Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Michael Roberts, author of the website thenextrecession.wordpress.com is
probably one of the most serious Marxist economists around. Here is his
critique of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2019/01/28/modern-monetary-theory-part-1-chartalism-and-marx/
If MMT is the basis for Sanders' claim that his health care program (plus
paying for student debt and a host of other programs) can all be paid for,
then I don't find his claim credible. Since there evidently are no other
more concrete plans to pay for these programs, then I think a large dose of
skepticism is justified.

John Reimann

On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 2:15 PM MM  wrote:

>
> On Feb 11, 2020, at 2:22 PM, MM  wrote:
>
> No, it isn’t a defense of Keynesianism. Here’s a response on concerns over
> inflation (and there is an extensive body of writing on this):
>
>
> https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/01/1551434402000/An-MMT-response-on-what-causes-inflation/
>
>
> Apparently that may be paywalled for some people. Here is the text (the
> first three paragraphs are introductory commentary from FT):
>
> An MMT response on what causes inflation
>
> *This week in testimony to the Senate Banking Committee, Jay Powell,
> Chairman of the Federal Reserve, **offered a verdict*
> *
> on modern monetary theory. "The idea that deficits don't matter for
> countries that can borrow in their own currency I think is just wrong," he
> said. It was a victory for the movement, of sorts: modern monetary theory
> is now unavoidable. It now must be addressed in a committee hearing of the
> US Senate. *
>
> *It's an idea being contested right now on finance and economics Twitter,
> which sounds like a silly thing to say but is not, because the people who
> read and write econ Twitter are the people who explain economics in
> newspaper articles and academic papers for the rest of the world. *
>
> *Which is how yesterday we got an emai from three MMTers: Scott Fullwiler,
> Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City; Rohan
> Grey, a Doctoral Fellow at Cornell Law School; and Nathan Tankus, Research
> Director of the Modern Money Network. They wanted a chance to respond to
> several recent articles, our **piece on how the US financed the second
> world war*
> *
> among them. Here, in their own words:*
>
>
> For two decades we and our like-minded colleagues have been putting
> forward the idea that a monetarily sovereign country like the United States
> with debts denominated in its own currency and a floating exchange rate
> cannot “go broke”. We have been writing about this and all the myriad
> implications this has for macroeconomics under what has come to be known as
> Modern Monetary Theory.
>
> Excitingly, last month representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brought
> attention to our views when she said that MMT should be “part of the
> conversation
> ".
> This set the economics and finance media ablaze with renewed commentary. In
> a major step forward, the broad consensus of these pieces in a series of
> outlets has been to agree with my colleagues and I that the only limit on
> government spending is inflation. The acceptance of this crucial tenet of
> MMT is very welcome and new. It was not too many years ago that throughout
> the economics press it was commonplace to present MMT as a wild new theory
> and speak in worried uncertain terms about the possibility that bond
> markets would refuse to buy US treasury securities, causing a debt crisis.
> We are thrilled to move past this stage in the public macroeconomic debate.
>
> Unfortunately, while the press has been willing to agree with this major
> proposition, it has not been willing to follow its implications. Josh Barro 
> writing
> in *New York Magazine*
> 
> particularly articulates what seems to be the emerging response to MMT in
> the press:
>
> ‘If the government prints and spends money when the economy is at or near
> full employment, MMT counsels (correctly) that this will lead to inflation,
> and prescribes deficit-reducing tax increases to reduce aggregate demand
> and thereby control inflation. See how we have ended up back where we
> started? Whether you take a Keynesian view or an MMT 

Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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 John Reimann  wrote:

>
>
>
> As far as budget deficits: yes, they do matter... in almost all countries.
> The laws of the market dictate that if there is an increased supply of a
> currency and it does not correspond to an increase in production on which
> to spend that currency, then it will require more of that currency to
> exchange for products. Internationally it means that capital will tend to
> leave that currency. In other words, inflation.
>
> The US is in an exceptional position because of the role of the dollar in
> international trade and finance. The fact that to this day the US economy
> is still the strongest and most stable has made the dollar universally more
> desirable. By floating increased amounts of dollar-based debt, what the US
> is doing is making international capitalists pay for their spendthrift ways
> at home. That cannot continue forever, especially as US capitalism is being
> challenged by Chinese capitalism.
>
> Yes, debt does have to be repaid. Or, put another way, the US government
> does have to pay back those loans/bonds and T notes, or at least there has
> to be confidence that it will do so.


