I think it's less cynical than this as it is for 99.999% of Republican politicians who spout this nonsense. More capitalism as a religion than a get rich, stay rich strategy.

Again, I don't like Rand, but he's the prettiest girl at fat camp for sure.

Ron Paul has an estimated net worth of $5 million, which is lower than I would expect for someone with 22 years in congress, multiple published books, and being well known. I would argue that the relevance of their family has much more to do with their consistent hard-line libertarian ideology, which has a niche but not much representation.

I guess not enough people are buying the Survival Blueprint after listening to his IMPORTANT WARNING about the coming currency crisis.

If you're not a libertarian at 15 you have no aspergers

Bernie's plans would raise taxes and the size of government to record high levels. His trade plans would also destroy the economy. His plan is basically Hoover plus socialism. It's a bad ****ing idea.

Every candidate is going to result in high taxes and huge government. Only one of them also give hope of that also resulting in a better quality of life for hundreds of millions of people.

What Bernie is proposing is far and beyond what any other candidate is doing. Equating the size of his government with Hillary is ludicrous, much less the more conservative candidates.

He's also far and beyond in the "hope of improving quality of life of hundreds of millions of people" department. Seems like a decent tradeoff to me.

Hope don't mean dick when you systematically destroy the economy. Economic growth, free trade and capitalism are responsible for us living in the wealthiest and most prosperous time in human history. Bernie sanders is against that.

So you're a right-libertarian? Because the GOP expands government with less ways to pay for it. It always happens. Wars, corporate welfare, authoritarian approaches to criminal justice, depleting services to dig bigger holes for their successors.

Also, on whom is he raising taxes? Are you against a progressive tax system or totally anti-tax?

Who is "us"?

The RHETORIC, though.

literally everyone in the entire world

The GOP is not planning to expand the government to anywhere close to Bernie. HRC is not planning to expand the government to anywhere close to Bernie.

No one knows who Bernie is raising taxes on. He hasn't given us a plan for how he's going to pay all the **** he's promised.

I agree with the people who said that education is the place to start in order to elevate the standard of living for people. With education people develop the skills that will allow them to raise their own status without government intervention. I also think that direct cash payments (or "tax rebates") of some flat amount would be better than the current governmental programs. This provides flexibility in spending and less waste.

That makes "this is the most prosperous time ever" not much of an accomplishment then.

I asked earlier and you didn't answer. What exactly has he promised? Is there a list of promises you can post or point me to?

How are you defining the levels of prosperity for this group of people as a whole?

Prosperity is both absolute and relative

Below is one way

just some, from his own page:

• Putting at least 13 million Americans to work by investing $1 trillion over five years towards rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, railways, airports, public transit systems, ports, dams, wastewater plants, and other infrastructure needs.
• Making tuition free at public colleges and universities throughout America. Everyone in this country who studies hard should be able to go to college regardless of income.
• Requiring employers to provide at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave; two weeks of paid vacation; and 7 days of paid sick days. Real family values are about making sure that parents have the time they need to bond with their babies and take care of their children and relatives when they get ill.

Those seem more like goals than promises

Bernie's supporters seem awfully white. Looks like prime territory for a Salon "The Unconventional Racism of Bernie Sanders" chin-stroker.

I personally believe that the way we get from point A to point B is going to radically shift with the rise of the sharing economy and self-driving car in the next 10 years. Based on this assumption, I think it is a terrible idea to do anything but repair roads and bridges as we will likely not need an expanded roadway system due to efficiencies in the transportation logistics.

What does income have to do with college? You don't need to have income to go to college. There are plenty of grants and loans available to you and if you are spending 4 years in college you should be able to find a career tract that allows you to repay your loans.

I didn't have help from my family in paying for college so I took out loans for the portion that grants didn't cover. I graduated with a lot of debt and by the numbers I have found online was in the 1st percentile for net worth at my age and <5th percentile for all Americans when I was 23 years old. Only 5 years later (with years and tens of thousands of dollars left on my student loans) I am already above the median net worth for all Americans and >90th percentile from my age. With education and no money you can build wealth quite quickly even if you have to pay for your education.

I do like his leave policy and think it would be great to implement something like that legally. I think leave should be mandatory for certain health events though and vacation should as well so that employees don't have to make choices based on possible implications it will have on pay and promotions down the road.

This take has been cooling off for about 3 months now.

% of budget spent on needs is pretty good

But we still need to define how we're calculating "people". For example, how much has that improved for the bottom 1% of families, bottom 10%, bottom 25%, etc etc.

There's no doubt that the overall mean level of prosperity is at an alltime, as it should be and will always be at any given time in history.

That shouldn't be the goal though. We could get there with moron Ben Carson as president, or anyone else for that matter. Humans will always progress no matter what. That's always going to be the case.

The goal should be to proportionately raise the quality of life per person in accordance with that overall rise in prosperity, and we are failing to do that that to a ridiculous degree.

Dont get me wrong, I don't think Bernie's ideas are "fair" whatsoever. But fairs got nothing to do with it. Common sense dictates that there is no reason to let such a tiny fraction of the population have so much of its wealth when there is overwhelming evidence that that wealth doesn't trickle down enough to contribute to a greater good .