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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.
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.
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.
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
The public will never spend as much as frequently on buying politicians as companies do.
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
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.
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.
If you're referring to China relocating entire villages for the 3 Gorges Dam project, I admire them for that decision. They had the balls to make a decision, that relocating 0.3% of their population was a good trade off for the major improvement in their ability to generate clean energy and not rely on foreign imported oil.
I wish our country had those balls again, instead being slave to a few twats who insist that a few species of fish _might_ be helped by tearing down existing hydro dams. Being on the foreign oil teat is why the US is dicking around and pouring trillions into the Middle East conflicts.
When an individual does it, it's called bribery.
When a lobbyist does it, it's great legislation.
Flame or reality? Pick one.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
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
Google is doing very well these days - they can afford to be the white hat guy.
Wait till their fortunes start to decline. Then we'll shall see what they're truly made of .
Anybody can weather adversity. There's no strength in that, no quality of character to be discerned.
If you truly want to see a man's character, give him power. Give him free reign. Don't try to confine or constrain him, but let him act at his every whim. That's when you learn what someone's made of.
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.
Do you.. do you really think that the reason why we're not building more hydroelectric dams is because of the Greens?
You realize that they have almost exactly zero political power, right? The reason why we're not spending money on infrastructure like green energy (or even just fixing up the energy sources we currently have) is pretty clearly explained here. And if you don't believe me, just look at our budget - actions (or in this case, budget allocations) speak louder than words.
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.
....no external input? How much was that? Does a cogent argument get put in, or one that's bought and paid for?
The flames you'll get refers to your sense that we're somehow 'Balkanized' when in fact, we're simply bought and paid for these days with little regard to the consequences. Most of the turmoil in the US today can be traced this way:
1) reduced, paid for banking and stock/commodity purchases were a result of blind-eye regulations towards Wall Street
2) the economy needed a boost, so we turned a hunt for Bin Laden into three costly wars and still don't have Bin Laden
3) the telcos bribed everyone, and now net neutrality is just about a thing of the past
4) we allowed corporations to keep earnings outside the USA, and also export labor away from union shops to the third world, and did a free trade agreement to 'help' Mexico and Canada.
There are lots more. Bought and paid for. Have a nice day.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Keep digging, Watson.
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.
You make it sound like that's a bad thing.
Do you.. do you really think that the reason why we're not building more hydroelectric dams is because of the Greens?
They have some political power, certainly at the local levels. The oil companies have immense political influence and they stand to lose revenues if alternative energy sources are exploited. If you look up the history of the Grand Coulee dam for example, you'll see that oil and traditional power generation companies almost sank the project.
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.
Actually environmental protection, primarily in relation to salmon, has been a big issue in relation to dams. It doesn't take enormous political clout, just a few favorable regulations and court rulings. The hydroelectric companies like Idaho Power aren't tremendously strong politically either. I agree with your general pro-environmentalist sentiment though.
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.
"Something that the US has a hard time with"
To be fair, the US seems to be having a hard time with passing bills that have long or short term effects! Every time I look at what Congress seems to be doing I end up wondering how there's even a country left! How it needs that many people to make doing nothing as slow as they've made it is beyond me!
Am completely with you on the China front. Human rights abuses aside (which our countries have more than our fair shares of - just that ours are primarily in countries other than our own) it's hard not to look at China's ability to actually do things without feeling mighty envious!
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
"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?
I completely agree that our foreign entanglements budget and general military budget are wildly out of control, and should be vastly curtailed.
Another two to look at are Social Security and health care.
Social Security will eat the entire GDP in the not too distant future if the age threshold is not raised. Check out the numbers, they are as bad as the military (and rising significantly faster).
Health care is becoming too expensive; lots of reasons for this, including a ton of protectionism, lawyerism, and corruption, but the one that cannot be fixed is this: Our technological ability to keep people alive is advancing faster than the GDP growth rate can keep up with. At some point, we will have to stop paying for everyone's maximum possible life extension (either by choice or by collapse).
