How much of a problem is private money to politics?

[TV and credit cards]

Why are we talking about food trucks instead of money corrupting or not corrupting our political process?

Because Loren said it?

But setting aside the food truck for a moment (edited for language),

There's no option for "Yes, It's such a colossal problem it is undermining representative democracy - shrinking the actual constituencies of politicians to those that pay for their election at the expense of the overwhelming majority of citizens"

This would be my choice also.

In Sweden each party in government gets a massive bag of money to campaign with. Any private donations are rendered practically irrelevant, and no politician has any incentive to give special privileges based on them. So... I'd say it depends on the country. In Sweden private donations are not a problem.

Tiny political parties with less than 4% support are dependent on private funding. But they're so small that they don't really matter.

And this would be my solution. Though I'd be inclined to cut all private donations, perhaps Sweden knows something I don't. Not likely, but I like to keep an open mind.

I don't know if I said it here before or it just part of the crazy crap constantly rattling around in my head but, I think the disgraced Eric Massa said it best upon his exit from office. It was to the effect that until you can get the money out of politics, nothing else matters. You can write all the legislation you want, little will be written solely in the best interest of the American public as a whole. I believe private money in politics is the root of most of the ills of the American society.
Regulators will not or cannot do their jobs due to political pressure (to do their job slowly) from a legislator who gets contributions from the company being regulated.

I watched the US Navy become very efficient in all areas except procurement. From what I've seen, it is my opinion that lives have been put in jeopardy for the sake of profit. This is allowed through the use of stripped down government contracts in the name of expediency.

Of course there is always a blind alley that throws it into the conspiracy theory pile.
I don't think it's crazy to follow the money.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The food truck is the equivalent of the kitchen. They don't pay for the patron seating, they don't pay for the patron parking.

I wouldn't say this is always the result of money.

Food trucks are unfair competition with restaurants--a food truck doesn't pay for it's space, a restaurant does. I don't think they belong in areas with adequate established restaurants. Let them cover the market restaurants don't--temporary demand. Construction sites and the like.

How about a simple rule: Food trucks can only do business from private property and with the permission of the entity with control of the property. (I won't say owner because if a business is leasing a building I would say they still get to decide if the food truck goes in their parking lot, not the actual owner of the building.)

Mobile phones are equivalent to land-line communication - they allows people to communicate while not in person with the added advantage of mobility. Clearly this is not fair for the providers of land-line communication as they don't have the same costs. Mobile service providers don't pay for wide-spread expensive physical infrastructure i.e. wires and cables all over the country and internationally, just a few towers here and there. I don't think that mobile phone systems belong in areas with established land-line networks, only in markets where land-line service is not available or there is temporary demand. This can be achieved easily as mobile operators will simply be denied access to the publicly owned electromagnetic emission wavelengths required for their networks to operate.

If different companied owned the wired vs wireless communication networks, and the established wired operators owned politicians, would you accept the above logic to restrict the market for wireless communication?

But our cell phones are not using infrastructure that someone else paid for. No subsidy.

 

[Narapoia]

The food truck is the equivalent of the kitchen. They don't pay for the patron seating, they don't pay for the patron parking.

I wouldn't say this is always the result of money.

Food trucks are unfair competition with restaurants--a food truck doesn't pay for it's space, a restaurant does. I don't think they belong in areas with adequate established restaurants. Let them cover the market restaurants don't--temporary demand. Construction sites and the like.

How about a simple rule: Food trucks can only do business from private property and with the permission of the entity with control of the property. (I won't say owner because if a business is leasing a building I would say they still get to decide if the food truck goes in their parking lot, not the actual owner of the building.)

Mobile phones are equivalent to land-line communication - they allows people to communicate while not in person with the added advantage of mobility. Clearly this is not fair for the providers of land-line communication as they don't have the same costs. Mobile service providers don't pay for wide-spread expensive physical infrastructure i.e. wires and cables all over the country and internationally, just a few towers here and there. I don't think that mobile phone systems belong in areas with established land-line networks, only in markets where land-line service is not available or there is temporary demand. This can be achieved easily as mobile operators will simply be denied access to the publicly owned electromagnetic emission wavelengths required for their networks to operate.

If different companied owned the wired vs wireless communication networks, and the established wired operators owned politicians, would you accept the above logic to restrict the market for wireless communication?

But our cell phones are not using infrastructure that someone else paid for. No subsidy.

So restaurant owners don't require infrastructure for the delivery of produce, to get to their restaurants or for their patrons to get to their restaurants? Unless the required infrastructure is paid for by the restaurant owner then they are also being subsidised.
But you know this Loren, both the restaurant and the truck are paying for their access to infrastructure through taxes so please answer my original question.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But our cell phones are not using infrastructure that someone else paid for. No subsidy.

