Comments

1

Dan of course blamed Bernie for Iowa. He has been attacking Bernie since 2016.

3

It’s also worth noting that the corporate media is totally in the tank for Biden. They’ve been pushing this phony Biden Inevitability story for months, when it’s clear that the enthusiasm just isn’t there.

The enraged, cruel, racist AF, bath salts-huffing, face-eating, white trash Despicables are voting for Dicktatorapist AntiChrist because they’re just like him, so there’s no point Biden’s futile ‘mythical centrist’ candidacy.

6

And for the last gawdamn time, the RepubliKKKans didn’t acquit Dicktatorapist AntiChrist because they’re ‘scared’ or ‘cowards’ or totally amoral, although all of those descriptions are true.

They’re kleptocratic, fascist criminals voting to acquit their mob boss. That’s it, regardless of whatever cutesy euphemisms like ‘authoritarian’ or ‘alt-right’ the bull$hit media deploys to muddy the waters and spread lies and propaganda.

7

Did you guys see this morning that our pretend christian president hates when people use religion to justify their decisions? I hope someone informs the evangelicals.

Also I sure hope this whole coronavirus thing blows over before November when everyone has to gather in public venues to cast their ballots. Another reason why everyone should (at least) be able to vote by mail.

8

@ 5,

Bullshit. Biden (D, Visa/MasterCard) has the seal of approval from the vultures on Wall $treet and the rapacious credit card companies, and the corporate media has been gaslighting us and pushing him hard for no other reason. He’s the status quo candidate.

9

@6 That's one way to put it. Another way would be to say that the GOP is reacting rationally to the political conditions of the day, where their only hope for wielding power at the national level is to leverage the various anti-democratic aspects of the US constitution to govern from a position without majority support.

They have a huge structural advantage in the Senate and a lesser one for the presidency, via the EC. And from those positions, they can mostly control the judiciary. These together are more than enough to dismantle the Great Society, New Deal and Progressive era reforms. And the magic is, it can be done with an overall level of popular support maybe in the low 40s.

Their only alternative would be to broaden the GOP coalition and compete for moderates with the Democrats. But that would oblige them to mitigate the ferocity of their politics. But since they don't want to actually do anything - only destroy all constraints on the most cruel and grasping aspects of Capitalism, that would be counter productive.

10

Biden isn’t going to get to the General Election. He’s too much of a loose cannon; he showed up in Iowa, called everyone fat and challenged them to a masculinity contest, and came in fourth-maybe even fifth.

He’ll do the same in NH, NV, and SC. He is cut from the same ‘basket of deplorables’ cloth where insulting the voters and coming across as an elitist snob that Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney are. These 1%ers, they roll in in their Cadillacs and their private jets, spray paint “No Malarkey” on everything so they can pretend to be folksy, and they miss the people who are freaked out that there’s no jobs in their area, they can’t get health insurance to meet their needs, and they’re eating fucking cat food to survive despite working three jobs.

Yeah, fuck your folksy colloquialisms. Nobody wants to see someone who went to Harvard or a Yale put on a straw hat and pull out a banjo. These people want jobs, they want health insurance, and they don’t want to fucking starve. No malarkey? This isn’t Deliverance. Stop talking down to these people.

You too, Dan.

Biden’s done. Sanders won.

11

Will our portfolios be deflated if Sanders wins the presidency?

12

@11 -- No, but perhaps your hard-ons for oligarchical rule will.
Serfs, UP!

13

@11 100% for sure yes. The markets right now are not being bought up because of value, but rather because of something that's more like venture capital speculation. Which is fine, some companies are going to blow up, and some people will own them. But the whole thing hinges on cheap money to invest and deregulation that streamlines enough to increase margins to a level that makes the risk of buying overvalued companies worth it. If Bernie becomes president money will get more expensive and he'll implement more regulation.

So yes your portfolio is going to go down if Bernie wins. But in the long run it's not going to make much of a difference. And you need to think about your core values and how those are reflected by the candidates political agenda. When I take those political candidate quizzes my values always align the most closely with Bernie Sanders. So I guess f*** my money, I'm okay having a little bit less if our country can be a little bit more humane. In the long run I'm sure the markets will be fine anyway.

