The Bouie article is the key one if you want to understand Sanders' problem with minorities, I think. And since they control the Democratic primaries in a large number of states outright, and are incredibly influential in Democratic primaries in every state where they are a sizable minority, that's something Sanders is going to have to fix. Y'all should definitely read the whole thing if you haven't.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Does Clinton have a lot of minority appeal? I know she has the name recognition, but I have no idea how popular she is. Sanders seems to be getting a lot of grassroot support on places like Tumblr, at least. I'm sort of curious what a debate between Clinton and him would be like.
Does Clinton have a lot of minority appeal? I know she has the name recognition, but I have no idea how popular she is. Sanders seems to be getting a lot of grassroot support on places like Tumblr, at least. I'm sort of curious what a debate between Clinton and him would be like.
Her minority appeal is much better than Bernie's, unless Bernie's base skews very differently than I've seen.
Do you actually have, like, poll numbers or something that support the idea that Bernie has a 'minority problem'?
Or is this just garbage you've picked-up from the beltway press and/or Clinton campaign and decided to dump here?
EDIT: Like, even if we accept that Sanders's civil rights activities in the 60s are totes irrelevant to black voters today (which I doubt), he presumably retains his civil rights friends & contacts from back int the day. Those people are probably in community organizer positions today, or at the very least some of their friends & relatives who probably also know Bernie and/or his family would be in such positions.
oh no but one guy on his blog or in a column saw Bernie handle a heckler in a way he didn't think was politically savvy. Obviously Bernie has a minority problem.
Can you explain how a twitter hash tag is the equivalent of a poll?
If you want numbers, the poll posted earlier in the thread is good enough. More democrats who know Hillary Clinton like her than democrats who know Bernie like him, and (effectively) all Democrats know Hillary Clinton.
Unless Bernie has stronger minority support (by a significant margin) than his white support or Hillary has terrible minority support, he's going to have worse minority support than Clinton. I don't think it's unreasonable to make the assumption Bernie's support isn't skewed heavily minority and Clinton hasn't had any terrible gaffes on that front.
Obviously these aren't strict numbers and you can feel free to disagree, but combined with other "soft" data posted in this thread, assuming it doesn't mean anything is as absurd as assuming he's a minority icon.
Can you explain how a twitter hash tag is the equivalent of a poll?
If you want numbers, the poll posted earlier in the thread is good enough. More democrats who know Hillary Clinton like her than democrats who know Bernie like him, and (effectively) all Democrats know Hillary Clinton.
Unless Bernie has stronger minority support (by a significant margin) than his white support, he's got worse minority support than Clinton. Unless his base skews far differently than I thought, it's not unreasonable to think his support is, at best, pretty much even between minorities and not.
Obviously these aren't strict numbers and you can feel free to disagree, but combined with other "soft" data posted in this thread, assuming it doesn't mean anything is as absurd as assuming he's a minority icon.
No, but that's not what is being impressed upon: people are suggesting that Mr. Sanders has a 'minority problem', which in turn suggests that there's a big gap in his minority support as compared to his white voter support. So, where is the evidence of said gap, if one wants to argue that it exists?
Clinton has more support, but proportionately, does she have greater minority support? If you want to say she does, again... evidence?
Can you explain how a twitter hash tag is the equivalent of a poll?
If you want numbers, the poll posted earlier in the thread is good enough. More democrats who know Hillary Clinton like her than democrats who know Bernie like him, and (effectively) all Democrats know Hillary Clinton.
Unless Bernie has stronger minority support (by a significant margin) than his white support, he's got worse minority support than Clinton. Unless his base skews far differently than I thought, it's not unreasonable to think his support is, at best, pretty much even between minorities and not.
Obviously these aren't strict numbers and you can feel free to disagree, but combined with other "soft" data posted in this thread, assuming it doesn't mean anything is as absurd as assuming he's a minority icon.
No, but that's not what is being impressed upon: people are suggesting that Mr. Sanders has a 'minority problem', which in turn suggests that there's a big gap in his minority support as compared to his white voter support. So, where is the evidence of said gap, if one wants to argue that it exists?
Clinton has more support, but proportionately, does she have greater minority support? If you want to say she does, again... evidence?
What purpose does this serve? I said you're free to disagree, but pressing me for evidence I literally just said I don't have only makes me disinclined to continue talking about Sanders.
Again, just crunching the numbers, Clinton has to have more minority support than Sanders unless we assume Sanders has especially good minority support or Clinton has issues with minority support. I don't think my assumptions are unreasonable, so while I have no way to judge Bernie's white support v. Bernie's minority support, I can reasonably assume both are lower than Clinton's, which is a huge issue. This will only get worse when the 40+% of democrats that don't know Bernie hear his name, since the polling already captures his dedicated supporters.
Bernie Sanders admits he has a minority problem. It's pretty much common knowledge, unless you want to argue that Bernie Sanders doesn't have the data to back himself up.
Bernie Sanders admits he has a minority problem. It's pretty much common knowledge, unless you want to argue that Bernie Sanders doesn't have the data to back himself up.
So, it's 'common knowledge', and you don't have any evidence, but you feel free to rumor monger. And if I ask you for evidence, you get defensive, link an article that just links back to a different article (and takes one quote from it way out of content. The actual opinion piece is about class vs ideology) and then threaten to take your ball and go home. So that's pretty good.
