So.... There should be a distinction drawn between capitalists and people who work in finance.

Sure. People that work in finance and are paid by a yearly salary, even if they're paid handsomely, are not capitalists. I work as a programmer in a company that makes military simulators for NATO and USA army. Doesn't mean I support their interventions. I have my moral problems with this, and do try to get out and find work in a "pure" videogame company, but in the end we all gotta eat. I guess I *could* starve for ideological reasons if I was a different person, but waiting until I get another job is my hard limit right now.

Similarly, an analyst that gets paid 400K in a finance company is hardly our concern here. He doesn't really affect the system. He's just a well-paid employeee of the capitalist. Many of them didn't exactly came out unscathed after 2008; the capitalists aren't going to build parachutes for *everyone* working for them, even if they are relatively well-paid(peanuts compared to what the capitalist is worth, of course, but very well paid relative to most of the working class).

No. I'm saying that if you make 20k per year and think you can easily afford buying a house for 200k, plus a big-ass SUV and a cabriolet for weekend trips, and pay all that from your VISA card which you pay by charging your MasterCard for which you take up a loan on your first born's kidney, then you are an idiot and cannot be helped. Even if the banker tells you "Yeah, no problem". If you believe this, you can't be helped.

And what percentage of people were actually doing this? 17%, 40%, 60%, 92%? And when I say "this", I mean the exact thing you're talking about.

So.... There should be a distinction drawn between capitalists and people who work in finance.

Not everyone working in finance is a criminal. Actually, MOST people working in finance are just as shocked about the moral corruptedness of the few that bring down the economy reliably every 10 or so years because their money grabbing schemes scopes outrun their ability to keep it under the rug... or worse, because failure of the economy is actually part of their money grabbing plans.

Some working there might be less shocked because the closer you work to the core of those institutions, the more you see it coming even though you might not be involved in the "crime"... after all, its an industry revolving about MONEY! Which tends to lure in people only caring about MONEY!

You really think they are there to make money for other people?

Its kind of the same as with the game industry regularly attracting gamers to proclaim themselves to be next game developer marvels, even though they have no idea about developing games, only playing them... only difference here is, these fakes usually do not get a job in the industry.

Then there is the constant cost cutting, manager-like attitude of the higher ups rotated between institutions quicker than their workforce can remember their names, and political battles among managers you get in ANY bigger company.

If you look into ANY company, you will see tons of things going wrong, and will find black sheep.

But, I would lay most of the blame on the politicians. After all, we live in a dog-eat-dog capitalistic world today. Can you really judge a corporation living in constant competition with other corporations that are after it throat for resorting to shady tactics, and participating in a downward spiral leading to catastrophic decisions and an economic crisis?

Well, yes you can, but would you act differently if YOUR money was on the line? If you could earn millions by shady underhanded tactics, and believing nobody would find out?

In the end, it is the job of the juristiction and the politics to judge the bad boys of the capitalistic rat race, and go medieveal on them. If they fail during a crisis, let them die. Don't try to save jobs, or shortsighted stuff like that. Stick to the capitalistic propaganda. If you catch somebody doing underhanded stuff, loosing people money, treat them like you would a murderer, a rapist, or whatever is the worst crime you can think of, given they lost enough people enough money. Without money people very life is in danger. Fraud and other kind of shady tactics to squeeze money out of idiots, or trick the system are not just minor things. Sentence those guys to lifelong prison sentences, make sure they get off the street quickly. Get ahold of their money quickly, and use it to pay the damages they did. No matter if the money is on the caymans or any other save havens. THESE countries should face severe economical punishment, way before the Iran.

The fact that politicians worldwide twiddle their thumbs and do the bare minimum because going after this could "endanger the economy", and did not let the financial institutes in trouble during the crisis die "because of jobs" is IMO just a sign that these fuckers are just as bad as the bad bankers. They are more concerned about their own political career, and thus their own MONEY, than they are concerned about what is good for society as a whole, or the money of other people.

And don't get me started on how many politicians tend to be in bed with the rich... no wonder they do treat fraud and other "get rich quick" schemes as minor offences often, seeing how many rich people today did resort to some very shady money grabbing schemes or anti-competitive tactics to get rich in the first place.

You don't slap the hand that feeds your election campaign.

Well the debates just happened. How they went in terms of poll impacts we still aren't sure yet.

The general impression from news articles so far seems to be that Hillary came out slightly ahead, but just slightly.

I only watched 15 minutes of it (somewhere in the middle), and my general impression is the same it's been for the past four or five months: It's because neither party actually listens to the public that we have two candidates nobody wants, and are stuck in an election that basically comes down to "Which candidate do we hate least?"

To be fair, there are pros and cons of both candidates. Here they are:

Hillary pro: "I'm not Trump". Hillary con: "I'm Hillary."

Trump pro: "I'm not Hillary". Trump con: "I'm Trump."

I still think Hillary is going to win by a substantial margin (10%), but honestly, I'd rather go without any president for eight years than have either of them.

It's because neither party actually listens to the public that we have two candidates nobody wants, and are stuck in an election that basically comes down to "Which candidate do we hate least?"

... ...

I'd rather go without any president for eight years than have either of them.

This translates to "we had 22 candidates at the beginning of the primaries and all of them are shit. The two least shitty (the two that topped the primaries popularity) are still too shitty, so were're mostly bored with politics for now"

It also translates to "The most liked candidates of the primaries are so disliked - that our country's politics is really so fucked-up."

Either the above is true OR Americans chose the wrong candidates by mistake. And its incomprehensible that millions can all make same mistakes together. So more than not, the above should be true

The general impression from news articles so far seems to be that Hillary came out slightly ahead, but just slightly.

