The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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GreenGoo
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by GreenGoo »

Amazon marketplace is an online market place. Kraken even refers to it by name.

They also gouge their "partners" according to Kraken.

eBay might be considered an online marketplace as well. The lack of regulation and oversight makes buying from small guys a difficult choice for consumers. Do you risk being scammed to save 3 dollars? Or 20? Or 500? Or do you just go to the big guys and pay extra up front, knowing you've got a multimillion dollar corporation with a reputation to protect and fear of the law (although the law's teeth seem to be getting filed down little by little in this regard) backing your purchase. Not to mention economies of scale mean that you *can't* save anything with a mom and pop shop.

So it's more risk AND higher prices buying from anyone who isn't already a behemoth. With so few behemoths it's only a matter of time before prices start to rise. The moment steam had a good stranglehold on digital distribution their prices started to rise and haven't stopped. Sure there are others but the market is littered with online store corpses. GOG is struggling it seems and everyone but Steam seems to be just one bad quarter from collapsing. We've watched them come and go. Ubisoft and EA can afford to maintain their own software and store because they are huge. Data centres and distribution software development don't come cheap, and those are expenses with limited profit attached.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Kraken »

Victoria Raverna wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 10:55 am
Kraken wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 3:01 am
Victoria Raverna wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 12:50 am
Kraken wrote: Sat Mar 09, 2019 7:34 pm
Combustible Lemur wrote: Sat Mar 09, 2019 6:44 pm
Amazon discount prices hide the dark side of their profits. Last time I heard Prime isn't even directly profitable. It is designed to maximize data collection and improve their AI research.
Don't get me started on the shakedown that is the Amazon Marketplace. Have you noticed how few independent, mom-and-pop shops still exist? Yeah, that's why.
Not because of Walmart?
I meant online shops. Sorry, I should have said.
I don't think that is because of Amazon. I think the problem is marketing. You need a lot of advertising to have a successful online store. Online mom-and-pops shops just don't make sense.

What you need is an online shopping mall where mom and pop shops can open shop inside. Then you can pool your advertising fund.

I don't know about the situation in US, maybe Amazon killed all competitors. In Indonesia, we now have several competing online marketplaces that allow people to "open shop" and sell stuff through them. While there is still no successful mom and pop online shops, small business owners still can sell their product online.

I think those online marketplace are still burning money to compete but they attracted a lot of investors and two of local ones are now over US$ 1 billion in valuation.

Do you have something like them in US that can survive and compete with Amazon Marketplace?
Small businesses can still sell their products online within the Amazon Marketplace. There is no effective alternative. Etsy, I suppose, if you sell crafty items. I guess eBay still exists, too.

The problem is that Amazon sellers sacrifice independence. Your product descriptions and photos must conform to Amazon rules. Your shipping and return policies are Amazon's policies. If you stray, they can shut you down, and the appeal process is not in your favor. Amazon owns your customer data. If you go with Fulfillment By Amazon they handle distribution, so you lose control over packaging and shipping. Amazon takes 20% off the top of every sale, plus a fee for warehousing your merchandise if you're using FBA. If you pass on FBA and continue to ship your own products, you're obliged to ship fast and free or lose your favorable placement. Unless you have a unique product, you're competing with potentially hundreds of others of small sellers for that crucial page-one placement, and that competition gets dirty (counterfeit products, fake reviews, anonymous complaints, etc). If your product is too successful, Amazon might simply take it away from you and sell it directly.

Technically you're still independent, but in every way that matters you're working for Amazon and paying them for the privilege.

If you don't assimilate, then you face the advertising issue that you mentioned, and online advertising is controlled by two other monopolies: Google and Facebook. I won't go into detail about that except to say that it's prohibitively expensive. When I started with AdWords I could buy keywords for as little as 5 cents a click. By the time I shut down, it was hard to get any clicks for less than 50 cents -- and with a respectable 2% sell-through, you need to buy 50 clicks for each sale. You can't pay $25 to sell a $20 product.

