I think the only way to solve this is in a deep and fundamental way is to strip congress of the power to make decisions that benefit corporations.

I realize that this sort of libertarianism is often viewed as "immature" or primitive. But ultimately I don't see how you can have, one the one hand, a congress powerful enough to do healthcare and financial reform, and on the other hand, be surprised when the same congress is successfully courted by financial interests. It seems to be an inevitable result.

That's not the only way. One alternate option is Futarchy. A less drastic one is implementing the top 3 or 4 pieces of model legislation at downsizedc.org.

No really, where is the proof that this is in fact happening?!

Businesses, with current law, CANNOT make donations to campaigns! Only individuals can and the limit is $2,300.

The whole thing sounds very sensational and juicy, but the FEC data just DOES NOT SHOW THIS. See my comment down the page, email me at my username at gmail, I am really trying hard to understand campaign finances.

I'm very much disturbed by the impotence of our Congress, and that's exactly why I keep trying to understand what's _really_ wrong, but I am not about to accept some theory just because it sounds enticing when there is ZERO data to confirm it.

It's true that individual contributions are limited to $2400 as of 2010. See the FEC restrictions: http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/contriblimits.shtml I would like to see more about the specific restriction on direction corporate contributions, as I wasn't able to find a reference to it.

However, because the free speech of an individual or corporations must be protected, nothing stops a corp from paying thousands of people to shout praises from a rooftop, either about a specific candidate or just a divisive campaign issue. Because money can fairly easily be translated into free speech or the opportunity for free speech (the attention of the public) it is very hard to effectively regulate. The best that has been done is regulation around the edges that require campaign commercial disclosures. Lately, even these restrictions have been called into question as well: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1228056...

Here is the document from FEC that explains how corporations can get involved in election campaigns: http://www.fec.gov/pdf/colagui.pdf

It clearly states that corporations can't use their treasury to make contributions to campaigns. From what I gather, they can start a PAC but thats subject to the more or less the same limits as individual contributors.

google citizens united.

re: obesity, don't the US corn subsidies for ethanol actually make corn more expensive? Total total agricultural subsidies (excluding tariffs) amount to less than 1% of the average american's food budget; much of it for the aforementioned ethanol. Am I off?

> don't the US corn subsidies for ethanol actually make corn more expensive?

My understanding is that the subsidies are there to incentivize corn production. The video says that the subsidized cost of corn production is actually negative -- that you can go plant a corn field and will have made money before you sell a single ear.

Once the corn is produced, if there are additional subsidies for ethanol production from corn, then that may divert corn from food uses. It may increase the cost of HFCS production.

But the cost of corn production is still lower despite, or perhaps even because of, the ethanol subsidies.

The issue is high fructose corn syrup (made from corn) versus sugar. According to Lessig, the price of sugar (high relative to corn) and the price of corn (low relative to sugar) are both a result of market tampering. See 2.17 into the video. (And in both cases, again according to Lessig the tampering was straightforwardly paid for by lobbying, which is apparently a very good investment. That is, it works very well.)

And as a result, we get inferior sodas with corn rather than sugar. The only country with corn soda as far as I know. =(

I don't know the numbers, but you're probably off in comparing the food budget to subsidies on raw ingredients. Relative to what people spend in restaurants it may not be much, but in making a choice between two similar ingredients, it can tip the balance and switch the market entirely.

He is also dismissive of transparency, yet that's one of the many steps towards fixing the problem.

No, he dismisses the Democrats' proposal of using only transparency to solve the problem.

I think his point is more that you've got this bottleneck of corruption in the way congress is structured, and it doesn't really matter if you shift their responsibilities around - still shit in shit out, what you need is a deeper change.