Maybe if you don't have any reason to believe in something aside from, "Well I saw a twitter hashtag about it, and I read an OpEd about it," you shouldn't be promoting that thing as truth or 'common knowledge'?
You are literally arguing that Bernie Sanders is wrong about himself, because he isn't a Gallup Poll? Am I reading this correctly?
E: Also, if you google "Bernie Sanders minority polling" there are quite a few articles with linked polls showing how poorly he is doing in comparison to Hillary Clinton on that front, either in terms of exposure or likability.
““I’m not well known in the African-American community, despite a lifelong record,” he said, acknowledging one of the most consistent critiques of his chances. “That’s a real issue, and I have to deal with it.”
Note that this is Bernie answering a question about the smear campaign, and he does not say, "Oh yeah, I have a big minority problem. I'm totally seen as a racist,"
Not having a high profile among African Americans is not the same thing as being viewed unfavorably by them.
And yes, I would like a poll that demonstrates this alleged demographic gap if that is what you want to claim exists. It should be trivial for you to produce.
If the WaPo poll is accurate (and why not, I'll give it to them, even thought they don't have an accompanying methodology. Mostly because i wouldn't understand the methodological breakdown anyway), I'll concede the point: Mr. Sanders looks to have a 9~ point gap between his white voter base and minority voter base.
Clinton's favorability in the (Democratic, though that's almost 100%) African American community is 83 - 12, and with (again, Democratic) Hispanics it's 67-24. Sanders is 21/40 and 36/28, respectively. Being 20 points underwater in the black community is a serious problem for Democrats. Sanders is +29 with white Democrats. Clinton, for reference, is +43.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
If the WaPo poll is accurate (and why not, I'll give it to them, even thought they don't have an accompanying methodology. Mostly because i wouldn't understand the methodological breakdown anyway), I'll concede the point: Mr. Sanders looks to have a 9~ point gap between his white voter base and minority voter base.
Ctrl+F "Non-white."
I ate an engineer
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I am torn on Bernie. I think he is right on many things, like healthcare and college, but his economic platform is ill formed and displays a lack of understanding about how a modern economy works. Opposing trade treaties to keep manufacturing jobs in America is not viable policy. And it is directly at odds with higher corporate tax rates (we already have among the highest in the world).
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Way back in the distant past, the year 2007, Hillery was also the presumptive nominee. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-democrats-favor-clinton-over-obama/
Granted, Hillery has a larger lead today, but I think that has more to do with the lack of candidates in the Dem field.
I am never going to agree with any politician on 100% of the issues. I am ~95% in line with Bernie's politics, though I am a middle class white male.
I am torn on Bernie. I think he is right on many things, like healthcare and college, but his economic platform is ill formed and displays a lack of understanding about how a modern economy works. Opposing trade treaties to keep manufacturing jobs in America is not viable policy. And it is directly at odds with higher corporate tax rates (we already have among the highest in the world).
The story behind corporate tax rates in the US is almost identical to that of personal income tax. The statutory rate is high, but no one actually pays the statutory rate. The GAO report from 2013 estimates that in 2010 the average federal rate paid by profitable companies with over 10 million in assets was 12.6% or about a third of the statutory rate. If Bernie's platform is just to raise the statutory rate, then I think it's fundamentally flawed, but the US could definitely use corporate tax reform.
khain on
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I am torn on Bernie. I think he is right on many things, like healthcare and college, but his economic platform is ill formed and displays a lack of understanding about how a modern economy works. Opposing trade treaties to keep manufacturing jobs in America is not viable policy. And it is directly at odds with higher corporate tax rates (we already have among the highest in the world).
Here's the deal with trade deals. They have made things cheaper at the expense of American jobs. Our trade policy during and after WW2 heavily favored American exports. It's not hard to understand than or now. You have an import tariff and an export tariff. When you want to favor exports, you lower the export tariff and raise the import tariff. What's been happening for the last 50 years is a slow and steady decrease (and in some cases removal) of import tariffs. Now you have counties like China playing dirty by directly manipulating their currency so they can pay their workers the USD equivalent of pennies an hour to manufacturer consumers good. There is no possible way for US workers to compete with that. The solution becomes obvious when you look at the problem like so. The US is (one of) the world's largest markets for consumer goods. Companies all over the world compete for our hard earned dollars. If these companies in China and India want access to the US marketplace, they have to play by our rules. In order to sway trade back in favor of exports you decrease export tariffs and increase import tariffs. The market will be there regardless of trade policy. People aren't just going to stop wanting goods. If it costs a company more to manufacture a product overseas than in the US, you can bet your ass, they will start producing domestically again.
Consumer goods could get a little more expensive or companies could pay their CEOs slightly less money.
I am torn on Bernie. I think he is right on many things, like healthcare and college, but his economic platform is ill formed and displays a lack of understanding about how a modern economy works. Opposing trade treaties to keep manufacturing jobs in America is not viable policy. And it is directly at odds with higher corporate tax rates (we already have among the highest in the world).
The story behind corporate tax rates in the US is almost identical to that of personal income tax. The statutory rate is high, but no one actually pays the statutory rate. The GAO report from 2013 estimates that in 2010 the average federal rate paid by profitable companies with over 10 million in assets was 12.6% or about a third of the statutory rate. If Bernie's platform is just to raise the statutory rate, then I think it's fundamentally flawed, but the US could definitely use corporate tax reform.