None of this was true when I started Curio City in 2005, although the forces were already in motion. Amazon tried to recruit me three times over the years. I researched it each time, and each time I concluded that the cons outweighed the pros. I might have been able to grow CC into a million-dollar business, but I would have been miserable doing it, and it could be snatched away at any time.

To bring this back on topic, these monopolies are absolutely able to crush or assimilate all competitors. Consumers don't see what's behind the Buy Now button, nor do they care. Cheap stuff arrives promptly; what's not to like? Which is why these monopolists need government oversight and rules, unless you're comfortable with their ever-widening dominance.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Kurth »

Kraken wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 1:23 pm The problem is that Amazon sellers sacrifice independence. Your product descriptions and photos must conform to Amazon rules. Your shipping and return policies are Amazon's policies. If you stray, they can shut you down, and the appeal process is not in your favor. Amazon owns your customer data. If you go with Fulfillment By Amazon they handle distribution, so you lose control over packaging and shipping. Amazon takes 20% off the top of every sale, plus a fee for warehousing your merchandise if you're using FBA. If you pass on FBA and continue to ship your own products, you're obliged to ship fast and free or lose your favorable placement. Unless you have a unique product, you're competing with potentially hundreds of others of small sellers for that crucial page-one placement, and that competition gets dirty (counterfeit products, fake reviews, anonymous complaints, etc). If your product is too successful, Amazon might simply take it away from you and sell it directly.
And from a my perspective (that of a major brand), here's where a huge problem lies. Amazon controls everything about its marketplace but takes zero responsibility for what goes on there. The extent of counterfeit (not to mention blatant and illegal knockoff) product being sold on Amazon out in the open is incredible. Check out this recent article from the Atlantic if you are interested: Amazon May Have a Counterfeit Problem.

It's so bad that Amazon has recently started listing potential exposure to liability for the sale of counterfeits as a risk to the company in its 10K filings. That is significant.

And from the small business owner's perspective, it's even worse (see Kraken's full comments above). There are so many stories about small business owners with a cool product setting up shop on Amazon, doing really well at first, investing in their business, only to have Amazon start selling a knock-off or counterfeit version.

Unfortunately, so far, the courts have been reluctant to find Amazon liable for much of the IP infringement that takes place on its site. Amazon is generally shielded by the defense that it is not actually a "seller" of goods because it never actually takes title to those goods but merely acts to facilitate transactions in which title passes from the actual seller to the end consumer. This is even the case where the goods are Fulfilled By Amazon, despite the fact that Amazon is storing those goods, distributing those goods, handling payments for those goods and even any returns and customers service related to those goods. Still, no direct liability for Amazon. So far.

So, is Amazon flawed and are we in need of some regulation/case law that addresses some of these issues? Absolutely.

I just don't trust Elizabeth Warren and her trust-busting posse to be the ones coming up with the fix.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by GreenGoo »

Kurth wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 2:25 pm I just don't trust Elizabeth Warren and her trust-busting posse to be the ones coming up with the fix.
Sure.

Who else has taken a public stance on this problem? I'm not being facetious, I really don't know everyone's platform and don't watch Amazon specifically for news about it.

Assuming there are others, who do you trust (at least more than Warren) to come up with a fix? How are they suggesting they go about it?
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Kraken »

I haven't delved into the nuts and bolts of Warren's proposal because I'm not expert enough to pass an intelligent judgment, and because I presume that it's more of an opening salvo than a finished legislative proposal (much like the Green New Deal). I'm glad that she's put challenging the tech monopolies out in the open. That's particularly bold for a Democrat because Silicon Valley's tech bros tend to the liberal side -- they may be budding oligarchs, but they're "our" oligarchs.

I'll worry about specifics if her bill seems to have legs. She does have good policy-wonk chops, and her general intention of shaking up capitalism to save it hits a sweet spot between Bernie's sweeping socialism and the usual establishment tinkering that changes nothing.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Victoria Raverna »

How do you break off Amazon? If it is not Amazon, you'll still have the same problem with another marketplace.

