Matt Miazga playing for Alaves

Discussion in 'Yanks Abroad' started by Gorky, Jan 25, 2015.

  1. tomásbernal

    tomásbernal Member+

    Sep 4, 2007
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #7026 tomásbernal, Apr 4, 2020
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2020
    I live in Kentucky (again, though I wasn't a resident for several election cycles). It's highly unlikely to matter if I vote for Biden or anyone else not named Trump. If it appears, near election time, that voting for Biden (assuming he is, indeed, the candidate) might make a difference, then I might reconsider holding my nose.

    EDIT: But, it's not just about the rules for the convention. The Party went all out in support of Hillary, full stop. The damned Party Chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, could hardly have done more in her position to support Hillary and shit on Bernie. And there was Donna Brazile leaking debate questions to Hillary ahead of time. And the Party's full backing of Hillary to whitewash the blatantly illegal shit with the private servers. And that's just what comes to mind right now, but it was a seemingly unending stream of anti-Bernie, pro-Hillary crap every day.
     
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  2. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    Doesn't change your previous claim, however.

    The biggest issue for the Dems was no serious challenger ran v. HRC, which I believe was a problem.

    But nonetheless, if you voted for Nader in FLA or Stein/GaryStoner/Trump in PA, WI, or MI, you were part of a small crew that contributed, more than usual, to Bush or Trump...

    That's just how voting works.

    In PA, for instance, Dem AG Josh Shapiro got more state-wide votes than Trump or Toomey. Both Auditor General and Treasurer were Dems. Which indicates a reasonably large # of PA Dems or Dem-leaning Indies either voted for Trump, Stein/Johnson/other or didn't vote for Potus at all, and still voted straight ticket for the rest of the ballot (unless we believe the conspiracies of targeted hacking...) Whether this was sexism (HRC and McGinty were the only 2 Dems to lose statewide. The 3 Dems that won were men?) or years of anti-Clinton rhetoric, (esp in "Pennsytucky" but also Maryland border/York and upper central) we will probably never know.

    But HRC was also "hurt" by less-than-Obama number turnout in PA (Philly, Allegheny), MI and WI cities, which certainly suggests less-than-Obama excitement levels, and/or complacency.
     
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  3. tomásbernal

    tomásbernal Member+

    Sep 4, 2007
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    What was my previous claim that you're referring to?

    Also, Bernie Sanders was most definitely a serious challenger to Hillary. It doesn't matter if he's been listed as an Independent for his whole career--he was on the Democratic ballot everywhere. If you don't agree with that then you're just trying to rewrite the history of the 2016 Presidential election.
     
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  4. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    He was not a "serious" challenger in that he never "seriously" had a chance at the nomination. Sanders, despite his fervent base, seems to have a hard top that he has twice now been unable to break.

    That, again, is not ideology or anything, it's just numbers.

    (Your "previous claim" was this: "Not supporting something (or, in this case, someone) doesn't mean you support another thing." - it does not mean you "actively" support another thing, but the effect can be, of course, that your actions create a situation where you allow support for that "Thing" to happen - but not in Ky in this case, so you're safe.)
     
  5. tomásbernal

    tomásbernal Member+

    Sep 4, 2007
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yes, he did absolutely have a "serious" chance at nomination--that's why the Party used all available tools to prop up Hillary. If 13M votes (Sanders) vs 17M votes (Hillary) doesn't count Bernie as a legit contender, then I'm not sure what you could possibly think a "serious challenger" would be. If he had gotten 15 million votes would that do it?
     
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  6. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    It was 55 to 43%.

    I got nothing against Sanders. I've given him money at times, but that is just not competitive. If you had those numbers in a general it's a "mandate."

    (I mean, Reagan "only" beat Carter 50 to 41%)

    And even 15 million doesn't change the math, unless HRC got 2m less, but she didn't. It's not some conspiracy to look at Sanders numbers, delegates and performance again this year and conclude he simply was not a serious candidate vs. HRC in a Democratic primary.

    I realize some folks don't want that to be true, but a 4 million vote swing was just not in the electorate at that point. It's just math.
     