Not trying to piss in your cheerios -- you're right about the military -- just pointing out two other oncoming trains that are bigger and faster. Check the numbers for yourself -- they're scary.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Nonsense. They have enough power to throw sand into the process to sink about any large project. Even if they don't get a court to shut down the project, they manage to get delay after delay after delay, adding so much risk and cost that the investors back out.
Shouldn't that lend credibility to the argument?
I'm not sure what you're protesting here - a company with one of the biggest lobbying machines letting everybody know that lobbyists write the rules, and that it should not be that way.
Sounds downright noble to me.
You think Sony is going to tell you that (they've helped write a number of copyright laws, fyi)?
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
What do you mean, "almost exactly zero political power"? They're behind the dearth of atomic energy in the US.
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,
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.
Not this again. Yes, most of the oil the US uses comes from Canada. But this is little more than a logistic convenience. A barrel of oil is a barrel of oil no matter where in the world it's produced. If the US buys all of Canada's oil, there's that much less oil in the world market, meaning SA and pals can get a higher price for it.
There are two things that matter: how much the US uses on oil, and how much the middle east profits from oil. Both amounts are virtually unaffected by which countries buy which ooil.
I would put it to the readers that overall "the great experiment" has turned out better than one could have hoped.
Depends on whose perspective you are taking. If the goal of the experiment was to achieve domination of the public mind and the turning of everybody into an acting sociopath, then it's been very successful I would say.
Secret wars, deals and shenanigans are generally less prevalent as the decades roll on (granted this is also evident world-wide).
What are you basing that on? I think people are, if anything, MORE easily trained into going along with lies and manipulations than ever before. Who needs a secret war when people will go along with a public one? Who needs shenanigans when people are willing to put up with corruption happening right in front of their eyes. Consider the bailout fiasco, as a massive for instance.
There are no more Rothschilds/Habsburgs.
That's not true.
-FL
Social Security will eat the entire GDP in the not too distant future if the age threshold is not raised. Check out the numbers, they are as bad as the military (and rising significantly faster).
Bull. Shit. You seem to have fallen for the pro-corporate propaganda. There are many other ways to "fix" Social Security. For example, if people making over $100,000 per year contributed at the same rate as poorer people then the problems would be solved for the foreseeable future. In fact, this is what Obama promised to do before he got elected.
Health care is becoming too expensive; lots of reasons for this, including a ton of protectionism, lawyerism, and corruption, but the one that cannot be fixed is this: Our technological ability to keep people alive is advancing faster than the GDP growth rate can keep up with. At some point, we will have to stop paying for everyone's maximum possible life extension (either by choice or by collapse).
More of the same. The problem with our health care system is simple. We can basically do three things with our health care system:
Pick any two. Unfortunately, both the Dems and the Repubs keep picking option (3) making it impossible for us to have the first two options together. If insurance companies are trying to maximize shareholder value then their job is to minimize the health care that is provided while maximizing the cost of that care. They are very good at their job.
The idea of fixing the economy by increasing the income gap between the rich and the poor makes about as much sense as dousing a fire with gasoline.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Oh, no. Not the same standard of living. Not remotely.
We live much, much better. In fact, if you want to live with all the gadgets from the 60s, you don't need double income. You probably only need part of the first income. data
Do we live better? well, living better depends not only on income, but also health and education. And there was significant progress. more data -- but only since the 80s, although I will submit to you this interesting graph of child mortality: graph .
So what is obvious to you is in fact plain wrong. And this is a big issue, because you are not the only one: hardly anyone looks at the actual data to decide whether things are really getting worse. BTW, one of the things is getting worse in the US these days, and that is inequality. Look for the graphs showing the gini coefficient.
And before I conclude, one last graph, showing the effect of women's education on family size -- because you are arguing, whether you realise it or not, that half of the potential workforce should get no education. And sadly, this half will be women. graph Push the play button. Largish families of the sixties and stay-at-home mothers are a consequence of a largely uneducated female population, forced in that role. And it's a guy telling you that.
