Bernie Sanders Calls For Federal Investigation Of Exxon Mobile for Lying about Climate Change
100 replies, posted
[QUOTE=paindoc;48960448]Frankly, my issue with all of the Republican candidates is their ass-backwards stance on womens rights, marriage rights, and immigration (in some cases). A few of them toss up oddly progressive proposals, like trumps proposal to decriminalize drugs and use the profits for drug education. I do think deficit can be overstressed, but there's no point wildly spending. I await more substance from other candidates, and hope the Sanders gives us more as well.[/QUOTE]
That's fine. I don't have any problem at all with people voting democrat on real disagreements.
The part that bothers me is that it's easy to promise the world. Anyone can do it, but to take it seriously without showing how it's viable is literally meaningless. As of yet, Sanders is doing exactly that. He hasn't even attempted to show how it's sustainable.
[QUOTE=sgman91;48960333]Everyone knows that young people want free stuff. The difference is that everyone else realizes that it can't be sustained, including a lot of democrats.[/QUOTE]
^This is a bullshit analysis. And before I write a massive rebuttal of why it's bullshit, how many people here seriously believe that the United States, the world's last remaining superpower and the richest society that has ever existed in human history, couldn't possibly implement free or nearly-free college tuition and nationalized healthcare, among other such programs? Show of hands.
I keep hearing this rhetoric being espoused, especially by conservatives, but nobody (including them) ever explains why these are "impossible" or "unsustainable". And that's because in reality, they're not. It's just political parrotspeak. We have enough people and enough money that just through taxes, we could easily afford to implement these things-- and that's completely disregarding what we could do by playing around with our already-existing budgets for the military and development contractors, homeland security, corporate welfare, international aid (~$13 billion was being spent on Iraq on an annual basis a few years ago...), etc.
[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;48958890][img]http://i.imgur.com/TJTf64D.png[/img]
copyright claim on Bernie Sanders official YouTube channel, oh my[/QUOTE]
Well that's one way to censor him.
[editline]22nd October 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=sgman91;48960369]Well, they did pay for it their entire life and plan their retirement around it. I agree that there are some issues with that as well, but it's not at all the same situation.[/QUOTE]
Maybe they should have pulled up their bootstraps and saved their own money for retirement instead of relying on the Government to do it for them. /s
[QUOTE=Govna;48960738]^This is a bullshit analysis. And before I write a massive rebuttal of why it's bullshit, how many people here seriously believe that the United States, the world's last remaining superpower and the richest society that has ever existed in human history, couldn't possibly implement free or nearly-free college tuition and nationalized healthcare, among other such programs? Show of hands.
I keep hearing this rhetoric being espoused, especially by conservatives, but nobody (including them) ever explains why these are "impossible" or "unsustainable". And that's because in reality, they're not. It's just political parrotspeak. We have enough people and enough money that just through taxes, we could easily afford to implement these things-- and that's completely disregarding what we could do by playing around with our already-existing budgets for the military and development contractors, homeland security, corporate welfare, international aid (~$13 billion was being spent on Iraq on an annual basis a few years ago...), etc.[/QUOTE]
I've talked about real analysis done by real people that has been agreed on by Sanders' team. You're the one doing "bullshit" analysis, if vague insinuations can even be called analisys.
[editline]22nd October 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;48960948]Maybe they should have pulled up their bootstraps and saved their own money for retirement instead of relying on the Government to do it for them. /s[/QUOTE]
Too edgy 4 for me. When you decide to enter into real discussion, then I'll be happy to respond.
[QUOTE=Govna;48960738]^This is a bullshit analysis. And before I write a massive rebuttal of why it's bullshit, how many people here seriously believe that the United States, the world's last remaining superpower and the richest society that has ever existed in human history, couldn't possibly implement free or nearly-free college tuition and nationalized healthcare, among other such programs? Show of hands.
