Opinion Politics (warning, may contain political views you disagree with)

[wahooo]

Ben's point is that high wages hurt small businesses more than large ones because of economies of scale. If wages represent 80% of your expenses then higher wages are going to affect you more than if wages represent 20% of your expenses.

The main reason for the cut to penalty rates is because it was having the effect of seeing small businesses choosing to close when they were in effect. But some people in this thread will swear that employment rose elsewhere when that happened I guess.

The problem with your argument here is that you're attributing a slow down in the economy in general to the effect of minimum wages. I've certainly not seen any research that would be able to pin a down turn in our economy on our "high" minimum wages.

There are many factors that can cause a down turn; risks in the global economy are among those, a government blindly pursuing a budget surplus is another and tax cuts that did absolutely nothing to stimulate consumption don't help either.

Yes small businesses struggle when an economy slow downs because consumers spend less. Will cutting wages help? Maybe in the very short term, but it's likely to cause more harm to small business than good. Those who are most likely to spend their money in a small business have less money to spend because their wages have been cut, thus hurting small business further.

A downturn caused small businesses to struggle and close, not minimum wages.

Salim kinda beat me to it but yeah

 

[wahooo]

Ben's point is that high wages hurt small businesses more than large ones because of economies of scale. If wages represent 80% of your expenses then higher wages are going to affect you more than if wages represent 20% of your expenses.

The main reason for the cut to penalty rates is because it was having the effect of seeing small businesses choosing to close when they were in effect. But some people in this thread will swear that employment rose elsewhere when that happened I guess.

It's a classic case of confirmation bias.

You've started at high minimum wages are bad.

The economy slowed down.

You blame minimum wages.

 

[Purpletown]

Bit off topic.

I hope we see a Bernie vs Trump in the debates later this year.

This is the clash we should of got in 2016.

Trump is a proven bully on stage, but gee Bernie is ruthless and doesn’t hold back at all.

If the dems rig it against Bernie again and bring in a mainstream candidate Trump wins, but my gut feeling is if The Bern gets the nom he’ll gather all those swing voters, obviously the democratic vote and the voters that do the throw aways to the independents.

Just to remember 18% of Bernie supporters went over to Trump when pitted against Hillary in 2016.

Thoughts on the upcoming election?

My thoughts on the upcoming Presidential election are that health care is the number one election issue raised when talking to Americans in the US. That is from my personal experience from November 2019 while visiting family in Denver Co.

Almost every Yank I have spoken to over 20 years of visiting family and doing road trips to many different parts of the USA is extremely concerned about having adequate health cover and value any job that provides employee health cover highly. I don't really get the feeling there is a strong desire overall to move to a Medicare for all plan as there is a healthy scepticism regarding the cost to taxpayers.

Just my personal belief but I feel the Democrats are a bit too far to the left at the moment and I don't see any of them being able to engage and energise the Democrat voter base enough to win the White House in November.

 

[Ben The Donkey]

Small business rellies on spending money in pockets. Low wages mean less money to go around and the smaller businesses suffer.
Business don't close down because of wages they close down because punters haven't got the cash to spend.
Take a drive down South St and see the rows of empty shops.
The economy is stagnant, it's stuffed and all due to the coalition's stand on keeping wages growth at record lows.

Might have something to do with online sales companies, too.
I mean, the reason many storefronts are closing is fairly well-documented, you know, and it has a lot to do with competition with online sales companies who don't have the overheads - including wages - physical stores do.
You can claim it's all the coalitions fault or stagnant wages all you like, but a change of government is not going to solve this problem.

You and Byng seem to have the same strange idea that paying people more is going to keep small businesses alive - it won't.
The world is changing, and you're still living in fairy land.

 

[holybishop]

Bit off topic.

I hope we see a Bernie vs Trump in the debates later this year.

This is the clash we should of got in 2016.

Trump is a proven bully on stage, but gee Bernie is ruthless and doesn’t hold back at all.

If the dems rig it against Bernie again and bring in a mainstream candidate Trump wins, but my gut feeling is if The Bern gets the nom he’ll gather all those swing voters, obviously the democratic vote and the voters that do the throw aways to the independents.

Just to remember 18% of Bernie supporters went over to Trump when pitted against Hillary in 2016.

