USA Democratic party 2020 candidates and primaries thread

[alhoon]

Who said it? no one said that everything was fine in Castro's Cuba. Obama never said that, alhoon. Remarks by President Obama to the People of Cuba ...

Obama was sane and awesome.
Sanders the commie on the other hand, told an American citizen that was a political prisoner in Cuba that he doesn't see anything wrong with Cuba in his face when he was in Cuba to negotiate his release in 2014. He was also praising Castro's Cuba since the 80s.

Dude, you live in GREECE. Did you forget that? Bernie Sanders would be like a center left candidate there and in most of Europe,

Nope, his stance is further left than the communist party of Greece. (My sister's parents in law are in the Communist Party of Greece, and they don't go that far left).

Dude, you live in GREECE. Did you forget that? Bernie Sanders would be like a center left candidate there and in most of Europe, and his radical ideas include cancelling crippling student loan debt, making colleges tuition free like in Germany, and subsidizing clean energy over fossil fuels during an increasingly volatile global warming.

Sure, those are the sane ones. Now, let's add to these the following:
- Has been praising the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 80s.
- Has been supporting Castro's Cuba since the 80s and he still does (2020) + telling a poor political prisoner that he doesn't see anything wrong with Cuba (2014).
- Supports a wealth tax of 1% per year for large fortunes that can go up to 8%
- Supports the mandatory breaking up of big banks: "Too large to fail = too large to exist".
- Supports unionization in all large-ish companies with union representatives having a seat on the board.
- Supports companies that are over 100M in revenue to give 2% of their stock to workers per year till 51% on top of their salaries... but was willing to back down to 20%.
- Supports a minimum wage that is making sense for NYC and LA but not for low income areas.

Not even the Communist party of Greece goes as far as to demand companies to turn over their stock to employees.
So... no. Sanders isn't just "medicare for all" and "forgive student debt". He's as far left as one can go. Nowhere in the western world I have seen as radical measures as he suggests. Even the "watered-down" versions of mandatory 2% per year to the employees, 2/9 members of the board being union members and the breaking up of banks are things no mainstream politician that I am aware of has suggested.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

...
- Supports unionization in all large-ish companies with union representatives having a seat on the board.
- Supports companies that are over 100M in revenue to give 2% of their stock to workers per year till 51% on top of their salaries... but was willing to back down to 20%.

Germany must be a communist state since 1976...

In companies that are operated in the legal form of a stock corporation, a limited partnership based on shares, a limited liability company or a cooperative (corporations) and which generally employ more than 2,000 employees, the employees have a right of co-determination based on the Co-Determination Act (§ 1 MitbestG). This law does not apply to trend businesses (Section 4 MitbestG). The supervisory board is composed of equal numbers and usually sits together in companies

no more than 10,000 employees from six supervisory board members of the shareholders and the employee;
more than 10,000, but not more than 20,000 employees, each consisting of eight members of the Supervisory Board of shareholders and employees;
more than 20,000 employees from ten supervisory board members of the shareholders and the employees.

Among the employees' supervisory board members must be on a supervisory board, the

six employees are on the board, four are company employees and two are union representatives;
eight employee board members, six company employees and two union representatives;
ten members of the Supervisory Board belong to the employees, seven employees of the company and three representatives of trade unions (Section 7 (2) MitbestG).

Employee representatives can also be senior executives (Section 3 (1) MitbestG).

The supervisory board members of the employees of a company, which generally have more than 8,000 employees, are elected by delegates, unless the employees entitled to vote decide on the direct election. The supervisory board members of the employees of a company with generally no more than 8,000 employees are elected by direct election, unless the employees entitled to vote decide on the election by delegates (Section 9 Paragraphs 1 and 2 MitbestG). Employees of the company who have reached the age of 18 are entitled to vote (Section 18 MitbestG). Employees who have reached the age of 18 and belong to the company for one year can be selected (Section 7 (3) MitbestG). The electoral code for the Co-Determination Act (WOMitbestG) regulates the details of how the employee representatives are elected on the Supervisory Board.

https://www.betriebsrat.de/portal/be...ternehmen.html

And stocks for worker are in Germany also usual.

BMW, Mercedes are usual giving them to their workers to bind them closer to the firm.

An employee share is

an instrument of wealth creation in employee hands,
an employee's participation in the employer's company,
a monetary benefit for the employee,
a share that is issued to employees of a company free of charge or at a reduced price.