If the deficit (and debt) rise in step with production --- (a fairly stable
debt/GDP ratio) then according to John there seems to be no problem.  WHY,
then does he insist that the debt has to be repaid.   T-notes, bonds, etc
can be rolled over.   Dollars borrowed to fight the American Civil War have
been rolled over ever since ---same with the dollars borrowed to finance
WWII or LBJ's escalation of the Vietnam War --

The idea that inflation is an inevitable outcome of surges in deficits (and
therefore the total outstandiing National Debt) --- say between 1981 and
1990 --- is refuted by the experience of the 1970s inflations (very little
deficit spending in the US) and the 1980s conquest of inflation (in the
face of surging deficits).

Or what about the big run-up in deficit spending since 2008?

It is of course true that at some point if the deficit as a percentage of
GDP gets "TOO HIGH" international buyers of the nation's debt will stop
buying --

So what happens in that case -- well in Japan, the Japanese Central Bank
has bought up most of the gigantic national debt that has accumulated there
since the 1990s 

I am not an aficianado of MMT but the basic idea that a national government
that borrows its own currency can do so without damaging any long run
macro-economic processes appears to me to be borne out by history ...
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[MM via Marxism]

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> On Feb 12, 2020, at 12:41 PM, John Reimann <1999wild...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Basically, what the advocates of MMT argue is that their policy can overcome 
> the fundamental contradictions of capitalism itself. In other words, 
> reformism.

There’s certainly no reason to read anything when you already “know” what it 
says. 
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Basically, what the advocates of MMT argue is that their policy can
overcome the fundamental contradictions of capitalism itself. In other
words, reformism.

John Reimann

On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 8:55 AM MM  wrote:

> On Feb 12, 2020, at 11:07 AM, John Reimann via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
> Yes, debt does have to be repaid. Or, put another way, the US government
> does have to pay back those loans/bonds and T notes, or at least there has
> to be confidence that it will do so. At some point, as the world becomes
> flooded with dollars, the only way that the US government can maintain that
> confidence will be to increase the interest rate paid on those instruments.
> Does anybody think that won't have an affect?
>
>
> The US only has to issue bonds and T-bills because it’s a discretionary
> legal requirement imposed by Congress; there is no other basis for that
> requirement. I realize you aren’t going to read any of the materials that
> deal with all of this, but I’m not going to waste any more time dealing
> with fundamental misunderstandings like this. They’ve been dealt with at
> length in the MMT literature.
>


-- 
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[MM via Marxism]

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> On Feb 12, 2020, at 11:07 AM, John Reimann via Marxism 
>  wrote:
> 
> Yes, debt does have to be repaid. Or, put another way, the US government
> does have to pay back those loans/bonds and T notes, or at least there has
> to be confidence that it will do so. At some point, as the world becomes
> flooded with dollars, the only way that the US government can maintain that
> confidence will be to increase the interest rate paid on those instruments.
> Does anybody think that won't have an affect?


The US only has to issue bonds and T-bills because it’s a discretionary legal 
requirement imposed by Congress; there is no other basis for that requirement. 
I realize you aren’t going to read any of the materials that deal with all of 
this, but I’m not going to waste any more time dealing with fundamental 
misunderstandings like this. They’ve been dealt with at length in the MMT 
literature.
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[Daniel Lindvall via Marxism]

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Look at what happened to Mitterand, who was elected on the most ambitious 
reformist program we’ve seen after the post-WW2 ”golden decades”. There’s no 
need to go all conspiracy theory to see the problem of finance markets for 
reformism.


