[johnforbes]

He used 444,000 dollars of his campaign money to buy copies of his own book.

Then, after he became a millionaire, he amended his own speech material to criticize only billionaire, not millionaires like himself.

JFK became a best-selling author because his father bought copes of JFK's ghostwritten books and stored them in a warehouse. Bernie's ploy is even more direct, but just as cynical.

[johnforbes]

bump

[RealJustme]

I'm waiting for a injudicious response from clown so I can bitch slap him.

[Clownkicker]

Ya gotta laugh at these moronic Trump supporters who can't figure out how someone making $174,000 a year (and with a wife making additional money) could possibly become a "millionaire."

They also don't grasp the simple idea that anyone who bought a house for $150,000 in a decent location thirty years ago is now a 'millionaire' today.

johnforbes is suggesting that buying your own book with campaign funds and giving the book away to supporters of your campaign is somehow wrong. It isn't. Everyone knew he was doing it. He didn't try to hide it. He wasn't trying to fool donors into thinking their money would be used another way. Nobody cares about this but dishonest partisan hypocrites desperately searching for some sort of phony "GOTCHA!"



"Oooooh, how did he do it?"- johnflubs, RealStool, and sillydimwit

[johnforbes]

Oh come on, of course it was wrong for Bernie to become a millionaire that way, and more to the point it was hypocritical.

As to becoming a millionaire, it has become far easier with inflation, and Clown and I agree on that.

There was an old TV show from the 1950s or so called "The Millionaire" featuring John Beresford Tipton who gave away a tax-free million dollars and it had dramatic effect on the lives of the actors in each segment because, back then, it was a serious chunk of change.

Today, plenty of suburban folks who have a 401(k), own their house, and have an ordinary credit union account are technically millionaires.

However, that raises the question of how ya count net worth. I do it strictly, by ignoring vehicles (always need them) and houses (sell one, you'll just need another) and such.

The number of debt-free people who are liquid millionaires would be much, much smaller.

But Clown is correct; the target net worth of the typical doctor/dentist/lawyer these days is more in the range of 3.5 to 4 million as a retirement prep goal.

I need much more, of course, to pay my large staff to read everything on the Interwebs every day.

[Clownkicker]

"Oh come on, of course it was wrong for Bernie to become a millionaire that way, and more to the point it was hypocritical."-johnfibs

johnny, the purpose of a campaign is to rally support by a majority of voters. If handing out his book to supporters spreads his message and builds enthusiasm, then it is a good use of campaign funds. No politician can be everywhere. A book can.

As to Bernie historically railing against "millionaires", he was railing against the very wealthy with an unfair advantage in our society. Nobody can help if inflation makes oneself into a millionaire. It doesn't mean that you are a hypocrite. It means economic forces turned $100,000 into $1,000,000. But the net worth only buys the same amount it used to buy before inflation turned it into a million.

You're welcome for the apparently badly needed lesson in economics, johnny.

johnforbes is too dim to understand that Bernie is no wealthier now than someone with$300,000 was thirty years ago. He's still only worth around $2,000,000 at 78 years of age after fairly sizable annuals salaries for decades.

You should be more concerned about his judgment if he WASN'T a millionaire by now. EVERYBODY with his income history SHOULD be a millionaire by now.

[johnforbes]

No, that is missing the point in spectacular fashion.

Am I worth a lot more than Bernie? Sure, but I'm not preaching socialism to millions of voters.

As to Bernie's time and inflation-adjusted net worth, Clown is correct about that, but this is not 30 years ago. It is now, and we have the weird spectacle of an overt socialist actually being a millionaire with 3 houses.

[RealJustme]

I knew clown would come up with a injudicious response to John's question.

[Clownkicker]

You dimwits need to learn that you're getting hung up on a mere word that meant something entirely different when Bernie started using it. Especially when the intent of what he said still holds true.

The term "millionaire" used to mean "the wealthy." Only a small percentage of Americans had that much money back then. Now "millionaire" means "the middle class." Today millions of Americans have that much money.

The trouble is, they don't have any more WEALTH relative to their economic class because inflation keeps that buying power constant. The wealth of the middle class has been flat in the last 40 years. But they are "millionaires" now just because they have a million dollars. Meanwhile, the wealth of the richest 10% of Americans has increased.

Bernie was never upset with the middle class. He is still upset at the wealthy who refuse to pay their fair share of the cost of running America.

[elklindo69]

There are scores of Trumpers who barely earn a living wage and are on welfare who will shit white hot tire irons every single time like clockwork every time it's suggested that life may be a little bit better if the wealthy pay more taxes.

