Trumps policies have been great for the stock market, I'm not sure about the greater economy as a whole. The US military, frankly is already too dangerous for the world and didn't need even more money, most of which ends up in the pocket of corrupt, Trump friendly, defense contractors anyway. As for media bias, without doubt there has been a lot of this, (there is also a heck of a lot of extreme right wing biased media!) but frankly, most proper thinking people are OK with bias against a lifelong rampant criminal & grifter with dangerous narcissistic and sociopathic tendencies, who is also of low intelligence and woefully incapable of undertaking the basic requirements of the office of President. As for hoaxes & witch hunts, Trumps own shouting about this aside, I see little evidence that any of the investigations into the criminal were any such things.
If you dig down the evidence for Trump's crimes is massive. Adam Schiff was the congressperson who served as Master in the impeachment, ie prosecutor. The Republicans in the Senate only allowed the opening statements from the prosecution and defense and refused to allow any witnesses or evidence to be submitted (something that has never happened before in an impeachment). Schiff has said that some Republican Senators have told him in confidence that he made his case and it was airtight, but they had to vote with their party.
When Robert Mueller was asked in his testimony in front of Congress if Trump was guilty he spoke in lawyer code. Due to ethical rules he cannot speak to the guilt or innocence of anyone who is not being charged with a crime and Bill Barr would not allow Mueller to charge a sitting president due to a memo written in 1973. So he had to speak indirectly in a way that any lawyer who knew the code would know. He basically said in his indirect way that Trump would have been charged with crimes if it wasn't for Bill Barr and the memo.
Mueller is a very thorough prosecutor and someone who strictly plays by the rules. He never charges anyone unless he is 99% convinced he will get a conviction.
Right now both new York State and the Manhattan District Attorney are obtaining data Trump had managed to hold up in the courts until the Supreme Court said he couldn't stop its release. They are investigating years of money laundering by the Trump Organization.
I saw an interview a couple of years ago with a defense attorney who also had a background in Psychology. He said his clients fall into two rough categories. 90% or so are people who would like to do good, but due to circumstances or influence from peers ended up committing crimes.
But there is about 10% he said who are wired to be criminals. They break the law because they like the thrill of getting away with it. He saw all the same hallmarks in Trump.
The fundamental issue with Bernie here is that
1) He apparently does not understand the difference between wealth and money. What he's proposing is completely illogical and unlawful. You can't force someone to pay taxes on something that is unearned. What if Elon is forced to pay that tax on a market value of Tesla at 300 billion and then a year later Tesla is only 150 billion? Is the government going to pay him back for the excess taxes he paid? Come on Bernie, think through your sh*t
2) Tesla over it's lifetime will make direct contributions to well being of the average American(and worldwide citizen) through reduced expenses. EV's will be significantly cheaper than gas vehicles in 10 years. The fuel for their cars will be significantly cheaper than gas and in most cases, free. Consumers, businesses, and the governments themselves will pay cheaper utility rates thanks to Tesla's solar, battery storage, and grid network. The average cost for ride hailing will be a fraction of what Uber/Lyft costs today. I'm not even taking into account the savings people will realize if Tesla get's into airplanes, boats, etc....Over the next 10 years, Tesla and Elon ALONE will be responsible for saving US citizens and people across the world hundreds of billions of dollars in expenses........Gee I'm sure Bernie hasn't thought about that
The taxing people's wealth idea is one proposed by both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Set aside the fact that it couldn't be done right without a change to the constitution, both seem to ignore the difference between money in the bank and paper wealth. They also ignore the way people got wealthy. I have three categories:
1) Entrepreneurs who made their wealth inventing something new
2) People who legally stole their wealth by figuring out some clever way to play the markets
3) People who inherited their wealth
A large percentage of entrepreneurs have vast wealth on paper, but they couldn't tap into that wealth without destroying the value of the company they built and selling off their stock would probably result in the Chinese owning a big chunk of their company. Especially if they were forced to sell at a time (like tax time) when most wealthy Americans were dumping assets to pay a tax. Many entrepreneurs in their later years give away a lot of their wealth like Bill Gates is doing. Others reinvest their wealth into other ventures that create more new technologies.