Employee shares are issued as part of an Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP) or for senior executives, Executive Stock Ownership Program.

The share is issued as part of a conditional capital increase in accordance with Section 192 (2) no. 3 AktG.

And this is also common since the Seventies.

But you are absolutely right, Germany is an communistic .

Earth to Mayor Alhoon, please contact ground control.

Sorry for the punch.

[alhoon]

Giving a position on the table to unionists in companies of 10000 employees is not unheard of. Giving a position on the table to unionists in companies worth more than 100M$ net worth is something new altogether.

And while stocks-as-payment and worker-owned companies do exist, they are not mandatory and is a form of payment, not a bonus. Back in the 60s, the Public Power Corporation (ΔΕΗ) of Greece offered stocks to employees to get funds and is now partially owned by employees. But that was not a law that encompassed all companies, and prior to the partial buyout by the employees PPC was a public company, not private company. It was more like getting a loan from the employees.
Sanders wants it to be compulsory, not an option. Also, Sanders wants the stock to be covered by the company's profits, not the salaries of the employees.

Example: You start a business with 3 more investors. After 10 years of hard work, that business surpasses 100M$ revenue. Oh oh, bad news. Now you're forced to give 2% per year to the employees, and that cost is covered by the company. You can't tell the janitor that half his salary will now be stocks. Noooope. You just hand stocks to the janitor. Now, if the janitor sells those, you have to keep coughing out stocks to the employees until they own 20%. If they sell them to your competitors? Sucks for you. You have to keep giving out stocks till employees own 20%.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...nance-overhaul

"Under the Sanders plan, companies would be required to provide at least 2% of their stock to workers annually until employees have 20% ownership, by issuing shares and through new “employee ownership funds” that would gain rights similar to those of institutional shareholders."

"Sanders’s requirement for 20% stock ownership would apply to all publicly traded firms, corporations with at least $100 million in annual revenue or $100 million on their balance sheet."

Then, we have this rhetoric: “We will give workers an ownership stake in the companies they work for. And we will start breaking up some of the largest and most powerful companies in America to lower prices for consumers, help small business and make markets competitive.”


So... nope, not applicable examples. Sanders is WAY more left than those German lefties.
Earth to mayor MIB: Please contact ground control, the commies are coming and you are supporting them.

I will not go into details on how disastrous the ΔΕΚΟ have proven to be and how PPC's union has a vicegrip on the government's throat.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

The above mentioned law is for every company above 2000 employees no matter, if it is a public or private one. And employees and owners get exactly the same number of seats.

Fine, in modern industrialized nations like Germany, France and Scandinavia stocks-as-payment are regularily part of the salary of employees of big companies thanks to modern working laws and strong trade unions.

The weakness and corruption of american trade unions thanks to Italian and Irish Mafia is legendary, so i get it, why Sanders thinks a law is needed.

And as US managers get insane stocks-as-payments regularily even for economical desasters, i can't see a single reason, why it should be evil, that the workers should get some boni for good work too.

The stock and bonus make up the overwhelming majority of Muilenberg's pay. In 2018, he received total compensation of $23.4 million, of which $20.4 million was in the form of stock and bonuses.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/05/business/boeing-ceo-pay/index.html

Edit:

I recommend Americans, which want to see, how other countries solve social problems to watch:

"Where to Invade Next" from Michael Moore.

A movie outside the usual left-/rightwing bubble.

Edit 2.0:

Example: You start a business with 3 more investors. After 10 years of hard work, that business surpasses 100M$ revenue. Oh oh, bad news. Now you're forced to give 2% per year to the employees, and that cost is covered by the company. You can't tell the janitor that half his salary will now be stocks. Noooope. You just hand stocks to the janitor. Now, if the janitor sells those, you have to keep coughing out stocks to the employees until they own 20%. If they sell them to your competitors? Sucks for you. You have to keep giving out stocks till employees own 20%.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...nance-overhaul

The problem with this example is, that the lucky businessman hasn't earned the 100 million $ alone by his hands work but because of the hands of his many workers too. Without their dedication his firm would still be a little (grocery) store.

And no, their regular salary is not a fair compensation, as its in most cases only minimum wage and hasn't grown the last twenty years like housing costs and other daily life costs.

