I don't give a fuck what you say, that looks dodgy as fuck.

Dolan Trump:

Carly Fingermyurea:

Jeb Mush:

Ben Fartson:

Scott Balker:

Ted Snuz:

Rand Small:

Chris Pisstie:

Basic Kasich:

Marco Boobio:

Mike Fuckabee:

I remember coming down from the city to see Friedman talk at one of the Rutgers campuses. This must of been mid-1970's. He was giving a talk about the institutional value of economic freedom, but some Tobin guy kept giving him a hard time about money velocity or something like that, don't remember. Anyway, Friedman crushed him. Like flat. It was hilarious. Afterward, Milton says do you want to go out for dinner and I'm like sure. So we go out to his car, like this giant Caddy. And we get in, him like all 4'10 at the wheel and me at shotgun, and he just sits there, doesn't start the car. I try to make small talk, but nothing, he just stares. Like half an hour later, a couple of guys get in the back seat. Like white guys, but talking Spanish, they talk to each other, asta luego, like. Still, Friedman says nothing. Finally, Tobin guy comes out and starts walking away. Milt starts the car and we follow this guy, weird-like. Tobin guy turns down some street and Friedman pulls the Caddy in front of him. Spanish dudes jump out and grab this guys arms. Friedman strangles this guy, looking straight into his eyes as Tobin guy chokes out. Afterwards, we went to a deli and had sandwiches like all in a days work. Stuff like that happened a lot in the 70's.

First link to bypass paywall.

WASHINGTON—Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose liberal call to action has propelled his long-shot presidential campaign, is proposing an array of new programs that would amount to the largest peacetime expansion of government in modern American history.

In all, he backs at least $18 trillion in new spending over a decade, according to a tally by The Wall Street Journal, a sum that alarms conservatives and gives even many Democrats pause. Mr. Sanders sees the money as going to essential government services at a time of increasing strain on the middle class.

His agenda includes an estimated $15 trillion for a government-run health-care program that covers every American, plus large sums to rebuild roads and bridges, expand Social Security and make tuition free at public colleges.

To pay for it, Mr. Sanders, a Vermont independent running for the Democratic nomination, has so far detailed tax increases that could bring in as much as $6.5 trillion over 10 years, according to his staff.

Spoiler

A campaign aide said additional tax proposals would be offered to offset the cost of some, and possibly all, of his health program. A Democratic proposal for such a “single-payer” health plan, now in Congress, would be funded in part through a new payroll tax on employers and workers, with the trade-off being that employers would no longer have to pay for or arrange their workers’ insurance.

Mr. Sanders declined a request for an interview. His campaign referred questions to Warren Gunnels, his policy director, who said the programs would address an array of problems. “Sen. Sanders’s agenda does cost money,” he said. “If you look at the problems that are out there, it’s very reasonable.”

Calling himself a democratic socialist, Mr. Sanders has long stood to the left of the Democratic Party, and at first he was dismissed as little more than a liberal gadfly to the party’s front-runner, Hillary Clinton. But he is ahead of or tied with the former secretary of state in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, and he has gained in national polling. He stands as her most serious challenger for the Democratic nomination.

Mr. Sanders has filled arenas with thousands of supporters, where he thunders an unabashedly liberal agenda to tackle pervasive economic inequality through more government services, higher taxes on the wealthy and new constraints on banks and corporations.

“One of the demands of my campaign is that we think big and not small,” he said in a recent speech to the Democratic National Committee.

Enacting his program would be difficult, if not impossible, given that Republican control of the House appears secure for the foreseeable future. Some of his program would be too liberal for even some centrist Democrats. Still, his agenda articulates the goals of many liberals and is exerting a leftward pressure on the party’s 2016 field.

The Sanders program amounts to increasing total federal spending by about one-third—to a projected $68 trillion or so over 10 years.

For many years, government spending has equaled about 20% of gross domestic product annually; his proposals would increase that to about 30% in their first year. As a share of the economy, that would represent a bigger increase in government spending than the New Deal or Great Society and is surpassed in modern history only by the World War II military buildup.

