28-Year Old Democratic Socialist Beats The Dem Establishment & Explains How Medicare For All Is Feasible

Dems' latest Wunderkind, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,  who won big in New York's 14th Congressional District.

As a Democratic Socialist - member of the Democratic Socialists of America  myself- I was elated on learning Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  - who knocked off a 10 term establishment Dem- is also a member.  Incredibly, Ocasio-Cortez was working behind a bar 9 months ago and had helped start Flats Fix, a tacos and craft cocktail spot in Manhattan, before launching her political career.  We're now aware that  the  outcome has been to send Rep. Joseph Crowley down to defeat and an early, unexpected retirement.  Heck, maybe he can get a new gig as a D.C. lobbyist.

That was despite the Dem establishment's candidate having an 18 to 1 advantage in campaign spending.   An 18 to 1 advantage and Crowley lost by 57% - 43%,  which is not exactly close.

In May, encouraged by the activists she’d been working with,  including a group from the Democratic Socialists of America, the 28-year-old Ocasio-Cortez filed to challenge Crowley to represent New York's 14th Congressional District.

Most of her limited $300,000 in campaigns funds were spent on bilingual posters, which she said were designed to look “revolutionary," and her viral campaign video, created by a socialist team called Means of Production.   I suspect it was the video which had most impact.

Wifey had informed me of Ocasio-Cortez's upset win the night before, but my initial reaction (before I even learned she was a DSA member)  was more or less ho-hum: Another newbe woman, ousting an old line Dem (likely in hock to lobbyists) and maybe just a flash in the pan. So what's new?

Yesterday morning all that changed when I watched her interview on 'Morning Joe' and beheld a lively,  intelligent and articulate woman who was super confident and could summarize her basic message in 30 seconds. (As co-host Mika Brzezinski put it: "Take note, Dems! You need to reduce your two to three minute messages!")

What most impressed me was how she answered Willie Geist's question of how she would pay for a  “Medicare for All” program, not to mention massive forgiveness of student loan debt.   Geist said those sounded like "endless wrapped Christmas  gifts". She didn't miss a beat and said we needed to re-examine those tax cuts which had created a $1.4 trillion deficit and went mainly to corporations and the wealthiest.  She emphasized that $400 billion of those giveaway cuts could have forgiven all the existing, outstanding student loans in default.

She said all that was needed is the political courage to act.  Of course, that is where the proverbial  bear sits with his buckwheat. 

For some time now I have been hammering on the tax issue and explaining how all the programs regarded as "pie in the sky" by the Right and Dem Neoliberals  -  from Medicare for all, to free college,  to expanding Social Security-   can be achieved by re-ordering priorities.  To attend to all of these, Ocasio-Cortez' solution of redirecting tax cut money is basically correct, as I had earlier brought up the German model, i.e. where budget surpluses are plowed back into the commons and used for social insurance enhancement.   See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/02/do-americans-really-want-big-government.html

The question posed in the post header was 'Do Americans Really Want Big Government?'  And the answer embodied in Ocasio-Cortez' model is that they do.   In the link above I cited Germany as an example nation, where our long time friends Reinhardt and Elli live, adding:

 "Germany has among the highest taxes in the world and a habit of heavy state spending."

But can most Americans live with that?  Because for sure what Alexandria is proposing are not freebies, nor can they be paid for merely by redirecting tax cuts. No, because the tax cuts themselves need to be halted entirely so as not to create added deficits - which the scoundrels of the Right will use to cut existing programs.

Thus, it is critical to not only deep six tax cuts, but to increase tax revenues. As Megan McCardle recently put it in a Denver Post op-ed ('What's Really Obstructing Left Wing Dreams'):

"The American Left has developed a fantasy that a large expansion of the welfare state can be financed by taxing only the rich....In fact European welfare states pay for themselves by taxing ordinary people very heavily."

How heavily? UP to 40- 45% in Germany even higher in Denmark, Sweden. McCardle references the top tax bracket would kick in at $45,000/ year if we adopted Scandinavian standards.  But then those nations enjoy vastly superior civilized care levels, as opposed to survival of the fittest mandates. See e.g.

