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'The Laws Are Written By Lobbyists,' Says Google's Schmidt
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from The Atlantic:
"'The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists' to protect incumbent interests, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Atlantic editor James Bennet at the Washington Ideas Forum. 'It's shocking how the system actually works.' In a wide-ranging interview that spanned human nature, the future of machines, and how Google could have helped the stimulus, Schmidt said technology could 'completely change the way government works.' 'Washington is an incumbent protection machine,' Schmidt said. 'Technology is fundamentally disruptive.' Mobile phones and personal technology, for example, could be used to record the bills that members of Congress actually read and then determine what stimulus funds were successfully spent."
We discussed a specific example of this from the cable industry back in August.
In other news, Sherlock Holmes claims he is not shitting anyone.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How?
They write twice as many laws to serve the lobbyists.
We should hire lobbyist to represent us to our represemtatives... but that would be redundant ,right?
Tomorrow is another day...
"We want the lobbyists to write laws in Google's interests. Like Net Neutrality."
As for "helping the stimulus", imagine how bad the US would be without all those "jobs saved"... :-P
Does anyone not know this already?
No.. never mind. Don't answer that. The people that I meet every day that are in their own little world is actually contradictory evidence. There are still plenty of people out there willing to argue that the corporations aren't in control. A lot of the facts are not apparent until you dig for them, and they're too busy picking up the kids from daycare and mowing their lawns to bother...
This isn't news. Anybody who hasn't been asleep the past 20 or more years already knows that organizations have stolen the government.
Real news would be if somebody actually found a way to counteract their deeds.
How is this still not common knowledge? Oh yea, there's no free money in knowing or fixing the system.
For better or worse, Google is considered authoritative now, so someone might listen. I predict nothing changes.
I was ridiculed YESTERDAY for saying this...
Oh, I WTFV, but still, like there have been other oracles before him, it matters not. Technology has change government, it has given it more methods to keep people in line, to feed them what they want, to play one class off another, to better mince boundary lines to keep officials in power, to better redistribute wealth to do what boundaries cannot, and a host of other abuses. We have all the fun of McCain/Feingold followed by an Administration that seems to have free speech if it is of a differing opinion. One that takes the worst of the previous abuser and exaggerates them.
China operates like the Orwellian nightmare of a business, uprooting people and destroying history and nature in its relentless march forward, hoping to get where its going before something irrevocably breaks. China has to look over its shoulder as well, up and coming countries arise all the time, each more hungry than the last. Let alone their real problem, how to keep North Korea from causing an all out war next door.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
And THAT'S offensive...
Despite comments to the effect that this is not news, these comments are quite interesting. Google has a capitalization comparable to the lobbyists of the kind of ATT and others, but here as well, they play differently, and more transparently. Mr. Schmidt's comments here reflect this difference.
This is why this company still has the sympathy of slashdotters. Google's effort to advance Net neutrality and other issues pertaining to civil liberties and the Internet are to be appreciated, not derided cynically like I am reading here.
Really, there are people who didn't know this? Come on. This is exactly why our rights are slowly being stripped away (part of the reason, anyway) in favor of corporate interests (ACTA, DMCA, and every other idiotic anti-piracy bill in existence that hurts the average citizen).
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
And this ("laws written by lobbyists") is why I don't think corporations should have free speech rights. They can have revocable *privileges* to run ads but should never have the right to hire, for example, a Microsoft lobbyists or RIAA lobbyists to block-out the voice of the people in the halls of Congress. Or to run ads to support their favorite puppet for Congress. The corporations have no more rights than a building.
If Bill Gates or the RIAA CEO wants to lobby, let them hire the lobbyist from his personal salary, rather than using the corporation's billon-dollar treasury.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Clearly it is, but that is a double edged sword. It can vastly increase productivity and bring down entrenced monopolies, but can also lead to cases of cyber-bullying, such as the recent suicide of the college student after a live webcam was posted of his gay sexual encounter, and online slam books posting anonymous personality critiques of students at the university and even grade school levels. In the past, it has led to catastrophic pollution of the environment (the many Superfund sites stand as examples). To say that society would benefit most by unchecked technological advancement is naive - the same has been said about capitalism, a philosophy which has led most recently to the subprime mortgage crisis, TARP bailout of Wall Street banks and the Great Recession of 2008.
I suspect it's simply impossible to create a non-corrupt government that manages a country that big and is so far removed from its citizens. Going back to the roots and organizing ourselves into something akin to city-states might allow us to keep closer control over the people we designate.
Diversity of laws can be a problem, but at least nowadays with online communications it'd be easier for such city-states to cooperate on treaties.
A question that arises is whether it wouldn't actually empower corporations more, with smaller states having smaller budgets than industry leaders.
Ridiculed? What?
"You're wrong because this system is perfect because authority figures say so!"
Like that?
From the first line he refers to "average Americans" who do not realize the process.
This applies to most societies, and is a euphemism for uneducated people(without a tertiary qualification).
Or to quote a line from Blazing Saddles "...the common man. You know....Morons."
"You know....Morons" will find the clip on You Tube I believe.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
In his administration. Look how long that lasted...
The system is just clearly broken, thanks to both parties (Which in reality is just one big party). But this is nothing new, this is as old as our country. Hell, anti-monopoly laws, were written and designed by the largest businesses in the country themselves. It is buying protection, that is it. "Hey, here is some money to run again for congress, lets work on this law together. On yeah, it just may benefit me and block my competition"
When typically 95% of incumbent are reelected with ease, we have a problem.