I keep hearing this rhetoric being espoused, especially by conservatives, but nobody (including them) ever explains why these are "impossible" or "unsustainable". And that's because in reality, they're not. It's just political parrotspeak. We have enough people and enough money that just through taxes, we could easily afford to implement these things-- and that's completely disregarding what we could do by playing around with our already-existing budgets for the military and development contractors, homeland security, corporate welfare, international aid (~$13 billion was being spent on Iraq on an annual basis a few years ago...), etc.[/QUOTE]
I thought that states already pay a huge cut of state university tuition. They begin to make you pay the actual costs if you exceed past a certain amount of credits as an undergrad.
so is the final consensus is that exxon is worse than hitler?
[QUOTE=sgman91;48961083]Too edgy 4 for me. When you decide to enter into real discussion, then I'll be happy to respond.[/QUOTE]
Just using the same argument I hear repeated by them.
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;48961293]Just using the same argument I hear repeated by them.[/QUOTE]
If you honestly don't see the difference between demanding more and more new free stuff and asking that what you've been promised your entire life actually be given to you (and planned your life around), then I just don't know what else to say.
[QUOTE=sgman91;48961337]If you honestly don't see the difference between demanding more and more new free stuff and asking that what you've been promised your entire life actually be given to you (and planned your life around), then I just don't know what else to say.[/QUOTE]
Don't be dumb.
Kids today will spend their working lives paying pensions for old people and when they are that age, won't have pensions.
How can you reconcile that with young people just being the whiny children you claim they are?
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;48961367]Don't be dumb.
Kids today will spend their working lives paying pensions for old people and when they are that age, won't have pensions.
How can you reconcile that with young people just being the whiny children you claim they are?[/QUOTE]
That's not what the argument is about. If it was, then I would be extremely sympathetic. I agree, it's stupid and wrong to have people pay into a system like social security with a high likelihood that they won't reap the rewards of the previous generation that they paid for.
P sure this is what the argument is about - if we want to avoid derailing the discussion.
[QUOTE=sgman91;48959969]To be clear what kind of numbers we're talking about: Sanders' aid, Mr. Gunnels, said that they agreed with the $15 trillion estimate over 10 years made from a similar proposal in congress for just the single payer healthcare (that doesn't include any of his other new spending). A few billion isn't going to do anything to help pay for that. Clearly no amount of taxation can go any real distance in paying for that.
Remember that Sanders' state, Vermont, came very close to being the first example of single payer healthcare, or "medicare for all." The only problem was that they couldn't pay for it. So it was tabled.[/QUOTE]
[editline]22nd October 2015[/editline]
not taking a stance btw I know nothing about this just wanna hear people's thoughts on it
[QUOTE=sgman91;48961083]
Too edgy 4[/QUOTE]
You basically dismiss any argument by looking at it through this lens. Any supporter of Bernie is just an edgy white Hipster who knows nothing about reality.
American can afford a single payer healthcare system. Poorer countries already do it.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;48961530]You basically dismiss any argument by looking at it through this lens. Any supporter of Bernie is just an edgy white Hipster who knows nothing about reality.
American can afford a single payer healthcare system. Poorer countries already do it.[/QUOTE]
I've presented hard numbers from real sources (that Bernie agrees with), and I've been the only person to do that. So far, literally no one has even tried to refute them beyond throwing aimless doubt.
$15 trillion for just the healthcare. Sanders agrees. So far people have presented plans by Sanders to raise a few hundred billion dollars as if that is a response.
[QUOTE=sgman91;48960156]Sorry if I wasn't clear before, that $15 trillion is deficit spending, not debt.[/QUOTE]
So uh... where did this number exactly come from? May I have the source?