You reduce Amazon's competitive advantage then you'll have Jack Ma or someone else start a different marketplace that is still going to be a problem.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Jaymann »

Amazon has also taken over the publishing industry for non-blockbuster writers, with minimal money going to the actual writers. I was wondering what if someone bit off that segment of their business model with improved percentage to writers. Seems like talent would flock to such a site. Of course you would have to be a billionaire to start such a venture.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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Jaymann wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 6:54 pm Amazon has also taken over the publishing industry for non-blockbuster writers, with minimal money going to the actual writers. I was wondering what if someone bit off that segment of their business model with improved percentage to writers. Seems like talent would flock to such a site. Of course you would have to be a billionaire to start such a venture.
Do you have a reference for that? It's something I've been looking into but it's always seemed like they do better than other publishing routes.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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stessier wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 6:59 pm
Jaymann wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 6:54 pm Amazon has also taken over the publishing industry for non-blockbuster writers, with minimal money going to the actual writers. I was wondering what if someone bit off that segment of their business model with improved percentage to writers. Seems like talent would flock to such a site. Of course you would have to be a billionaire to start such a venture.
Do you have a reference for that? It's something I've been looking into but it's always seemed like they do better than other publishing routes.
I was going off anecdotal stuff (my son uses Amazon), but found an article of HuffPost easily enough.
The facts are sobering. At the January forum, Preston quoted the following statistics: Amazon controls 75 percent of online sales of books and 65 percent of e-books sales.

The numbers are more staggering with self-published authors. Eighty-five percent of e-books sold by self-published authors are controlled by Amazon.

These authors, hungry to see publication, eagerly sign Amazon contracts which bar them from using their material elsewhere. Non-compete clauses written into those contracts reduce authors’ freedom to make a living by reusing their writing.
It's pretty insidious.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by GreenGoo »

Victoria Raverna wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 6:32 pm How do you break off Amazon? If it is not Amazon, you'll still have the same problem with another marketplace.

You reduce Amazon's competitive advantage then you'll have Jack Ma or someone else start a different marketplace that is still going to be a problem.
:roll:

I've tried absolutely nothing and I'm all out of ideas.

Why clean the house, it's only going to get dirty again.

I don't know how to fix it. This is not my area of expertise. I'm fairly sure "why bother" is not reasoned solution for a problem of this magnitude and importance, however.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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WaPo
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday released a plan to attack some of the most controversial methods of private equity firms, the financiers who buy and sell companies for profit.

The plan from the 2020 Democratic presidential contender would take several significant steps to rein in the industry, including measures to block the private equity firms from stripping cash, real estate and other assets from the companies they take over.

Most critically, however, the plan would hold private equity firms responsible for the large debts that they use to buy companies. These debts, a hallmark of private equity investment, typically wind up as a burden to the targeted company, not the private equity firm, and have precipitated many bankruptcies.
...
“For far too long, Washington has looked the other way while private equity firms take over companies, load them with debt, strip them of their wealth, and walk away scot-free — leaving workers, consumers, and whole communities to pick up the pieces, ” Warren said in a statement announcing the proposal, which is also a bill that has the support of a number of other Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate.

The plan is Warren’s latest effort to make the U.S. economy fairer, but it will also draw pushback from industry boosters, who say such proposals would stifle investments that have made the economy more productive and prosperous.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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Agree with her 100% but this isn't really the time..
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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Democrats’ Most Plugged-In Voting Bloc Seems To Be Coalescing Behind Warren
As political journalists, we follow the 2020 presidential primary race day by day — or even minute by minute. Still, we know that plenty of Democrats have been paying attention, too. But which Democrats are most likely to be plugged in?