[PointOfViewGun]

Giving a position on the table to unionists in companies of 10000 employees is not unheard of. Giving a position on the table to unionists in companies worth more than 100M$ net worth is something new altogether.
And while stocks-as-payment and worker-owned companies do exist, they are not mandatory and is a form of payment, not a bonus. Back in the 60s, the Public Power Corporation (ΔΕΗ) of Greece offered stocks to employees to get funds and is now partially owned by employees. But that was not a law that encompassed all companies, and prior to the partial buyout by the employees PPC was a public company, not private company. It was more like getting a loan from the employees.
Sanders wants it to be compulsory, not an option. Also, Sanders wants the stock to be covered by the company's profits, not the salaries of the employees.
Example: You start a business with 3 more investors. After 10 years of hard work, that business surpasses 100M$ revenue. Oh oh, bad news. Now you're forced to give 2% per year to the employees, and that cost is covered by the company. You can't tell the janitor that half his salary will now be stocks. Noooope. You just hand stocks to the janitor. Now, if the janitor sells those, you have to keep coughing out stocks to the employees until they own 20%. If they sell them to your competitors? Sucks for you. You have to keep giving out stocks till employees own 20%.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...nance-overhaul
"Under the Sanders plan, companies would be required to provide at least 2% of their stock to workers annually until employees have 20% ownership, by issuing shares and through new “employee ownership funds” that would gain rights similar to those of institutional shareholders."
"Sanders’s requirement for 20% stock ownership would apply to all publicly traded firms, corporations with at least $100 million in annual revenue or $100 million on their balance sheet."
Then, we have this rhetoric: “We will give workers an ownership stake in the companies they work for. And we will start breaking up some of the largest and most powerful companies in America to lower prices for consumers, help small business and make markets competitive.”
So... nope, not applicable examples. Sanders is WAY more left than those German lefties.
Earth to mayor MIB: Please contact ground control, the commies are coming and you are supporting them.
I will not go into details on how disastrous the ΔΕΚΟ have proven to be and how PPC's union has a vicegrip on the government's throat.

At this point I can only assume that you're deliberately trying to misled people since you've been told about this before. There are mandatory worker participation regulations in Europe. Countries like Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany does require private companies to provide board representation for employees once a certain threshold is passed. The threshold is different for each country, while pretty much all require such a representation for state companies.

Moreover, giving stock to employers doesn't cost the company money. It only means that the company investors get a little less dividends from the profits. There is no situation where a particular employees get assigned a percentage of stocks. The employees as a collective gets to own the 20%. Individuals don't get to play stock broker with those shares. No, the Bloomberg article doesn't suggest such an idiotic argument.

[Aexodus]

Dude, you live in GREECE. Did you forget that? Bernie Sanders would be like a center left candidate there and in most of Europe, and his radical ideas include cancelling crippling student loan debt, making colleges tuition free like in Germany, and subsidizing clean energy over fossil fuels during an increasingly volatile global warming. Mind you, Greece doesn't have the best economy in the world, but YOUR country already has universal healthcare, with emergency care provided free of charge. Perhaps you don't really understand what we have here in the United States. Should I break it down for you? Quick summary, for you: we have 500k medical bankruptcies every year, because unlike every other 1st world country on Earth, the United States has an almost completely for-profit private healthcare system with Medicaid available only to the absolute poorest and Medicare available only to people aged 65 and older, and even then they have to pay 20% private insurance co-payments. Don't you DARE sit there and lecture anyone in the United States about communism when 28 million Americans are uninsured and haven't seen a doctor in years or decades, and 85 million are under-insured and afraid to see a doctor because it could bankrupt them.

Also, the only people scared of hilariously outdated Cold War commie talk are Boomers, but unfortunately they still vote in much larger numbers than younger people, so perhaps you have a point...or at least you had a point that would make sense several days ago. We are now in the midst of a full blown financial meltdown. Suddenly "socialism" isn't going to sound so scary, especially when the Fed just pumped $1.5 trillion into the financial market.

Bernie is a socialist similar to Jeremy Corbyn. He’s not center left in Europe.

At this point I can only assume that you're deliberately trying to misled people since you've been told about this before. There are mandatory worker participation regulations in Europe. Countries like Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany does require private companies to provide board representation for employees once a certain threshold is passed. The threshold is different for each country, while pretty much all require such a representation for state companies.