You really have to give credit to the plutocrats for a fine job of brainwashing the rubes for so long....

[johnforbes]

Photo of Bernie:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... ajaxhist=0

[Clownkicker]

johnny, if that's what you think $2 million looks like, I'd hate to see the revolting picture of YOU that would undoubtedly come up for someone who is smug about having MORE than Bernie.

Or imagine what TRUMP must look like.


You really stepped in it that time, johnny.

[Clownkicker]

johnforbes will be glad to know that Trump supports closet cases like johnny.

Here's a link to Trump in India supporting another strong man dictator type while playing the Trump anthem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ixx39wK2Ew

Start at time stamp 1:31 to see that many Trump supporters apparently arose from johnforbes' days in the Frisco bath houses.

[sillydaddy]

Ya gotta laugh at these moronic Trump supporters who can't figure out how someone making $174,000 a year (and with a wife making additional money) could possibly become a "millionaire."

Yeah..! His wife is a thief..!

[Clownkicker]

Sure, dimwit, I guess that's why the Trump Justice Department didn't even file any charges against her.

You really need to modify your beliefs in the propaganda from your handlers when it proves to be lies, dummy. Which is ALWAYS.

[RealJustme]

The term "millionaire" used to mean "the wealthy." Only a small percentage of Americans had that much money back then. Now "millionaire" means "the middle class." Today millions of Americans have that much money.

Yep back in 2014 Bernie was correct, but since then, as you point out Trump has made millions of Americans millionaires.

[elklindo69]

The term "millionaire" used to mean "the wealthy." Only a small percentage of Americans had that much money back then. Now "millionaire" means "the middle class." Today millions of Americans have that much money.

Yep back in 2014 Bernie was correct, but since then, as you point out Trump has made millions of Americans millionaires.

If you believe that one, I've got six bankrupted Atlantic City Trump casinos to sell you.

And a defunct "Trump University" to boot....

[johnforbes]

There is no simple, smooth path to billionaire status.

Look at Steyer, who ran a hedge fund. The sleaze in that sort of endeavor has always been huge.

Atlantic City had a boom, a lull, then a bust as casinos broke out everywhere and online gambling took off.

As to Trump University, Clinton and Obama both very nearly got their own schools and may yet.

Only lies under oath to a federal judge kept Georgetown from having a Clinton School of Ethics.

Harvard may yet feature an Obama School of Socialism and Islamic Studies.

[elklindo69]

If Donald Trump didn't have an ultra wealthy father then he would have been driving a rickety station wagon tossing big mac wrappers out of the window driving down the Jersey turnpike.

I know it and you know it Johnnie.........

[Clownkicker]

elklindo, I think you underestimate Trump. I'm pretty sure Trump would have found his way into a life of crime no matter how much he started out with. After all, he was hundreds of millions in debt in the 90s and he still came back to be a 'billionaire'. He must have at least $100 million by now.

[johnforbes]

Anybody can Google photos of the modest suburban houses in which Trump grew up.

Sure, his father was a success, but not wealthy and certainly not ultra-wealthy.

[Clownkicker]

johnforbes produces another red herring about house sizes again.

He forgets (dementia does that) that house sizes have nothing at all to do with one's wealth. If you don't believe me, look at the house Warren Buffet lives in.

It's just johnforbes being his hypocritical partisan self.

[johnforbes]

That is a fair point, but then Buffett concedes that he is very unusually averse to change.

What other billionaire still lives in the house he bought in the 1950s or 1960s?

It is also true that people become rich by living not just within their means, but beneath their means.

I have very nice houses, but could afford more.

However, despite the extent to which I agree with Clown, Bernie remains a total hypocrite for preaching socialism while being a millionaire with 3 houses.

[Clownkicker]

johnny, there is nothing about socialism that requires someone to be poor. There is nothing that says someone can't have more than one house. There is nothing that says someone can't write a bestseller.

If he pays his taxes, then that's more than guys like Trump do.

You know all that, but it is your own total hypocrisy that keeps you repeating something you know to be untrue.

[elklindo69]

Johnnie and republicans have a very long and dishonest history of conflating any kind of attempt to improve the lives of ordinary Americans with the evils of "socialism."

And the same republicans ignore Trump's multi billion dollar socialist plan to bailout farmers because of his stupid trade war. Republican hyprocrisy is absolutely astonishing!!!

[johnforbes]

Here is my question re Bernie.

The 20th Century was in essence a lab test of socialism and its more serious cousin communism.

The record is one of very minimally helping the human condition, and only doing that to the extent it fits within the context of capitalism as in the American system.