“The few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons.” – Frédéric Bastiat, The Law
And this is why Google wants 'net neutrality' - so it can protect itself from competitors by writing the laws that define its industry. The concept is called a nonmarket strategy.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
This is hardly news, but I think it is a good thing to have someone as prominent as Schmidt come out and say it in bold terms. Does he mention anywhere that he has to shower 40 times a day to cleanse the stink of corruption from his sullied flesh? I didn't RTF(ing)A.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Google could implement some fancy open government mechanism/solution...
It'll all make sense again if you read the situation as follows:
s/worker/slave/
s/citizen/worker/
s/corporation/citizen/
s/industry/corporation/
The emphasis is toward big players, because they are the ones that can keep the world afloat,
or so the thinking goes. Ah the brave new world.
Wait till their fortunes start to decline. Then we'll shall see what they're truly made of .
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
I thought it was the Illuminati. I mean serious, if the legislators can't be arsed to even read legislation at all prior to voting on it, I think it stands to reason that they weren't the ones writing it. Wouldn't surprise me that it's not just the Patriot act that was done in that fashion.
There once was the Golden Rule: Whoever had the gold, made the rules.
Today, that means hiring lobbyists. What's news? Combustion releases heat aka, fire is HOT?
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
If you're going to be a part of one of the world's biggest names on the internet and say things like this, then change what you're bitching about.
Otherwise, nobody wants to listen to your ego-fueled rage.
Who do you want writing laws that govern complicated industries (high-tech, medical, etc.): a bunch of politicians, or people who actually work in those respective industries? Does the average congressman with a law degree understand the nuances of intertube technology (too soon? nah.), for example? I have no problem with industries proposing or even drafting legislation, provided that our elected representatives and their staffs actually read and digest the bills to ensure that the law is fair, enforceable, and beneficial.
Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk
Water is still wet.
Really, anyone who is even moderately interested in history realizes that this has been going on in the USA since Washington left office (1797), maybe earlier.
I would put it to the readers that overall "the great experiment" has turned out better than one could have hoped. Secret wars, deals and shenanigans are generally less prevalent as the decades roll on (granted this is also evident world-wide). 100 years ago most of Europe was run by a dozen Emperors, Kings and Queens who were mostly all related (lol @ accountability). There are no more Rothschilds/Habsburgs.
It's so sad that we have to chose between building dams that interfere with wildlife that we eat for food and foreign oil. If only there were more than just those two sources of energy, we wouldn't have this problem!
When Bennet asked about the possibility of a Google "implant," Schmidt invoked what the company calls the "creepy line." "Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it," he said. Google implants, he added, probably crosses that line.
So Google has a line they will not cross?
"With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches," he said. "We don't need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less now what you're thinking about."
And this doesn't cross their line? Sounds pretty creepy to me.
I am not really here right now.
It would be nice if slashdot resolved URL shorteners to their final address. Not that any of us have any doubt as to where this one will send us.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Was ridiculed circa 1992 for saying "we don't need China" to a graduate business school student, who was being indoctrinated with Free Trade ideology. I told him our grandchildren would blame us for the result. My only real mistake was that I should have said "our children", as my predictions seem to be coming true sooner than I thought.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I don't know, man, I always hated Tracer Tong's ending in Deus Ex.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FYNOXMcfMo
Despite what some whiners online may say, America really is a free country both in that you can say what you want, and that the people have the power to change the government. What that means is that if you want to organize around candidates to change the current system, the government can't stop you, and that if you vote those candidates in to power, that is that.
The only obstacle is people who are whiny and say nothing can be changed. Bullshit, it can so. Doesn't mean it is easy, doesn't mean it won't take time and effort, but it can be done. One of the first steps is just getting the message out. Let people know what is going on, and so on.
This is precisely the same as the "third party" bullshit. "Oh voting for a third party candidate is throwing your vote away." No, that is only the case if idiots continue to believe that and not vote third party. If you look around, you find that at a state level third party candidates have won and held office. There is no evil force that keeps them out, only the force of apathy/whinyness from people who say "It can't be done."
Americans DO have the power to change their government, however to do so they have to understand this fact, and exercise it. Bitching does no good.
They're simply purveyors of Free Speech.
Lobbyists are key players in the trillion-dollar business of government. Individuals, for the most part, are not. Lobbyists increase the net worth of government by providing justification for more spending, more borrowing, and more power over the people. Individuals, for the most part, do not.
If you're at the top of the power pyramid, whose opinion do you value more? Obviously, the people whose primary goal is to rake more cash through your hands every year.
that’s the tough one some ideas of the top of my head
1 get rid of a lot the states powers,
2 the parties need to get party discipline and throw out the "nutters".
3 have strict uk style election campaign limits
4 replace the vast expenditure on tv campaigning with uk model of party political broadcasts.
5 have more equal constituency sizes (which will stop small agricultural states leaching of the bigger ones)
6 force all organizations (Unions and Company) to run a political fund for any lobbying and have it confirmed by vote every 7 years with opt out allowed)
Sort of. Individuals make campaign donations to get a voice, too.
Bribery vs. legislation is more about the target.
Although the point of the story is kind of silly... we've had phone bills for decades, for example, but we don't have [to my knowledge] a public web site showing the donor phone calls of each senator. And senators spend most of their time making donor phone calls, or donor personal contacts.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Politicians are too busy engaging in politics to be bothered with public service. Who can refuse outsourcing your job to someone else who would rather do it for you and getting paid to do so.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
The founders in an incredible amount of foresight and wisdom knew that an "efficient" goverment is a dictatorship - one man making decisions and implementing them immediately. This is the best it could get to be as there would be no need for endless debating, no filibusters, no gridlock.