Moreover, giving stock to employers doesn't cost the company money. It only means that the company investors get a little less dividends from the profits. There is no situation where a particular employees get assigned a percentage of stocks. The employees as a collective gets to own the 20%. Individuals don't get to play stock broker with those shares. No, the Bloomberg article doesn't suggest such an idiotic argument.

Wait so the Unions will control the employee share of stocks? Jesus Christ...

[Love Mountain]

Bernie wouldn’t be center left in Europe lulz.

[Ludicus]

Obama was sane and awesome.

Impossible. According to your right wing friends, Obama Obama is a racist homosexual communist muslim
And this book proves Barack Obama's Ties to Communists
In fact, there is an abundant bibliography on the subject.
Barack Hussein Obama, The Unauthorized Diary of a Muslim
Obama, communism and 'what works' - The ...

President Barack Obama downplayed the differences between capitalism and communism, claiming that they are just 'intellectual arguments,

Barack Obama: The Last Communist Sympathizer | Investor's ...
Obama's communist mentor

...etc, ad nausea.
----------

Fresh news. Go figure, Clyburn called for the DNC to "step in" and cancel future Democratic debates.
This guy is the autocratic agent of the DNC elites.
---

Edit. Common sense says that Sanders is right: a bank too big to fail, is a bank too big to exist.

Has been praising the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 80s.

Sandino led the Nicaraguan resistance against the United States occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930s and was assassinated by the US equipped police of Somoza.Blame the US for what happened later. 55 pages, it's a long reading. The Failure of US Foreign Policy in Post-Revolutionary ...

[alhoon]

The problem with this example is, that the lucky businessman hasn't earned the 100 million $ alone by his hands work but because of the hands of his many workers too. Without their dedication his firm would still be a little (grocery) store.

And no, their regular salary is not a fair compensation, as its in most cases only minimum wage and hasn't grown the last twenty years like housing costs and other daily life costs.

And without this man's and the investors' funds, without the board's vision and decisions, those workers wouldn't be working there. Their regular salary is a fair compensation since they don't take the risks.
Regardless, even if we agree, for the shake of the argument, that their salary is not a fair compensation and that it would be fair for them to start seeing stocks etc etc and forcibly take over the business of that entrepreneur and his investors...

Investments would go way down under such a system. Simply put, the investors that don't want to see their company pass to the hand of workers or be at the mercy of the Unions (45% of the board!!!!) will invest their money in different countries. There's nothing tying the multi-millionaire to USA. He can invest in Germany and then decide whether he will give shares to the employees or not, when and how many.
As such, there will be a large capital flight that would lead to a severe economic downturn.

At this point I can only assume that you're deliberately trying to misled people since you've been told about this before. There are mandatory worker participation regulations in Europe. Countries like Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany does require private companies to provide board representation for employees once a certain threshold is passed. The threshold is different for each country, while pretty much all require such a representation for state companies.

Moreover, giving stock to employers doesn't cost the company money. It only means that the company investors get a little less dividends from the profits. There is no situation where a particular employees get assigned a percentage of stocks. The employees as a collective gets to own the 20%. Individuals don't get to play stock broker with those shares. No, the Bloomberg article doesn't suggest such an idiotic argument.

No, what I said is exactly how it works in Sanders' fevered, economically illiterate mind.
Also that you said a few things that were either wrong or non-applicable (same as now) doesn't mean that I am "misguiding" people. I simply try to expose the lunacy behind Sanders' plans, explain why he is a communist and of course, point them to an article that shows how wrong (or not applicable) your arguments are.

However, instead of accusing you in bad faith that you purposefully try to misdirect people and lead them towards financial ruin and doom, I simply assume you are wrong. It is called "Arguing in good faith".

Example in point: Tell me in which of the countries you mentioned, the unionists (elected by everyone including people that lack financial education and\or are in the company for a short time and\or are not involved in much outside their small window) control 45% of the voting power. The threshold is different but to my knowledge, there's no country that has it mandatory at 45%.

Another example: Let's assume (while there's nowhere in the article, more on that later) that indeed it's the employees as a collective that own 20% of the company other people paid for and invested on. That 20% takes a good bite of the dividents and essentially depreciates the value of the stocks by 20%.
If the original investors have 80K shares and the employees have 20K shares and the company's value is at 100K$, the investors have stocks worth 80K$ instead of stocks worth 100K$.