And Bernie isn't even talking about raising corporate taxes. He's talking about closing loopholes that allow the Walton family to stash 100s of millions of dollars offshore, never paying taxes on it.
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
"Closing loopholes" is inordinately complicated. The tax code is not full of accidental rules or confluences. Each "loop hole" is generally the result of a policy decision by congress which ends up be extended further than originally imagined (often due to shoddy drafting by congress). In many cases these uses/interpretations have the benefit of years of tacit or overt IRS blessing. Closing loopholes is a great sound bite but it is very difficult to actually raise much revenue from them.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
and this is the point where I remind you that he outright said that minorities should not vote their race, which is something that I feel a candidate for the Democratic nomination should not say.
I agree; the average African-American voter would be much better off if Dr. Ben Carson was president.
Some might want to dismiss the whole fracas as left-wing infighting, with no relevance for any but a small slice of American voters. Or they might dismiss it as New Left narcissism—the kind of identity politics that alienates ordinary Americans. The latter description is flat out wrong; say what you will on the optics of protests, but the fact remains that there is a genuine and serious problem of police violence against minorities, and blacks in particular.
As for the former critique, I think this episode was more significant than mere infighting. Regardless of where you stand on the wisdom of the direct action against Sanders and O’Malley, it showed the limits of Sanders’ brand of liberal coalition-building, which hinges on the idea that we could ameliorate serious injustice if we just achieve—or move toward—economic justice. It’s why he touts college education and affordable health care in response to questions on police discrimination and criminal justice reform.
For Black Lives Matter activists, this is almost an insult. To them, racism is orthogonal to class: They’re two different dimensions of disadvantage, and to improve the picture on one isn’t always to improve the picture for the other. Jim Crow, for instance, coexisted with strong unions, high wages, and an active welfare state. When that heckler said “Public college won’t stop police from killing us,” that person was right. To combat racism, you have to fight it on its own terms. Moreover, there are times when fighting racism in policing and other areas is necessary for headway on economic justice. Ending “stop and frisk” in New York City, for example, lowers the odds young men of color will lose their jobs because of unfair stops. And in Ferguson, Missouri, aggressive policing on small infractions essentially served as an additional tax paid largely by black citizens.
An effective and broad-based left has to have answers for anti-racist activists. The question is whether Sanders can see this. Is he adaptable enough to build a new platform that tackles these concerns? Can he include other conversations around fair and affordable housing—and employment—that intersect with anti-racist activism? If he can, then Netroots might stand as a valuable learning experience for the remainder of his campaign. And if he can’t—if Sanders is too stubborn to abandon the pitch he’s used for decades and adopt one more suited to today—then we may have seen the beginning of the end of Berniemania. (To his credit, it already appears as though Sanders is learning.)
A $15/hour minimum wage isn't going to change that right now, being black has the same impact on being hired that being a white felon does. College for everyone isn't going to change that even middle class blacks are at risk for being targeted for police brutality. (In fact, this is one of the reasons the Sandra Bland case was so alarming - she was a college educated, middle class woman who had returned to her alma mater to accept a position.) Economics is not going to make racism go away, and it would be nice if "progressives" wpould stop pretending it will.
Short of nationalizing policing, I don't see what can be done about any of that at the national level.
Even if they have no influence on regional politics, presidential candidates usually pretend they do.
The issue is not policy proposals though, it is acknowledgement. All Sanders has to do is acknowledge the issue and offer support, what he can do can be hashed out later.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
We derive tremendous benefits from China buying so much of our currency. There are also a lot of structural and regulatory reasons that China, India, Brazil and other countries are more desirable for manufacturing than the U.S. You can't wave a wand and make the U.S. a compelling alternative to China in the low cost manufacturing space. If we have a future as an exporter, we should be chasing Germany, not China.
Increasing the cost of imported goods from China and India is effectively imposing a regressive sales tax. The poor in the U.S. will need to spend more for the same products.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
"Closing loopholes" is inordinately complicated. The tax code is not full of accidental rules or confluences. Each "loop hole" is generally the result of a policy decision by congress which ends up be extended further than originally imagined (often due to shoddy drafting by congress). In many cases these uses/interpretations have the benefit of years of tacit or overt IRS blessing. Closing loopholes is a great sound bite but it is very difficult to actually raise much revenue from them.
"Closing loopholes" is inordinately complicated. The tax code is not full of accidental rules or confluences. Each "loop hole" is generally the result of a policy decision by congress which ends up be extended further than originally imagined (often due to shoddy drafting by congress). In many cases these uses/interpretations have the benefit of years of tacit or overt IRS blessing. Closing loopholes is a great sound bite but it is very difficult to actually raise much revenue from them.
I don't have the time to properly address those, but they are mostly vital parts of the tax code that are necessary for US companies subject to US taxation to function outside the US. The only ones on that list that aren't vital to the functioning of the tax code are carried interest (which is a TINY amount of lost revenue, in the range of $50 million a year according to every estimate that I have seen when carried interest was attached to another bill) and valuation discounts. Calling check the box elections abuse is particularly absurd, as the check the box regime was implemented because the IRS wanted companies to have certainty about how they would be taxed in the US when their non-US treatment was different than the expect US treatment.