• Oprah got perfect response from Danish woman on their social welfare state 

For sure, current American marginal tax rates - certainly for the three middle income quintiles- would need to go up dramatically. (It is likely the best policy to leave the lowest quintile alone and eligible each year for the earned income tax credit). The least tax rate for the next quintile would be 25 percent, and graduating from there to 45 or 50 percent. Say, for $75,000 - 100,000 earners.  (High earners would take 50- 75% tax hits, in proportion to their total incomes, including investments)

Where McCardle is correct is that it's preposterous that we can fund every proposal by "grabbing the same few pieces of high income tax capacity".  No, most sensible people - even Democratic Socialists - realize that's not possible. Which was why many of us strenuously objected extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle class. E.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/08/democrats-must-stop-playing-politics.html

Over many separate posts I had noted that respected sources including The Financial Times had repeatedly pointed out that merely taxing the rich could not support social programs.   And that's absolutely correct. Even the Repukes know higher taxes are the life's blood for preserving Social Security and Medicare, which is why they are always ready to cut them after passing giant tax cut packages.  This isn't rocket science.

Where McCardle is wrong is in asserting we are daft to want to eliminate the cap (FICA) on Social Security taxes.  No, my argument - and I would hope Ocasio-Cortez'-  is that we need that elimination because the existing system benefits mainly the wealthy who don't need Social Security income.  Besides, if taxes are raised to German or Scandinavian levels, Americans need to be able to depend on expanded Social Security benefits - which eliminating the FICA cap would provide. 

But again, are Americans willing to go this route. According to WSJ columnist William Galston ( 'Americans Want Big Government') they are.  Galston cited a poll that showed  58 percent of Americans (the "highest share ever recorded")  agreed that:

"the government should do more to solve problems and help meet the needs of people"

In addition, Galston cited a Pew research poll from last April which showed that for the first time in eight years:

"Americans favored a larger government offering more services over a smaller government providing fewer services."  

This is all very commendable but many of us who are Democratic Socialists also want to see  how our fellow citizens react when faced with actual tax increases on a German or Scandinavian scale.

I believe both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I can agree that the jury is still out. I, for one, am not yet convinced most Americans can break free of their addiction to tax cuts.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/natasha-hakimi-zapata/79882/how-a-socialist-latina-millennial-beat-a-wall-street-favorite

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/79881/how-to-cover-a-revolution

Why We Can't Afford "Medicare for All" - Megan McCardle Thinks She Has The Answers

One of the hyper-expensive medical "toys" driving up health care costs - the 3T MRI machine. The costs of such machines, including proton beam therapy and cancer drugs are making access to medical care more and more prohibitive.

In his extensive Barbados Advocate column (April 30, p. 14, 'Addressing the loss of health care professionals') David Jessop shed light on exactly why medical costs are soaring in all the nations of the world. As he wrote:

"Around the world, public health care systems are in crisis. From India to Australia, nations in the developing and developed world are struggling to meet the expectations of their local populations."

What reasons does he give for this crisis? He lists the following as primary culprits:

- A surge in the nature and volume of demand as populations age and birth rates continue to increase

-  The preceding occurring at the same time a desire for low taxes has made it difficult for governments to garner the necessary resources to respond to societal expectations

- Sustained loss of medical professionals causing shortages in many 3rd world nations, because they are picked off by nations such as the U.S.  - which itself is finding it can't cope with the expansion of medical services (e.g. via Medicaid in the ACA) combined with an M.D. shortage.

This combination in addition to overuse of medical resources by certain groups, has led to the condition in which much of the world is in a health care crisis.

The bottom line is this: It is futile to talk about "managing" health care costs when so little money is made available by many nations to support their current medical needs. In effect, medical care today  - from treating cancers to severe disability and chronic disease (e.g. kidney and liver disease) is bloody costly and intensive of medical resources by nature.

This leads to a Hobson's choice for many governments: either raise taxes to support their local populations' access to medical care to the level needed, or cut access as the Republicans are now doing with their "American Health Care Act" that will effectively remove access for 20 million or more via Medicaid.

Aging populations in whatever country definitely carry major impacts on its health costs. According to a paper ( Death and Taxes: Why Longer Lives Cost  Money)  produced by the UK Institute of Economic Affairs:

"Long-term healthcare and nursing home costs are strongly associated with age and cannot be driven down by healthier lifestyles.."