As for whether it is "the employees as a collective"... then there wouldn't be a clause of "no options of buyouts by the investors", would it?
The Bloomberg article doesn't explicitly states out whether the employees would get to play stock broker or not. Why would you assume that they wouldn't? Especially when the article points out that the employers couldn't buy back the shares from the employees.

Google has a system not unlike what Trump suggested, giving shares to employees after some years in the company. That's something google decided to do by themselves, not forced to do, so all the power to them if they want to go that path. I am not trying to tell them how to run their business like Sanders or the Unions.
Anyway, as I said google has a system similar to that. Well, the employees get stocks. Not "the union has 20% shares and as such splits 20% of the profits to the employees", but gives them stocks.

[alhoon]

Impossible. According to your right wing friends, Obama Obama is a racist homosexual communist muslim
And this book proves Barack Obama's Ties to Communists
In fact, there is an abundant bibliography on the subject.
Barack Hussein Obama, The Unauthorized Diary of a Muslim
Obama, communism and 'what works' - The ...

Barack Obama: The Last Communist Sympathizer | Investor's ...
Obama's communist mentor

...etc, ad nausea.

My friends, both rightwings and leftwings realize that Obama was head and shoulders better than the crap that followed him (including Hillary and now Biden). Some of them may disagree with Obama-the-awesome in some things. I certainly do. But compared to what followed (or Bush2 that came before him)?
Nope, he was better by far.

Sandino led the Nicaraguan resistance against the United States occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930s and was assassinated by the US equipped police of Somoza.Blame the US for what happened later. 55 pages, it's a long reading. The Failure of US Foreign Policy in Post-Revolutionary ...

No, 55 pages is a long reading.
PS. I am not saying USA was blameless here. Especially while they armed the Contras, which in many cases were more brutal than the Sandinistas.
From what I know, Sandino didn't do any large-scale genocides while fighting against the occupation forces unlike the Sandinistas, nor torture was widespread by his own commands.

What I am saying is that Sandinistas included despicable people and praising them is bad. That's like praising Stalin for stopping Hitler.

[Ludicus]

Obama was awesome.

Allow me to insist, and ask you,

Do you agree with Obama that the embargo "is an outdated burden on the Cuban people"?

So, do you agree with Obama that "before 1959, some Americans saw Cuba as something to exploit, ignored poverty, enabled corruption"?

Do you agree with Obama that "every country, every people, must chart its own course and shape its own model"?

Do you agree with Obama on "the flaws in the American system-economic inequality; the death penalty; racial discrimination;wars abroad"?

Do you agree with Obama when he says "We do have too much money in American politics"?

Do you agree with Obama that "no one should deny the service that thousands of Cuban doctors have delivered for the poor and suffering"?

Do you agree with Obama that "President Castro and I could both be there in Johannesburg to pay tribute to the legacy of the great Nelson Mandela"?

Do you agree Obama was right in saying "I urged the people of the Americas to leave behind the ideological battles of the past?"
-----

The "crazy commie" (according to allhon) is right, "It is an absolute moral imperative that our response meets the enormity of this crisis"
Bernie Addresses the Nation on the Health and Economic Crisis

[Roma_Victrix]

Obama was sane and awesome.
Sanders the commie on the other hand, told an American citizen that was a political prisoner in Cuba that he doesn't see anything wrong with Cuba in his face when he was in Cuba to negotiate his release in 2014. He was also praising Castro's Cuba since the 80s.

What a hilarious argument considering how Obama and Biden made incredibly similar gushing comments about Cuba and Castro when we temporarily reopened relations with Cuba. What a silly non-issue this is and again, anyone under the age of 45 or who isn't a Cuban Republican living in Florida doesn't give two craps about Fidel Castro. They care about the rising cost of health insurance premiums/deductibles and medical bankruptcies when the entire nation is in the midst of a pandemic. Talk about hilariously dumb priorities, Alhoon.

Nope, his stance is further left than the communist party of Greece. (My sister's parents in law are in the Communist Party of Greece, and they don't go that far left).

It's really hard to take anything you say seriously at all with grotesquely hyperbolic statements like this. It's especially hysterical considering how more than half of Bernie's ideas and opinions wouldn't make it through Congress, either the House or Senate, and an American president only has so much political capital to get key pieces of legislation passed. At best Bernie would get college-free tuition and Medicare for All in his first term, plus minor concessions on a Green New Deal to combat climate change, but you need 60 Senators (!!!) just to pass anything. Which means convincing some Republicans on the other side of the aisle to join in.