14

Unoriginal Andrew, you forgot to use "banksters", "Koch", "Conservatards" etc etc in your rant.

Your unoriginality is getting shamefully weak.

15

@2 Diet Racism for your classless punkass.

16

Hahaha. Your “portfolio?” You don’t HAVE a portfolio, you trolling sock puppet loser. You don’t even have a job.

Most of the gains on your mythical “portfolio” will be eaten up by you wonderful private healthcare costs which gone up about 8 - 12% a year since 1967. And that rate is going to accelerate once the ACA is totally gone.

Especially since your awesome republican president and his cabal of thieves are now making it much harder for you to declare healthcare related bankruptcy.

Btw. America has the highest healthcare related bankruptcy rate on earth. And the vast majority of those bankruptcies — 70% — are people WITH insurance.

So you better PRAY somebody with a plane for single payer/universal healthcare gets elected. Because whatever pittance losers like you scrabble together isn’t going to cut it.

17

@16: Yes, a portfolio from a long career.

There's no way I can make you believe a statement when you overly discount it. Very Trumpian I must say.

18

"Btw. America has the highest healthcare related bankruptcy rate on earth. And the vast majority of those bankruptcies — 70% — are people WITH insurance."

GO,GOP
Far far FAR
away.

And take with you your strip-mining of America's Citizenry.

19

@13: Thank you for politely providing your take on it. Apparently that's too much for some around here, who are so consumed by perpetual anger and condescension that they can't engage in pleasant discourse.

22

@19 I of course need to walk back my 100% for sure statement, nobody knows really, no ordinary people anyway. And the risk of more regulation, a tighter fed, and more taxes will likely be baked in to the market well before election night. So I don't mean to be saying that election night ends with a Sanders victory in the market instantly drops 30% ....

23

@21 and the republicans will just try to take it away, what's your point?

24

@20 I want you to know that I totally hear you there. I don't like Dave Ramsey's politics or all the evangelical god stuff, but I have a lot of respect for people of modest financial means who follow his sort of advice, work their asses off and stay out of debt and sacrifice all kinds of convenience and pleasure so that they can build up a little nest egg and buffer themselves from the throws of social forces they can't control. Many of these people are immigrants, and all of them seem to be scraping and hustling to try to benefit their children. I admire that these people get up every morning and decide that, even if they understand that the system is stacked against them, going hard at making it in America might not be such a bad idea. I hate the idea of any policy that ends up punishing people who are working their asses off in the middle and lower ends of the economic spectrum.

That said I think Bernie helps these people, doesn't hurt them. The things that will f*** them the hardest are medical expenses and student loan debt, not taxes or slightly slower overall economic growth or slightly slower appreciating financial markets. I don't see any good reason why we can't be a little bit more like Canada with some sensible safety nets and sensible entitlements help keep hardworking people in the middle class. I think there's dignity there, and that that's good for people's souls not just their bottom lines.

26

I like Mayor Pete a lot, but only the most partisan voter would give any credence to the Iowa caucuses. The results are far too tainted (by incompetence or attempts to rig the results) to take them seriously.

Thought I support Mayor Pete, I don't think Iowa has given us a clear picture of who might be the early front runner.

Realistically, Mayor Pete and Sanders are the two candidates that Trump would cream with one hand tied behind his back. Sigh.

27

The DNC got caught trying to pretend that Bernie hadn't won the most trusted poll.

Then they got caught not admitting all the first round numbers (which they did receive) showed Bernie won the popular vote and the delegates (higher percentage reported than current).

Even on the recount they had to skip the 25 and 50 percent tranches, to try to gin up the numbers with non-city areas, which is the 62 percent tranch, that artificially pretended Buttigieg won (even though that release showed Bernie still winning the popular vote).

Look, it's like Seattle City Council elections - wait for the final, which will clearly show Bernie winning, Biden losing, and Buttigieg, Warren, and Klobuchar making it through.

