Blog 13 Seat Sale: Money Buys Elections

                                                                      

        The Cogs Blog

Blog 13  Seat Sale:  Money Buys Elections

Election fraud? No, perfectly legal! Three cases on point:

Case 1. U.S. About 20 years ago I came on a report that in two of the 1990's elections, the percentages were 85% and over 90%.

What percentages? the percentage of winning candidates who just happened to be the candidates who had spent the most money on their campaigns. Yes, 90% of the candidates who won were the candidates who had spent the most money.

Case 2. Canada. At the time I was curious because I had in my possession the candidates' expense figures for a provincial election in Canada. Of 103 seats I had the spending figures for 102. (Number 103 was under investigation by the electoral authorities for overspending the legal limits.) I did the arithmetic. The percentage? About 70% (71 of 102) of the seats were won by the candidates who spent the most money.

Case 3  In the small town where I now live, a recent election saw three candidates running for mayor. One of them had obviously spent more than the other two put together: signs everywhere - big signs. Slam dunk? Surprise! That candidate ran third! 

The lesson; in all this? Well, a national electoral district has a very large number of voters; a province or state, a smaller number; and the town, fewer still. Democracy, I would conclude, is more likely to work in a small population.

That should not be surprising. Democracy probably originated in the small city states of ancient Greece about 2500 years ago. There, citizens debated in the marketplace issues of war and peace, civic projects and - taking Athens as an example - whether any single citizen was getting too powerful and needed to be exported for a time. The Athenians had a practice at election time of scratching on a piece of broken pottery the name of one citizen, and throwing the shard into an urn. When the "votes" in the urn were counted, the candidate with the  best score was exiled from the city for ten years. Interesting practice? Any candidates in mind in your town?

The shards were called ostrakoi; and English still has the word "ostracism", meaning banishment, though in a purely social sense.

Could we consider election attack ads on television a perverted descendant of "ostracism"? They both involve a kind of stone throwing.

Well, it is a very short jump from this thought to the shocking opening line of my next blog: "I do not think Americans are going to recover their lost democracy any time soon." But there is one possible hope for a better outcome.

Blog 12 Revisiting "Making Money: 1997

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          Blog 12  Revisiting "Making Money" (1997)


Below is a piece I wrote while learning to explain how bank-created money pops into existence, and goes on to take over the whole economy. You might compare it with recent, Blog 2, The Money Scene, to see if I have improved the explanation.

Making Money

When the cruise ship, Going for Broke, struck a reef, several hundred passengers were put ashore on a tropical island. They camped out for the night, waiting for the tide to lift the lightened ship off the reef. When they looked out in the morning, however, Going for Broke had GONE!

So what did they do? Well, they played "Gilligan's Island", but in earnest. They settled down to stay. Several became expert at hunting the wild pigs. A young couple set up shop making serviceable pigskin shoes. A few entertainers started a theatre. Some Dutchmen grew vegetables.

But this is a story about money. As the division of labour progressed, more money was needed. Everybody said they needed more, especially since the old bills they had brought with them were wearing out. 

Enter Bobbie the Geek. He wasn't too good at gardening; he was hopeless with a spear; and he cut his thumb trying to make himself a pair of shoes. But he knew that money was only paper. So Bobbie tore blank pages out of his diary and wrote on them "$20 Bobbiebucks. Redeemable on rescue. Bobbie." He seemed like a nice guy, so people took his "money" in exchange for shoes, bread and pork chops. In fact, they were soon using Bobbiebucks to buy goods and services from each other. Eventually bobbiebucks became the major medium of exchange. (Bobbie, by the way, always took his change in the old currency, and saved it.)

Still, more money was needed. So Bobbie obliged: he supplied "$20 Newbobbiebucks", which people could borrow simply for promising to pay him back twenty-ONE dollars. As newbobbiebucks in turn became the island currency, Bobbie the Banker became the island's most prominent and powerful citizen. You see, he owned all the money on the island. Everybody was in debt to him. Nice work, Bobbie.

Could it have been done any other way?   

"I always said

keeping a diary

would pay off"

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Blog 11 Global Birdseye 3

The Cogs Blog

                       Blog 11 Global Birdseye 3   World War III

George Bush talked about "the war on terror" as a permanent war. He didn't quite make the idea stick with most ordinary Americans, who had been burned in Vietnam, and again in Iraq. But other English-speaking prime ministers are now playing the same tired disk and jumping into the Middle East bonfire with guns and rhetoric blazing.

No words can portray the savagery of the murderous ISIL fighters. There is no question that they have become human savages and their antics should be stopped.

However, just to enter a radical thought or two before pursuing that point, one might ask two questions. If these guys had had wives, and jobs befitting their talents, and had seen their children going to schools, would they be acting out in the way they are? And if they had been able to look around the world and not see a grossly unequal distribution of wealth, which excluded them, would they be any different? Don't ask me. I just propose the questions.

But there is a question some really smart number-cruncher might answer. For every ISIL fighter killed in a drone attack how many civilians are "unfortunate collateral damage," and, of those civilians, how many have brothers or fathers or uncles who are now mad as hell at the foreign bombers?

Well, enough rhetorical questions. Here is a serious one Why is no word heard about a rational military approach that would put an end to the problem: namely, to cordon off the ISIL playboys and cut off the supply of arms to them?

I can't believe that the combined military power of America, England, France, Germany - throw in Canada and Australia, if necessary - could not do that. Quarantine ISIL and stop the supply of arms to them. (NOTE: there are TWO steps there.)  They couldn't fight for long with hand-held be-heading tools.

It may have something to do with the fact that these countries - America, England, France, Germany, Canada and Australia are the same countries which have big military export industries. Still, there's the Saudi-Yemen war now. Maybe the Americans, Europeans and Australians ought to jump in there, too, with a few aircraft attacks. It wouldn't matter which side they hit. It would be good for business.

Well, enough said on those grim thoughts. Next time I'll try for a funny blog - seriously. Something simple and about money.