So restaurant owners don't require infrastructure for the delivery of produce, to get to their restaurants or for their patrons to get to their restaurants? Unless the required infrastructure is paid for by the restaurant owner then they are also being subsidised.
But you know this Loren, both the restaurant and the truck are paying for their access to infrastructure through taxes so please answer my original question.

The issue is the use of resources that someone else is paying for.

The patrons of the food truck are on property someone else is paying to maintain.

The cellular system uses no such resources belonging to another. Nobody built the airwaves, the only maintenance is the FCC and what they pay in licensing for the spectrum is *FAR* more than the maintenance cost.

The restaurant pays for it's use of those resources--there are hefty fees associated with operating a truck. Likewise, the patrons pay for the roads with the gas tax.

 

[Narapoia]

So you agree a food truck on public land pays hefty fees - taxes (Inc gas tax) and licensing fees. How is the truck not paying its part for maintenance of space it uses? You say the patrons are on property someone else is paying to maintain - are they not the public? Do their taxes not help maintain public areas?

The emission frequencies are a public good - they do belong to "another" rather than the mobile provider. They frequencies were not built but a provider must pay a price for use of that public good.

Anyway - this is a bit of a derail. Money is a colossal problem in politics and I too would favour equal limited public funds being available to candidates similar to the Swedish model discussed above. It still wouldn't stop insanely biased and manipulative media coverage, like that in the recent Australian election, from media conglomerates with an agenda. (Murdoch we are looking at you) This is a whole separate problem, allowing the news to be delivered/controlled by, in effect, a handful of companies and individuals.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So you agree a food truck on public land pays hefty fees - taxes (Inc gas tax) and licensing fees. How is the truck not paying its part for maintenance of space it uses? You say the patrons are on property someone else is paying to maintain - are they not the public? Do their taxes not help maintain public areas?

The problem is not the space the truck uses, it's the space the patrons use. The restaurant has to pay for the patron's space, the food truck uses space paid for by others.

The emission frequencies are a public good - they do belong to "another" rather than the mobile provider. They frequencies were not built but a provider must pay a price for use of that public good.

And they do.

Anyway - this is a bit of a derail. Money is a colossal problem in politics and I too would favour equal limited public funds being available to candidates similar to the Swedish model discussed above. It still wouldn't stop insanely biased and manipulative media coverage, like that in the recent Australian election, from media conglomerates with an agenda. (Murdoch we are looking at you) This is a whole separate problem, allowing the news to be delivered/controlled by, in effect, a handful of companies and individuals.

I'd like to see an end to news media conglomerates. Require that companies that produce news *ONLY* produce news. Shares of news companies could only be owned by individuals or investment funds, never by other companies.

 

[KeepTalking]

The problem is not the space the truck uses, it's the space the patrons use. The restaurant has to pay for the patron's space, the food truck uses space paid for by others.

I can tell that you do not frequent food trucks. I can assure you that I do. We get our food and take it back to the office to eat, we are not taking up space for any longer than it takes us to be served. Many of the office buildings around here actually try to attract food trucks to their parking lots so that their employees can grab some food quickly and return to work, rather than spending upwards of an hour and a half driving to, trying to get a seat and service at, and dining in at a packed restaurant.

 

[Petrel]

I'm guessing food trucks have a smaller political clout than restaurants in city councils and both together have a smaller clout at the state/provincial level than, say, beef producers (on whom they both depend for supply) and at the federal level, none at all - cos they just don't have enough money.

 

[NobleSavage]

I'm thinking political commercials have just about hit saturation point. During the last Obama election people were sick of political commercials. At a some point people just shut off their minds or switch channels. I'm more worried about the millions of dollars that go into think tanks that churn out propaganda masquerading as scientific research. A perfect example is the Heartland Institute which puts out all the climate change denial BS.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem is not the space the truck uses, it's the space the patrons use. The restaurant has to pay for the patron's space, the food truck uses space paid for by others.

I can tell that you do not frequent food trucks. I can assure you that I do. We get our food and take it back to the office to eat, we are not taking up space for any longer than it takes us to be served. Many of the office buildings around here actually try to attract food trucks to their parking lots so that their employees can grab some food quickly and return to work, rather than spending upwards of an hour and a half driving to, trying to get a seat and service at, and dining in at a packed restaurant.

And if the office welcomes them to the parking lot I have no problem with them.

 

[fromderinside]

I read an interesting quote on twitter the other day, might have been through this link:

http://www.demos.org/publication/ci...tion-corporate-political-spending-and-support

Which mentioned that 90% of American's believe that corporate money is having a negative impact on politics.

I don't want to make this thread into one about American politics .... So you have person X with immense political power, and company Y with immense financial power, and the rest is simple math.

When you think about it, there must be a huge dark-side to politics that no one really sees, and even the most politically aware person doesn't fully grasp. For politics to be approached in a completely moral and un-self-interested way you'd have to take any and all financial motivation out of the system, which is far from being the case right now.