28

@8 Thats all true, but what are you going to do if he wins the nomination? Sure, that seems less likely than it did a week ago, but he still has a lot of support in the later primaries. If that support persists through New Hampshire (even if he doesn't win it), Iowa's puny clutch of delegates won't make any difference in the end.

Banks and CC companies have a lot of power. That power manifests in things like controlling Senators. We can lament, but its a fact we have to live with.

Sanders has a lot of support but he's kind of weak in the very important Second Choice category. He's probably the short odds favorite right now but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

It makes little sense to get deeply invested in a primary candidate. I mean, unless one is the sort who thinks the purity of their vote is more important than getting those kids out of cages along the border.

29

The "he" in the first couple paragraphs at 28 are Biden, if that wasn't clear.

30

Go to Foxnews comment sections and Slate or Huffpost comment sections. Many Sanders supporters and Magats leave comments that are eerily similar. Far left and Far right are far and away unamerican.

31

@30 I don't know about commenters on Huff Post, but Bernie Sanders is about as far left as Huber Humphrey.

32

Just in case any nerds out there give a shit, the DNC (yes and I mean the national, Perez himself) just stepped in and stopped the release of the last of the info so we'll probably never know now.

At 97% though, Bernie is thousands ahead of Pete in popular vote- there's no sheninangins that can change that regardless of what happens.

And they will get the same pledged delegates- which is what matters at the convention. Right now they are tied at 11.

Purrls, again I agree with you about Iowa though I don't think it's worthless since it has the tangible effect of counting at the convention, though I do agree there are few prediction take aways that you can draw from it other than caucuses are shit shows.

I disagree about Trump easily beating Bernie though. Of the current field, I think he's the only one with a decent chance of beating him.

I predict now that NH will be similar- Bernie and Pete in first and second, probably in that order but maybe flipped the other way. I think Biden, Warren and Klobuchar might rebound a little bit since a lot of their poor showing in Iowa was due to reallignments (meaning, when not enouhg people were there to make them viable, their supporters went over to Bernie and Pete, but in a straight ballot they'd get those votes).

But then Pete eats dust in the South and on Super Tuesday so he's not a viable long term candidate. Then the billionaires will jump in (Bloomberg on the ballot by then) and my prediction is a contested convention with no majority though I'd guess Sanders will have the plurality.

33

@32 "I disagree about Trump easily beating Bernie though"

Forsooth. Nobody knows who can beat whom. It seems to me flagrantly absurd to talk about the inevitability of outcomes in Presidential elections less then four years after the election was won by Donald Freaking Trump.

35

Good thing I said nothing about inevitable outcomes then, right?

What I said is that I disagree that Trump easily beats Bernie. I think whoever runs against him is going to have a tough time, and I think Trump could win against any of them. But if we were to arrange the current Dem field by who has the best chance, yes I think Bernie has the best chance of them all, and yes it's partially because of what @30 says.

37

26: You have absolutely no way of knowing that. The generic political predictions have all proven wrong over the last three years. "Conventional wisdom" doesn't mean anything more. An anti-trade Republican like Trump has essentially thrown out all the old political assumptions. The sooner people realize we're not living in a "normal" political era and that there's a massive political realignment underway, the better. Because I keep hearing dated political folk wisdom left over from the aughts.

38

I mean, just two fucking weeks ago a lot of the "expert" op-ed writers in mainstream papers were saying there was no way way Biden was gonna falter in Iowa.

39

@35 Hi. I was agreeing with you.

39

And let's not even start on how all over the map the Iowa polls were. Every two weeks it was a new narrative. And yet, people are still saying "but, the polls!" How many times do the polls have to be wrong for people to stop using them as "ironclad" evidence?

40

@36 Good. I remember liberals wanting Trump to win because they thought he'd be easy to beat and alll polls said he'd lose. Didn't Clinton even try to get him to run? Polls also showed Biden most likely to win Iowa and I don't know why we still listen to them, but fwiw, I don't know which poll you are referring to but all the ones I see show Bernie beating Trump. I tend not to pay much attention them either way, though.

