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Hmmm.... Maybe I should go into a little more detail about how this would work.
Each year, you do a new draw from the pool. The draw establishes a set of teams ("Watchgroups"?) that are randomly assigned elected officials. Each team is tasked with investigating any laws the pols. they are assigned have involved themselves in and they are examined to see if they have undue impact on the major campaign contributors for those pols.
There's no doubt that there would be some political gamesmanship, but exposing the issues that are driving this can only help things. You might have a politicized group watching someone for a year, but next year, they get a whole new group watching them. The pols. are never sure of who will be watching them and thus can never be confident that there would be a Watchgroup that would have their back. In fact, the possibility that there might be a Watchgroup that would pursue them for political reasons would actually be good thing. If they walk in a level of integrity that leaves them above reproach, they would have nothing to worry about no matter who was watching them.
BTW - VERY enjoyable discussion.
I agree. We are headed in for nasty times I think.
Your video has been deleted. I'm an owner of Wal Mart too and I haven't given employees a raise either. That isn't my role, I'm a shareholder, not a manager of the company.
What one thing would you advise people to do to cease support of owners of significant wealth?
How would you account for false positives? If politician A is going to change his stance on policy B regardless of company C being known to find politicians with that position it looks like corruption but might not be. It's a hard problem. Especially since it's not one prone to evidence.
Also how do you define an advocacy group like the NRA within such a system? Do you just ban everything? I think that would throw out the baby with the bath water because it would again reduce the balance of power for the citizenry, which is the fundamental problem. Things are too intertwined.
We have to bypass it entirely and redesign this aspect of the system.
This is why the Watchers would be informative and not judicial. There's no doubt that they could come up with some incorrect assumptions, so we limit them to a group which simply communicates their findings and allows the voters to decide what to do with potential offenders. If the voters are OK with Bob Gimmebux providing a company with favorable legislation because that company also employs 90% of that state's population, that's the voter's business. All I want is an objective group that can inform the voters of where potential issues could be.
Eliminating corruption will never happen no matter what we do. If we got rid of all campaign contributions, there is no Constitutional way to silence people from buying air time, ads, websites, etc. on their own and proffering their opinions on the candidates/issues. In that arena, the guy/corporation with the most money can most certainly have the loudest voice (not guaranteed with the web). Finding a way to silence one avenue of expressing one's opinion simply forces people to find others. If you took away corporate contributions, you would see the TV flooded with "commercials" in support of various candidates/measures. Laws that silenced corporations from supporting candidates/issues would be easily by-passed by paying someone a whole lot of money so that they could (strictly as a private citizen expressing their personal opinion) buy airtime/ads/websites to express their opinions. I would much rather we allow the contributions happen directly and with a HIGH level of transparency, instead of forcing these corps. to find ways to mask their influence.
The rest of your post is apologist nonsense,
We stop rewarding them.
We demand that our congress no longer allow banks and financial organizations such absurd power and protection from liability.
We put controls on the stock market so that it can benefit middle class Americans and not just the super wealthy, or possibly do away with it completely.
We stop pretending that taxing these people is somehow immoral.
Because I'm European. In Europe, we made that mistake generations ago. Today, we have aristocracies. Generational wealth. These people don't work for a living. They leave that up to the "working class" (so called for a reason).
The aristocrats live off their inheritance, the value of their land, and their inherited stock assets. They buy political power and they are above the law.
These people are a cancer to society, and you should stop it from happening before it infects your whole society.
What makes America great is that it's a land of opportunity where anyone can make it. Rags to riches. You are losing that.
Wealth and success are laudable when they're earned in an honest way. If they're earned at the expense of someone else, or at the expense of the environment, then they're not so laudable at all.
Likewise, there's no pat on the back deserved for someone who merely inherited their wealth. Generational wealth does nothing to help society and, as a matter of fact, it can be quite destructive.
I don't think anybody is "too wealthy" however I'm beginning to think my preferred economic model is capitalism but where all employes are also allowed to become stock holders over time as the company expands.
I live in Dallas Texas, yes. It's very nice here especially this time of year. I was born in Sweden, even though my dad is from Italy, so I actually have two passports.
What I think we should do about billionaires is add a top tax bracket that is 100% on income, and also we should have a land tax.
Do you mean giving the employee free stock in the company?
Well, if they're working every day it would be part of their earnings. Compare to giving the employee "free money" twice a month.
So you reduce their earnings and force them to buy stock with that money?
How many employees would go for that plan?
Because I'm European. In Europe, we made that mistake generations ago. Today, we have aristocracies. Generational wealth. These people don't work for a living. They leave that up to the "working class" (so called for a reason).
The aristocrats live off their inheritance, the value of their land, and their inherited stock assets. They buy political power and they are above the law.
These people are a cancer to society, and you should stop it from happening before it infects your whole society.
What makes America great is that it's a land of opportunity where anyone can make it. Rags to riches. You are losing that.
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