The only problem is, how well can you choose your dictator? Experience and history shows that a really good choice of dictator is rare and doesn't last very long even if you get a good one. So this idea of an efficient government was discarded.
There is another problem with an efficient government. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million laws - probably not an exaggeration. A new law takes days at a minimum regardless of it being a municipal, state or federal law. Some take months or even years to enact. Can you imagine a process that made passing laws "efficient" so it only took minutes? What would we be saddled with?
Sure, the US government has grown to the point where the Congresscritters are unable to keep up and are relying on external help. Can you just imagine what it would be like if there was no gridlock, no filibustering and things got done in an efficient manner? We might have to double the size of Congress just to be able to process stuff and keep things flowing. That would be the goal, right? To keep things flowing and passing more and more bills, laws, regulations and requirements.
The US government was designed to be horribly inefficient and to have so much momentum that it was virtually impossible to pass anything unless a lot of people really, really believed it was necessary to do so. And still we have millions of laws and more all the time. I'd say it is working as designed.
Something to think about:
Companies depend on selling their products to the masses. Therefore, you may not realise it, but we actually hold the key to destroying them if we wanted to. The problem is that people are undirected, they do not wish to take a stand. It is only the chosen few who actually become 'leaders' , and usually they start doing what suits THEM instead of what suits the masses.
When the masses stop being controlled by the media, and are able to THINK - and decide that they do want change, and realise that THEY hold the power - then the world will change dramatically.
But that's never going to happen, so I guess we're stuck in this hellhole.
ArsenneLupin is just very excited about the possibilities of Google's new service.
Judging by the number of goatse posts he's made recently, he apparently felt he had karma to burn.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
So, the obvious question becomes why DOESN'T google start something like Google for Governments, and offer legislative tools for all levels of Government, from local to federal.
Have easy, gmail-style interfaces to thread-based tool which exposes version changes and their source - and then make it open to the public so the public can see who, exactly, introduced what, and further, have it linked to relavent, search-based results. Offer it free to Governments to use in all proceedings, from City Council meetings to Senate subcommittees, and if Governments elect not to use the tools, then for the general public, automate the same sort of bill tracking, infographics, &c., and incorporate public secrets-type info to elevate what is a great existing resource beyond a wall of text such that voters can have a sense of where, and why, actions are taken (or not).
Again, why doesn't google do what it does best, organize information for consumption? This seems like a slam dunk for Google - they have the knowledge, skills and abilities in house, and have already/are currently developing the traditionally hard parts (e.g., linking information) as a part of their core business.
Now tell me something I didn't know.
Duh!
Remember the old cliche, "the victors write the history books"?
It's incomplete. The victors - both military AND economic - also draft the laws.
Most of our legislative burden, that portion not derived directly from common law, is all about serving primarily the interests of our "captains of industry" and "pillars of society", preserving and increasing the control and material resources acquired at the expense of everyone else. Any beneficial fallout for the rest of We The People is purely accidental and not really intended.
Absolutely not.
The fucked up corrupt federal government is the largest waster and biggest problem we have. We need a return to more state's rights, not an even larger and more powerful federal government. they just in the past two years stole TRILLIONS of dollars from the populace and handed it to their wall street banker insider cronies. And that's just one of hundreds of fucked up things they have done.
Ag states leeching from the other states...fuck you**! man are you wrong there. If the ag states farmers were paid the same percentage they were from two generations ago 40 cents on the grocery shopping dollar instead of the five cents they get now- they would be rich! The federal government "market" policies have ripped them off, they allowed big city "traders" and other middlemen to game the system, they allowed destructive cartels to be established and flourish, now these poor states get some back and get ranked for it. This is like blaming rape victims. Again, corrupt federal government allowing mass thievery to go on, then get all the crime victims to point fingers at each other rather then where it belongs, in DC and NYC, the axis of corruption and evil.
TV exposure and so on, agreed, it should be limited to..around ten bucks, tops, spent. It's ridiculous, I'd ban all that political campaign commercials, pack of lies for the most part. If you took a poll, I bet 99% of the people would like to abolish political commercials. NO ONE besides hard core party fanatics like those things.
Corporations and unions lobbying, etc..another ban, fuck 'em! Individuals have free speech, let individuals talk, not corporations or orgs. They shouldn't be allowed within fifty feet of a politician and not spend one buck lobbying either.
The "parties"..are both totally corrupt top to bottom, the "nutters" are the ones who keep thinking by voting D or R you will get honest government. There is NO fix for the corrupt dem or rep parties, way too far gone now to fix.
Equal constituency sizes..we do, reps are similar. Our senate is supposed to be elected by the state legislatures by original design as a part of the checks and balances. This needs to go back and end direct voting for senators. This is a big deal though because it requires a change to the Constitution, an amendment needs to be dropped, the 17th. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
We also need term limits for everyone in government, end political "careers".
**don't take it personal, you probably really don't know what happened to our poorer ag states and how they have been ripped off over the past few generations. Most people in the USA don't realize it either. If they were paid fairly and honestly, they wouldn't need fed tax help, not a penny.
***don't take it personal2, but we fought a big war to be not-europe and not-UK. We don't want to be europe or a big englande, see? We wanted away from that and try something else, it is called the bottom up government starting with the *sovereign individual*. Maybe if we really tried that it might work. The original design was pretty good, it just needs to be really implemented now. No top -down government is every going to work here either, so we need to go back and try to implement the real Constitution before we try other schemes. NONE of our states would be broke now if we didn't have to ship 1/3rd of our entire wealth to the federal government all the time, plus now we are in hock for ALL of it if you look at the real numbers.