As for @30, @36 and JMS's good post about normality, yeah that's my hobby horse, it's hard to unsee it once you do.

FWIW, in the Parnas tapes (did anyone listen to them? I never hear liberals talking about the content), Trump talks about being worried about running against Bernie since he thinks he could lose those among his voters that selected Trump b/c of economic issues.

Obviously Bernie is not going to take the white supremacists nor the religious fundies from Trump- the GOP has them on lock down and good riddance. But he could take the folks that went with Trump over trade.

And I don't know if this is what @30 is talking about, but yes the left and sometimes the far right (in rhetoric) do share an opposition to neoliberalism & imperialism.

(Just a reminder that neoliberalism is an economic term and has nothing to do with what Americans call libs v cons in a cultural way).

You see examples of this in the 90s- it's how Perot was able to get something like 20% of the vote as a third party- took it from Bush and enabled Clinton's win. It's because Bush and Clinton were both the neoliberal candidates and Perot ran nearly exclusively on anti-NAFTA.

As I've been saying for years, the Democrats never grappled with how much people in several states (including my own) fucking hate the Clintons and still resent them over NAFA. (Even though it would've happened still if Bush ran- it was a bipartisan project, Clinton was the face of it).

You see another example with Bernie & other left support for ending the wars- they are usually joined by fringe right, usually Rand Paul but others too. (You saw the same thing when Ron Paul had his moment.) And Trump himself famously ran as the candidate less likely to start wars than Clinton. When he continued the wars, a lot of his supporters were pissed off.

You saw it again with Labour's defeat, their inability to articulate a response to Brexit because the far left also opposed the EU but on different terms, and that made it very difficult for the Corbyn wing to allign itself with the liberal wing of the party that wanted to stay- the result being an internal battle that destroyed Labour.

A similar thing is happening right now in the Dem party, but it's one of those weird cases in which our own stupid electoral system could prevent what happened in the UK since the fight in the party will take place at the convention- either Bernie's anti-neoliberal side will win or (more likely) an establishment Dem will win and continue neoliberalism- and that person will go on to fight Trump.

Now Trump is not actually against neoliberalism, but he campaigned that way and broke those promises and is unlikely to receive the same support from that sliver of his base (in strategic states) that voted for him for these reasons, but they are also unlikely to go to any neoliberal Democrat either. They'd probably come out for Bernie who, Trump says, is the only person he was afraid that could be on the ticket that he wasn't sure if he could beat. Trump said that.

(Just as an aside, the other thing interesting about the Parnas tape is that Trump sounds less like a buffoon than he normally does when we hear him speak publically.)

This is important. Americans have been indoctrinated to mostly think about politics in terms of culture: libs vs cons. And this matters too, especially since there really are white supremacists and religious fundamentalists all over the GOP. But the actual current political divide is the question of whether or not we continue neoliberalism propped up by military interventions. Along with climate change, this is the question of our times- the world over.

I know it's hard to see it in the moment, but this is what it's all about. Everything else matters too, but it sits atop this question.

Best case scenario for any establishment Dems- you get someone in power like Macron, a centrist neoliberal, pick any of them that's not Bernie- and they will attempt to continue going back to normal with some reforms. But the money to keep civil society going has to come from somewhere, without massive redistributive policies ending neoliberalism, you are going to have to keep nickling and diming average people (think Bloomberg's soda) and people eventually get pissed and keep doing things like voting for Trumps or rioting in the streets. This is inevitable.

And a wealth tax isn't enough becuase if we keep trying to defend borders in support of capital and against workers (which is what NAFTA does for example) then we will continue to have jobs shifting away and people abroad living in failed states that they try to escape or allign together against US trade to empower themselves necessitating military intervention that we have to pay for, etc- it spirals this way.

There isn't a "go back to normal". Trump, the impeachment circus, the militarized borders, the constant wars is evidence. There is no going back to liberal democracy with its functioning civil infrastructure & judicial system under neoliberal economics because the money is not there any more. That choice does not exist. When Democrats tell you we can do that, they are lying, they know it. They are saying it so you will vote for them, just like Trump did, just like Obama before him.