I am torn on Bernie. I think he is right on many things, like healthcare and college, but his economic platform is ill formed and displays a lack of understanding about how a modern economy works. Opposing trade treaties to keep manufacturing jobs in America is not viable policy. And it is directly at odds with higher corporate tax rates (we already have among the highest in the world).
Here's the deal with trade deals. They have made things cheaper at the expense of American jobs. Our trade policy during and after WW2 heavily favored American exports. It's not hard to understand than or now. You have an import tariff and an export tariff. When you want to favor exports, you lower the export tariff and raise the import tariff. What's been happening for the last 50 years is a slow and steady decrease (and in some cases removal) of import tariffs. Now you have counties like China playing dirty by directly manipulating their currency so they can pay their workers the USD equivalent of pennies an hour to manufacturer consumers good. There is no possible way for US workers to compete with that. The solution becomes obvious when you look at the problem like so. The US is (one of) the world's largest markets for consumer goods. Companies all over the world compete for our hard earned dollars. If these companies in China and India want access to the US marketplace, they have to play by our rules. In order to sway trade back in favor of exports you decrease export tariffs and increase import tariffs. The market will be there regardless of trade policy. People aren't just going to stop wanting goods. If it costs a company more to manufacture a product overseas than in the US, you can bet your ass, they will start producing domestically again.
Consumer goods could get a little more expensive or companies could pay their CEOs slightly less money.
Having worked in manufacturing for 15 years now this really depends on the sector and even then is mostly just bromides that aren't supported by my experience. Personally, we've lost jobs to China but we've also taken them back. Chinese factory workers don't work for pennies a day, that's off by about a factor of hundred, per an hour. They are absolutely cheaper than US labor though. As a disadvantage they're half a world away, shipping is cheap but not fast and the translation issue is a problem on top of cultural differences.
Add in that they actually spend money on workforce development and there are some areas where we can't really compete with them. Tooling and die work easily runs 3 or 4 times more expensive in the states and with much longer lead times. This is because they spent a bunch of money on training metalworkers while we spent the last few decades cutting trade schools and demonizing the people who run and participate in apprenticeship programs.
The end result of us raising import tariffs is the parts I make facing import tariffs over there and the rest of the world combined is larger than the US market. Add to that we'll be spending massively more on consumer goods, either through tariffs or by higher US labor rates and it doesn't really strike me as a winning deal.
And I will correct myself. The average Chinese worker is making less than $2 an hour, a figure that could still reasonably expressed in pennies for dramatic effect. No where did I say Chinese workers make pennies a day.
And if you don't think rebalancing trade tariffs will work, what will? I see a lot of attacking ideas without offering a better solution that benefits everyone. Advocating for the status quo just won't fly anymore.
I am torn on Bernie. I think he is right on many things, like healthcare and college, but his economic platform is ill formed and displays a lack of understanding about how a modern economy works. Opposing trade treaties to keep manufacturing jobs in America is not viable policy. And it is directly at odds with higher corporate tax rates (we already have among the highest in the world).
Here's the deal with trade deals. They have made things cheaper at the expense of American jobs. Our trade policy during and after WW2 heavily favored American exports. It's not hard to understand than or now. You have an import tariff and an export tariff. When you want to favor exports, you lower the export tariff and raise the import tariff. What's been happening for the last 50 years is a slow and steady decrease (and in some cases removal) of import tariffs. Now you have counties like China playing dirty by directly manipulating their currency so they can pay their workers the USD equivalent of pennies an hour to manufacturer consumers good. There is no possible way for US workers to compete with that. The solution becomes obvious when you look at the problem like so. The US is (one of) the world's largest markets for consumer goods. Companies all over the world compete for our hard earned dollars. If these companies in China and India want access to the US marketplace, they have to play by our rules. In order to sway trade back in favor of exports you decrease export tariffs and increase import tariffs. The market will be there regardless of trade policy. People aren't just going to stop wanting goods. If it costs a company more to manufacture a product overseas than in the US, you can bet your ass, they will start producing domestically again.
Consumer goods could get a little more expensive or companies could pay their CEOs slightly less money.
Having worked in manufacturing for 15 years now this really depends on the sector and even then is mostly just bromides that aren't supported by my experience. Personally, we've lost jobs to China but we've also taken them back. Chinese factory workers don't work for pennies a day, that's off by about a factor of hundred, per an hour. They are absolutely cheaper than US labor though. As a disadvantage they're half a world away, shipping is cheap but not fast and the translation issue is a problem on top of cultural differences.
Add in that they actually spend money on workforce development and there are some areas where we can't really compete with them. Tooling and die work easily runs 3 or 4 times more expensive in the states and with much longer lead times. This is because they spent a bunch of money on training metalworkers while we spent the last few decades cutting trade schools and demonizing the people who run and participate in apprenticeship programs.
The end result of us raising import tariffs is the parts I make facing import tariffs over there and the rest of the world combined is larger than the US market. Add to that we'll be spending massively more on consumer goods, either through tariffs or by higher US labor rates and it doesn't really strike me as a winning deal.
Yeah raising import tariffs isn't really a good idea.
That doesn't mean you can't oppose current trade deals, as those aren't only about trade tariffs. In fact, tariffs are already so low that lowering them more is unlikely to have much impact either.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
And I will correct myself. The average Chinese worker is making less than $2 an hour, a figure that could still reasonably expressed in pennies for dramatic effect. No where did I say Chinese workers make pennies a day.