Sure, those are the sane ones. Now, let's add to these the following:
- Has been praising the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 80s.
- Has been supporting Castro's Cuba since the 80s and he still does (2020) + telling a poor political prisoner that he doesn't see anything wrong with Cuba (2014).

I think Ludicus did a fairly decent job rebutting this above, but again I reiterate: who aside from cranky, grey-haired, aging and dying Boomers and Cold War warriors cares one iota about Sandinistas? For that matter Bernie's stance on Latin America has largely been to not interfere directly in their affairs, unlike people to the right of Bernie who want to continue insane Banana Republic foreign interventionism that led to the Sandinistas in the first place.

- Supports a wealth tax of 1% per year for large fortunes that can go up to 8%
- Supports the mandatory breaking up of big banks: "Too large to fail = too large to exist".

The 1% and even 2% wealth tax was supported by Elizabeth Warren , is fast becoming part of the Democratic Party platform and Democrats polled across the board want the same thing. Even Biden is open to taxes on the wealthy, so again, what a hilariously moot point. Also, were you alive in 2008 when the financial recession and meltdown occurred? We Americans live in a country that is near lawless when it comes to financial sector regulations (Dodd–Frank not going nearly far enough). The giant multinational corporate banks based in the US are absolutely too big for their own good and a danger to the rest of the economy, as proven time and time again, and it doesn't take a degree in economics to see that.

- Supports unionization in all large-ish companies with union representatives having a seat on the board.

Heaven forbid those smelly poor people should have a seat at the table and enter the presence of real humans (i.e. rich people) and offend their nostrils with the plebeian smell of the metro train they used to ride to work instead of a limousine. Your anti-union attitude is very revealing, by the way. It's almost as if you don't realize the Democratic Party in the United States, at least historically, has been the party for unions and for that matter this country used to have incredibly strong unions until the Reagan era demolished them.

- Supports companies that are over 100M in revenue to give 2% of their stock to workers per year till 51% on top of their salaries... but was willing to back down to 20%.
- Supports a minimum wage that is making sense for NYC and LA but not for low income areas.

Again, pretty hard to take you seriously when you are against increasing the minimum wage, which is something EVEN JOE BIDEN SUPPORTS and is supported by an enormous majority of Democrats per polling data, many of whom cannot afford to buy a house and on average are much poorer than their parents or grandparents at the same age. It's almost like the Democrats want to make sensible decisions to rebuild the middle class. Meanwhile, Scrooge McDuck wants to swim in oceans of gold coins and deny people a meager increase to their minimum wage that doesn't even cover the entire cost of paying rent, food, bills, childcare, etc.

Not even the Communist party of Greece goes as far as to demand companies to turn over their stock to employees.
So... no. Sanders isn't just "medicare for all" and "forgive student debt". He's as far left as one can go.

In her post above, Morticia (Carmen Sylva) pretty much annihilated whatever silly point you were trying to make here, so bravo to her and Ludicus. Heaven forbid workers should own 20% of stocks in the companies they toil for, in some cases barely making a living wage while the CEOs have golden parachutes in the sum of hundreds of millions of dollars even if they screw up and bankrupt the company. It's almost as if you don't understand the insidious amounts of wealth inequality and disparity between workers and executives in the United States versus an actual sane country like Japan.

"As far left as one can go..." how immensely disingenuous is this and irresponsible at that, since this basically tries to conflate Sanders with freaking communists like Lenin or people who want entire government planned command economies with no private industry and no real private property, ala the Soviet Union. That's what "as far left as one can go" means, Alhoon. Bernie Sanders doesn't have plans to take over the grocery store. Both he AND Elizabeth Warren wants to break up big tech companies like Facebook because of the dangers they pose to society as monopolies, much like Teddy Roosevelt breaking up the big trusts at the turn of the 20th century (when we apparently had more common sense about national security). If you see that as a bad thing then I don't know what to say to you beyond your position being hopelessly out of touch with reality and the majority opinion of the American electorate via polling. Meanwhile, you're crying about worker representation on corporate boards as people are going to die from lack of universal healthcare that you and millions of other Europeans (+Canadians, Australians, Japanese, South Koreans, etc.) enjoy without issue.