By way of comparison, the 2009 economic stimulus program was estimated at $787 billion when it passed Congress, and President George W. Bush’s 2001 tax cuts were estimated to cost the federal treasury $1.35 trillion over 10 years.

Mrs. Clinton so far has proposed programs that together would cost an estimated $650 billion over 10 years. Her college-affordability plan is estimated at $350 billion over 10 years, and an expected child-care proposal is estimated to cost at least $200 billion. Those are modest sums next to Mr. Sanders’s agenda.

He proposes $1 trillion to repair roads, bridges and airports. His college-affordability program would cost $750 billion over a decade. Smaller programs would provide youth jobs and prevent cuts to private pension plans. He would raise an additional $1.2 trillion in Social Security taxes in order to increase benefits and pay those already promised for 50 years. That would bolster the program but fall short of the 75 years of solvency that is typically what policy makers aim to achieve.

Mr. Sanders says he also would propose an expansion of federal support for child care and preschool, though he hasn’t said how much those programs would cost, and they aren’t included in this total.

His most expensive proposal, by far, is his plan to extend Medicare, the federal health program for seniors, to all Americans.

Mr. Sanders hasn’t released a detailed plan, but a similar proposal in Congress, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.), would require $15 trillion in federal spending over 10 years, on top of existing federal health spending, according to an analysis of the plan by Gerald Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Mr. Conyers’s office referred questions about the plan to Mr. Friedman.

Mr. Gunnels, the Sanders aide, said the campaign hasn’t worked out all details on his plan—for instance, his version might allow each state to run its own single-payer system. But he said the $15 trillion figure was a fair estimate.

Single-payer health care has long been on the liberal wish list, but it has never had sufficient support in Congress. Proponents say it is the best way to guarantee coverage to every American—something that the Affordable Care Act falls short of—and lower overall costs.

The Conyers plan, for instance, assumes significant savings by allowing the government to negotiate for prescription-drug prices, and it would rely on the new payroll taxes for funding.

Mr. Sanders and some Democrats see the 2010 health law as a good first step, but they say more needs to be done. Many other Democrats, scarred from the fight over the ACA and seeing it as a major step forward, are ready to move on to other issues.

So far, the tax increases Mr. Sanders has proposed are concentrated on Americans earning at least $250,000 a year and on corporations. They include increases in the capital-gains tax, the estate tax and personal income-tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. He also would impose a fee on financial transactions, with investment companies taxed on every stock they trade.

Taken together, these proposals are attractive to many Democrats, said Jared Bernstein, an economist at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and would transform the U.S. into an economy much more like those in Europe, with a significantly larger share of economic activity in government hands. “It’s not the model we employ [in the U.S.], but it is a viable economic model,” he said. Still, he cautioned the revenue would have to come from the middle class as well as the wealthy.

More-centrist Democrats think it is a bad idea. “We are not a country that has limitless resources. You need to tamp on the brakes somewhere, but he doesn’t,” said Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at the Democratic think tank Third Way. “There’s no such thing as free college; somebody is going to be paying for it.”

Conservative economists say higher government spending would hurt long-term economic growth and that this much would stunt it altogether. “If we’re putting our resources into government, that’s a place where you’re not going to get productivity gains,” said Kevin Hassett, an American Enterprise Institute analyst who has advised many GOP presidential candidates but is unaffiliated this year. Mr. Hassett said the tax increases required to pay for the Sanders program would be “massively catastrophic.”

Even many Democrats say such a plan would be politically infeasible. Austan Goolsbee, an economist at the University of Chicago and former adviser to President Barack Obama, recalled the difficulty winning congressional approval for the stimulus and health legislation at a time of large Democratic majorities in Congress.

“Much, much more modest actions than those Bernie Sanders is describing were extremely heavy lifts, and many thought impossible,” he said. “Both of them came down to a single vote.”

And this guy isn't a fucking lunatic?

So I found this Guardian article which actually provides a nice summary of his views.

The Economy:

Corbyn is opposed to austerity and plans to bring down the deficit by growing the economy and taxing the wealthy instead.

