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Government Politics

Bernie Sanders, Presidential Candidate and H-1B Skeptic 395

Presto Vivace writes: The H-1B visa issue rarely surfaces during presidential races, and that's what makes the entrance by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) into the 2016 presidential race so interesting. ... ...Sanders is very skeptical of the H-1B program, and has lambasted tech firms for hiring visa workers at the same time they're cutting staff. He's especially critical of the visa's use in offshore outsourcing.
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Bernie Sanders, Presidential Candidate and H-1B Skeptic

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  • Can he win? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by knightghost ( 861069 ) on Saturday May 02, 2015 @04:43PM (#49602323)

    Does Sanders have any chance to become president? Bush and Clinton... been there, done that, both long term disasters.

    • the current zeigeist is unlike any in my lifetime. Voters are deeply troubled by our current system, which stacks the deck against ordinary people. I think they are ready for someone like Sanders.
  • by spencerg83 ( 972647 ) on Saturday May 02, 2015 @04:43PM (#49602325)
    If you'd like to focus on Bernie Sanders' view on H-1B Visas, that's fine. But let's not forget that his remarks and avowed beliefs of Socialism are what really make him an interesting candidate for the Democratic Party, contrasted with the free-market, capitalist beliefs of his opponents.
    • by I'm New Around Here ( 1154723 ) on Saturday May 02, 2015 @04:55PM (#49602379)

      I could certainly see myself voting for Bernie Sanders. And I tend to vote conservative. I would rather have an honest socialist in office than a chameleon who claims to agree with me.

      • its crazy and would never happen but id LOVE to see President Rand Paul with Veep Sanders. I think having the libertarian and socialist on the same ticket could be a winning combo.
        • The problem is that no leftist/socialist/whatever would vote for that unless their guy has the headliner. You would have to let them get top-billing, with a guaranteed libertarian presence in the administration.

          My sig isn't just for laughs, after all.

        • Rand Paul is just more of the same. He pays lip service to liberty.

          Sanders, on the other hand, might actually believe what he says. It certainly looks like it, all the time.

      • by hey! ( 33014 )

        This kind of reminds me of the interest Ron Paul generated a generation ago among some liberal-leaning voters.

        Even if you're generally a straight-line party voter, if you have a brain you don't agree 100% with the party line. In a two-party system you have to make do with whatever centrist mush the least objectionable party is serving up. So when someone comes along who declines to squeeze himself into one or the other mold, he's bound to say a lot of things that people who really don't agree with him ve

    • by dpilot ( 134227 )

      I'm generally in favor of free market capitalism, but sometimes I'm not sure that's what I'm seeing right now. I also think that problems arise when revenue and profit become the number one goal, especially at the expense of the products and services that are supposedly being sold for that revenue and profit.

      • The free market is ultimately self-destroying - a monopoly is a very stable situation. Once one company achieves dominant status there are all sorts of underhanded tricks they can use to beat back any smaller competitors. Exclusive deals at retail or on raw materials, selling at a loss to undercut a competitor on price until they go out of business. If you don't limited that freedom a little with regulation, it ends up being not free at all.

      • by plopez ( 54068 )

        There s debate as to whether a Free Market can ever truly exist at all. To fulfill the definition, in a Economics sense, you need things like instantaneous information spread all across the market. In addition if you look at the NYSE, often touted as approaching an dealized free market, you will find it covered by three layers of regulation; the exchange regulations and by laws, the NY state regulations, and the SEC. So it seems you can't even get close to a free market with out regulation and government in

    • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02, 2015 @05:05PM (#49602421)

      While he calls himself a democratic socialist, I'd think more in the vein of Scandinavia and less of a Marxist dictatorship (ie, in Soviet Russia...). He's not anti-capitalistic, but he is anti-crony capitalistic. The difference is important-- he thinks that without government maintaining a fair playing field, those who have economic and political advantages will further tip the scales against those who don't.

      To say he's not a capitalist though is misleading. He wants a free market, but one that works for all and isn't consistently being rigged by those who accumulate more power/wealth in a feedback loop of wealth leads to power leads to advantage leads to wealth leads to power leads to advantage leads to wealth ad infinitum as we have in our current U.S. system.

      • To say he's not a capitalist though is misleading. He wants a free market, but one that works for all and isn't consistently being rigged by those who accumulate more power/wealth in a feedback loop of wealth leads to power leads to advantage leads to wealth leads to power leads to advantage leads to wealth ad infinitum as we have in our current U.S. system.

        The think is, the current loop needs the government to keep it going. Making the government a bigger player in the loop does not mean the loop is destroyed.

        The government has been able to destroy wealth/power/advantage loops in the past. But lately, they just raise the costs of maintaining them.

        • Making the government a bigger player in the loop does not mean the loop is destroyed.