The real choice is: a) we can have neoliberal economics without liberal democracy - this will look like fascism, militarized borders, concentration camps, huge prison populations, police protecting what should be public infrastructure, and an oligarchy that is running the country without judicial or popular oversight and has the power to wage war and kill citizens abroad. OR b) we can have liberal democracy without neoliberal economics which will - in the short term- take the form of a social democratic welfare state and require reducing privatization of several industries and eliminating corporate donors and lobbyists.

The returns are just not going to big enough to keep both private profits growing and a social democratic state going- one or the other has to go. Those are the only two choices available to us right now. That's it. Right now, you can see we are clearly on path A.

In my opinion, some of the realignment we are seeing among the cultural right/left divide is because people are starting to understand this. They may not get the economics and history of it, but they see that what they are told is the establishment, how things work, etc does not allign with what happens in their real lifes and they are sick of fake politicians telling them things are fine. This is what people mean, I think, when they say "trump tells it like it is". It's also why there are so many people looking to conspiracy theory to explain what is happening around them, both QAnon and the Russiagate stuff.

And yeah, I think that Bernie can tap into that same vein as Trump did, only he's honest. I think that's why he appeals to the Joe Rogan types. He's also "telling it like it is" only without the bigotry.

So that's why I think that not only does he have the best chance, it's also the only possibility to defeat rising fascism. Even if someone else, some centrist, were polling better against Trump (and they aren't) they would still never be able to bring us "back to normal". It's gone- and the sooner liberals realize it, the better so we can work together.

42

@10 -- I'm no fan of Biden, but give me a fucking break. That sounds like some serious Russian Bot Shit there. Call Biden an elitist, out of touch, one percenter. Then, if he does win the nomination, all the left wing idiots will fall in line, and sit this one out, like last time. The stupid ass white voters from the Midwest will just vote for Trump, because at least "Trump is real", while Biden is simply pretending to be folksy.

Total Bullshit.

Biden grew up in a working class family. His father was often out of work, and Biden's family of six ended up living with their maternal grandparents. In other words, he was very close to being homeless.

Things picked up later, but he never rich. He went to Catholic schools, then got a bachelor's degree at Delaware. He got a half scholarship to attend law school at Syracuse, partly because of financial need. Not exactly an upper crust upbringing.

Again, I'm not a huge fan, but the guy is sincere. He really is that way. Of course he might be thinking "bullshit" and say "malarkey" but that is just being polite. Some people are offended when you say bullshit, and malarkey is a decent substitute. Again, I'm not a huge fan, but the guy is real.

44

"Winning" Iowa is meaningless. It really makes no difference. At most we are talking about a single delegate here or there. The race won't be decided on that.

Likewise with the number of votes. Again, meaningless. The numbers might go back and forth, but it is essentially a tie between Buttigieg and Sanders, depending on how you count it. Sanders will likely have the most "first choice" votes, and probably more "second choice" as well, but the difference is minor.

The only reason people care about Iowa is to try and fashion a story out of the results. The final numbers won't change the stories, which are:

1) Pete Buttigieg did unexpectedly well.
2) Sanders did well (as expected).
3) Warren did OK.
4) Biden did much worse than expected.
5) Klobuchar did better than expected, but probably not well enough to survive.
6) None of the other candidates did anything (as expected).

There will likely be some winnowing (which is what usually happens after Iowa). Buttigieg will likely get a lot more money and a lot more attention. Biden may struggle (although I wouldn't count him out). Nothing in the final Iowa tally will change any of that.

46

I hate to be a spoil sport, but one can in fact analyze 2016 through entirely conventional wisdom. Third terms are always difficult, and while the economy was on the whole doing ok (if not great) there was a regionalized mini-recession in the mid west that year which is never good for the incumbent party.

On the eve of the election, Nate Silver put Trump's odds at 1 in 3 and anybody who has played D&D knows that 3 up on a D6 is no sure thing.

47

@43 -- The demographic trend is positive for the left, but it has little to do with what people associate with socialism. It has everything to do with race. White people are making up less and less of the electorate. The only reason Trump won was because he was extremely popular with white people. Black people, for example, have been comfortable voting for the far left for quite some time.

