Poll and Discussion- Corporatism

[miniboes]

I used to be very outspoken and passionate against money in politics, and I think ideally there should be none. How much of a problem it actually is is not exactly clear to me.

What I came to ask; has anybody read the book 'Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right"? It seems interesting.

[EquALLity]

I used to be very outspoken and passionate against money in politics, and I think ideally there should be none. How much of a problem it actually is is not exactly clear to me.

What I came to ask; has anybody read the book 'Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right"? It seems interesting.

That's the book the documentary 'Park Avenue' is based on, right?

The doc is online for free, and very interesting & informative.

[miniboes]

That's the book the documentary 'Park Avenue' is based on, right?.

I don't know

[EquALLity]

Sorry for the delay.

How about spending a million dollars to create corrupt studies, and documentaries/movies about how climate change is a scam?

Where do you draw the line in expenditure? Can we stop companies from making independent propaganda?

Those are bad also, but if there's nothing we can do about them, then that has no bearing on this.

Corporate bribery is bad. Corporate biased studies are bad. Just because we can't stop the biased studies doesn't mean we shouldn't try to stop the bribery. I don't understand how this argument follows.

I don't think it is. Where there's a will, there's a way. They'll find some way to spend that money to influence things; better it be direct so we can keep track of it better.

Actually, we can't keep track of it, because Super PACs don't have to disclose where they get their money from.

Anyway, the biased studies aren't as bad as the corporate bribery. Politicians aren't just exposed to one side of the argument; they get studies from the scientific side too (which is the reason why you have a problem with Bernie Sanders in terms of nuclear energy- you think he's been exposed to the science). Do you really think that people like Paul Ryan aren't sure whether or not climate change is real, and they're just voting against it and spreading misinformation because of biased studies?
What bribery does is prevent them from voting in the way they KNOW is right because of their donors.

Discriminating against objectively false ideas.

I don't know what you mean. Perhaps you should explain exactly what you mean by 'imposing on religion'.

It creates beneficial laws that make them more money, but that's doesn't mean that on balance those laws are bad and harmful to others. Many are win-win. And as I explained, when corporate interests go against private fear mongering, that can also be a good thing.

I don't agree. Corporate interests almost always harm the world.
Climate change, private prisons, tax cuts (which lead to cutting important programs like social security and public education) for the top, tax loopholes (ie storing money in offshore tax-havens like Panama through loopholes masquerading as trade deals), foreign policy (ie Iraq War and our relationship with Saudi Arabia), etc. etc.

Sure, but that could be making a law that improves the economy for everybody, or keeps (or allows) a good product on the market. Corporations don't act on a policy of evil.

Of course they don't act maliciously, but their amoral profit motives almost always interfere with the well-being of the world.

No, it doesn't help when those companies give money, but it's also not clear how much it hurts (if any).

Of course it hurts. Do you really think there's a chance it doesn't hurt for private prison companies to give millions of dollars to politicians?

Again, if it's really not impacting our politics in a meaningful way, why do these companies, that analyze what actions to take based on profit, keep giving money to politicians?

And some companies have an interest in people not going to prison too, or in legalizing drugs (rehab lobby).

Apparently they're being out-spent, I guess.

Many Democrats are Christian too, or Jewish.
There's a lot of ideological investment in the middle east.

Do you really believe that people like Hillary Clinton are interfering in the Middle East because they are rooting for Armageddon? I thought you didn't believe in conspiracy theories.

All the evidence you have is apparently some crazy fundamentalist Christians, but there's no evidence or reason to believe that reflects on a significant portion of the general population, let alone our politicians.

I don't have a big problem with that. I have a problem with environmentally harmful policies, and harm to gays and the non-religious through civil rights violations.

The problem is that those tax cuts are compensated for by cutting important programs, ie Medicare and Medicaid, and probably environmental policies as well.

Maybe, or maybe it just makes sense to support the economy by lowering taxes.

IF you have free trade, you HAVE to have low enough tax rates to be competitive with other countries, otherwise the corporations and the jobs will leave.
It's a complicated issue.