> 
> ”What Daniel is implying is that the financial markets are controlled by the 
> political decisions of the capitalist class.”
> 
> No, I don’t mean to imply that they are CONTROLLED. What I said is they 
> REACT. There’s a very important difference between those words. Financial 
> markets certainly react as they do PARTLY because of conscious decisions in 
> times of conflict (capital flight, destabilization) and partly because people 
> with power over large sums of money tend to become worried about spending on 
> welfare but not so worried by spending on bail outs and arms. 
> 
>> 
>> Daniel Lindvall wrote: "The financial markets (i.e. the ruling class) react
>> one way when spending goes to bailing out businesses (or buying more guns),
>> and in an entirely opposed way when it goes to improving the lives of the
>> working class and the general population."
>> 
> 


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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[Daniel Lindvall via Marxism]

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”What Daniel is implying is that the financial markets are controlled by the 
political decisions of the capitalist class.”

No, I don’t mean to imply that they are CONTROLLED. What I said is they REACT. 
There’s a very important difference between those words. Financial markets 
certainly react as they do PARTLY because of conscious decisions in times of 
conflict (capital flight, destabilization) and partly because people with power 
over large sums of money tend to become worried about spending on welfare but 
not so worried by spending on bail outs and arms. 

> 
> Daniel Lindvall wrote: "The financial markets (i.e. the ruling class) react
> one way when spending goes to bailing out businesses (or buying more guns),
> and in an entirely opposed way when it goes to improving the lives of the
> working class and the general population."
> 
> What Daniel is implying is that the financial markets are controlled by the
> political decisions of the capitalist class. Another version of this same
> view is the one that claims that US and European capitalists crashed the
> price of oil for political ends - possibly in order to destabilize a
> then-radical Chavez regime.
> 


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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Daniel Lindvall wrote: "The financial markets (i.e. the ruling class) react
one way when spending goes to bailing out businesses (or buying more guns),
and in an entirely opposed way when it goes to improving the lives of the
working class and the general population."

What Daniel is implying is that the financial markets are controlled by the
political decisions of the capitalist class. Another version of this same
view is the one that claims that US and European capitalists crashed the
price of oil for political ends - possibly in order to destabilize a
then-radical Chavez regime.

I disagree. Capitalism has its own laws of motion and not even the most
powerful capitalists can override those laws.

As far as budget deficits: yes, they do matter... in almost all countries.
The laws of the market dictate that if there is an increased supply of a
currency and it does not correspond to an increase in production on which
to spend that currency, then it will require more of that currency to
exchange for products. Internationally it means that capital will tend to
leave that currency. In other words, inflation.

The US is in an exceptional position because of the role of the dollar in
international trade and finance. The fact that to this day the US economy
is still the strongest and most stable has made the dollar universally more
desirable. By floating increased amounts of dollar-based debt, what the US
is doing is making international capitalists pay for their spendthrift ways
at home. That cannot continue forever, especially as US capitalism is being
challenged by Chinese capitalism.

Yes, debt does have to be repaid. Or, put another way, the US government
does have to pay back those loans/bonds and T notes, or at least there has
to be confidence that it will do so. At some point, as the world becomes
flooded with dollars, the only way that the US government can maintain that
confidence will be to increase the interest rate paid on those instruments.
Does anybody think that won't have an affect?

John Reimann

-- 
*“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black
Jacobins" by C. L. R. James
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[MM via Marxism]

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> On Feb 12, 2020, at 8:37 AM, MM  wrote:
> 
>> On Feb 12, 2020, at 8:27 AM, Daniel Lindvall > > wrote:
>> 
>> The question remains, how can Sanders stand up to the pressure of finance 
>> capital and what forces does he have behind him to make this stand possible?
> 
> Absolutely. It won’t happen without a fight, and the odds are vastly against 
> us.

I should add: The myth of the scarcity of liquidity — the central myth MMT is 
working to debunk, I would say — is a myth perpetuated by the ruling class 
(and, sadly, some Marxists, if unwittingly). The ruling class has understood it 
was false since at least the 1940s, when US war spending eliminated any 
remaining doubts; see Sam Levey’s piece, "Modern Money and the War Treasury” 
for details, including some amazing passages from Walter Lippmann. (Actually, 
ruling elites have understood much of what MMT has tried to clarify and 
systematize for millennia; see Michael Hudson’s book “… and forgive them their 
debts…” for a sweeping historical survey.) Countering and debunking the myth, 
and exposing the damage that has been done under its cover, is part of the 
process of building the movement that can force another path. It doesn’t 
eliminate the need for class struggle; it simply opens up possibilities for 
class struggle that the working class hasn’t generally grasped.
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[MM via Marxism]

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> On Feb 12, 2020, at 8:27 AM, Daniel Lindvall  
> wrote:
> 
> The question remains, how can Sanders stand up to the pressure of finance 
> capital and what forces does he have behind him to make this stand possible?

