Biden's search for a running mate enters final stretch

By the way that is congressional act......congregational indicates a swarm of something or other.

Almost surreal under the circumstances....

"Whose goals and tactics are activist left, that's aim is wielding a significant influence in participatory forms of political organisation harnessing the rhetoric akin to a brand of outspoken socialist radicalism."

For Millennials, capitalism as it is practiced in the US (as opposed to how Adam Smith and David Ricardo envisioned competitive markets ) is seen as a complete failure. Most do not have enough economics to understand what competitive markets are supposed to look like to understand how capitalism in the US has veered so far away from the sorts of price and profit reducing competition Smith and Ricardo described in their writings. Instead they see a few incredibly wealthy people own everything while they struggle just to afford the basics and see little way to improve their lot in the future. Their college education was commodified into a product for which they often end up owing the equivalent of a mortgage and that debt greatly limits their future. They often see themselves being less well off than their parents with the idea of home ownership so distant as to be essentially beyond them. So they reject capitalism outright. I'm an economist by training and while I utterly reject socialism I can see their point. Capitalism in the US has failed them miserably. It is our fault too, for not pushing representatives to enforce the nation's anti trust laws and allowing corporations to basically go feral. The answer isn't socialism but the young do not know that. But they are decidedly not stupid for understanding capitalism in the US is making them poorer by the day and unless the practice of capitalism is made more competitive and the political power of corporations is reduced (you can read the writings of James Madison on the corrosive effects on self government from the failure to prevent the accumulation of great wealth in the hands of the few) we risk a generation striving to destroy capitalism out of sheer anger at the limitations it imposes on their lives. Annual tuition at UCLA in 1976 was less than a month's income at a full time job. $600. That was it. Even in the 1990s. a graduate education at a CSU was $1500 a semester. Almost anyone could afford college without accumulating a mountain of debt. I worked part time and graduated debt free. You can't do that today. Now some text books cost $300 and they edit them every single year to eliminate the used book market. The debt incurred to obtain a degree is killing the younger generation. It has to change.

Top level, November US Election is a vote with two candidates on the ballot paper.

In reality, incumbent President Trump, if the current poll prediction are correct, will ultimately fall on stony ground.

So, the next President, and all the importance and responsibilities of office will fall on Joe Biden, a 77-year-old former vice president, an ambition free zone, signalling a one-term pledge.

Is it not wise then, under the circumstances, to question the consequences, from the spectre wrecked from a pandemic devastating economic upheaval and US grave mortality rate.

Also, the Government of China's growing belligerence in the South China Sea. A Government of China hell bent on political regional dominance, and abuse of human rights to question how President Joe Biden will respond?

More will President Joe Biden, be the President in name only?

Harangued and hounded by the progressive radicals in his own party to follow a foreign policy of appeasement, whilst at home succumb to the ever more extreme economic/political whims of pressure groups and lobbyists within his own party?

On the other foot there is Donald Trump?

Akin to breaking down on a busy motorway only to get squidged on the hard shoulder…….

Unity government could bring care and resolve this pandemic?

However, Donald Trump would have to voluntarily vacate office. Which would also require an unprecedented congregational act.

There is more chance of John Lennon on piano, reciting Imagine accompanied with George Harrison guitar at my wedding.  However it is a thought.

"Like what? Regulations, more income redistribution? Racial inequality?"

The greatest income redistribution occurring in the US today is due to the prevalence of oligopoly in major consumer markets. The founding intellects of market capitalism Adam Smith and David Ricardo assumed there would be so many firms in any given market along with so many buyers, competition would force prices and thus profits down to the bare minimum, or what Smith called the risk adjusted market rate of return. If prices were high enough to support more profit than this, competitors would join the market and drive prices down. No one participant in the market could do anything to drive prices up. All buyers and sellers are "price takers". The benefit of competitive markets is that it maximizes output and drives prices and profits to the absolute minimum. Everyone is ultimately wealthier.

However in the US you find most consumer markets are dominated by two or three firms. That is not enough competitors to achieve the benefits of a competitive market. Instead you have oligopoly. Oligopolists behave like monopolists, raising prices and reducing output attempting to reach the point where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. The higher prices oligopolists charge compared to what they could charge in a fully competitive market amounts to a massive wealth transfer from consumers to producers. In the kind of competitive markets Smith and Ricardo envisioned in their writing firms would never be able to accumulate large profits, what economists call "monopoly rents". But in the US today firms are sitting on something in the neighborhood of $1.8 trillion in unspent cash balances. They were sitting on more than that in 2009-2010 btw. This is prima facia evidence of oligopoly. But look at the grocery store. Only two big firms dominate the beer isle. Only three firms are selling all the toothpaste, soap, paper towels and the like (Colegate Palmolive, Unilever and Proctor and Gamble). One firm dominates the snack food isle, Frito Lay, and they belong to Pepsico, which also happens to dominate the soft drink isle along with Coke. Boeing vs Airbus, FedEx vs UPS. And in many markets there is only two and in some cases one big health insurer servicing the area. Oligopoly and in some cases monopoly everywhere the consumer turns. And they price like oligopolists. That $1.8 trillion sitting in corporate accounts as unspent case represents the wealth greatest wealth transfer in the US, from consumers to big corporations, and all because the US Congress and Dept of Justice refuse to enforce the nation's anti trust laws. But go ahead and keep blaming "liberals" for wealth transfer. It requires less intellect to make that claim.