          But it doesn't mean it's not either.

          Most of Europe demonstrates that you can achieve a stable free market by having the government in the loop.

          • Most of Europe demonstrates that you can achieve a stable free market by having the government in the loop.

            And those markets actually benefit a wider portion of the population. Economic mobility is far greater in many parts of Europe than in the US.

      • What kind of Socialist is very important. Sweden-socialist, or Venezuela-socialist, or Great Leap Forward socialist, or Pol-Pot socialist? Only one of those four flavors can be claimed to work at all.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      There is nothing "free market" about corporate welfare, off-shore bank accounts, tax loopholes and bank bailouts.

    • Republicans aren't interested in free markets. Just look at how they push bills to ban car manufacturers from selling cars directly to consumers, so that they can prop up the antiquated independent dealership business model.

  • by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Saturday May 02, 2015 @05:18PM (#49602487) Journal

    Just a personal opinion, so take it for whatever you think it's worth. But IMO, Sanders is more of a campaign disruptor than a serious contender for the next presidential election.

    He's known as a political "Independent" but as others have already noted, he's more of a Socialist really. I see some value in him wanting to bring up the H1-B VISA issue, but primarily so it encourages the other candidates to debate it.

    I also hear quite a few comments from those supposedly disillusioned with "free market capitalism", so some of these people will surely find Sanders an interesting alternative. I find that quite unfortunate though. Personally, I'm still pretty firmly convinced that free market concepts really never got a fair shake in the U.S. in the first place. So often, we're sold that label while reality is quite different. Heck, I was just debating the whole issue with a friend of mine last week about the deregulation of the power companies and the disaster that created for California. He used it as a prime example of why free markets aren't really viable or desirable. I countered that actually, that was FAR more an example of fraud than anything else -- a problem that transcends politics or the type of marketplace you're working with. In fact, much of the scamming going on with all of that was only made possible because GOVERNMENT was still expected to make payments towards keeping the infrastructure working! (They had legislation in place where government would start paying out money whenever the utilization of the power lines went above a certain percentage of their maximum capabilities. Therefore, crooked businesses like Enron would create false entries, reserving utilization that was never really happening to fake capacity limits being hit and profit from the govt. funding that was theoretically going to upgrading that infrastructure.)

    Time and time again, this is what I really see happening.... People get frustrated or disgusted at something that supposedly happens because of a lack of governmental controls. But a closer look makes you realize it was only due to government interference or control in the FIRST place that the scenario was set up. The net neutrality debates would probably be another example of this. Sure, we need government to step in and tell Comcast, "No! You can't merge with Time Warner!" now. BUT that scenario was QUITE unlikely to have ever happened in the first place if broadband internet service was handled in the private sector in the first place, minus govt. regulated monopolies getting preferential treatment when the services were first getting built out.

    • I'm still pretty firmly convinced that free market concepts really never got a fair shake in the U.S. in the first place.

      until someone figures out how to make sociopaths act honestly, the free market will always be doomed to be governed by anti-competitive behavior.

    • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Saturday May 02, 2015 @06:04PM (#49602797) Homepage Journal

      He calls himself a socialist, but most self-avowed socialist wouldn't consider him one because he doesn't favor compulsory worker ownership, production for use, or any of the usual socialist agenda. He's basically what in Europe would be called a "social democrat" -- pro welfare and collective bargaining within a capitalist production system. He'd fit in with the old UK Labour Party or the contemporary Scottish National Party.

  • Unfortunately he is a candidate in name only. He can't raise the kind of money that Hillary or any other candidate running for the democratic nomination can raise, and hence has no chance of getting the nomination. He would be better off running as a third party candidate than trying to get the democratic nomination; it will be interesting to see him eventually reveal his plan for what to do when he has fallen too far behind in the party race.

    The funny thing is, he is the liberal democrat that the conservative majority in this country always try to paint every other democrat to be. I would love to see what they would do if he actually gained power beyond his seat in the Senate.
    • The problem is voting third party is the same as voting repub these days. If Nader had dropped out in 2000, the first decade of this century would have been a lot different and things would have been better for everyone. Nader split the Dem vote, which allowed Bush to steal FL and therefore that election.
      • Nader got fewer votes from registered Democrats in Florida than Bush did. By an order of magnitude.

        So no, Nader wasn't the cause of Bush's victory. Gore's terrible campaign was. According to Al Gore himself.

  • Therefore, in my opinion, he just guaranteed he will not get elected.

    The One Percent will not support it.

  • by LifesABeach ( 234436 ) on Sunday May 03, 2015 @01:59PM (#49606645) Homepage
    That's twice. The first was telling the press that he was busy, he had work to do. Now he questions H1B's. He's 2 and 0. Bernie, just may go Obama on Hilary,(again), if she can't get in front of this contrived enforced resession.

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