Lloyd Blankfein, longtime CEO of Goldman Sachs, didn’t like what Bernie Sanders said about him in early January, and he fired back on CNBC’s “Squawkbox” last week, saying Sanders’ critique “has the potential to be a dangerous moment.”
But there’s more to that story than it appears. It’s not simply that Sanders uses Blankfein as a symbol of the “greed of Wall Street” — it’s that Sanders does so while highlighting the evocative contrast between the 2008 bailout of Wall Street and Blankfein’s public advocacy for cuts to entitlements.
Sanders took offense when Blankfein, in a 2012 segment on “60 Minutes,” said, “You’re going to have to undoubtedly do something to lower people’s expectations” that they will get their full Social Security and Medicare benefits because “we can’t afford it.” Blankfein advocated an increase in the eligibility age for both programs as well as other cuts because “entitlements have to be slowed down and contained.”
Soon afterward, Sanders excoriated Blankfein in a speech from the floor of the Senate titled “The Face of Class Warfare”:
SANDERS: Sometimes there is no end to arrogance. … Lloyd Blankfein is the CEO of Goldman Sachs. … During the financial crisis Goldman Sachs received a total of $814 billion in virtually zero-interest loans from the Federal Reserve and a $10 billion bailout from the Treasury Department. … And now with his huge wealth he is coming here to Washington to lecture the American people on how we have got to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for tens of millions of Americans who are struggling now to keep their heads above water.
Just a few weeks ago on Bloomberg TV Sanders returned to the subject, citing Blankfein as a Wall Street executive who “really irks me” because such executives “make huge sums of money, help destroy our economy, they come to Congress and you know what they say? They say, ‘You’ve got to cut Social Security and you’ve got to cut Medicare and you’ve got to cut Medicaid.’”
That’s what Blankfein was responding to on CNBC last week when he said, “To personalize it, it has the potential to be a dangerous moment, not just for Wall Street, not just for the people are particularly targeted but for anybody who is a little bit out of line.”
And so that’s why Sanders’ remarks concern Blankfein: No one on Wall Street wants someone running for president asking why the United States “can’t afford” Social Security and Medicare but could afford to bail them out.
The banksters rule working class through their ownership and control over the media, mainstream and most alternative. The ONLY way to overthrow this corrupt banksters’ make money as debt, is to first take control of the media and oust all the Joseph Goebbels wanna be spin meisters. All of them.
Then the media can be used for telling the truth, then the banksters can go to jail, that is the way it has to transpire, don’t get the cart before the horse. Take OVER the media.
Oh, that’s why Blankfein said that? — I thought it was because he was a shitbag…
“Dangerous” to a Blankfield? ¡Viva la Revolución!
I’ve been doing my best to find an Angry Black Man to vote for since last friggin century. Hoping we’ve finally found one in Bernie.
The fact that this parasite can make statements like this in public without a pitchfork up his ass speaks volumes about the brainwashed wimps of America. Obama’s number one contributor in his first election was the employees of GS . GS was the first to cook up a secret crooked deal to do derivatives without being a principal and the rest of the financial parasite class followed to where the banksters do not support the “real” economy but trade funny money for profit. The whole “fractional reserve” banking system is a giant fraud and has been for 400 years and it’s high time to end the creation of money by private entities. The financial parasites have essentially destroyed the real productive economy and what the Hedge funds are doing is essentially war crimes, especially in poor country’s. The last President to take on the banksters and win was Jackson and it’s high time to nationalize them; breaking them up is not enough. All I can say is, if you don’t like Bernie Sanders, if you don’t wanna share some of your wealth, if you think you can fool the people with another Obama/Holter , get ready for the pitchforks because, even a rat will fight if it’s young are hungry.
In the states, Occupy Wall Street was shut down through collaborative efforts between national security agencies and private interests, like Goldman Sachs (see democracynow reports). These combined interests run what is being commonly referred to as the American deep state.
Bernie Sanders and his supporters are now demanding justice, again. Lets help ensure Sanders is not ‘disrupted’ by those agencies and their conflict of interests.
Hmmm. What is the real truth and will it soon cripple? For example:
Larry Elliott
BBC Economics editor
Sunday 28 June 2015 17.07 BST
The international body that represents the world’s central banks has issued a stark warning that an unprecedented period of ultra-low interest rates mask deep weaknesses in the global economy and threaten to be the trigger for the next financial crisis.
