5 ms·

It seems that rather than attracting the best of the best to lead this country we managed to arrive at a process that reliably picks the most self serving crook

It seems that rather than attracting the best of the best to lead this country we managed to arrive at a process that reliably picks the most self serving crooks this country has to offer and allow them to run this country. With a few exceptions nobody in congress seems to actually care even a bit about the people, but only how to drive the personal agenda forward. It's the same in Europe. Apparently representatives are actually paid by attendance, so what they do is, they come to the session, sign in their names, and then leave.

mpyne 13y ago
Has no one ever noticed how poorly the leadership of our democracies are treated? It's understood in the commercial sector that you have to pay (both on benefits, quality of work/life balance, pay, etc.) to attract and retain the best and brightest talent. How can we all take that very important lesson and completely throw it away when considering the leadership of an entire nation? I'm not sure I'd take Pres. Obama or Rep. Boehner's jobs for a million bucks, so how are we supposed to get the "best of the best" leading the country, when they're off leading the Fortune 500? EDIT: People, there are reasons I mentioned things other than actual cash compensation when I referred to pay and benefits. You can almost literally watch the President of the United States age in front of your very eyes nowadays.... so I'm not saying the job of public service doesn't pay enough, I'm saying the job is so stressful that it's not possible to pay enough, as money quickly loses its motivational appeal once you make enough to live comfortably.
- linuxhansl 13y ago
  That is a fair point. To that I would say the members of congress are exempt from insider trading laws (why?), and it turns out that many members of congress make the majority of the wealth from stock trades after they join congress. (now, that might be hear-say. I read this somewhere, and I have no good way to verify this).
- amirmc 13y ago
  "Has no one ever noticed how poorly the leadership of our democracies are treated?" No, I haven't noticed this (because it's not true). What I do notice are many stories about politicians abusing their positions, almost systematically [1,2]. I see no reason why a higher rate of pay would curb such behaviour (it's not like they're broke in the first place). I don't see why leaders of the commercial sector should be considered the "best of the best" either (think back to banking and other corporate scandals of the last decade). In addition, the gap between CEO pay and 'normal' people has been the subject of debate before. When you realise that some of these folks sit on each-other's compensation committees it's easy to see how such arrangements can be abused -- and conveniently justified in hindsight as 'necessary' to "attract and retain the best of best". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_expenses_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_e... [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/02/lobbying-ministers-scandals http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/02/lobbying-mini...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- speeder 13y ago
  What you wrote is so misguided that I got up from bed and turned on the computer just to reply it (I was reading HN on mobile). Brazil (where I am from) has one of the biggest politician salaries of the world, also politicians here get many secondary ways to get money, for example our last president, Lula, when he became president he owned a single apartment and two more or less nice cars (Chevrolet Omega). When he left the presidency he owned 53 apartments. And noone could prove that was from stolen money... Our congress also can vote on its own salary, and they frequently do, a recent scandal was when they refused to increase the police salary and then increased their own by 70%, later smaller chambers from around the country went into more outrageous mode (one city for example, gave their lawmakers a 100% salary increase, while reducing the salary of teachers and medics to compensate the budget). No, giving politicians money, won't make them less self-serving, if anything it gives a very clear incentive to self-serving people end there. I am very sure if there was ways to ensure political power could not translate so directly to money, people would abuse it less.
  - e3pi 13y ago
    Vote bitcoin for president. Without term limit.
- arbuge 13y ago
  >>> Has no one ever noticed how poorly the leadership of our democracies are treated? While in office, US Presidents live like royalty. None of the Fortune 500 CEO cohort live like the President, especially if you throw in perks like the reverence with which presidents are treated anywhere in the world they may go. After office they can look forward to a remainder of their lives earning tens of millions on the speaking circuit. Hardly qualifies as poor treatment in my view.
- etherael 13y ago