So I wonder, is private money as big of a problem as I'm imagining it is? Has this type of thing been systematically documented somewhere? Is there anything that can be done about it?

I tend to put things in perspective regardless of how polls are written. Money is going to have a huge impact and its probably a problem if one side gets most of the money. You see the problem with the poll. An assumption was made that if one uses impact with positive and follows with another impact statement that people assume that impact is good. I don't. I think great impact is bad and that impact may be negative (a problem) to american political process.

Does that remove it far enough from politics for you rousseau.

 

[doubtingt]

But our cell phones are not using infrastructure that someone else paid for. No subsidy.

So restaurant owners don't require infrastructure for the delivery of produce, to get to their restaurants or for their patrons to get to their restaurants? Unless the required infrastructure is paid for by the restaurant owner then they are also being subsidised.
But you know this Loren, both the restaurant and the truck are paying for their access to infrastructure through taxes so please answer my original question.

The issue is the use of resources that someone else is paying for.

You mean what every single business in the world does when it uses public roads to either receive or ship its goods and supplies, or even when its employees and customers use public roads to arrive at the business? Or when they put their production waste into the air and water? (the various fees paid cover a fraction of the true costs of those resources).

Every single company is a freeloader that externalizes much of its costs onto resources they do not pay for. That is why truly "private" enterprise is a myth and why the free-market faith is absurd and false and why gov regulations on the market are not intrusions on liberty but rather protection of the liberties of all those with a share of those public resources.

BTW, food truck patrons don't have seating and usually don't park, so they are making much less use of these resources than restaurants whose patrons and employees are more likely to be driving and parking on public roads in order visit the restaurant (food truck patrons mostly just walk out of their workplace).

Food trucks pay all the fees and gas that restaurant employees and customers pay, so if you argue that these fees don't cover the costs for food trucks, then that is true 100 fold for a restaurant.

I actually agree that it can makes sense for the government to restrict food trucks in certain areas at certain times to protect the restaurants. The quality of life in an area depends upon reliably having quality food and entertainment options. Food trucks could destroy profitability for the restaurants in an area, then just move out because they have no commitment to the area unlike a restaurant. Or, restaurants that provide nightime entertainment migh depend upon lunch hour for profitability, but lunch trucks undercut that forcing the restaurants to close even though the trucks have no interest or ability to provide the nighttime entertainment the restaurants did. But any gov interference is pure interference with "free market competition" and is essentially socialism. But a little socialism is a good thing for the quality of life and healthy society, as all reasonable people understand.

 

[KeepTalking]

The problem is not the space the truck uses, it's the space the patrons use. The restaurant has to pay for the patron's space, the food truck uses space paid for by others.

I can tell that you do not frequent food trucks. I can assure you that I do. We get our food and take it back to the office to eat, we are not taking up space for any longer than it takes us to be served. Many of the office buildings around here actually try to attract food trucks to their parking lots so that their employees can grab some food quickly and return to work, rather than spending upwards of an hour and a half driving to, trying to get a seat and service at, and dining in at a packed restaurant.

And if the office welcomes them to the parking lot I have no problem with them.

Perhaps rousseau can shed more light on the particular case in question, but it seemed to be a ban on food trucks anywhere downtown, which would prevent downtown offices welcoming them to their parking lots.

 

[rousseau]

I read an interesting quote on twitter the other day, might have been through this link:

http://www.demos.org/publication/ci...tion-corporate-political-spending-and-support

Which mentioned that 90% of American's believe that corporate money is having a negative impact on politics.

I don't want to make this thread into one about American politics .... So you have person X with immense political power, and company Y with immense financial power, and the rest is simple math.

When you think about it, there must be a huge dark-side to politics that no one really sees, and even the most politically aware person doesn't fully grasp. For politics to be approached in a completely moral and un-self-interested way you'd have to take any and all financial motivation out of the system, which is far from being the case right now.

So I wonder, is private money as big of a problem as I'm imagining it is? Has this type of thing been systematically documented somewhere? Is there anything that can be done about it?

I tend to put things in perspective regardless of how polls are written. Money is going to have a huge impact and its probably a problem if one side gets most of the money. You see the problem with the poll. An assumption was made that if one uses impact with positive and follows with another impact statement that people assume that impact is good. I don't. I think great impact is bad and that impact may be negative (a problem) to american political process.

Does that remove it far enough from politics for you rousseau.

Yea, it's a poorly worded poll, the meaning something like this:

Private money has a big negative impact on politics
Private money has a small negative impact on politics
Neutral
Private money has a small positive impact on politics
Private money has a big positive impact on politics

 

[JoyJuice]

Big Problem. I recall reading a WaPost article where some lobbyists were getting a return of $222 for every dollar spent. Loan Sharks don't come close in doing so well.