[Jgrubb]

Maybe I'm getting crazier and more radical in my old age, but I'd say that if the 1% can afford to buy/bend the system to their ends, then it most certainly can be systemic.

The fact that I hear Obama's "$1B war chest" being trumpeted and that Tim Pawlenty drops out of the Republican race solely for lack of funding reinforces what I've felt for a very long time - that campaign finance is the elephant in the room in terms of the issues that are bringing this country down.

[philwelch]

In this particular case, the housing and higher education bubbles required significant proportions of the population to buy into them. Bubbles that do little but draw poor investment from the already wealthy aren't as problematic.

[Jgrubb]

I see what you're saying, and I agree. Those bubbles were not the systemic issue I'm specifically fired up about, though. Those are more like branches of the tree rather than the root.

The root, to me, is corporate money and influence in Washington to such a degree that it effectively shuts out democracy. I lay fault for that systemic problem at the door of "the 1%" and the politicians they influence.

[CWuestefeld]

The root, to me, is corporate money and influence in Washington to such a degree that it effectively shuts out democracy.

I see another layer to the onion. Inside of your problem is a deeper one, which is that so much power is concentrated in such a small place.

While we might wish for our government officials to be better, at the end of the day they're people just like us. In giving them so much power, we're also expect them to exhibit a super-human degree of self control. When the possible rewards to them for "selling out" are so high; when any one act of selling out may not have much impact; and when in many cases, the morality is fuzzy and it's not clear that what they're doing is selling out at all; I think it's too much to expect that they'll keep to the straight-and-narrow.

It seems to me that these cries about "too much corporate money" contain an unspoken assumption of a need for greater governmental oversight. But if you see my point about the danger of the concentration of power in Washington, then it should be obvious that vesting the government with greater oversight powers is just adding fuel to the fire.

[philwelch]

The only reason campaign finance is an issue is because voters vote based on television advertising. So the real root cause is a lazy and easily manipulated electorate, which can further be pinned on things like useless public schools.

I don't think this is a good idea, but I think if you actually restricted the vote to the so-called "1%" you might even get better government. There's no conspiracy by rich people to ruin the country for everyone else.