In its annual report, the Basle-based Bank for International Settlements says that what used to be considered “unthinkable” risks becoming the “new normal”, with clear risks for future stability.
BIS said the need for abnormally low level of interest rates to be kept in place six years after the trough of the global financial crisis in early 2009 reflected a broader malaise.
It added that monetary policy – the willingness of central banks to print money and keep borrowing costs low – was bearing too much of the burden and that governments needed to rely more on structural reform to secure sustainable growth.
BIS was the one global body to point out in advance of the financial crash of 2007 that booming asset prices could cause problems even during periods of low inflation, and its latest warning will be seen as a call for its central bank members to start returning monetary policy to more normal settings.
“Globally, interest rates have been extraordinarily low for an exceptionally long time, in nominal and inflation-adjusted terms, against any benchmark”, the report said.
“Such low rates are the most remarkable symptom of a broader malaise in the global economy: the economic expansion is unbalanced, debt burdens and financial risks are still too high, productivity growth too low, and the room for manoeuvre in macroeconomic policy too limited. The unthinkable risks becoming routine and being perceived as the new normal.”
The US Federal Reserve is likely to be the first central bank in any major advanced country to raise interest rates. Wall Street expects the Fed to tighten policy later this year, with the Bank of England forecast to follow in 2016. The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are currently still using quantitative easing – the creation of electronic money – to boost activity.
BIS noted that it was proving “exceedingly difficult” to understand the malaise affecting the global economy, but said the problem stemmed from a failure to come to grips with financial booms and busts that left deep and lasting scars.
“In the long term, this runs the risk of entrenching instability and chronic weakness. There is both a domestic and an international dimension to all this. Domestic policy regimes have been too narrowly concerned with stabilising short-term output and inflation and have lost sight of slower-moving but more costly financial booms and busts.
“And the international monetary and financial system has spread easy monetary and financial conditions in the core economies to other economies through exchange rate and capital flow pressures, furthering the build-up of financial vulnerabilities. Short-term gain risks being bought at the cost of long-term pain.”
BIS added that far from being the solution, persistently low interest rates risked becoming the problem. “Rather than just reflecting the current weakness, low rates may in part have contributed to it by fuelling costly financial booms and busts. The result is too much debt, too little growth and excessively low interest rates. In short, low rates beget lower rates.”
As evidence of its thesis, BIS said that between December 2014 and the end of May 2015, on average around $2tn (£1.27tn) in global long-term sovereign debt, much of it issued by euro area sovereign states, was trading at negative yields.
At their trough, interest rates on French, German and Swiss bonds were negative out to a respective five, nine and 15 years, with the result that investors were paying for the privilege of holding government debt.
“Such yields are unprecedented”, BIS said. “Yet, exceptional as this situation may be, many expect it to continue. There is something deeply troubling when the unthinkable threatens to become routine.”
One thing you should know about Bernie Sanders is that he fought tirelessly for the rank and file IBM Employees to try and help them save their pensions when the company screwed thousands of them by switching from a ‘defined benefit plan’ to a ‘cash balance plan’ retirement plan.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ibmpension/conversations/topics/50218
CEO of RJR Nabisco, and also held senior positions at American Express and McKinsey & Company. He is a graduate of Chaminade High School (1959), Dartmouth College (1963) and holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He is a former member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.
Post IBM
In January 2003, Gerstner assumed the position of chairman of The Carlyle Group, a Washington, DC global private equity firm. He retired from its board in October 2008 but remains a senior adviser.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_V._Gerstner_Jr.
I believe humans are doomed. Hubris and greed will end life as we know it now. I see no way out in time to save a large portion of the population. Nobody in power wants to change, at all, for the good of the planet and mankind. I have left no children to inherit this trash dump we call Earth but I do lament how humans destroyed our garden of Eden and all the wonderful creatures nature created. I’m sorry I wish I could have done more but one cannot make the drastic change needed to save the planet. I live a quiet austere life with no car and a cat I love in a small apartment. I just wish the best fir mankind because it really could have been paradise.
L’zy, I believe you are right. You are smart to keep your life simple. Cats and dogs are wonderful companions! I’m glad I don’t have children; I would feel terribly guilty for leaving them with this mess. Take good care!
