With Apologies to 'The Washington Post,' What Bernie Sanders Says About Economic Inequality Is

[Uncle Joe]

Especially Meaningful

Bernie Sanders has, for a very long time, been complaining about economic inequality in America. He has made it a theme of his speeches, his books, his congressional service and his presidential campaigning. During last week’s second Democratic presidential debate, no one was surprised when the senator from Vermont declared, “We have a new vision for America. And at a time when we have three people in this country owning more wealth than the bottom half of America, while 500,000 people are sleeping out on the streets today, we think it is time for change, real change.”

(snip)

Case in point: the complaint about Sanders. The senator, we are informed, delivered a “snappy talking point,” which, despite the condescending tone of the assessment, is what candidates are expected to do in debates. The point was based on what are acknowledged to be “numbers that add up.” If anything, Sanders was circumspect in his assertion. As a savvy Post analyst, Christopher Ingraham. recently noted—in an article headlined, “Income inequality is rising so fast our data can’t keep up”—“Increases in wages at the top are outpacing economists’ ability to measure them.” With that said, however, Ingraham explained in February that “the available data paints a clear picture of broadening disparities between top earners and everyone else.”

(snip)

The concentration of wealth worries Sanders, as it does a lot of Americans—many of them Democrats, but also more than a few Republicans; many of them democratic socialists, but even some of the same rich people referenced by the senator. (As a column published last year by the Post explained, “The pope has deplored it. It’s shifted Chinese economic goals and helped fuel populist political movements around the world. Even some of the world’s billionaires fear what might happen if it continues to rise.”)

So what made this particular presidential contender’s debate statement so meaningless? We are informed that the problem with what Sanders said is that a staggeringly high percentage of Americans have “essentially no wealth.” While three very rich people have stockpiled hundreds of billions of apples and oranges (or, if we are going to be precise, the resources to buy all the fruit and housing and education and health care and luxury goods they could ever want), roughly 150,000,000 Americans are having a hard time accumulating apples, oranges, and the money to send their kids to college and pay their insurance premiums and deductibles.

(snip)

https://www.thenation.com/article/washington-post-bernie-sanders-2020/

[CentralMass]

1. K&R

[Sherman A1]

2. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

3. And now for a musical interlude

[Go Vols]

4. Banning "right to work" would go a long way towards fixing this.

Last edited Wed Jul 3, 2019, 12:09 AM - Edit history (1)

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday told a gathering of union machinists that as president he would keep states from undermining their rights by pushing for a federal ban on so-called “right-to-work” laws.

Calling the rules “disastrous,” Sanders told the International Association of Machinists that he would call on lawmakers to pass the Workplace Democracy Act, a proposal which he has regularly introduced in Congress since 1992 and which he plans to bring to the Senate floor once again in the coming days.

“The reality is that federal law already makes it illegal to force someone to join a union,” the AFL-CIO says. “The real purpose of right to work laws is to tilt the balance toward big corporations and further rig the system at the expense of working families. These laws make it harder for working people to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.”

“Right now, American Airlines wants to slash the pay of its workers, outsource jobs, take away healthcare benefits, and abolish its defined benefit pension plan,” Sanders said. “If you have enough money to buy back $15 billion of your own stocks, you damn well have enough money to pay your union workers a decent wage with good benefits. Go back to the negotiating table. Bargain in good faith. Treat your workers with the dignity and the respect they deserve.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/04/bernie-sanders-vows-ban-disastrous-right-work-laws/

[Uncle Joe]

5. I agree with you.

“Right now, American Airlines wants to slash the pay of its workers, outsource jobs, take away healthcare benefits, and abolish its defined benefit pension plan,” Sanders said. “If you have enough money to buy back $15 billion of your own stocks, you damn well have enough money to pay your union workers a decent wage with good benefits. Go back to the negotiating table. Bargain in good faith. Treat your workers with the dignity and the respect they deserve.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/04/bernie-sanders-vows-ban-disastrous-right-work-laws/

That's a prime example of how having employer based "health" insurance keeps one slave to a job, less certainty and freedom.


Thanks GO Vols.