  Right, lobby the Mafia for better percentages for the Dons, because running an extortion racket is a tough gig and wiseguys don't get no respect.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  I think you're almost onto something here, but I think the problem is not compensation or benefits. It's that the President has too much power. And if I may quote Spider Man, with great power comes great responsibility. The constitution wasn't written under the assumption that the federal government would ever be as large as it is. It isn't set up for it. So the President is in charge of too much and is consequently spread too thin for any one person to handle. Here's the problem: The number of officers of the federal executive branch who are elected: One. Just One. Compare that to anything else. In any given state you'll elect the governor, but you'll also elect the mayor of each city and possibly the sheriff, etc. I want to vote for the head of the FBI. I want to vote for the head of the IRS. Stop putting it all at the feet of the President.
  - aswanson 13y ago
    I never thought of this, but this is a brilliant observation. From the presidency, we get issuances forth like Carmen Ortiz, heads of FEMA like Mike Brown, etc. The possibility of cronyism writ large, with decades of consequence. This has to change.
  - rapala 13y ago
    Is there any chance that the people would ever vote for the multitude of these positions? There's probably (I'm not a US citizen) hundreds of federal bureaus. The people can't even bother to vote in the current federal elections. Also, would the people even know better? Who even knows what the director of the FBI really does, what is the concrete executive power that he or she wields?
- amirmc 13y ago
  In response to your edit: I don't think many (if any) politicians are in it for the money. It's either the genuine belief that they can improve things or just a straight-up hunger for influence and power. In light of your edit, I have no idea what point you're trying to get across. Being President is so stressful ... so what? Anyone who could become President is likely well past the "living comfortably" stage so there's obviously something else that drives them. Same goes for any of the Fortune 500 CEOs you refer to (none of them need the money).
fragsworth 13y ago
We should elect the house (or senate, one or the other) by randomly drawing a large number of people from the population. See how easy it is to corrupt 1000-2000 randomly selected folks who, for the most part, have an ingrained set of morals. It'd be like a jury for the government and they'd easily be able to roadblock the vast majority of bullshit that goes on. We could even let them decide who the president is. Alternatively, we could have it set up so our representatives give up most of their rights to privacy. Their whereabouts, communications/conversations (of all kinds) should be monitored and made public after a short period of time. It could be considered a price they have to pay to be in public office, and we could pay them a lot more so that good people would be willing to do this.
- rdl 13y ago
  I'd support a house of congress (or part of either or both existing houses) picked via sortition (with a filter for non felon, etc). Ancient Athens actually used this for the very reason of being harder to compromise. The problem with competitive elections for power is the people they attract.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  The problem with this is that you end up trading corruption for incompetence and uncertainty. Suppose we pick elected officials at random. OK, in the first round we get a bunch of reasonable people and they do a bunch of reasonable stuff. In the second round, maybe the same thing, except that they have different ideas from their predecessors so they end up repealing all the programs and replacing them with still reasonable but quite different ones. Businesses can't plan anything because they don't know what the regulatory environment will look like the year after the election. The churn strains our already-difficult ties with countries like China, Russia and Saudi Arabia when the things the Nth Congress promised get repudiated by the N+1th Congress which is comprised of entirely different people. Then, sooner or later, random chance produces a majority coalition consisting of people who are willing to horse trade for corrupt programs that specifically benefit their own friends and family, or "libertarians" and peace activists who very suddenly disband the entire U.S. military, or nationalist religious fundamentalists who decide to declare war on "Muslims" or drop a nuclear bomb on somebody with the ability to strike back. The thing about politics is that you actually do want professionals running the country. You want people with formal training who know what they're doing. You just have to make sure they're representing us and not somebody else.
TeMPOraL 13y ago
> It seems that rather than attracting the best of the best to lead this country we managed to arrive at a process that reliably picks the most self serving crooks this country has to offer and allow them to run this country. Isn't this obviously visible in the structure of the democracies? How do politicians get selected? By votes from people. The more people like one (politician, party), the more they vote for them. Given that saying/doing the right thing is likely to offend at least some groups of people, it will always be the case that political groups trying to be popular will be selected by the system in favour of the ones trying to get things right. It's deep in the structure of this process; our democracies optimize for short-term popularity contests, not making the right calls that benefit the nation most.