I think Bernie has a chance this time, simply because for the most part, politics is irrelevant with presidential elections. It has been common for a Democrat to lose the election, even though most of America agrees with their positions. Reagan won despite being on the far right. George W. Bush was to the right of his father, but far more successful politically. Romney lost despite being the most liberal Republican to run since Gerald Ford. Gore, Dukakis and Obama all ran as centrists, but only Obama won. Image and personality matter a hell of a lot more than political positions. Of course a candidate like Sanders could develop an image based on only a handful of positions -- that is what happened to Dukakis. How a candidate addresses such labeling often defines the race. Obama handled the Reverend Wright "controversy" with great skill -- that was the turning point of the primaries. Sanders has yet to be challenged in a similar way, but it could come up. How he addresses a similar attack -- an attack that could reduce him to a stereotype -- could determine his success (assuming he even gets that far).

48

@47 - "Image and personality matter a hell of a lot more than political positions."

And those factors are dwarfed by the importance of objective conditions, particularly in the economy.

Obama demonstrated his political chops by snatching the nomination from Hillary Clinton - a trick Bernie Sanders was unable to duplicate in 2016. But with a massive economic fiasco unfolding and that mess in Iraq, John McCain never had a hope in hell.

Similar can be said of the other elections you mention.

49

@46 -- Agreed. Also add the fact that Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate. Oh, and Comey's last second announcement about more investigating of the emails. That just hammered in the idea that she couldn't be trusted -- that there was just something sneaky about her.

51

Emma Liz, my hat's off to you.
Thank you for your clear concise
and Accurate (pagraphs too!) Eruditions!

If only more people could read what you Wrote
the US might return to Sanity so much sooner.

thnx!

52

"And those factors are dwarfed by the importance of objective conditions, particularly in the economy."

Oh, I think they are all just factors. I don't think one dwarfs another, although objective conditions are probably the biggest. If Obama was running for a third term he probably would have won easily (just like FDR did). People would have given him credit for the improving economy, whereas Hillary Clinton never got any of that. There was a similar situation with Gore as well. Didn't get credit for the improvements, got the blame for the problems, but the biggest problem was a fundamentally weak candidate.

That is why I think both Bernie and Biden are both pretty weak candidates. Bernie couldn't beat Hillary Clinton. Whine all you want about "the system" but Obama kicked her ass when she was much stronger (being 8 years younger). Despite being essentially all alone as the one alternative to this obviously flawed candidate, he couldn't get it done. Meanwhile, Biden has lost repeatedly (and he isn't getting any better as he gets older). Mayor Pete seems like the guy who has been hired to lay you off -- you really don't give a shit if he is gay and don't want to hear about the numerical analysis that lead them to their decision. You just think he is a dick, even though, it turns out, he is a really nice guy. The best chance that Democrats have of actually winning this race probably rests with a woman. Neither have a very long history (which is good) and both seem reasonably likeable.

But yeah, the economy will play a big part in who wins.

53

"Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. Which Democratic candidate will beat Trump in those states?"

Castro in Florida and Arizona. Bullock in all of them. Both have dropped out.

55

@41 US share of global wealth is in decline. Capitalism requires growth, rates of return must be faster and larger, interest rates are already on the floor since the last crash and can go no lower, and we are in the very early stages of a transition from a unipolar (dollar) world to a multicurrrency world. It's why imperial projects no longer include trying to build up nations either as secondary markets (like we did with Germany, Japan) or as functional dictatorships that we can dominate (as we did for years in countries around the world see Iran, Iraq, Chile, Guatemala, Cuba, etc) and now our foreign policy goals tends to be permanent occcupation, even at the cost of terrorism, cartels & failed states, just to contain those slices of global wealth- preventing them from alligning with other spheres of influence or having control of their own markets- burning the house down to prevent others from living there.