I agree, but our sympathies are different. I feel bad for the Earth and all its non-humans. Humans caused their own demise, I have no sympathy for them as a whole, and not even any for the vast majority of individuals, traditional indigenous people excepted.
And good for you not having kids. On this grossly overpopulated planet, having kids is the worst thing you can do.
What will turn this around is up to Americans participating in politics on all levels of government.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport”. ~~~Bernie Sanders
7.6 TRILLION is what the US has spent on defense and homeland security since 9-11-2001(nationalpriorities.org).
Here is the 1%ers entitlement they will never give up-Mr Lloyd Blankfein and the other 1%ers should pay 90% of that 7.6 TRILLION since they own 90% of the countries assets.
if crime is proven, then they should do the same Prison Time that they would have others do…general population.
“it has the potential to be a dangerous moment … for anybody who is a little bit out of line.””
He says that like it’s a bad thing. The days of Wall Street’s free ride and dominance over the American political system are coming to an end, and things will probably get ugly as the leeches and thieves of Wall Street fight to keep their fraudulent business model afloat.
Kill King Capital
by Paul Street
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/09/kill-king-capital/
an excerpt:
THESE PEOPLE ARE EVIL AND THEY NEED TO BE STOPPED. WE HELP THEM BUT THEY WON’T HELP US. THANK GOD FOR BERNIE SANDERS.
Bernie…dangerous? Ha.. wait till they see guillotines outside their granite palaces.
You’ll rarely hear this in the mainstream media. Unfortunately. nothing will ever be done about the banksters or the torturers or the warmongers or any of the rest.
Something will be done, just have patience.
This propaganda word “entitlement” bears scrutiny. Lots of rich people live out in remote places, on islands. If the bridge washes out and they no longer have a working road to their substantial portion of the fading American Dream, do politicians say “bridges are an expensive entitlement program”? Do they say “we feel really sorry about the plight of the roadless, and we’re trying to get more money … next year we hope to get up to 30% of the roadless onto the waiting list for assistance”?? Indeed, the rich own summer homes and feel entitled to have law enforcement watch over them when they aren’t even around! They feel entitled to subsidized flood insurance while they live in their streamside lakeside oceanside pleasure palaces. And, of course, they feel ever so entitled to bank bailouts.
It is only the poor, including the former middle class, whose claims to entitlements over things like the Social Security they paid for are now dismissed as government giveaways corrosive to morals.
Yes, I remember many years ago, someone like John Stossel (?) railing against government subsidies/entitlements etc., and using as an example the fact that his own beach mansion had been destroyed in a storm and so he rebuilt it on government funds (maybe his overnment subsidized flood insurance) and then it was destroyed a second time and he rebuilt it, again on government funds.
America is odd from a foreign perspective. Full of contradictions. If Mr Blankfein is to have his day then pensioners should have their day. If Mr Blankfein wants to change the rules then he is entitled to kick pensioners around. However, Mr Blankfein’s peers – of a sort – might remove his butt from the land of the living for his rule change. So what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
The “main” problem with Bernie is that he is too much in command of the facts. The other problem with Bernie, which I forgot about, is that the dude cannot be bought. That’s his other problem. But let’s get back to the main problem. It would appear that Bernie has heard of Economic models from far away nations, like Germany. An economic model where labor is given the same weight as capital, and the model recognizes that neither would be complete without the other. That’s his other main problem. He knows too much.
And there are so many other problems with Bernie. Apparently, in the past, he’s had the gall, the gall, to mention that he might use aid to Israel to control their settlement activity. But that does not even come close to being the “main” problem with Bernie. His real problem is that since he’s Jewish, and sounds like he was born and raised in Brooklyn, they can’t even call him an anti-Semite with a straight face. And that hurts the MSM’s ability to make good points on camera. And the other main problem with Bernie is that since he is Jewish, Hillary can’t talk about her Israeli bonafides. This guy has thrown a wrench in the machine. That’s his “main” problem.
And would you believe it, young women claim to like him more than they do Hillary. I think they’re full of it. Just ask Gloria Steinem.
What I learned about Bernie Sanders
http://socialistworker.org/2015/06/01/what-i-learned-about-bernie-sanders
Thanks for the links Vivek. Much appreciated.