mpyne 13y ago

Has no one ever noticed how poorly the leadership of our democracies are treated? It's understood in the commercial sector that you have to pay (both on benefits, quality of work/life balance, pay, etc.) to attract and retain the best and brightest talent. How can we all take that very important lesson and completely throw it away when considering the leadership of an entire nation? I'm not sure I'd take Pres. Obama or Rep. Boehner's jobs for a million bucks, so how are we supposed to get the "best of the best" leading the country, when they're off leading the Fortune 500? EDIT: People, there are reasons I mentioned things other than actual cash compensation when I referred to pay and benefits. You can almost literally watch the President of the United States age in front of your very eyes nowadays.... so I'm not saying the job of public service doesn't pay enough, I'm saying the job is so stressful that it's not possible to pay enough, as money quickly loses its motivational appeal once you make enough to live comfortably.

linuxhansl 13y ago
That is a fair point. To that I would say the members of congress are exempt from insider trading laws (why?), and it turns out that many members of congress make the majority of the wealth from stock trades after they join congress. (now, that might be hear-say. I read this somewhere, and I have no good way to verify this).
amirmc 13y ago
"Has no one ever noticed how poorly the leadership of our democracies are treated?" No, I haven't noticed this (because it's not true). What I do notice are many stories about politicians abusing their positions, almost systematically [1,2]. I see no reason why a higher rate of pay would curb such behaviour (it's not like they're broke in the first place). I don't see why leaders of the commercial sector should be considered the "best of the best" either (think back to banking and other corporate scandals of the last decade). In addition, the gap between CEO pay and 'normal' people has been the subject of debate before. When you realise that some of these folks sit on each-other's compensation committees it's easy to see how such arrangements can be abused -- and conveniently justified in hindsight as 'necessary' to "attract and retain the best of best". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_expenses_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_e... [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/02/lobbying-ministers-scandals http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/02/lobbying-mini...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
speeder 13y ago
What you wrote is so misguided that I got up from bed and turned on the computer just to reply it (I was reading HN on mobile). Brazil (where I am from) has one of the biggest politician salaries of the world, also politicians here get many secondary ways to get money, for example our last president, Lula, when he became president he owned a single apartment and two more or less nice cars (Chevrolet Omega). When he left the presidency he owned 53 apartments. And noone could prove that was from stolen money... Our congress also can vote on its own salary, and they frequently do, a recent scandal was when they refused to increase the police salary and then increased their own by 70%, later smaller chambers from around the country went into more outrageous mode (one city for example, gave their lawmakers a 100% salary increase, while reducing the salary of teachers and medics to compensate the budget). No, giving politicians money, won't make them less self-serving, if anything it gives a very clear incentive to self-serving people end there. I am very sure if there was ways to ensure political power could not translate so directly to money, people would abuse it less.
- e3pi 13y ago
  Vote bitcoin for president. Without term limit.
arbuge 13y ago
>>> Has no one ever noticed how poorly the leadership of our democracies are treated? While in office, US Presidents live like royalty. None of the Fortune 500 CEO cohort live like the President, especially if you throw in perks like the reverence with which presidents are treated anywhere in the world they may go. After office they can look forward to a remainder of their lives earning tens of millions on the speaking circuit. Hardly qualifies as poor treatment in my view.
etherael 13y ago
Right, lobby the Mafia for better percentages for the Dons, because running an extortion racket is a tough gig and wiseguys don't get no respect.
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
I think you're almost onto something here, but I think the problem is not compensation or benefits. It's that the President has too much power. And if I may quote Spider Man, with great power comes great responsibility. The constitution wasn't written under the assumption that the federal government would ever be as large as it is. It isn't set up for it. So the President is in charge of too much and is consequently spread too thin for any one person to handle. Here's the problem: The number of officers of the federal executive branch who are elected: One. Just One. Compare that to anything else. In any given state you'll elect the governor, but you'll also elect the mayor of each city and possibly the sheriff, etc. I want to vote for the head of the FBI. I want to vote for the head of the IRS. Stop putting it all at the feet of the President.
- aswanson 13y ago
  I never thought of this, but this is a brilliant observation. From the presidency, we get issuances forth like Carmen Ortiz, heads of FEMA like Mike Brown, etc. The possibility of cronyism writ large, with decades of consequence. This has to change.
- rapala 13y ago
  Is there any chance that the people would ever vote for the multitude of these positions? There's probably (I'm not a US citizen) hundreds of federal bureaus. The people can't even bother to vote in the current federal elections. Also, would the people even know better? Who even knows what the director of the FBI really does, what is the concrete executive power that he or she wields?
amirmc 13y ago
In response to your edit: I don't think many (if any) politicians are in it for the money. It's either the genuine belief that they can improve things or just a straight-up hunger for influence and power. In light of your edit, I have no idea what point you're trying to get across. Being President is so stressful ... so what? Anyone who could become President is likely well past the "living comfortably" stage so there's obviously something else that drives them. Same goes for any of the Fortune 500 CEOs you refer to (none of them need the money).

