Why the Democratic Party is a Failure, and More . . .

Bernie Sanders spells it out. And if you go to the following link and read it through you'll see why he's the logical brand of Preparation H for hemorrhoids Like Trump and the other oligarchs!

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/bernie-sanders-resisting-trump?akid=15822.260394.rvKzoi&rd=1&src=newsletter1079200&t=19

I love Bernie, but the Democrats won all of the special elections after President Obama was elected because appointees are not from districts in play. This hand ringing over the special elections is simply stupid. Oh, and guess what happened at the next mid term election. The Republicans won. Bernie is out of touch with much of America when he thinks talking about forgiving student loans plays with working Americans. It does not. I suggest that Bernie is out of touch with what it takes to win. All the Ivory tower ideas do not mean a hill of beans if you cannot implement your plan. Somebody has to snap bernie lovers out of their trance........you cannot win a national election without getting the vote of the working man in America.

2seaoat wrote:I love Bernie, but the Democrats won all of the special elections after President Obama was elected because appointees are not from districts in play.  This hand ringing over the special elections is simply stupid.  Oh, and guess what happened at the next mid term election.   The Republicans won.   Bernie is out of touch with much of America when he thinks talking about forgiving student loans plays with working Americans.  It does not.  I suggest that Bernie is out of touch with what it takes to win.   All the Ivory tower ideas do not mean a hill of beans if you cannot implement your plan.   Somebody has to snap bernie lovers out of their trance........you cannot win a national election without getting the vote of the working man in America.

... and the working man in America doesn't care if their kids' futures are destroyed with soul-killing debt that profits no one but the lenders and, unlike every other kind of debt, can't be discharged with bankruptcy.

Right.

http://www.pewresearch.org/2017/01/10/how-america-changed-during-barack-obamas-presidency/-failure-and-more#324219

As American voters measure candidates based on how well off they feel and how confident they are about the future, CNBC.com analyzed the economic records of the last six presidents to better assess their performance. We looked at a variety of measures, calculating the net change from the start of a president's term to the end, beginning with Jimmy Carter's inauguration in January 1977.

Here are a dozen charts showing what we found.

With six months left before Obama leaves office, the overall economy continues to expand — slowly. As of the first quarter of this year, the U.S. economy is nearly 15 percent bigger than when the president took office in 2008, adjusted for inflation.
That gain is slightly less than his predecessor, George W. Bush, and roughly half the GDP gain in percentage terms during the Reagan administration.

Carter, who served only one four-year term, produced an impressive 12 percent economic expansion. If Carter had been re-elected and kept up that growth pace, he would have had the third-best performance among the six presidents in our analysis. But Carter left office in the middle of a double-dip recession, a major reason for his defeat to Reagan in 1980.
George H.W. Bush, the other one-termer in our analysis, left office with only an 8 percent gain in GDP.

The biggest expansion of GDP came under Clinton, who presided over the 1990s boom; when he left office in 2000, the economy was nearly 35 percent bigger than when he moved into the White House in 1993.

Not surprisingly, the presidents' records on job growth stack up roughly the same. During the Clinton administration, total payrolls grew by nearly 21 percent, slightly better than Reagan's 17 percent gain. The Carter administration had the third-best record, boosting payrolls by 12 percent. If he had kept that up for a second term, he would have topped the list of job creators. Both Bushes produced the smallest gains.

The Obama administration, which began in the midst of massive layoffs from the Great Recession, has presided over a job market turnaround. Overall employment is about 7 percent higher than when he took office.

But those jobs gains are only one measure of the health of the labor market. Since the 1990s, many Americans workers have left the labor force for a variety of reasons. Some are boomers who have retired; others have become so discouraged looking for a job that they've given up.

After steady gains during the Carter, Reagan and first Bush administration, the labor force participation rate peaked during the Clinton administration and has been declining since, with the steepest losses coming during the Obama years.

Second to having a job, American workers are most concerned about wages, which have stagnated during much of the recovery from the Great Recession. In real terms (adjusted for inflation), hourly compensation saw the biggest gains during the Clinton-era '90s boom, followed by the 1980s expansion under Reagan. The second Bush administration had the third-strongest showing, followed by the Obama administration, which has seen the fastest wage gains during his second term.

Stagnant wages have also widened the gap between the rich and poor, a major issue in political campaigns at all levels of government. That gap, as measured by the Gini ratio, a widely used measure of income distribution, began rising during the Reagan administration. Despite the Obama administration's focus on closing the income gap, it has continued to expand under his watch.

Economic well-being has traditionally involved homeownership, a dream that was shattered for many with the collapse of the housing market in 2008. The last major downturn in housing dated to the Bush I administration, following the collapse of the savings and loan industry that had provided mortgages to American families for generations.

Home sales peaked in 2005 during the middle of the Bush II administration and bottomed early in Obama's first term. Sales have since recovered, but are still at levels not seen since the early 1990s when Bush I was leaving office.

The housing crash also sent homeownership rates plunging, erasing the gains during the Bush I and Clinton administrations. Despite a recovery in the housing market and historically low mortgage rates, the homeownership rate has continued to fall during the Obama administration to levels not seen since the Carter era.

Presidents are also judged for their management of taxpayers' money, and federal spending has become a major issue in recent presidential campaigns. Measured as a share of the overall economy, spending remained relatively steady — ranging from 18 to 22 percent of GDP — during the Carter, Reagan and Bush I administrations.

