8 ms·

I mean, I think you're missing a key factor here: politicians require money to be elected. The poor (the folks most affected by these issues) don't have the mo

I mean, I think you're missing a key factor here: politicians require money to be elected. The poor (the folks most affected by these issues) don't have the money to donate. The rich (the ones you propose taxing) do. Thus, the only ones who can get elected are catering to an audience that does not want this problems solved in this way (and indeed, one could argue, does not care to have it solved at all). Until the problem of money in politics gets fixed, your "simple" problem is largely unfixable.

timb07 8y ago
In a properly-operating democracy, politicians require votes to be elected; money helps, but isn't sufficient. The 1% may have 50% (or more) of the money, but they only have 1% of the votes. The 99% (or rather, those members of the 99% who vote as if they're in the 1%) need to exert their power at the polling booth.
- kamarg 8y ago
  You're doing a disservice to those 99% or at least those of us that do vote by assuming this is the only issue that people vote on. There's a wide range of priorities between the 0% and 99.9% on the economic scale and what goes into most peoples' decision to vote for someone is almost always nuanced even if the newspapers and tv interviews try to make it look like everyone that voted for the "wrong" candidate only voted for them because of X issue.
- 51lver 8y ago
  The 1% own the media companies which are happy to tell you what a winner looks like, and there is a general belief that voting with your heart is inferior to voting for a probable winner.
  - simplify 8y ago
    The latter problem would be solved with approval voting at least https://ncase.me/ballot/ https://ncase.me/ballot/
- cronix 8y ago
  > The 1% may have 50% (or more) of the money, but they only have 1% of the votes. Yes, but that money also buys political votes via contributions, political influence, and affects legislation favorably towards themselves. Look at how much money Google alone spent in 2017 on lobbying ($18M). If that wasn't gaining them tremendous influence, I highly doubt they'd be doing it. Not to single Google out (they just spent more than anyone else last year)... they all do it... because they have the money to do it... and it pays off. The 1% have a lot more influence than just their "1 vote each." http://fortune.com/2018/01/24/google-facebook-amazon-apple-lobbying-efforts/ http://fortune.com/2018/01/24/google-facebook-amazon-apple-l...
- baroffoos 8y ago
  Money can pay for marketing and shills to flood online forums to trick peoples voting.
exogeny 8y ago
Sure, makes sense. Thank you for the reply. Where it's personally frustrating for me: I've sold two companies in my life, and saw my tax rate jump from the lowest to the highest. I'm fine with that. I did well and despite all the work I put in, I recognize the amount of good fortune that was involved - and I'm perfectly happy to give back more because it affects me less, and because it's my fair share. I recognize that a lot of others don't feel that way, and certainly recognize the influence that money has on politics. That's sad and frustrating to me.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  > I'm perfectly happy to give back more If you really feel that way, charitable organizations can effectively distribute donations far more efficiently and effectively than any government organization has ever been able to. I suspect that if all of the people who say they feel the same way did just voluntarily donate what they considered their own fair share to charity, the homeless crisis would be mostly solved.
  - javagram 8y ago
    When it comes to stuff like housing, government regulations like zoning can stand in the way. If we had an unfettered market perhaps cheap apartments could be built and given to the homeless by charity. In practice new housing that complies with all zoning codes, labor regulations, etc ends up costing quite a lot. Government certainly has a role to play here even if it is just changing policies to stop driving up costs. Of course governments also have eminent domain power and other powers that private organizations can’t access.
    - mempko 8y ago
      Unfettered market? I think the word you were looking for is 'slums'.
      - barry-cotter 8y ago
        Beats sleeping on the street. If single room occupancy hotels or flophouses hadn’t been zoned out of existence there’d be many fewer homeless in the US.
Gustomaximus 8y ago
> politicians require money to be elected. I feel this is an easy cop out. And while money absolutely influences politics, votes get people elected. And in today's age of connectivity, there should be no reason a candidate can't overcome that money barrier if they appeal to the the wider populace. I think the reality is more we don't want to look at ourselves as architects of the negatives we see. Like how many here dont like the current state of government and can say they are highly politically active in creating change? Sadly I think apathy is one of the largest variables for poor government.
- jahaja 8y ago
  In this "It's actually votes that counts after all"-scenario, how would you explain the vast difference in worker rights and benefits, who surely constitutes the majority of the eligible voters, compared to West-European countries? I also think you're overestimating the "age of connectivity"-populace with regards to actual voting power.
jessedhillon 8y ago
I'd estimate the majority of active contributors to HN earn $150k+, putting them squarely in the upper percentiles of income-earners -- and definitely in the would-be-taxed bucket. Yet the sentiment expressed in the original comment is still the dominant mood here and elsewhere. The issue is not as clear-cut as "the poors want redistribution but the rich don't," Mark Benioff publicly threw his support behind the just-passed measure C, which would target a tax hike on companies like his. Irrespective of income, nobody in SF can stand the status quo. It's not a question of whether there's a willingness to pay -- I personally wonder if anyone even has a credible plan.
- PeterisP 8y ago
  $150-300k puts you squarely in the upper percentiles of income-earners, but it does not put you into the range of meaningful campaign donors that get the ear of electable politicians. From the perspective where we're talking about the influence of money on politics, $150-300k is still on the side where your opinion gets ignored because of your lack of money that you're going to spend on political influence.
  - jessedhillon 8y ago
    If you think that only donors matter, or even that they matter most, I would wonder how you explain both local (SF) results and the current national electoral mood. Donor-emphasis has poor predictive power as a political theory, which was my point.
- schaefer 8y ago
  >>I'd estimate the majority of active contributors to HN earn $150-300k I can't think of any meaningful way to resolve this, but I'm guessing the majority earn less than $150k...
jakelarkin 8y ago
some aspects of the political problems are definitely driven by voting blocs rather than money per se. For example, construction trade unions leverage generally block changes to simplify/de-cost the building code or the use of public money for pre-fab housing. Those are just concrete examples I'm aware of, theres probably similar dynamics in healthcare, government administration, environmental policy.
dv_dt 8y ago
We end up no matter what fix you propose, having to fix it while the engine is running. Saying you have to fix money first is no solution. You can't fix money in politics, until you can overcome money in politics, at which point you may act to reduce the influence of money in politics. On the hopeful side, I feel like there is a bottom enabling threshold where money is needed for a campaign, but beyond that basic level there are many modern channels for voter engagement.Those channels only now are really starting to be employed effectively by younger, newer politicians and will let us "fix the engine while it's running".
ddingus 8y ago
We may well find it possible to compete with big money in politics. Some campaigns were successful on small donations and people power.
- ddingus 8y ago
  A lot more of those will be running between now and 2020. We should have more good data once we see elected people perform in Congress. The big question is whether they can maintain agency longer term.

