There he is, the guy with the crystal ball. Or maybe he's just extraordinarily wise, logical, and dedicated to the welfare of the people.

1) The 2007-08 Crash

In 1999, Bernie spoke on the floor of the House, opposing the legislation that would repeal the FDR-era people-protection laws known as Glass-Steagall—

“This legislation… will do more harm than good. It will lead to… taxpayer exposure to potential losses should a financial conglomerate fail. It will lead to more mega-mergers... and further concentration of economic power in this country. This bill is…, however, good for big banks… It is time for the Congress to stand up for the consumers. The big banks are doing fine— let’s protect the consumers. Let’s vote no on this legislation.

The House passed the bill 362-57 over Sanders’ objections.

In 2000, a year later, Bernie grilled Alan Greenspan, then-Federal Reserve Chairman, about what was being done to the economy by all the unregulated, greedy financial players growing huge amounts of unstable wealth—

“What happens if they fail? Who in God’s name is going to bail them out?”

Greenspan told him that,

“We do not believe that...[if] a substantial institution fails, that they should be bailed out.”

But, in 2007, those institutions failed— just as Bernie suspected.

And guess what?

They got bailed out— just as Greenspan denied.

956 institutions were saved by the federal government, including “substantial” ones like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Capital One, KeyCorp, Citigroup, Bank of America, PNC, and the insurance giant AIG.

Instead of allowing them to fail, the government enabled the wealthy to get away scot-free on the taxpayers’ dime. Off the Federal Reserve went, racing to the rescue of the rich and powerful, using the people’s money to do it.

It’s exactly what Bernie worried about in 1999 and 2000.

We’re still paying now for no one listening to him then.

As The Guardian reports,

“The bailout cost us plenty, and continues to do so. Sadly, it is the gift that keeps on giving to the very banks that drove our economy over a cliff – and took trillions in housing wealth, retirement funds, and millions of jobs with it. ...$21bn is no bargain. It's a hefty sum for a government we're constantly told is broke – and needs to cut everything from air traffic controllers to Medicare, from meals for needy seniors to public defenders and housing aid. Broke – but somehow able to front $700bn for reckless, wildly mismanaged banks.”

Bernie Sanders saw the 2007 Crash coming. He looked ahead and predicted the looming disaster, eight years before it happened.

It’s why he wants to break up the big financial institutions today. He was worried in 1999 and 2000, his fears came true in 2007, and now, in 2015, he understands and is trying to get the American people to understand how desperately we need to break up the banks.

Bernie knows, like Theodore Trust-Buster Roosevelt, that you cannot let financial institutions grow so massive. Such behemoths breed inequality and instability and, when they (inevitably) crash, the ensuing recession will devastate millions.

This country is based on a system of checks and balances. It is a bastardization of our democracy for the few to be so un-regulated and so un-restrained that they get away with creating massive amounts of fake wealth and an economic sugar-high— a bubble that will, eventually, pop. Like dragons they hoard their wealth, always seeking to make more, even when it hurts other people, even when they could give away half and not be affected at all, even when the many live with so much less.

It is shameful.

And they will never stop on their own. The way forward is clear—

Break. Up. The. Big. Financial. Institutions.

Of the two major Democratic candidates, only Bernie Sanders is proposing to do that.

As the International Business Times reports,

“’[The] policy proposals [of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders] have two really different focuses,’ said Mike Konczal, a fellow at the progressive Roosevelt Institute… ‘They seem to reflect their public personas. Hillary’s has a lot of footnotes and wonky details whereas Bernie wants to take on the power of the big banks.’ Marcus Stanley, executive director of… Americans for Financial Reform, said the differences are largely conceptual. ‘Clinton calls for fine-tuning what regulators are doing already and taking them a step further in some cases. The Sanders proposal is more of a change in direction.’

As The Atlantic writes,

“When it comes to too-big-to-fail banks, Clinton is proposing very little beyond what currently exists— nor does she explain how she will get regulators to use the powers they already have... In the end, the Clinton plan looks like a laundry list of marginally better-than-nothing reforms that are likely to vanish into an abyss of rule-writing and regulatory dithering. If she wanted to position herself as the heir to President Obama — who talked a good game while leaving Wall Street largely as he found it — she couldn’t have done a better job.”

We can’t do this anymore. Crawling along with “wonky details” and “fine-tuning” has cost the American people too much, too many times. We can’t stay stuck, waiting for the economy to crash yet again before finally doing something substantial to safeguard our citizens.