Sanders has a different perspective, in that he wants to end free trade and put the workers of the U.S. first, raising corporate tax rates (which is fine if you stop free trade, companies can't go anywhere) and increasing welfare.

However, this kind of perspective (ending free trade) is harmful to people in developing countries, and can be to international peace (when countries are engaged in trade, they are less likely to go to war because war becomes very bad for business).
I've said before, I think, that the best way to establish peace and prosperity in North Korea would probably be to open up trade with them; with economic exchange comes cultural exchange too, and the dictatorship would erode and become more symbolic over time like the Queen of England.
Capitalism LOVES rule of law, and it can actually be a strong force for peace and stability. So, there's good to come out of it.

You have to look at it from multiple perspectives, and not just assume politicians believe certain things because they're paid off.

According to you, it's good for that to happen, because jobs for people in the third world are better than jobs for people in america.
It's not just about corporate tax rates, though; it's also about lowering taxes on the very rich.

I didn't say it wasn't an issue, but that doesn't say anything about magnitude.

If it doesn't significantly impact our politics, again, why do the companies keep giving millions of dollars? And to republicans in particular, who have harsher drug policies?

We're also talking about human beings.

Yeah, people run corporations. But they don't seem to care about the prisoners. Like people ignore the suffering of animals, people dehumanize prisoners. It's why most people who support the death penalty use the 'eye for an eye' justification.

Maybe, but again it has advantages too.

Like what?

How significant? Do you have numbers?

I don't have the numbers, but it's a fact that private prisons make money by locking people up.

That says nothing. This is a single data point with no controls.

The fact that we have a higher prison population per capita, higher than dictatorial governments like Saudi Arabia, doesn't say anything?

What controls do you think are necessary?

Does the fact that our prison population massively increased after we launched to War on Drugs say nothing as well?

I don't give credence to conspiracy theories.

Do you still think that oil interests didn't play a role in the Iraq War? I know I still have to get back to you about that in that other topic.

Have you looked into how these trade agreements work?

Yes, here's a short speech by Bernie about the 'Panama Free Trade Agreement': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0mAwRAFC2U

That's a fair criticism of the banks, but was also more of a domino effect. Now that we know about this problem, we have regulated these industries better.

We haven't regulated in a significant way. Politicians like Bernie Sanders have been trying to regulate them in a real way, but politicians like Clinton (who take millions from Wall Street) have stifled the efforts.

We can learn from every crash and improve.

We don't need to have so many crashes. Like Elizabeth Warren points out here on CNBC, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6rnsLNvXzM there are policies we can put in place to stop the major crashes from even happening. It's a myth that the banks will always just crash and build up again cyclically.

Right now I am using the internet, which was paid for, and the service rendered. If there's a local problem I can call the police. I have power, running water, a roof over my head.
We enjoy the fruits of society that many take for granted. And the vast majority of people in our society enjoy these things, often with only having to work eight hours a day five days a week.

This is amazing.

I'm not saying we aren't privileged to live in the west.

We were talking about our political system, and you said that it works for the most part, unless I'm misinterpreting something. I'm saying that it's broken.

Corporate influence can also do good. Why remove it if we have yet to prove it does more harm than good, and that the alternative is not worse?

It can do good, but in practice it does more harm.

It's not like politicians get more money because they are better; they get more money because they are corporate-friendly. Bernie has gotten far more donations than Hillary, but her donations come from the ultra-rich, so she out-spends him.

I disagree. Collectively, we have far more power than these companies if we can coordinate to use it.

Perhaps on local levels, but it's hard to even get a response at all from politicians on the federal level.

[EquALLity]

Ideas like "we should kill all of the Jews" would be very unpopular with the majority, and also have a 0% chance of passing.
The study fails to account for how opposed to laws people are. 0% support can also mean more or less indifference. If you took into account negative opinions on a law, that graph could look very different.
The laws that are passed with 0% support are certainly not comparable to a law requiring mass extermination of Jews.
This is a graph that shows how easy it is to lie with statistics: how you ask a question can have a big influence.

I don't see how this matters when it's basing support of the rich by the same metric.