fragsworth 13y ago

We should elect the house (or senate, one or the other) by randomly drawing a large number of people from the population. See how easy it is to corrupt 1000-2000 randomly selected folks who, for the most part, have an ingrained set of morals. It'd be like a jury for the government and they'd easily be able to roadblock the vast majority of bullshit that goes on. We could even let them decide who the president is. Alternatively, we could have it set up so our representatives give up most of their rights to privacy. Their whereabouts, communications/conversations (of all kinds) should be monitored and made public after a short period of time. It could be considered a price they have to pay to be in public office, and we could pay them a lot more so that good people would be willing to do this.

rdl 13y ago
I'd support a house of congress (or part of either or both existing houses) picked via sortition (with a filter for non felon, etc). Ancient Athens actually used this for the very reason of being harder to compromise. The problem with competitive elections for power is the people they attract.
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
The problem with this is that you end up trading corruption for incompetence and uncertainty. Suppose we pick elected officials at random. OK, in the first round we get a bunch of reasonable people and they do a bunch of reasonable stuff. In the second round, maybe the same thing, except that they have different ideas from their predecessors so they end up repealing all the programs and replacing them with still reasonable but quite different ones. Businesses can't plan anything because they don't know what the regulatory environment will look like the year after the election. The churn strains our already-difficult ties with countries like China, Russia and Saudi Arabia when the things the Nth Congress promised get repudiated by the N+1th Congress which is comprised of entirely different people. Then, sooner or later, random chance produces a majority coalition consisting of people who are willing to horse trade for corrupt programs that specifically benefit their own friends and family, or "libertarians" and peace activists who very suddenly disband the entire U.S. military, or nationalist religious fundamentalists who decide to declare war on "Muslims" or drop a nuclear bomb on somebody with the ability to strike back. The thing about politics is that you actually do want professionals running the country. You want people with formal training who know what they're doing. You just have to make sure they're representing us and not somebody else.

TeMPOraL 13y ago

> It seems that rather than attracting the best of the best to lead this country we managed to arrive at a process that reliably picks the most self serving crooks this country has to offer and allow them to run this country. Isn't this obviously visible in the structure of the democracies? How do politicians get selected? By votes from people. The more people like one (politician, party), the more they vote for them. Given that saying/doing the right thing is likely to offend at least some groups of people, it will always be the case that political groups trying to be popular will be selected by the system in favour of the ones trying to get things right. It's deep in the structure of this process; our democracies optimize for short-term popularity contests, not making the right calls that benefit the nation most.