach Anthony Pappas who will actually be debating her at some point. 

I’m actually inclined to agree with your general sentiment, I found the offer rather odd. Now, we differ in that I’m a fan of Shapiro and it was bewildering to learn that he deemed AOC worthy of his time and energy. While her stammering and pregnant pauses would be entertaining, there’s very little for Shapiro to gain from such an event.

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She's already looked "limited" enough in previous interviews...Shapiro would eviscerate her.  She's at least smart enough to know that she doesn't need any more help looking sophomoric.


Which is coincidentally exactly why Trump’s lawyers won’t let him talk to Mueller.
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What's also tiring is every argument with DSAs or non DSAs(such as you) is framed from a place of (overpaid, not in touch with the poor) CEO(of a multi national company) and workers. And how the CEO wants to "hoard" cash and not pay their workers. It might be true in extremely rare cases but overall that is just not true. Half the employees in this country work for small businesses. They are barely surviving and with unemployment rate at 3.9% they better pay employees a competitive wage or lose them fairly quickly. Let me give you an example: America is a service based economy, as such 10% of our workforce works for the restaurant industry. 
You must know that restaurant industry is notorious for its failures(85% of the restaurants go bankrupt within 18 months), also almost all restaurants work at and around 10% margin. Labor in those restaurants form around 30% of their cost if not more so a slight increase there in wages will not erode profits but wipe them out completely. 
Coming back to your myopically framed vague examples of CEO compensation and paying the workers, and how CEOs overpay themselves by cutting worker salaries which is laughable at best. There are only so many multi national companies that pay millions to their CEOs. If they are paid millions they probably also have thousands of workers, you can take everything they are paid and distribute it amongst the workers and it wouldn't be enough of a pay raise. Its just a red herring that Bernie and his ilk like to voice to flame the masses who run with it without really doing the math. Let's take a company such as Exxon Mobil thats universally hated, they paid their CEO $17,500,000 last year. Let's take every penny he made and distribute it amongst their 69,600 workers, each one gets a pay raise of $20/month! Or $250/year. 
Paying workers more would be nice but if you think that it needs to come from CEO compensation or shareholder returns(who have an average returns of 7% on their investment in the US), you're looking in the wrong place because its just not feasible.  
 


This made me wonder so I looked it up: 17% of the American workforce is employed by the Fortune 500.
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Yeah, but I'm talking more about rank and file income earners.


So, not famous people? You don’t think there are people who have high incomes but are nearly broke?

My BIL lived in NorCal before the 2008 economic collapse. Loads of people making loads of money, buying big houses, running up the equity, taking it out to finance a lifestyle, and then the bubble burst. Bankruptcies all over the place. A friend's mom was leveraged to the hilt with properties all over Destin area. The bubble burst and she lost them all.

By way of comparison there are middle class income earners who are frugal and save and retire early. Read “The Millionaire Next Door”.

Higher income doesn’t hurt, but it’s no guarantee.
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14 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

 


So, not famous people? You don’t think there are people who have high incomes but are nearly broke?

My BIL lived in NorCal before the 2008 economic collapse. Loads of people making loads of money, buying big houses, running up the equity, taking it out to finance a lifestyle, and then the bubble burst. Bankruptcies all over the place. A friend's mom was leveraged to the hilt with properties all over Destin area. The bubble burst and she lost them all.

By way of comparison there are middle class income earners who are frugal and save and retire early. Read “The Millionaire Next Door”.

Higher income doesn’t hurt, but it’s no guarantee.

 

I'm talking about average  middle of the road wage earners  who are being way out paced in income earnings and wealth creation by folks at the top, and that top gets pointier and pointier.

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

 


So, not famous people? You don’t think there are people who have high incomes but are nearly broke?

My BIL lived in NorCal before the 2008 economic collapse. Loads of people making loads of money, buying big houses, running up the equity, taking it out to finance a lifestyle, and then the bubble burst. Bankruptcies all over the place. A friend's mom was leveraged to the hilt with properties all over Destin area. The bubble burst and she lost them all.

By way of comparison there are middle class income earners who are frugal and save and retire early. Read “The Millionaire Next Door”.

Higher income doesn’t hurt, but it’s no guarantee.

 

But I was told guaranteed income in lieu of welfare was a great idea???

 

 

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https://www.brookings.edu/research/defining-the-middle-class-cash-credentials-or-culture/

Quote

Under a median income approach, the size of the middle class can change over time. For instance, Pew finds that the share of adults in the middle class fell from 61 percent in 1970 to 50 percent in 2014. Other income bands tend to reveal a similar shrinkage, but with different baselines: under Krueger’s definition, the share of households in the middle class declined from 50 to 42 percent over roughly the same period (1970 to 2010).

It is tempting to interpret these findings as a “weakening” or “hollowing out” of the middle class. But this might depend on where the formerly middle class households end up. Of the 11 percent of adults who exited the Pew middle class between 1971 and 2015, 4 percentage points fell into the lower class and 7 percentage points moved into the upper or upper-middle class. This may be evidence of greater income polarization, as described by Foster and Wolfson, but not necessarily of a “weakening” of the middle class.[3] A more positive spin on the data is that the share of adults who are at least middle class is rising.