To be specific, the incidence of both certain cancers (e.g. prostate) and Alzheimer's disease are  directly related to age, not necessarily "unhealthy" lifestyles. The risk of Alzheimer's alone doubles every year after the age of 65, no matter who you are, what your gender or income or life style choices. Ditto with prostate cancer which is becoming more and more expensive to treat as new, more refined treatment techniques come onstream, - such as focal therapies (e.g. focal cryotherapy) and proton beam therapy,

In the case of prostate cancer, which I've been battling for five years now, I've seen at every stage the cycle of treatments and tests and how they multiply costs. Even if you'd prefer to not add to the medical loss ratio (the ratio of unhealthy subscribers to the healthy ones that support them.) it's virtually impossible once you get that PSA test result - if much higher than normal - to avoid the first prostate biopsy.  That biopsy, if it shows one or more cores at the Gleason 7 score level or higher, sends you down the path of more tests, therapies, treatments. Unless you don't give a shit, in which case your primary doc may "fire" you for being a "non-compliant patient". She wants you to continue your life under her care (including specialist referrals)  without facing the worst consequences of a cancer that can kill (29,000 deaths in the U.S. each year).

In my case, the first biopsy proved positive with three cores then affected and I had to make the decision to get either the robotic (Da Vinci) surgery or radiation. I chose the latter, for which I received high dose brachytherapy treatment at UCSF and paid my bit at about $1,200 - because by then I had Medicare.  The total price for all aspects of the treatment, including  CT scan, spinal epidural, Ir 192 needles insertion,  and follow-up came to just over $55,000.

I thought that was the end of it but the cancer remained and PSA tests showed the need for more biopsies as well as MRI scans, and even a 3D staging biopsy which finally showed the cancer at least concentrated at one location in the interior, e.g.

Total costs by now totaled over $85,000 including all the various tests such as CT scans, MRI scans, MRI fusion biopsy, Prolaris genetic test, and so on. 

SO given this it is easy for Bloomberg writer Megan McCardle to blab in her recent column about "adverse selection" say if Medicare was ever to expand into "Medicare for all".  McCardle's point is that such a program would ensure ever higher premiums year by year since the sickest people - or those who need expensive treatments and tests -  are the most likely to make use of it. Hence one gets what the insurance bunch calls "adverse selection"  Technically, the term is defined by insurance wonks as:

Adverse selection is a concept in economics, insurance, and risk management, which describes a situation where market participation is affected by asymmetric information. When buyers and sellers have different information, it is known as a state of asymmetric information

But I argue, as does David Jessop, that this kind of economic concept has no place in health care delivery because people are not cars, homes, or fancy jewels. Look, if populations are continually growing that logically  means sick conditions and diseases must grow with them-  whether cancers, Alzheimer's, kidney disease or whatever. Even the healthiest person following a rigorous diet  can get cancer or be injured in an auto accident. Hence, the notion of "asymmetric insurance" for a risk pool managed by a health insurer is ludicrous. There can be no such thing because one will know from the get go that every manner of sickness and disability can only expand, especially for older age groups.

The subtext for McCardle's arguments is the medical loss ratio suffered by putative health insurers, including exchanges -is too great. Hence, so many now abandoning the ACA as too "expensive" to support- so why even consider 'Medicare for all'?  In this regard, if the number  of sick patients in any risk pool is 'significant' - say more than about 1 in every 20-  the private insurers' profits take a nosedive. The medical loss ratio has increased beyond acceptable levels, so the shareholders will not like it.  This is precisely why health insurers - with the exception of Medicare - have become ,more leery of accepting too many oldsters or chronically sick patients. It means major loss of profits. Thus, the imperative becomes one to deny needed care rather than to provide it, especially for pre-existing conditions.

Some on the Right are so desperate to justify cuts to Medicare - as well as Medicaid -  that they argue (as one letter writer did in a recent WSJ contribution) that  pre-existing conditions must be factored in for insurance rates because if they are not known then it is a case of "asymmetric information", i.e. the patient knows he already has some type of cancer but not the insurance company or health exchange with which s/he seeks coverage. Hence, the demand to report all pre-existing conditions before being insured, the better to fix deductible and premiums ab initio - if at all.

To which I and Jessop respond: As a health insurer you're supposed to be in the business of helping people get appropriate treatments for their illnesses, not deny them.  Are you going to deny them the care and make them severely ill, or  go bankrupt, to appease insurance wonks? Or Republican tax cut fetishists?

But McCardle has even bigger budget "fish" to fry than adverse selection might interject. She writes:

"A far bigger problem is what this might do to hospital budgets. Why? Because Medicare doesn't  necessarily pay enough to keep those hospitals running."

She is correct that Medicare controls some of its costs by shifting them to private insurers (she calls it "off loading") which is why Medicare supplemental (e.g. Plan F) insurance exists to make up the difference, As she points out:

"The hospital's fixed costs are mostly getting covered by higher reimbursements from private payers."