Even so, what do you think about that whether or not the public supports a law has no impact on whether or not it'll be passed? Why don't you consider that important regardless? A law is just as likely to be passed if the public wants it than if they don't care? How is that ok?

There is a basic litmus test of non-revulsion that the public very much has an influence on, and has biased these laws before they even reach the point of consideration (and showing up on this graph). It is within the margins of public indifference that these unsupported but not necessarily hated laws get passed.

Maybe for some obvious things, but there are a lot of less obviously horrible laws that get passed due to political ignorance and apathy of the general public.

Also keep in mind, support by the rich is a correlation: statistically, it's also support by the best educated. It's very likely that many if not most of these laws are more likely to get passed because they're just better laws. Some of them may benefit the rich, sure, but it is in no way clear what percentage that is or what the net effect of this system is (good or bad) compared to the alternative.

That could potentially play a role, but it's not very likely. The line is so dramatic that you can't chalk it up to just that. Given all the other factors, it's almost all probably because of monetary benefits for the rich.

[brimstoneSalad]

I don't see how this matters when it's basing support of the rich by the same metric.

That's irrelevant. It painted a very biased and dishonest picture. You would very likely see the opposite trend in a "dislike" graph, where then the poor actively dislike a law it is not passed or it is blocked, whereas the rich disliking a law or being divided on it has little to no effect.

A law which is disliked or opposed by the majority cannot long survive, and it's usually political suicide to support it. Politicians take opinion surveys very seriously, even in China.

Even so, what do you think about that whether or not the public supports a law has no impact on whether or not it'll be passed? Why don't you consider that important regardless? A law is just as likely to be passed if the public wants it than if they don't care? How is that ok?

Because it doesn't matter, and it's deceptive because it says nothing about the content of the laws or their relevance to people, or whether they are ultimately passed in another form.
You may not know this, but the vast majority of laws that are passed are subtle bureaucratic changes and obscure regulations.

If you doubt this, take about an hour to read through some of these random proposals:
https://www.congress.gov/search?q=%7B%22source%22%3A%22legislation%22%7D

Tell me what percent you realistically care about or feel affect you in any perceivable way.
You'll probably notice a trend that about half of them seem good, and the other half are... "what is this I don't even".

It's reasonable to understand that 50% of the laws are passed because the public wants them and they meaningfully affect people, and 50% are passed because they're barely important to the public or only crucial to some small niche industry or issue that the public is ignorant of or apathetic to but that certain business owners are familiar with as a matter of their practice.

The general public doesn't care about some obscure law regulating transportation or something and providing for mandamus actions under chapter 601 of title 49 of the United States Code. What does that even mean?
When you look into these boring laws, you won't generally find anything nefarious or in any way against the public interest. They're usually just boring. Most laws do barely anything, or just improve the bureaucracy slightly, or save money on something that was wasteful.

There's also a bias there in the fact that a bill "not passing" doesn't mean that what it was trying to do isn't ultimately done in another bill. Bills often have to be revised, and take a couple cracks at congress before passing.

When something has wide public support, even if it doesn't pass on the first try, it may be more likely to pass the next time around, while unpopular ideas just die. You can't just count total votes and pass/no pass and assume that means anything at all given that bills get multiple tries at passing under different names and with slight revisions.
In order to have any meaning, you'd have to follow a single idea through multiple bills, and give the probability of passing per year. This is something that dishonest statistic didn't do.
It's like flatly claiming a certain cancer has X% of survival: no, a cancer has X% of survival per year. The most important variable is left out which tells how long people live with something. A cancer could kill you in a year, or after 20 years, and the death rate from that cancer would look similar, but it's a very different situation.

I hope all of that gives you some insight into just how meaningless and dishonest that statistic was. There could be meaningful statistics answering the question of public support, but that wasn't one.

You may want to read the book "How to lie with statistics"
When you see some statistics that seem to claim something so extraordinary you wonder how anybody could doubt its significance, it's usually a lie created by obscuring relevant information.

Maybe for some obvious things, but there are a lot of less obviously horrible laws that get passed due to political ignorance and apathy of the general public.

Well, then that's the problem. Whose fault is that? Ours, for being uneducated and apathetic.