Absolutely. It won’t happen without a fight, and the odds are vastly against us.
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[Daniel Lindvall via Marxism]

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I would support every attempt at expanding the public sector (in useful ways, 
obviously not the military, for instance) and every attempt at taking over 
industries, failing or not! And I would have voted Sanders too, had I been 
American. But as long as you have a private finance sector it can wreak massive 
havoc on any such attempts. Mitterand backed down quickly 40 years ago and that 
was a time and a place where objectively this process should have been less 
difficult. The Scandinavian social democracies Sanders seems to admire have 
stood for nothing but neoliberal anti-reformism since the early 80s as well 
(Swedish social democracy has presided over the fastest growing gap between 
labour and capital of any OECD nation). The question remains, how can Sanders 
stand up to the pressure of finance capital and what forces does he have behind 
him to make this stand possible?

>> 
>> 
>> Agreed. But surely the real problem with spending is about ideology and 
>> class struggle. The financial markets (i.e. the ruling class) react one way 
>> when spending goes to bailing out businesses (or buying more guns), and in 
>> an entirely opposed way when it goes to improving the lives of the working 
>> class and the general population. 
> 
> Which is why you use that spending power to expand the public sector. You 
> could even use it to — gasp — take over failing industries, and wind them 
> down if they aren’t usefully productive, transitioning the workforce into 
> things we want done. But it’s easier to think of ways it can’t work than to 
> do it.

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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[MM via Marxism]

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> On Feb 12, 2020, at 3:00 AM, Daniel Lindvall  
> wrote:
> 
> Agreed. But surely the real problem with spending is about ideology and class 
> struggle. The financial markets (i.e. the ruling class) react one way when 
> spending goes to bailing out businesses (or buying more guns), and in an 
> entirely opposed way when it goes to improving the lives of the working class 
> and the general population. 

Which is why you use that spending power to expand the public sector. You could 
even use it to — gasp — take over failing industries, and wind them down if 
they aren’t usefully productive, transitioning the workforce into things we 
want done. But it’s easier to think of ways it can’t work than to do it.
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[Daniel Lindvall via Marxism]

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Agreed. But surely the real problem with spending is about ideology and class 
struggle. The financial markets (i.e. the ruling class) react one way when 
spending goes to bailing out businesses (or buying more guns), and in an 
entirely opposed way when it goes to improving the lives of the working class 
and the general population. 

Website: http://filmint.nu/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FilmInt
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/FilmInt



> 
> Holy shit — even American Prospect has figured out that the demand for 
> balanced budgets and “how-do-you-pay-for-its” is a red herring:
> 
> “Buttigieg settles on deficit hawkery as a closing argument in New Hampshire. 
> It’s hard to think of a school of political thought with less credibility and 
> less popularity.
> 
> …

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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[MM via Marxism]

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> On Feb 11, 2020, at 6:40 PM, John Reimann <1999wild...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> If MMT is the basis for Sanders' claim that his health care program (plus 
> paying for student debt and a host of other programs) can all be paid for, 
> then I don't find his claim credible. Since there evidently are no other more 
> concrete plans to pay for these programs, then I think a large dose of 
> skepticism is justified.

Holy shit — even American Prospect has figured out that the demand for balanced 
budgets and “how-do-you-pay-for-its” is a red herring:

“Buttigieg settles on deficit hawkery as a closing argument in New Hampshire. 
It’s hard to think of a school of political thought with less credibility and 
less popularity.

…

"PPI has lambasted Bernie Sanders for his Medicare for All proposal, claiming 
it leaves a $25 trillion shortfall, and praised Buttigieg for being the only 
candidate with more deficit-reducing offsets than new spending proposals. (For 
what it’s worth, Buttigieg’s health care vision would be more costly than 
Sanders’s in terms of overall national health expenditures, proving further 
that this is an ideological mission above all.) CRFB, meanwhile, has pivoted 
between praising Trump’s proposed cuts to Social Security and lamenting that 
they aren’t bigger.