Allowing this isn't "necessarily cheating". Well, that's very generous of her!  But her underlying theme is that in a Medicare for all scenario all who buy in would also have to get private insurance from someplace because the single payer (government) simply wouldn't be able to handle all the costs.

There are two aspects she overlooks that could lower costs for all, and make a Medicare for all system more palatable.

First, a large part of increased Medicare costs is due to a program called "Medicare Advantage" (MA) which was created by BushCO and the Republicans with their Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. It basically confected a privatized form of Medicare ("Part C"), with the express purpose of bleeding regular (traditional) Medicare into insolvency by blowing up to $20-25 billion or more a year (based on gamed "risk scores")  and funneling much of it from the older program. Unless this (MA) program is killed (the sooner the better),  no other cuts will matter - because MA will metastasize to the point every $ is swallowed up.. For those who wish to read the details on why MA is hurling Medicare into insolvency check out the content in these links:

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/06/04/14840/why-medicare-advantage-costs-taxpayers-billions-more-it-should

 And:  https://www.medicareresources.org/blog/2015/11/04/is-medicare-on-the-brink-of-insolvency/

Second,  Medicare monies are being bled down by drug costs to the tune of $250 b over ten years, because it isn't allowed to bargain for the best prices like the VA.

Even so, fixing the above distortions Medicare will simply be brought more into a financial equilibrium i.e. to avoid insolvency. It would not really enable a dramatic expansion to "Medicare for all".  For that to occur, wait for it, taxes would have to be increased and significantly as in western European nations such as Germany, France.

As Jessop concedes the choice is one between more taxes or less health care.  So if citizens think higher  taxes (by 25 % even for "middle classes")  are the worst thing in their lives, what could happen? Well,  what if they are laid up in a hospital bed with severe disability, pneumonia  or leukemia? Is going bankrupt more to their liking?  Again, for most Americans - who are tax hating Pollyannas-  they are convinced they're never going to get to that extreme fate so they make the bet those dire medical disasters won't happen to them.  But it's a terrible bet because they can happen to any of us! (As I found out when I learned I had prostate cancer that had to be treated.)

Make no mistake that 'Medicare for all'  would be the for profit medical  industry's biggest nightmare because they'd no longer be able to reap profits by invoking medical loss ratios - preventing sick people from getting care instead of delivering it. Hence, they and their  political lackeys and extremists will be prepared to fight like junkyard dogs to prevent it, including the perverse use of propaganda.

McCardle's final cautionary argument against a single payer system is that it would lead to drastic cost cutting, i.e."hospitals would probably have to resort to draconian measures  which might result in patient lives lost".   Perhaps. But the way to avoid such drastic cost cutting is to ensure enough taxes are available to pay for the care needed by the sick segment of a populace. After all, if everyone was a picture of health and had the genes never to fall ill, health insurance would barely be needed - unless a person crossed a road recklessly.

McCardle writes at the end of her piece:

"I'd want to be  a lot surer before I started running a mass experiment for our nation's physical and fiscal health"

But then she can afford to exercise patience, being a highly paid Bloomberg scribe. Many citizens, especially in Trump country - and now facing (in 18 OH counties, after the retreat of Anthem) no more naxalone for opioid overdoses cannot.  It's a matter of priority for getting scarce medical resources and paying for them!

In this regard, the citizen needs to inform himself as much as possible about what the real arguments are for and against 'Medicare for all'. And also ask himself if he is willing to pay significantly more in taxes to be assured of better access to health care.

Perhaps the issue is best summarized by WSJ letter writer Clay Creasey (June 6, p. A16):

"It is time for intelligent conservatives to realize that the vested interests of our current health care system (insurers, drug companies and lawyers) are selling us down the river. They claim single payer is socialism. In fact, it could be the single biggest contributor to economic growth  "

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/73390/we-are-not-broke-trashing-the-austerity-lies

Yes! The Neolibs, Banksters & Wall Street Are Becoming Terrified Of Bernie's Momentum

Bernie Sanders has now become the next thing to Count Dracula to the scheisters of Wall Street and the Neloibs.

NO, it wasn't surprising to read in the WSJ yesterday that the Democrats on the Hill, feckless wusses that they are, refuse to support any of Bernie Sanders' proposals in their 2016 platform. These were Nancy Pelosi's own words, quoted: "We have no plans to include any tax increases in our platform!"  Oh yeah, Nancy?  Then what will you and the other Neolib Dems do when Bernie starts a campaign roll with twin wins in Iowa and New Hampshire then moves on to take SC, Nevada and other key states. Still gonna piss and moan about socialism?