  7. tomásbernal

    tomásbernal Member+

    Sep 4, 2007
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yes, Bernie ultimately didn't win (and likely won't win this time, either). The final tally ignores that the Democratic Party threw the kitchen sink at Bernie. That had consequences that manifested in voting. What, then, in a primary election, constitutes a "serious challenger"?
     
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  8. Bruce S

    Bruce S Member+

    Sep 10, 1999
    #7033 Bruce S, Apr 5, 2020
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2020
    You know not of what you speak. Fermi was Italian, Bohr was Danish, Einstein was Swiss, Szilard was Hungarian, nearly all of the leading physicists were European. The Manhattan project was an Allied project (not just Americans) involving many many Europeans. After the war, theft was not necessary. The Russians did steal secrets from Manhattan Project via Klaus Fuchs, a German working for the USSR.
    Back to biomedicine: Chinese stealing secrets is nonsense. A typical anecdotal myth.
     
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  9. Bruce S

    Bruce S Member+

    Sep 10, 1999
    Thanks for pointing this out. I just made the same point about the Manhattan project. I guess non-scientist don’t realize how much our powerful science structure relies on brains of immigrants and collaborators from abroad, including China, India and Europe.
     
  10. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    Obama was a "serious" challenger to HRC in 2008. That was an incredibly tight primary that required a newcomer to excite and energize enough segments of Dem party's traditional base, organizing stalwarts and/or monied class to appear to be able to mount a successful national campaign.

    BHO did that, a bit out of nowhere, and squeaked out a primary, and eventual national victory.

    Even though the delegate count was fairly broad, folks tend to forget HRC and BHO were basically tied on raw vote (.1% difference) with a few pulled by Edwards. That is a competitive race. A few missteps by BHO or a few slick moves by HRC and that could have broke the other way.

    4 million votes is just a different animal to ~40k raw votes. And the breadth of BHO support across the various "institutions" and "traditional base/blocks" of the party made him much more serious than Sanders as a contender, beyond simple vote count.

    Again, I don't hate Sanders. But I don't think there is any indication he is electable nationally given our electoral system.

    And, in our (effectively) 2 party, winner-take-all system, at the POTUS level, a vote not cast for one of the two major party nominees is, in effect, an act in support of their opponent.
     
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  11. nobody

    nobody Member+

    Jun 20, 2000
    I quite like Sanders, but I think his supporters greatly over-rate his electoral capabilities. If he were half the ballot box juggernaut his most fervent supporters claim, he'd have had no problem beating Hillary to the nomination, but ultimately, she just got more votes. Super delegates were the boogeyman in the background, but the actual votes went against him too. And, this time around, the DNC changed their processes to make Bernie and his people happy, and this time Biden is getting more votes. Ideologically, I'd be very happy to see Bernie as president and I like the old codger. But, he's got to learn to stop whining about process and go out and get the votes. And I say that as someone who is very worried about Biden's chances in the election and am not at all pleased about his continuing mental gaffes not to mention his abuse scandal which will get a ton of coverage. Frankly, all the candidates left are too damn old, but for whatever reason the American public doesn't seem to trust anyone under 70.

    The saddest thing for the Democrats in my mind is that I see "generic Democrat" doing better in polling than any actual Democrat far too often. Also, issue for issue, the Democrats are far closer to the opinions of the majority on a host of big issues, yet they blow election after election. That's blatantly crappy politics starting at the top. I just don't see that Bernie is the solution to this problem until he shows he can get the votes, which he is a bit late to do at this point.
     
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  12. Eighteen Alpha

    Eighteen Alpha Member+

    Aug 17, 2016
    Club:
    Stoke City FC
    Can we just rename this thread Big Socialist?
     
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  13. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    Said every American including agribiz farmers, Boeing and friends now cashing taxpayer checks around the world in the Covid compounds...

    Yeah, we can call it Big Kletpocrats (who love Socialism when Moral Hazard bites them.)

    I'm down with that.
     
