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this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Asklemmy
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With the pennies they actually pay lawmakers, though? 100 billion could go a loooooooooong fucking way to outspend the billionaires.
The reason they're billionaires is because they're fuckin misers and penny-pinchers. They hate spending money and that is evidenced by how cheaply our politicians are bought for.
Simply outspend them quickly, and you'll have the politicians licking your boots.
This one crossed our mind as well, the problem is you usually don't compete against billionaires but rather against corporations or conglomerate which has much more economic power that single individuals. You also have to account for the benefits that these private entities can promise (knowing a law will favor a certain industry is a good way to make cash by buying stocks before said law passes), that's quite hard to compete with that when you're a philanthropist
I don't disagree. However, 100 billion is still a massive amount.
$1 million is literally only 0.1% of $1 billion. That means $100 million is similarly 0.1% of $100 billion.
Nancy Pelosi is one of the wealthiest people in congress and with all her assets, she's only worth around $114 million.
Rick Scott, the richest, is only worth around $259 million.
If $100 million is only 0.1% of the total amount I am working with, I can literally EXPLODE the valuations of these people really simply.
Sure, they can "make a lot of money" by knowing insider information before others do, and people like Pelosi and Scott are doing well because of it, but I have a hard time believing they would shake their head and say "No, not enough" to increasing their personal wealth by 10 times.
I could give Rick Scott a cool $2 billion and Pelosi $1.5 billion and still be left with $97.5 billion dollars to spend. Their personal wealth has just been multiplied by a factor of 10.
I think people vastly underestimate just how much 1 billion is, let alone 100 billion, and genuinely don't understand how much more wealth that is than those people will ever see by just investing. On top of that, wouldn't they prefer to have 10 times the amount of money to invest?
If you had 100billion, then why pay the existing shitbags, instead of getting every single one voted out?
I personally feel like changing the laws to limit corruption has to come first before politicians stop taking bribes.
If they can be bought by me, they can be bought by someone else just as easily.
What hopes do I have that the new people will be different? Just look at fucking Kyrsten Sinema. She ran as a moderately progressive candidate and hasn't just become a Republican and Billionaire enabler, she straight switched to Independent after running as a Democrat.
If we get the laws changed first then there are fewer ways for them to be corrupted/bought. Just changing the person in the position leaves open the option of the new person being corrupted by the same system. Personal opinion, of course.
You are so naive it's almost adorable. Politicians today are 100% manufactured and raised by PACs trying to push an agenda. "Kyrsten Sinema" who ran as a "moderate democratic" your words, exists so that idiots like you would think that she was the only option in "red state" arizona. However in this fantasy the "new" people are funded by YOU! So if they didn't believe in a glorious socialist utopia, they wouldn't have your support any longer, and they wouldn't be part of your coalition and they could be trivially replaced. It would also mean that you were exceptional bad a building social relationships. So if you funded someone and they turned into a Joe Manchin or a Kyrsten Sinema, it's literally only yourself to blame. In this fantasy you are the one with 100billion dollars, so who the fuck are you blaming here when shit goes wrong?
As an aside, who do you think "changes laws" so that corruption can be limited?
It seems like you had a point to contribute somewhere in there, but maybe try and communicate it in a way that isn't so pointed at the other user. We'd like to discourage that sort of toxicity here. Maybe if they were being a total shithead or reactionary, feel free to go off, but it seems unwarranted.
That's fair. I was a bit harsh mostly from the fact that we are talking about replacing congressmen, and them claiming that we should change the laws first. It's like a complete misunderstanding of cause and effect. But ultimately this is just a magical thinking exercise, so no need to be hostile about it.
Right, you can assume that people around here aren't racist/homophobic/transphobic etc... Cause even if they are, they're gonna catch a ban as soon as they expose themselves. They generally don't deserve your full wrath if we're fundamentally "on the same side" just cause they are kinda naive and not big fat theory nerds like some people around here.
In the future you can go against the position, but you repeatedly used "you" in this post making it personal and right up against our civility guidelines.