But it isn't just the traitorous Dems, who now only give token support to the Middle Class, having abandoned the working class.  As long ago as ten years, Michael Tomasky observed ('Dems Fightin' Words' in The American Prospect) that the pussified, wussified Dems had lost the will to fight for the working class and even most of the middle class. He observed, accurately I believe - from what I have witnessed - that the Dems eschewed political point-making and "hard nosed", no-holds barred political partisanship sometime in the early 70s. They replaced it with discussing fact-based policy points, which appeal to "reason" and "temperance" but do little or nothing for core partisans. The very people Dems need to get out to the polls each mid-term election.

As he wrote:


Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apart from judicial battles, the Democrats don't have much fight in them. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So it isn't really surprising now these Milquetoasts would all be lining up behind Hillary especially as they're all terrified of the Republicans' scare mongering about Sanders' socialism being a millstone round their miserable necks in the election. They should be so lucky!

But what is more obvious is how the Neoliberal and corporate press has come out against Bernie. Including the Washington Post, one of the most Neoliberal whore rags of all - ever since Phil Graham took it over back in the 80s. Recall Graham made profit more important than genuine investigative journalism,  such as evidenced in the Watergate era (with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's work). So no wonder the WaPo has come out whining about Bernie "creating his own brand of fiction". No one should be surprised at the propagnda cant of these PR bootlickers for the Neoliberal State.

Then there are the WSJ nabobs like Burton Malkiel ('The Bernie Sanders' Attack on Stock Trades', Jan. 22), who have tried to tear down Bernie's plan to pay for free public college by imposing a 50 cents transaction tax on stock trades. Malkiel basically claims Sanders' plan would distort the capital markets making it more difficult for capital to flow and essentially creating a "hidden tax" to further undermine the economy. But as one WSJ letter writer already pointed out (today, p.A10), if  Malkiel was truly worried about reducing comparative advantage and creating societal distortions he need "look no further than the effect on markets of high speed trading".

As author Michael Lewis (of 'Big Short' and 'Flash Boys' fame) already pointed out,  these high frequency trades basically render the stock market a rigged game. The FT guys can literally make millions of  bucks in redemptions before Joe Schmoe can even get his hands on his cell phone to his mutual fund co. Look, these fuckers (and their apologists)  full well realize how many billions would be reaped via this tax each day given most of these SOBs now use flash trading to turn ten thousand trades in a few minutes with special algorithms and computers, see e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/03/losing-in-stock-market-blame-flash.html

As the WSJ letter writer critic observed:

"If the exchanges and regulators clamped down on the 'flash boys' corrupting markets, the only domestic employment it affects would be their own. Mr. Sanders's income transfer is the right tax to levy.It would never affect the markets all the way out to our economic expansion and employment at Malkiel claims."

Apologists like Malkiel yap as if Sanders' proposal is revolutionary but it was offered as long ago as 1992 by William Greider in his book, 'Who Will Tell The People - The Betrayal of American Democracy'  and then some years later in Greider's book : One World Ready or Not - The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism,  Simon & Schuster,1996.

Among the proposals advanced in the latter book:

1.  Independently writing off, liquidating debt of poorer nations, e.g. as France has done in the case of Honduras' destruction by Hurricane Mitch.

2. Imposing transaction taxes on all capital that crosses a national border, whether electronically or other. Impose yearly In situ taxes on all capital  parked in a safe haven or country regarded as such. Fifty percent of all collected taxes to be earmarked for national health insurance plans to assist the uninsured, in the U.S..

3. Requiring all banks to have 100% reserves for deposits at all times, to prevent 'pyramid scheme' abominations like the 1997 hedge funds bailout. (Long Term Capital Management)

 Then there are the disinformationists and obfuscators like Megan McCardle of Bloomberg News ('Sanders' Health Plan Is Missing the Price Tag') who, using a series of ignoratio elenchi arguments, concludes that Sanders' plan would bust all future budgets if allowed to pass. The ignoratio elenchi argument, as we know, puts forward a preposterous premise and then draws irrelevant conclusions from it, hence the term "ignorance of the refutation". This is analogous to the misleading argument made by Burton Malkiel on Bernie's stock trading tax.