We need a skittering stop and full-force change in the opposite direction. We need to force the massive financial institutions that control this nation’s cash flow to stop their shameless rapacity. We need to break the stranglehold the rich have over our economy.

There are real people’s lives and livelihoods at stake here. This is gravely serious, my friends.

Hillary Clinton and her “marginally better-than-nothing reforms” are only going to lead us down the exact same path George W. Bush did.

You can’t change Wall Street through minimal reform.

You change it through an overhaul.

And we need that overhaul now, because the next massive crash is already starting.

As The Guardian reports,

“Big banks now have incentives to bet recklessly on the latest asset bubble, safe in the knowledge that if it goes horribly wrong, Uncle Sam will sponsor a soft landing.”

And when it happens, the government will bail them out again, and the American people will be plunged into a catastrophic wave of suffering yet again.

Bernie never got an honest answer to his question “What if they fail?”

The truth wasn’t the failing of the big banks— it was the growth of child poverty and the continued unemployment of the American people six years after the Recession is supposed to have ended, while the CEOs and executives make more than ever.

No more empty promises. No more false claims of what your plan will do. We need strong policies and unwavering loyalty-to-the-people. We need a true leader, someone who will actually stand up to the big players and say, “Enough! You can no longer run this country through your unrelenting and uncontrollable greed!”

We need President Bernie Sanders.

2) Wealth Inequality

In 2003, Bernie questioned Alan Greenspan before Congress again, telling him (in a chunk of dialogue that is well-worth the read, even more worth the watch),

“Mr. Greenspan, I have long been concerned that you are way out of touch with the needs of the middle-class and working families of our country [and] that you see your major function as [representing] the wealthy and large corporations — and I must tell you that your testimony today only confirms all of my suspicions. And I urge you, and I mean this seriously... come with me to Vermont! Meet real people. The country clubs and the cocktail parties are not real America. The millionaires and billionaires are the exception to the rule. You talk about an improving economy, while we have lost 3 million private sector jobs in the last two years, long-term unemployment has more than tripled, unemployment is higher than it has been since 1994, we have a four-trillion-dollar national debt, 1.4 million Americans have lost their health insurance, millions of seniors can’t afford prescription drugs, middle-class families can’t send their kids to college because they don’t have the money…, bankruptcy cases have increased by a record-breaking 23%, business investment is at its lowest level in more than 50 years, CEOs make more than 500 times of what their workers make, the middle-class is shrinking, we have the greatest gap between the rich and the poor of any industrialized nation, and this is an economy that is improving! I hate to see what would happen if our economy was sinking!

This man was where Americans are right now more than a decade ago.

He saw the growing inequality and injustice, and how it would continue into the future, before virtually anyone else did.

He was part of the Occupy Wall Street movement before it ever began. He was speaking out about the issues center to this 2016 election cycle before Bush even got elected to his second term. He was shouting against the gap between rich and poor eight years before people started camping out in New York with signs emblazoned, “We Are The 99%.” He was railing against wealth and income inequality long before it was politically advantageous.

He saw the reality of America’s oligarchy years before the U.S. middle-class did. He was angry and fed-up before the people even knew they should be.

He was standing up for the American people 12 years ago— behind closed doors, his voice bleeding anger and outrage.

It doesn’t get more real than that, my people.

And, please — just as Bernie invited Greenspan to come to Vermont and meet real people — I invite you to listen to that video and meet the real Bernie Sanders.

Hear him speak and tell me he doesn’t emanate sincerity and honesty, tell me his words today are “talking points” or that he’s just falling back on his “stump speech.” If he repeats himself, it’s only because he’s been saying the same stuff for decades. Delve into Bernie Sanders’ record, compare him to Hillary Clinton, and tell me he’s not the most authentic politician we’ve seen in decades.

And, to add insult to injury, in October of 2008, Alan Greenspan retracted his entire philosophy of the world, testifying that—

“...What I’m saying to you is that, yes, I found a flaw… I’ve been very distressed by that fact… [I found] a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak.” “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working?” “Precisely, that’s precisely the reason that I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years [this way].”

The policy of de-regulation, de-taxation of the rich, not raising the minimum wage, etc. etc. and expecting wealth to somehow “trickle down” is absolute bogus.

Even Alan Greenspan admits he had it wrong.

And that makes Bernie Sanders deader-than-a-doornail right.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, the one that Bernie championed before its creation, had other signs, as well. One read:

Dear 1%,

We fell asleep for a while. Just woke up.