And if you don't think rebalancing trade tariffs will work, what will? I see a lot of attacking ideas without offering a better solution that benefits everyone. Advocating for the status quo just won't fly anymore.
The cost is very industry specific. Some things can be made here for a similar cost, some cannot. You have to remember that the US stopped putting money into developing manufacturing infrastructure or training skilled workers a long time ago. Crumbling highways, inadequate rail ways, a lack of trained workers, disparate supply chains, poor labor relations, etc. are probably bigger factors than worker wages in most cases.
I can only speak for plastics but distribution costs just aren't an issue. It's logistics mostly. If you know this Christmas you want a million of x and x isn't very tightly toleranced or medical or something, then go shopping in China but just do it by April. If you need to pull small quantities with rapid changes, parts with tight tolerances or medical specs or even just want to drive over to talk with the designer about what you want then the US can offer you something.
And I will correct myself. The average Chinese worker is making less than $2 an hour, a figure that could still reasonably expressed in pennies for dramatic effect. No where did I say Chinese workers make pennies a day.
Yep, misremembered what you wrote there. Wrote that off and on while being super productive at work. Edit: Oh yeah, and look at that growth rate. It's nearly tripled in a decade. The low wages problem and growing economy thing generally starts sorting itself out until they just become another modernized country.
And if you don't think rebalancing trade tariffs will work, what will? I see a lot of attacking ideas without offering a better solution that benefits everyone. Advocating for the status quo just won't fly anymore.
My classic answer here is partly skills development. We need trade skills and we're woefully under prepared for the baby boom retirement. I'm not sure how important that ultimately is as we're innovating our way out of having to be good at metal work for the creation of tools (3D Metal Printing!) but revisions, repair and maintenance are all skills we will still need. Of course, those last three are difficult to do an ocean away so they're a bit more like service jobs where the absence of tariffs don't help. We're probably not gonna get anything but the high end tool work for a generation or so. We've lost a whole lot of skills in that regard and training like that takes time.
In general for wealth inequality? Stronger estates taxes and near elimination of the "capital gains" tax. Capital naturally accretes and we're not doing much to push back against that natural tendency. The trick is somehow doing that while not having the capital all run away via legal chinchancery to tax shelters. Which is the result of a different kind of skill gap where we pay our regulators a fraction of what those they regulate make while basically needing the same skill set.
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think the solution is to try and chase the German model and redevote ourselves to making high quality products instead of chasing the low end. We are making BMWs in the US right now that are indistinguishable from German made BMWs. Let's expand on that type of precision, skilled manufacturing. It tends to be higher wage too, so the jobs it creates are simply better jobs than a toy factory or textile mill.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I would eliminate the general capital gains tax and replace it with preferential rates (or credits) for investment in industries that we want to grow in the US.
And I will correct myself. The average Chinese worker is making less than $2 an hour, a figure that could still reasonably expressed in pennies for dramatic effect. No where did I say Chinese workers make pennies a day.
And if you don't think rebalancing trade tariffs will work, what will? I see a lot of attacking ideas without offering a better solution that benefits everyone. Advocating for the status quo just won't fly anymore.
The cost is very industry specific. Some things can be made here for a similar cost, some cannot. You have to remember that the US stopped putting money into developing manufacturing infrastructure or training skilled workers a long time ago.
Which needs to be a priority to fix.
Crumbling highways, inadequate rail ways, a lack of trained workers, disparate supply chains, poor labor relations, etc. are probably bigger factors than worker wages in most cases.
That isn't about worker wages, that's about the GOP obstructing infrastructure. Lack of trained workers the industries are to blame, they don't want to invest in the American people anymore. Poor labor relations aren't as big a deal as the part since unions are weak now.
Increasing the cost of imported goods from China and India is effectively imposing a regressive sales tax. The poor in the U.S. will need to spend more for the same products.
And I will correct myself. The average Chinese worker is making less than $2 an hour, a figure that could still reasonably expressed in pennies for dramatic effect. No where did I say Chinese workers make pennies a day.
And if you don't think rebalancing trade tariffs will work, what will? I see a lot of attacking ideas without offering a better solution that benefits everyone. Advocating for the status quo just won't fly anymore.
The cost is very industry specific. Some things can be made here for a similar cost, some cannot. You have to remember that the US stopped putting money into developing manufacturing infrastructure or training skilled workers a long time ago. Crumbling highways, inadequate rail ways, a lack of trained workers, disparate supply chains, poor labor relations, etc. are probably bigger factors than worker wages in most cases.
It's not just that we stopped putting money into developing skilled workers, but we've actively denigrated blue collar work as a society. There's a ton of causes to that, but the reality is that we do not believe, as a society, that blue collar work is either skilled or worthy of respect.
I think the solution is to try and chase the German model and redevote ourselves to making high quality products instead of chasing the low end. We are making BMWs in the US right now that are indistinguishable from German made BMWs. Let's expand on that type of precision, skilled manufacturing. It tends to be higher wage too, so the jobs it creates are simply better jobs than a toy factory or textile mill.
You wouldn't like that, the German model have powerful unions who are allies with companies, not enemies. Those unions have seats on company boards.
I see a lot of attacking ideas without offering a better solution that benefits everyone. Advocating for the status quo just won't fly anymore.
