9 ms·
Billionaires, Not Voters, Are Deciding Elections
- hodgesrm 8y ago> ...fight against Prop 10. Sadly, Californians bought the corporate propaganda hook, line and sinker, and voted it down by a whopping 61.7 percent, saying “no” to rent control. Californian here. This statement is true only if 'corporate propaganda hook' means the recommendations of most reputable economists. There's ample evidence that rent control not only reduces housing stock but also fails to help people most in need of assistance. California has a serious housing crisis--there are people living under bridges in my town--but Prop 10 was not the answer. I hope the No vote will force some rethinking about a more comprehensive solution. I predict that proposition would pass by a large majority.
- catacombs 8y agoThe Washington Post has been tracking everyone, including corporations, contributing to super PACs. All told, they funneled $1.1 billion in 2018: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/politics/superpac-donors-2018/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/politics/superp... More than a billion dollars. Think about that.
- tptacek 8y agoFor all the money the Adelsons poured into this House election, they didn't do so hot. They fought mostly for historically red districts, and from buys for CA-10, CA-39, CA-45, IL-12, IL-13, KS-2, MI-6, NC-2, NM-2, NY-19, NY-22, NV-3, VA-7, TX-7, and WI-1, they lost (or have probably lost) the CA-10, NM-2, NY-19, NY-22, NV-3, VA-7, and TX-7. Similarly, this cycle was defined by an overwhelming fundraising advantage for Democrats. The Democrats did well, but they did not do well proportionately to their financial edge. There were races where we just dominated the GOP --- on the field, in the air, with endorsements, and all that backed by money --- and the GOP won anyways. Money helps, but it doesn't "decide" elections.
- Tomte 8y agoDid any of the candidates of the Great Slate win? I googled a few results shortly after your elections and didn't find any, but I think the count wasn't official yet in most states.
- tptacek 8y agoWe're likely to take ME-2, but none of the other races. Which is fine; the Slate races were chosen specifically to be long shots that were underinvested by the party.
- pcwalton 8y agoRepublicans are fairly likely to lose CA-45 as well as late/absentee/provisional ballots come in.
- rayiner 8y agoA billion dollars is nothing in an economy of 325 million people. That’s half of what Colgate-Palmolive spends each year advertising toothpaste and dish soap. It’s about three days of Google ad revenue. It’s $5 per person of voting age, which is about Facebook’s ad revenue per user in a month. Think about that: has Facebook ever convinced you of anything? Because that’s 12x the advertising intensity of PAC funding. The causal inference the article draws is insane. California voters rejected more rent control by a 60-40 margin. Facebook can’t convince more than 0.9% of users to even click on each ad, but somehow a fraction of the level of advertising changed peoples’ minds about rent control?
- maxxxxx 8y agoI think the problem is that when 100 million people contribute $10 to a cause they basically don't get heard but one person contributing the same amount will have all doors opened and be listened to.
- rayiner 8y agoWe’re talking about PAC spend, which doesn’t go directly to candidates. A billion in small donations to an issue-focused PAC is indistinguishable to a single $1 billion donation. It’s a billion dollars available to conduct advertising for the issue.
- greglindahl 8y ago100 million people motivated enough to contribute $10 each to a cause indicates a huge base of support. It's not just the money, it's a signal of engagement.
- maxxxxx 8y agoDon't you think that someone tells the candidates where the PAC money is coming from?
- scoggs 8y ago> We’re talking about PAC spend, which doesn’t go directly to candidates. A billion in small donations to an issue-focused PAC is indistinguishable to a single $1 billion donation. It’s a billion dollars available to conduct advertising for the issue. Now, I could be 100% wrong because I'm not looking at any data to back up what I'm stating next but from what I remember what you say above is not 100% true. From the time the campaign starts until the campaign ends and the election is complete the PAC's $ can not go directly to a candidate. The problem is what happens to / with that money after the campaign is over? From what I've heard that money can go directly to a candidate (or now official-elect) with no strings attached. Of course, I do not have a citation handy, but I've never heard of leftover PAC $ being reimbursed to those donating nor have I ever heard of candidates or a PAC donating the leftover PAC $ to charity.
- mpalczewski 8y agoWashington Post is owned by a billionaire
- catacombs 8y agoYes, but Jeff Bezos doesn't control the news coverage.