It turns out that the most ideological voters tend to be the most politically engaged, so in this case that means very liberal Democrats are the ones paying the closest attention. In fact, if we look at the five most recent Quinnipiac University polls where Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters were asked if they were paying “a lot” of attention to the presidential campaign, you’ll see that, on average, about 64 percent of those who identified as “very liberal” were paying a lot of attention, compared to about 48 percent of “somewhat liberal” Democrats and 47 percent of “moderate/conservative” Democrats.

These super plugged-in, very liberal voters are also increasingly backing one candidate: Sen. Elizabeth Warren. In June, 29 percent of these voters said they supported Warren, and by early August — after her strong performance in the second primary debate — that number had grown to 40 percent. The latest August survey put her at 34 percent among these voters, while no other candidate earned more than 22 percent.
Nonetheless, someone like Biden who appeals to more moderate members of the party may still have an advantage, even if his base isn’t quite as engaged. And that’s because Biden has solid support among moderate Democrats — 41 percent of moderate or conservative voters backed him in the latest Quinnipiac poll — plus he gets a decent backing among somewhat liberal voters, who were about 6 points more likely to support him than Warren in that same poll (29 percent for Biden to 23 percent for Warren).

And winning over just the very liberal voters won’t be enough for Warren either, as Quinnipiac’s data suggests that they make up about a quarter of the party. So even if very liberal voters are more engaged, Warren will still need to expand beyond these voters to have a chance of winning the nomination.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Warren will be Hilary all over again. Why? She's a woman. Are American voters that shallow and sexist? Yes, they are.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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*POW!* POW!* the shooting of feet begins.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:30 am Warren will be Hilary all over again. Why? She's a woman. Are American voters that shallow and sexist? Yes, they are.
She might be and she has managed to break some of the foundations of the pedestal I put her on some five or more years ago but I could still vote for her in good conscience even if my hat is behind Beto right now.

"We" absolutely don't want to lose the presidency but how much many chips do you trade in to attempt to win over people who see Trump this GOP as better than Warren? Do you attempt to compromise with a party whose proudest achievement is preventing Obama from seating a Supreme Court judge and see no contradiction in ignoring that precedent should the need arise between now and 2020?
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:30 am Warren will be Hilary all over again. Why? She's a woman. Are American voters that shallow and sexist? Yes, they are.
She is, however, not under investigation by the FBI, which is a pretty significant difference.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Isgrimnur »

LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:30 am Warren will be Hilary all over again. Why? She's a woman. Are American voters that shallow and sexist? Yes, they are.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Ralph-Wiggum »

El Guapo wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:59 am
LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:30 am Warren will be Hilary all over again. Why? She's a woman. Are American voters that shallow and sexist? Yes, they are.
She is, however, not under investigation by the FBI, which is a pretty significant difference.
And she hasn't had the GOP spew conspiracy theories about her for 20 years.

She also seemingly has much more enthusiasm behind her campaign. It's all anecdotal, but I didn't know too many people that were really excited about voting for Clinton. But many people I've talked to (including myself) are really excited about Warren.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Kraken »

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 1:32 pm
El Guapo wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:59 am
LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:30 am Warren will be Hilary all over again. Why? She's a woman. Are American voters that shallow and sexist? Yes, they are.
She is, however, not under investigation by the FBI, which is a pretty significant difference.
And she hasn't had the GOP spew conspiracy theories about her for 20 years.

She also seemingly has much more enthusiasm behind her campaign. It's all anecdotal, but I didn't know too many people that were really excited about voting for Clinton. But many people I've talked to (including myself) are really excited about Warren.
Hillary was also a reluctant and lackluster campaigner, whereas Warren has discovered a knack for it. Hillary was the anointed Establishment character, and Warren definitely is not. Big differences, IMO.

There are two ways Democrats can win: Inspire heavy turnout among their existing voters while trying to peel away a few independents who voted wrong last time -- the safe, moderate "Biden" approach -- OR recruit large numbers of enthusiastic new voters, primarily among immigrants and the young -- the progressive "Sanders" approach. The ideal candidate would bridge those strategies. I believe Warren can do that, winning the Sanders wing in the primaries and tacking to the reassuring center in the general. I don't see any other candidates in that niche.