timb07 8y ago

In a properly-operating democracy, politicians require votes to be elected; money helps, but isn't sufficient. The 1% may have 50% (or more) of the money, but they only have 1% of the votes. The 99% (or rather, those members of the 99% who vote as if they're in the 1%) need to exert their power at the polling booth.

kamarg 8y ago
You're doing a disservice to those 99% or at least those of us that do vote by assuming this is the only issue that people vote on. There's a wide range of priorities between the 0% and 99.9% on the economic scale and what goes into most peoples' decision to vote for someone is almost always nuanced even if the newspapers and tv interviews try to make it look like everyone that voted for the "wrong" candidate only voted for them because of X issue.
51lver 8y ago
The 1% own the media companies which are happy to tell you what a winner looks like, and there is a general belief that voting with your heart is inferior to voting for a probable winner.
- simplify 8y ago
  The latter problem would be solved with approval voting at least https://ncase.me/ballot/ https://ncase.me/ballot/
cronix 8y ago
> The 1% may have 50% (or more) of the money, but they only have 1% of the votes. Yes, but that money also buys political votes via contributions, political influence, and affects legislation favorably towards themselves. Look at how much money Google alone spent in 2017 on lobbying ($18M). If that wasn't gaining them tremendous influence, I highly doubt they'd be doing it. Not to single Google out (they just spent more than anyone else last year)... they all do it... because they have the money to do it... and it pays off. The 1% have a lot more influence than just their "1 vote each." http://fortune.com/2018/01/24/google-facebook-amazon-apple-lobbying-efforts/ http://fortune.com/2018/01/24/google-facebook-amazon-apple-l...
baroffoos 8y ago
Money can pay for marketing and shills to flood online forums to trick peoples voting.