Thanks to a booming economy in the 1990s, spending as a share of GDP fell during the Clinton administration but began rising again under Bush II. When the Great Recession sent the economy in reverse, spending as a share of GDP soared when Obama took office, but has come back in line with historical trends since then.

Obama has also presided over some of the biggest budget deficits in the last four decades, in part because of massive stimulus spending aimed at heading off an even deeper downturn. Of the six presidents, only Clinton returned a budget surplus during his last years in office, helped in part by a windfall of tax receipts from the dot-com investment bubble.
Those big Obama deficits also added substantially to the pile of public debt outstanding, which now stands at roughly 100 percent of GDP. But the pile has been growing for 40 years. The level of public debt as a share of GDP roughly doubled during the Reagan and Bush I administrations, then fell during the Clinton era and began rising again under Bush II.

The strength of the economy can also be measured by the health of the private sector, which presidential candidates typically rely on for campaign contributions.

Based on one measure — total after-tax corporate profits — Bush II stands out. During his administration, profits soared, only to come crashing back with the collapse of the financial system. Profits were 36 percent higher at the end of his term, compared with 47 percent gains during the Clinton administration and 62 percent under Obama's watch.
Profits rose roughly 25 percent under Reagan and Bush I; they were up 37 percent under Carter.

PkrBum wrote:http://www.pewresearch.org/2017/01/10/how-america-changed-during-barack-obamas-presidency/-failure-and-more#324219

You lying, racist piece of shit! Post a REAL link!

http://www.pewresearch.org/2017/01/10/how-america-changed-during-barack-obamas-presidency/

I have no idea why the link copied incorrectly... but there it is. Oh... and this is where a person of sound character would apologize for their strange verbal attack. Where do you get off? What an odd little guy you are... lol.

What an odd little guy you are... lol.

He is king lear's fool who thinks his duty is to stir up nonsense on the forum to keep discussions going, and in his immature view of the world he thinks such attacks will spur counter attack. A sock does not change its stripes just because it is put in the washing machine. I have not been fooled for a minute, but being that I never had a problem with the underlying person, I just discuss substance and avoid the oddity the posting has become.

2seaoat wrote: I just discuss substance...

HAH! HAH! HAH!, that's rich!

All you ever post is long, boring, anecdotal responses to everything, as if YOUR experience is universal and should be the basis for all judgments; as if history begins with you, somewhere in the middle of the last century.

Do you not realize how insufferably arrogant that is? You'd be struck mute if the first personal pronoun was removed from your vocabulary.

Here's some examples from a recent post of yours--one post mind you:

I am fighting; I have lived; I also win; I am David; I will tell; my latest battle; information I requested; I have found; attack me personally; I have fought; I never voted; I defended; I never voted (again!); I will spend

"I just discuss substance..."  Pul-leeze!

All you ever discuss is YOU!

I am for Medicare for all. I just differ with Bernie how you transition to the same. I have been listening to Bernie for about eight years on lunch with Bernie on the Thom Hartman show. His ideas are borderline fantasy if he cannot set a clear path to get legislative approval of some of his ideas. I am for medicare for all because it is the most efficient delivery of health care for Americans and I believe health care is a right which every American has from the wealthy to the poor.

Please show me the stat where most WORKING Americans are for student loan debt forgiveness. The only people I know, or have see discussed who favor the same are people with student loans. What is good for America is not selling out to special interests. I have no problem with no tuition through sophomore year at every junior college in America. I would have to see a funding path for the same, but I think local government taxes would continue, and a direct subsidy for students who attend would be quantifiable and sustainable. Please show me where most Americans are for a free college education. The truth is too many people are going to college and getting worthless degrees while 5 million technical jobs in America go unfilled, and where expanded vocational and technical schools need to be supported as an alternative to another British lit major spewing nonsense working at the local gas station as a clerk, while we import foreign tech people who have the skills to build a database. Sorry, I live in the real world where I have spent my life trying to make positive change through government. If you want to get out of your armchair QB and actually get familiar with Bernie's platform and programs, you will find he does not have any political consensus to achieve most of his legislative goals, and just because I am telling the truth does not make me an agent of the oligarch. That is funny.

2seaoat wrote:I am for Medicare for all.  I just differ with Bernie how you transition to the same.   I have been listening to Bernie for about eight years on lunch with Bernie on the Thom Hartman show.  His ideas are borderline fantasy if he cannot  set a clear path to get legislative approval of some of his ideas.  I am for medicare for all because it is the most efficient delivery of health care for Americans and I believe health care is a right which every American has from the wealthy to the poor.

Please show me the stat where most WORKING Americans are for student loan debt forgiveness.   The only people I know, or have see discussed who favor the same are people with student loans.   What is good for America is not selling out to special interests.   I have no problem with no tuition through sophomore year at every junior college in America.  I would have to see a funding path for the same, but I think local government taxes would continue, and a direct subsidy for students who attend would be quantifiable and sustainable.  Please show me where most Americans are for a free college education.   The truth is too many people are going to college and getting worthless degrees while 5 million technical jobs in America go unfilled, and where expanded vocational and technical schools need to be supported as an alternative to another British lit major spewing nonsense working at the local gas station as a clerk, while we import foreign tech people who have the skills to build a database.   Sorry, I live in the real world where I have spent my life trying to make positive change through government.   If you want to get out of your armchair QB and actually get familiar with Bernie's platform and programs, you will find he does not have any political consensus to achieve most of his legislative goals, and just because I am telling the truth does not make me an agent of the oligarch.   That is funny.

Ah,   Trump Lite, tastes great, less filling.