Sincerely,

The 99%.

The people have been asleep, but Bernie Sanders has been awake for decades.

3) The 1994 Crime Bill

In 1994, Bernie spoke forcefully to Congress about the devastating effects he feared the bill would have (in another chunk of dialogue better watched)—

“Mr. Chairman, let me begin with a profound remark: Two plus two equals four. In other words, there is a logical and rational process called cause and effect. In terms of Newtonian physics, that means that every action causes an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, fellow members of the House, there are reasons why things happen, as controversial as that statement may be. A farmer neglects to tend and care for his fields— it is likely that the crop will fail. A company neglects to invest in research and development— it is likely that company will not be profitable. In a similar way, a society which neglects, which oppresses and which disdains a very significant part of its population—which leaves them hungry, impoverished, unemployed, uneducated, and utterly without hope, will, through cause and effect, create a population which is bitter, which is angry, which is violent, and a society which is crime-ridden. That is the case in America, and it is the case in other countries throughout the world. Mr. Chairman, how do we talk about the very serious crime problem in America without mentioning, without mentioning, that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, by far, with 22 percent of our children in poverty and 5 million kids hungry today? Do you think maybe that might have some relationship to crime? How do we talk about crime when this Congress is prepared, this year, to spend 11 times more for the military than for education; when 21% of our kids drop out of high school; when a recent study told us that twice as many young workers now earn poverty wages as 10 years ago; when the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider, and when the rate of poverty continues to grow? Do you think maybe that might have some relationship to crime? Mr. Chairman, it is my firm belief that clearly, there are people in our society who are horribly violent, who are deeply sick and sociopathic, and clearly these people must be put behind bars in order to protect society from them. But it is also my view that through the neglect of our government and through a grossly irrational set of priorities, we are dooming today tens of millions of young people to a future of bitterness, misery, hopelessness, drugs, crime, and violence. And Mr. Speaker, all the jails in the world, and we already imprison more people per capita than any other country, and all of the executions in the world… will not make that situation right. We can either educate or electrocute. We can create meaningful jobs, rebuilding our society, or we can build more jails. Mr. Speaker, let us create a society of hope and compassion, not one of hate and vengeance. Thank you.”

Again, if you have any doubts about the truth of Bernie Sanders’ decades-long commitment to the people, watching him speak so passionately on the House floor for us twenty years ago will quell them.

He was right. He was right about everything.

That Clinton bill, which incentivized states to build more prisons and throw more people behind bars, did the opposite of stopping crime. It punished people for being poor. It demonized them instead of offering relief.

From NPR,

...Jeremy Travis is president of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. But 20 years ago, he attended the signing ceremony for the crime bill — and joined the Clinton Justice Department. "Here's the federal government coming in and saying we'll give you money if you punish people more severely, and 28 states and the District of Columbia followed the money and enacted stricter sentencing laws for violent offenses," Travis says. But as Travis now knows all too well, there's a problem with that idea. Researchers including a National Academy of Sciences panel he led have since found only a modest relationship between incarceration and lower crime rates. "We now know with the fullness of time that we made some terrible mistakes," Travis said. "And those mistakes were to ramp up the use of prison. And that big mistake is the one that we now, 20 years later, come to grips with. We have to look in the mirror and say, 'look what we have done.'" Nick Turner of Vera put the human costs even more starkly. "If you're a black baby born today, you have a 1 in 3 chance of spending some time in prison or jail," Turner said. "If you're Latino, it's a 1 in 6 chance. And if you're white, it's 1 in 17. And so coming to terms with these disparities and reversing them, I would argue, is not only a matter of fairness and justice but it's, I would argue, a matter of national security."

From The Atlantic,

...Many of the crime policies the Clintons supported in the 1990s were probably wrong even back then. Yes, the crime bill did some good: It put more cops on the street and increased penalties for sex crimes. But it also helped spawn the very “era of mass incarceration” that Hillary now denounces. It’s not just that the bill allocated almost $10 billion in federal-prison construction money. It only allocated it to states that adopted “truth-in-sentencing” laws that dramatically increased the amount of time criminals served. As NYU Law School’s Brennan Center has noted, the number of states with such laws rose from five when the bill was signed to 29 by Clinton’s last year in office. Over the course of Clinton’s presidency, the number of Americans in prison rose almost 60 percent.