Democracy relies on an educated and interested public. We don't have such a thing, which is why as our system grows more democratic we are bound to run into abuses that take advantage of an ignorant public.

That could potentially play a role, but it's not very likely. The line is so dramatic that you can't chalk it up to just that.

Of course it could be. Do you have data showing otherwise? You should not disregard real possibilities.
But as I hope I showed, the line itself is deceptive because it's hiding important information.

Given all the other factors, it's almost all probably because of monetary benefits for the rich.

There is no reason to believe that at all. Just like the drug arrests thing being a result of systematic racism: no evidence of that. Statistics can easily lie by obscuring relevant information, and by suggesting causation where there's no evidence of it by hiding or dismissing confounding variables.

[brimstoneSalad]

Corporate bribery is bad.

Evidence that this affects politicians and results in net harm? Evidence that this money benefits the bad politicians more than the good ones?
We are still marching in continual progress.
A significant amount of corporate money is arguably just a protection racket (look at all of the companies that spread it around pretty evenly).

Corporate biased studies are bad. Just because we can't stop the biased studies doesn't mean we shouldn't try to stop the bribery. I don't understand how this argument follows.

Even IF campaign contributions are bad overall (which needs evidence), there's no reason to believe this wouldn't just save companies money and cause them to invest more in propaganda to the public, which could be more harmful by making the general public more ignorant (particularly if elections become more democratic).

It's much easier and cheaper to convince the general public that bacon is healthy than to convince them it isn't, because it's what they already want to believe.
The more we move toward a pure democracy, the more power this will turn over to the propagandists and fear mongers.

Actually, we can't keep track of it, because Super PACs don't have to disclose where they get their money from.

That is a problem, I'm in favor of transparency.

Anyway, the biased studies aren't as bad as the corporate bribery.

I disagree, I think they're worse.

Politicians aren't just exposed to one side of the argument; they get studies from the scientific side too (which is the reason why you have a problem with Bernie Sanders in terms of nuclear energy- you think he's been exposed to the science).

Because of all of the biased internal propaganda. He's brainwashed against the science. The propaganda won.

Do you really think that people like Paul Ryan aren't sure whether or not climate change is real, and they're just voting against it and spreading misinformation because of biased studies?

Correct.

What bribery does is prevent them from voting in the way they KNOW is right because of their donors.

I disagree. These people wouldn't be able to sleep at night if they knew they were doing that much harm. Cognitive dissonance is strong; the biased studies provide them just enough doubt to do the wrong thing and convince themselves it's right.

Don't assume malice over stupidity. They all think they're the good guys.

Discriminating against objectively false ideas.

I don't know what you mean. Perhaps you should explain exactly what you mean by 'imposing on religion'.

Not letting them advertise untruths.

So they can't say "The world was created by god in seven days and science proves it too! The big bang and Evolution are not real science!", they have to say instead "We believe the world was literally created by god in seven days because of faith, we disagree with science and believe that all scientists are in on a conspiracy in service to satan to mislead good Christians!"

So they can't misrepresent science or facts, and they have to be upfront and disclose their motivations and reasoning when they disagree with the scientific consensus.

The same for the global warming deniers. They can't claim it's science, they have to admit it isn't, and disclose their real reasons.

I don't agree. Corporate interests almost always harm the world.

Evidence?

Climate change, private prisons, tax cuts (which lead to cutting important programs like social security and public education) for the top, tax loopholes (ie storing money in offshore tax-havens like Panama through loopholes masquerading as trade deals), foreign policy (ie Iraq War and our relationship with Saudi Arabia), etc. etc.

The green revolution, Nuclear power, Cameras on cops, Rule of law, Property rights, Modern medicine, Free trade and pressure to world peace (which is good for business).

Capitalism has done a lot more good than harm, and it's why we exist in the health and comfort we do today. You can't just claim the harm outweighs the good without comparing it to the state we would be in without it. Look at North Korea: that's where communism has gotten us. Look at China before it opened its borders and adopted capitalistic ideals. Corporate interests pushed into China and revolutionized a country.