Whichever approach prevails, the D nominee will benefit from much stronger anti-Trump sentiment than existed last time and should be able to bank on strong partisan turnout...assuming, of course, that Trump is the R nominee.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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Besides, isn't it time for a woman Native American President?
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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Jaymann wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 2:25 pm Besides, isn't it time for a woman Native American President?
See, this is why people shouldn't share their password with emnought.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 1:32 pm
El Guapo wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:59 am
LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:30 am Warren will be Hilary all over again. Why? She's a woman. Are American voters that shallow and sexist? Yes, they are.
She is, however, not under investigation by the FBI, which is a pretty significant difference.
And she hasn't had the GOP spew conspiracy theories about her for 20 years.

She also seemingly has much more enthusiasm behind her campaign. It's all anecdotal, but I didn't know too many people that were really excited about voting for Clinton. But many people I've talked to (including myself) are really excited about Warren.
I like how she puts forth thoughtful, intelligent, ideas and a genuine enthusiasm for those ideas. I may not agree completely with some of the nuts and bolts of certain policies but I think she's someone that can be worked with because she seems to be a person who puts, well, thought into her positions and is intelligent and confident enough to listen to other viewpoints. Unlike the current guy who still has the ego of a toddler and the vocabulary of a grade school student.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Pyperkub »

El Guapo wrote:
LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:30 am Warren will be Hilary all over again. Why? She's a woman. Are American voters that shallow and sexist? Yes, they are.
She is, however, not under investigation by the FBI, which is a pretty significant difference.
Yet.

Barr and Trump could change that at a whim.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by El Guapo »

Pyperkub wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:31 pm
El Guapo wrote:
LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:30 am Warren will be Hilary all over again. Why? She's a woman. Are American voters that shallow and sexist? Yes, they are.
She is, however, not under investigation by the FBI, which is a pretty significant difference.
Yet.

Barr and Trump could change that at a whim.
This is fair (and dangerous), but they would need to be laying the groundwork for that pretty soon. If there isn't some story / narrative out there to jump on, and if they wait, it gets harder for them to get the kind of media coverage that they're after.

By contrast they have already laid some groundwork for Biden - Guiliani has been pushing some bullshit story about Biden's son and activities in the Ukraine.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Jeff V »

$iljanus wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:00 pm Unlike the current guy who still has the ego of a toddler and the vocabulary of a grade school student.
My toddler and grade school student take offense at your comment and they demand satisfaction.

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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by LordMortis »

Pyperkub wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:31 pm
El Guapo wrote:
LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:30 am Warren will be Hilary all over again. Why? She's a woman. Are American voters that shallow and sexist? Yes, they are.
She is, however, not under investigation by the FBI, which is a pretty significant difference.
Yet.

Barr and Trump could change that at a whim.
I won't pretend to know but I think the narrative for Warren is set and criminal is not part of it. The line goes, she is a socialist. She wants to steal from you by raising taxes so she can give benefits to illegal immigrants who will take over the country with their illegal voting so they can bring their families here to get more benefits that you are paying for. And like the Nazi's she plans to use force of federal government to take your guns and keep you in your place so she can steal taxes from you. Oh and by the way she is a liar, trying to pretend she has an ethnicity she does not to relate to people she is not. After all she lives in a nice house. Trump boasts his nice house and wants you to have one too. Warren hides it, so she can pretend none of us deserves a nice house while she lives on your taxes.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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So Warren just said that if elected she would not allow any new oil/gas leases on US lands and would ban fracking. Ok, I understand the first, but the latter just makes no sense. Doesn't she understand that natural gas is a much needed interim solution? That it is much better than coal from a GH gas perspective and it is what has allowed the US to shutter many coal facilities? This just doesn't make sense - and the thousands of people involved in fracking are not going to like their jobs going away overnight. And let's remember that Pennsylvania has a decent amount of fracking - does she need to give that state a reason to vote for Trump in 2020. This is just plain stupid, IMO.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Kraken »

I haven't read that report yet so I'm winging it here, but I would think that fits within the context of the green new deal -- if petroleum demand is falling, fracking is counterproductive. Even setting aside its environmental impact, you want oil's price to rise as it becomes the least desirable energy source.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by LawBeefaroni »

It's an unnecessary promise that will cost more votes than it gets her.