Thoughts on the upcoming election?

My money is on Bloomberg being the Dem candidate. The Dem party machine won't let Bernie be the nominee, or Pete for that matter.

 

[freo1997]

My money is on Bloomberg being the Dem candidate. The Dem party machine won't let Bernie be the nominee, or Pete for that matter.

...they can forget about Winning then.

Bloomberg has the personality of a door knob and too much baggage with all the leaked audio with hints of racial discrimination.

I would of thought a grass roots push to the White House would be more appealing, than a billionaire buying his way in.

Bloomberg is a disgrace tbh.

 

[wahooo]

Bloomberg has the personality of a door knob and too much baggage with all the leaked audio with hints of racial discrimination.

I would of thought a grass roots push to the White House would be more appealing, than a billionaire buying his way in.

Trump is a billionaire who bought his way in and has the personality of the doorknob and discriminates openly.

They'll love bloomberg!

 

[holybishop]

...they can forget about Winning then.

Bloomberg has the personality of a door knob and too much baggage with all the leaked audio with hints of racial discrimination.

I would of thought a grass roots push to the White House would be more appealing, than a billionaire buying his way in.

Bloomberg is a disgrace tbh.

Bloomberg can win back voters in the mid-west who the Democrats have forgotten are the voters who will actually decide this election

 

[freo1997]

Bloomberg can win back voters in the mid-west who the Democrats have forgotten are the voters who will actually decide this election

Bernie would appeal to the mid west. He’s actually for the working class.

 

[holybishop]

Bernie would appeal to the mid west. He’s actually for the working class.

That same working class will be susceptible to the socialist scare campaign. They don't want a revolution, they just want job security

 

[bushchook]

It's pretty unusual for an incumbent president to lose an election. It doesn't really matter who the democrats nominate.

 

[poshman]

That same working class will be susceptible to the socialist scare campaign. They don't want a revolution, they just want job security

In this instance (Bernie) it wouldn’t be a scare campaign. He is an out and out socialist.

again - socialism has never worked in 30 odd attempts. Each time people get subjugated. Freedoms are lost. People die en masse and the economy goes down the drain.

no the Nordic countries aren’t socialist. They are a free market economic or capitalist with higher taxes. Bernie doesn’t want just higher taxes. He wants gov control of industries.

look at just a couple of his proposals - not including immigration and no illegal immigration - there isnt a way to pay for them.

I haven’t looked into yet but didn’t he recently discuss guaranteed gov jobs? Can someone let me know if that is a lie and if not how it is meant to work? Asking genuinely here. Not sure if I heard wrong or read wrong and have admitted I haven’t looked into it.

If Bernie gets the nod - I hope it is a demolishing at the ballot. Socialism has never worked and has resulted in some of the greatest evils in human history. Bloody scary. I wouldn’t wish it on any person or country.

 

[Bigger]

Good lord. Calm down, Pigiron Bob.

He’s American. Their version of democratic socialism is to the right of the Australian Labor Party.

 

[Bigger]

It's pretty unusual for an incumbent president to lose an election. It doesn't really matter who the democrats nominate.

You may be right.
In theory Trump is so rancid, Bernie from Weekend with Bernie should beat him but the Dems are finding a way to **** it up.

Bernie Saunders and Biden will be in their 80s during their first term.
That’s turning voters off.
There is no other unifying moderate with deep enough wallets to last the distance.
The Dems are eating themselves alive and their delegate system perpetuates internal division.

 

[freo1997]

You may be right.
In theory Trump is so rancid, Bernie from Weekend with Bernie should beat him but the Dems are finding a way to fu** it up.

Bernie Saunders and Biden will be in their 80s during their first term.
That’s turning voters off.
There is no other unifying moderate with deep enough wallets to last the distance.
The Dems are eating themselves alive and their delegate system perpetuates internal division.

Everyone was saying the same thing when trump was saying little rubio, lying ted, taunting Jeb bush. Ted Cruz’s dad killed jfk etc

They always come together

 

[Purpletown]

I think Bernie is too far to the left for middle America but not necessarily too far left for many Democrats. The biggest problem the Democrats face is in bringing those at either side of their voter base together. As they hop on on at the left they fall off toward the middle and probably choose not to vote as much as voting Republican It takes something special to energise your voter base in the USA and a near 80 year old Bernie Sanders is not that man imo. Colonel Sanders on the other hand still seems to have wide support.