We are so far past broke because of Federal government spending and entitlements..well..it isn't going to work, it will collapse sometime now, inevitable, so trying to make it bigger will just hasten that day.
Besides that, I read the cyber papers..you Europeans appear to have a few little little economic difficulties heading your way as well..might tend to your own business before giving us
There's lots of talk and theorizing, but little research on the effect and influence of lobbyists. Thankfully, there is a large ten year study of lobbying, Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why (available at your favorite bookstore). There's a pretty good review of it at Miller-McCune. An excerpt:
The real outcome of most lobbying -- in fact, its greatest success -- is the achievement of nothing, the maintenance of the status quo. "Sixty percent of the time, nothing happens," says Frank Baumgartner, one author of the book and a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "What we see is gridlock and successful stalemating of proposals, with occasional breakthroughs. We see a pattern of no change, no change and no change -- and then some huge reform."
But those large reforms -- such as health care for 32 million uninsured Americans under President Barack Obama, the scheduled phase-out of the estate tax under President George W. Bush, and the normalization of trade relations with China under President Bill Clinton -- are far more often linked to a change in who inhabits the White House than to campaign contributions or K Street hires.
The weak link between money and policy change is counterintuitive but understandable, the authors say. The balance of power in Washington already hugely favors the rich. The status quo reflects the considerable advantages the wealthy have managed to secure in the law, down through the generations.
If it is too slow, and people can see it coming, lobbyists will have the laws changed to prevent technology from reigning in on their parade. And by the way, the clock starts now or yesterday, because congress critters and lobbyists by now are becoming more aware of the risks technology may pose to their fiefdom.
For example, by requiring DRM, licensing restrictions on digital versions of legislation and congressional records, or just limiting plain material availability of the text of laws themselves.
I'm sure there are a lot of reps who would support laws preventing their votes and actions from being disseminated electronically in a database and info retrieval systems, to reduce constituent scrutiny.
Is the basis of some of that. But! We aren't enforcing some other issues of person hood. I have to die someday, for example, so why not corps? If I do crimes, I do time -- but when Sony roots my box, they don't, they just pay a fine, and not to me. If corps are going to have "person hood" let's not shilly shally around here -- let them have the whole package. You have to get old and creaky. You may live a long time, but not forever. You can't buy another "person" -- don't we have rules about that now? And so forth. Just be consistent. As Heinlein pointed out -- people (or corps) that live essentially forever eventually can't be tolerated by the rest of us for very good reasons.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
"bills that members of Congress actually read and then determine what stimulus funds were successfully spent."
Members of Congress read the bills?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
You're a retard, you know that? He just said he barely makes enough to support himself despite working hard every day. The top 20% of the country owns 87% of the wealth. The bottom 60% owns less than 1% of the wealth. What the heck is anyone supposed to do when half of those paupers vote for politicians who want to give MORE money to the rich?
This is a great post, and your links are extremely informative. I wish this could have been modded to +5 so everyone could see it.
If you want money out of politics, I would suggest getting the politics out of money.
You have an over-active government that meddles in absolutely everything. Wouldn't anyone want to influence a government which can ruin them with one line of regulation out of a 2000 page law?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Here's a way technology could help: our representatives should vote from home. There's no need for congress to assemble in Washington, and many reasons not to; chief among them that lobbying supplants local representation. Our elected officials should spend their time talking to the people who elected them instead of to people who have enough money to set up shop in our nation's Capital. If you're running for office so you can get away from your home state, then don't run for office.
Individuals are held accountable for their actions. Individuals must face the consequences for their actions. Corporations have mastered the art of deflecting accountability and consequences. Corporations survive in spite of all of their bad deeds and negative impacts on society and environment for generations to come. I like idea of the mob of people gathering together to ensure people get justice against one particular individual who has it coming to him/her. It's hard to mob and get justice against a corporation or a multinational. It's hard to close down a corporation that has done criminal deeds. We as a potential mob don't know who exactly is responsible for the bad deeds of a corporation. Finger pointing goes in every direction in a corporation. The Louisiana BP oil incident is an excellent example of a corporation fingerpointing different directions for someone else to take responsibility and face the consequences.
You are so right! It's important that lobbyists should be individuals and not corporations. The individuals trying to pull the puppet strings of government try to do so by hiding behind the cloak of anonymity of a corporation deflecting all the accountability and consequences from their actions. If we constrain the ability to lobby to individual citizens, it takes away the veil of anonymity. If someone wants something to change, they should be willing to put their face and reputation to it and face the consequences of their actions. For example, it would be nice for the VIP's of oil companies to go live in the environmentally damaged areas where oil-industry related products have negatively impacted people. We could go on and give further examples of why Pharmaceutical Industry VIP's could take thalidamide pills as an example of accountability and suffering the same consequences as regular folk when they damage other peoples lives up not only for this generation but for generations to come. BIG TELECOM/BIG OIL/BIG DEFENSE/BIG MOVIE/BIG MUSIC/BIG PHARMA/BIG AGRO/BIG GENE/BIG SOFTWARE are corporations and have a great deal to lose from not having lobbying power.