I’m not claiming that Sanders is a saint. I’m only claiming that he is less of a politician, and more of a human being, than almost any politician I’ve seen in a loooooooooooong time.
Cheers. Keep up the good fight. I know yours is a lonely corner :)
Sanders and socialism
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/01/27/pers-j27.html
Bernie Sanders lines up with Middle East war drive
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/11/16/sand-n16.html
The International Socialist Organization, Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Party
wsws.org/en/articles/2016/02/09/inte-f09.html
Sanders and the left feint in capitalist politics
wsws.org/en/articles/2016/02/06/pers-f06.html
Sanders in the Democratic debate: A “political revolution” that stops at the water’s edge
wsws.org/en/articles/2016/01/19/dems-j19.html
Fear-mongering and war dominate third Democratic presidential debate
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/12/21/deba-d21.html
Sanders outlines pro-capitalist, pro-war positions in speech on “democratic socialism”
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/11/20/sand-n20.html
Bernie Sanders’ first campaign ad: From “political revolution” to “real change”
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/11/10/sand-n10.html
Bernie Sanders endorses Obama’s decision to keep troops in Afghanistan
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/19/sand-o19.html
Bernie Sanders backs the prosecution of Edward Snowden
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/17/sand-o17.html
Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party and socialism
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/15/pers-o15.html
Bernie Sanders: A “socialist” promoted by the US government
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/09/10/sand-s10.html
Sanders pledges his campaign to save Democratic Party
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/08/31/sand-a31.html
Bernie Sanders: Silent partner of American militarism
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/08/27/sand-a27.html
Sanders talks “left” and moves right
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/08/01/sand-a01.html
Bernie Sanders pits US workers against immigrants in Vox interview
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/07/30/sand-j30.html
Is Bernie Sanders a socialist?
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/07/16/sand-j16.html
Sanders campaign seeks to channel anger over inequality behind Democrats
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/06/22/sand-j22.html
The Bernie Sanders campaign and the American pseudo-left
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/06/06/sand-j06.html
Spam.
I love it when someone has just enough education and intelligence to know that you’re supposed to back up your argument with evidence, but not enough of either to know how to do it or what “evidence” really means. And then those people provide you with incredibly biased information from only one source. It’s as if they really believe they’ve made an intelligent, adult argument. Cute.
Bernie is one brave and honorable man. I worry that the fat cats will come gunning for him literally……Get on the Bernie bus…he offers the best hope for the majority of Americans.
“Get on the Bernie bus”? The responsibility of all civilians in the US to get politically educated and participate in class struggle will not be substituted by cheerleading for a fake-left charlatan like Sanders.
He’s repeatedly made it known that he’s fully supportive of US state terrorism.
What “hope” are civilians in the US to take away from such a commitment?
Do you not understand why the US ruling class seeks world war? Do you not understand what the significance of the TPP is, in the context of the “pivot to Asia” (drive to war against China)?
It’s funny how no one links the domestic policy with the foreign policy. If people can’t buy our government, War profiteers can’t buy decisions. I wish he would speak up louder agains the wars too, but since he didn’t, let’s just let a true right wing Warhawk get it. Which is everyone he’s against including Hillary. Plus you haven’t given any statements that he is pro war, and he’s anti tpp. you wreak of pro Clinton sentiment
I can see how your laziness and poor logic would lead you to such an erroneous conclusion.
Why do you think Sanders hasn’t called for Clinton and other war criminals to be arrested, prosecuted, and hanged?
Is this supposed to be some kind of revelation? Seemed pretty obvious to me
Disgusting two women one Madeline Allbright who by the way dishabille women, supported Iraq war all wars, and when she found out Germans was handing out money to Holocaust victims she pulled some paper work from US certificate department and said ” I was a Jew did not know it ” to get money, other is a Moron stupid bird brain. Madeleine. if anyone is going to hell that is you ugly creepy women you are, Bernie Sanders is the one going to heaven,Madeline allstupid said 500,000 Iraqi children’s death was worth the war, no wonder she supports Hillary they are both war mongers. Hillary killed enough children in Libya too. supported Iraq war , and want more war with Iran and Russia. samrt up people, see these people for whim they are, google search them and see their dirty past.