This is a really goosey argument that needs to get called out. Pointing out all the flaws in your argument does not, in any way, obligate us to present an alternative plan. In fact, requesting that critics do so is routinely used as a derailing strategy to dismiss criticism.
And I will correct myself. The average Chinese worker is making less than $2 an hour, a figure that could still reasonably expressed in pennies for dramatic effect. No where did I say Chinese workers make pennies a day.
And if you don't think rebalancing trade tariffs will work, what will? I see a lot of attacking ideas without offering a better solution that benefits everyone. Advocating for the status quo just won't fly anymore.
The cost is very industry specific. Some things can be made here for a similar cost, some cannot. You have to remember that the US stopped putting money into developing manufacturing infrastructure or training skilled workers a long time ago.
Which needs to be a priority to fix.
Crumbling highways, inadequate rail ways, a lack of trained workers, disparate supply chains, poor labor relations, etc. are probably bigger factors than worker wages in most cases.
That isn't about worker wages, that's about the GOP obstructing infrastructure. Lack of trained workers the industries are to blame, they don't want to invest in the American people anymore. Poor labor relations aren't as big a deal as the part since unions are weak now.
Increasing the cost of imported goods from China and India is effectively imposing a regressive sales tax. The poor in the U.S. will need to spend more for the same products.
Then raise the minimum wage.
You didn't say anything that contradicts anything I said.
I think the solution is to try and chase the German model and redevote ourselves to making high quality products instead of chasing the low end. We are making BMWs in the US right now that are indistinguishable from German made BMWs. Let's expand on that type of precision, skilled manufacturing. It tends to be higher wage too, so the jobs it creates are simply better jobs than a toy factory or textile mill.
You wouldn't like that, the German model have powerful unions who are allies with companies, not enemies. Those unions have seats on company boards.
This isn't a thread about views I have expressed in other threads. That said, I think the German labor relations model is very good. The problems I have with unions are specific to the US implementation of them.
Having worked in manufacturing for 15 years now this really depends on the sector and even then is mostly just bromides that aren't supported by my experience. Personally, we've lost jobs to China but we've also taken them back. Chinese factory workers don't work for pennies a day, that's off by about a factor of hundred, per an hour. They are absolutely cheaper than US labor though. As a disadvantage they're half a world away, shipping is cheap but not fast and the translation issue is a problem on top of cultural differences.
Add in that they actually spend money on workforce development and there are some areas where we can't really compete with them. Tooling and die work easily runs 3 or 4 times more expensive in the states and with much longer lead times. This is because they spent a bunch of money on training metalworkers while we spent the last few decades cutting trade schools and demonizing the people who run and participate in apprenticeship programs.
The end result of us raising import tariffs is the parts I make facing import tariffs over there and the rest of the world combined is larger than the US market. Add to that we'll be spending massively more on consumer goods, either through tariffs or by higher US labor rates and it doesn't really strike me as a winning deal.
i would just note that the current model of 'use for China for all of our manufacturing' is a program that's always been on borrowed time. We're basically just stealing the extra value that would otherwise be added to our luxury goods from underpaid laborers & people who have their surroundings destroyed by inadequate waste disposal (because that's expensive), and assuming that this trend can continue indefinitely (even as we watch China's economy begin to grind & whine under the strain of it's short sighted management).
I don't know that import taxes are the right answer, and Mr. Sanders's platform on the issue seems too simplistic to appreciate it's scale, but certainly something is either going to have to change or it will be otherwise forcibly changed when something gives way.
Also, the primary platform Mr. Sanders runs on is the re-establishment of large infrastructure reconstruction programs and trade programs. The things you identify as a key part of the outsourcing problem.
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Her minority appeal is much better than Bernie's, unless Bernie's base skews very differently than I've seen.
Or is this just garbage you've picked-up from the beltway press and/or Clinton campaign and decided to dump here?
EDIT: Like, even if we accept that Sanders's civil rights activities in the 60s are totes irrelevant to black voters today (which I doubt), he presumably retains his civil rights friends & contacts from back int the day. Those people are probably in community organizer positions today, or at the very least some of their friends & relatives who probably also know Bernie and/or his family would be in such positions.
oh no but one guy on his blog or in a column saw Bernie handle a heckler in a way he didn't think was politically savvy. Obviously Bernie has a minority problem.
Well, here's #BernieSoBlack, as one point.
If you want numbers, the poll posted earlier in the thread is good enough. More democrats who know Hillary Clinton like her than democrats who know Bernie like him, and (effectively) all Democrats know Hillary Clinton.
Unless Bernie has stronger minority support (by a significant margin) than his white support or Hillary has terrible minority support, he's going to have worse minority support than Clinton. I don't think it's unreasonable to make the assumption Bernie's support isn't skewed heavily minority and Clinton hasn't had any terrible gaffes on that front.
Obviously these aren't strict numbers and you can feel free to disagree, but combined with other "soft" data posted in this thread, assuming it doesn't mean anything is as absurd as assuming he's a minority icon.
No, but that's not what is being impressed upon: people are suggesting that Mr. Sanders has a 'minority problem', which in turn suggests that there's a big gap in his minority support as compared to his white voter support. So, where is the evidence of said gap, if one wants to argue that it exists?
Clinton has more support, but proportionately, does she have greater minority support? If you want to say she does, again... evidence?