I only watched 15 minutes of it (somewhere in the middle), and my general impression is the same it's been for the past four or five months: It's because neither party actually listens to the public that we have two candidates nobody wants, and are stuck in an election that basically comes down to "Which candidate do we hate least?"

To be fair, there are pros and cons of both candidates. Here they are:

Hillary pro: "I'm not Trump". Hillary con: "I'm Hillary."

Trump pro: "I'm not Hillary". Trump con: "I'm Trump."

I still think Hillary is going to win by a substantial margin (10%), but honestly, I'd rather go without any president for eight years than have either of them.

I mean like Trump pretty much failed to debate. He started sort of strong but completely fell apart.

The debates were highly entertaining though. The moderator didn't ask a bunch of questions Hillary and Trump wanted, so I'm expected the later debates to go even further off the rails.

Also waiting to see what Assange leaks about Hillary in October.

That being said, I'm still moderately happy with Trump as a candidate, I don't think the debate shifted my view one way or the other.

It's because neither party actually listens to the public that we have two candidates nobody wants, and are stuck in an election that basically comes down to "Which candidate do we hate least?"

... ...

I'd rather go without any president for eight years than have either of them.

This translates to "we had 22 candidates at the beginning of the primaries and all of them are shit. The two least shitty (the two that topped the primaries popularity) are still too shitty, so were're mostly bored with politics for now"

It also translates to "The most liked candidates of the primaries are so disliked - that our country's politics is really so fucked-up."

Either the above is true OR Americans chose the wrong candidates by mistake. And its incomprehensible that millions can all make same mistakes together. So more than not, the above should be true

I didn't review all 22 candidates, since I don't get to vote in the primaries (I'm not a registered member of either party). Mostly I followed the mainstream news, and from what they portrayed, and what I saw, most of the Republicans were shit. Mostly more of the same thing we've always had. That's also what Hillary is - more of the same, except more self-centered, more corrupt, and more addicted to power. Obama, for all his major differences in policy compared to me, from day one has been a good president in terms of actually trying to run the country for the people's best interest. He hasn't seemed corrupted or addicted to power (both Hillary and Trump seem to be in it for the power). A tad egotistical, as are most of us including myself, but it looks like flat out humility compared to Trump and Hillary.

Of all the candidates, on both sides of the aisles, Bernie Sanders seemed the most interesting and least in it for himself. I don't know if I'd have been able to vote for him, because of major differences in policy, but I really respected who he was and was actually considering it, because he was genuinely wanting to serve the country rather than have the country serve him.

When I said, "It's because neither party actually listens to the public that we have two candidates nobody wants"

"Nobody wants" is obviously hyperbole (there are huge groups of people that are fanatical Hillary or fanatical Trump supporters), but, while I'm not learned in the history of USA politics so I could very easily be wrong, I think we'd be hard pressed to find a recent election where so many people of their own party despises the candidate their party has chosen - and that's true on both sides of the presidential election at the same time.

The Democrat party elite pretty much forced Hillary on the public, when the liberals were obviously leaning Bernie.

The Republican party elite - out of incompetence - wasn't (and still isn't) tuned in to the dissatisfaction of the masses on issues like racial tension, immigration, corporate abuse, criminal justice reform. Because they don't understand it or don't think it's a critical issue, they missed the opportunity to get a Republican candidate who has a strong platform on those issues, which would've made Trump's insurgency much smaller and defeatable.

Oh, and Trump missed the opportunity in that debate to win the election. In my mind, had he suddenly surprised everyone with a heavy stance on pro-consumer copyright and patent reform, and hit Hillary as the political "status quo" and harder as a NAFTA and TPP supporter, I think it would've swayed enough of my generation (the under-30s), including some of the Bernie supporters, to lean his way and gain the lead.

Yes, but most people's expectations for him were to do terribly in the debates. He only did moderately not well. The bar is set very low for him, moderately high for Hillary. People aren't comparing the two directly, they are comparing the two to their existing expectations.

It doesn't matter how good or bad Hillary does in the debates, it only matters how bad or good Trump does. As it is, Trump didn't do terribly in the first debate, but he didn't do good enough to make a difference. Hillary will still win, and with a healthy margin. Unless Trump does incredible in the next two elections, the undecided voters will go mostly for Hillary.

Almost any other Republican - even the status-quo politicians - would've easily won against her (and lost against Bernie) because of how much mainstream America doesn't like her. The only thing keeping her in the game is that mainstream America seems to hate Trump more.

Even if Hillary faces more scandal from new revelations, she's pretty much inoculated against it now. She's already been proven to be a liar (or else a fool) and corrupt (or else incompetent), and nobody supporting her seems to care. Obama was the first black president. Hillary will be the first openly corrupt president.

Oh, and Trump missed the opportunity in that debate to win the election. In my mind, had he suddenly surprised everyone with a heavy stance on pro-consumer copyright and patent reform, and hit Hillary as the political "status quo" and harder as a NAFTA and TPP supporter, I think it would've swayed enough of my generation (the under-30s), including some of the Bernie supporters, to lean his way and gain the lead.

Yes, because you can totally trust the guy who denies saying things, there is proof that he has said, on anything he says...

I'm not one for believing people in politics are the best of times but if you believe anything this prick says, or indeed support him, then you are basically a prick yourself... although it does being up the question 'Who is the bigger prick - the prick or the prick that follows him?'.

(and being from the UK I kind of want to see Trump come to power, and then the USA fall apart.. in much the same way I'm kinda hoping the UK falls apart post Brexit, because basically I could give two shits about the fuckers who live on this planet - I'm surrounded by fucking morons and the whole thing needs to burn :D )