I get that it's a bid for the nomination but it will be a detriment if she does get it.
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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Grifman wrote: Sun Sep 08, 2019 6:02 pm So Warren just said that if elected she would not allow any new oil/gas leases on US lands and would ban fracking. Ok, I understand the first, but the latter just makes no sense. Doesn't she understand that natural gas is a much needed interim solution?
Guess who is really pushing that narrative (that natural gas is a needed interim solution)?
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Ralph-Wiggum »

You may say it's unrealistic, but if we really do want to meet our climate change targets, we can't afford to keep investing in natural gas. This article lays out some of the main reasons why.
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Grifman
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

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Toe wrote: Mon Sep 09, 2019 10:14 am
Grifman wrote: Sun Sep 08, 2019 6:02 pm So Warren just said that if elected she would not allow any new oil/gas leases on US lands and would ban fracking. Ok, I understand the first, but the latter just makes no sense. Doesn't she understand that natural gas is a much needed interim solution?
Guess who is really pushing that narrative (that natural gas is a needed interim solution)?
Guess who looks at information and makes up his own mind about issues like this.
Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. – G.K. Chesterton
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Kraken
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Kraken »

Warren's detailed M4A plan dropped quietly today. Slate finds that it's "not entirely realistic," and has a good summary, with links and at least a first-pass analysis.
As Warren notes, the cost estimates for single payer have been all over the map. At the low end, researchers at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst claim that it would require $14 trillion in additional federal spending over a decade. Others, like Rand, the Urban Institute, and the conservative Mercatus Center have found that it could take $31 to $34 trillion. Warren’s projection falls toward the bottom end of the range: She believes Washington will need another $20.5 trillion over 10 years to fund “Medicare for All.” That number comes from an analysis by Donald Berwick, a former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama who currently lectures at Harvard, and Simon Johnson, a well-known MIT professor and and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. They arrive at it in a straightforward way, by starting at the Urban Institute’s estimate of $32 trillion, and then subtracting the different cost-saving measures one at a time.

So:

• They think that Warren can save an extra $1.7 trillion by more aggressively negotiating down prescription drug prices.
• Compared with the Urban Institute, they believe that moving to single payer will save an extra $1.8 trillion in administrative costs.
• They suggest that the government could milk another $2.9 trillion by reforming the way Medicare pays doctors and hospitals.
• Redirecting the money state and local governments currently spend on health care to the feds gets you another $6.1 trillion.
• Finally, slowing the growth of health costs gives you $1.1 trillion.
That's the "what it will cost" part. The "how we'll afford it" part:
Even though Warren lowers the price tag on single payer quite a bit compared with what some other experts have projected, funding it without any new taxes on workers requires a stretch here and there. But she does it: There are, strictly speaking, no direct middle-class tax hikes in the plan. Instead, it includes the following:

• First, businesses would have to pay an “employer Medicare contribution,” calculated based on what they already pay toward private insurance premiums today. Warren thinks this would be a saving of about $200 billion for employers, and that it would raise about $8.8 trillion.
• Second, she would hit Wall Street firms and large businesses, imposing a financial transaction tax (haul: $900 billion) and a series of major corporate income tax reforms, which would start by raising the rate back to 35 percent (haul: $2.9 trillion).
• Third, she’d further soak the rich (combined haul $3 trillion). Billionaires would face a 6 percent wealth tax instead of the 3 percent tax she previously proposed. And richer households would have to pay their capital gains taxes on a “mark-to-market” basis—meaning that if their stock portfolios went up in value during the year, they would owe taxes on the increase, even if they didn’t actually sell any shares.
"All of this brings us to a bottom line where health care is free at the point of service, middle-class families are spared from any new direct taxes, and workers get to take home more of their paychecks because they no longer have to worry about insurance premiums."

