Goddammit Biden no one on either side of the aisle cares about David Brooks except like 20 old white guys in DC.

Predictit betting market is interesting in such a wide-open race

Current prices for the Top 5:

Biden 27c (overvalued due to strong early polling but I expect him to drop as other candidates gain more name recognition and he makes more Uncle Joe gaffes).
Warren 20c (has moved up quickly in the past few weeks, I expect her to surpass Biden soon after the debates and become the frontrunner).
Bernie 16c (has been steadily dropping since Biden entered the race. I don't see him gaining a lot of traction this time around).
Yang 12c (I love Yang's ideas but lol at having him in 4th place. Probably just his online supporters betting with their hearts and not their heads).
Kamala 11c (seems fairly valued atm. Her campaign could go either way and I suspect she will do well in the debates.)

Interesting how they compare to Betfair's odds. Converting them into percentages gives (decimal odds in brackets):

Biden 29.8% (3.35)
Warren 15.1% (6.6)
Buttigieg 13.5% (7.4) - I assume you just overlooked his price on Predictit?
Bernie 12.8% (7.8)
Harris 11.9% (8.4)
Yang 5% (20)

Oh yeah how the heck did I leave out Mayor Pete? He's at 15c which I think honestly is a little low based on his potential to actually win, which I'd rank at least a few percentage points ahead of Bernie.

So who was the Senator that Biden was talking about working with?

Short Bernie, Yang and Warren. Those are all zeros.

Hard to take you seriously when you just called the #2 person in the polls a zero. Warren is probably a favorite in the field right now even vs Biden. The primary is long and he's a mess a minute. The Democratic primary is nothing like the GOP one. These gaffes actually matter, and Warren and Yang are nowhere near too liberal to win the nom. Bernie I concur about because he's a terrible old man version of Warren/Yang.

It wasn't a super serious post. But the more serious version is, Warren, Yang and Bernie are all drawing from the same voters. Warren has the best chance of the three, but Bernie and Yang are much less likely to drop out since they are running publicity campaigns and don't care too much about actually winning. Warren would increase her chances a lot if Bernie drops out. Maybe he is thinking differently this year than before and will actually drop out when it looks hopeless to win. He's older now.

I guess win Biden does gaffe, I don't see all of his supporters switching to Warren. I think they line up behind one of the other more mainstream candidates, possibly Kamala.

My feeling is that Warren/Pete are the 2 overall "best" candidates, meaning they seem to be the best at politics and campaigning. Warren appeals to progressives and Pete to moderates. I suspect it will come down to those 2.

I support Yang but his odds are exceedingly slim. His only real hope is that he catches fire after the debate, but for whatever reason I don't think he can escape the perception of being a novelty/fringe candidate.

Whoever it is, I hope they give a good concession speech.

Yang no at 88 is a really really good price

86 now. LOL. Dude has never polled above 2%.

It is so early but I am kinda kicking myself for not betting on Warren when she was thought to have no chance. She's basically just a smarter, more nuanced version of Bernie and really his rabid following was based on the fact that he was the first person talking about his proposals rather than anything to specifically do with him.

Seems like she is just going to steal his shine and do it better.

Kamala at 9-1 is good value though I think. Once Biden falters then it feels like the establishment/donors will possibly coalesce around her and that is really never a bad place to be even if it seems to be meaning less and less.

Also, I took Biden's donor suckup comments to mean that he'll raise taxes slightly but obviously the overall gravy train isn't going anywhere so just take the marginal hit.

Or you can not back me and Bernie/Warren wins and see how that works out for you.

Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to cancel all $1.6 trillion of student loan debt
I wonder if those who paid off their student loans will get a rebate.

Or people who consolidated their govt student loans into a private loan.

First debates this week on Wednesday and Thursday.

Do we need a debate thread specifically or just use this thread? I plan to live blog it a little bit, assuming I don't immediately get bored :P

I probably said in a thread on the other forum that my vote was for sale if the dems wanted to wipe my student debt, so I can't back out now.

#BernieBro2020

**** the consequences. Let's see where this thing goes.

Politico has a candidate portal which tries to summarize all the candidates' positions on a variety of issues. Seems like it might be useful.

I don't get the obsession with forgiving student loan debt as a policy. It's not that I disagree with tuition-free college in principle, and I definitely favor a plan like Bernie's to tax Wall Street speculation. But the majority of Americans don't have college degrees, never mind student loans. And those that do have higher incomes on average.

This seems regressive at first glance, in that the biggest benefit goes to those who went to the most expensive private/elite colleges. Those trillions from the Wall Street transaction taxes could fund a lot of programs to help the most needy, rebuild infrastructure, etc.

Not to sit here and defend such a ridiculous plan, but it wouldn't cover the huge private loans taken out be people at the top of the cost curve like you're imagining. It would probably only be federal loans.

It doesn't actually matter since the way he plans on paying for it would be an absolute disaster for the economy. Most of the money would come from the middle, not the top.

I normally have very little interest in presidential debates, but I'm tuning in to the upcoming Dem one just to see them all try and out-lefty one another. I think it'll be fun to watch, even if it makes my brain explode.

Yeah. A company called Navient bought out my student loan debt a long time ago. I am gonna go out on a limb and assume this $$ would not be counted in any forgiveness plan.

My wife actually had A LOT of debt and took out a lot of federal and private loans. We were very aggressive in paying off the private loans but have been paying the minimum on the federal ones (with a very low interest rate) with the hope they will be forgiven at some point.

From the article linked above

I know almost nothing about trading stocks, but 0.5% tax on every stock trade seems detrimental to wall street and insane.

1.6 trillion in debt for 25-40 year olds(or whatever it is, I imagine this is the age for the bulk of people with student debt) being wiped out overnight, as well as $100s of millions in monthly payments, would be pretty interesting to watch play out.

Navient is a servicer of student loans. I don’t think they actually own the loans.