What purpose does this serve? I said you're free to disagree, but pressing me for evidence I literally just said I don't have only makes me disinclined to continue talking about Sanders.
Again, just crunching the numbers, Clinton has to have more minority support than Sanders unless we assume Sanders has especially good minority support or Clinton has issues with minority support. I don't think my assumptions are unreasonable, so while I have no way to judge Bernie's white support v. Bernie's minority support, I can reasonably assume both are lower than Clinton's, which is a huge issue. This will only get worse when the 40+% of democrats that don't know Bernie hear his name, since the polling already captures his dedicated supporters.
Bernie Sanders admits he has a minority problem. It's pretty much common knowledge, unless you want to argue that Bernie Sanders doesn't have the data to back himself up.
So, it's 'common knowledge', and you don't have any evidence, but you feel free to rumor monger. And if I ask you for evidence, you get defensive, link an article that just links back to a different article (and takes one quote from it way out of content. The actual opinion piece is about class vs ideology) and then threaten to take your ball and go home. So that's pretty good.
Maybe if you don't have any reason to believe in something aside from, "Well I saw a twitter hashtag about it, and I read an OpEd about it," you shouldn't be promoting that thing as truth or 'common knowledge'?
E: Also, if you google "Bernie Sanders minority polling" there are quite a few articles with linked polls showing how poorly he is doing in comparison to Hillary Clinton on that front, either in terms of exposure or likability.
Note that this is Bernie answering a question about the smear campaign, and he does not say, "Oh yeah, I have a big minority problem. I'm totally seen as a racist,"
Not having a high profile among African Americans is not the same thing as being viewed unfavorably by them.
And yes, I would like a poll that demonstrates this alleged demographic gap if that is what you want to claim exists. It should be trivial for you to produce.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/06/02/National-Politics/Polling/question_15726.xml?uuid=jTWRTAkVEeWVHo4VCQ1krg#
If the WaPo poll is accurate (and why not, I'll give it to them, even thought they don't have an accompanying methodology. Mostly because i wouldn't understand the methodological breakdown anyway), I'll concede the point: Mr. Sanders looks to have a 9~ point gap between his white voter base and minority voter base.
Clinton's favorability in the (Democratic, though that's almost 100%) African American community is 83 - 12, and with (again, Democratic) Hispanics it's 67-24. Sanders is 21/40 and 36/28, respectively. Being 20 points underwater in the black community is a serious problem for Democrats. Sanders is +29 with white Democrats. Clinton, for reference, is +43.
Ctrl+F "Non-white."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-democrats-favor-clinton-over-obama/
Granted, Hillery has a larger lead today, but I think that has more to do with the lack of candidates in the Dem field.
I am never going to agree with any politician on 100% of the issues. I am ~95% in line with Bernie's politics, though I am a middle class white male.
The story behind corporate tax rates in the US is almost identical to that of personal income tax. The statutory rate is high, but no one actually pays the statutory rate. The GAO report from 2013 estimates that in 2010 the average federal rate paid by profitable companies with over 10 million in assets was 12.6% or about a third of the statutory rate. If Bernie's platform is just to raise the statutory rate, then I think it's fundamentally flawed, but the US could definitely use corporate tax reform.
Here's the deal with trade deals. They have made things cheaper at the expense of American jobs. Our trade policy during and after WW2 heavily favored American exports. It's not hard to understand than or now. You have an import tariff and an export tariff. When you want to favor exports, you lower the export tariff and raise the import tariff. What's been happening for the last 50 years is a slow and steady decrease (and in some cases removal) of import tariffs. Now you have counties like China playing dirty by directly manipulating their currency so they can pay their workers the USD equivalent of pennies an hour to manufacturer consumers good. There is no possible way for US workers to compete with that. The solution becomes obvious when you look at the problem like so. The US is (one of) the world's largest markets for consumer goods. Companies all over the world compete for our hard earned dollars. If these companies in China and India want access to the US marketplace, they have to play by our rules. In order to sway trade back in favor of exports you decrease export tariffs and increase import tariffs. The market will be there regardless of trade policy. People aren't just going to stop wanting goods. If it costs a company more to manufacture a product overseas than in the US, you can bet your ass, they will start producing domestically again.
Consumer goods could get a little more expensive or companies could pay their CEOs slightly less money.
And Bernie isn't even talking about raising corporate taxes. He's talking about closing loopholes that allow the Walton family to stash 100s of millions of dollars offshore, never paying taxes on it.
Even if they have no influence on regional politics, presidential candidates usually pretend they do.
The issue is not policy proposals though, it is acknowledgement. All Sanders has to do is acknowledge the issue and offer support, what he can do can be hashed out later.
Increasing the cost of imported goods from China and India is effectively imposing a regressive sales tax. The poor in the U.S. will need to spend more for the same products.
Of course is not as easy as waving the magic tax wand to solve all our problems. Sanders recently identified 6 of the most abused tax loopholes and asked Obama for help in closing them
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-asks-obama-to-close-six-egregious-corporate-tax-loopholes
I don't have the time to properly address those, but they are mostly vital parts of the tax code that are necessary for US companies subject to US taxation to function outside the US. The only ones on that list that aren't vital to the functioning of the tax code are carried interest (which is a TINY amount of lost revenue, in the range of $50 million a year according to every estimate that I have seen when carried interest was attached to another bill) and valuation discounts. Calling check the box elections abuse is particularly absurd, as the check the box regime was implemented because the IRS wanted companies to have certainty about how they would be taxed in the US when their non-US treatment was different than the expect US treatment.