MERIT to me means "Spiritual credit granted for good works." Notice good works has the letter 's' to it in plural context. A corporate VIP logically is a VIP because of the accumulation of good works. From what I can see many VIP's have forgotten what that word means. It's important to whip corporate VIP's off their high-horse stance and remind them they are just like everybody else. When VIP's screw up someone else of merit should take the helm. It's seems impossible for corporate VIP's to be held accountable for negative actions a corporation has commited. By simply stepping down from a corporation, the ex-VIP easily evades him from further consequences for his grave mistakes impacting a large populace. It's a BIG PROBLEM because many people feel like there is no justice. For example the Federal Reserve Bank and Loan System no longer works and the entire U.S.A. is in a dire situation financially. No one can deny that. In Canada, there are many under the delusion that everything is ok, but that is total bunk and has been for a long time. I have seen the impact on my family and relatives for many years. The Canadian tax system is a burden on every citizen. Instead of alleviating the burden, they seem to be making it heavier every year to pay for the notorious DEFICIT. DEFICIT is a word everyone in the world is coming to learn the hard way as Alex Jones coined it: "because of banks taking the world's governments by the balls", but this is another topic to be discussed at another time. One thing is certain, the DEFICIT will affect the generations to come. The banking VIP's have mastered the art of deflecting accountability and consequences.
It should be illegal for banks to lobby for anything from now on. Nobody should trust them. The money system is so broken everywhere.
I'll give you an example: Why is it so difficult to get money transferred from China to Britain or Canada? Why is
Really, is "I" too hard for you guys to type?
Damn you guys are lazy!
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
See, you not only don't know how to read, but jump up on all the typical bullshit. For starters, I am trying. I have been trying, I go to college all day, work in my spare time, and I have been working on several inventions, and trying to sell them in what time I have left. I work my ass off every day of my life, and yet have no choice but to live in debt slavery, no matter how hard I try to fix shit. And I do all of that with Cluster Headaches, the most painful medical condition known to medicine. Most of the time I am working to improve my situation, but I wasn't born into money, so I will still be living in debt slavery working at some corporate giant giving away my expertise for a tiny ass paycheck watching my ideas and ingenuity going to make the world worse instead of better.
Also, I like what Fox says, I WISH it were true. But it is a load of bullshit that keeps hard working people like me inpoverished and overworked while getting nothing back. I am also an eagle scout and spead a good deal of time doing voluntary community service.
At least those people can Afford to go to a 3rd world country to fix it. I could live for a month of the cost of a plane ticket, and I frequently have to. Now is it ok to whine while at the same time doing everything to get into a better situation? Yes it is you ignorant jack ass. go back to living the easy life getting mad that the poor people who work 20 hours a day are so lazy. Fuck you.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
The weak link between money and policy change is counterintuitive but understandable, the authors say. The balance of power in Washington already hugely favors the rich. The status quo reflects the considerable advantages the wealthy have managed to secure in the law, down through the generations.
I sense a lot of bias in this work. For example, their habit of calling large legislative works "reforms", inserting a blatant pro-Obama message ("such as health care for 32 million uninsured Americans under President Barack Obama", even though it looks to me likely that the fraction of uninsured will increase under the Obama "reform"). Maybe they're right. Rich people do have well by today's society and they have reason to protect the status quo. Or maybe it's because large scale legislation which changes the game tends to be so bad that only a party dominating both the legislative and executive branches can pass it.
And stop selling out to foreigners.
If we continue to sell out to foreigners we should not be surprised when we wake up one day to discover we are owned by foreigners.
Because selling out to foreign powers decreases the power of Americans to self govern and the next thing you know your foreign powers are your foreign owners.
You took the bribe and it's just like taking it from the mafia, now you are property.
You make the laws they tell you to make, or they will destroy your life because guess what? Some of these lobbyists are obviously connected to intelligence agencies, and have dirt on politicians along with the ability to bribe.
And the FBI does not have the ability. So we are run by foreigners and foreign agencies help write our laws through lobbyists who bribe politicians or blackmail them.
Don't assume every lobbyist is American.
Point 4 is exactly where Lawrence Lessig started 'Change Congress' to try to fix the underlying root of our corrupt congress. Lessig says you can't fix anything else until you fix this first. Anything else, like for example fixing the problems in our Healthcare, will be subverted by corporate lobbyists to just make more profit for the incumbent corporations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_Congress
The problem isn't that politicians are corrupt or bribed, the problem is that they are bribed by foreigners instead of bribed by us.
You need power and principles to win.
This would mean corporations would have hundreds of millions or maybe billions to hire an army of private investigator types, ex-spooks, and corrupt law enforcement types, and have these people find "dirt" on politicians, and then exploit that dirt.
This one cheats on his wife. This one is secretly gay. This one has kiddie porn on his computer. This one is a racist. This one's father was a nazi. This one cheated on an exam.
Corporations have unlimited money. There is a limited amount of weak individuals in congress and senate. These corporations can follow them around, stalk them, spy on them, to find dirt on them. Then you have dirty corrupt cops who would be willing to entrap some of them or set some of them up. Then you have journalists, with their sources/informants who would use anything they say in private to make them look bad or lose an election.
Since every politician is human, they all have skeletons, and once elected thats when all these different groups of corporations privately let them know that they have this dirt or that dirt or this skeleton and that, and to either pass the law or else.
The ones who won't bend to the will of corporations in this way, they'll be bribed. Their kids get to go to Harvard, Yale, you know? Their businesses get investment because someone owes them a favor right?
Because every individual can be investigated until some area of their life or some weak point is found, and then that individual can be threatened with the bad news.
It works on bribery, extortion/blackmail, and thats about it.
Everyone who needs to be controlled is investigated until their price or weak point is found and they get the option that everybody gets when in the way, take the bribe or accept the terror.