Bernie is a socialist similar to Jeremy Corbyn. He’s not center left in Europe.

Bernie and Corbyn might agree on various economic policies and a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine, but on other issues, Bernie would be considered far-right where you live, i.e. the UK. Ever heard of guns before? You know, the thing that exists in your avatar picture. Yeah, about that. Bernie voted AGAINST the Brady bill five times in the 1990s, which created an assault weapons ban. While his rhetoric has changed a bit since then, it was just this year that Biden was criticizing Bernie FROM THE LEFT about Bernie not wanting gun manufacturers liable to be sued in court for producing lethal weaponry and tools that can be used to kill others in mass shootings.

Gun ownership laws in the US, even those supported by Sanders right now, makes the UK look like a Singapore nanny state. Seriously, Sanders is basically in favor of open-carry laws (he certainly doesn't criticize them) and wants only moderate background checks.

[Aexodus]

Heaven forbid those smelly poor people should have a seat at the table and enter the presence of real humans (i.e. rich people) and offend their nostrils with the plebeian smell of the metro train they used to ride to work instead of a limousine. Your anti-union attitude is very revealing, by the way.

This seems a bit below the belt for you Roma.

[Ludicus]

Nothing more needed to be said, Roma
-------
At the Sunday's debate against Sanders, people will see Biden can't hold and speak a constructive argument. That's the reason why Clyburn says DNC should step in, canceling debates and end primary process

[Gaidin]

This seems a bit below the belt for you Roma.

The truth hurts.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

This seems a bit below the belt for you Roma.

Roma is not below the belt, he is absolutely on spot.

Only one more remark...

Their regular salary is a fair compensation since they don't take the risks.

Which risk does the businessman take?

In your example he has borrowed the money from some investors. They lose the money, not your businessman.

Heck i know a businesman, who drove his business with Casinos in Atlantic City with 100 mph against the next wall.

He is on the Business Olymp again, the small workers and small firms, which build his buildings haven't got their well deserved money.

I can't remember his name... hmm something with T...

And if its a fair compensation, why are 28 million Americans uninsured and haven't seen a doctor in years or decades, and 85 million are under-insured?

[RedGuard]

Giving a position on the table to unionists in companies of 10000 employees is not unheard of. Giving a position on the table to unionists in companies worth more than 100M$ net worth is something new altogether.

And while stocks-as-payment and worker-owned companies do exist, they are not mandatory and is a form of payment, not a bonus. Back in the 60s, the Public Power Corporation (ΔΕΗ) of Greece offered stocks to employees to get funds and is now partially owned by employees. But that was not a law that encompassed all companies, and prior to the partial buyout by the employees PPC was a public company, not private company. It was more like getting a loan from the employees.
Sanders wants it to be compulsory, not an option. Also, Sanders wants the stock to be covered by the company's profits, not the salaries of the employees.

Example: You start a business with 3 more investors. After 10 years of hard work, that business surpasses 100M$ revenue. Oh oh, bad news. Now you're forced to give 2% per year to the employees, and that cost is covered by the company. You can't tell the janitor that half his salary will now be stocks. Noooope. You just hand stocks to the janitor. Now, if the janitor sells those, you have to keep coughing out stocks to the employees until they own 20%. If they sell them to your competitors? Sucks for you. You have to keep giving out stocks till employees own 20%.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...nance-overhaul

"Under the Sanders plan, companies would be required to provide at least 2% of their stock to workers annually until employees have 20% ownership, by issuing shares and through new “employee ownership funds” that would gain rights similar to those of institutional shareholders."

"Sanders’s requirement for 20% stock ownership would apply to all publicly traded firms, corporations with at least $100 million in annual revenue or $100 million on their balance sheet."

Then, we have this rhetoric: “We will give workers an ownership stake in the companies they work for. And we will start breaking up some of the largest and most powerful companies in America to lower prices for consumers, help small business and make markets competitive.”


So... nope, not applicable examples. Sanders is WAY more left than those German lefties.
Earth to mayor MIB: Please contact ground control, the commies are coming and you are supporting them.

I will not go into details on how disastrous the ΔΕΚΟ have proven to be and how PPC's union has a vicegrip on the government's throat.

im curious why you even care. Are you on the board of a multi-million dollar company?