In 1994, Hillary Clinton said,

“We need more police. We need more and tougher prison sentences for repeat offenders. The ‘three strikes and you’re out’ for violent offenders has to be part of the plan. We need more prisons to keep violent offenders for as long as it takes to keep them off the streets.”

Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, stood up for the poor people of this country. And he was doing it against popular opinion, decades before he decided to run for president. It’s not his “angle” to win an election, but a fight he’s long been waging against a government that does not work for the people, but for the rich, that neglects and abuses its people until they must commit crime to survive, and then punishes them for trying to live.

As Bernie put it, “All the jails in the world… will not make that situation right.”

Note: Bernie Sanders voted for the ‘94 crime bill because it included the Violence Against Women Act—

“I have a number of serious problems with the Crime Bill, but one part of it that I vigorously support is the Violence Against Women Act. We urgently need the $1.8 billion in this bill to combat the epidemic of violence against women on the streets and in the homes of America.”

4) The 1996 Welfare Legislation

The 1996 welfare bill was another law that Bernie rightfully predicted would not work as the Clintons claimed it would.

In 1994, on C-SPAN, Bernie Sanders said,

"My concern is [that] in the process of welfare reform... we make sure that we improve the situation and not punish poor people and children, especially the children."

In his 1997 book, he wrote,

"The bill, which combines an assault on the poor, women and children, minorities, and immigrants is the grand slam of scapegoating legislation, and appeals to the frustrations and ignorance of the American people along a wide spectrum of prejudices."

And, yet again, Bernie Sanders was right. Instead of addressing the causes of poverty — poor education, low-wage jobs — it cut the safety net and forced poor people into low-paying jobs that would never allow them to rise out of poverty.

From The Guardian,

Using national data administered by the US Census Bureau, [Kathryn] Edin [a Johns Hopkins University professor] and [Luke] Shaefer [an expert on surveys of the incomes of poor people] found that since the welfare reforms of 1996 in particular... the number of families in the US surviving on cash incomes as low as $2 a day per person has skyrocketed. The research documents how by 2011 the number of $2-a-day households had more than doubled “and at a distressingly fast pace” to 1.5 million (1 in 25 of all families). Around three million children are now in such households. To put it in context, the US government’s definition of “deep poverty” is $8.50 per day, per person. It’s all well and good to say it’s better for people to work, says Edin, but if the only jobs available to poor people are so low paid and unstable they simply boomerang in and out of poverty, then employment on its own is clearly not a route out of poverty, says Edin... “Something has gone wrong with welfare, but something has also gone wrong with work because 70% of these [$2] households have at least one adult in the household who has worked in that year. The most common cause of a descent into extreme destitution is the loss of a job.” “When you talk to people what you find is that they see themselves as workers. They are scrambling to try to hang on to the ragged edge of a labour market that does not offer enough jobs and the quality of those jobs has become so fundamentally degraded that it is almost impossible for people to make ends meet.”

From Bloomberg Politics,

According to the most recent Census figures, the U.S. poverty rate in 2013 was 14 percent up from 11 percent in 1996, when the Clinton welfare bill was enacted.

We need a $15 minimum wage, as Bernie is proposing, not $12, as Hillary now wants. Bernie knew that such legislation would only serve to “punish poor people and children,” and so it has.

