23-05-2003 21:14									#151
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quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc Why Is There So Little Money in U.S. Politics?

Actually, Dino, after reading that, the general drift is that politicians are cheap whores for the magnitude of the tricks they provide. Was that the point you're trying to make? A below-market whore is still a whore.

	23-05-2003 21:32									#152
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quote: Originally posted by cyclotron7 So, because our politicians are under no suspicion of corruption, they must then be corrupt in a corrupt system. Our courts are just as willing and eager to prosecute corruption. Consider recent pseudo-scandals, from Clinton to Gore to Bush, where even the slightest hint of irregular fundraising caused an uproar. I'm dissapointed that your best argument that we are corrupt is that we aren't being charged with it, so we must be.

Both the markets and the political process have a lot at stake in terms of maintaining a veneer of accountability and propriety. If you have an attitude of no rules and no enforcement, people get riled up, especially since 1929. If you have rules with loopholes big enough to drive trucks through, and token enforcement (more noise than real action, but it's good to throw doggie-treats to the press), when somebody doesn't bother conforming to such rules as you have, you can maintain the appearance, for those who want to be deceived, that the system is clean.

Capone wasn't prosecuted in Cook County, or elsewhere, for years. In fact, he was never prosecuted at that level. Does that mean that Cook County and Chicago were functional jurisdictions and Capone simply didn't do anything until the Feds came along after the fact with a new enforcement regime? No prosecution must mean no corruption, right?

quote: Which means nothing. All companies donate, that does not mean that all corporate fraud/crime has something to do with the government. The collapse of such companies has nothing to do with government action or campaign conributions.

No, not all companies donate, or can afford to. Large companies donate, most often to both candidates in a give race, and to soft-money conduits for both parties. Interest groups donate. The second largest soft-money donor in the state of California is the California Trial Lawyers Association. Do you think this is totally disconnected from California being (in)famous for some of the fruitiest lawsuits and tort law in the US?

quote: Because I find it odd that you attack corporations exclusively, instead of the entire system of contributions. If contributions really are corruption, why are you singling out corporations only? I'm not trying to paint you wil any broad political brush. It just seems obvious to me that your argument is anti-business for no good reason.

Individual donations, unless grouped as a front for laundered corporate donations, tend to be more ideological, and the majority of them are small. Individuals also rarely have tailored legislation for their singular benefit, or lobbyists on retainer to make their individual interests known. Tailored legislation does happen through congressional "private bill" acts, which are close to 50% of the enacted legislation in any session of Congress, but that's still a relatively small number private bill acts (many of which are not corrupt, and many of which are also for benefit of corporations, not individuals)

Wealthy individuals with a legislative axe to grind wouldn't generally bother with individual donations as a conduit, because tax and estate planning, if nothing else, dictates that they have some form of organizational control over those assets - cf Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway. So they generally contribute organizationally, not individually.

	23-05-2003 23:29									#153
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quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat Both the markets and the political process have a lot at stake in terms of maintaining a veneer of accountability and propriety. If you have an attitude of no rules and no enforcement, people get riled up, especially since 1929. If you have rules with loopholes big enough to drive trucks through, and token enforcement (more noise than real action, but it's good to throw doggie-treats to the press), when somebody doesn't bother conforming to such rules as you have, you can maintain the appearance, for those who want to be deceived, that the system is clean. Capone wasn't prosecuted in Cook County, or elsewhere, for years. In fact, he was never prosecuted at that level. Does that mean that Cook County and Chicago were functional jurisdictions and Capone simply didn't do anything until the Feds came along after the fact with a new enforcement regime? No prosecution must mean no corruption, right?

the law is here to protect everyone, however some are more equal than others under it, still it doesn't mean we should close our eyes and pretend nothing is happening and that we are all really equal - when this clearly is not the case. We know where we want to be, and reallising what is wrong at the moment will enable us (some of us to actually make a difference)and to get closer to that goal tomorrow.

	24-05-2003 01:25									#154
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quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat Was that the point you're trying to make?

The point I was trying to make and what I still believe is that Roland is talking out of his arse on this particular point.

	24-05-2003 01:28									#155
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In that case, you'd have to do a lot better.

	24-05-2003 01:34									#156
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quote: Originally posted by HershOstropoler In that case, you'd have to do a lot better.

I got bored on page 10.

	24-05-2003 01:49									#157
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What's that in metric? I've got page 8.

I have no idea which particular point annoys you, but it seems I have made a quite good selection.

	24-05-2003 02:39									#158
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quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc The point I was trying to make and what I still believe is that Roland is talking out of his arse on this particular point.

Like everything else, it depends on how you define corruption. In theory, Congress could revoke laws against fraud, so that it was entirely legal. Would you then say that there was no wrongdoing in a endemically fraudulent marketplace? Take the 1873 crash as the last great example of a truly laissez faire system in the US. Complete falsification of books, unaccounted insider loans, and dual sales of shares were standard practice, and completely unregulated, nor were such acts sanctioned in the criminal law system. Since it was "legal" would you say there was no corruption in the system at the time? Or that the healthy way for markets to function is to implode every so often when the level of deceit and gamesmanship becomes unsustainable?

	24-05-2003 03:02									#159
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Yup. Of course you can use some narrow legal definition of corruption, but that's entirely pointless when talking about the corruption of a political system that produces that very legal definition.

You might just as well ask the pimps to define morality.