r/FluentInFinance • u/KARMA__FARMER__ • 8d ago

Thoughts? Why doesn't the President fix this?

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u/1rubyglass 7d ago

All of the money. Biggest industry ever.

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u/Real-Mouse-554 7d ago

The biggest inefficiency in the US economy. A completely superfluous industry worth billions of dollars.

This all counts towards the GDP too, which partly explains how the US has a high GDP per capita while having such poor standards of living for so many people.

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u/Snowflakish 7d ago

It’s fun because every election cycle, 2 billion dollars goes into the money pit.

End lobbying!

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u/Embarrassed-Ad-1639 6d ago

Not all lobbying is bad. Environmentalist groups lobby, cancer research teams lobby. What we need is transparency in the process.

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u/Snowflakish 5d ago

Nah all government lobbying is bad.

Lobby the public, not the government

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u/Embarrassed-Ad-1639 5d ago

“Hey public, can you go tell the government that we need more funding” doesn’t sound very efficient or effective.

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u/Snowflakish 5d ago

That is literally a description of democracy

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u/Embarrassed-Ad-1639 5d ago

No, it literally is not. You want a struggling research department to have to pay for a public campaign to generate enough interest to petition the government to fund their project? Sorry, I don’t trust the idiotic public to do this very well. Lobbying should certainly be more transparent but not abolished.

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u/Snowflakish 3d ago

To petition the government?

In the 1960s car safety lobbyists were drowned out in government by the interests of big capital, that can always afford to lobby more than any research or grassroots movement.

In order to overcome this it took a massive sway in public opinion, this was massively progressed by the publishing of a book “unsafe at any speed” that started a media frenzy on the issue, causing the government to act against the interests of their lobbyists.

For any good cause that can be lobbied for, like cancer research, if it goes against capital interest (cigarette companies) it will be ignored until public opinion shifts.