- wu-ikkyu 8y agoI wonder how much more money/assets/favors are exchanged under the radar through offshore/shell companies
- outside1234 8y agoProposition 10 in California lost because it was a horrible idea. Economists agree, at almost the scale of way they agree about climate change, from the left to the right, that rent control is the most effective way to destroy a city and is counterproductive to its goals. It is a simplistic solution designed by people that have flunked economics who think that just declaring that "rent shall be frozen" that that will make housing cheaper. It was not because billionaires supported it. It failed because it was a terrible idea. * https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-01-18/yup-rent-control-does-more-harm-than-good https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-01-18/yup-re...
- RodericDay 8y agoeconomists are not scientists rent control makes rent cheaper in montreal
- chrisco255 8y agoYeah, the way you deal with expensive housing...it should be obvious...is to increase the supply of housing.
- purplezooey 8y agoSeen any of that happening lately? :). Last year we built 1 housing unit for every 7 jobs created.
- bcherny 8y agoI’m not sure that’s quite accurate. If you just look at it through the lens of supply and demand, of course rent control is bad. But the real issues are more nuanced than that. For example, a recent study from Stanford found that rent control reduces supply of housing by 15% and raises the income you need to move into the city; on the other side, that same study found that rent control helps protect people that live in the city already, which disproportionately helps people of color and lower income people. There’s a few similar studies. There are definitely tradeoffs here, which depend on your own values. https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/DMQ.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/DMQ.pdf
- kartan 8y agoThis is one of the problems of allowing the accumulation of power. As an individual, I have little money to spend and the gains are distributed to all citizens. Billionaires have a lot of money to spend and they are rewarded quite directly from the policies that they affect. The best option would have been to not get here in the first place. To have stopped it when it was easier. But now that power has accumulated so much there is more reason to work for wealth re-distribution. I also interested to know how much relationship there is between the accumulation of wealth in a few and war. I see that the rise of the far right and the economic inequality are happening at the same time. But I do not know what is the relationship between them. Anyone has data on this?
- innagadadavida 8y agoIf we logically extend your argument to include people in the rest of the world, then people in America will probably be as poor as them as well. Moreover, what would the environmental impact of such a policy be? Will we be consuming way more than what we are currently?
- pm90 8y ago> If we logically extend your argument to include people in the rest of the world, then people in America will probably be as poor as them as well. Why would you do that? The purpose of having countries is to have a limit on where the laws/policies apply to. In this case we're talking specifically about the US. > Moreover, what would the environmental impact of such a policy be? Will we be consuming way more than what we are currently? If anything, its likely to be better for the environment. I don't think income equality means that people will just be buying more stuff (although that is likely to happen to a certain extent, just not enough to have meaningful impact); the way it would look is access to better services like healthcare, education etc.
- danemacaulay 8y agoPicketty discussed the relationship between wealth inequality and the world wars. Specifically, he notes how these wars served the function of destroying wealth accumulation centers and effectively redistributing them. He cynically notes that if we don't do anything that we may end up seeing another war do it for us...
- talrobinson 8y agoTitle should read “Voters decide elections, but are easily duped by political commercials paid for by billionaires.”
- greglindahl 8y agoThe article is terrible in more ways than just the title -- their claim that Prop 10 was voted down billionaires were against it has no evidence behind it. Correlation is not causation.
- claydavisss 8y agoThe "Establishment" loses all the time. Trump was "supposed" to finish last in Republican primaries and ended up President. At every step, he faced and beat the Establishment choice, up to beating the Wall St/Hollywood/Tech endorsed candidate for President.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoI think money in politics is certainly an issue, but there seems to be an increasing amount of evidence that this its influence seems to be diminishing, not increasing. One party's presidential candidate in 2016 achieved record breaking fund raising, and outspent their opponent by 2:1. In recent midterms one senatorial candidate raised $38 million in one quarter smashing all records and obviously outspending his opponent, also by about 2:1. Both candidates lost. According to WaPo [1] candidates from one party outspent the other party in 75% of 80 of the most competitive contests. But fewer than half of those candidates who outspent their opponent ended up winning their election. This didn't used to be the case. Money spent used to be one of the most reliable methods of determining who'd win an election. Now voters seem to be voting in ways that are much less predictable. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/despite-record-spending-2018-midterms-highlighted-limits-of-campaign-cash/2018/11/07/4ded1e34-e12e-11e8-ab2c-b31dcd53ca6b_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/despite-record-spend...
- RickJWagner 8y agoAs a conservative, I'd gladly trade every single GOP-supporting billionaire in exchange for a balanced message from Hollywood. Rich people with a microphone and groupie followers seem more influential than just monetary donors.
- lxmorj 8y agoYes, overt things do SEEM more influential than the money moving behind the scenes. And yet...