[Love Mountain]

The economic consequences of giving labor a part of the shares is dubious in my opinion. Same with wealth taxes. I don't see how the would benefit the worker at all. It would be much more effective to simplify the tax code and to simply tax the rich at a higher rate. Since Warren and Sanders campaign on common sense and making the rich pay their fair share, they should endorse that idea. I'd also go as far as to say that corporate taxes are fairly regressive. Eliminate those and introduce carbon taxes on large firms instead. Strengthen labor unions and provide support for forming labor unions within firms. In my opinion, large labor unions like Teamsters for example, can be quite regressive and suck at compromising. On the other hand, Unions within firms like Wal-Mart or even within individual large stores, are far more effective at identifying what their needs are.

Imagine having Union negotiators in Arizona determine what the pay rate should be for workers in Washington and all other 49 states. It's absurd. So empower the unions, but find ways to keep them in check as well.

[PointOfViewGun]

Wait so the Unions will control the employee share of stocks? Jesus Christ...

Sigh... There is no control, the kind that alhoon is suggesting. The employee collectively simply owns 20% of the company. That means they get a share from the dividends. Thats all. Better they work, better the company does, better their payout becomes. When the CEOs decide to get even richer by taking money out of the company, the employees get a share as well. Why this triggers people is beyond me.

No, what I said is exactly how it works in Sanders' fevered, economically illiterate mind.
Also that you said a few things that were either wrong or non-applicable (same as now) doesn't mean that I am "misguiding" people. I simply try to expose the lunacy behind Sanders' plans, explain why he is a communist and of course, point them to an article that shows how wrong (or not applicable) your arguments are.

However, instead of accusing you in bad faith that you purposefully try to misdirect people and lead them towards financial ruin and doom, I simply assume you are wrong. It is called "Arguing in good faith".

Example in point: Tell me in which of the countries you mentioned, the unionists (elected by everyone including people that lack financial education and\or are in the company for a short time and\or are not involved in much outside their small window) control 45% of the voting power. The threshold is different but to my knowledge, there's no country that has it mandatory at 45%.

Another example: Let's assume (while there's nowhere in the article, more on that later) that indeed it's the employees as a collective that own 20% of the company other people paid for and invested on. That 20% takes a good bite of the dividents and essentially depreciates the value of the stocks by 20%.
If the original investors have 80K shares and the employees have 20K shares and the company's value is at 100K$, the investors have stocks worth 80K$ instead of stocks worth 100K$.

As for whether it is "the employees as a collective"... then there wouldn't be a clause of "no options of buyouts by the investors", would it?
The Bloomberg article doesn't explicitly states out whether the employees would get to play stock broker or not. Why would you assume that they wouldn't? Especially when the article points out that the employers couldn't buy back the shares from the employees.

Google has a system not unlike what Trump suggested, giving shares to employees after some years in the company. That's something google decided to do by themselves, not forced to do, so all the power to them if they want to go that path. I am not trying to tell them how to run their business like Sanders or the Unions.
Anyway, as I said google has a system similar to that. Well, the employees get stocks. Not "the union has 20% shares and as such splits 20% of the profits to the employees", but gives them stocks.

alhoon, you're simply making stuff up. You're literally lying to put a show. There is no reason to assume good faith in your part since you continue to disseminate information that was pointed out to you to be false.

Most countries I listed require 33% to be filled by people elected by workers. So, you're whining about a 12% difference that still gives the control of the company to non-worker owners.

There is no rule that says issuing new stocks devalue the stock value. The price is based on how the investors value that. It could very well increase the stock value. You're also talking about a 10 year transition which makes the effect, whether positive or negative, much more minimized.

Bernie's plan bans large scale stock buybacks. Stock buybacks were already illegal till 1982. Large scale buybacks are usually measures to drive stock value up so that the company can be valued at a higher value. Owners do it to raise up their company's sale price to prospective buyers.

Why I don't think individual workers would play as stock brokers? We're back to the "that's not how any of this works" meme. What you're suggesting is that a single employee can sell away the company away continuously. The fact that these shares would not be transferred or sold is in Bernie's plan.



alhoon, how do you manage to say so much yet get so little right?

[RedGuard]

^I was also gonna say that it was highly unlikely that the Sanders plan overlooked something as simple as workers selling their stock to their competition, which I believe is already illegal for everyone else anyway