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Bernie Sanders, Presidential Candidate and H-1B Skeptic

Presto Vivace writes: The H-1B visa issue rarely surfaces during presidential races, and that's what makes the entrance by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) into the 2016 presidential race so interesting. ... ...Sanders is very skeptical of the H-1B program, and has lambasted tech firms for hiring visa workers at the same time they're cutting staff. He's especially critical of the visa's use in offshore outsourcing.

18 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Can he win? by Vinegar+Joe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And what has Obama done with the national debt? Hmmmm?

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  2. Re:Can he win? by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Here we go again. The deficit from Clinton's years was due to Republican Congress setting the budget. It was also disappearing by time he left office. Bill Clinton did not leave a thriving economy that George W. Bush simply pissed away. Or did you not hear about the Dot Com Bubble, and a slight economic road bump in September of W's first year in office? Bush did a lot wrong, but the economy wasn't one of them.

    You guys are so transparent. The same old mistaken arguments every time, yet you ignore any bad news from 'your team'.

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  3. Re:He's also an interesting candidate for this by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I could certainly see myself voting for Bernie Sanders. And I tend to vote conservative. I would rather have an honest socialist in office than a chameleon who claims to agree with me.

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    If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
  4. Re:Can he win? by jcr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Contrary to popular belief, the president has no power at all to deal with the national debt. Our country's finances have always been the fault of the congress and its creature, the Federal Reserve.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  5. Re: Sanders amazes me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Such as? He strikes me as a moderate on the world political spectrum: free education, universal healthcare, strong privacy protections, support for unions, regulating financial markets and banks: all things that are considered 'normal' in the developed world. I haven't heard him ask for gulags or socializing private enterprise, although personally I would be in favor of socializing the infrastructure utilities use and allowing private enterprise to all have equal opportunity at providing services over said infrastructure (phone lines, power lines, cable lines, water lines). Should drastically reduce monopolies, increase competition, and improve the end users experience.

  6. Re:Sanders amazes me by ganjadude · · Score: 3, Insightful

    supporting the concepts, and understanding the economics on how to give everyone everything for free are 2 different things. I support them all as well in theory, in practice* not so much

    by in practice, i simply mean the methods that he himself want to try

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  7. Re:Can he win? by pwizard2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, you got crumbs, and even that was an unintentional byproduct. The rich got a hell of a lot more benefit out of Bush's policies than you did. Look at what happened to the debt under Bush. The only POTUS who did a worse job was Reagan with his bullshit trickle-down economic policy. Unfortunately, the repubs took that as gospel and we've had 30 years of it. As a consequence this country is a withered husk of what it used to be.

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    "It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
  8. Re:Can he win? by Feral+Nerd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And what has Obama done with the national debt? Hmmmm?

    I don't recall bringing Obama into this but since you have done that for me he is not what I'd call a competent president. However, ham-handed Obama may be he is also saddled with the legacy of what is arguably the biggest incompetent among a long sequence of incompentents evert to take up residence in the White House: Nixon, the blessed Saint Ronal Reagan, Bush the elder, Clinton, Bush the younger and now Obama. The last president the USA had that was worth his salt was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bush Jr. not only doubled the national debt he violated one of the longest standing axioms of US foreign policy 'never fight a land war in Asia' (and did not do it once, he did that twice), went on record as saying God had told him to do it and openly referred to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as crusades. That man is probably the biggest gift radical militant Islam has ever gotten. A man really has to be a special kind of moron to accomplish all that in his first term of office.

  9. Re:Sanders amazes me by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Paying for them is a simple matter of raising taxes on wealthy people.

    You think we can't afford to pay for health care? We're paying for it now through a combination of taxes and premiums, just in a less efficient system than what Sanders wants.

    What other thing is it you think we can't afford that Sanders wants?

  10. Re:Ah Free Market Capitalism by ChrisMaple · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Private power companies don't work because they don't add value.

    Within 400 yards of my front door is a hydro power plant owned by a paper mill. That power plant is one of the main reasons the paper mill is one of the few remaining mills in New England. Big value added to my town. Private power companies are continuing to be created these days, offering cheaper or "greener" power than existing companies, fueled by the sun, natural gas, water, biomass, wood chips, etc..

    When everyone wants something it makes sense for it to be run as a public utility.

    Complete non sequitur and contrary to fact. Everyone needs food, you want to buy it at GUM? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUM_(department_store). Most people want cars, do you want to have to buy a Trabant? Everyone needs shelter, do you want to live in a "project"? Everyone needs clothes, do you want to be limited to what the government supplies? (Good luck if you need orthopedic shoes.)