A foreign nation will be a success ONLY to the extent it utilizes basic capitalism to unleash human potential and to create an incentive to work and innovate.

Bernie is a nice enough old fellow, but his ideas are simply wrong.

[Clownkicker]

"The record is one of very minimally helping the human condition, and only doing that to the extent it fits within the context of capitalism as in the American system."-johnflubs

Then what's your problem, johnny? This IS America with its semi-capitalist economy, so you can put your mind at ease.
Everything conservatives love about America is socialist. Our military, our police, our fire fighters, our first responders, our National Parks, Social Security, our bailouts for banks and farmers, and on so on.

Even our Constitution sets out our socialist foundation in its Preamble: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice,<---(through socialism) insure domestic Tranquility, <--(through socialism) provide for the common defense,<--(through socialism) promote the general Welfare, <--(socialist idea, certainly not a capitalist idea where it's only 'survival of the fittest' and dog-eat-dog) and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution..."

Why do Conservatives hate our Constitution so much?

[johnforbes]

Oh, I agree, and my mind is at ease on that.

But the Democrats want to alter the delicate balance toward much, much more socialism -- "free" college and "free" health care and so forth.

Even Sweden realized it had swung too far to the Left and corrected a bit.

Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, they had different visions of how society should look as states of nature changed into social mankind.

Bernie's vision tilts toward the Left, and the best evidence against that is the misery of socialism and communism in the 20th Century.

[Clownkicker]

johnforbes conveniently overlooks the misery of capitalism inflicted in the 20th Century and all around the world to this day.

We saw the robber barons in America, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Astor, Crocker, Vanderbilt, and others who crushed competitors and virtually enslaved their workers. Yes, they increased GDP rapidly which helps the country as a whole, but johnforbes forgets that real people had their lives destroyed by these men. This included physical beatings and destruction of property. The lucky ones lived in 'company towns' where the people they worked for took all their wages back in the form of food and rent. They couldn't get ahead, but they didn't die.

Today capitalists in various parts of the world keep workers packed into stacked containers and work them for 14 hours a day, seven days a week, at near poverty wages and away from their families, in cramped disease supporting communities. And when they can't stand it any more, they commit suicide in large numbers to get away from it. Other places they keep virtual slaves on fish processing ships at sea, never seeing land, unable to leave.

To see capitalism in a pure form you need only look at the drug cartels. You see the death and destruction and social misery it causes.

Yes, capitalism is alive and well, perpetrating human suffering that is every bit as bad as it ever was under communist and socialist regimes. But hypocrites like johnforbes pretends that current capitalist misery is inconsequential and historic socialist misery is unforgivable. Small minds like that of johnforbes cannot separate their ignorant prejudices from facts. "Socialism bad! Capitalism good! Ungh!"

Wrong, johnny, they are both merely economic systems run by human beings who will always behave as the worst way that human beings will behave. Neither is "good" or "bad" by itself. But to the extent that American capitalism isn't flat out starving, beating, and killing people with impunity (as pure capitalists have done throughout history) is only the result of the degree to which socialism is applied to stop it through law, justice, and social welfare.

[johnforbes]

Nobody here -- or really anywhere -- is urging Smithian laissez faire capitalism.

We live in an era after the Lochner case.

America's success came from a strong capitalist system, albeit one with elements of welfare such as SSI and food stamps, along with extensive private charitable endeavors such as soup kitchens.

Heck, even the bums in America are overweight.

Clown himself has Dunlop Syndrome, the medical condition where his belly done lopped over his belt.

[Clownkicker]

Nobody here -- or really anywhere -- is urging Stalinist socialism.

But that won't stop johnforbes from pretending they are. If he doesn't lie about it, then his entire argument falls apart.

The fact is that the U.S. economy already has a huge socialist component and ALL Trump supporters support it. Not one of them has criticized the Trump farm bailouts or the Trump military budget increases, to name just two.

The difference Democrats are proposing is that health insurance is the one thing everyone should agree should not be in the hands of modern day robber barons who will take all of someone's money, leave them bankrupt, and then drop the person's coverage once he/she is broke. And Democrats also don't want preexisting conditions to make buying insurance to be impossible the way Republicans do. They and Trump have proposed several bills in the past three years that removed coverage for preexisting conditions.

johnforbes will refuse to refute any of this. In fact, he actually agrees with me, but he will still imply I am wrong without any facts or even arguments to the contrary.

[johnforbes]

Re military budget increases, the U.S. has to furnish an international security umbrella for Canada, Australia, NZ, and all the places in Europe and Africa who have no military to speak of.