"Both groups have advanced a deficit scaremongering approach that has 
consistently failed the burden of proof. We’re running a real-time experiment 
about the dangers of runaway deficits, but despite the best 
apocalypse-predicting efforts, interest rates haven’t soared and inflation 
hasn’t spiraled. CRFB and PPI are part of the crowd who have predicted dire 
outcomes from deficits for a decade, and they have spent a decade being 
incorrect. There was no natural rate of unemployment, no government “crowding 
out” private spending, and no inflationary spiral. They were completely, 
utterly mistaken. Somehow these are Buttigieg’s go-to fiscal policy shops.

“Perhaps the reason that deficit hawkery is unpopular is not because of a lack 
of political derring-do, as Buttigieg says, but because it’s flat-out wrong. 
And if it’s bad economics, it’s even worse political messaging, especially in 
the run-up to the general election against a Trump administration that has 
already spent twice as much public money on farm bailouts as Obama spent to 
save the auto industry. Obama’s too-soon pivot to deficit reduction stunted the 
recovery and may have contributed to Trump’s rise; that any Democrat would want 
to rerun that playbook beggars belief.”

https://prospect.org/politics/austerity-pete-buttigieg-deficit-economic-policy/
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[MM via Marxism]

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> On Feb 11, 2020, at 6:40 PM, John Reimann <1999wild...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Michael Roberts, author of the website thenextrecession.wordpress.com 
>  is probably one of the most serious 
> Marxist economists around. Here is his critique of Modern Monetary Theory 
> (MMT). 
> https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2019/01/28/modern-monetary-theory-part-1-chartalism-and-marx/
>  
> 
> If MMT is the basis for Sanders' claim that his health care program (plus 
> paying for student debt and a host of other programs) can all be paid for, 
> then I don't find his claim credible. Since there evidently are no other more 
> concrete plans to pay for these programs, then I think a large dose of 
> skepticism is justified.

Michael has done lots of great work; that hardly means he’s always right, and 
his engagement with MMT has been appalling — shallow and in bad faith. I’ve 
personally seen him admit that his characterization of MMT was not based on 
anything anyone writing in its name has said or written, but is just “his 
opinion” of what they really mean. His critique makes clear that he hasn’t 
really read any of the materials seriously — merely with an eye towards 
distilling out a strawman that he can debunk. I've lost a fair amount of 
respect for him over the past year or so from watching his sophistical, evasive 
treatment of this emerging body of ideas.

But I know there can be great comfort in believing there’s no need to grapple 
with new ideas and new insights.

For those who might be interested in seeing how a young Latino radical sees 
these ideas being put to work, check out Raul Carrillo’s excellent contribution 
to this 2018 Left Forum panel, starting just after the 1-hour mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwNTrN-Lhss

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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[MM via Marxism]

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> On Feb 11, 2020, at 2:18 PM, John Reimann <1999wild...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I watched the first half of this and then didn't want to waste any more time. 
> What this is is a defense of Keynesianism. That's fine for those who didn't 
> experience or have forgotten the late 1970s, when runaway inflation 
> threatened. What I want is a clear, concise, concrete plan for how much 
> Sanders' call would cost and how it would be paid for... other than by simply 
> swelling the federal deficit.


No, it isn’t a defense of Keynesianism. Here’s a response on concerns over 
inflation (and there is an extensive body of writing on this):

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/01/1551434402000/An-MMT-response-on-what-causes-inflation/
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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I watched the first half of this and then didn't want to waste any more
time. What this is is a defense of Keynesianism. That's fine for those who
didn't experience or have forgotten the late 1970s, when runaway inflation
threatened. What I want is a clear, concise, concrete plan for how much
Sanders' call would cost and how it would be paid for... other than by
simply swelling the federal deficit.