Moreover, each American citizen has paid their hard-earned dollars into Social Security and Medicare for decades. Instead of investing these monies and accruing interest on those funds, with an eye on future solvency, those who ran the government, irresponsibly used these monies as a slush-fund when they should have held them “in trust.” Seen in this light it becomes fraud. Of course those who espouse corruption become indignant when someone like Sanders calls them on it.
Bernie *is* dangerous – to aholes like Blankfein. And rightly so.
Tangent:
21st C gilded age culture as explained to us by the more enlightened and well-educated types demands a veneer of “subversion” and “rebellion,” so long as such pretend resistance is expressed strictly within the context of multi-million dollar platforms of entertainment.
Hence, because the days are numbered for this schtick, and because if you read it as parody rather than sincerity, it is side-splitting, I give you: THE most preposterous manifestation yet of the fake resistant cultural celebration reflecting these days of wealth worship, so long as the right flavors are involved:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/beyonce-sacks-the-super-bowl-halftime-show?intcid=mod-most-popular
Savor every line. It is exquisite.
Ugh I can feel my stomach churning and the bile rising…
What can YOU do about the “Vampire Squid” and other financial parasites? A LOT. There is an SEC rule called 10b-18 which provides “a non-exclusive safe harbour against allegations of market manipulation” and is responsible for a lot of shareholder and CEO stock shenanigans. Encourage the Obama Administration directly and/or through your Rep and Senator to repeal this nonsense and the Vampire Squid will have a very, very bad day indeed.
That or get the nut jobs in Oregon to finally recognize the REAL enemy of the American People- Wall Street.
Matt Taibbi wrote about the same Blankfein interview and came away with a quite different conclusion:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-vampire-squid-tells-us-how-to-vote-20160205
Personally, I think Blankfein’s concern is more immediate – that someone like Sanders will transform the banking industry in ways that will hurt the CEOs like him. Not sure he has any strong feelings about entitlement reform; or if he does, they are far less important than his desire to run Goldman the way he wants to without the government getting in his way.
Goldman Sachs aka the Vampire Squid, a jew owned bank that has plundered the world helped to create one of America’s worst financial crisis and that filthy little scumbag jew complains about Sanders.
As long as banks like Gold Sacks are allowed to remain in operation no one is safe.
G.S. like the rest of the jew owned banks need to be destroyed.
@ JohnZ
I’m generally not one to advocate censorship, but “filthy little scumbag jew complains . . . jew owned banks need to be destroyed” is over the line: a) it is inaccurate because Goldman Sachs is “owned” by a lot of non-jews (one of my childhood friends is a partner and he’s Mormon, but more importantly b) it is publically traded which means:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs
So your anti-Semitic screed is both inaccurate and offensive. Plenty of legitimate beefs to be aired about the inappropriate power and influence of banks and institutions of finance like Goldman Sachs, and none of them have anything to do with any purported “jew ownership” in whole or in part.
I will never defend anything Goldman Sachs does/did but you aren’t helping. As Hillary Clinton would say “knock it off”.
Thanks for your comments because they are right on!
What do you think we should do about the jew owned banks and scumbag jew complaints? Why do you think they hate Sanders so much?
I hope your response is as compelling as your comment. Try not to hold back.
I call BS on this comment. JohnZ is spewing antisemitism in order to delegitimize the Bernie Sanders movement.
Yes, of course. We need to put a stop to this whole “Jew owned” business. Although RRHeard pointed out that it actually is not owned by Jews, I understand the thrust of your sentiment. And I’m completely with you. I just want to know who it is I should be rooting for to own businesses. It obviously can’t be those Muslims. I mean c’mon, surely you don’t support those raghead, turban wearing camel jockeys. How do you feel about Catholics? Should Mormons like Mitt Romney be allowed to own businesses? Those people seem to have special secret allegiances, that can’t even be properly discussed unless you’re Mormon. How do you feel about Pentacostals. I hear they believe in beating their children. Kindly advise.
And don’t worry, I’d never consider Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists or Baha’i. They’re just not the right type of owner.
Or fat chicks. Fat chicks should be against the law in principal and should not have any ownership rights.
Why does that statement sound like something John Gptti might have said?
Hillary happily walks-the-walk which Goldman-Sachs will reward without having to change a single vote!
The statement was made where?
CNBC.
Who watches CNBC? Who is the audience? How do they lean politically?