If we could simply withdraw to a Fortress America, I would concur that our military budget could be smaller.

And we all know there is plenty of Pentagon waste. Just look at some of the folks testifying on the Hill in dress blues with nonsense "chest salad" from staff colleges and other such.

But, if the U.S. didn't provide an international security guarantee, what other gigantic and good nation would?

China? Russia? India?

[Clownkicker]

johnny, simply admitting you support current U.S. socialism does not strengthen you argument that socialism is bad.

Quite the opposite.

[johnforbes]

But Bernie has -- here and now, elsewhere and before -- urged not merely socialism but communism.

He spent his honeymoon in communist Russia.

Bernie favors "free" health care and tuition not just for all Americans, but for all illegals, and he also stupidly favors open borders which the "New Way Forward" would implement.

[Clownkicker]

johnny, Bernie can "urge" anything he likes, but he can't suddenly turn America communist, so relax. No President has that power so you can stop pissing yourself.

And no President can make health insurance socialist either. All he can do is propose that it be socialized.

Ooohhhh, johnforbes is shitting bricks because he thinks that a President might propose something he disagrees with. He's an ignorant conservative. And no wonder, the way he is also upset at the thought of educating the entire country. Republicans would lose their voter base.

After all, "Who ya gonna get to do the dirty work when all the slaves are free?"-johnforbes channeling Joni Mitchell

[elklindo69]

Trump has spent billions of tax payer dollars for the socialist bailout of farmers becuase of Trump's stupid trade war with the Chinese?

Not to mention Trump's drunken sailor spending binge which is causing the national debt to skyrocket during an economic expansion.

Where's the tea party when you need them?

[Clownkicker]

It only proves that the Teas Party was not non-partisan group of concerned taxpayers, but was in fact a Republican organization. Not a peep out of them now that a Republican is running things and spending more than Obama ever did.

[johnforbes]

Clown's post at 2pm made me so relaxed that I spent the entire afternoon in a Zen trance.

[Clownkicker]

The only trouble with johnforbes' comment is that I didn't make a 2:00 p.m. post. He's making it up, like all Trump supporters.

I think johnny must be smoking "the good stuff" and blaming me for his mush-brained hallucinations.

[johnforbes]

Well, I don't smoke or toke or drink.

However, I did have an extra half-glass of orange juice yesterday, so Clown may have a point.

[Clownkicker]

^^^^^^ This is what an embarrassed Trump supporter looks like when he's been caught making up stupid shit--a buffoon.

[johnforbes]

Your 2pm post was made at 2pm.

So that is why I mentioned 2pm.

[Clownkicker]

johnny, as anyone who is not a Trump supporter can see, I didn't make any post at 2:00 p.m. so you are simply making up stupid shit. You can't link to it. You can't quote it. You can't tell anyone where to find it. This is because when you are caught making up stupid shit, you are helpless and impotent.

Get used to it, johnny. Pretty soon there will not be a single Trump supporter who will be believed about anything, ever, except by other malleable Trump supporters who don't need evidence or facts or proof in order to grovel to their handlers.

Enjoy the shoe polish and dog shit you will be licking up, johnny. It's what Republicans eat for the privilege of feeling safe in a scary world.

[johnforbes]

What I'm saying is not controversial.

The 2pm post reference was to a post made at 2pm.

Or is that called "Tea Time" in California?

[Clownkicker]

What I am saying is not controversial.

johnforbes is just another Trump supporter who makes up stupid shit.

Notice his impotent squirming now that he was called on it.

[johnforbes]

Why did you make that 2 pm post?

This is a simple question, so why is Clown squirming?

[Clownkicker]

^^^^^^ Look at him squirm.

He couldn't produce any alleged "2 pm post" because he made it up, so he goes into Trump-supporter retard mode a la RealTool.

[johnforbes]

It is actually Clown who is squirming.

If you didn't want to stand behind that controversial post, why did you post it?

[Clownkicker]

^^^^^^ Look at johnforbes squirm. He can't produce any such post, but he keeps insisting that it's real.

It's just another figment of the delusional Trump-supporting mind. They spit on reality and believe only what they want to believe. But deep down they know they are pathetic weasels.

[johnforbes]

As the market falls 700 today, I'm shocked that Clown is being mean.

I sit weeping in my cardboard box as a chilly wind sweeps across the rock-strewn sand.

However, it must be noted that, if Clown didn't plan to stand (or crouch) behind his now-celebrated 2 pm posting, why did he make it in the first place?

Or has he already deleted the post and BeachBit-ed the server?