This is the only option politicians get, this is the only option anybody gets who gets in the way of big corporations. You either take the bribe or you take the terror which usually is the result of years worth of dirt or skeletons in your closet, or maybe you don't have skeletons so they get some dirt cops to arrest you on possession of something illegal, it's not hard.
So ultimately the choice is almost always to take the bribe or take the terror. I can't blame any politician who takes the bribe, and the politicians who take the terror aren't able to do anything to defend themselves. So you have defenseless individuals up against invincible corporate persons. Nobody can stand up to a corporation or group of corporations who have the money to hire 10 people to follow you around and investigate you for as long as it takes.
But you don't understand that there are no "leaders." The "leaders" are actually the most controlled among the masses. The corporations know who the future leaders will be, they then investigate the hell out of them to find any stupid thing they've ever said or did in their entire life, if nothing is found then they search harder and forever until something is found. If one investigator can't find any dirt, they'll hire a dozen, until the individual does something stupid, and they'll have their informants and sources try to trick the individual into doing something stupid that they ordinarily wouldn't do.
If none of this stuff works, they'll start lying. Suddenly you'll be a bisexual and somebody you've never met before in your life will start lying about you. Suddenly you'll have cheated on your wife because some woman you've never met before will be threatening to call your wife and tell her what you did unless you do what they want. And in the backround you'll be given the option to take the money, keep your mouth shut, and go along with it.
Most "leaders" take the bribe rather than accept the terror, because resistance is futile. Ask Bill Clinton.
The same effect it always has been. Just ask Boss Tweed how well that works.
There will always be ways to manipulate or get people to do what you want them to do. Bribes may be the best way but threats work very well on people who have a lot to lose.
What the heck is anyone supposed to do when half of those paupers vote for politicians who want to give MORE money to the rich?
Convince them to change their mind. One man at a time.
Become rich. It's not just a joke. Income mobility is pretty high in this country. Second point: the statistics about wealth ownership may be accurate but are most likely meaningless at best and woefully misleading at worst. It's not wealth but income that matters, as everyone who had a house (wealth) but was foreclosed upon (lack of income) experienced these past few years. Used wisely, wealth can generate income. But so can a lot of other things. Google and Facebook and Microsoft weren't created by the Carnegies or the Rothschilds. Final point: a more equal distribution of wealth may sound lovely, but think how the government is likely to achieve it. Not by taking from the rich and giving to the poor, but by taking from the rich and burning that wealth to bits. The poor are no better off, except psychologically for knowing that everyone else must eat the same gutter trash and nobody can offer them a hand up anymore.
"Now is it ok to whine while at the same time doing everything to get into a better situation?"
It depends on what you mean by "okay". The problem is that the human mind is really good at finding things it's looking for, it will find the needle in a haystack if you're looking for the needle no problem. "Whining" is very negative, and partaking in the passtime has the side effect of adapting the brain to become "better" at it, create new inter-neuron links or strength existing links that lend to that negativity. The effect is the same as anything else you may entertain you mind with, you become better at finding it in the world. Now, obviously the brain doesn't only look for a single thing, so you are obviously able to find good things and bad things in the world (and by "things" I don't just mean physical, this extends to ideas) BUT the brain is confined by physics - it's not infinite, it can't be infinite, your skull makes sure of it. So the more time spent entertaining thoughts in a negative way is still time that could be spent entertaining thoughts in a positive/constructive way, meaning that those inter-neuron links would be created in a way that increases your chance of finding positive/constructive things to do (because the more the brain looks for something, the more likely it is to find it). So while it is "okay" to whine, it does have a detrimental effect in relative terms, because it's time that could be spent on gearing up the brain for spotting the ways out, which is why it's discouraged.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
I'm surprised to see so little enthusiasm amongst slashdotters - this is the CEO of one of the most important Tech companies in the world coming out against corporate lobbying, the number 1 thing that is wrong with the USA (look around the world for examples of countries that can mysteriously govern themselves successfully despite the lack of corporate lobbying).
Having said that, Eric Schmidt is still a fucking pussy.
Anyone serious about getting rid of lobbyists and corruption needs to look at the source: if people weren't so willing to hand their hard earned money to politicians there would be less money to chase in Washington.
The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists'
I'm not sure about how it supposed to actually work in US, but who else is supposed to write laws?
Gov't is largely reactive force - not proactive. If you come to them with a complain - they'd try to resolve it. If you come to them with a law - they'd try to pass it. That's how it actually works. N.B. Would be glad if anybody can enlighten me how it supposed to work.
'Technology is fundamentally disruptive.' Mobile phones and personal technology, for example, could be used to record the bills that members of Congress actually read and then determine what stimulus funds were successfully spent."
Disruptive technology wouldn't help with the law making. From the corruption insights into Russian gov't I heard that to write a law costs around $2.5-10Mln (not including the actual bribes required to pass the law). And the Russia is a simple state as whole power is concentrated in the Kremlin. Laws became intricately sophisticated, where one needs to pay attention to the existing laws/etc. On the federal level that surely is made more tangled by the local state laws.
Unless Google/friends come up with disruptive technology to take out the main costs out of the law making, I do not think anything would change.
They can go a bit disruptive and create and maintain free/open system to analyze and search the legal documents. I heard the systems exists already but cost *beep*load of money.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
"Just what I was talking about. Whiny people who just want to cry that everything sucks, and generally act like it sucks much worse than it actually does, rather than do anything."
All I see is you bitching on slashdot, son. I got off my ass, at least, and sued the fuck out of EA. Sony is about to be my next target. In the meantime, I'm carrying on research to grow food crops with low levels of light or no light at all.