Why might a major bank executive find it useful to sew fear and confusion in such an audience, especially on a channel that has as its objective convincing impressionable suckers to give their savings over to Wall St?
Multiple Ways Kleptocrats and Militarists Fleece Americans
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=1981
Hey Vivek … You work for the Wall Street thieves?
you’re too clever!
read:
Paul Street’s They Rule: The 1% vs Democracy
It would be really really nice if all journalists would put in quotes the word “entitlement” as used by people like Blankfein when they use it in the way they do.
Social Security and Medicare are “earned benefits” (or “insurance” most citizens have been paying “premiums” into for their entire working lives).
Now the definitions of entitlement are as follows:
Right wing politicians/GOP, and far too many Democratic Party politicians, use “entitlements” in the second and third sense i.e. pejorative–something expected but undeserved or unearned.
Only the first definition is technically accurately describing “entitlement” as it relates to Social Security and Medicare benefits that some of us have been paying into since we were about 16 years old.
The only changes necessary or needed to those “earned benefit” programs are funding them properly by lifting the income cap on SS contributions and increasing the Medicare rate from current 2.9% to about 4.4% (currently half is paid by employers and half by employees–raise it 1.5% and shift that burden to employers because 1.5% increase in that respect isn’t going to kill any employer).
And if you absolutely have to phase in a 2 year increase in eligibility age, do it over the next 20 years so the baby boomers and those born just after like me, are given the “earned benefit” we paid into.
Now of course the easier thing with regard to Medicare would be to lower the age of eligibility over the next 25 years to include all adult American citizens and legal residents with the modest increase (1.5-4%) and work hard to incentivize Americans to live healthier lives. And change the law so 300 + million Americans negotiate collectively against big pharma for lower drug prices like every other “civilized” nation in the world does.
The key to providing universal coverage (whether single payer or multi-payer non-profit insurers) is that everybody that can, must pay into it as basically a “tax” for an “earned benefit” that is for all intents and purposes–“universal” (the relatively healthy will always “subsidize” the relative less healthy but we do it out of compassion, because it lowers the average cost for all, and to give all the equal access to quality care that should be a human right not a privilege of the relatively more affluent among us).
And finally, since the vast majority of Americans eat up health care dollars in the last 10 years of their lives, we need to have a serious discussion about what sorts of treatment are “necessary” and actually “meaningfully” improving one’s life expectancy or quality of life in their twilight years.
I’m not sure it is sound morals or health care policy to be providing ridiculously cumulative and expensive things like multiple bypass surgeries to certain segments of the elderly population.
Look we all are born and die. It’s how we choose to live our lives and manage our inevitable deaths that matters–clinging to every last second of life via highly invasive and expensive medical treatments when they don’t appreciably alter the trajectory of our very brief lives is arguably immoral in my humble opinion. Others are free to disagree.
At least that’s how I see it. I’ve tried to live as full a life as a could at all times and when my number comes up, I’ll be ready. And I don’t think I’m abnormal in accepting that someday I could be hit with some serious medical issue that 100s of thousands or millions of dollars in medical treatments isn’t going to appreciably improve. And I wouldn’t want that anyway. I’ve seen what that looks like up close and personal. I’d rather that share of my “buy-in” to the medical system should go to a younger person with a curable/manageable condition that might derive the possible benefit of living a much longer or fuller life than some 85 year old on his/her third or fourth triple bypass. Or millions of dollars in cancer treatment and drugs that at best extend someone’s life from 6 months to 2 years but have an incredibly small chance of actually “curing” or putting into an extended period of “remission”. Which is not so say I’m not 100% supportive of American taxpayer dollars going to either change peoples choices and/or to find a true “cure” for things like cancer. Hell I’d rather have the trillion dollars a year we spend on our military which arguably provides us little in the way of meaningful “security” and have the money go to curing cancer, rebuilding our infrastructure, combatting climate change etc. etc. etc. all of which would provide American citizens 10X the ROI in terms of “security” by comparison.
Then again, maybe I am abnormal in feeling that way about the course of a human life. And I’ll concede I have, generally speaking, no right whatsoever to dictate in any way the health care choices others make. But it’s a conversation worth having I think. Just my $0.02.
Eloquently written.
Nice!
I’ll never understand how it is that the republicans are always in charge of the messaging.
