…and staying bought. Some thoughts from Glenn Reynolds:
it wasn’t just AIG: Wall Street in general gave profligately to Barack Obama, and to Democrats generally, in 2008. Yet now, when the polls shift, all of those politicians who were so happy to take the cash are suddenly pretending they have never even heard of Wall Street. Instead they’re getting behind punitive taxes, protesters steered to executives’ homes and what both the Financial Times and the New York Daily News have called a “witch hunt” against bankers and brokers.
As Joseph Nocera wrote in the New York Times, “Congress, with its howls of rage, its chaotic, episodic reaction to the crisis, and its shameless playing to the crowds, is out of control. This week, the body politic ran off the rails.” They probably acted nicer when they were asking for money just a few months ago.
If these donations had been given out of love and admiration, Wall Street donors would have reason to feel jilted. But if–as is generally the case with political donations–they were more in the order of protection money, then Wall Street donors may instead feel duped. They might want to ask themselves what protection, exactly, they got for their investment.
And more from Jonah Goldberg:
The Democrats were whorish in their quest for AIG money. But once the money stops flowing and the neighbors are watching, the Democrats suddenly pretend they never wore the naughty librarian outfit for their Wall Street Johns.
As Glenn says, it might be refreshing to see businessmen support politicians who support free markets. Some do, but too many don’t. Because we’ve let the government get out of control, they get far too much financial leverage from their political contributions. As Glenn notes, when an investment in a politician has a much higher payoff than an investment in (say) plant, the country has gone far off the rails from what the Founders intended.
There are a couple ways to reduce that leverage. One is to make the government much smaller and less powerful. Another is to remove private money from politics. There are tradeoffs either way.
I don’t at all understand business people who support the Democrats. They give $$$ to them, then complain about the way Democrats treat people who run businesses. I have two of these clowns as in-laws.
It’s stupid.
Why ask yourself, “…why is there a sharp pain in my foot”, just after taking careful aim at the appendage, and pulling the trigger.
It’s self explanatory.
Another is to remove private money from politics.
And instead use money from the magic money tree, you mean? Good idea, Jim.
Aside from your lunacy in imagining there exists money which is “not private” — which comes from anything other than people working jobs in the private sector — you might want to consider the history of wholly nonprivate economies, e.g. those in the USSR, Cuba, or China, and ask yourself whether corruption and special access to the levers of power through the exchange of favors ceased to exist in those systems.
Hopefully the fact of Stalin’s famous repeated purges and Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” et cetera might go some say to convince — well, not you, but someone with a non doublethinking mind — that the entire elimination of a private economy doesn’t do dick to eliminate corruption among political leaders. (And who would expect it to? Do you think a tribal barter economy is barren of corruption?) So any lesser measures in that direction will be useless.
I consider the fact that congress critters don’t stay bribed to be a good thing. The fickle nature of politics has burned many businesses under many governments (for example, I recall reading of similar cases in Japan during the Meiji Restoration of the latter half of the 19th Century). What it means is that it raises the cost and risk of government-based rent-seeking while rewarding the business that didn’t gamble big on politic favor and instead focused on building a competent business.
Former Mafia Kingpin: Congress Just Like Us
Money quote:
“When I was doing business for the Colombo Crime Family, I would often “bail out” a failing company. When the boss had nowhere to go, when no legit lender would lend him a dime, or when his suppliers were threatening to throw him into bankruptcy, he came to me. Mob guys looked for business opportunities like this every day. Great way for us to own a business.
“Once the owner took my money, or used my name, I owned him. He wasn’t about to get a pay hike when he owed me money. He wasn’t buying a new car or taking any paid vacations either. I didn’t care how hard he worked. And if he didn’t toe the line, I would throw him out and take the company over.”
> There are a couple ways to reduce that leverage. … Another is to remove private money from politics.
Money isn’t the only source of inappropriate leverage/corruption. In fact, it isn’t even close to being the most dangerous source.