exogeny 8y ago

Sure, makes sense. Thank you for the reply. Where it's personally frustrating for me: I've sold two companies in my life, and saw my tax rate jump from the lowest to the highest. I'm fine with that. I did well and despite all the work I put in, I recognize the amount of good fortune that was involved - and I'm perfectly happy to give back more because it affects me less, and because it's my fair share. I recognize that a lot of others don't feel that way, and certainly recognize the influence that money has on politics. That's sad and frustrating to me.

commandlinefan 8y ago
> I'm perfectly happy to give back more If you really feel that way, charitable organizations can effectively distribute donations far more efficiently and effectively than any government organization has ever been able to. I suspect that if all of the people who say they feel the same way did just voluntarily donate what they considered their own fair share to charity, the homeless crisis would be mostly solved.
- javagram 8y ago
  When it comes to stuff like housing, government regulations like zoning can stand in the way. If we had an unfettered market perhaps cheap apartments could be built and given to the homeless by charity. In practice new housing that complies with all zoning codes, labor regulations, etc ends up costing quite a lot. Government certainly has a role to play here even if it is just changing policies to stop driving up costs. Of course governments also have eminent domain power and other powers that private organizations can’t access.
  - mempko 8y ago
    Unfettered market? I think the word you were looking for is 'slums'.
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      Beats sleeping on the street. If single room occupancy hotels or flophouses hadn’t been zoned out of existence there’d be many fewer homeless in the US.

Gustomaximus 8y ago

> politicians require money to be elected. I feel this is an easy cop out. And while money absolutely influences politics, votes get people elected. And in today's age of connectivity, there should be no reason a candidate can't overcome that money barrier if they appeal to the the wider populace. I think the reality is more we don't want to look at ourselves as architects of the negatives we see. Like how many here dont like the current state of government and can say they are highly politically active in creating change? Sadly I think apathy is one of the largest variables for poor government.

jahaja 8y ago
In this "It's actually votes that counts after all"-scenario, how would you explain the vast difference in worker rights and benefits, who surely constitutes the majority of the eligible voters, compared to West-European countries? I also think you're overestimating the "age of connectivity"-populace with regards to actual voting power.

jessedhillon 8y ago

I'd estimate the majority of active contributors to HN earn $150k+, putting them squarely in the upper percentiles of income-earners -- and definitely in the would-be-taxed bucket. Yet the sentiment expressed in the original comment is still the dominant mood here and elsewhere. The issue is not as clear-cut as "the poors want redistribution but the rich don't," Mark Benioff publicly threw his support behind the just-passed measure C, which would target a tax hike on companies like his. Irrespective of income, nobody in SF can stand the status quo. It's not a question of whether there's a willingness to pay -- I personally wonder if anyone even has a credible plan.

PeterisP 8y ago
$150-300k puts you squarely in the upper percentiles of income-earners, but it does not put you into the range of meaningful campaign donors that get the ear of electable politicians. From the perspective where we're talking about the influence of money on politics, $150-300k is still on the side where your opinion gets ignored because of your lack of money that you're going to spend on political influence.
- jessedhillon 8y ago
  If you think that only donors matter, or even that they matter most, I would wonder how you explain both local (SF) results and the current national electoral mood. Donor-emphasis has poor predictive power as a political theory, which was my point.
schaefer 8y ago
>>I'd estimate the majority of active contributors to HN earn $150-300k I can't think of any meaningful way to resolve this, but I'm guessing the majority earn less than $150k...

jakelarkin 8y ago

some aspects of the political problems are definitely driven by voting blocs rather than money per se. For example, construction trade unions leverage generally block changes to simplify/de-cost the building code or the use of public money for pre-fab housing. Those are just concrete examples I'm aware of, theres probably similar dynamics in healthcare, government administration, environmental policy.

dv_dt 8y ago

We end up no matter what fix you propose, having to fix it while the engine is running. Saying you have to fix money first is no solution. You can't fix money in politics, until you can overcome money in politics, at which point you may act to reduce the influence of money in politics. On the hopeful side, I feel like there is a bottom enabling threshold where money is needed for a campaign, but beyond that basic level there are many modern channels for voter engagement.Those channels only now are really starting to be employed effectively by younger, newer politicians and will let us "fix the engine while it's running".

ddingus 8y ago

We may well find it possible to compete with big money in politics. Some campaigns were successful on small donations and people power.

ddingus 8y ago
A lot more of those will be running between now and 2020. We should have more good data once we see elected people perform in Congress. The big question is whether they can maintain agency longer term.