5) The Iraq War

In 2002, before the vote that give Bush unilateral power and unlimited funds to wage his oil war, Bernie Sanders spoke before the House, saying— ...Mr. Speaker, the front page of The Washington Post today reported that all relevant U.S. intelligence agencies now say despite what we have heard from the White House that “Saddam Hussein is unlikely to initiate a chemical or biological attack against the United States.'' Even more importantly, our intelligence agencies say that should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he might at that point launch a chemical or biological counterattack. In other words, there is more danger of an attack on the United States if we launch a precipitous invasion. Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the President feels, despite what our intelligence agencies are saying, that it is so important to pass a resolution of this magnitude this week and why it is necessary to go forward without the support of the United Nations and our major allies including those who are fighting side by side with us in the war on terrorism. ...The President is ignoring some of the most pressing economic issues affecting the well-being of ordinary Americans. There has been virtually no public discussion about [the fact that]... millions of Americans have seen the retirement benefits for which they have worked their entire lives disappear. When are we going to address that issue? ...The average American worker today is working longer hours for lower wages than 25 years ago. When are we going to address that issue? Mr. Speaker, poverty in this country is increasing and median family income is declining. Throughout this country family farmers are being driven off of the land; and veterans, the people who put their lives on the line to defend us, are unable to get the health care and other benefits they were promised because of government underfunding. When are we going to tackle these issues and many other important issues that are of such deep concern to Americans? Mr. Speaker, in the brief time I have, let me give five reasons why I am opposed to giving the President a blank check to launch a unilateral invasion and occupation of Iraq and why I will vote against this resolution. One, I have not heard any estimates of how many young American men and women might die in such a war or how many tens of thousands of women and children in Iraq might also be killed. As a caring Nation, we should do everything we can to prevent the horrible suffering that a war will cause. War must be the last recourse in international relations, not the first... Fourth, at a time when this country has a $6 trillion national debt and a growing deficit, we should be clear that a war and a long-term American occupation of Iraq could be extremely expensive. Fifth, I am concerned about the problems of so-called unintended consequences. Who will govern Iraq when Saddam Hussein is removed and what role will the U.S. play in ensuing a civil war that could develop in that country? Will moderate governments in the region who have large Islamic fundamentalist populations be overthrown and replaced by extremists? Will the bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority be exacerbated? And these are just a few of the questions that remain unanswered. If a unilateral American invasion of Iraq is not the best approach, what should we do? In my view, the U.S. must work with the United Nations to make certain within clearly defined timelines that the U.N. inspectors are allowed to do their jobs. These inspectors should undertake an unfettered search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and destroy them when found, pursuant to past U.N. resolutions. If Iraq resists inspection and elimination of stockpiled weapons, we should stand ready to assist the U.N. in forcing compliance. Bernie Sanders predicted the instability and terror the U.S. would wreak on the Middle East if we spread a hunt for a terrorist in Afghanistan to a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. There was indeed the “horrible suffering that a war will cause.” Almost 5,000 American soldiers died in Iraq and half a million Iraqis were killed. We left a “grim record” of torture, cracking jokes while killing, urinating on dead bodies, and bringing home “trophy” body parts. The invasion was indeed “extremely expensive”, costing over $2 trillion dollars and increasing the debt by over a third what it was in 2002. There were indeed “unintended consequences.” The power gap was “replaced by extremists” and the rise of ISIS was fueled. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, spoke in favor and voted for the law. She and Bernie had the exact same intelligence, yet he made the correct decision. He was cautious and calm, showing great maturity, intelligence, and compassion. He does not just say, as Hillary does, that war should be a last resort, but truly believed and acted upon it. He thought about the American people and the unstable, violent future this invasion would bring. He stood on our behalf, telling his fellow law-makers that they must care for their citizens, not go galavanting off on a murderous, unfounded crusade. He saw the death and destruction American forces in Iraq would inflict. He foresaw how expensive the war would and continues to be. He even predicted the rise of an extremist group like ISIS. Hillary now calls her vote/speech a “mistake.” Well, that mistake cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives and caused the instability that led to the terror of ISIS, birthed from al-Qaeda. I don’t think I want your hand on the nuclear button, Hillary, thank you very much. I want Bernie Sanders’. ——

This man has, time and time again, correctly predicted the future. He saw how the big banks would crash, saw what the rich/poor dichotomy was doing and would continue to do to the American people, saw what the effects of the crime and welfare legislations would be, saw the future of a bloody, costly, havoc-wreaking war.

He has shown, time and time again, great wisdom and sound judgment. He is farsighted, thinking about what the consequences of actions will be.

He has proven, time and time again, his dedication to the working and poor people of this country. He’s committed to solving the evil of poverty, not punishing the people who suffer. He understands the causes of crime and poverty, instead of just looking at the effects.

Bernie Sanders is a better version of Hillary Clinton.

He got there before she did, time and time again.

And, if you’re worried about electability, polls show he beats Republicans in the general, while Hillary Clinton struggles. In polls that show them both winning, he leads her. Conservatives like him, but are not fond of Hillary. Her unfavorability rating and enthusiasm levels are both lower. Bernie’s generating excitement, especially among young people and independents, that Hillary is not. He’s drawing huge numbers of donations, more than any presidential candidate at this point in U.S. history. Ever.

If he’s able to upset Hillary and win the primary, his Revolution will have gained unforeseen momentum. He will have galvanized and rallied the public to vote for a true liberal, and his active supporters will go out and canvass, canvass, canvass. His name recognition will go up. The Republican Party’s been hating on Hillary for decades, but conservatives like Bernie.

Why wouldn’t you vote for him?

If he wins the primary, he’ll win the general.

You’ve got nothing to lose.