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.
The average starting salary for congressional staffers who go into lobbying after one term as a staffer is over $700,000.00 per year.
Wow! What's the source for that statistic?
"Yet another stubborn attitude"
Perhaps it's a little stubborn on both sides, no? If you know that your attitude towards them triggers the response of them digging their heals in (which you blatently do know, because it's a bit hard to miss that there are people like this!) and you do not adapt your interactions with them to try to avoid this from happening, then you're being just as stubborn as they are with the same results (their and your stubbornness results in them digging their heals in).
"I know that most people are like this, and that it's simply illogical"
It's not in the slightest... this just comes down to you not making enough attempt to understand things from others points of view (or you make the attempt but lack the experience to achieve the understanding). How do you expect to sell somebody on the idea that what you're proposing to them will result in them being treated better, if you won't even show them a basic level of respect (or you do but then drop it as soon as they challenge you or disagree with you on something)?
I know it's a pain having to bite your tongue for stupid/complacent people, but if you're not even willing to do that, can you really expect someone else to make the sacrifices that will affect their family for the same thing?
"protesting, for example, won't take up all or even a majority of their time"
Oh come on, being a complainy-pants won't achieve anything, because people protesting doesn't mean anything. Sorry, I know protesters hate to hear that, but let me give you an example as to why. In my country at the moment there are people protesting left right and center over public spending cuts. Problem is, the government was only voted in a few months back, and they were voted in saying "we're going to make massive cuts"!! Despite massive protests over the Iraq war, both Bush and Blair both got voted in again! Protests are just talk because they're not backed up by the actions that actually matter, like a change in how the majority votes, or boycotts.
And boycotts is the important one here. What people need to wake up to is that democracy doesn't start and stop at election times. Every pound, or dollar, is a vote, and it's up to you who you give it to. You buy cokacola, and you have blood on your hands, plain and simple. You can fill the streets with people protesting the arming of militias that kill union leaders in developing countries as part of the process of removing workers rights, but if those people then go quench their thirst by buying cans of cokacola... their protest said one thing, but their actions said another, which is "we support the murder of union workers so that we can have a cheap fizzy drink".
That's where real responsibility lies. So you're not asking families to take a day out here and there to protest something, not if you really want to make a difference. You have to get them to stop supporting evil - at least to the best of their abilities (as you can never be 100% sure about everything you buy) - at least enough for there to be an obvious competative advantage for companies to stop oppressing people because they know their profits will be slashed otherwise.
You can blame the government or expect the government to deal with these issues all you like, but if you're serious about actually working towards solving the problem, rather than just "feeling" like you're doing something about it, then you have to stop passing the buck to the guys at the top, and start looking at the people who're putting and holding them there.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Could you provide a citation for this? Not that I think you're wrong, necessarily, but that seems to be a bit on the extreme end. Why would any staffer work longer than one term, if that were the case? I could believe that some staffers make that much straight off the job, but I would doubt that most do. If it is true, I would like to be able to back it up with evidence!
I would disagree highly. Perhaps it's just my state or county, but personally knowing many people who are staffers for both the Pennsylvania House of Rep's and the US House of Rep's for PA, they're paid about $20,000 - $30,000 a year. In my county, of course. It's barely above our poverty line (approximately 20 grand a year).
The actual representatives, of course, are a different story. Most of the money they receive is used for their campaigns, and their base salary is whatever the House or Senate pays them. For the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, the pay isn't that great - not exactly upper middle class here. A family friend that is in the PA House barely makes more money there than as she did as a Commissioner of the county.
Again, this is for the PA House and US House. It's commonly understood that a representative that moves up from the House to the Senate is a raise/promotion, so to speak.
But about the lobbyists controlling congress? All I have to say is "DUH!" C'mon now. This is the land of the free and the home of the dollar.