If Joe Biden succeeds the second within the Democratic party to control every aspect of Government.

Where do you get this schlock? Americans have lost and been losing freedom massively and slowly at the hands of both parties for decades. Americans are so dumbed down at this point they think the question of "What do you want to drink for dinner?" is adequately found in the choice of "Coke or Pepsi". "Biden or Trump" is the same narrow range. Which ever wing of the same bird you choose Americans are going to lose more freedom.

The leading contenders include California Sen Kamala Harris, California Rep. Karen Bass and Obama national security adviser Susan Rice. 

They are all terrible choices. What's up with Biden's team, anyway? Don't they care about the United States?

Imagine if he and the Democratic party had the decency to choose Bernie Sanders. Well they don't because neither parties' heads care about the American people except for how much they can be used and fleeced. They only care about the interests of the mega corporations who also use and fleece the American people.

Trump belongs in a jail cell but so does Biden. And I will keep saying that until I hear Biden apologize for his role in making America prison capital of the world and vowing to reverse the sick for-profit kidnapping system he helped create.

I think their will be possibly two US elections, both will have a significant effect on the livelihoods of ordinary Americans.

The first will be to choose the next US President.

If Joe Biden succeeds the second within the Democratic party to control every aspect of Government.

A toxic bloody battle of political wills

I definitely agree.

bass4funk, I do have sympathy for Joe Biden, Joe is on the wrong place at wrong time.

Biden needs this like a hole in the head.

Joe Biden is standing in the middle of a unforgiving political form of superhighway, in the later years of a life devoted to politics.

From one direction Joe Biden has Donald Trump approaching, twitter locked and loaded, from the other, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Waleed Shahid of Justice Democrats, Elizabeth Warren, Bernard Sanders and a legion of congressional  supporters who preach an ideologically acrimonious and intractable form of political conflict, that runs right to the heart of the cancel culture society.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden liberal centralist.

And a second primarily socialist.

Whose goals and tactics are activist left, that's aim is wielding a significant influence in participatory forms of political organisation harnessing the rhetoric akin to a brand of outspoken socialist radicalism.

Joe Biden choice of running mate will provide a clear indication of how far this radical left have ascendancy. How these radical progressives’ dominant power/influence to control every aspect of Joe Biden policy agenda.

Does Joe Biden have the strength of character, to command and lead the agenda?

That is a question to contemplate before enter the polling booth.

Well said, spot on!

Cant wait until he picks someone who is known for being associated with the police or someone who made a living incarcerating Black people as a prosecutor.

The Democrats are fundamentally two politically separate factions/entities.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden liberal centralist.

And a second primarily socialist.

Whose goals and tactics are activist left, that's aim is wielding a significant influence in participatory forms of political organisation harnessing the rhetoric akin to a brand of outspoken socialist radicalism.

Joe Biden choice of running mate will provide a clear indication of how far this radical left have ascendancy. How these radical progressives’ dominant power/influence to control every aspect of Joe Biden policy agenda.

Does Joe Biden have the strength of character, to command and lead the agenda?

That is a question to contemplate before enter the polling booth.

I'd vote for Biden even if he couldn't sign his own name. Still better than the treasonous impeached psychotic idiot we have now who has managed to wreck everything that every administration since WWII ended has built up. Throw him out and MAGA.

The far right (US and 'foreign') can attack Biden for any number of reasons, many valid, but the one thing the far right fear most is Biden wants to see the republic and its democratic principles be restored after Trump's gone. 

Like what? Regulations, more income redistribution? Racial inequality?

Biden's team will want the principles the republic's built on to once again guide the country.

What Republic? These people are tearing it all down.

The far right worry Biden will bring talented people with him who also want those principles upheld. 

Under Trump the far right have supported his ongoing attempts to further weaken the US, much to their delight. And to the delight of Putin, Xi and other despots supporting Trump's efforts to weaken the US.

Talent??? Lol! What a bunch of garbage! Trump didn’t take a knee, topple statues, ban the national anthem, screamed he hates or despises his country, wanting to defund the police, allow China to get away with screwing the country, stand in the way of the economy and big business providing jobs for millions, block parents of deciding where they want to send their kids to schools, pull our troops out of these never ending wars.

The far right (US and 'foreign') can attack Biden for any number of reasons, many valid, but the one thing the far right fear most is Biden wants to see the republic and its democratic principles be restored after Trump's gone.

Biden's team will want the principles the republic's built on to once again guide the country.

The far right worry Biden will bring talented people with him who also want those principles upheld.

Under Trump the far right have supported his ongoing attempts to further weaken the US, much to their delight. And to the delight of Putin, Xi and other despots supporting Trump's efforts to weaken the US.