There are problems with some companies created by these entrepreneurs like social media and Amazon has gotten too big. But those problems should be addressed in other ways than trying to impoverish the owners. Doing that will just drive the companies out of the country and out of US control. As well as strip the US of a lot of high paying tech jobs.
People who figured out some legal way to steal money and to some extent those who inherited vast wealth are the ones Bernie and Warren are really talking about. They did not really earn their wealth through contributing to the world.
I would not be terribly averse to a wealth tax that exempted earned wealth in a company they created that was not liquid.
I've thought a better way to achieve something of the same goal would be to change the capital gains laws. Capital gains on an investment that did not create American jobs is taxed as regular income, but capital gains on American investment is taxed on a sliding scale based on how much Americans benefit from the investment. At the lowest end, make the rate lower than today.
It will shift a lot of investment into new tech development on shore. A lot of those investments will be lost, venture capital is high risk. But the benefit is the money will be pumped into the US economy (where much of it will be taxed as income by people receiving it) and if the rich investors lose their money, they aren't as rich anymore and the goal of the wealth tax is achieved. Some investments will pay off in a big way, but it will also be because some new tech company made it big and that company will be based in the US.
If those companies make their goods in the US get tax breaks for that, that will encourage manufacturing to move back to the US. Most of that manufacturing will be automated and will require people with 2 year degrees instead of high school, which would require incentivizing people to get the educations required, but that could be done too.
I also think that if people can get into a state school in a program that is in demand (STEM, certain technicians, etc.) the government should pay for their education. Those graduates will make more money over their careers and pay more in taxes, so the government gets the money back over the long haul.
You get a large cadre of well educated people who graduate from school with no debt and they will be putting most of their income back into the economy right away. That's what happened in the 1950s. A lot of men who otherwise wouldn't have gone to college did on the GI Bill and many bought houses within a couple of years of graduating. It paid dividends into the economy for 25 years after the war.
Another problem we have right now is that people who would be an asset to the economy in a STEM profession are now going into business school to make a killing with their talents on Wall Street. If they had to weigh $80K for a business degree vs $0 for an engineering degree, more would opt for the engineering degree.
Bernie is popular because in spite of his faults, he does correctly identify many of the problems with current day America, while many other politicians ignore them or try to direct attention away to please their special interests. He also does speak his mind for the most part instead of speaking empty focus-group platitudes.
The problem with Bernie though is that many of his solutions to the problem are extremely sophomoric... Also as mentioned above he is a lazy bum that is all talk.
This is why I was Yang-gang (even before Elon was), because like Bernie, he could see the problems, but unlike Bernie had good solutions and wasnt a lazy bum.
A society needs people like Bernie Sanders pointing out the problems. His solutions will not work in the real world, but identifying the problem is half the battle. Giving voice to the entire political spectrum of ideas is healthy. Even if some of them are repugnant.
A lot of the ex-Republicans working on the Lincoln Project and other PACs focused on getting Democrats elected have admitted they knew the racists were there in the GOP and they thought they were useful idiots who would vote for their guy, but they never realized how many of them there were because they were mostly silent.
Knowing how bad the rat infestation is helps to fight it.
Left wing ideologues are usually not repugnant, just naive. They have pie in the sky ideas that won't work in the real world. But if those ideas catch on in the zeitgeist, more practical people can craft them into solutions that will work.
100% Yang would have been amazing for this country.
With Bernie, someone that has good intentions but is misinformed is just as dangerous as someone with bad intentions.......and it's really showing here. Bernie's put his mouth(and finger pointing) into something that is way over his head.
Corporate greed is a terrible thing and should be addressed. I think we can all agree here that Tesla and Elon are the exact opposite of corporate greed.
I suspect Joe Biden will have a role for Yang in his administration.