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  14. dougtee

    dougtee Member+

    Feb 7, 2007
    imagine seeing millions of people laid off and lose their health coverage during a government mandated shutdown around a public health crisis and think that somehow socialism is a bad word
     
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  15. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    I am a Chicago-trained free market advocate but the issue we’ve seen is that we socialize losses and privatize gains.

    any money the governments gives to corporations should be at the market price, which probably means wiping out a lot of equity. During the 2008 crisis, we were so close to a system wide meltdown that the consensus in the fiscal war room was “if we don’t throw everything we have at this, we’re near financial Armageddon so let’s not get cute” but this time is different.

    if we continue to bail out over-leveraged investors, we will get even greater amount of over-leveraged investors.
     
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  16. The Irish Rover

    The Irish Rover Member+

    Aug 1, 2010
    Dublin
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Ireland Republic
    Ask the average Venezuelan, Cuban, early 1970s Chilean, (ex) Yugoslavian or pre-1990s Vietnamese how great socialism was or is. Ask the Ghanaians, Tanaznians and Zambians while you're at it.


    Socialism is popular with the sellers, sure. I mean, what producer ever objected to a captive market with someone subsidizing the tab? Only the punters object, and who cares about them.
    .
     
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  17. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    It's ok, though, we'll still bankrupt mom and pop over medical bills, squeeze cousin suzy over loan payments and foreclose on grandma jones over mortgage small print, so it will all be fine.

    But Boeing, bruh... How will we eat without Boeing?
     
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  18. Sufjan Guzan

    Sufjan Guzan Member+

    Feb 13, 2016
    Chicago school and Keynesian school are both dead now. Or at least until we realize MMT makes no sense.
     
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  19. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    well, we need to incentivize people to save so you won’t hear me saying that foreclosures are bad etc. Where socialism goes wrong is that governments are a terrible method of allocating capital to productive purposes - the markets are much better suited for that.

    Boeing hires thousands of people but there’s a system in place for wiping out the old debt/equity and bringing in fresh capital.

    Governments perform best IMO as an insurer of last resort - the world desperately needs that now and the last people we should be bailing out now are shareholders - that being said, a lot of pension funds are shareholders and they are 100% at this point...
     
  20. LouisianaViking07/09

    Aug 15, 2009
    we need more political parties in this country. most euro countries have like four or five major parties with several more being significant in some ways while we remain with 2 and that whole lesser of two evils crap.

    Sanders should form his own party. he's too good for the Democrats
     
  21. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    Except, of course, as a general rule "government" in the US is happy to "incentivize" "prudence" through mortgage foreclosure, but does not want to "incentivize" shareholder "prudence" through corporate bankruptcy...

    We have top-down "socialism" which is *aktually* oligarchy/kleptocapitalism. It's ain't new, just much more pronounced than it was post-war.

    The idea of mutual sacrifice that seemed to have infiltrated the national psyche in WWII as been beat out of the overall national zeitgeist by cynical oligarchs disguised as "Libertarians." And "socialism" is used as an invalidating pejorative for any policy that helps/supports a wide swath of people at the expense of corps.

    One thing that makes our values clear: US citizens must file/pay US tax on worldwide income. Corps etc... not so much.

    I'm a realist. Arbitrary, facile, mutable handles like "socialism!" "freedom!" "moral hazard!" "bail out!" "tax reform" don't mean shyte in the abstract. It's how they are applied...

    And anyone willing to take a cold, hard look sees how they are applied in the US. Like a f*king truncheon.
     
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  22. Eighteen Alpha

    Eighteen Alpha Member+

    Aug 17, 2016
    Club:
    Stoke City FC
    I take it you didn't like my joke.
     
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  23. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    I liked it plenty, especially since it gave me an opportunity to spout off!
     
  24. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    I started out by saying that socializing losses is terrible so you won’t get me to disagree with your premise. I do disagree that because bailouts happen for corporations, it should also happen for people who make poor choices. It shouldn’t happen for corporations.

    Note: this is not what I’m saying about C19 which is a truly idiosyncratic event that governments must counteract.

    Finally, the US is the only country that does tax corporations on global income so I think you’re confused in that.
     
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  25. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    I believe that was only US "residence" corps(ie. HQs in the US) and I believe that was changed somewhat in the recent tax act (to avoid offshoring). And regardless, even residence corps don't get taxed until they "repatriate" monies, which is not true for individuals. (This was also changed somewhat in recent tax act.)

    As a general rule, it is much easier for corps doing business in the US to avoid US income tax than it is for individuals working in the US.
     

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