 

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1 hour ago, Js1 said:

She sniffed out that trap.

A $10k donation would be a campaign finance violation.

Except she didn't, or else she would have mentioned it. She instead chose to compare it to catcalling. It's an amateur response and you're giving her undeserved credit for it.

She shouldn't be afraid of the conversation. No one should. The problem is she's not ready for it, and responses like the one she gave only add credibility to that claim. There are too many complex issues on the national and world level that she can't talk intelligently about. Those issues would come up, and she would be torched by Shapiro, Levin, Rubin, or even some opposing democrats. Her supporters know it, which is why there's such a rush to protect her.

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17 minutes ago, LonghornJudas said:

Except she didn't, or else she would have mentioned it. She instead chose to compare it to catcalling. It's an amateur response and you're giving her undeserved credit for it.

She shouldn't be afraid of the conversation. No one should. The problem is she's not ready for it, and responses like the one she gave only add credibility to that claim. There are too many complex issues on the national and world level that she can't talk intelligently about. Those issues would come up, and she would be torched by Shapiro, Levin, Rubin, or even some opposing democrats. Her supporters know it, which is why there's such a rush to protect her.

It doesn't stop Trump.

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So this is the new Hillary thread.

1 hour ago, LonghornJudas said:

Except she didn't, or else she would have mentioned it. She instead chose to compare it to catcalling. It's an amateur response and you're giving her undeserved credit for it.

She shouldn't be afraid of the conversation. No one should. The problem is she's not ready for it, and responses like the one she gave only add credibility to that claim. There are too many complex issues on the national and world level that she can't talk intelligently about. Those issues would come up, and she would be torched by Shapiro, Levin, Rubin, or even some opposing democrats. Her supporters know it, which is why there's such a rush to protect her.

Ben Shapiro is a bad faith actor and has no interest in having an honest debate. 

He just wants to eviscerate her in front of his audience of mouth breathers to show how smart he is. 

It's pretty easy to see what his game is.  

$$$

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1 hour ago, LonghornJudas said:

Except she didn't, or else she would have mentioned it. She instead chose to compare it to catcalling. It's an amateur response and you're giving her undeserved credit for it.

She shouldn't be afraid of the conversation. No one should. The problem is she's not ready for it, and responses like the one she gave only add credibility to that claim. There are too many complex issues on the national and world level that she can't talk intelligently about. Those issues would come up, and she would be torched by Shapiro, Levin, Rubin, or even some opposing democrats. Her supporters know it, which is why there's such a rush to protect her.

Tell me, why does Shapiro not challenge other candidates to a debate?

More people from the right telling the people on the left how dumb, stupid, unintelligent, amateur, etc. one of their candidates is.

STFU.

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24 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

So this is the new Hillary thread.

Ben Shapiro is a bad faith actor and has no interest in having an honest debate. 

He just wants to eviscerate her in front of his audience of mouth breathers to show how smart he is. 

It's pretty easy to see what his game is.  

$$$

sounds like every pundit on CNN, MSNBC, etc.....

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3 hours ago, Chrispy said:

I’m actually inclined to agree with your general sentiment, I found the offer rather odd. Now, we differ in that I’m a fan of Shapiro and it was bewildering to learn that he deemed AOC worthy of his time and energy. While her stammering and pregnant pauses would be entertaining, there’s very little for Shapiro to gain from such an event.

She’s dumb.  But not that dumb.  

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2 hours ago, LonghornJudas said:

Except she didn't, or else she would have mentioned it. She instead chose to compare it to catcalling. It's an amateur response and you're giving her undeserved credit for it.

She shouldn't be afraid of the conversation. No one should. The problem is she's not ready for it, and responses like the one she gave only add credibility to that claim. There are too many complex issues on the national and world level that she can't talk intelligently about. Those issues would come up, and she would be torched by Shapiro, Levin, Rubin, or even some opposing democrats. Her supporters know it, which is why there's such a rush to protect her.

Does Shapiro have a history of demanding these kinds of debates from politicians?    I've never heard of him before, and it's not at all commonplace for random pundits to be demanding debates from candidates in such an entitled and crass fashion.   Maybe this is a regular thing for him, but otherwise catcalling sounds like an apt comparison. 

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15 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

Does Shapiro have a history of demanding these kinds of debates from politicians?    I've never heard of him before, and it's not at all commonplace for random pundits to be demanding debates from candidates in such an entitled and crass fashion.   Maybe this is a regular thing for him, but otherwise catcalling sounds like an apt comparison. 

He did debate comrade Kshama Sawant a Seattle council member, a self described socialist. He did destroy her arguments, it was hilarious. I'm guessing he is trying to do something similar but AOC probably has access to YouTube and can even click through the videos even if she can't follow them all. 

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  • hayden_horn changed the title to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez


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