Not sure how much to trust this, but the sources seem sound...
- The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.
I was talking to b_b the other day about the possibility of a political party that created a firewall between donors and the candidates as a political position. Basically, the goal would be to create a fund raising arm that took in the cash, and then distributed it to their candidates in an anonymous manner. Candidates would refuse to take funding that did not go through this process. I am not sure how it could be best structured, but if there were such a party, I would be strongly motivated to donate to them. As inside trading regards some information exchange as illegal, it would be interesting if political donations had to be anonymized.
This article sounds about right as far as what you can see/watch/find out about the way economic standing works in the US. I find it mostly just sad that even with all this information put out everyday via social media and other odd source media that shows the abuse of money and/in power, and how much control money has in government here, yet nothing is/(can be?) done about it. Like on one hand, people are lazy and stupid. This leads to the thought that: a. People don't give(enough of) a shit what happens to them via government because they don't notice it affecting them to do anything about it. b. People don't give(enough of) a shit where their tax dollars go to do anything about it(whether this is because they feel taxes cannot be avoided, or just really don't care about what their tax money is spent on). c. I am also sure that there are those that don't even realize the money out of their paycheck goes to things they can vote on. On the other hand, it also could be that we've gotten to the point that there really is nothing anyone outside of the .2% funding government corruption that has enough power/control to even try to do something about this. (And the likeliness of that happening when the same .2% receiving trillions of dollars from taxpayer money is less than nonexistent) From my perspective, it's teamwork of stupidity and lost control, but it is a fairly accurate portrayal of how things work in the world. MONEY=POWER