Slashdot Mirror
Trade Politicians Like Stocks
Thanks to Greyfox for giving us a story that confirms what I've always thought:
politicians can be traded like stocks. Much like any normal stock market, now you can bid up your favorite politician - big tax break? Buy him up! Campaign corruption? Sell! If you are a South Korean, of course.
I have often thought that half the problem with our system is that it encourages those who wish to have power over others to run. A random selection would at least avoid that problem.
Another good side effect might be an increased interest in the average educational state of a citizen. But even a well-meaning rube might be better than a crook.
Another result would be breaking the two party system that is really a one party system. It would disenfranchise a lot of lobbyists. The election cycle that causes half of our politician's time to be spent getting re-elected would also be avoided.
It will never happen though -- it might work too well. And it might not -- I can think of lots of my neighbors that I wouldn't wish to see suddenly powerful. But damn, the current system is so broken it almost seems worth trying.
Maybe we should just invite all the politicians onto a slashdot-like forum, and the ones with the highest karma on election day are our leaders.
You americans have buying your politicians for years.
There's also one being run at the University of Iowa College of Business), which has links for current political markets including the 2000 Congressional, 2000 DNC, 2000 RNC, and New York Senate races. Let the games begin!
A little poking around reveals there are also a few markets open in Austrian politics.
And finally, I think that the site referenced in the USA Today article is here: http://www.posdaq.co.kr, but since it's in Korean, I'm not totally sure about that :-)
The idea is to make people put their money where their mouth is. That way you get a more honest and thoughtful opinion than just stopping random people in the street. The fact that the game players are not a random sample matters less because they reflect all the available evidence rather than just their own views.
IIRC, the idea is that you buy a future contract which will pay off according to the share of the next vote. So the current market value of these contracts reflects the (hopefully) rational expectations of the traders.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
This sounds very much like the Hollywood stock exchange, where you can 'invest' in movies, actors and directors, and you earn dividends based on box office takings. Although I must say buying and selling politicians seems like much more fun. You could even start 'mutual funds' which only invest in politicians of certain parties :-)
superblog.org: all your favourite blogs on o
Does this make dishonest politicians difficult to sell?
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
...before they were all privately held. Now the average investor can buy a politician! Why shouldn't the local ladies' investor club get a shot at some legalized graft? Why should only the Chinese get to buy and sell shares of Gore? Why shouldn't the small investor be able to buy and sell Bush on p*Trade?
Who needs straw polls when you can have IPOs?!
I say bring on Jesse "The P/E Ratio" Ventura!
Sell short Republicans!
Sell short Democrats!
Sell short Reformed!
Kill the lawyers! Maoist revolution!
Oops... That was five.
-- Slashdot sucks.
Why is it that people come up with all kind of voting schemes to get people to -predict- the outcome of elections, rather than ways of making elections themselves more effective?
;)
As has been indicated in a previous article, mathematics prove the currenct scheme doesn't work properly, because it doesn't reflect the reality of people's opinions properly. However, I don't believe in the artificial counting schemes the authors of the articles involved seem to wish to implement.
There is a lesson to be learned here.
1) The internet is a tool. When it comes to voting, it can be a massively effective tool, as long as can be prevented that no people have uncontrollably high amounts of voting power. Slashdot is a good example of this. (Though I do think it could use a more personalized moderation system)
2) Numbers count. This may seem an oxymoron, but having "dumbed down" voting systems where people just tick a box seems, well, dumb to me. I would like a system where I can cast any percentage of my vote on any single politician, at any time of day/month/halloween whatever, and get away with it. All it needs is a little accounting on the part of the voter, and a secure way of casting the vote. We can still have the box for people with a brain deficiency. This "stock voting" proves such a system could work, and probably draw more voters than the current system.
If you add some averaging - let's say, the votes that politicians actually get are the ones averaged over an certain nontrivial amount of time, like a year, it could have a fairly quick feedback cycle.
2b) Such a system could be more tamper proof than the current voting, more realistic, and might just make politicians have a bit more of a clue.
This may seem counterintuitive, but consider the following example:
Suppose we have one big nation with 2 (read: TWO) very large parties dominating the elections under normal circumstances. Add in one small party promoting a very small (from a government perspective) goal. Now, apply distributed voting:
Normally, the votes would be flat-out distributed between the two parties. But if said small party would take aim at an issue with a large enough mindshare in the general population, in a distributed system they could get a place in congress/senate/whatever. Why? Because people could assign a few of their percentage points of their votes to very small parties! Have it run a while, and you'd have a myriad of parties promoting all kinds of diverse worthy goals in no time!
Furthermore, A four-year cycle of political campaigns would no longer have any reason for existing, because votes would be cast all the time. Voting parties would no longer work - you can choose whenever you want, so you vote at the voting party, then cast vote b later at home.
Excessive two-week political campaings no longer work either - for the same reason.
Now THAT's a system I'd like to see in action, running in paralell with the "real" votes
Floris
--- Your superiour intellect is no match for our puny weapons
The Iowa game is also (primarily?) an academic research project. Particularly, it is experimental economics, which works by getting people to make choices and reveal their preferences by using real money.
When someone buys into the Iowa game, they get a share in each candidate for each dollar they put in. They can then buy and sell at any price, and can leave bids at multiple prices for automatic execution if anyone offers (e.g., I'll take 100 at 40c, 200 at 35c, and 1000 at 25c).
After the election, every share is paid by the percentage of the vote: 35% becomes 35c, so exactly one dollar is paid in return.
"surprisingly accurate" to describe the results predicted is an understatement. I don't think they've ever been off by more than 2%.
During Perot's first run, someone bought in with $500 (rather than the typical $20), to support Perot. He sold everything else, then bought Perot, driving the price up. Right until the $500 ran out, at which point the price *immediately* dropped back to the pre-binge levels.
hawk, wearing his Ph.D. economist hat for the moment