If you want to say something is bad, you're either denying the good it does, or you need to find an objective metric to weigh them.
Removing corporate interests and replacing that with democracy is DANGEROUS. Particularly with how ignorant and apathetic we know the public to be. Corporate interests have a moderating force which, while not always, at least usually coincides with human interests. You'd be handing over all control to the propagandists and fear mongers, which are the worst of the worst, from the oil industry (there are certainly evil industries) to the religious right and alt health.

Of course they don't act maliciously, but their amoral profit motives almost always interfere with the well-being of the world.

No it doesn't. Only for some corporations. The solution is not to take the power to make campaign contributions away from all of them, good and bad alike, and then give all of the power to "the people" and thus to the fear mongers and propagandists (which are disproportionately the worst).

Of course it hurts. Do you really think there's a chance it doesn't hurt for private prison companies to give millions of dollars to politicians?

They can take the money, and then vote however they want. The issue is one of perception.

Again, if it's really not impacting our politics in a meaningful way, why do these companies, that analyze what actions to take based on profit, keep giving money to politicians?

They're in competition against each other. If one stops giving, the competition will win. Even within a single industry this is true, particularly when vying for government work.
A lot of companies would rather give nothing if they could. However, the problem with that is that the sum total of these contributions probably act as a stabilizing force.

Apparently they're being out-spent, I guess.

Or the conservatives are still against decriminalizing drugs, and it's thanks to propaganda.
Private prisons aren't necessarily giving money to have more people go to prison, as to have them go to THIS prison rather than that one.

Do you really believe that people like Hillary Clinton are interfering in the Middle East because they are rooting for Armageddon? I thought you didn't believe in conspiracy theories.

The Democrats tend more to support Israel for historical reasons, and close relationships with the Jewish lobby who tend to be Zionists, not being as much into Armageddon like the Christian right (although some of them are).
Some of the Democrats are just obsessed with supporting democracy and nation building because they think it's the right thing to do.
Support has been falling in the left.

All the evidence you have is apparently some crazy fundamentalist Christians, but there's no evidence or reason to believe that reflects on a significant portion of the general population, let alone our politicians.

You apparently have never been to the Bible belt.
Religion is the biggest issue in the Republican party, and fundamentalists have been involved in American politics in a big way for decades.
It sounds comical, but people believe this shit and they act on it.

The problem is that those tax cuts are compensated for by cutting important programs, ie Medicare and Medicaid, and probably environmental policies as well.

More like increasing debt. Essential social programs can't really be cut much. Republicans are more after things like the national endowment for the arts.

According to you, it's good for that to happen, because jobs for people in the third world are better than jobs for people in america.

That's not an option for any politicians. They can't export jobs.

It's not just about corporate tax rates, though; it's also about lowering taxes on the very rich.

Rich already pay a lot of tax. That doesn't influence the bottom line much, since there are not that many very rich people.
The middle class bears most of the tax burden.

The fact that we have a higher prison population per capita, higher than dictatorial governments like Saudi Arabia, doesn't say anything?

No, not without controls. Culture. Drugs. Police. Education, etc.

Does the fact that our prison population massively increased after we launched to War on Drugs say nothing as well?

This is an issue rooted in conservatism, and fear mongering/propaganda which created public support.
Do you have evidence that the prisons bought those laws?

Do you still think that oil interests didn't play a role in the Iraq War?

Do you have any real evidence of that?
Assume incompetence, not malice.

Yes, here's a short speech by Bernie about the 'Panama Free Trade Agreement': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0mAwRAFC2U

I wouldn't consider Sanders a reliable source on anything. He believes all kinds of nonsense.
What are you trying to say, and do you have a good source on it?
I don't even know what this is about.

We haven't regulated in a significant way.

Evidence? Independent economists ruling on this?

We don't need to have so many crashes. Like Elizabeth Warren points out here on CNBC, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6rnsLNvXzM there are policies we can put in place to stop the major crashes from even happening. It's a myth that the banks will always just crash and build up again cyclically.

Evidence? I'm not taking a politician's word on this. What is independent consensus?

We were talking about our political system, and you said that it works for the most part, unless I'm misinterpreting something. I'm saying that it's broken.