I'm not opposed to being anti-austerity in principle. I've moderated my views on austerity a lot from a year ago. However, taxing the wealthy isn't a viable plan when it comes to closing the deficit; an income tax rate of fifty percent scrapes the top of the laffer curve, and by our best estimates it would raise around £100 million. This is pocket change to the national government. Capital gains tax? Chamley-Judd and Atkinson-Stiglitz both try and show that zero taxation, while work which finds a positive optimal rate puts it in the area of eight percent.

Corbyn hits a lot of the right notes when it comes to the British economy--such as our depressed productivity--but his solutions seem rather woeful.

He intends to introduce a “people’s quantitative easing”, which would allow the Bank of England to print money to invest in large-scale housing, energy, transport and digital projects, partly through a national investment bank.

A national investment bank is a good idea, but affiliating it with the Bank of England is not. There are serious risks to both the Bank's independence and policy implementation coming from "People's QE". Not to mention it was designed by an accountant, and there is absolutely zero evidence that it would help anything in the long-run even if implemented effectively.

"People's Quantitative Easing" is snake oil.

Corbyn says he will fund this by reducing the “tax gap” and ending corporate tax reliefs.

Corporation tax should be abolished. Plain and simple.

Taxes:

Corbyn says there is £20bn in tax debt uncollected by HMRC every year and another £20bn in tax avoidance and a further £80bn in tax evasion that needs to be addressed.

Utter nonsense.

Education:

Corbyn has proposed a National Education Service, which he says would be “every bit as vital and as free at the point of use as our NHS”. The service would begin with universal childcare, give more power to local authorities, rethink the role of free schools and academies, introduce a minimum wage for apprentices and put more money into adult learning.

How the fuck is he going to fund universal childcare?

I also don't know why you'd want to introduce a minimum wage for apprentices, since the whole point of them is that they build experience not yet acquired. Targeted government transfers? Sure, but a minimum wage seems to defeat the object of apprenticeships in the first place.

Corbyn has said he will also look at abolishing the charitable status of private schools but admitted it would be “very difficult to do”.

On the contrary, we really should be encouraging private education via tax credits to families. Taxing profits is a dumb idea in the first place, but I have no idea why anybody would think it a good idea to tax schools' profits especially.

He wants to scrap tuition fees

Dumb, dumb and more fucking dumb. The repayment system for HE fees in the UK is actually very reasonable and progressive than the prior alternative; scrapping fees would only really help those with the largest eventual debt burden  (the rich). Not to mention, countries like Germany that manage to get away with "free" higher education only do so by barring 40-50pc of the population from getting a degree.

And look at Scotland: free higher education has essentially just become the subsidisation of the middle class's aspirations.

Housing:

Corbyn would introduce rent controls in expensive places

Insanely stupid, and would result in worse quality housing.

Immigration:

Corbyn has consistently argued that immigration is not a drain on the economy and has campaigned on behalf of asylum seekers

Credit where credit is due.

Defence:

Corbyn intends to withdraw from Nato and opposes the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent.

Fucking why? What would that accomplish? The vast majority of maritime and geostrategists have argued for the importance of NATO and nuclear weapons.

He is in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament and has called for a “radically different international policy” based on “political and not military solutions”.

Right, so his foreign policy amounts to all the countries of the world linking hands around a big tree and singing Kumba-fucking-ya.

Public ownership:

Corbyn plans to renationalise the energy companies to bring energy prices back down.

Yes, and we all saw how well a nationalised energy sector with political incentives worked out back in the 70s and 80s. The current malaise in the energy sector is due to too much state involvement, not too little; prices were at their lowest point in the late 1990s, when the market was at its most liberalised.

Corbyn also plans to renationalise the railways

FUCKING WHY?

Healthcare:

Corbyn has promised a “fully funded NHS, integrated with social care, with an end to privatisation in health”. His website states that the “principle of universal healthcare which is free at the point of use is something that we all deserve and should be absolutely protected.”

Not only is there nothing magical about a service being free at the point of use, but only somebody who has never looked at systems outside of his home country would think a highly-centralised national healthcare system is synonymous with universal healthcare. NHS funding requirements how outstripped economic growth since its establishment, and we know that competition between hospitals improves performance.