[QUOTE=gufu;48961665]So uh... where did this number exactly come from? May I have the source?[/QUOTE]
It's the analysis from Gerald Friedman of the University of Mass. at Amherst of HR 676, a bill very similar to what Bernie wants to do. Here's the specific report: [url]http://www.pnhp.org/sites/default/files/Funding%20HR%20676_Friedman_7.31.13_proofed.pdf[/url]
If you look at page 10 you'll see a chart of all estimated costs, savings, and new tax revenue. The $15 trillion comes from taking all costs (~$35 trillion) and subtracting all savings (~$20 trillion). You'll see that in order to pay for the rest of it they did the following:
- 8% flat tax increase on everyone making over $225,000
- 8% increase on all capital gains, dividends, rents, interest, and profits
- ~6.5% increase on payroll taxes on those making over $53,000 (from ~1.5% currently to 8%)
- ~2.5% increase on payroll taxes for everyone else (from ~1.5% to 4%)
I took the example that doesn't include the "Tobin Tax" because Sanders already earmarked that for the free college tuition.
Note that Bernie hasn't come out with any of these new taxes, but that's essentially what he'll have to do to even try and pay for it.
[QUOTE=paindoc;48960111]Okay now that I'm no longer on mobile
The tax is a tax of 1 base (0.01%) on financial transactions, particularly trades of bonds, derivatives, and other securities/speculation type investments and such. The Tax Policy Center released a [URL="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/2000287-Financial-Transaction-Taxes-in-Theory-and-Practice.pdf"]paper[/URL] on this, but it would raise up to $185 billion over 10 years and hopefully stop the amount of excessive risk-taking in speculative investing that led to the great market crash.[/QUOTE]
It's worth understanding that the "financial transaction tax paying for college" is a load of crap. Not only would it almost certainly not raise $185B (some people like [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/07/22/bernie-sanders-doesnt-have-a-case-for-a-financial-transactions-tax-it-would-lose-money/[/url] seem to think it would lose money, though I doubt that), the $185B isn't even close to Sander's own $700B free-public college plan ([url]http://college.usatoday.com/2015/05/19/bernie-sanders-issues-bill-to-make-4-year-colleges-tuition-free/[/url]). It's even more entertaining that he wants to force the states to raise 1/3 of that money.
The only other logic I've ever heard for the FTT is to suppress high-speed trading, which, last I checked, has fallen precipitously in profits, to the point where it's barely even an issue anymore.
I just really don't like all the promises that so many of these big-government candidates throw out there, particularly the ones, when the basic math on their plans doesn't even begin to work. And none of this even begins to tackle the whole healthcare situation...
snip
[QUOTE=sgman91;48959926]It's hard to show that something won't work when we don't yet know how it's supposed to work. I know some have gone to that trouble, but I have no reason to until he's provided a positive argument first.[/QUOTE]
A .003% speculation tax to be automatically added to any stock trade isn't going to hit wallstreet at all or anyone, brokerage fees are already several orders of magnitude larger, and they're already automatically tracked so just tack on an extra digit, it will work
[editline]22nd October 2015[/editline]
Also America is the only country that doesn't have a tax on stock exchanges, and the capital gains tax has been ineffective for decades anyways, that's why stocks are basically banks for the ultrarich
[QUOTE=Sableye;48963565]A .003% speculation tax to be automatically added to any stock trade isn't going to hit wallstreet at all or anyone, brokerage fees are already several orders of magnitude larger, and they're already automatically tracked so just tack on an extra digit, it will work
[editline]22nd October 2015[/editline]
Also America is the only country that doesn't have a tax on stock exchanges, and the capital gains tax has been ineffective for decades anyways, that's why stocks are basically banks for the ultrarich[/QUOTE]
That doesn't go anywhere near what it would take to pay for his plan. For example, that study I posted early estimated ~$440 billion in revenue from a tax like that, but at a rate of 0.5% (~160 times higher than what you said) and 0.01% on all bond maturation.
[QUOTE=sgman91;48960369]Well, they did pay for it their entire life and plan their retirement around it. I agree that there are some issues with that as well, but it's not at all the same situation.[/QUOTE]
They also voted/lobbied for/supported a system that basically massively fucked-up the whole system that made shit not only easier, but more accessible to them, so they financially had it much easier than people do today. :disappoint:
Isn't Exxon confirming that we're destroying our ecosystem before covering it up and starting a 40-year disinformation campaign a little more important than one of Sanders' policies?