You can't just say that it's broken. How exactly is it failing our standard of life? And what evidence do you have that another system would be better instead of worse?

It can do good, but in practice it does more harm.

Quantification? Evidence?

I disagree. Collectively, we have far more power than these companies if we can coordinate to use it.

Perhaps on local levels, but it's hard to even get a response at all from politicians on the federal level.

We have control over the companies because we hold the money. We can boycott, and vote with our dollars. The problem is ignorance and apathy of the general consumer public, and the propaganda that feeds that. Giving more power to the people could just make that worse.

[Jebus]

I'm surprised there hasn't yet been a reality tv show in the U.S, in the style of the Apprentice which attempts to select the best candidate for president. Perhaps there will be both a republican and a democrat version of the show where the winner gets a grant and support staff for his/her candidacy. The American people would love it, it would probably raise voter turn-out and it would certainly ensure that no more Bush or Trump halfwits would get so far in the election process.

Episode examples: (each episode the public would vote off their least favorite)
1. General Knowledge test (history, geography science etc.)
2. Debate tournament
3. Scrutiny of a candidate's history of public service.
4. I.Q test
5. Q&A from audience members
6 Debate between the remaining contestants

[EquALLity]

That's irrelevant. It painted a very biased and dishonest picture. You would very likely see the opposite trend in a "dislike" graph, where then the poor actively dislike a law it is not passed or it is blocked, whereas the rich disliking a law or being divided on it has little to no effect.

How is that likely? Where did you get that from?

What makes it biased and dishonest? I still don't see your point here.

A law which is disliked or opposed by the majority cannot long survive, and it's usually political suicide to support it. Politicians take opinion surveys very seriously, even in China.

That's just not true. Even around eighty percent of republicans are against Citizens United, but it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
Most republicans support Social Security also, and yet even democratic politicians support cutting it. The problem is that people don't know what politicians are actually doing.

I was talking to my dad the other day, and he didn't even seem to know that republicans are the ones against gun regulation.

Most Americans want universal healthcare. Most Americans want to raise taxes on the rich- the overwhelming majority, actually. But these things don't happen, because politicians don't serve the majority of Americans.

Because it doesn't matter, and it's deceptive because it says nothing about the content of the laws or their relevance to people, or whether they are ultimately passed in another form.

But it applies the same standard towards the rich.

It's like if we play Monopoly and start with $1,000,000 each. That might not be the best starting point, but we have the same starting point.

You may not know this, but the vast majority of laws that are passed are subtle bureaucratic changes and obscure regulations.

If you doubt this, take about an hour to read through some of these random proposals:
https://www.congress.gov/search?q=%7B%2 ... tion%22%7D

Tell me what percent you realistically care about or feel affect you in any perceivable way.
You'll probably notice a trend that about half of them seem good, and the other half are... "what is this I don't even".

It's reasonable to understand that 50% of the laws are passed because the public wants them and they meaningfully affect people, and 50% are passed because they're barely important to the public or only crucial to some small niche industry or issue that the public is ignorant of or apathetic to but that certain business owners are familiar with as a matter of their practice.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the fact that the public supporting a bill has absolutely no impact on whether or not it gets passed.

If the public doesn't support a bill, it has about a 30% chance of passing. If they do, it has the same chance.

Not all of these bills are necessarily relevant to most people, but of course some of them are. So why wouldn't the public supporting a bill have an impact?

When something has wide public support, even if it doesn't pass on the first try, it may be more likely to pass the next time around, while unpopular ideas just die. You can't just count total votes and pass/no pass and assume that means anything at all given that bills get multiple tries at passing under different names and with slight revisions.
In order to have any meaning, you'd have to follow a single idea through multiple bills, and give the probability of passing per year. This is something that dishonest statistic didn't do.
It's like flatly claiming a certain cancer has X% of survival: no, a cancer has X% of survival per year. The most important variable is left out which tells how long people live with something. A cancer could kill you in a year, or after 20 years, and the death rate from that cancer would look similar, but it's a very different situation.

But again, the same standard is applied to the rich that is applied to everyone else. Why would this impact the significance of the results?