 

[bushchook]

You may be right.
In theory Trump is so rancid, Bernie from Weekend with Bernie should beat him but the Dems are finding a way to fu** it up.

I don't really think that's true even in theory.

The "theory" behind the incumbent almost always winning is that they had enough votes to win last time, so they'll probably also have enough to win this time.

Only twice in 90 years the incumbent hasn't won - Bush Snr and Jimmy Carter. (Gerald Ford never won an election, he just replaced Nixon for the remainder of the term).

 

[poshman]

Good lord. Calm down, Pigiron Bob.

He’s American. Their version of democratic socialism is to the right of the Australian Labor Party.

I am assuming this was in response to my post -

Which policies is he on the right of the ALP (who took and fair veer left before the last election)?

I am pleased that you agree socialism doesn't work... And hasn't ever worked and that it requires the forcibly subjugation of citizens and kills economies. Noe tell me how Bernie is not a socialist? Democratic Socialism - How is it different to full blown socialism? I haven't seen him answer this question.

You also cannot tell me you think he will be able to find a way to pay for even a 1/4 of what he is proposing?

Again - part of me hopes he wins so they get demolished and wake up, come back to centre-left where Obama was in 08.

 

[Steinfreo]

Warren/Bernie/Biden basically ended Bloomberg today. Guy is a rich dud when the torch is applied.

 

[wahooo]

I don't really think that's true even in theory.

The "theory" behind the incumbent almost always winning is that they had enough votes to win last time, so they'll probably also have enough to win this time.

Only twice in 90 years the incumbent hasn't won - Bush Snr and Jimmy Carter. (Gerald Ford never won an election, he just replaced Nixon for the remainder of the term).

Ol mate did have 3 million less votes than Hillary though, got lucky.

 

[Purpletown]

On the US election.

There have been five instances of a candidate being elected president of the USA after losing the popular vote, Trump's was the largest deficit at 2.87 million. Since the president is not elected by popular vote but via an electoral college the popular vote is not what wins these elections. Of the total of 538 electoral college votes Trump ended up with 304 votes and Clinton 227 and interestingly 7 voters were faithless ie they defected from their side with 5 defecting from Clinton and 2 defecting from Trump.

Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were won by Trump in 2016 and all those states were for the Democrats in 2012. With the exception of Florida all these states were part of the so called blue wall Democrat stronghold in the northern mid west. Obama resonated with these states but Clinton clearly did not do so. The reasons for this are not clear cut but the African American voter engagement was at it's peak during the Obama elections.

In regard to the present Democratic Party Primaries it's hard to see Sanders getting much love from the party considering he is the longest serving independent member of Congress and has taken many a swipe at Republicans and Democrats alike over the years. Bloomberg was a Democrat until 2001 then switched to the Republicans while running for Mayor of New York before becoming an independent in 2007 and then becoming a Democrat again in 2018. Both these guys are unpredictable and I think the Democrats will be reluctant to hitch their wagon to either and will prefer to stick with a more traditional and loyal Democrat. Warren is unelectable imo so it may well end up being Biden.

 

[wayToGo_]

Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were won by Trump in 2016 and all those states were for the Democrats in 2012.

All those states had massive migrations of Russians prior to the elections.

There is an intraclub on why are we talking US politics?

 

[Purpletown]

All those states had massive migrations of Russians prior to the elections.

There is an intraclub on why are we talking US politics?

Some will find a way to do both.

 

[holybishop]

Ol mate did have 3 million less votes than Hillary though, got lucky.

Trump didn't get lucky he campaigned smarter. He won the working class white votes which won him those pivotal states. Hillary may have won the popular vote but only succeeded in consolidating the base.

It's also funny how those same democrats who were up in arms about tEh PoPuLaR VoTe are happy to go to a brokered convention if Bernie gets the most delegates but not enough to lock in the nomination.

 

[holybishop]

Bernie convincingly wins Nevada while the rest of the moderates splinter the votes. If the Democratic establishment don't get their act together and get behind just one candidate Berine will actually secure the nomination with delegate wins.