John Reimann

On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 11:11 AM MM  wrote:

> On Feb 11, 2020, at 12:59 PM, John Reimann via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
> Also, has Sanders ever come up with a concrete plan for how to pay for
> Medicare for All, other than just to say that if other countries can afford
> something similar, so can the US?
>
>
> Here’s Sanders’ main economics advisor explaining it:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS9nP-BKa3M
>
>

-- 
*“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black
Jacobins" by C. L. R. James
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[MM via Marxism]

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> On Feb 11, 2020, at 12:59 PM, John Reimann via Marxism 
>  wrote:
> 
> Also, has Sanders ever come up with a concrete plan for how to pay for
> Medicare for All, other than just to say that if other countries can afford
> something similar, so can the US?

Here’s Sanders’ main economics advisor explaining it: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS9nP-BKa3M

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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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These results are confusing... or are intentionally misread by some in the
Sanders camp. They can only be understood correctly by understanding that
the right wing of the party has four candidates and the "left" has two. On
the "left" are Sanders and Warren, although it's charitable to call Warren
on the left since she's beating a steady path to the center. On the right
are Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Bloomberg. When taken together, the
"left" wing has 39% and the right wing has 46%. If there were one single
candidate from each side (with Sanders representing the "left"), the right
wing would be in the clear lead.

It was also interesting to see the other results from this poll. They give
all candidates a clear lead over Trump, but they also give Trump a
favorability rating of 43% approval vs. 53% disapproval. A Gallup poll of
the last few days gave Trump a 49% approval rating vs. 50% disapproval. It
is not that unusual for the different polling companies to come up with
different results. Rasmussen, for example, consistently has results more
favorable to Trump than any of the other companies. We will have to see
what other polls say.

Finally, I am not at all certain whether in an actual election Sanders
would beat Trump that easily if at all. His Democratic rivals don't want to
really attack him because they will need his activist base if they are to
defeat Trump, and I get the feeling that the Trump campaign is largely
waiting in the tall grass to really go after him when (if) he wins the
nomination. Polls show there is about a 20% support for eliminating all
private health insurance companies and maybe about 30% in favor of giving
Medicare to undocumented immigrants. Does anybody think Trump won't ride
those horses to death in a general election should Trump become the
Democratic nominee?

Also, has Sanders ever come up with a concrete plan for how to pay for
Medicare for All, other than just to say that if other countries can afford
something similar, so can the US?

In addition, many analysts make a point that sounds pretty valid to me: As
this Quinnipiac poll shows (and as do all others), most voters say they are
economically better off today then they were a year ago. Yet it is exactly
the economic issue that is Sanders' main point. Sure, this plays well to
his youth base, whose economic future is still pretty bleak. But how about
the rest of the voters? How much will it appeal to them? Or put another
way: Can Sanders expand his active base much beyond its present one?

John Reimann

-- 
*“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black
Jacobins" by C. L. R. James
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem | Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[DW via Marxism]

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My comments were not about the "meaning" of Sanders campaign. It was about
his placement in the national poll conducted by Quinnipiac. it is
meaningless. There are dozens of polls conducted since the Fall of last
year that show Sander's beating Trump in a straight up head to head
election. Why not comment on this. This hasn't changed an iota. Secondly,
this is a about the other party of Wall St. Personally, the fact that
Sanders says he is a socialist (again, by the result of a misunderstanding)
is...nice but it is not what I've been waiting for all my life, John. I
look forward to the working class actually moving in the direction of
independent working class *power* and not some sort of electoralist reform
inside the capitalist party. Back at you with your sectarian mud slinging,
John.

David W.
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem | Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 2/10/20 9:35 PM, John Obrien via Marxism wrote:

When there is someone on the ballot who does represent (even if weakly) a
socialist (social democrat) platform - then what is there really to lose in
supporting?


I guess we're still communists at heart.
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Re: [Marxism] 2020 - Sanders Takes Top Spot In Dem | Quinnipiac University Connecticut

[DW via Marxism]

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I've already noticed Sander's supporters going crazy on this. It's one poll
folks. What is the big deal? It is so early in this party primary campaign
season that nothing significant can really be derived from any of these
polls so early on. The Quinnipiac poll has Sanders leading nationally. But
no poll shows him with more than 27%. That means among Democratic Party
votes, 73% vote, literally, for someone else. The polls in the last 30 days
show Biden still winning the nomination. The NBC poll last week by "5pts".
The Morning Consult poll from the week before has Biden winning by "4pts."
It really is a muchado about nothing.

DW
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