The numbers might be different if you control for more factors, but the difference between impact of the support of average people vs the rich would be the same.
Or why wouldn't they?

Why would these things make the support of the rich in particular look more relevant than it is, but not also elevate the support of regular Americans (the same applies to less relevance).

You may want to read the book "How to lie with statistics"
When you see some statistics that seem to claim something so extraordinary you wonder how anybody could doubt its significance, it's usually a lie created by obscuring relevant information.

I'll look into that.

Well, then that's the problem. Whose fault is that? Ours, for being uneducated and apathetic.

It doesn't matter whose fault it is.

If I'm standing around in the middle of the street without thinking, that's my fault. That doesn't make it ok for someone to come run me over.

Democracy relies on an educated and interested public. We don't have such a thing, which is why as our system grows more democratic we are bound to run into abuses that take advantage of an ignorant public.

We don't have such a thing because we don't give enough money to public education, and we often don't let our teachers do their jobs.

If we got money out of politics, we could fund public education a lot better, and pay teachers more.

Of course it could be. Do you have data showing otherwise? You should not disregard real possibilities.
But as I hope I showed, the line itself is deceptive because it's hiding important information.

What? I never said it couldn't be; I said it's not very likely. I didn't disregard anything.

There is no reason to believe that at all. Just like the drug arrests thing being a result of systematic racism: no evidence of that. Statistics can easily lie by obscuring relevant information, and by suggesting causation where there's no evidence of it by hiding or dismissing confounding variables.

Of course there's a reason to believe it. When the rich are giving millions of dollars to political campaigns, it's the logical consequence that the politicians who get their money would do things to help the rich.

Why would the rich give money if it didn't do anything?

[brimstoneSalad]

What makes it biased and dishonest? I still don't see your point here.

I don't know how else to explain this. It's like pointing to a correlation and calling it a causation. There are other possibilities, including just the nature of laws.

That's just not true. Even around eighty percent of republicans are against Citizens United, but it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

That was a court ruling, not a law.

Most Americans want universal healthcare. Most Americans want to raise taxes on the rich- the overwhelming majority, actually. But these things don't happen, because politicians don't serve the majority of Americans.

Or maybe politicians are smarter than the majority. An unfortunate reality.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/13/high-income-americans-pay-most-income-taxes-but-enough-to-be-fair/

The rich are already taxed at significantly higher amounts, and the poor ultimately get more money back from the government than they pay in (although they often have to wait for retirement for that to happen, so it may not seem like it while they're working).

Add in state taxes and property taxes, and some rich can end up paying half of their income.

What happens if they save their money and build up an estate to give to their children?
Well then they pay estate tax, which is about 40% if they're rich.

An additional 40% of everything they've saved and built in their lives, on top of the 50% tax they already paid in their lives.

Sure they want to raise taxes on the rich, because in the minds of most Americans rich people pay less taxes than they do.

At a certain point, if we keep raising taxes on higher income, people will lose the motivation to earn income at all, since it's easier to sit at home and collect welfare. You have to incentivize business and investment at least a little bit.

There are serious issues with our tax policies, but the general public is too ignorant of what our policies even are and of general economics to have a qualified opinion on it.

It's as if the people cried out in protest that we need to ban unicorns on public streets, and somehow a law didn't get passed to do that because the politicians were too busy scratching their heads.

When it comes to other economic matters, rich understand business and the economy much better than the poor do, so they're more likely to support all around good laws (a law isn't just pro-rich or pro-poor, that's an either or fallacy that comes from ignorance of most legislation, very often laws that get passed are those that benefit everybody) while the public remains indifferent.

But it applies the same standard towards the rich.

I think you misunderstood my arguments, or your analogy doesn't make any sense to what I'm talking about.

There are substantial and meaningful differences between rich and poor people that have nothing to do with how much money they have or how large their incomes incidentally are.

You can't assert causation here because there are no controls whatsoever.
If that were the only difference, it might be a sensible argument, but that's one of the least important differences.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the fact that the public supporting a bill has absolutely no impact on whether or not it gets passed.