So, what laws did Exxon break, according to Sanders?
[QUOTE=Ridge;48966185]So, what laws did Exxon break, according to Sanders?[/QUOTE]
Misinforming the public on a massive scale and creating an entire media circus to avoid actually doing anything beyond profit seeking
I guess not technically a crime, but it fucking should be
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;48966199]Misinforming the public on a massive scale and creating an entire media circus to avoid actually doing anything beyond profit seeking
I guess not technically a crime, but it fucking should be[/QUOTE]
Those are just the perfectly normal actions of a large company. Companies have the freedom to do what they want within the bounds of the law.
[QUOTE=isreal?;48967059]Those are just the perfectly normal actions of a large company. Companies have the freedom to do what they want within the bounds of the law.[/QUOTE]
"Racketeering".
[quote]Racketeering
Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Financial, Wikipedia.
Racketeering
Traditionally, obtaining or extorting money illegally [b]or carrying on illegal business activities[/b], usually by Organized Crime [/quote]
Even if there were no laws in place that applied to their situation at the time, it's one of those things where just because it's "technically not illegal" doesn't mean it's a good thing to do.
I mean think about it: What if it was found by a company that CFCs were destroying the ozone years before people started talking about it in theory, but that company had known about it for years and didn't give a fuck? Or if a company was venting a chemical by-product from its vent-stacks that they knew would kill birds, but kept quiet about it and immediately started funding a campaign that said "No it don't!"?
[QUOTE=isreal?;48967059]Those are just the perfectly normal actions of a large company. Companies have the freedom to do what they want within the bounds of the law.[/QUOTE]
Just think about the companies that used lead in gas.
They KNEW it killed people. They KNEW it was dangerous. They KNEW what they were doing was wrong.
But they also KNEW they could make people believe them by complicating the issues with bullshit. That's what they do.
Seems to me just because it's not explicitly illegal that it's still explicitly wrong
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;48967349]Just think about the companies that used lead in gas.
They KNEW it killed people. They KNEW it was dangerous. They KNEW what they were doing was wrong.
But they also KNEW they could make people believe them by complicating the issues with bullshit. That's what they do.
Seems to me just because it's not explicitly illegal that it's still explicitly wrong[/QUOTE]
They also knew what they were doing was legal. The fact is, they did not break any laws. They are a law abiding company, they have the freedom to do what they wish so long as it's within the bounds of the law.
[QUOTE=isreal?;48967387]They also knew what they were doing was legal.[/QUOTE]
Companies are legally liable for deaths caused by their actions or inaction.
That is illegal to ignore.
They knew it was legal until the facts came out. That's the problem here. They knew what would turn the tide against them legally, and lied for as long as possible.
Just because that's not illegal now doesn't mean they, like the leaded gas companies, aren't liable for those actions.
There's literally no way you're going to be able to say "they're NOT liable for things they do" without destroying your own argument
[editline]23rd October 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=isreal?;48967387]They also knew what they were doing was legal. The fact is, they did not break any laws. They are a law abiding company, they have the freedom to do what they wish so long as it's within the bounds of the law.[/QUOTE]
That's not how liability or the law works. If the law doesn't know you're lying, that doesn't change the fucking fact you lied or what you did.
Are you liable for your actions if the law doesn't know what you did?
[editline]23rd October 2015[/editline]
If you're right, then how did leaded gas companies get dealt with?
Oh that's right. The immutable law changed. This is no different. They committed obvious moral wrongs that lead to HUGE liability issues down the road
[QUOTE=isreal?;48967387]They also knew what they were doing was legal. The fact is, they did not break any laws. They are a law abiding company, they have the freedom to do what they wish so long as it's within the bounds of the law.[/QUOTE]
Regardless of its legality, it's wrong.
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