So no, it's not finite- no one suggests that. But our control of it is declining- it won't disappear, it's just no longer going to be ours. This is what I'm talking about. Our current response to this situation is a smaller percentage of people scrambling to control larger percentages of short term growth, yes even at the expense of climate change, and they are containing the inevitable social fall out from this policy (migrant crisis, civil infrastructure crumbling, rising violence/unrest) through increased militarization and decreased democracy- we see this everywhere. It is not captialism that will collapse, it's liberal democracy.

There is no reforming our way out of it with liberal plans and goign back to normal, and there is no procedural change that is going to get our way out of it, no matter how many smart good liberals stand on the streets politely waving signs in permitted rallies that cooperate with the police, no matter how nicely they ask or how many sheets of paper Pelosi tears up.

56

Oh for fuck sake. The Iowa caucus went exactly like every Iowa caucus has gone with one exception that at Sanders insistence the data had to be published and open. So we’re just seeing all the bullshit that has always happened. If the Republicans actually ran any sort of transparency at all you see the same or worse. But I can’t wait for the Hillary Conspiracy dipshits to explain how the conspiracy ended up with the establishment guy getting his ass kicked. Jesus. You morons.

57

Also if we are simply having a very basic conversation about motivations to work, there is no one who is going to say, "well since I can only make several million dollars rather than a billion dollars, I guess I'll just sit at home and live off welfare and live in poverty." That's reductive, stupid and insane. Moreover, billionaires aren't running around with billions in gold, spending that cash on everything. THey have to hoarde that wealth and keep it invested to get the returns- a lot of this is fictitious captial. It's a house of cards. To keep it all afloat, they have to keep it growing. They are actually trading in control of large portions of the global economy (and the social infrastructure as well but that's a deeper conversation). It's a circle jerk. Absolutely we have to burn it to the ground or it's going to lead us straight into fascism and/or collapse. I'm not sure which will happen here first.

58

@Prof History I'm not sure what you mean by Sanders insistence. It is not normal for the results to be delayed for four days- we still don't have them all. That is not how all caucuses have gone. And now, they are not going to be released at all, as per Perez.

59

Trump is going to win as long as the economy — what ever that means anymore — keeps stumbling along despite his best efforts to fuck it up. He’s the incumbent. Incumbents win. There are few exceptions.

Now. If this Coronavirus thing isn’t handled in Asia we will most certainly see a recession. Markets in Asia are showing fractures and serious volatility. That’s the only reason the Chinese implemented such draconian measures and locked down over 20 million people. Because it’s waaay worse than they want western markets to know and that was the way they’re reassuring the west that they’re willing to get medieval on their own populations. Which we like when other countries do it. (Eventually markets will love it here as well) But to not shut down ports and trade at any cost.

And if this thing is really bad of course it won’t work. 3 billion people are not staying put.

So IF it’s bad. And the world stops all air travel to China. That’s 300,000 to 500,000 people JUST from the US every month. That’s airlines, hotel comps, tech businesses, manufacturing, getting hit HARD. There will be no way to bail that shit out.

That’s why Trump quickly reversed his insane “I’m going to shut down air travel to China” real quick. Somebody finally told him having a few hundred thousand Americans die of a virus was better than losing the election. Because he would. Because that would tank us right there if it lasted more than a week or two. You wait and see.

And no. It doesn’t matter if most material ships in containers. The material trade is only half of what makes our networked global trade system work. You need PEOPLE to be able to move back and forth. And also the markets will want to speculate regardless. And once a critical mass of investors think this virus is tanking the Chinese economy there’s no stopping it.

So. Recession by May-June IF the Coronavirus keeps getting worse through March.

And if that recession is even a fifth as bad as the last one, Trump is gone, baby. Gone.

But that is a very big “if.”

60

@58 because the agreement was the results came with the tabulation data and all the other reports open for everyone. And they couldn’t do. They’d never done it before. That’s why it took so long. Otherwise the same bullshit was always happening behind the scenes.

61

Ah I see. You are just saying that fuck ups like this have always happened but no one bothered to look before? That's certainly possible.

63

BTW: Royal Caribbean has said it will refuse any passengers with Chinese, Hong Kong or Macao passports. So it begins.


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