So tell me, what are YOU doing to make this world a better place?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Congratulations, Norman Borlaug, on making the coming population crash ten times as hard as it would have been if you hadn't got people pumping dangerous chemicals into the land and destroying it for future generations.
Officials tend to represent those who elect them.
Lobbying undermines the democracy for the same reason that illegal bribery undermines the democracy.
Without such external money, the officials would tend to represent the voters.
With such external money, and a system that requires expensive campaigns, the officials will tend to represent those who fund the campaign.
One way (the ideal, most democratic solution) to fix the problem is to eliminate political donations entirely, and only have government funded election information broadcasts (debates, candidate info pages, candidate Q/A,...), on common media (internet, tv, magazines,...).
Another way to fix the problem is enforce a per-person donation limit. Either count a corporation as a single person or multiple people. If corporation is counted as multiple people, then the corporation should be required to have people within the corporation (stockholders and/or employees) sign off on the donation. The donation amount would be limited according to the number of people that agree to it.
But any reform would be helpful at this point. The current systems allows a few at the top of a large corporation or organization to have a disproportionate influence in elections and the creation of legislation.
Unelected, uncontrolled and accountable to nobody. Until the influence of the wealthy worldwide is curtailed, nothing will change. We have met the enemy and he looks a lot like Bill Gates or the King of Saudi Arabia.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Sierra Club, NRA, AFL-CIO, and AARP are all lobbyists. Lobbyists are on both sides of all discussions. They are the EXPERTS. It is not possible for Congress to understand everything, lobbyists are the experts on subjects that members of Congress are supposed to use to understand issues. They have NOTHING to do with keeping any congressman or senator in office except through regulated, transparent campaign donations. People whine about how much lobby group A gives to a senator, but they usually fail to mention how much the lobbyists B is giving to his opponent. Like it's OK for the Sierra Club to donate, but not the oil companies.
Congress is only a problem when they do things for lobbyists for favors. We can't have the Sierra Club talking to Congressmen if we don't allow the oil companies to do it too. We can't have the NRA talking with Congress if we don't allow the anti-gun lobby to do it also.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
OK, I'll bite.
>1 get rid of a lot the states powers,
Article V provides that no amendment to the Consitution may deprive a state of its representation in the Senate (in which each state gets 2 Senators).
The 9th and 10th Amendments reserve all powers not granted to Congress to the States. While these could be overturned, the states have to ratify amendments.
> 2 the parties need to get party discipline and throw out the "nutters".
OK, this could happen without a constitutional change. But throwing a party member out just means he's out of the party, not out of Congress. He can join another party. And with the tight margins these days, parties usually suffer prima donnas.
> 3 have strict uk style election campaign limits
They tried that (McCain-Feingold). But it ran up against the 1st Amendment when the government argued that even publication of a book could be against campaign finance limits. In Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled against limiting speech even the speakers were organized as a corporation.
> 4 replace the vast expenditure on tv campaigning with uk model of party political broadcasts.
See #3
> 5 have more equal constituency sizes (which will stop small agricultural states leaching of the bigger ones)
See #1
> 6 force all organizations (Unions and Company) to run a political fund for any lobbying and have it confirmed by vote every 7 years with opt out allowed)
I think this is already happening in that they form PACs (political action committees). But, true, they don't get explicit approval from union members or shareholders. Might be a good thing.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I wrote an article about this exact subject. http://popcopy.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-get-what-we-want-done-in.html
Income mobility is remarkably low in the US. There was an economist article on that a while back.
Also, about the government being inefficient: this is a huge strawman: the government is meant to fill those niches which cannot be filled by the market, because the externalities are hugely positives but there is no profit (roads for example). Also those niches which are natural monopolies: in this case profit can be extracted, but this profit is pure loss for the society, utilities tend to be like that, telcos can tend to that point, collectively, health insurance companies are like that. This is something the US gov does badly, in that it doesn't take over these roles as much as it should.
Also, the UN recommends lowering the income inequality, because this helps growth. This is obvious: markets depending on the choice of a few select individuals are vastly less efficients than markets depending on the collective choices of a great many individuals: in other words, although some guy is a really clever investor and became hugely rich, you cannot depend on them to invest efficiently all of his money: the choices are too numerous and complex.
Thank you.
NSS - No Shit, Sherlock.
The very next example cited -- the very next words, in fact -- is the scheduled phase-out of the estate tax under President George W. Bush! That's pro-Obama?!
Must everything be politicized and attacked? Can't we at least finish reading the sentence first?
...news on Slashdot?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Except for the fact that I am a very positive person and I spend most of my time trying to make the world a better place and improve myself, as if sycraft-fu was actually right about something. And really, I wasn't whining so much as I was furious at mr. Just work harder and your problems will disappear. If I worked any harder I would have a mental breakdown and then be totally fucked, which almost happened to me around may of this year I was working so hard. And I did get to watch my Mother lose her mind after working 80 hour weeks. I would rather not go down that same road.
But I appreciate your bizarre effort.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
"Mobile phones and personal technology, for example, could be used to record the bills that members of Congress actually read and then determine what stimulus funds were successfully spent."
Purposeful inefficiencies to a certain degree. The first to take advantage of this transparent access would be one's enemies. Where is the incentive? I agree this is how things should work. I just do not see the incentive for this. Time and again providing more information than is necessary puts people at disadvantage.
Mod parent up please.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
With initials like that, I wonder why the World Wildlife Fund doesn't hold pay-per-view panda wrestling matches to raise more money.
