Redpillguy and a Campaign Finance Scam

Redpillguy's post on The Campaign Contributors of the Media Anointed has been widely cited on many other discussion forums. It links back to redpillguy's post on The Compound Interest Paradox, which of course links back to my post on the Compound Interest Paradox. A bunch of visitors have come to my blog via redpillguy's blog in the past week, and that's the reason. I noticed that redpillguy has Google Analytics enabled on his blog. I wonder how many unique pageviews that page received?

The government releases campaign contribution statistics by employer and by name. Redpillguy observes that the "top tier" candidates have received a substantial amount of funding from employees of large banks, whereas Ron Paul has received practically no funding from employees of large banks. The "top tier" candidates have received $100k-$300k each from employees of banks. Ron Paul has not received more than $25k from employees of a single corporation.

What happens is that the top management at certain corporations all make the maximum legal contribution to the "preferred" candidates. If they all make the maximum legal contribution of $2,300, and there are 100 executives in the "club", that leads to a contribution of $230,000. Top executives at banks make quite a bundle, and they can easily afford the $2,300 contribution each.

There's another important contribution that isn't listed in redpillguy's statistics. Corporations can let political candidates use their private corporate jets to travel. The candidate only has to reimburse the corporation for the value of an equivalent first-class ticket, rather than the fair market value of a leased private jet. During the flight, the candidate gets to talk policy with senior executives of that corporation. I don't know how redpillguy's statistics would change, if updated for the value of these contributions. I believe this rule was recently changed; now, the candidates must reimburse the corporation for the fair market value of a leased private jet. However, whenever you close one loophole, a bunch of others start being exploited instead.

The statistics in redpillguy's article have a important corollary that redpillguy didn't notice. Voting is anonymous. This prevents abuse, such as your employer firing you for failing to vote for a specific candidate. Campaign contributions are *NOT* anonymous. You can get this information from many sources, such as C-Span. This allows abuse, such as your employer demanding you make the maximum legal contribution to a specific candidate and firing you if you fail to comply.

Obviously, if a bank demanded all its employees contribute to a specific candidate, there would be a pubic outcry. However, if the top 100 executives are told to contribute to specific candidates, they will of course comply and keep the order a secret. And the contributions are public, so any executive who doesn't follow orders will find himself out of a job!

You can't have private campaign contributions, because then you don't know who is supporting which candidates. You can't have public campaign contributions, because then your employer can fire you for failing to contribute to a specific candidate, or for contributing to the "wrong" candidate. We have arrived at one of many contradictions in the current economic and political system. It's time to give up and start over with a new economic and political system.