I actually do not agree with you. Suppose someone, you for example, were hit with a medical condition that would cost a ginormous amount over the short term and over the long term way more costly than several bypasses. I’m quite content to pay sufficient taxes so that you can enjoy every ounce of life you can get.
Excellent thanks
You should talk with doctors. If you have a system where you do not have access to doctors and can only wait for the heart attack, emergency rooms and triple bypass surgery, that system is incredibly expensive. Over the past few decades new drugs, if you can pay for them, have greatly increased potential lifespans (stens, etc.) and controlled heart problems. Medical care is a much smaller part of GDP in France, for instance, than the US and that is a major reason. Published today was data that the average difference in lifespan between high incomes and low incomes was, in the 70’s 1.2 years. It is now nearly 6 years. Less service for poverty, while the .01% live large and can afford the sophisticated health care available. France, for instance, finds this immoral. I do too.
Much more important than Schwarz’ unjustified fantasies about Sanders bringing down the banks–which ain’t gonna happen as Sanders the fauxcialist is totally committed to the Big Lie that the US is fightin’ terror — is the conspicuous silence from the Sanders campaign about the paramount importance of opposing the capitalist class’ drive to war against Russia and China. You don’t hear nothing from the Senator about stopping WW3.
One would think that if Sanders were concerned about social justice, about inequality, about… “the middle class”… (no one dares mention the working class)… that he would identify the links between economic misery for the 99% and Washington’s numerous wars and military spending over decades, and would call his supporters to stop the wars immediately, he would call upon all enlisted personnel to mutiny, to disobey orders, to refuse to comply, to courageously starve the beast through tax resistance.
But no.
Sanders’ campaign has perfected the art of disingenuously criticizing the old regime while cultivating (among his idiot followers) continued loyalty to the new (really, old) regime.
Did you bet heavily on the game yesterday or was Rubio your guy?
Sanders talks about the working class all the time. You’re obviously not paying much attention.
This author should stick to pure anti American propaganda. His knowledge of basic economics is pathetic.
“Goldman Sachs received a total of $814 billion in virtually zero-interest loans from the Federal Reserve”
How much of that $814 billion was paid back by GS?
“No one on Wall Street wants someone running for president asking why the United States “can’t afford” Social Security and Medicare but could afford to bail out them out.”
Because Social Security and Medicare are obligations from the Government to the people. The bailout was a loan to GS, which it repaid. How is the goverment going to fufill those obligations? That is a valid question that you as a journalist should ask Sanders instead of licking his behind for free.
Lesson, the first:
Banks don’t create any value.
Lesson, the second:
it’s more complicated than you think.
http://monthlyreview.org/2010/05/01/the-financial-power-elite/
Finance, Imperialism, and the Hegemony of the Dollar
http://monthlyreview.org/2008/04/01/finance-imperialism-and-the-hegemony-of-the-dollar/
“Because Social Security and Medicare are obligations from the Government to the people.”
Exactly!
Because we already loaned the government money through payroll taxes to pay for social security and Medicare and the government has an obligation to pay us back, with interest.
read:
Sanders and the left feint in capitalist politics
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/02/06/pers-f06.html
Schwarz’ article is hogwash. Sanders winkingly grandstands against the banks. He’s no threat to Wall St.
After Oval Office meeting, Sanders lauds Obama legacy
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/01/27/after-oval-office-meeting-sanders-lauds-obama-legacy/79408950/
Apparently Jon Schwarz overlooked the numerous instances where Bernie Sanders has reassured the ruling class that he will continue the illegal imperialist terrorism and violence and wars by the US government.
Where Sanders has unabashedly, proudly said he would continue the drone murders.
Bernie Sanders says he would use drones to fight terror as president
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/11/bernie-sanders-drones-counter-terror
Outstanding article that needs to be screamed from the rooftops.
(But there’s an extra word in that very last sentence- eeek.)
Nobody on Wall Street wants a president who’s attaching names to the corruption. It’s fine to talk about institutional corruption as long as you’re not proposing something as audacious as holding specific executives responsible. It’s dangerous for Blankfein personally that someone would dare to argue that he should face the music. Obviously whatever is bad for Blankfein personally is actually bad for the economy as a whole. That’s how Wall Street CEO logic works.
Fix typo in last line….