It's a good proposition to be defending...and defend it she will; nothing paints a bullseye on your back like having a detailed policy for others to rip apart. Her candidacy will depend on how well she does it.
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Kurth
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Kurth »

And richer households would have to pay their capital gains taxes on a “mark-to-market” basis—meaning that if their stock portfolios went up in value during the year, they would owe taxes on the increase, even if they didn’t actually sell any shares.
:roll:

That’s just great. That’s exactly the kind of BS I was afraid we’d see from Elizabeth Warren.

Could someone please explain to me why this isn’t a terrible idea?
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LawBeefaroni
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by LawBeefaroni »

That plan would shut down hospitals and create even more mega-groups and mega-systems. The only way to survive at Medicare rates for all your business is at an enormous scale.


I also cannot imagine people used to a family PCP going to a doc-in-a-box and NPs if they can afford not to. There will be a way to buy into better care and it will drive the best providers out of the "for all" system.


If she's the candidate, of course I'd vote for her, once again holding my nose, but I'd be 99% against the proposal as currently floated and I'd be expecting "total change" similar to the ACA.
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LawBeefaroni
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Also, don't expect that "Medicare for all" means straight Medicare. It means "Medicare or Medicare Advantage for all.". You'll still have all the big players squeezing their profits out because the government cannot administer coverage for several hundred million individuals.

That can be a good or bad thing. Personally I view MA as superior to straight Medicare.
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YellowKing
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by YellowKing »

kurth wrote:That’s just great. That’s exactly the kind of BS I was afraid we’d see from Elizabeth Warren.
Yeah, some of her policy stances make me cringe. I'm not that far removed from my fiscal conservatism days, and it's REALLY hard for me to go straight to hard-left policy without some baby steps.
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Grifman
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Grifman »

Kurth wrote: Sat Nov 02, 2019 3:40 am
And richer households would have to pay their capital gains taxes on a “mark-to-market” basis—meaning that if their stock portfolios went up in value during the year, they would owe taxes on the increase, even if they didn’t actually sell any shares.
:roll:

That’s just great. That’s exactly the kind of BS I was afraid we’d see from Elizabeth Warren.

Could someone please explain to me why this isn’t a terrible idea?
It's a terrible economic policy, and has now turned me from Warren. A 6% wealth tax is terrible - the average stock market gain over time is between 6% and 8%, she basically wipe out any income that could be made, which just seems unfair, even towards the wealthy. Taxing unrealized gains is also awful and also not fair. I do think the rich need to pay more but I think it needs to be done fairly. I think they have plenty of loopholes that could be closed to make things more fair - though that would not raise the revenue she wants. And I think her plan would introduce a number of bad behaviors with unanticipated consequences to the economy.

I'd also point out, why shouldn't the middle class pay something for their healthcare? We're paying something now (though too much). Just putting it all on the backs of the wealthy just isn't going to work. And I guarantee you that the middle class will end up paying something - ways will be found to shift the costs - maybe reduced wage increases, reductions in other benefits, etc.

Lastly, great way to give the health care issue to the Republicans. Democrats should be campaigning on how Republicans want to take away the aspects of Obamacare that benefit everyone. Instead Warren wants to take away what people already have and are used to (even though the current systems has serious issues) and introduce this hot mess.

As Biden started to fade (my first choice), I was starting to shift to Warren because I like some of her other proposals regarding corporate governance, but her health care plan is a non-starter.
Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. – G.K. Chesterton
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Re: The Elizabeth Warren Sideshow

Post by Blackhawk »

I take some comfort in knowing that such a plan will never get off the ground, not even if the Ds sweep the elections.
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