(here's a hint: there are other places to get your news).
The existence of better places to get news than the MPAA-controlled local networks and cable news channels doesn't help if the majority of the electorate doesn't use them.
if you want to organize around candidates to change the current system, the government can't stop you
You can't broadcast TV without a license from the Federal Communications Commission, and local affiliates of broadcast networks affiliated with mainstream United States motion picture studios own most TV spectrum licenses. (NBC is with Universal, ABC is with Disney, CBS is with Paramount, Fox is with Last Century Fox, and CW is with Warner Bros.) Good luck getting your ad on the air if your platform opposes the interests of the movie industry.
Well I'm in a similar boat so I can appreciate it, but no I wasn't meaning to work harder, just the positive thinking to help you spot potential ways out. Some chances come and go so quickly, you don't want to lose time on not recognising them, as if doing the same thing isn't working, you need to recognise chances that would allow you to do something else that would help you more. Easier said than done etc etc etc, I know, but it's a valid target I strive for myself, and it does make a difference... but yeah I know when there's an underlying medical thing that can pull the rug out underneith you at any time, it's hard to keep getting back up every time like nothing happened, but... what else can one do?
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Exactly. And belive me, I am constantly looking for the next opportunity. Constantly. I just get really worked up when people act like it is possible for everyone, like things will just turn around if you keep working. Sure them might, but chances are they wont, even if you have an IQ in the 97th percentile (which although good, isn't really that good, I mean, 2-3 out of every 100 people have a higher IQ, so its not exactly extraordinary or anything). Just imagine how a lot of people simply don't have that choice, who simply keep living in these conditions and don't get a chance out. Those who went to a shit school and never had the chance for scholarship.
I mean, just look back. In the 1950s, 1 single basic income could support a wife and 3-5 children. Now, 2 incomes can barely support 2 people, yet 3 to five, unless you have a big earner, one of them 50k+ folks. Basically, the hard work of the average person has become worth less and less, to the point where it is total bullshit, basically getting paid less than the cost of living working too many hours a week. That is what I am mad at. I don't believe we are entitled to things we don't earn, I just believe we are entitled to what we do earn. And that it should be easier to go to college, none of this "live in poverty for 4-8 years" bullshit. I guess 2 if ur just getting a shit degree. There is no reason you should be punished with poverty for doing the so called "right" thing and trying to get an education so you can make the world a better place.
The medical system in this country is a joke unto itself, there is no need to go to far into it, besides the fact that it is totally ineffective at treating anything at all severely overpriced, and totally fucking evil.
But do you get the point I am trying to make that it isn't as easy as simply doing more, when there is nothing you can do and you are trying everything possible despite debilitation painful health conditions ect. ect.? It doesn't have to be that way, there are ways to provide social protections so that bullshit doesn't happen and can be more easily fixed. Also, there is no reason that business and banks should own more wealth than the majority of the country, and no reason why the top few percent should own more than the bottom 95ish% of the people combined. I wouldn't care if they made that money honestly, by actually creating things or improving the world, making a new product or new song or something, but the problem is, the top few percent got that way simply by fucking up financial markets and stock trading. Even musicians and popular bands don't have that much money anymore. Most of them don't even make it into the 100k a year range.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
It's astounding and disappointing that this kind of post gets modded down to troll while the parent and the other whiny responses get modded to +4 insightful. The bad news is that this kind of pervasive attitude of failure is bad for society. The good news is that I'll have plenty of "hard workers" to make my tacos and burgers.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Many services currently funded through taxes can be made opt-in, funded directly by those who benefit from them.
How exactly would national defense, local enforcement of laws against violence, protection from fires on your neighbors' property, and a road between your neighbors that passes by your house be made opt-in? I'd like to read a well-reasoned essay that services widely thought to be public goods actually aren't.
"Social welfare" programs can be funded through voluntary donations.
And those who donated their social welfare insurance contributions to an organization that happened to go under due to massive economic turmoil might end up having to turn to crime to survive.
Governments can also invest in ordinary private organizations (with appropriate safeguards against conflict-of-interest)
I'll believe such an appropriate safeguard can exist when I see it.
Aint that the truth? Seriously?
If you are from the lowest 25%, then the chance that you will ever reach the highest 25% is less than 1%. So a person living in poverty that reaches the top is a statistical anomaly. Upward mobility is completely dependent on your parents/guardians' income bracket.
I'm sick of working two jobs while finishing my double major, but hey, that's life. For people like me, anyways. As an individual, I'm waayyy below the poverty line, but am not eligible for food stamps because I go to school and receive financial aid. They don't care that the financial aid is the same amount as tuition, it's there, therefore they assume mommy and daddy are paying for everything else. If only.
"The weak link between money and policy change is counterintuitive but understandable, the authors say. The balance of power in Washington already hugely favors the rich. The status quo reflects the considerable advantages the wealthy have managed to secure in the law, down through the generations."
I'm not sure why the authors consider the link weak when the status quo is the goal of the wealthy, and they continually achieve that goal year after year.....
Your link to uchicago wasn't working, slashdotted perhaps. I'll read it later, maybe the authors explain further.
Basic financial management for governments is no different from financial management for individuals: first, earn a productive income (i.e. not stolen from others); second, maintain your capital investments (needs); third, plan for the future (pay down debts, save & invest); fourth, consume (satisfy wants). Taxes are a symptom of failing the first step. Debt and degrading infrastructure are symptoms of erroneously prioritizing consumption.
This would be true if our money was not debt based and inflating in double digits every year.
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