This idea that we can have a fully funded, centralised, nationalised healthcare system with no private involvement is a fucking fantasy.

Corbyn has also pledged to tackle the “mental health crisis” and improve mental health coverage in the country. He will grow rather than cut mental health budgets and ensure mental health education is taught in schools.

Behind him 100pc here.

Gender equality:

He also wants all companies to publish details of their equal pay arrangements, intends his cabinet to be made up of 50% women and wants to “work towards” 50% of all Labour MPs being women..

No, No, No, NO, NO, FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

Foreign policy:

Corbyn was opposed to the Iraq war and has suggested that Tony Blair should stand trial as a war criminal over it.

Despite the fact Blair committed no crimes? The only organisation with the authority to rule the Iraq War as criminal has made no such ruling.

Corbyn has hinted that Britain should seek greater diplomatic relations with Russia. He previously described the Kremlin’s state propaganda channel Russia Today as “more objective on Libya than most” and believes that the Ukraine crisis was caused by the west and Nato.

I don't even know what to say to this.

LSE Blogs.

New figures published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that the UK Government may not be looking in the right place if it wants to cut energy subsidies. The IMF’s latest analysis estimates that the UK will spend about US$41 billion (£26 billion), equivalent to 1.37 per cent of its GDP, on subsidies for fossil fuels this year. The bulk of this total is due to fiscal policies that do not address externalities, such as global warming and local air pollution, caused by the consumption of oil, coal and gas.

The most recent report by the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants in 2010 concluded that atmospheric particles from human activities, such as the burning of coal and diesel, cause nearly 29,000 premature deaths in the UK each year. The premature deaths and illnesses caused by air pollution have a damaging effect on the UK economy and the failure to take them into account adequately in UK tax policy represents an effective subsidy, according to the IMF.

Here it is. It's focused on the US, so Bongs and Europoors might perform poorly on. It tests your knowledge, and how it stacks up with your predetermined political beliefs.

Don't look up the answers on the knowledge questions, it fucks with the actual test. Link to your report after the test, and tell us what questions you got wrong.

My report.

My wrong answers:



I have a political bias of 2.78pc, with the average being 40pc.

There seems to be a great big fucking awful meme among progressives and social scientists--mostly sociologists--at the moment to partially or even completely deny the role of biology in the formation of things like gender identity, gendered behaviour and the general heritability of traits vs. social constructionism.

How come the Left and sociologists have engaged so vigorously in this biological denialism, and why the fuck is sociology as a field so politicised?

Innonunantidisirregardlessnessictly

We're witnessing history.

No news story, but it's on GQ's twitter feed. Turns out he's pretty funny; as he left the stage, he said "The Labour Leadership contest hasn't got long to go and I've got three more votes left to cast." (Only Brits will get that).

Also found this amusing joke from him back in 2011, which unfortunately wasn't taken well by the crowd.

Fuck me.

Farmers have been filmed trying to drive tractors through a group of heavily armed riot police during violent clashes in Brussels, Belgium.

Farmers were protesting in the EU capital over milk and meat prices, which they say are down 30-40 percent, causing many farms to go bankrupt.

Rally organisers said at least 6000 farmers had gathered in the city, with 2000 tractors blocking traffic.

Tractors were used to try and break through the police cordon, while hundreds of protestors lit fires and threw stones, eggs and firecrackers at police officers.

The protest took place outside EU headquarters where the European Union’s agricultural ministers have gathered to discuss the market crisis.

Prices for European meat and milk have dropped due to falling Chinese demand, Russian embargos on Western products put in place in response to sanctions over the Ukraine conflict, and changing dietary habits.

The European Commission announced a 500 million euro package aiming to provide relief to farmers.

"This package will allow for 500 million euros of EU funds to be used for the benefit of farmers immediately. This is a robust and decisive response," European Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen said.

Secretary-General for the European Copa-Cogeca farmers union, Pekka Pesonen, said the aid package was nowhere near enough to compensate for the loss of the Russian market.

“EU farmers are paying the price for international politics,” he said.

HURR DURR GIV US LODS OF EMONE CUS FURMIN IS SPESHAL

-- Farmers everywhere.