Quote from: PsygnI on March 14, 2016, 07:59:29 PM

Quote from: Alpha on March 14, 2016, 05:33:34 PM

Can anyone fill me in on British politics?

It's basically a posher more controlled version of banter. (Supported by "OOOOHWAAAAY!")

YouTube

I'm more asking about the different political parties.

Labour is our "socialist" party. Since Thatcher, Labour was defined more by a centrist, Third Way approach to the economy like Bill Clinton. New Labour wasn't really socialist so much as it was more liberal/social democratic. Currently the party is led by a bunch of people who have ties to a Trotskyist group called Militant, and has definitely taken a sharp turn Left.

The Conservatives are obviously the conservatives, and have their history in the Rockingham Whigs (including Edmund Burke), Independent Whigs and Peelite Tories. To varying degrees, the conservatives tended to support paternalistic government and represented a weird kind of social-democratic/corporatist consensus until Thatcher shook things up. Since Thatcher, they have broadly been a more free-market party dominated by social moderates (or metropolitan liberals) like David Cameron and George Osborne.

UKIP largely picks up Eurosceptics, populist Tories and disaffected working class voters unhappy with the levels of immigration into the country.

The Liberals were the main opposition to the Conservatives in the mid- to late-1800s, comprised of Whigs, Radicals and free-trade Peelites who had bled out of the Conservative Party. The Liberals were, at first, defined by the liberalism of people like Gladstone and Mill, who tended to push fiscally conservative but socially liberal policies. Around the end of the 1800s, a New Liberalism emerged within the party encompassed by Asquith and Lloyd George which was inspired by ideas from more left-wing Liberals like John Maynard Keynes and William Beveridge; they essentially lay the foundation for Britain's welfare state and then faded into obscurity.

Quote from: Mordo on March 13, 2016, 02:00:26 PM

And the discussion here is...what exactly?

white people's shortcomings

You must be new.

Sometimes I wonder if we need Donald Trump to be president. The world has forgotten how to be scared of fascism.

yo

- Nuclear energy.

- Tax reform.

- Infrastructure investment.

- Inequality.

- Financial regulation.

Not Clinton, and certainly none of the GOP.

The GOP plans are pretty much fiscal dumpster fires, although Rubio has good policy when it comes to fighting poverty and Cruz has good policies on trade and healthcare.

I don't know why you think Sanders has a better fiscal plan than Clinton, though.

And I mean a specific area of policy, and what you would like to see done. I don't mean like economic policy vs. foreign policy or whatever.

Well if we can spend trillions on unnecessary wars, we can spend trillions on necessary things our people need.

That's a non-sequitur. Even if you were overspending on defence, it doesn't then follow that such expenditure should be shifted elsewhere; you might just be overspending in general.

Nevertheless, you didn't even answer my question. You just gave me some vague platitude. So, allow me to ask you a few questions: why are you dismissing the fact that these taxes may have negative effects on economic growth, which seems especially likely given the kinds of taxes he wants to implement? Why are you okay with a payroll tax increase which is going to depress workers' wages? Why are you okay with reducing the after-tax income of taxpayers by around 13pc? In a world where deficit-reduction is key, what part of Sanders' plan actually addresses entitlement reform? Why are you putting faith in the voodoo economics and lies which underpin his healthcare policy? And there's the effects of corporation tax, and a financial transaction tax and higher income taxes.

Much like the Republicans', Bernie's plan on taxes and spending is a fiscal dumpster fire. The only good policy I can identify is the introduction of a carbon tax.

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on March 03, 2016, 12:20:25 PM

Quote from: Ghost of Reach on March 03, 2016, 12:17:22 PM

That's just backwards. It should be most qualified,not special treatment.

Quote

To clarify the title, the article specifies that those considered for roles or jobs should be proportional, not necessarily resulting in total proportionality.

Still defeats the point of having the best qualified staff. That should be the only concern. not SJW nonsense.

And I suppose in terms of movie-making the best-qualified staff can be determined simply by looking at where they attended college? I'm the last person who would identify with the social justice movement, but all you're doing in this case is counter-signalling instead of illuminating a substantive disagreement.

