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Edited by Spawn: 1/28/2016 1:46:17 AM
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Bernie Sanders' Economic Policy explained in Destiny Terms

Bernie Sanders' campaign is built on what he and many others call wealth inequality, his entire economic policy is built on addressing this "issue". In an effort to promote understanding of his widely popular policies I will now explain them and how they work within the scope of Destiny. Let's begin.. Commander Zavala's term is finished and elections are in process to select a new commander of the Vanguard. The Speaker tried running but was deemed "out of touch and too old" for this young generation of guardians. In a close election between Bernie Sanders and Cayde-6, Cayde-6's past habits of boozing and womanizing come out after a string of sexual harassment accusations from Petra Venj and Amanda Holliday. Bernie Sanders ends up pulling ahead and winning after this information becomes public. Sweeperbot mounts an unsuccessful 3rd party campaign. Bernie Sanders is sworn in as Commander of the Vanguard and vows to tackle the problem of wealth inequality among Guardians. Wealth in Destiny consists of a combination of exotics, god-roll legendaries, strange coins, and light level (among other things). Let's face it some guardians are much wealthier than others! Bernie vows to fight this wealth inequality "these 1-percenters have way too much wealth, why does a guardian need a last word, a black spindle, and a chaperone? They can't even equip all of them at once!" Bernie goes on to say "I've seen these 1-percenters, some of them have two Twilight Garrisons, Thorns, Party Crashers with rangefinder and rifled barrel, and HUNDREDS of strange coins. How can an up and coming guardian ever attain that sort of wealth when they're only getting 30 or so strange coins a week? These 1-percenters have all the exotics they could ever need and yet they still horde hundreds of strange coins and three of coins, it's not fair!" To make things "fair" Bernie hikes taxes on guardians that have an "excessive" amount of exotics and strange coins, if you have over 15 exotics you are hit with a 45% tax. You must pay the new Vanguard gov't 45% of your exotics or strange coins. If you have 20 exotics you pay a 60% tax on your exotics and strange coins, and if you have 35+ exotics you pay a 75% tax. It's only "fair". The new gov't then begins to subsidize Xur. As a result, Xur now provides two exotics and 10 three of coins a week to underprivileged guardians for "free". Regular guardians notice a spike in prices for exotics from Xur, armor prices rise to 18 strange coins a piece, weapon engrams rise to 25 strange coins, three of coins are now 10, and legacy engrams (a luxury item) come up to 50 strange coins a piece. Guardians who worked hard for their exotics and strange coins are ridiculed for being "wealthy", they were simply "lucky" they had RNG on their side. Never mind the fact that they spent hours raiding and grinding in Iron Banner, their high light level and collections of exotics/strange coins aren't the result of their hard work, they only have all that because of "luck" and it's "unfair". Bernie's economic policy and crippling taxes destroy all the incentive to raid and grind Iron Banner. "Why would I spend all that time and energy raiding when Bernie is just gonna tax and take most of my hard earned loot?" guardians ask. "Hell I could just sit back, pound some beers, and shoot dregs on patrol while collecting those "free" exotics and three of coins from Xur every week" other guardians say. As a result, wealthy guardians leave the tower, swear their allegiance to the Queen, and move to Reef (taking their exotics, strange coins, and possessions with them). Suddenly, no one is left to pay for the expensive subsidies and programs that supply underprivileged guardians with "free" exotics and three of coins. Without the "wealthy" to tax and pay for the gov't programs, these social programs go insolvent and suddenly Xur stops providing goods to underprivileged guardians. Meanwhile since their is still so much debt the higher prices on Xur's goods remain, sparking a revolt. Both the underprivileged and middle class guardians are unable to afford these high priced exotics and three of coins. The remaining guardians have become dependent on government and expect to be provided with something, however, Bernie's new Vanguard gov't is reeling in debt from providing all these "free" goods and services. The people begin to uprise (just like in every other example of socialism) and a coup is organized to oust Bernie from the Vanguard. One morning Bernie is walking outside with his bodyguard and is attacked by Cayde-6, Bernie and his bodyguard both fire their shotguns but Cayde-6 is 10 feet away and just outside of range. Cayde then quickly dispatches both of them from 10 feet away with his 1000YS sniper. Cayde-6 then embarks on a campaign to make the Vanguard great again. Meanwhile, the Reef has transformed into an economic powerhouse where guardians are eager to work hard, take risks, and keep the rewards of their work. The Reef has low taxes but because there is so much wealth their revenues remain strong, couple this with the fact that the Reef doesn't blow money on redistribution and social programs, and what do you know... They're running a budgetary surplus!! Moral of the story: Capitalism > "Democratic" Socialism Rand Paul 2016 ...and if he doesn't get the nomination any other Republican 2016, they're all more economically literate than Bernie! Edit: Lots of people showing love and lots of people hating. To the haters all I gotta say is supply and demand is LAW. Learn it, live it, love it. Bernie sure doesn't... Edit 2: Over-regulation is a bad thing. In Destiny terms, was Destiny better when it first came out or after all of Bungie's various nerfs and buffs? I think we know the answer... Edit 3: This post sure got crazy, kinda like Bernie Sander's economic policies. For all the haters I have one statement, supply and demand determines value. This is an irrefutable economic truth. Bernie's policies attempt to assign value in opposition to supply and demand. That is why his policies are guaranteed to fail. To everyone that showed some love, YOU ROCK!!

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  • I'm not voting for Bernie, and while this example takes socialism to it's extreme in a parody... it's wholly incorrect as to how the economy works. The issue of wealth inequality isn't just a matter of taxes, social programs and surpluses. If the rich decided to all leave (where the hell would they go in the first place?), it's not going to create an economic boon for 1 location and absence of money in another locale. The issue of wealth inequality, occurs when those in power & money, continue to make decisions that only exponentially grow their wealth while stagnating the people they need to get there. That's the true issue of wealth inequality. It's not an issue about working hard, working smarter or even being a cutthroat businessman, it's the decisions that the super wealthy make, which impact the middle class. To counter with an extreme example of this, think of a big business that makes billions of dollars. The CEO wants to increase stock value for the company, so he needs to show more profits. However, sales are pretty regular each year... 1 billion in sales in each year approximately, which holds steady in each year. But to make that 1 billion look better, they find places to cut expenses and costs. Because if the company spends 500 million, then it only makes 500 million. But if they only spend 400 million, then they walk away with 600 million. So where do you cut the 100 million? How about benefits? How about bonuses? How about vacation time? How about training? Cool, that saves 100 million! And that increase the stock value of the company, to which the CEO has plenty of stock options (where most of the super wealthy have made their fortunes). But that 100 million in savings, came at the expense of medical coverage, vacation time, and additional cash for employees. This is the heart of wealth inequality. It's not just taxing the super rich, it's how are the super rich getting there, at the expense of the middle class workers.

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