    Adding a private element just lets someone skim 10-20% off the top is all while they cut down on safety.

    Government control allows the appointment of political hacks to jobs that they're not competent to perform. Fortunately, they often don't bother to show up. There's no pressure to control costs; there's no pressure to perform maintenance, there's no financial motive to hire competent or productive people. Why be safe? Are your customers going to sue a government power company in government court? Even if they do, even if they win, who in the government cares?

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  11. Re:Sanders amazes me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Top marginal tax rates in the US on the wealthy were 95%.. but that was back when we had a thriving middle class, almost free education, unions that ensured a 40 hour work week, safe working environments and a political class that gave us Social Security and took the concerns of the many into consideration.

    Now we have tuition that leaves students in debt for years after graduation, a miniscule middle class, no unions, cheap imported labor, a political class that passes laws only for the few...

    I wonder what changed.

  12. Re:Sanders amazes me by ganjadude · · Score: 1, Insightful

    whats even more interesting is how they say as much...but they never actually do pay the taxes they claim they want to be paying. soros is potentially facing jail time over it now

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    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  13. Re:Sanders amazes me by ganjadude · · Score: 1, Insightful

    we have been throwing trillions of dollars at it since FDR and we are no better off now then we were then. in fact some would say we are worse off

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    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  14. Re:Sanders amazes me by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    we have been throwing trillions of dollars at it since FDR and we are no better off now then we were then. in fact some would say we are worse off

    Who would say we're worse off today than in the 1930s?

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  15. Re:Can he win? by pwizard2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't blame Clinton for the shutdown. I'm not sure what was in that budget, but it must have been terrible since as a moderate, Clinton was willing to negotiate most of the time. You seem to overlook the fact that the repubs were the ones issuing threats. How little has changed. They're still a bunch of spoiled children, as evidenced by their last shutdown a year or two ago.

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    "It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
  16. Re:Can he win? by meglon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unfortunately, the period you're referring to was an inherently unsustainable one caused by the fact that the US emerged as a victor from a World War, and coincidentally the only one of the major powers in that war whose population and infrastructure were not seriously ravaged by it. Even among the victors - Britain, China, France, let's not even mention the Soviets - all paid a heavy price on their home territory. The losers received economic support from the magnanimous Western powers, but that was cold comfort to a populace largely bombed into ruins.

    So the US got to live in a bubble for a decade or two where the rest of the world didn't have the technology or the infrastructure to compete with us in any meaningful economic area.

    And you'd be right on that if you weren't so wrong. I understand, it's a common talking meme of people who never learned the recent history of countries other than the US, but.....

    The Marshall Plan helped reconstruction for most of western Europe (including West Germany) and by the time funding for the plan ended in 1952, the economies of all 18 countries had surpassed pre-war levels. 1951 was more than 1/3 better than 1938 for all countries involved. This idea that the US was the only ones around doing anything is not only absurd, but incredibly wrong.

    The poster you replied to had it right.... our growth in the 50's and 60's also had 90% top marginal tax rates attached to them. People didn't "gain" as much wealth by pulling it out of companies then, because so much of it was consumed by taxes. It was better to reinvest it into the business to avoid those high taxes, and play the long game by growing the business. As soon as it became less of a tax burden to remove money (profits) from businesses, that's what owners did.. preferring the get-rich-right-now approach instead of actually growing businesses.

    Higher tax rates made reinvesting profit into the businesses preferred, the GI bill was turning out hundreds of thousands of higher educated individuals, that damn socialized national roadways thing the commie lover Eisenhower pushed seemed to explode the growth potential of pretty much everything (other than horse and buggy sales), and then that other socialist kid Kennedy said "lets go to the moon," which helped do a number on pretty much every piece of solid state electronics EVER (and we just happened to have hundreds of thousands of highly educated people hanging around just looking to do something.... odd how that worked out).

    But all that growth for those decades had dick to do with western Europe rebuilding, because that took a lot less time than most realize.

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  17. Re:Sanders amazes me by jeek · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So the top 5% of earners pays only 60% of the taxes, while just the top 1% has 48% of the money?

    If the missing 4% of people are getting at least 12% of the money, then they're still getting off lucky.

    Math is fun!

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  18. Re:Sanders amazes me by dywolf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    we're not.
    specifically because of the programs we created since the 1930s.

    without those programs the 2008 shitstorm would have made the 1930s look like a damp fart.

    but the programs did their job: they arrested the fall and kept money moving in the system and reduced the severity of the crash.

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