by Sixstrings » Thu 28 May 2015, 16:02:18
Plant makes a good point about immigration.
The reason that socialism can work so well, in Australia and Scandinavia, is that they restrict immigration. Whereas in the USA we've just been this open doors place for most of our history (which has its benefits, too, I can actually argue both sides of this debate).
But anyhow, you can't have the good wages for the whole working and middle class, if you're letting everybody jump in the boat when we don't have enough jobs to go around as it is.
It's very concerning. We're going to wind up like a Qatar, or a latin american banana republic with a rich elite minority and then vast swaths of poverty.
We really do need to clamp down on unskilled immigration. But Democrats won't ever do this, they've got two oppositional ideas in their head -- (a) being for the working man, yet also (b) for open doors immigration and then on top of that they are (c) global free traders.
Bottom line on it all -- I know we're never going to clamp down on immigration, so the root of the problem can't really be addressed, but what we could do is just raise the damn minimum wage. It's time for that. And at least a few pro working and middle class policies. And that's why I'm voting for bernie.
Sanders is right that "the billionaires want it all." It's not even that I'm against the rich having the vast majority of everything, but they just can't HAVE IT ALL. I care about this country. I do not want it to become a Guatamala or Sri Lanka. I do not want to see us devolve, domestically, in living standards.
I think we have a right to things other people in other top tier economies have. Our rich just need to have *a little bit less*, that's all we are asking for here.
I mean look, I agree with Jeb Bush on so many things, foreign policy stuff -- but yet the man wants to cut old folks' social security, and he won't ever raise wages for the working and middle class, and he will not stop the slide in median income. So how could I vote for that, just because I agree with him on the foreign policy stuff?
And Hillary is the same as Jeb, on global cop stuff. I would need to be convinced by her, too, that she's going to do some real things for the working class and it's not just all for the rich and then foreign policy. Either a Jeb Bush OR a Hillary Clinton have got to start addressing the working and middle class, we cannot have "America" if it's only working for the top minority and things get worse for the bottom 99%
They just need to raise the darn minimum wage, that would solve the problems, it would get money flowing into main street small business too. Raise that working class wage, and then keep hands off social security, improve the ACA, tax the rich a fair amount, and then okay we can go be "America" and sail all the open seas and defend the world. It has to start at home, though, that's my big issue lately and that's why I'm voting bernie even if I do agree with a Jeb or Hillary on foreign policy.