If that's true (which it is not as I explained about with the fact that bills get revised), it has everything to do with it, because the public doesn't care about most bills.

If the public doesn't support a bill, it has about a 30% chance of passing. If they do, it has the same chance.

That's like saying if the general public thinks it will rain or not rain, it has the same chance of raining, but if a weatherman thinks it will rain it has a better chance of raining, thus proving the weathermen control the weather.

Rich people are smarter, and more keen when it comes to business and the economy. They support good laws that the public just guess on or are indifferent to. Good laws are more likely to pass regardless.

Not all of these bills are necessarily relevant to most people, but of course some of them are. So why wouldn't the public supporting a bill have an impact?

They don't even know which bills are relevant to them. Can you tell? And those that clearly are make up such a small percentage of the total bills that it's like complaining we can't detect the influence of a single drop of water in an ocean.

When a bill is important to the general public and they actually act in support of it (or opposition, which is even stronger), then it's likely to get passed or blocked.

What this statistic does is hide the effect of public opinion by diluting it with an ocean of matters the general public is indifferent on.

But again, the same standard is applied to the rich that is applied to everyone else. Why would this impact the significance of the results?

Uncontroversial and simple bills, like those I pointed out that are boring to most people, may be more likely to be passed the first time. It's very likely a significant percentage of the bills rich are supporting are just that -- very simple and straightforward. While the more controversial bills that have such wide sweeping effects as to be meaningful to the general public (people usually only get excited or interested in things when they're controversial, and if they aren't controversial there's no reason to even advertise them to the public) may be more likely to take a few tries and amendments.

This statistic leaves out entirely tracking an idea across multiple bills, it leaves out the state of controversy surrounding them, and it leaves out their scope and relevance.

The numbers might be different if you control for more factors, but the difference between impact of the support of average people vs the rich would be the same.
Or why wouldn't they?

I hope I explained why above. But the bottom line is that because all of this information is left out, such statistics are useless except for propaganda and deception, like many correlation=causation claims.

If I'm standing around in the middle of the street without thinking, that's my fault. That doesn't make it ok for someone to come run me over.

No, but if the cars are essentially mindless amoral automata we have no control over, and something that as far as we know our modern standards of life are reliant on and to which we have no real alternatives, which one do you focus your effort on changing?
We don't have a viable alternative to capitalism. And it is in no way clear that taking money out of politics (if that means anything) won't just make things worse.

We don't have such a thing because we don't give enough money to public education, and we often don't let our teachers do their jobs.

Is that really going to help? You just discovered your science teacher is brainwashed, right? And that's a science teacher.
There is no hope. Or, at least probably not in individual human beings.

What we need is a good and competently designed common core, but that's apparently beyond the ability of government to do (at least right now).

This is why (while I despise their useage for religious schools and think that should be banned), I'd be inclined to support a voucher system for private schools.

If we got money out of politics, we could fund public education a lot better, and pay teachers more.

I don't think "money out of politics" is a thing, I don't think it would provide more money, and if it did I don't think it would help public schools much. The issue is more serious than budget (which FYI is mainly an issue of local politics, where the money comes from property taxes and those in the school board don't exactly have the kind of issue with campaign contributions that we do in the federal government).

What? I never said it couldn't be; I said it's not very likely. I didn't disregard anything.

How can you claim anything about the probability on this subject when you don't know the other variables?
It's like the drug useage and arrest ratios: when you didn't know there was more to the story, you assumed it was likely to the case. These judgements can not be made in ignorance of the circumstances and details.

All we know is that somebody with an agenda put together a useless statistic to generate propaganda and made a bad video or whatever about it.

Accidentally right, or deliberately wrong? You don't really know. The statistic is useless for giving us meaningful information about the political process.

Why would the rich give money if it didn't do anything?

Because they're human beings and they have their own interests. That may be increasing welfare, or banning gay marriage. Quite a few of them just want to help their businesses because they feel responsible for all of their employees, or may want to help the economy in general because they think it's the right thing to do (a job does more to lift people from poverty than welfare).
Very rich people are already rich, you assume far too much about their motivations in terms of gaining more money for themselves.