The amount of highly-qualified workers suitable for a position in one of J.J. Abrams' films is undoubtedly bigger than the amount of highly-qualified workers he is willing to hire. I have no idea where you get this fantasy conception of the labour market, as if there aren't search frictions and as if "the most qualified candidate" is something which can be immediately or efficiently discerned.

Say there are 100 non-Hispanic white folk, 100 black people and a collection of other ethnic groups present in the US. Why the fuck shouldn't J.J. Abrams constrain himself to considering 63 white people and just 12 black people. It's pretty clear that this isn't going to lead to the over-employment of blacks, or the under-employment of whites. Simply making your pool of potential employees proportional isn't an example of social justice run amok, just a high-profile employer trying to do his part, free of government involvement, to ameliorate an issue.

I'm well aware that Congress would shut him down at every step. Just because Congress wouldn't support him doesn't mean he didn't want sweeping change.

So you're essentially saying that you're going to vote for Sanders knowing he will be a lame duck, but at least you'll be able to moralise the election and look down on everybody who didn't vote for the Little Revolutionary Who Could.

It seems more like you're interested in signalling that you like systemic change and big, progressive policy initiatives than you are achieving those initiatives. Whatever you think of her, it's eminently clear that Hillary Clinton is the best chance of any kind of actual and effective progressive government than any other candidate, yet she's just not progressive enough for your essentially moralistic and impossible standards.

What are the chances of a Bloomberg ticket sapping Democratic voters?

Wagner.
Nietzsche, for literature.
Gary Barlow is a conservative.
Roger Scruton.
Goethe.
Kelsey Grammar.
Mozart was an old school tory.

woo boy, 20 sure is an enormous sample size

The panel of economists is taken from the IGM Chicago experts panel, which is a collection of politically-varied and highly accomplished economists. Literally the biggest fault with the NPR article is that it doesn't weight economists according to their area of expertise (Acemoglu for infrastructure, to give one example).

The answers of this panel are not just 20 random economists pulled off the street, and by and large their answers reflect the general consensus (or state of agreement) on the topics within the field. I was going to make a post on why economists mostly think Sanders' proposals are bullshit, but after this one I didn't bother. I can, if you like, pull up the several articles relating to Sanders proposals that would've been included in that post.

Are private colleges not already where rich families go despite the fact public uni is cheaper?

High income != rich.

NPR brought economists from across the spectrum to judge the policy proposals of the candidates. Further comments by individual economists available in the article.

• Ending the carried interest tax break, which benefits hedge fund managers and private equity firms.

Proposed by Clinton, Sanders and Trump.

Rating: Good (20 good, 2 debatable).

• Lower the corporate tax rate to 25pc.

Proposed by Rubio.

Rating: Debatable (10 good, 10 debatable, 2 bad).

• Create a national infrastructure bank seeded with public money to finance infrastructure projects.

Proposed by Sanders and Clinton.

Rating: Debatable (10 good, 8 debatable, 4 bad).

• Make tuition free at public colleges and universities

Proposed by Sanders.

Rating: Bad (1 good, 1 debatable, 20 bad).

• Make tuition free at community colleges for students who contribute earnings from working 10 hours a week.

Proposed by Clinton.

Rating: Debatable (5 good, 9 debatable, 8 bad).

• Impose a “speculator tax.” Stock trades will be taxed at 0.5 percent and bonds at 0.1 percent.

Proposed by Sanders.

Rating: Debatable (4 good, 6 debatable, 12 bad).

• Raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Proposed by Sanders.

Rating: Bad (2 good, 4 debatable, 16 bad).

• Trump's tax proposal: “If you are single and earn less than $25,000, or married and jointly earn less than $50,000, you will not owe any income tax. That removes nearly 75 million households -- over 50 percent -- from the income tax rolls.”

Proposed by Trump.

Rating: Debatable (2 good, 9 debatable, 11 bad).

• Switch to the “Cruz Simple Flat Tax.” Everyone pays the same 10 percent tax rate. It retains some version of the earned income tax credit and deductions for lower-income families.

Proposed by Cruz.

Rating: Bad (1 good, 21 bad).

• Expel immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.

Proposed by Trump.

Rating: Bad (22 bad).