One of the irrelevant, bogus conclusions of McCardle is that single payer would only cost less if you make hospital staff "accept less pay". In fact, this is horse manure. The plan costs less because there is one single payer administrator - say much like CMS in Medicare- instead of hundreds of private insurers each taking their piece of the pie.   She also doesn't even factor in the fact that a "Medicare for all" system would not be 100 percent "free" in any case. Just like actual Medicare, it would not cover any dental expenses, or eye exams, glasses, and in addition would cover only 80 percent of actual treatment costs with the patient paying the other 20 percent. So all her numbers end up being inflated.

She also yaps about "raising money for single payer",  totally oblivious that it is already expected that NO private insurance exists to enhance those medical costs. Hence, one is already ab initio cutting out the private parasites' cuts! Sanders' $1.35 trillion a year estimate then, is predicated on removing $2 trillion in private premiums, costs. McCardle's arguments also betray ignoratio elenchi  overtones when she says "if you make health care absolutely free to patients and refuse to allow insurers to deny treatments then people are going to use more health  care"...and break the system. No, they won't because again, the single payer Sanders is advocating is not absolutely free, as I noted.  Because they are not absolutely free, patients will be more inclined to be circumspect in their use of health care than reckless.

But nothing tops the rhetorical hysteria of WSJ editorial writer, Allysia Finley from yesterday's Journal (p. A13) when she accused Bernie of resorting to "Orwellian speech" merely because he refused to accept the "big government" PR hit tag for his tax proposals, instead vowing to defend the American people against rising inequality. Finley evidently doesn't understand that if one chooses not to accept a disparaging label that doesn't mean one is resorting to Newspeak. If I decline to accept the trash tag "commie" or "libtard" that doesn't mean I am "Orwellian", but rather that I refuse to fall into a facile PR framing trap set by unscrupulous labelers

Finley also portrayed him as wanting to "overthrow the U.S. political and economic order". The histrionics were so palpable that one had to wonder what sort of meds she was on, or whether she OD'd on MJ candies - like Maureen Dowd did sometime last year. In fact, Bernie is not trying to "overthrow" anything other than the chains of false consciousness that ensnare too many Americans.

'False consciousness' is the term given to a false information system that's been absorbed in part or whole, osmotically or via direct mental ingestion, by the majority of a population. It has specific uses in our Corporatocracy to mislead a population about how things actually work, and also on the basic economic and other data which are used to formulate policies. I touched on a number of the inherent economic lies and disinformation ploys in my earlier blog:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/09/economic-lies-distortions-and.html

But realize these are just the tip of the iceberg.

For example, the effects of language and PR debasement of reality (the REAL Orwellian Newspeak!) extends to the whole political system which can best be described as one of legalized, corporate-fuelled bribery. While citizens do get to vote every two or four years, in reality it's only to choose their next set of Overseers, errr....Overclass masters. Once the votes are in, the true powers - the corporate ones- take over and direct (via their money and lobbyists) the real choices and possibilities. All Sanders is trying to do is to fracture this unholy nexus and liberate the public consciousness to choose its own best outcomes that favor the general welfare not the corporate (or military) welfare 

As for Finley's idiotic claims that Sanders is mistaken about our economy being rigged, I invited her to check out the examples in the link above as well as the increasing use of stock buybacks by corporations. Why the yen for corporate buy backs?  First they make management's stock options more valuable - so what better way to compensate the Street's honchos?  Secondly, they jack up PE ratios, thereby increasing stock share values. Strangely, as investing expert Jonathan Clements has noted, all this has selectively blinded investors to the lack of dividends.

Why? Why aren't the little guys more aware of how they're being shafted in a rigged system? Maybe for the same reason, as former trader Michael Lewis observed two years ago (CBS Early show to promote 'Flash Boys'), they're not paying attention to how flash trading is ripping them off via "millisecond" advantage and thereby gaining pennies on the dollar with each trade made. The FT'ers essentially gain those pennies (which add up to billions over time) by getting shares redeemed before you can via that slight micro-time advantage.

Why doesn't the SEC do anything to stop this baloney? According to Lewis, because once they leave the SEC they will be looking for jobs on the Street so don't want to alienate it with antagonistic regulations or judgments.  So don't look for the SEC honchos for any guidance or alerts to help you with navigating the swamps of Maul Street. You are literally on your own - with maybe this blog and a few others to try to provide some heads ups.

But will people pay attention, or will they submit to mind fucks by the likes of the WaPo, or the WSJ's Finley and Malkiel? Or other nefarious propagandizers? Only time will tell and the litmus test will emerge Monday with the Iowa caucus. An uncontested, unambiguous 'W' for Bernie Sanders will show there are still enough sentient Americans left to ward off the zombies and their spokepersons.