Having worked in manufacturing for 15 years now this really depends on the sector and even then is mostly just bromides that aren't supported by my experience. Personally, we've lost jobs to China but we've also taken them back. Chinese factory workers don't work for pennies a day, that's off by about a factor of hundred, per an hour. They are absolutely cheaper than US labor though. As a disadvantage they're half a world away, shipping is cheap but not fast and the translation issue is a problem on top of cultural differences.
Add in that they actually spend money on workforce development and there are some areas where we can't really compete with them. Tooling and die work easily runs 3 or 4 times more expensive in the states and with much longer lead times. This is because they spent a bunch of money on training metalworkers while we spent the last few decades cutting trade schools and demonizing the people who run and participate in apprenticeship programs.
The end result of us raising import tariffs is the parts I make facing import tariffs over there and the rest of the world combined is larger than the US market. Add to that we'll be spending massively more on consumer goods, either through tariffs or by higher US labor rates and it doesn't really strike me as a winning deal.
And I will correct myself. The average Chinese worker is making less than $2 an hour, a figure that could still reasonably expressed in pennies for dramatic effect. No where did I say Chinese workers make pennies a day.
And if you don't think rebalancing trade tariffs will work, what will? I see a lot of attacking ideas without offering a better solution that benefits everyone. Advocating for the status quo just won't fly anymore.
Yeah raising import tariffs isn't really a good idea.
That doesn't mean you can't oppose current trade deals, as those aren't only about trade tariffs. In fact, tariffs are already so low that lowering them more is unlikely to have much impact either.
The cost is very industry specific. Some things can be made here for a similar cost, some cannot. You have to remember that the US stopped putting money into developing manufacturing infrastructure or training skilled workers a long time ago. Crumbling highways, inadequate rail ways, a lack of trained workers, disparate supply chains, poor labor relations, etc. are probably bigger factors than worker wages in most cases.
I can only speak for plastics but distribution costs just aren't an issue. It's logistics mostly. If you know this Christmas you want a million of x and x isn't very tightly toleranced or medical or something, then go shopping in China but just do it by April. If you need to pull small quantities with rapid changes, parts with tight tolerances or medical specs or even just want to drive over to talk with the designer about what you want then the US can offer you something.
Yep, misremembered what you wrote there. Wrote that off and on while being super productive at work. Edit: Oh yeah, and look at that growth rate. It's nearly tripled in a decade. The low wages problem and growing economy thing generally starts sorting itself out until they just become another modernized country.
My classic answer here is partly skills development. We need trade skills and we're woefully under prepared for the baby boom retirement. I'm not sure how important that ultimately is as we're innovating our way out of having to be good at metal work for the creation of tools (3D Metal Printing!) but revisions, repair and maintenance are all skills we will still need. Of course, those last three are difficult to do an ocean away so they're a bit more like service jobs where the absence of tariffs don't help. We're probably not gonna get anything but the high end tool work for a generation or so. We've lost a whole lot of skills in that regard and training like that takes time.
In general for wealth inequality? Stronger estates taxes and near elimination of the "capital gains" tax. Capital naturally accretes and we're not doing much to push back against that natural tendency. The trick is somehow doing that while not having the capital all run away via legal chinchancery to tax shelters. Which is the result of a different kind of skill gap where we pay our regulators a fraction of what those they regulate make while basically needing the same skill set.
Which needs to be a priority to fix.
That isn't about worker wages, that's about the GOP obstructing infrastructure. Lack of trained workers the industries are to blame, they don't want to invest in the American people anymore. Poor labor relations aren't as big a deal as the part since unions are weak now.
Then raise the minimum wage.
It's not just that we stopped putting money into developing skilled workers, but we've actively denigrated blue collar work as a society. There's a ton of causes to that, but the reality is that we do not believe, as a society, that blue collar work is either skilled or worthy of respect.
You wouldn't like that, the German model have powerful unions who are allies with companies, not enemies. Those unions have seats on company boards.
This is a really goosey argument that needs to get called out. Pointing out all the flaws in your argument does not, in any way, obligate us to present an alternative plan. In fact, requesting that critics do so is routinely used as a derailing strategy to dismiss criticism.
You didn't say anything that contradicts anything I said.
This isn't a thread about views I have expressed in other threads. That said, I think the German labor relations model is very good. The problems I have with unions are specific to the US implementation of them.
i would just note that the current model of 'use for China for all of our manufacturing' is a program that's always been on borrowed time. We're basically just stealing the extra value that would otherwise be added to our luxury goods from underpaid laborers & people who have their surroundings destroyed by inadequate waste disposal (because that's expensive), and assuming that this trend can continue indefinitely (even as we watch China's economy begin to grind & whine under the strain of it's short sighted management).
I don't know that import taxes are the right answer, and Mr. Sanders's platform on the issue seems too simplistic to appreciate it's scale, but certainly something is either going to have to change or it will be otherwise forcibly changed when something gives way.
Also, the primary platform Mr. Sanders runs on is the re-establishment of large infrastructure reconstruction programs and trade programs. The things you identify as a key part of the outsourcing problem.